CAELA DAVEY

When I eat a Tesco bakery cinnamon swirl, an angel comes to me personally and wishes me good luck for the day. Or maybe I just ascend into heaven for a minute.

The crunch of the pastry is like walking through a field of leaves, colorful ones. Autumn ones. In red, brown, and yellow. The shade of the cinnamon itself all blended together under the soles of my shoes as I slip and slide across it like Bambi on ice.

The moist tang of a sharp and powerful punch of cloves that leaves a bitter but satisfying taste in the mouth as it drizzles down the throat. And the pastry, though it tastes a bit like cardboard, makes for a delicious cinnamon combo.

After sampling Lidl, Supervalu, and Aldi’s cinnamon swirls, I can deduce that they simply do not possess the desired citrusy flavours or pastry cooked to perfection, with a crunch borderline on burnt, that Tesco’s can.

And the reminder it brings, of my granny’s porridge, where so much cinnamon was used, that I never enjoyed it until I could no longer have it.

Excerpt from Cinnamon

My primary focus is a fantasy adventure tv serial.

I want to create a fun and engaging story, including elements of mature themes that children and teenagers could learn from, such as the importance of family, sacrifice, forgiveness, and redemption. I am also interested in character-driven plots and would like to create a script where the fans cherish a character. When developing ideas for worldbuilding, I like worlds similar to the one we live in, just with my own tweaks and quirks. In the brainstorming stage, I like to use the notes app to jot down ideas before beginning. I also visualize my thoughts on paper and draw world maps and characters. I love small details in stories, ones that are subtle yet reoccurring, such as certain personality traits in a character, a silent message, or something that propels the plot further.

Coming from both Irish and Polish backgrounds, culture and identity shape the questions asked about society in my works, specifically the roles they have in moulding an individual. My fiction explores the process of coming of age in a hyper-developed era. At 21 years old, I am wary of the dangers ahead in these uncharted territories, especially the consequences of an ever-expanding consumer-driven society. I have a particular interest in politics, grassroots movements and anti-capitalist theory. In my novel Times like These, the protagonist is a young runaway lost and disillusioned both by the brutality at home and the consumption that surrounds him. In the novel, his lens is muddled by frustration with the modern the world, leaving him adrift and questioning social conventions.

As soon as I step foot into work, my soul begins to dissipate. The bare white landscape brings out the ugliness of capitalism in one open plan area. The endless rows of large, branded foods full of shit, slowly killing us. The only colour in the place belonging to the well-advertised packaging, making it pop and stand out. Artificial white lights running parallel to each other, lining the ceiling. Consumers in the form of zombies, stumbling down the aisles, trapped in their world of grief, shoving products into their trolley. There is no life here, not in this place. Simply a transaction of goods, built on the backs of many, to help profit few at the top. Yet they want us to be passionate about our jobs. Minimum wage, minimum effort, that’s my motto I’m afraid.

Commencing my duties of floor boy, I go straight to packing out the food. New orders are in, which means packing and unpacking. Days like this mean I can’t slack about hiding in the bathroom. The older ones never climb out of your ass. In particular Sam, who comes down to check on me every five minutes. ‘You alright with the biscuit section kev?’ he says sticking his fat head around the corner again. If looks could kill, I’m sure he would’ve exploded all over the two for one Nutella deal. With no response Sam sticks up his thumb. His way of visually asking me if I’m alright, I’m not a child. ‘Sam, I’ll stick that thumb up your arse if you’re not careful’, I say as a lady walks by me, shooting me a look. I do forget I’m in public sometimes.

She departed, leaving them without a kiss to bless their nights. Two young brothers, fatherless since birth, now motherless for a year, breathed desperately to find the one guardian that could still be alive within Trorr.

Ruled by raging winds and swarming snow that swayed against its vast chains of white, cloud-piercing eminences, the crescent-shaped island of Trorr was lodged by four scarce villages. In the southern sickle edge, there ported the fishing village of Norad. On the southwest of the island’s rising curve, there rested the misty village of Nurm. In the centre of the munched-moon shape, there rumbled the thunderous village of Tradir. And in the stark north, separated by Merelor – the lands of Giants that reigned the lower northern latitude – awaited the hunter village of Irika.

