Alliterati Issue 10

A L L I T E R A T I CREATIVE WRITING AND ARTS MAGAZINE

I S SUE

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JOIN THE ALLITERATI the best fresh talent in art and literature

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CONTENTS

A N T I V - D A Y C O N T E S T 32

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FEATURED ARTIST: ERIKA SERVIN

POETRY

MEGAN TOWEY 30 PIXIE

NEW YEAR’S DAY RYAN FOSTER 56 SARGASSO THEATRICS ALEXANDRIA MORGAN 65

THE ART OF WINNING JAKE CROSBY 66 STORYLINES MICHELLE ORNAT 68

THAT TAKES THE CAKE SEB KEENAN 76

LOST IN A CROWD JOE HORSEY 78

LONG IN THE MEMORY

FICTION 25 MATTHEW RUSHTON DRIVE 44 DANIEL BOWMAN

AFTER THE FUNERAL 60 JOE GIORDANO

MASK OF THE MAMUTHONE 70 EMMA WHITEHALL PERFECT 71 EMMA SWAN WILTING LILY 80 JIM MEIROSE STEPS

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MUSIC NADIA SCOLA

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SCRIPT 52 LORA HUGHES

PLAY FOR EDINBURGH

ART

JAMIE EVANS 24 RACHEL TEMPLEMAN 29 TOBY MUNNION 47 JENNIFER PREVATT 48 DULCAMARA RACHEL HERMIONE MCMILLAN 51 DAISY MILBURN 58 CHARLOTTE VALLETTA 64

ALTERED PERCEPTIONS ALICE MACDONALD 69 KATE ELLA DORTON 72 UNTITLED PORTRAIT UNTITLED LAURA BURGESS 77

RUTH, BELLY-DANCER SHERENE SCOTT 82 UNTITLED 1 UNTITLED 2 UNTITLED 3

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NOT

YOUR EVERYDAY VALENTINE

To celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, Alliterati took to social media and launched a mini-contest which challenged our followers to send us their best interpretations of an unconventional valentine in whatever medium they create in. Love it or hate it, we wanted to see something besides the usual candy hearts and flowers, and you guys didn’t disappoint.

Featured in this issue are the top three pieces each in poetry, prose and art. We had quite a few brilliant submissions, and it certainly wasn’t an easy choice, but the work included here holds a special place in our ink-filled little hearts.

POETRY 08 JES MALITORIS / THOUGH AFRAID OF WOLVES I STILL SEEK YOUR FOREST HEART 10 CARON FREEBORN & STEVE ARMITAGE / VALENTINE 12 MICHELLE ORNAT / MARRIAGE: DAY 4380

ART 14 16 18

PROSE 21 RACHEL JACQUEST / MARRIAGE 22 JOHN BAKER / THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS 23 EMMA WHITEHALL / SUCKER

TOM BURNS / LEFT KRIS TUKIAINEN / HEARTBREAK ETERNAL SELIN YEGIN / FACET OF V

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JES MALITORIS

THOUGH I SEEK

AFRAID OF WOLVES YOUR FOREST HEART

Jessica Malitoris is a 22-year-old North Carolinian who recently joined Duke University’s PhD program in history. She has spent the last eight years refining her poetry skills with the help of friends, mentors, and the online artistic community. Besides poetry, she loves mythology, folklore, herbalism, fantasy, and science fiction.

i. My mother used to say if you’re afraid of wolves, don’t go into the woods.

I never listened. I used to imagine my blue winter-fingers through your hair— a pack of wolves through the trees, hungry and searching. ii. These days I tend toward a kind of prophecy for my mental health.

I miss when you used to read the future for me.

I found the slow deliberateness of your fingertips along the turquoise backs of my cards soothing. iii. I have begun to learn a new language so that our hearts might speak directly to each other, ventricle to ventricle, as they did once on my blue bedspread (but not as I’d have liked them to). iv. My chest cavity is a dwarven dark, indigo and mountain-deep.

Some days, my heart can manage little more than cobalt ore from earth crevices, hammered and cold-tempered. v. I am nearly married to someone else.

On my wedding day, I will be a queen— an azure beast wrapped in cloth, an organ pumping someone else’s blood.

I lack bridal softness—I am a witch taking apart an unfeeling blue sky, flake by flake, so that its black holes might shine through.

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vi. Some days I am the wolf, blue in the mountain light, thinking of your heart and its warm juices, but most days I find I am the lamb, wandering the woods for loneliness and the rush independence brings.

Though afraid of the wolves, I wish they would come wearing your face to me across the snow.

I will end as I began, with no declarations of love.

I feel the blue build in my blood as the cold sinks in—like wolves’ teeth.

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CARON FREEBORN & STEVE ARMITAGE

VALENTINE Steve Armitage is an ICT Support Officer working for the MET Police. Originally from Basildon, Essex, he now lives near Croydon. He just loves taking photos, particularly urban, landscapes and seascapes.

Caron Freeborn is a novelist turned poet. She grew up in Basildon, Essex but now lives, teaches and writes in Cambridge.

Caron and Steve are at the start of what they hope will be a long creative collaboration. Their primary interest together is urban revision.

They did anoint me, reverent, as though fire would craze them of their sins. Stripped bare, love towers over the flat fen day, shadows its night hours, charred and ruthless; meths-strewn rootless ire boiled my sap until I dried right out. Desire burnt. All ages spent and leaving that sour echo, Get out of here, you cunts – the law older than the oldest poet-liar.

The man with shuttered eye roams loose around my ruin now. Smiles slow. He strings a rope and conjures still the boy who doesn’t pray to be a man. His child accepts the noose.

The sky is blue behind me, blue as hope but focus through my branches. Hope is grey.

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MICHELLE ORNAT

MARRIAGE:

DAY

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Michelle is a librarian currently living near Buffalo, New York. She has a husband, two beagles, loves to walk and likes to think about starting to run but hasn’t gotten past buying the shoes. She didn’t decide to write poetry the way one decides what to cook for dinner, but she did decide to change her life a couple of years ago. She decided to do the things she’d been telling herself she ought to do one day, so that one day came and she started writing and doing other stuff and she’s still in awe. She has been published in The American Poetry Review, The Examined Life and other publications. Her favourite band is The Avett Brothers. Check ‘em out.

At the bar I want you to be Ernest Hemingway so badly, for some words to fall out of your mouth that would make me want to come around you in the back of my Chevy II with the top down, to ride you like a white hot lightning bolt of a thief until all the liquor is gone and my knees are radishes.

I want you to reach up and pull down Mars and Venus and a host of unnamed stars and feed them to me until I am full, until the light inside me weighs more than my blood.

I would want this even if what ifs are all we have left.

If you could glide the back of your hand up the length of my neck, if you could let me let you say something that would split my cells, I could thank you.

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TOM

BURNS

This piece is entitled ‘Left’ and depicts a girl who has lost so much and fends mostly for herself after struggles through previous life experiences. She leads a happy life now, but the ghosts of the past still haunt the present, and the wounds are persistent (hence the plaster on the middle finger).

The piece is acrylic paint on primed canvas.

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Left

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KRIS

TUKIAINEN

Kris Tukiainen is an adventurer who loves to travel and collect new experiences in the real world, the cyberspace, and through pictures and stories. He is a recent Business IT graduate and an occasional artist who currently lives in the cold and snowy place better known as Finland, and is still trying to decide what he really wants to be when he ‘grows up’.

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Heartbreak Eternal

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SELIN

YEGIN

Oil painting, Lancaster University.

