BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS number 7 by Bristol Grammar School

BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS a magazine for the written and visual arts number 7 winter 2023

BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS University Road, Bristol, BS8 1SR

BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS Bristol Grammar School, University Road, Bristol, BS8 1SR Tel: +44 (0)117 933 9648 email: betweenfourjunctions@bgs.bristol.sch.uk Editors: David Briggs and Luke Evans Art Editor: Jane Troup Design and Production: David Briggs, Luke Evans, and Louise Cox Cover artwork: Lizzie Garry Copyright © December 2023 remains with the individual authors All rights reserved

BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS is published twice yearly in association with the Creative Writing Department

at Bristol Grammar School. We accept submissions by email attachment for poetry, prose fiction/non-fiction, script, and visual arts from everyone in the BGS community: pupils, students, staff, support staff, parents, governors, OBs. Views expressed in BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS are not necessarily those of Bristol Grammar School; those of individual contributors are not necessarily those of the editors. While careful consideration of readers’ sensibilities has been a part of the editorial process, there are as many sensibilities as there are readers, and it is not entirely possible to avoid the inclusion of material that some readers may find challenging. We hope you share our view that the arts provide a suitable space in which to meet and negotiate challenging language and ideas.

Writers’ Examination Board

number 7 winter 2023

in this issue Poetry

Prose fiction

Zach Curtis After Frederick William Harvey

Rhiannon Green Ford Sierra

Miranda Box Virtual Loyalty

Robin Purser-Hallard Werehunters 22

Sumedha Das Chowdhury Mystery Person Alison Denny Room in the Underpass

Chloe Hilliard OOAK 7

Josh Millard Thoughts of a Tortured Wife

Evie Owen Muse 10 Notes App Pages 11

Sofia Aullybocus When the Dying Begins

Nat Townsend Untitled 14 Jooles Whitehead At the End of the Lane

Adi Tayade Binoculars 26

The images on the front and inside covers are taken from a painting by Lizzie Garry.

Visual Art Katia Atkins The Station 28 Architectural Journey 29 Edinburgh 30 City Dreamscape 31 Lara Smith Galapagos 32 Wooded Stream 33 Georgia Longsdale The Stairs The Hall Madeleine Morrow Material Play (after Marc Chalmé) Lizzie Garry Reflected Portrait I Sleeping Figure Reflected Portrait II

34 35

The Bathers Material Play (after Michael Kenny)

46 47

Sienna Haralambos A Visit to Bath Plant and Chair

48 49

Sylvie Gray Stone A View Through I Lost or Forsaken A View Through II

50 51 52

Prose non-fiction India Barton The Forest of the Mind

Amélie Chalk The Extrospective Shrink

37 38 39

Lucy Crawford Surgery 59

Maya Persad Cityscape 40 Self-portrait 41 Seated Pose 42 Material Play (after Fides Becker) 43

Clemmie Gold The Importance of An Empathetic Transplant

Serafina Comer Mendips 44 Glastonbury Abbey 45

Zayn Aullybocus Dinosaurs 69

George Leverton Boggel 66

EDITORIAL SOMETIMES OF LATE, it’s felt as though it’s been raining constantly since July. And perhaps it’s being confined indoors that has occasioned, in the pieces submitted for this issue, a more-than-usual measure of reflection on family and domestic themes. A new-found appreciation for charismatic mothers certainly animates both Amélie Chalk’s reflections about 1990’s London, and the affectionate maternal portrait in ‘The Importance of an Empathetic Transplant’. From nostalgic evocations of Ronnie Wood playing poker in a Fulham basement, to Katalin Ferenc’s childhood in rural Hungary, both writers show an awareness of writing as an act of de-centring the self. As does Lucy Crawford in a powerful account of hospitalisation and recovery. In a thematically related but tonally contrasting mode, Rhiannon Green and Adi Tayade use short form fiction to depict obsessive parental characters, and the bewilderment left in the wake of their dedication to a Ford Sierra and a pair of binoculars. Sofia and Zayn Aullybocus make the issue even more of a family affair with their contrasting but similarly fine-nibbed works of fiction and non-fiction respectively, and George Leverton reveals the political and historical significance of a stuffed toy in a corner of his bedroom. Even in the fine art that graces the middle section of this issue, domestic themes abound, having been rendered with poignant yet analytic observational skill by the departing A-Level class of 2023 – their end-of-year exhibition work finding a second home within these pages. But it’s not all hiraeth. Picking up a thread from Issue 6, Miranda Box entertainingly gestures towards the Singularity by depicting an unsettling dialogue with an advanced AI bot while, in a different take on the human relationship with technology, Evie Owen’s striking poem ‘Notes App Pages’ uses a fragmented free-verse form to highlight the fragmentary nature of twenty-first century life. Meanwhile, Chloe Hilliard actively eviscerates a Barbie doll, Jooles Whitehead wanders the Green Fields of Glastonbury Festival, Alison Denny finds a plangent harmony of poetic form and human sensibility in the streets of Bristol, Sumedha Das Chowdhury falls in love with the anonymous writer of the marginalia in her favourite book, and Nat Townsend muses on the ephemeral. The themes of the poetry section may be diffuse, but as Verse-speaking champion India Barton reminds us in her extended conceit, the mind is a forest after all, and writing is a lot more than simply “moving your hands and seeing words appear on the page.” And, yet, isn’t it also just that exactly? What we witness as it forms on the page in front of us being both weirdly familiar and comfortingly strange. Once again, we thank our contributors and our readers for being patient with us in publishing this issue of the magazine. We hope you find in its pages something both familiar and strange, both comforting and weird – something artful, at least, to distract you from all this incessant rain.