Throughout this artic realm, there dwelled untamed darkness whispered in their mother’s nightly tales –collected as arcane myths from tenebrous beasts and mischievous gods to heartless curses. Nonetheless, the brothers were the sons of a great iron-mettled warrior of the winter; thus, it was in their blood to dare against the cold and its minacious allies. It was in their blood to venture within the mountains of Trorr…

Dark fantasy, alongside the Japanese Manga culture, always inspired my creativity and exploration of the source of evil and Darkness. I believe that dark notions stem from something beyond our understanding and merging them with fantasy would enhance this philosophical approach – I am currently finishing the first volume of a science-fiction/fantasy-driven franchise inspired by this passion for dark myths. My portfolio, Unshadowed Fear, consists of a novel Excerpt called Within the Mountains of Trorr, unravelling the tale of two brothers searching for their lost mother within dangerlodged and myth-whispered mountains. Likewise, it includes a collection of poems titled The Realm of Crina, unfolding illustrative verses about a mysterious fantasy realm within a dream.

Blake Crouch, J.R.R Tolkien, George R.R Martin, and Eiichiro Oda are the primary authors that inspired my concise, descriptive style and worldbuilding ideas. Their fantasy is a prime example of the spectacular secondary world – the venture that swirls in our subconscious – that I wish to unroll for others to see fantasy as an escape from reality and a reflective notion of it.

My work is about observations I make in my daily life when I am out walking, travelling or when I am struck by some snippet of overheard conversation. A word version of small scenes. To quote Seamus Heaney, ‘I’ve always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.’

In Fieldnotes for Leaving I am a detached witness, an ethnographer, collecting people’s habits, customs, and differences. But then there are moments when ‘Everything is lined up in the right order and we realise we had nothing to do with it. We are there, if we are lucky, to witness it. …It was quite a sight, and I was aware of a “goodness” something outside of myself.’

These notes or fragments are all stories in themselves, and I want to record them. They are not spectacular happenings but, somehow, they are important. While my portfolio focuses on the Fieldnotes, I have included here an Excerpt from novel in progress.

A little bird crashing into the window gave Kate a fright. She went out to see where it was. She had often found a bird on the ground after it had hit the glass but there was no sign of this one. Later, she saw Ben scraping at the grating which covered the window to the cellar. When she looked, she discovered a blue tit crouched into a corner looking up from the grating. She put Ben inside the house and opened the grating for the bird. But it didn’t come out. She went away and came back to look later, thinking it might have taken the chance. It was still there. Down on her hands and knees, she put her hand in and tried to catch it. It was jumping from place to place, and Kate could see it had hurt its wing. She picked it up and left it on the ground. It hopped across the yard into the bushes. It wasn’t going to fly. Later still, Ben was in the same bushes chasing something. He’d found the bird holed up under some sticks. Kate took it out and brought it into the house and put it on the floor in the hall. It was terrified and breathing heavily. She put it into a soft cloth on the window-sill. Thinking it might warm up but then its breathing slowed and the distance between the breaths got longer. It cocked its head at one stage, giving her hope, and stretched its wing out a little later. But she could see it was giving its last few breaths. Is that how it was for Adam? His last few breaths, his small chest rising and falling?

It’s raining heavily now, water pounding on the steel roof, but it still can’t get in. The sound of windshield wipers always transports me home. There’s something about that monotonous rubber squeaking back and forth. And the contrasting smell of rainwater combined with the heat from the engine blowing out onto my face. It familiarises me, even in a place that feels far away from home.

I look up and see a sign for the turn off; we are getting closer now. The muscles in my chest start to tense. I look at her, and I can tell she feels the same. She hasn’t said anything, but the silence hangs over us in the car. I lean back and eventually find other sounds. The whoosh two cars make as they pass each other, a different family in each one. I watch them as they drive closer to home, and we move further away. Their boots are filled with sports gear and school bags, and ours is full of boxes; stuffed with the last remaining items that needed to be moved from the house.

My novel follows a young Irish photographer, torn between pursuing a creative practice and earning enough money to live and support her family. The voice is shaped by her aesthetic sensibility, her interest in observing, and the story explores themes of guilt, displacement and conflict. It illustrates situations many Irish people are faced with such as homelessness and the rising of cost of living. I also write poetry and am interested in the common obstacles young Irish face from the demands and expectations of social media to climate catastrophe and over-pressured and failing health services. As part of the 2023 Scrimshaw editorial team that produced a journal of writing and visual art, I am interested in multiple art practices and am inspired by everyday struggles that people face.