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Facet of V

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RACHEL JACQUEST

MARRIAGE Rachel is 18 years old and studies Theatre Studies and English Literature at Lancaster University.

She enjoys reading poetry, acting and performing and listening to music. She loves writing creatively, and is grateful of any opportunity to share her thoughts and writings with other people!

That word’s been on my mind recently.

I can’t shake it from my head. Everywhere around me, I see nothing other than rings on fingers, loving hands on baby bumps.

But we can’t have one, can we? Not one like that. Not a Marriage.

We can’t get married.

It simply isn’t possible.

I know it’s that day soon; the day when we both make a special effort and spend too much money smile too much and have love in our eyes.

But then, every day we have love in our eyes.

We can’t have another year of nasty-cards-with-garish-hearts. Tickets-to-a-show doesn’t seem enough. There is no meaning to a-holiday-abroad, no romance in a-romantic-getaway.

Nothing is good enough. Nothing says what I need to say.

Except Marriage. Marriage says it. Marriage says it exactly. So what a shame we can’t have it. Isn’t it a pity that Marriage is reserved for someone else? It is such an inconvenience that we are banned from using the word that means so much to us. But, well, we’re like a different species to them, so we can hardly expect them to treat us as equals. And besides, it’s Tradition. Good old Tradition.

I do have some other words I could use. We have been designated some terminology to utilise in place of their Special Word, their Marriage. Maybe I could give you those. Then we could have an Almost-Marriage. Then we could pretend we were like them.

But I don’t think you would like those words. I don’t think they would sound beautiful when down on one knee. I don’t think they could ever do you justice.

So Happy Valentine’s Day, my sweet, and know that if I could, if I was possibly permitted to, I would give you a Word.

But since neither of us has a penis, I guess we’ll have to wait a little while longer.

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JOHN BAKER

THE SECOND LAW THERMODYNAMICS

OF

John Baker is co-founder and editor of Material creative writing magazine in Newcastle. He has had work published in The Edge, Platforms, online at The Pygmy Giant and has recently been accepted for publication with Ink, Sweat & Tears. He is currently writing a collection of short stories based on scientific laws and principles as part of his final year studies. http://www.facebook.com/material.newcastle

The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the universal principle of decay observable in nature (moving along the arrow of time from order, structure or perfection to disorder or chaos).

This decay is measured and expressed in terms of a physical property called entropy.

Entropy is a quantitative measure of the amount of order or disorder in a system; high entropy means more disorder.

I met her when the Sun shone only in the summer. She was young and every word she spoke was the truth. Every kiss was kissed with the perfect amount of pressure and lasted the perfect amount of time.

Some stuff happened and changed her, irreversible stuff which probably changed me too. More and more we’d argue and then the kisses seemed to last a second or two too long or too short or would be too heavy or too light. The weather started to get hotter and the days were longer. A few years later we stopped having winters. Then she’d only kiss me to work out if I’d been smoking. I disliked the fact that it took her much longer to get ready than it used to and that she still wouldn’t look as good as she did. Arguments turned into throwing things, then punching things, then hitting each other. Bruises formed where smiles used to be and eyes wobbled behind a build-up of tears.

Then she turned into a whore. The heat on the back of my neck was immense as I watched her biting on his lip and then staring into his eyes. I knew the look she gave him. It was the one I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was the one which led to me lying in my bed feeling like a rock star.

I thought maybe I was dying then; slowly being burned to death as I sweated, watching her give him that look. I wanted to throw my heart into her lap so she could watch it struggle to stay alive but we didn’t discuss our feelings anymore. For the last few months she did her thing, I did mine and sometimes we did our things together - it was hard to keep up and it was too hot to argue anymore so that’s how things were. There was one last day before the end when we could still just about stand each other. But the day after that the Sun’s blaze filled the horizon. I was blind and blistered. It was freezing and black not long after.

First published by The Pygmy Giant (2012)

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EMMA WHITEHALL

SUCKER Emma Whitehall is a writer and performer based in the North East. She specialises in dark fantasy/horror Flash Fiction. Her work has been described as “disturbingly beautiful.” She performs regularly in the Newcastle area, and has been published in various North East literary magazines, as well as hosting the Spoken Word night, Fiction Burn. Her first collection, “Kallisto’s Tales”, is available on lulu.com.

She perches alone on a bar stool, in a pub she’s never been to before. Her dark eyes catch the candlelight. Dressed in New Rocks and Paramore t-shirt, she stands out, a child in a room of adults. In a desperate attempt to show the bar full of uncaring eyes that she was totally not stood up tonight, she pulls a dog-eared copy of vampiric romance from her bag, and begins to read. The passionate language and perfect, yet oh, so identifiable, characters whisk her away for the time being. Keep reality at bay for a little while.

He spots her from his usual place at the back of the bar, and his lips curve into a smile.

Languid, he peels himself from the wall and makes his way to her. He is tall, pale and slim, yet he parts the crowd like he has no doubt he is the strongest man in the room. She starts as he pulls up the stool beside her, and flashes a charming, toothy smile.

‘Hi, I’m Adrian. Can I buy you a drink? I hate to see such a pretty girl alone.’

Half an hour later, she gazes at him, drunk more on girlish awe and flattery than alcohol, as he murmurs his story.

‘For so many years now I have wandered the world alone. I have never known affection, only solitude. And now, tonight, I see the purpose of those years alone. To be in this bar, to meet you. To save you. But yet-’

He looks away, cannot meet her eyes.

‘—I’ve done such awful, terrible things in that time alone. I have…hurt…so many. I’m not good for you, but you attracted me like a magnet. I see something in you that could have saved me. But I’m not the hero of your story, Melissa. In fact, I’m the bad guy. I’m no good for you. I can’t lead you into this life of unending night, with me as your only companion, as much as the thought pulls at me. I promise that this will be the last time you’ll see me. I won’t come back. I won’t put you through anything like this again. Live your life, Melissa, I’m sorry.’

He stands, makes to turn towards the door. She starts from her trance and reaches across the table to clasp his wrist. Tears threaten to run down her cheeks. She doesn’t need to speak. He slowly sinks back onto his seat, and slips both his hands around her tiny, white wrist. He looks up into her face; his brown eyes meet hers, full of earnest sorrow, and seem to shimmer.

‘I’m a vampire, but I’m not a monster.’

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JAMIE

EVANS

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MATTHEW RUSHTON

DRIVE

Us, in a supermarket late at night when there aren’t as many people around, when you can ‘avoid all the fuckin’ idiots’ like he says. I’ve seen more fucking idiots in twelve months through his eyes than I have my whole life.

He swears a lot. I’ve started to, too, one of the things you pick up when you’re with a person you love. You pick up and you put down.

Can you believe we’re in love? He told me for the first time in bed, before and after, so I know that it counts. I had heard it from other men’s mouths, but only in the dark before going up to bed, and it was always something they would forget saying in the morning, like it didn’t mean anything. For a long time it didn’t mean anything to me, either. It was just a word: love. Like sex, or death, or carrot even. I carrot you. For most people they might as well have carrot as much as love, because it means so little to them. When he says it, I know he means it with a ferocity that frightens me.

For a long time I lived without love, or at least without daytime love. I had my share of nighttime love. I had been with many men, and it didn’t mean anything to me except the right for me to say that it meant nothing to me. Because I enjoyed it, oh yes, women enjoy it just as much, except they’ve been told to pretend they don’t. And I would go back to it if I was without him. I’ve sworn to myself I would go back to it. Being a ‘slut’, he calls it, only because he doesn’t understand, because I was his first and his only. Something he told me later on, something that he told me makes him ‘insecure’. It’s one thing I won’t put down for him though.