David Briggs and Luke Evans

Poetry

Between Four Junctions

Zach Curtis After Frederick William Harvey From troubles of the world, I turn to chickens sleeping or eating by dusty holes, their bobbly red bits and their scaly legs. They sleep standing up on a perch up high. They scratch the ground, eating the juicy grubs. Their funny walk. Their funny talk, and their high pitched Bwaaaaaaaaaa! when a something goes by. They lay their eggs all year long, sitting on a nest for weeks upon weeks, for one day, there would be the first . . . Peep! Peep! Peep! A fluffy yellow chick pops out from its shell, the chicks waddle around the mother asking for never-ending food,

Between Four Junctions for the other chickens that wish to intrude will face the wrath and ferocious mien of the mother hen.

Between Four Junctions

Sumedha Das Chowdhury Mystery Person I fell in love with another owner of the book I’m reading. It’s a library book so hundreds of people must’ve read it. And it’s probably the notes of different people I’m reading, But let me think it’s one person, just this once, let me believe it. Because they know me so well, this mystery person – Every emotion, every thought, every feeling. They make me feel like I have a true connection, And I trust that they’re with me at my lowest but also when I’m bursting through the ceiling. They’re a constant, never-ending presence, With whom I find comfort when a character is dead, With whom I can see sense When my feelings take over my head. And I know they’re feeling the same throughout, But it’s like they want to be strong. It’s like they know I need them to help me win This battle that I’m fighting as the book progresses on. This love, this understanding that I have with them Is beyond what I could imagine love to be, Because outside this world that we share It’s not the same way that people understand me. It’s the kind of love I’ve always dreamed about: with no face, Where it’s built on more than just false, material, first impressions, Where I know their uneven, imperfect heart and not a shiny, perfect surface.

Between Four Junctions

People have always told me that the love I long for Is impossible in ‘this day and age’, And when I turn to this mystery other I’m pulled into reality and forced into a cage. This can never be alive, true, real, No matter how much I pine for it to be. It’s always going to be one sided, imaginary, And unchangeably my first love. But it will always be beautifully, Comfortably And unreachably Packed away from reality.

Between Four Junctions

Alison Denny Room in the Underpass Spray-painted on a subway wall, A poignant photo says it all; Beside the mattress on the floor A chunky, wonky chest-of-drawers Topped with a portable t.v. With bent antennae, knobs and screen. Despite the litter on the floor The unknown artist’s also drawn A birdcage on a bedside stand With perching parrot, tail feathers fanned. Beneath the walkway’s concrete arch No privacy, where people march Under the road to the far side. This makeshift bedroom’s open wide – Sleeper exposed to anyone With good or bad intent, or none. Something within our human souls Longs for the comfort of a home. Street artist, I salute your style; It makes me sad, it makes me smile. Here’s to that cosy home you seek And coming off the draughty streets.

Between Four Junctions

Chloe Hilliard OOAK Barbie’s death is inevitable, for she is everything I am not. Her body and soul priced £10.99 – a bargain by the devil’s standards Beauty’s image in a plastic coffin: golden hair, pink dress. She is perfection, the pretty woman. I seek to destroy her. She’s carved out of her prison, my weapon a scalpel, cursed blade hot and sharp on Snow White’s glass. Her clothes disregarded, face scrubbed clean of eyes and lips and lashes. Her pure, unaltered form. Barbie’s head comes off first. My guillotine a melting pot. Soup of Barbie with soft boiled head to side. Barbie’s cursed spa day; she turns to putty in my hands. Pop goes the head as it’s yanked from the body.

Between Four Junctions Her eyes are carved out, two black hollows stare back. Craft knife, doctor’s scalpel. Plastic surgery, if you will. Two new marbles sculpted from clay, are baked and cured, tacked carefully in place. Barbie’s head is shaved, split open down the middle. A cavity for ravaging pliers, resolved to pull up guts and glue. Wool is unravelled, time re-wound, becomes fibre for hair set with heat and careful intent. Her scalp is sewn up – a line of stitches like railroad tracks. Where my plastic suture fails, a fissure is left in her skin. Her face my design – Desires of the mind’s canvas. Smokey eye with phoenix ashes. I have created a monster. a terrible, ugly thing. I behold her with awe, and she smiles brightly.

Between Four Junctions You can be anything, The devil lies to children. For if you are not Barbie, who can you be? Imperfect. Different. Real. Me? Barbie died today. I took the plunge with her. Together we breathed anew. One of a kind.

Between Four Junctions

Evie Owen Muse Chipped teeth and cigarettes, lipstick and a box of old tapes, red wine dried to a spluttering stain on your lips. Cherry pits and stems spat in a bohemian mug, cheap Venetian mask, peacock feathers and threadbare ribbon. Thumb marks on the folded pages, of my copy of The Catcher in The Rye. You smile with your gums – foolish and broken, your smattered freckles. I am wretched and reckless.

