TRANSITION TIMES:The winners of the Irish Times/Amnesty International writing competition showed flair and understanding.

CONGRATULATIONS TO everyone who entered. The quality of entries was much higher than expected. The Roddy Doyles and Anne Enrights of this world have plenty to keep them on their toes.

The overall winner was Alex Owens of Blackrock College, Co Dublin for his piece on Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Runners-up were Seraphim Dempsey from The High School, Rathgar, Donal Farrell of St. Paul’s College, Raheny, and Aine O’Gorman of St. Anne’s Secondary School, Tipperary. The following is the winning entry:

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

His life wasn’t flashing before his eyes like they say it does – you know, before you die. He didn’t feel any pain either. Just the cold.

Lighten up – that’s what Tom kept saying. Why would we go back to the hostel? The teachers are fast asleep anyway – sure this is what you do on school tours. Lighten up, man, here, have a swig of this. So he took it. Hey – I said a swig, not the whole bleedin’ thing! Oh, right, sorry. It didn’t taste nice but it warmed him up inside. And besides, it was what you do on school tours.

Now that it was quiet he could hear his iPod playing from his jeans pocket – Bleeding Love. I'm bleeding more than love, love, he thought. He laughed and it hurt.

Light it, then leg it back towards us. While we’re young, man. Click. Just light it! Click. Here, I’ll do it. Click. Flame. Hisss. Run. Jump. He leapt behind a grass mound and crouched there, waiting for the world to steady itself. Bang. He got to his feet, lost his balance and fell backwards, his vision a blur of traffic lights and grassy knolls. Up you get. The lads hoisted him up and he didn’t fall this time. He walked towards the traffic cone, the orange plastic singed black and bent from the bangers. Savage.

Class. Do it again. The night was young.

“It was all a dream.” That’s how you ended an English story for homework if the match was on, or you were just wrecked. But this wasn’t like any dream.

In dreams you don’t feel the cold, or see the blood, or wonder where the lads have gone.

The train station. Yeah, we’ll jump the wall and the sea’s just there. It’s not a trek, it’s a few minutes down the road! Well d’you’ve any better idea? Right, the train station it is. The sky was pitch black, but the streetlights cast an orange tinge over the road.

What time was it? Half three, his watch told him. He’d never been out this late – or was it early? It didn’t matter either way – they just had to be back by six so the teachers wouldn’t notice they had snuck out. Yeah, we just go down this passage and the wall’s down there. Here, follow me.

The girl reached him first. She seemed nice, only a few years older than him. The man came running after her, carrying a red box and looking worried.

He tried to tell them not to worry, but when he talked he coughed and it hurt so much that everything went black.

It all happened so quickly. Tom was saying to run, and they did, he did, he was with them, but then his feet messed up and he was on the ground. No, I’ve nothing, he said. A lie, but in a minute, he’d run, he’d get – a flash of orange light on silver through the air, then his jacket, vest, chest. He was falling backwards again, not onto green fields but dark red against the blackey-orange tarmac.

He had been right – in dreams you don’t feel the cold, or see the blood. But you do wonder where the lads have gone – and why anyone would break your body when there was so much living left to do.

ALEX OWENS