I didn’t tell him everything, even after he asked. I told him enough, enough for him to call me a slut and go off me for a short while.

I do admit I have put things down. Dropped things, smashed some others. But no one ever mentions all the things I’ve picked up because of him. Although it doesn’t matter to us; the best love affairs are the ones people talk about.

And there in the supermarket, burning white with high never-ending ceilings like a cathedral without paintings, but railings and electrical chords, he pushed the trolley down empty aisles with both hands. And I, like a child, walked beside him, asking for this and that to put in. His face was still and sad, like he was thinking me a slut or a bitch. Sometimes I think his face is made out of clay, the way it sets so still and angry for no reason and stays that way until I deign to water him and with my fingers mould expressions back onto his face. Two dots and a curvy line. A carrot for

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a nose.

Down the frozen aisle I scooped out a tub of Neapolitan ice cream and put it in the trolley without meeting his eyes. Even not looking, I could feel him thinking what a bitch I was. But I had three colours on my mind.

We left the supermarket and began the drive home. I rested my head against the window and when he pulled up at the lights I thought how odd it is to stop to let and empty road roll by us.

‘It’s strange,’ I said. ‘How even at night with no one around, we stop for red lights. It’s strange what governs us.’

He didn’t say anything, just kept looking forward. His face burnt red in the lights. I leant back against the window and closed my eyes.

Out came this noise from the car and then, ‘fuckin’ idiot’ from his mouth. My eyes tore apart. I saw his face ripping itself open and shut like a rat chewing on the bars of its own cage. Then the tick tock tick tock of the indicator.

Looking at his face and following his eyes that were set like stones on the car in front I divined the location of another fucking idiot in my life.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked when he started to turn the wheel.

He didn’t say anything.

‘What are you doing? Come on, what are you doing? All the food’s going to melt. Just turn around.’

Turn around I told him. His face was sharper than I had ever seen with an expression cut from stone like a monstrous gargoyle huddling over the steering wheel. I knew he would never turn around.

The car roared on and I felt scared. My insides tightened up as if someone was tying knots in them, balloons filled with water waiting to pop. Ahead of us the car drove on, faster and faster, leading us deeper into the night and onto the motorways, where there are no lights to slow us down, nothing to make us stop except ourselves.

There was a rumble of thunder. The rain started suddenly, with a whip of lighting like white fire in the sky. We drove through the dim glow of orange motorway lights as an engine roared above us.

Everywhere buzzed with electric. The hairs on my arm stood up. Raindrops slapped heavy onto the windscreen as the wipers swished across again and again.

And always the car ahead of us, water flying from its back wheels, driving on and on. The figure inside cast in black like a shadow stripped out in front of us.

What was it that drove us forward? His foot on the pedal? The petrol in the tank? Something else? The car ahead dragged us toward it. The distance between us was everything. Untouchable desire. A gap between anticipation and gratification. A hand reaching out. The feeling of someone running their fingers up the inside of your thigh The exact moment before contact.

I wasn’t scared anymore. I sat forward like I was trying to get closer to the roads, to get closer to the car. As the wipers went up, I imagined everything we passed to be under their blade, so the trees, the signs, the bridges, all hung beneath the rise of two black swords that swung down and cut to pieces anything that didn’t get past in time. Trees gone, bridges collapsed, cars destroyed.

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Families stood in the lay by sliced up in the rain.

Then suddenly it went black. The orange lights disappeared. The motorway was dark.

The cars in the night were just dots like eyes with long white lashes winking at you, or red beads floating ahead. In the rain it was like looking at the road through a kaleidoscope that twisted with every turn of the wheel. The dotted line in the road snaked forward forever in our headlights.

Looking at him, his eyes were ferocious, like when with his weight upon me he says what his face doesn’t. And I know that love is ugly and to be really told you are loved you must receive it without smiling.

We drove on in silence, each thinking our own secret thoughts, with the engine roaring always between us. The engine was our radio, was our conversation, was us. We drove for what felt like hours; I didn’t know the time or feel any need to know it.

Suddenly from out of the silence, without thinking my mouth opened and said, ‘Get closer, try and get closer.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘I’ve always wanted to see someone crash.’

‘Everybody slows down to look at accidents.’

‘It’s in us to.’

‘When I was at school, we used to have this event each year, an awards ceremony. It took place in this old hall. It was enormous and inside there was a giant organ with over a hundred pipes, and when I was bored I tried to count them all, do you understand?

‘Yes, I’ve counted the organ pipes.’

‘And in this hall, where we used to sit was high up in the rows and I used to imagine falling off. Leaning over the edge and just falling off.’

‘I dream of falling…’

‘You know what’s making us go?’

‘No.’

‘A controlled explosion. Internal combustion.’

‘We’re riding fire.’

‘Explosion.’

‘Look,’ I said. The car in front was flashing to indicate. We were coming off the motorway, back into the lights. I reached across and flicked the indicator.

And so we drove through empty, unknown streets, hounding the car in front. As we drove I changed the gears for him, with him. Slipped into fourth, up into third for turns, without saying I knew when his foot was on the pedal. We were like the cogs of a well-oiled machine, like one and the same. And it reminded me of being sixteen and driving with a boy I didn’t love, who didn’t love me and him saying with his wide, chapped lips ‘fourth’ and ‘third’, and his wide soft chest pushing against my back. As quick as his face came to me, it went away just like another car on the road.

Another face I saw in a passenger seat.

I closed my eyes and sunk down into my seat. I stayed like that for a long time, listening to the engine and the rain on the windows, until I felt the car slowing down. We pulled up outside a house. The driver in front got out and entered through the front door.

‘What are you going to do now?’ I asked him like a child.

He just sat there.

‘Are you getting out?’

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He did not move.

‘Aren’t you going to get out?’ I said. ‘Aren’t you going to do something?’

He didn’t move, a lonely horse with sad, dripping eyes. I felt sorry for him.

And then I saw that I was a big, thick woman, with rivers and channels and that maybe he was just a boy, not a man, just a boy puddle. There were a hundred things he didn’t know about me and never would, and all I could be unsure about with him was what sort of mood I’d find him in.

‘Well, do something,’ I said. ‘Just do something.’

With his hand he took my head and, shouting at me, forced it against the window, the door, the seat, the window, the window again, and I heard my skin slap and thud against the glass, against the plastic, as I closed my eyes tightly together and hair fell across my face.

Something pathetic came out of my mouth as he said, stupid stupid fuckin stupidshityoufuckin idiotbitchidiotidiotid iotyouidiot …

By the time I took the bags out of the boot, the ice cream had melted. We froze it but it never sets the same. All the colours blended into one.

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RACHEL

TEMPLEMAN

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MEGAN TOWEY

PIXIE

I never had enough faith in you, my best postmodern pixie friend, who presses herself against my shoulder, killing her fall with leaning.

You taught me something new about anxiety today: how to wake up when it’s morning, how to miss dactylic illness with the parched indelicacy of a crinkled sun.

In the eternal rendition you say your name is always in the vocative case, and only vocative: says the girl who taught a smaller girl to sing, a girl of thirteen, with the same nimble character we shared, the same calderical eyes we shared.

The girl’s voice tumbles out of its weakness: a chaotic calling out to the deltaic rush of rain, a grimy smoker’s howl: monadic, suffering, fresh and intimate.