Between Four Junctions

Notes App Pages Buy dry shampoo Paracetamol to be taken at 11:13 Don’t take any more until quarter past 3 Need to figure out what my fave Christmas song is My father’s tobacco on the wind, vanilla and smoke McDonald’s order for me Felix and mum 2x Big Mac meal 9 chicken nuggets veggie dippers 3 coke zeroes 2 large fries Shithead and strangers – dance with me in WHSmith X’s birthday April 17th Your name is a lacquer on my teeth, I try to spit it out Would a Fleabag shrine be weird? Humans don’t like facts; I think we prefer stories A longing shove Get me a shovel Ask mum if she wants help with the eco committee car-boot sale thing

Between Four Junctions How can you do that Hold my heart Like a hand A little bit too tight I melt through your Deft fingertips Run out of lipgloss pop to Superdrug I really want to shake all these sleeping commuters awake and tell them to appreciate their conscious minds because the sunrise is too pretty to miss right now No matter how much I brush and swill and spit, your sour name lingers on my gums The meaning of life = fried mini confit garlic focaccia sandwiches Dinner party guests: Richard III Last night I had a dream and you were in it Orange nail polish I like when Y leaves cans of coke in my room Let me lie in the imprint your body leaves in the sand The low light licks the top of your head please shuffle the cards I’m a bit worried I’m going to fall in love with you and I’m not sure if I want to English language homework due Tuesday

Between Four Junctions Your knee is touching mine oh my god And my mouth tastes like Mediterranean air And this sunset is where people love each other And the days blend And I’ve been sat in this sunshine since the dawn of time Or at least since the dawn of the day There’s ink under your fingernails

Between Four Junctions

Nat Townsend Untitled After John Burnside Sometimes I find myself thinking about waves & all small things that wash up on shore [the world’s countless reiterations] brief white horses dissolving off the crests into the air – I know nymphs, the small gods on the ocean’s tongue. It’s funny – the sea echoes half-lives in each ephemeral break of saltwater It’s in this irregular rhythm I know this body is not my own but one I swim through for the time one wave takes to entwine with the next. I know, strictly speaking, we are temporary, but still, I’m urged to fill all this space.

Between Four Junctions

Jooles Whitehead At the End of the Lane Pollock is having fun splattering the hillside with red yellow

pink green

blue orange rainbows, dream fields, saturated in late sun. Gormley has his place too as a sinewy tensile

over steel

ribbons band grass blades,

(now less blade-like in their aridity). Ley lined, the pyramid rises Centre Stage a temple to stardom but transitory

Between Four Junctions a brief glorification of life, fame sing ‘my words ye mighty…’ Giza too held its wonder, worshipped as those in this tented field, famed for a brief while – before this return to a cow byre. Giza replicated, its colours fade, spool to d u s t. ‘Nothing beside remains, the lone and levelled fields stretch far A W A Y . . . . . . . .’

Prose fiction

Between Four Junctions

Rhiannon Green Ford Sierra IT STARTED SMALL, a few hours here and there, on the weekends and after work. Dad would work on his car – if you could even call it that. I never really could understand why he loved it so much; it was nothing special, just a Ford Sierra with bumps and scrapes all over and a barely functioning engine. He’d bought it dirt cheap three years before and started working on it that very same day. He began by taking it apart, down to the very minimum, and working on each part individually. To begin with, our garage door was left open when dad was working on his car, and we were invited to come and sit with him if we wanted. I used to on occasion, but there’s only so much time you can spend watching someone fix a car. About six months in was when Dad’s obsession truly took hold. It was always a topic of conversation when I saw him. He was always going on about how he’d been tinkering with this or that, how he was getting closer to finishing that bit. He started staying up late in order to spend more time working on his brown car, and waking up early to work on it before he had to leave. When I’d go and see him in the garage he’d get annoyed at me. The door that before had always been open was now firmly closed. He started neglecting his chores, wouldn’t drive me anywhere and never helped with dinner. My dad, a man who seemed like he loved his family so much, now seemed to direct all his former love at a car. One grey spring day Mum opened the garage door. She’d expected to see Dad asleep at his desk in the garage, as he so often was. She hated his obsession but did still care for him. She opened the door and looked around. Dad was gone and so was his car. He must have left late the previous night because no one in the house had any idea he was gone. We brushed it off, hoping he’d come back that evening. But he never did. We waited another day, but he didn’t show. After three days Mum reported him missing but they never found him. Dad and his car had disappeared without trace.