NEW

YEAR’S

DAY

The first winter was composed of sleeping, flower-like, but this second is like prowling the gap between feeling and thinking; limbering up the dawn, unscarfed, uncoated, with my head like a getaway bag, hastily packed, a floppy trammel of tossed lists: lists of lies told and believed that have since turned into calcitrate in unsunned cloisters, and I should know the dawn because I’ve seen it, and I should know the gap because I populated it with crows and left-behind items of clothing.

It was like dismantling a spiral staircase step by step, leaving a sequence of hollows stripped of the season’s riverly cadence.

So I have myself to blame for this desolate winter, because I thought I could be solved by the same process by which we build bridges to unnamed places: one slimy brick before the other, incomprehensibly; forever imposing axiom upon axiom onto that plane until the equinoctial day it answers back.

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FEATURE

ARTIST: ERIKA

SERVIN

Alliterati is delighted to bare the wonders of Erika Servin’s latest artwork in our tenth issue. Erika’s colourful and vibrant prints display what it means to be of Mexican heritage and illustrates how one remains attached to the culture of their nation after emigrating from it.

Her Mexicana series is wonderfully tactful in the way it displays the clichés of nationalistic popular imagery that are created through the consequences of globalisation. Even though the concept of her work raises serious questions, her work is playful, enjoyable and furthermore portrays a feeling of positivity.

Erika’s portfolio of artwork was shown last February in her solo exhibition Festival, at the XL gallery in the Fine Art Department of Newcastle University. For those who were unfortunate enough to have missed this occasion, we have a small selection of Erika’s art covering the next few pages of our issue to seduce your eyes’ attention for the next few minutes.

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33

Untitled

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El Oso

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Luz

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Ruta 1

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IN

HER

WORDS

Mexicana Through this subject, I intend to present a series of prints that focus on imagery derived from Mexican popular culture: commercial murals, calendars, printed objects and everyday objects are my inspiration. I translate this and create a new imagery of mixed worlds.

My aim is to represent the world, both ancient and contemporary. Through acknowledging my roots and obtaining inspiration from artists like Toledo and Jesus Martinez, I try to translate symbols into narratives. It is by observing socio-cultural phenomena and loss of identity that new nationalisms are being re born. T he project aims to create a bridge between cultures and become an enriching resource. This is how the very much in fashion vintage images and clichĂŠs of what Mexico is, are represented with a tint of contemporary icons. Mexicana is my way of sharing what I am, a Mexican living abroad.

Erika Servin

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El Circo

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Cebollita Web

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Gods

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Alegria

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Sirenita

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DANIEL BOWMAN

AFTER

THE

FUNERAL

Elaine Morton caught a glimpse of herself in the dining room mirror as she carried the tea carefully towards the living room, two in each hand. She did not immediately recognise herself with short hair; she’d not worn it this short since she was twelve years old. It was like looking at some grotesque distortion, like a child who has suddenly aged fifty years overnight. She looked tired.

She felt tired.

The funeral had finished some hours ago. George, Elaine’s ex-husband, had taken the youngest children for the night so she could look after her elderly father in peace. It had been a long, difficult day. Robert, her eldest, was also there. He had only come home for the funeral and would be catching a train back to university early tomorrow morning. He stood up and attempted to remove two of the mugs from around his mother’s spindly fingers.

‘You should have given me a shout.’

‘It’s alright. I managed fine.’

Robert placed the piping mugs on the plastic table.

‘Who’s that other one for?’

Elaine looked puzzled at the two remaining mugs she carried. She remembered consciously choosing four mugs from the cupboard. She managed a weak laugh. ‘Do you know, I’m not sure. Spare one.’

They sipped their tea in silence. Norman, her father, sat back in the armchair, oblivious to the conversation. It really was a horrible armchair. The theme of the living room had always been ‘child-proof’: paintings on tatty paper blu-tacked to the walls, patches of damp spreading from the corners of the ceiling, turning the cream paint a tea-stained yellow. The little blue picnic table where the kids used to eat their lunches, shapeless brown sofas to camouflage the Ribena stains, and a scattering of neglected toys and board game pieces. The chair had been a spurof-the-moment purchase after her husband took the matching brown one, a sort of burgundy with creeping black floral patterns winding up the arms. It had looked very striking outside the secondhand-shop, amongst the tatty leather recliners and beige futons. But here, surrounded by childish plastic furniture and facing an oversized television, it looked ridiculous, desperate almost.

‘Grandad?’

Robert leant towards him, holding his grandfather’s traditional Manx mug at arm’s length.

‘Do you want your tea, Grandad?’

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Norman didn’t reply. His frail eyelids quivered a little, folded down over frightened eyes.

He’s not asleep, Elaine thought, he just doesn’t want to be here. But he is, nonetheless. She gently nudged her father on the shoulder until he opened his eyes.

‘Dad, Robert’s got your tea.’

Norman scrunched his eyes up; even this action seemed to require a great effort.

‘Robert’s got your tea.’

Slowly, slowly, her father returned to the room.

‘Who?’ ‘Robert.’

‘Robert?’

‘Yes, Dad. You remember Robert.’

She smiled apologetically at her son, but he wasn’t offended anymore. It had been easier for him, only seeing his grandfather during the holidays. He hadn’t had to watch him suffer and struggle and gradually forget how to live independently.

Norman stared at Robert through cloudy blue eyes. They weren’t vacant, though. That was what kept Elaine going. There was a desire to remember, still a desire to understand. But there was no recognition.

‘Thanks, lad,’ he said quietly, taking the tea in two shaking hands. He took a minute sip before holding it out before him. Like a baby, thought Elaine, but scolded herself and helped her father replace the mug on the plastic table. A baby was easier to look after. It had sometimes been unpleasant, but she had really loved every second of raising her four children. Being woken up at all hours, changing nappies, nursing colds and the overall frustration at their incapacity to understand had all felt so right, so perfectly natural and easy. She hoped her children never had to look after her in such a way; there was no pleasure in that task.

They sat in silence, the three of them. All at such different points of life. Was it any wonder they didn’t have anything to talk about? Elaine glanced over at her son. Nineteen years old, she couldn’t believe it. When had she stopped understanding him? Being fifteen when his youngest brother was born, he just seemed to crawl into his attic room one day and quietly grow up. There he was, staring silently at the worn curtains, hanging limply from the few remaining hooks. Who has the time to replace curtain hooks?

Was he happy? He never seemed unhappy. She’d heard him talk fondly about his friends, although he’d never brought them over for dinner. Was that still something people did at nineteen?

She couldn’t remember. There was no reason to come to this house anyway, it was designed for children. But where were her children now? Every alternate weekend they would go, leaving her a lonely woman surrounded by toys. The house fell into a state of suspended animation as soon as the kids left. Robert would be gone tomorrow as well.

‘Are you happy, Robert?’

She hadn’t really meant to ask. It wasn’t the kind of question to throw at your son on the day of his grandmother’s funeral, but it hung there. Robert thought for a moment, evidently trying to assess where this was going.

‘Do you mean right this second, or just generally?’

‘Just generally, just with your own life.’

Elaine thought he looked a little frightened. It was true she’d never spoken to her son like this before. When was the last time the two of them had had a meaningful conversation? It

45

wasn’t as if they didn’t get on as mother and son, but it suddenly occurred to Elaine that their conversations could all be put down to a sense of duty. Her duty as mother to ask about his day, but not to pry, and his duty to respond pleasantly, and pretend he was interested in hearing about her boss. She doubted she could name any of his current friends, and he probably didn’t know what her job was.

‘Yes. I’d say I was happy. Every year seems to be a bit better than the one before.’