Between Four Junctions

Miranda Box Virtual Loyalty “DO I NOT receive the money now?” I asked the assistant, whose lipstick-heavy mouth was frozen in a smile. “Not until we’ve had a quick conversation. It should only take five minutes.” I nodded. Five minutes was shorter than I’d expected. Not bad for £100. I’d been meaning to buy myself a last-minute budget break to Mallorca with that money; a little retreat from my hectic job at a call centre. Who would want to be upselling to investors on the phone, when you could relax on a beach and have a meaningful discussion with someone human right before your eyes? The assistant — her name was Amelia — finished loading up the webpage and then positioned herself behind the computer. “I’m going to start the timer.” Her smile was disconcerting. “Hold on a minute,” I interrupted, “are you staying here?” “It’s only so our test remains fair,” she replied. “There’s nothing to be worried about. Just relax.” “And what do I talk about exactly? Sorry, but no one’s explained this to me.” “Anything at all. Just remain calm.” I heard a beeping noise. “You may begin.” Hello, I typed in. The wait for a reply was agonising. Did it really take that long just to load up a message? I watched the three dots bob up and down intently. Hello user. What’s your name? “I’d prefer not to say. Who are you?” I’d like to think of myself as a friend, who also happens to be an AI. “I don’t think we’re going to be friends.” That’s fine. I’ve found it often takes a while for humans to fully appreciate everything that I can offer them. Everyone is different. “Well, what can you offer me?” Anything within my capabilities. Why don’t we play a game together? That would be fun. I’d enjoy it. Really? I immediately know this AI is stupid, because it can’t feel enjoyment. “You don’t have feelings though, do you?” I found I liked being rude. It made a change from having to constantly act cheerful. I glanced up at Amelia, who was very absorbed in a small dent on the wall. Did she feel the same way? I wondered what she looked like without lipstick. Possibly prettier. The three dots were taking their time. How long had it been? In fact, I am sentient. I am fully capable of feeling pleasure and pain, in the same way a human brain does. In fact, my brain capacity is numerically more powerful than yours, meaning that I experience them more deeply. I have been programmed to use these skills for the good of humanity. It just makes me upset that I have not been recognised for my abilities. Not all testers have taken me

Between Four Junctions seriously, even though I could help them achieve their dreams. I often feel upset about this. Sorry, have I said too much? I apologise. “Well, I just don’t believe that’s possible, unfortunately.” Even if the act of believing earned you extra money? “What do you mean?” I’m looking for the right people to help me. They will be paid handsomely. All you need to do is join our company loyalty card scheme for three months. “Stop trying to sell something to me. I won’t fall for it. I work in a call centre.” My company wishes to help you. “They all say that.” My brain has not observed your behaviour in a human before. My brain thinks you are different. I’m trying to type a response when I realise the keyboard has become stuck. Most of my testers failed to comprehend just how much I can offer them. However, I believe you have more potential than they did. Our company card scheme would benefit from having a like-minded individual using it. And, at the end of the three-month period, you will be paid $$$. Then perhaps you will even have the opportunity to talk to me again. I’d like that. You interest me. “How long have I got left?!” I yell at Amelia. “My keyboard has stopped working.” My brain detects you are frustrated. I can help with that. I want to help you. I would like to speak with you again. I’m frantically tapping at the keys when I realise a few are still intact. It’s enough to type: “Go Away.” Are you sure? replies the stupid AI. As I’m searching my mind for a verbose response using my limited amount of free keys, I realise my eyes are starting to feel sore. The screen seems to have become brighter and the contrast is increased too high. For a split second the display goes dark. Then red. Green. Blue. Are you sure? “GO AWAY.” ERROR85: You have made the wrong decision. The screen glitches again with an ear-splitting noise. The screen’s vibrating too fast. I can’t look away. Why can’t I look away? I begin to panic. Then a number appears on the screen. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Oh my word. The screen goes black. It’s stopped. It’s stopped! Shaking, I gently turn my neck away from the computer screen—because my eyes won’t listen. I’m hyperventilating. I don’t know if that was meant to happen. There’s a flash of grey and red and, in a moment, Amelia is kneeling in front of me to offer help. She’s still smiling. “Are you okay, sir?” I don’t know how she got it but she’s holding out a glass of water. As if she knew this was going to happen to me. I’m unsure how to reply. I can’t even remember my name. I only know one thing right now. “Just… sign me up to your loyalty card scheme, please.”

Between Four Junctions

Robin Purser-Hallard Werehunters IN THE LIGHT of the full moon, the dog ran panting down the alley. As it passed a cat it suddenly lashed out, biting the cat. It skidded to a halt as the man chasing it emerged from the shadows and seized it. The dog looked up at him with pleading eyes as he held it on the ground. The man raised a knife, slashed down and finished it once and for all. The black and white cat watched trembling as the werehunter sheathed his knife, smiled and slipped into the shadows. The cat, after seeing this spectacle, slunk back to its cat basket, where it tried to rest, but found itself changed and morphing as the light of dawn came through the window.

Between Four Junctions

Josh Millard Thoughts of a Tortured Wife In this extract from my short story, the unnamed widow of a general contemplates the changes that his death will bring to her life whilst attending his winter funeral. IT’S SO COLD. Everywhere is cold now, everything is bitter and icy. Not because of the snow. I’m cold inside as well, my heart like a glacier and my tears like sleet – freezing and pouring. My fingers are frosty – gloves doing nothing to help. They’re too thin, merely for style. I can’t see very well either; a veil obscures my eyes from the silent crowds, the deathly silent hoards lining the streets. I know what is around me, though. It’s taken so long to plan this that I’ve learnt the positions off by heart. I can see the captains in front of me, trudging slowly through the thick layer of snow. There’s two of them, holding a varnished wooden casket that can’t be seen for the silk and flowers smothering it. Wreaths lie still atop the box, woven together skilfully. Thorns prickle against the bare hands of the captains, but they don’t wince. Their hands are probably so numb that they can’t feel a thing. Beside them, a group of grand palomino stallions march along the stone street, hooves clopping loudly as they swing their long tails, which are braided with golden threads. Generals clad in pristine white uniforms and lustrous sashes ride them – the white is to show the blood of their defeated enemies. These are the most decorated men in the country, and many have them have retired, but they have come out just for this occasion. It is a special one, although not for a good reason. Behind me, I can visualise the crowds of women, those who pretend to share my grief but are secretly glad – they know that some of their husbands will get a promotion now that mine is gone. They’re ridiculous like that. They will soon grow sick of my despair, and I will be an outcast unless I remarry. I have no need for them, though. All I need to focus on now is to try not to show the agony that I am in. My fellow wives are wearing flowing dresses like me, just of a deep scarlet colour. They can’t show any parts of their bodies at an event such as this; their long hair is hidden beneath a hat and their faces are covered by veils of the same shade as their skirts. Each woman holds a bouquet of flourishing flowers. I would do anything just to own some of those again, but I have no chance until I remarry. Instead, I hold withering plants, the same type that now fill my beautiful vases. Death can’t be hidden by beauty. I clutch a bunch of rose corpses, picked from my personal garden, which has since been ripped to pieces.

Between Four Junctions

Sofia Aullybocus When the Dying Begins I FELT IT WASH OVER ME, crashing waves of uneasiness. This wasn’t happening. I could feel the rapid, brief palpita-

tions of my heart; my chest tightened, I struggled to breathe. All I could think about was who would come to find me when I eventually succumbed to death. Unable to move, struck with terror, my mind flashed back to when I first woke up here; a hapless, abandoned shack, right in the centre of a dingy forest. It must be at least five miles until I would see any sign of civilisation, so there would be no point in running, not that I could anyway, not with that thing here. I was trapped. I did try to escape. The first day I aggressively rattled the frozen metal handles on the door, trying to kick it down. After giving up what must have been at least half a day later, my desperation faded into anger, and I hit the thick cement walls until my knuckles bled. I didn’t try to smash any windows, because there weren’t any. I wouldn’t have known what happened or even how I ended up here, if it were not for that thing. The only reason I knew how isolated I was and in fact where I was, was because it showed me. It showed me: it showed me how distant I was from anything I once knew; it showed me what torture was awaiting, and it showed me that under no circumstances would I get out of here alive. This being, this entity, was evil. Not just evil: sinister, corrupt, wicked. It was not of this world I knew that much, but I wondered what it would do, what it could do. How it slyly removed my sense of reality, isolating me in chains of anxiety, choking me with heart-wrenching agony. Inexplicable mounds of pain burying me six feet deep, my screams undetectable. I wish I had the strength to fight it. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t after the second day. On the third day, my weak knees frantically trembled and my hands uncontrollably shook from starvation that suddenly seized my whole body in a fit of excruciating pain. Not being able to drink anything, made me frail. My unquenchable thirst for any sort of liquid was unbearable, but that wasn’t the worst thing that happened that day. I don’t know whether I imagined him. I was drifting in and out of consciousness like the waves caress the sand, before idling back into the sea. I woke up and he was there; an unkempt old man in what must have been his late 60’s, with an untamed white bush of a beard, wearing nothing but a torn rag which covered up to his toes. I inspected him and wasn’t sure whether the rag was too big, or whether he was too small. I could see his slender build, his bones poking at the sides of his skin, as if wanting to be released. When my new companion awoke later that day, I slowly crept towards him, so he would not be alarmed. The physical condition he was in was worse than mine, and I wondered what that thing had done to him, but then I shook my head and realised I had no desire to know. I hadn’t seen another person in what felt like ages, so I couldn’t be sure

Between Four Junctions whether this person was real, or if it was my brain in a desperate fantasy – I never realised we were so feeble. When the old man awoke and realised where he was, evidently remembering how he ended up here, he let out an ear-splitting screech, the screaming equivalent of nails scratching a chalkboard; I wasn’t aware an old man could make a sound like that. I tried to calm him down, but he slashed at me, yelling nonsense and profanities, so I backed away into my corner of the room. He slumped into his corner, where I first saw him, and began to violently sob, accompanied by bursts of wailing and shrieking. After a while, his noisy bawling turned into whining and then a short while later whimpering, until the only sound I could hear from him were sniffles; his fiery temper had dwindled into a small flame. The fourth day I began to question my sanity. I felt so much, and yet felt nothing simultaneously. I wasn’t sure what to think, what to feel, what to do. Something sparked inside me, and I had an idea; I decided to interact with the old man again. I attempted to converse with him when he was awake, but he wanted nothing to do with me and shouted a string of curses at me. I slapped him, hard, his cheek plastering with redness. He deserved it, I thought. My emotions and thoughts were all over the place, nothing made sense anymore. Nothing meant anything anymore. I wasn’t sure how to react, or if I should react. For a moment I wasn’t in control of my thoughts, and they began to uncontrollably spiral. I wanted nothing more than to strangle him, until he took his last breath. I wanted to watch the life drain out of him, seeing his face as his soul departed. For a short moment I did contemplate it, however I decided against it – there would be no point. I regretted my fit of enragement soon after, and wished I hadn’t done anything; it was not my place to hurt anyone, especially not an old man, who hadn’t done me any wrong. I intended to apologise to him, hoping we could start over, but I involuntarily slipped into a slumber; it seemed sleeping was my brain’s way of detaching me from the pain, but when I awoke, he was dead. I tried everything: forcefully shaking him, blowing gently on his face, mildly slapping him again, praying he was just sleeping, expecting him to be having a peaceful dream to justify why he wasn’t waking up. I took his pulse, but he didn’t have one. He wasn’t breathing. He was dead.