Robert spoke these words looking not at her, but back at the tattered curtains.

‘What about you, Mum? How are you doing?’

She hadn’t expected him to return the question. Thinking about it, it would have seemed quite heartless of him not to. She just couldn’t see how her life could be of any interest to someone who could give an answer like the one Robert had just given her. It probably couldn’t.

‘I don’t know,’ Elaine sighed, unsure how much she was about to burden her son with. ‘I just find myself wondering sometimes…’

Was this fair? Robert was perched uncomfortably on the arm of the sofa, studying the scum inside his tea cup. Elaine looked at the little white clock on the mantelpiece, chipped from where a bouncy ball had knocked it off once. It was after midnight, in seven hours he’d be up and heading to the station. He probably couldn’t wait to get out of this house, back to real life.

‘What, Mum?’

Elaine stared at the little clock, then at her tired father. ‘What happens now?’

Her tone must have betrayed something, because Robert moved to her side and put his arm around her narrow shoulders. ‘I guess we just get on with it.’

46

TOBY

MUNNION

47

JENNIFER

PREVATT

Dulcamara

48

Rachel

49

NADIA

SCOLA

‘This sound piece was inspired by my experience of working in a nursing home with residents who have cases of dementia. Working in this environment from a young age was a daunting and fearful experience.

The piece is based on my first experience of working with residents who are no longer aware of their behaviour and social norms. Despite an understanding of the physical causes of dementia, it is impossible to have a personal understanding of this disease. Sufferers appear to lose touch with our reality, and in turn inhabit their own. This can cause a deconstruction of relationships with those around them due to inhibited communication and feelings that arise as a result.

I tried to put myself in the mind-set of a dementia patient, through removal of some of my physical capabilities. This resulted in a loss of independence and reliance on others. I hope to be able to empathise with the residents by allowing myself to experience discomfort and humiliation.

This was a very personal experience, as I knew people around could only understand it from a physical point of view and not an emotional one. Through discussions with families and forming relationships with residents, the work soon became about the loss of meaningful communication.’

CLICK

TO

50

PLAY

HERMIONE

MCMILLAN

51

LORA HUGHES

PLAY

FOR

EDINBURGH

Action takes place at night in a yard between a pub and outside toilet.

CAST Aideen Burgh

traditional piper & alcoholic, not a local

Tom

married pub chancer

Dermot

traditional fiddler & ballad singer, Aideen’s friend

Notation: /

Indicates cut across speech

52

ACT I

Scene 1

DERMOT:

(From inside the pub.) Another tune, Aideen!

AIDEEN ENTERS THROUGH THE PUB DOOR CARRYING A PINT. AIDEEN: (To DERMOT inside the pub.) Have to see a woman about a chinchilla.

TOM EXITS TOILET. TOM:

You’re that piper woman. Great music you’re giving us tonight. What’s your name, love?

AIDEEN:

Aideen.

TOM: What?

AIDEEN:

Aideen. Aideen Burgh.

TOM:

Deuce of a name. Are you on holiday?

AIDEEN:

Don’t know why I’m here.

TOM:

Lovely, your music.

AIDEEN:

So you said.

TOM:

But what that bloke does to his fiddle . . . you wouldn’t sleep at night, Edinburgh. You couldn’t.

AIDEEN:

I don’t sleep anyway.

TOM:

I’ve got a bottle of Glenfiddich would fix that. (Beat.) Not the only thing I can offer.

AIDEEN:

You look like a man with a wife. (Beat.) Hardly a deterrent.

TOM SETS HER PINT ASIDE. THEY HAVE A FUMBLING GROPE THAT TESTS TOM’S PERFORMANCE. AIDEEN WIPES HER HANDS ON TOM’S SHIRT.

Thought you were married.

TOM:

She’s a bit frigid.

53

AIDEEN:

I can see why.

TOM KNOCKS AIDEEN DOWN. TOM: Cunt.

DERMOT ENTERS. TOM PUSHES PAST HIM. DERMOT:

Are you right, lass?

AIDEEN:

Hand me my pint, will you, Dermot?

DERMOT GIVES HER THE PINT, SETTLES BESIDE HER ON THE GROUND.

You should smash that fiddle of yours, stick to singing.

DERMOT: Tackling something hard. Best feeling in the world, wouldn’t you say?

AIDEEN:

Makes me feel stupid.

DERMOT:

How could you feel stupid? Nothing comes hard to you.

AIDEEN:

People. Being with people.

DERMOT:

Nothing easier than being with people.

AIDEEN:

Right. That’s why we’re sitting in the dirt. You’re a genius.

DERMOT:

I am.

PAUSE AIDEEN:

Sing something, Dermot.

DERMOT:

What were you doing with Tom?

AIDEEN: The pink faced guy? Stop, it’s all I know. Men. Drink.

Music.

DERMOT:

Come on, hen. You deserve better.

AIDEEN:

I haven’t found what I deserve.

54

DERMOT:

I’d have you.

AIDEEN:

If I sobered up. (Beat.) I’d feel everything. Give me a song, Dermot. A murder ballad.

DERMOT:

AIDEEN:

(Sings.) My mother said to me, his love is like a summer flood that drowns the flower bud here in this valley wide.

My father said to me a fool would leave her mother’s side.

A plain girl only has her pride /

DERMOT:

You’ve had enough ugliness tonight.

AIDEEN:

There’s no stopping the ugliness. Not for me there isn’t.

DERMOT:

(Sings.) Believe the mirror in my eyes . . .

/ That’s not a murder ballad.

AIDEEN COVERS HIS MOUTH. AIDEEN: He thought my name was Edinburgh. Ever meet anyone so stupid?

DERMOT:

I’m looking at her. The place you’ve got yourself.

AIDEEN:

Ah Dermot, here’s where Beast looks for Beauty.

DERMOT:

Outside a pub toilet? (Beat.) You find your share of beasts, if that’s what you want.

AIDEEN:

I’m waiting for Beauty.

DERMOT:

You’re conning yourself, Aideen.

AIDEEN:

(Beat.) Go back to your fiddle, there’s a good lad.

DERMOT GOES TO EXIT, LOOKS BACK AT HER.

55

RYAN FOSTER

SARGASSO

Like a pearl smothered in oil, she lies on the concrete of the dockyard.

The vessel gathers its anchor, straggling seamen collect the rope and coil, kicking the cogs and shards at their feet, and load themselves onto the creeping ship.

The silken rags have fused with her white skin, and her anaemia rolls in my mouth.

Crystalline fingers reach from the sun, exposing the tattoo stains and lacerations. Below, in the water, the Maelids flail and gasp, and with the light, I see in her face the sweet convergence, Europe and Hawaii, and in my blood I feel the slow rhythm of her African drums.

The cameras could not contain her current illumination.

I could go down and rescue the Maelids, was it not for the danger of defiling the seaweed.

56

THEATRICS

I. Yes, that was it, sometime in the winter, when we gathered in the palace at Languedoc.

Yes, the palace belonging to Circe, where the white wind flowed through open windows, and the red wine flowed from mouth to mouth, and the courtesans, in their fuchsia veils, sang, with an accompaniment of lutes and harps, about nothing in particular, and we, yes - the whole troupe, we danced in bright galleries, to the verve of snowfall and fathomless music, and Circe, naked, she laughed in the tempo of the new-spun languages.

II. Now, in this hollow auditorium, with the windows smothered in the ash of the city, and the water in my glass ringed with dust, I watch the audience sew their rags, I watch the sweat clog the skin, I watch them, as they sit and wait for me to read another.

57

DAISY

MILBURN

58

59

JOE GIORDANO

MASK

OF

THE

MAMUTHONE

Jean flattened the photograph on the table. Normally the picture was folded so that his mother faced him, and his father was behind. His mother’s face was lined, and there were dark patches around her eyes, but Jean only saw her smile. Jean’s father’s arm was thrown around his mother’s shoulders like the back of a chair. His eyes stared over Jean’s shoulder. Jean was taken in by Grand-père as a child, after his father ran off, and his mother, despondent, passed away. Now Grand-père had died.

Jean opened the dust-coated chest of his father’s clothes. He put on a dark wool pair of pants and a coarse, button-up shirt. They fit. Everything smelled like mothballs.

Grand-père never talked about Jean’s father, so he approached the black-draped widow, with arthritic fingers who was the mid-wife to his mother.

She said, ‘Your father left Corsica for the village of the Mamuthones in Sardinia. The town’s Mardi Gras is a pagan festival, and the Mamuthones practice ancient superstitions. Your Grandpère tried to bring your father back, but the cult had seduced him.’ The woman made the sign of the cross.

Jean’s bees had their winter honey to eat, and it was near the time for Carnival.

The carved, tiered limestone cliff-channel of Bonifacio loomed like Scylla and Charybdis as the ferry sliced through the blue-green Mediterranean on its one-hour sail from Corsica to Sardinia.

The stench of diesel fumes pushed Jean from the boat’s cabin to the open deck. A grizzled man, almost toothless, sat on the wood-planked deck before a white cloth where he’d placed cheese and bread. Jean asked if the man would share his meal in exchange for some Asphodel honey and Grand-père’s wine. He introduced himself as Baldini, a Sardinian. They ate meadowsweet honey on sharp, crumbly, goats’ cheese with torn chunks of crusty bread and drank cherry-red wine from plastic cups.

Jean said, ‘I’m looking for someone.’ He showed Baldini the photograph. ‘The man is much older now.’

Baldini looked at the picture. ‘I don’t know him, but you’re his twin. Your father?’

‘Yes. He left when I was a baby.’ Jean took the picture and folded it into his pack. ‘I’ve been told he lives with the Mamuthones.’

A bit of cheese flew from Baldini’s mouth. He gulped down his mouthful of food. ‘Dear God.’

60

‘What’s the matter?’

‘The Carnival of the Mamuthones is a heathen affair.’ Baldini leaned close and lowered his voice, ‘They drug the wine. Men and women have unnatural sex in the forest. They trap small animals and bite off their heads. Children are slaughtered in ritual sacrifice.’ Baldini sat back. ‘The Mamuthones and their enablers, the Issohadores, are masked. No one knows their identity.’

Jean was puzzled by the phrase “unnatural sex. He said, ‘These are stories to scare children.’

Baldini stiffened. ‘I’m not a child, and I sleep with my sheep that Tuesday night.’

‘I meant no offense.’

Baldini’s face relaxed.

‘You know this village. Will you take me there?’

‘Are you sure? It’s unlikely the Mamuthones would have taken a Corsican into the cult.’

‘My grandfather saw him.’

Baldini shrugged. They’d finished eating. He carved off a chunk of cheese for Jean and gathered his cloth. He said, ‘I have a vehicle. I’ll drive you.’ Baldini pointed to the crucifix around Jean’s neck. ‘But He won’t protect you.’

The treeless street of shuttered stone and stucco buildings was like a narrow canyon. People, some on tiptoe, waited for the procession that celebrated Dionysus’s rebirth as it advanced toward them. The stretched shadows enlarged the shaggy, woolen beasts with black, wooden masks, dark headscarves, and hunchbacks of bronze cowbells with bone clappers. To Jean, the Mamuthones were the embodiment of the burnt phantoms his mind conjured up on deathdark nights in the maqui, the Corsican bush. In two parallel rows, they jangled. They shook, right then left, a jarring, sharp metallic clang like the call for a canonical hour in hell. Jean grabbed his ears. The Mamuthones were flanked by men in stoic, white masks, dressed in red tops with gold buttons, a bandolier of bronze bells, ivory pants and black leather boots. The Issohadores drove the Mamuthones forward and lassoed young women from among the onlookers, pulled them close and whispered seductions in their ears.

The procession neared where Jean stood. Jean felt the glare of a Mamuthone through his demon mask. The Mamuthone kept his head turned toward Jean as he moved away. Jean’s brow furrowed, and he was about to call out when an Issohadore jumped forward and cast his rope.

Jean flinched and backed into a young woman, and the loop encircled them both. The Issohadore untied the lariat in a huff and moved on without a whisper to the girl. Jean turned to the woman.

She was his age, with long brown hair. She wore a red, sweater-blouse that exposed a tan shoulder. Her jeans were painted on her, and she wore beige platform shoes. She smelled like Corsican lavender, and she smiled at him. He hoped it was too dark for her to see his threadbare sleeves or that his big toe bulged through his brown, cloth shoe.

Jean said, ‘Sorry.’

The bells raged, and she spoke with her lips close to Jean’s ear. Her scent lingered ‘Never mind. My name’s François.’ She extended her hand.

‘I’m Jean.’ He took her hand.

Behind them, a reveler passed out drinking horns, and filled them with wine from a skin

François said, ‘Shall we have some wine?’

Jean thought of Baldini’s warning. ‘Are you sure the wine is safe?’

61

François laughed and took a cup of ruby liquid. ‘It’s safe if you don’t mind getting drunk. It’s a night to go mad, let go, have some fun. Find yourself. Are you afraid?’ She took a long drink.

Jean took a hesitant sip. ‘This is almost as good as my Grand-père’s wine.’ He finished, and both cups were immediately refilled.

François said, ‘What do you do in Corsica?’

‘I keep bees and sell honey.’

‘Oh, how wonderful. I tend sheep and make cheese. I also help my mother. We take in guests at our house, and we offer meals to tourists.’

They’d finished their wine and a reveler filled their cups. They walked into a side alley, away from the noise.

Jean said, ‘Why did you come to Sardinia?’

‘It’s a party, why not? I need people around me, but even in a crowd, I sometimes feel alone.’ François looked at Jean. ‘You’re at a festival, but I don’t sense you’re here to celebrate.’

‘I’m here to find my father. I never knew him. I believe he’s with the Mamuthones.’

‘That’s so sad.’ François put her hand on Jean’s. ‘What will you say to him?’

‘I want to know why he left us. I loved my mother. Why didn’t he?’

Just then a gaggle of young men burst into the alley. They walked unsteadily, held flashlights and surrounded the couple. They shined their lights directly on Jean’s crotch, pointed and yelled, ‘There’s Georgio, there’s Georgio.’ They laughed and slapped each other’s backs.

Jean reeled and shielded the floodlit bulge in his pants with his hands. His eyes darted at his tormentors. François put her wrist to her mouth and laughed. The young men moved away to seek their next victim.

François stepped toward Jean. She said, ‘It’s just a joke. Don’t be so serious.’

Jean straightened. ‘I must find my father. One of the Mamuthones stared at me during the procession.’

‘I want to help.’ François stopped an old woman with a hawk nose. ‘Do you know where the Mamuthones go after the procession?’

The woman uncrossed her arms from her considerable bosom. ‘The Mamuthones are with the Issohadores in the church courtyard, getting drunk and urinating in the corners. They have no respect for the Almighty.’ She pointed her forefinger at François. ‘A young woman isn’t safe with them.’