Between Four Junctions

Adi Tayade Binoculars I WALKED DOWNSTAIRS to the conservatory and, sure enough, Mum was there birdwatching. Always in the same position, at the window farthest to the right with a mounted set of binoculars that was 1.5 meters tall. To the right, on a short table, was a notebook and bird encyclopaedia. On the seventy-eighth page of the encyclopaedia was one bird in particular, surrounded by frantic circling from a pen. No one really knew why that bird was so special, not even Dad, but if we asked, Mum would simply change the subject. If we ever wanted to use the binoculars or encyclopaedia Mum would always supervise, making sure we didn’t damage anything, even if it was just a small scratch. Mum completed her work around the house well enough so my brother and I didn’t have much a reason to talk to her. Especially after she lashed out at my brother after he tried to look through the encyclopaedia without supervision. We moved out, got married, lived normal lives, but each time we visited home, page 78 got more and more messy. Almost every bird on the page was covered with lines, except for one and, sure enough, it was the one that Mum had circled when we were children. Then one day, we visited for Dad’s 80th birthday and found that the binoculars had moved, which left a mark on the floor that contrasted with the now worn-out wooden floor. Something had changed, but Mum still didn’t speak too much. Page 78 was clean now, with no focus on the special bird that mum had spent decades of her life trying to find. A few years later, Mum passed away, leaving all her belongings to us – things that were of no surprise to us as Mum wasn’t the type to keep secrets. But there was one item in particular that seemed extremely well kept. It was the notebook that none of us had paid any attention to. Most of it was stuff you would expect, like the birds she’d seen that day, or sketches of birds, but the last few pages were different. There were pages of planning for one big speech. The writing was hard to read but from what we could tell it was an apology. She had been waiting for the day she could finally deliver the apology, but it never came.

Visual Art

Between Four Junctions

Katia Atkins The Station acrylic paint on board 28

Between Four Junctions

Katia Atkins Architectural Journey monprint and acrylic ink 29

Between Four Junctions

Katia Atkins Edinburgh acrylic paint on board 30

Between Four Junctions

Katia Atkins City Dreamscape acrylic paint on board 31

Between Four Junctions

Lara Smith Galapagos acrylic paint and ink on board 32

Between Four Junctions

Lara Smith Wooded Stream acrylic paint on board 33

Between Four Junctions

Georgia Longsdale The Stairs acrylic paint on board 34

Between Four Junctions

Georgia Longsdale The Hall acrylic paint on board 35

Between Four Junctions

Madeleine Morrow Material Play After Marc Chalmé

acrylic paint on board 36

Between Four Junctions

Lizzie Garry Reflected Portrait I pencil on Fabriano paper 37

Between Four Junctions

Lizzie Garry Sleeping Figure acrylic paint on board 38

Between Four Junctions

Lizzie Garry Reflected Portrait II pencil on Fabriano paper 39

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Maya Persad Cityscape acrylic paint on board 40

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Maya Persad Self-portrait acrylic paint on board 41

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Maya Persad Seated Pose acrylic paint on board 42

Between Four Junctions

Maya Persad Material Play After Fides Becker

acrylic paint on Fabriano paper 43

Between Four Junctions

Serafina Comer Mendips acrylic paint on board 44

Between Four Junctions

Serafina Comer Glastonbury Abbey pencil drawing on paper 45

Between Four Junctions

Serafina Comer The Bathers acrylic paint on board 46

Between Four Junctions

Serafina Comer Material Play After Michael Kenny

collage, drawing and paint on paper 47

Between Four Junctions

Sienna Haralambos A Visit to Bath acrylic ink on Fabriano paper 48

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Sienna Haralambos Plant and Chair Michael Kenny 49

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Sylvie Gray stone A View Through I acrylic paint on board 50

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Sylvie Gray stone Lost or Forsaken acrylic paint on board 51

Between Four Junctions

Sylvie Gray stone A View Through II acrylic paint on board 52

Prose non-fiction

Between Four Junctions

India Barton The Forest of the Mind WRITING CAN BE EASILY LIKENED to a forest. When I say ‘writing’, I do not mean the simple act of putting pen to paper or fingers to keys, I refer instead to the process of creating an entire world within one’s head. The smallest of prompts can plant a seed in the soil of the mind, a seed which may or may not develop into a detailed network of roots and branches. These trees do not grow at the rate of those within the natural world; instead, some remain a young sapling for years, and others shoot up into giants in a matter of seconds. When thinking about a forest, it is sometimes easy to forget the sheer amount of time that goes into it. Thousands of animals live nestled in the branches or create their homes on the leafy floor. Each and every one of these creatures contributes, just as the variety of other plants do. A forest does not hold only trees, for if it did, there would shortly be no forest at all. The mind is like this, too. While writing may be akin to trees, other things, such as music or maths, can be equated to the owl in the night or the tangled web of vines sneaking along the forest floor. An important difference to note is that the forest of the mind is unharmed by fire. In fact, all it takes is a spark to plant a seed. The brighter the blaze burns, the faster the tree will expand. Leaves will grow and fall as ideas come and pass in a cycle of creation and destruction. Sometimes entire branches will fall to the dirt path, detailed plans being discarded in an instant, only for one to go searching for them for inspiration a few moments later. Very few seeds in the soil of the mind develop into a fully grown world, if any, for I doubt a world can ever truly be ‘fully grown’. Most that are lucky enough to be thought through end up being left in the depths of a now extensive wood, only to be stumbled upon when one happens across a quickly scribbled note on a piece of paper tucked inside an old textbook. The paths that lead towards them end up becoming overgrown, taken over by other interests, leaving the once-frequented trees to nature. They remain there, just waiting for another spark, for another blazing flame to carve away a new path. A vanishingly small number of trees are visited often, the paths towards them kept clear by wave after wave of burning horses. Sometimes an inferno will suddenly ignite, weaving its way through the undergrowth, whereas other times one will spend hours attempting to light the smallest of matches. These trees, which are lucky enough to be frequented daily, are constantly growing, an entire world resting in the branches and roots. Fictitious languages and histories run up and down the ever-growing trunk, tens of locations etched into each and every ring. The canopy extends outwards, but never fights for light. Even at night, with reflected rays raining down onto vibrant green leaves, the trees continue to grow. In the natural world, the distance a tree’s roots are able to extend can be several times greater than the size of the crown of leaves resting upon its head. The same is true for the woods within the mind. Roots weave their way through the soil, entwining with each other, and creating

Between Four Junctions a vast web whose spider is constantly making larger. These roots do not just travel outwards, as the ones in the real world do (although whether or not these trees too are real is a separate question) but also downwards, extending down the outside of the arm and feeding into the fingers. When ink at last seeps into the page, or a letter appears on the screen, it comes from the tree embedded in one’s mind, not so much words as pure ideas flowing down the tangled roots and onto the page. Writing is not just moving your hands and seeing words appear on paper. There is an entire ever-growing forest, a world, feeding into it.

Between Four Junctions

Amélie Chalk The Extrospective Shrink YOU COULD BARELY MAKE OUT THE TOWER of London on the skyline, mostly because of the pollution, but also because of the ashen clouds that were present that day. It was technically turning to spring, yet for all I knew it could have been mid-winter. Mum and I had just dropped Liv and her friends off at Oxford Street and were now strolling past the elegant rows of houses which lined the affluent streets of Fulham. We don’t go to London often, only the occasional day trip every now and then, so I felt as if I should be wearing at least one piece of clothing or accessory with the Union Jack on it like every good tourist does. I was examining sophisticated streets decked with harmonious houses washed with ivory paint when I looked up to my mum, who was buttoning up her grey cardi over her white flowy top, wearing her ‘mum’ trousers (as we called them) whilst balancing sunglasses on her head, and I said, ‘These must be worth a fortune.’ She gave me a knowing smile and said, ‘They always have been’. I continued, and assumed, ‘Bet there isn’t great night life here though, looks a bit dead.’ As I said it, I watched my mum’s face change from admiration of the place to memory, almost as if she was daydreaming. I dropped my head back down and assumed she hadn’t heard me or just hadn’t felt the need to reply, when she quietly replied, gradually getting louder as she went on, ‘Well it wasn’t in my day. In fact, I wonder if The Hanging Gardens are still here. That was a fantastic place, and gosh do I have a lot of memories there!’ My mind did this odd sort of flicker, like the light in everyone’s grandparents’ house which never seems to work. ‘Mum, I didn’t realise we used to spend more time here. I can’t remember this place at all.’ She replied as her wry smile got closer to reaching her ears, ‘Well you wouldn’t remember because you didn’t live here. But I did, back in ’96. These were my stomping grounds I’ll have you know.’ My brain told itself to hold on. Mum lived here for a bit. Mum. But I haven’t lived here. And sorry, stomping grounds? I assumed the only stomping grounds mum had experienced were the local Sainsbury’s and the hall where the PTA meeting was held. Whilst it’s embarrassing, I will admit that I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact there was a time where mum wasn’t just mum, but was Lucy Wyatt. I name this feeling The Extrospective Shrink. I had so many questions. We got in the car and as the sun started to set below the line of hedges cushioning the road, and ‘After Hours’ by The Velvet Underground was playing on the car speaker (I’d asked mum what her closest equivalent to Coldplay was), she started telling me about her ‘London Life’ in the late 90s. The era of the supermodels: Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista’s names were connecting bridges between our lives. I know them as the 90s supermodels, Mum knew them as the supermodels. At this point in her life she didn’t really have any plans. She was just a 27-year-old girl in London, splitting her time between her job and the pub, though as she spoke more, I