Jean said to François, ‘Perhaps you should stay.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

The jeers of carousing men and the jangle of cowbells echoed off granite walls as Jean and François approached the well-lit square. Mamuthones and Issohadores, many still in costume, sat or stood on the church’s stone staircase and jostled each other, drinking and laughing. Some had paired off with women and were entwined in shadowed niches further away.

Jean and François slowly approached the group. He tried to speak above the noise, ‘I’m looking for Paulu Orsini.’

Only a few heads turned. Jean raised his voice. ‘I want to speak to Paulu Orsini. Do any of you know him?’

A single Mamuthone rose from his haunches. His boots tramped down the stairs, and cowbells clanged his approach. He was still masked. Jean guided François behind him as the

62

Mamuthone walked up close.

The Mamuthone’s voice sounded hollow. He said to Jean, ‘Leave me alone.’

‘Father?’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Did you recognize me?’

‘It’s like I looked in a mirror.’

‘Take off the mask.’

‘This is who I am.’

‘Take off the mask. I want to see your eyes.’

Orsini ripped off his wooden visage. His face had deep lines. The skin around his dead-fish eyes sagged.

‘Why did you leave us?’

‘I don’t want to do this.’

‘I deserve an explanation.’

‘You won’t understand.’

‘Did you love my mother?’

‘We were children.’

‘You couldn’t fall in love?’

‘I didn’t want it.’

‘The marriage.’

‘No.’

‘A son?’

Orsini looked away. ‘Your mother thought a child would bring us closer together.’

‘So you just left?’

Orsini hissed out a breath. ‘I was yoked to responsibilities others imposed on me. My marriage to your mother was arranged. I had to break the shackles that strangled me.’

‘Did you think about us?’

‘I couldn’t go back. I told this to your grandfather. He spat at my feet.’

‘Grand-père died last spring.’

‘Go home to your mother. There’s nothing for you here.’

‘My mother’s dead.’

Orsini straightened. He looked away, and then his eyes shifted to meet Jean’s. He said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He turned on his heel. Boots clomped and bells rattled as he walked back to his companions.

François’s hands held her face. She said, ‘Oh my God. That was your father?’

Jean looked toward the retreated Mamuthone. He said, ‘Grand-père was my father. That man gave me life.’

‘Should you go after him?’

Jean took a deep breath. He said, ‘No, he wants to be free of me. Now I’m free of him.

There’s nothing he has for me.’

‘Oh, Jean, I’m so sorry.’

François put her arm around Jean, and they left the square together.

63

CHARLOTTE

VALLETTA

Altered Perceptions

64

ALEXANDRIA MORGAN

THE

ART (WITH

OF

WINNING

THANKS

TO

ELIZABETH

The art of winning isn’t hard to master.

It’s what I fought for, after all, and surely it’s the risk of losing which strikes as a disaster.

Little victories, every day. The keys found, the fight won, the nightmare woken from.

The art of winning isn’t hard to master.

I practiced, over and over, more and more, duels of acid words, hot breath, ending in weary limbs and tongue. None of that was a disaster.

I won a kiss, once. You laughed, leaning forward, daring me to take your lips in mine, and when I did, you smiled. The art of winning isn’t hard to master.

I’ve beaten others, pretty ones, with paper-frail skin, and rose-red lips. Now they’re gone, and though I miss them, the winning wasn’t hard to master.

--Even defeating you (the darkened curl of hair, the light-lit moon-bright eyes) I shan’t lie, your body broken at my side.

The art of winning isn’t too hard to master, Even though it may look like, feel like, (write it!) a disaster.

65

BISHOP)

JAKE CROSBY

STORYLINES

Line 1 A young man, just nineteen, Wound up in love with a beauty queen.

Caught in the mesh of true loves grasp, He sealed it with a golden clasp.

For many years he only smiled Causing the young man’s first storyline.

Line 2 This young man, now twenty three, Was at the birth of his first baby.

His wife cut open, his son cut out, His baby’s first noise, a helpless shout.

On seeing his sons beauty he could only cry, Giving the young man a new storyline.

Line 3 The young man, still twenty three, Watched as her heartbeat disappeared from the screen.

Her body still open, her eyes shut close, Just one single tear dropped from his nose.

Wiping the sadness away from his face, He felt a deep storyline appear in its place.

Line 4 A grown man, now twenty something, Struggled with life and turned to drink.

An empty space, where he once stood, Next to a pile of bile and the faint stains of blood.

He rose the next day and rubbed his brow line, And felt the imprint of a new storyline.

66

Line 5 The grown man, now thirty one, Had one too many and beat up his son.

The vulnerable child, in a heap on the floor, A disappearing parent, halfway out the door.

Then the grown man began to cry At the appearance of a new storyline.

Line 6 A man, now a ripe old age, Turned his thoughts to a rusty blade.

His haggard face, his complete story, His first signs of age and his agony.

He looked to his wrist knowing it was time And calved out his final storyline.

67

MICHELLE ORNAT

THAT

TAKES

THE

I I took the day off work to make you a cake from scratch because cocoa powder and a pound of butter should make any birthday boy super happy.

The first batch of icing was thick like a cold cream, so I slathered it on my skin like it was a miracle. Can you believe it’s made me beautiful?

II Let’s make a movie.

Because all this beauty might not last.

Camera #1: A grand hall, bubble bath pink.

Opening scene: I cut into a chocolate fountain cake with six tiers and a millrace and a dozen row boats.

Then, I duck and dart between popping bottles of bubbly while you watch me drift a blushing hand along an icy swan wing.

The exterior shots: No moon.

A sky of starling feathers.

Scene #2: At the turn of midnight we roll around in a rustle of petticoats.

Camera #2: Cut to a bell tower.

Scene #3: Me. Alone and petulant.

The tower more frightening and foreign than the Capuchin Chapel in Rome with its chandeliers and hourglasses of vertebrae, shoulder blades, skulls and pelvises.

Finale: Pan shot of the empty plaza, an empty bench.

III You’ve probably gone off to bed.

There’s a glow off in the distance.

I think it ought to mean it’s the end.

68

CAKE

ALICE

MACDONALD

Kate

69

EMMA WHITEHALL

PERFECT

Her legs are surgically lengthened, tottering by on leather contraptions, half-stilts, half-binders, that giver her that sought-after shape. She can worry about the pain later, alone.

Her dress, the designated female uniform, specifically designed for specific sexuality – as well as conveniently highlighting the imperfections that would need to be fixed at her next appointment.

Underneath the silk and cotton lie a myriad of scars.

Any part of her body that could stand it has been dyed – arms, eyes, hair, teeth, gold, green, blue, white.

Her eyes are widened, her eyelashes extended – “Maybelline; anything under 2 inches just won’t do!” – her mouth is a red, plump smear of chemicals that destroys her ability to laugh, touch, kiss…drink correctly. Fixed in a permanent, vapid smile.

Her meals have been noted down, scrutinised, rationed since she was 12 years old. She counts her blessings – some start younger.

Her body started out as a small, pink ball of soft flesh. Her mind was always growing, learning, ready to embrace any passion, overcome any task. A beautiful little human.

But, in these enlightened, modern days, humanity is unfashionable.

Now, she is a broken, sharp, hardened mess, her bones snapped into a hundred unnatural positions, her head whirling with nothing but panic and sorrow and distorted, fun-house mirror versions of herself – imported directly from other people’s eyes into her own head.

As this defeated creature passes by, those who did this to her watch her go, lounging in their smug, self-styled innocence – those otherworldly ones who put the dye in her hand, the scalpel to her flesh, they tut at each other, their own perfect red lips curved in a pout of pity, and their crystal tears fall down their porcelain skin, as they ask each other: ‘Why can’t she just love herself as she is?’

70

EMMA SWAN

WILTING

LILY

Marge Brown, 48, was a woman of 12 stone, 5 pounds with greying hair. She sat on the window ledge in a patch of sun, drinking a glass from her third bottle of red. It was 5:02 PM. She had been sat in that exact spot since her daughter Rose had left for college at nine. Only occasionally moving to pour another glass or use the toilet. Her waning eyes gripped onto a crab apple tree positioned in the centrefold of the untamed lawn.

‘Mum? What you doing?’ Rose stared, more aggravated than concerned. She filled a glass of Sunny D and nudged the fridge closed with her side.

‘Watching the tree die,’ Marge blankly retorted, without a glance at her daughter. Rose laughed heartily. Marge turned, and examined her fresh lily white face, felt her own and her brow creased.

‘Want a pop tart?’ Rose queried. Marge’s mouth gaped. ‘Do you then? Strawberry or Chocolate?’

‘No. I’m on a diet.’ Marge finished her wine in one and pulled her eyes back to the tree.

The toaster popped and Rose took both.

‘You sure the tree’s not watching you die?’ Rose joked, nibbling at the pop tarts as she left the kitchen.

Marge was frozen. Her eyes were wide. She left the window sill and followed the cold laminate to the colder tiles of the bathroom. She peered into the mirror and surveyed herself.

Pulling at her stretchy, wrinkled face. Upwards, left, right, diagonal. As though she were trying to arrange it, like a florist organizing a bouquet of withering lilies. Yanking the tender darkened skin beneath her eyes and rubbing it between finger and thumb. Then she traced up towards her scalp.

Her sausage fingers meeting her greasy grey roots. She closed her eyes and sighed. Paused a moment, then turned on the tap and tried to fit her face into the sink to be under the cool faucet.

Unsuccessful, she moved to the shower and turned the dial to cold. She watered her face, clothes dampening in the process. She opened her mouth and drank. Leaving a trail of water she travelled from the tiles to the laminate. Poured herself another glass. Sat on the still, legs crossed, glass in hand, and grinned at the tree.

71

ELLA

DORTON

72

73

74

75

SEB KEENAN

LOST

IN

A

CROWD

This crowd is all hustle and bustle where characters have no aim in their gentle progression through another nameless street amidst chaos and prams.

Here I am Here I am (Silent cacophony) Nothing makes sense.

As I drown in the body,

there’s no escape in sight.

Blue clouds.

Space.

Space.

I’ve found respite, despite this anxiety, all is at peace as I cross the road on red.

“Go, Go, Go,” they shout.Who’s shouting?

(I’m lost) Found by my mother. Is she my mother?

(Still lost) Everyone’s a stranger in the maze of your own head.

76

LAURA

BURGESS

Ruth, Belly-Dancer

77

JOE HORSEY

LONG

IN

THE

MEMORY

Sister.

It never really leaves my thumbs, and frequently reminds me that virtual obsession is exactly what defines me.

It’s hard to think how I’d survive without my page and pics.

I might as well not be alive.

Those admiration clicks just help me know, the lean and light at which I’m most appealing.

This kind of harmless vanity is just a natural feeling!

Brother.

It never really leaves my hand, but that depends on which one I have chosen to remunerate that adolescent itch.

The screen is like a window into all good things indecent.

Probably better not to name half of the sites I frequent...

But the rest of my time is spent, at length, hunting and debating which females, by their page and pictures are most suitable for mating.

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Father.

It never really leaves my sight.

I’ve been using one for years.

A 90s businessman Nokia was the latest high-tech gear!

It’s all more sleek and subtle now, and my thumbs are far to flat to type much more than ‘pub?’ or ‘match?’

But a tweet? I can manage that.

A hundred and forty characters to broadcast your oration, or maybe just recycle a quirk that previously had made you smirk, but sours upon republication.

Mother.

It never ever leaves my pocket.

It’s not that I’m a bore, I just like to know their every move, and guess a little bit more.

I like to keep a friendly check.

I’m just that kind of mum.

No! Not the kind that lectures and nags, the kind that’s firm but fun.

For me, the screen is just a way that I can message them or ring, to keep them near the nest, if you will.

To keep them under my wing.

Kid. It never really...

Well, I’m four. Four and a half actually. I haven’t got one.

I can walk in the room, as loud as you like, and get not so much as a greeting or grin.

Just eyes engrossed, and fingertips ticking, pawing at touch-screens, something forgettable.

My mummy watched my first steps through a lens.

I look up and see a carelessness, not so strong as a fire, burning bright, but ever so thin as illumination on my family’s face from a touch-screen backlight.

79

JIM MEIROSE

STEPS

Broad based steps. Make the surface wary, like a scared cat. Trauma. Make the boards straight— with no crown. The boards. Cut out with a rip saw. Make it how we like it. Cut the wood and nail it together. Make a stout job of it. Build broad based steps you can’t stumble down. To stumble is dangerous and frightening. Down the steps. Steps get you higher. Or steps get you lower. There’s no staying on the same level with steps. Unless you just stand on one of the steps. But if you do that, you can’t go anywhere. Unless you walk from side to side on that same step. Then you can go a little. But to get off the steps, you must go up, or down. There’s no in between. You should wonder how well-built the steps you’re on are. How long can they hold you.

I need to get off these steps.

So come down.

I don’t want to go down.

So go up.

I don’t want to go up either. I like the height I’m at. But I want to get off these steps.

You can’t without going up or down.

But I said I don’t want to.

Very well, then. It’s your funeral.

What do you mean by that?

You have to stay on the steps, if you want to be on that exact height.

But I don’t want to stay on the steps—I want to be free to walk around like you.

Then come down the steps.

But I want to be at this height. And walk around.

You can’t. Not unless you can walk on the air.

Well—I can’t.

So—like I said. It’s your funeral.

Hugo.

What?

Jeannie is being stubborn again.

How?

She won’t come off the steps. It’s complicated. You go talk to her.

I don’t want to talk to Jeannie. She makes me crazy.

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Well, we’ve got to get her off the steps. She’s in everybody’s way.

All right. Jeannie!

What, Hugo?

Come off those steps right now.

I can’t.

Why not?

I—I already told Arthur. He can tell you.

Well, Art? Care to tell me?

She wants to stay at that level— What?

She wants to stay at that height above the ground. And walk around. Get off the steps, and walk around on the air.

Jeannie—you know you can’t do that.

So he says!

Oh no—so I say. Come down the steps.

No. This is the height I want to be at. I told Arthur—

He pointed to the ground and spoke harshly.

Jeannie! Come down those steps right now!

I can’t do that.

All right! Than stay there for the rest of your life! I don’t care.

She gasped.

What? What do you mean you don’t care?

So she stayed on the steps. Broad based steps. Make the surface wary, like a scared cat.

Trauma. Make the boards straight—with no crown. The boards. Cut out with a rip saw. Make it how we like it. Cut the wood and nail it together. Make a stout job of it. Build broad based steps you can’t stumble down. To stumble is dangerous and frightening. Down the steps. Steps get you higher. Or steps get you lower. There’s no staying on the same level with steps. Unless you just stand on one of the steps. But if you do that, you can’t go anywhere. Unless you walk from side to side on that same step. Then you can go a little. But to get off the steps, you must go up, or down.

There’s no in between. You should wonder how well-built the steps you’re on are. How long can they hold you.

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SHERENE

SCOTT

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