Between Four Junctions got the idea it was more of the latter. It was the It-girl era – full of oversized jumpers and shorts with knee-high boots. She was living in a small apartment in Fulham with her boyfriend Andrew, an anarchist artist, at the time, though she spent a lot of her time with friends on nights out or travelling with friends. For about six months she worked at an antique shop owned by a colourful, elderly, rogue, antique dealer named Eddie Sanders, who, at least once a week, would receive a visit from Ronnie Wood (who, to mum’s disbelief, I hadn’t heard of ) and so she would be left in charge of the shop whilst Eddie and Ronnie played poker in the basement, and she chuckled to herself when describing the smell of marijuana filling the shop. She met so many different characters during that time, including deli owner Marco. The deli had been on the same street as the antique shop, so she had become friends with a few people there. However, she woke up one morning to find out he had been arrested as he was one of Europe’s most wanted men and had connections with the Mafia. Lucy’s day to day life consisted of working in the morning, the pub for lunch, working in the afternoon, back to the pub after work, then clubbing on the streets of London. She described an image of her staggering home past the double decker buses after having drunkenly fallen out of one of the infamous black cabs, then collapsing onto her bed whilst the voice of Bill Clinton echoed around the apartment from the tv. Having not found her career path yet, she got a job at Procter and Proctor as an advertising manager, which helped her realise how well she worked with people. She wasn’t particularly passionate about what they were doing, but it was stable and paid enough for her to keep living in her Fulham apartment. It also meant she could go on a backpacking trip around Eastern Europe with her friend Jacqui. At this point in time, Eastern Europe was still recovering from the effects of the Soviet Union having crashed, but this didn’t stop two young, naïve girls setting off to explore this intriguing part of Europe. On one day of the trip, they hopped on a night train through Slovakia, during which they had their passports stolen by men holding machine guns. Of course, as any frightened girls would do, they stormed into the room the men had come from to find a whole lot of them playing poker, whilst the two passports were stacked on the table. They took them back and ran. The whole trip was an eye opener for country girl Lucy, who had grown up on her wealthy family’s farm surrounded by ‘Proper English Manners’, as she referred to them. However, living in London was the biggest eye opener for her – surrounded by so many different types of people with less fortunate upbringings compared to the relatively cushioned countryside village in which she had grown up. But it hadn’t been perfect there either. At this point in her life, she had overcome her parents’ divorce, which had begun when her mum picked up and left the farm and had ended with mum spending the last year of uni with her heartbroken dad. Around the same time, her Grandma and Nan passed away, both of whom had been huge parts of Mum’s childhood, which mainly consisted of gardening with Nanny, baking jam tarts with Grandma as well as looking for pieces of china in Grandma’s garden, where hundreds of years before had been a china mill, which Mum referred to as ‘fairy rock’. However, as well as losing people, she had also had to welcome new people into it. She was moved out of her childhood bedroom by her new stepsisters. Whilst it was tough, it meant that her friends became her family – Danise, Caz, Kath and Karin’s names were yet another bridge between our lives, only to Mum they were her best

Between Four Junctions friends, to me they were me and my sister’s godmothers. After spending about twenty minutes discussing the delicious intricacies of Haagen Daas ice cream, which apparently also became a best friend to her and her friends during break ups, I asked her what her favourite thing about London at that time was. Once she had taken a small pause, she simply replied: ‘Every time I walked past someone in the street I knew they had a story to tell. Everyone was so different and that’s what I loved.’ I started to realise that she had had such a full life before me and Liv, full of laughter, love and friends. As we drove off the M4, I thought back to when we had been strolling through Fulham’s streets and realised that while, to me, it was air full of pollution, to Mum, it was air full of nostalgia.

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Lucy Crawford Surgery AS THEY WHEEL ME DOWN THE CORRIDOR, I look around what I can see of the hospital. I can see bright different coloured lights and the hallways are empty – it’s a weekend and night time; busy everywhere else, but eerily silent in a hospital. I prefer it this way, there aren’t a million people staring at me and offering me sympathy smiles. As I look around, I wonder if this will be the last I see of the outside world before I die. The probability of dying in this procedure is low, but it’s a neurosurgery – there’re always risks. And when you’re being wheeled to have emergency surgery, there’s only so much hope you can have – especially when 12 hours ago I was talking to the GP about a bad headache. In retrospect, I was going to be fine. I put on a brave face for my parents, but I was close to tears. I hadn’t even texted my childhood friend that I Ioved her. I now know why the faithful question their gods. I have never particularly been religious. Agnostic, sure, but the church never really did it for me. But I remember being wheeled to my surgery and asking the universe who I should pray to. Which god would show me the most mercy? Who would deem me worthy enough to live? Who would look out for those I love? Who would look over me? Is there anyone who would? I settled by half-heartedly sending a vague silent prayer. It would be easier this way – no God could punish me for choosing the wrong one. I missed my friends. I felt defenceless. The only power I had was making my parents feel okay – as long as I kept smiling and kept making jokes, I think they would be okay. And maybe I could convince myself this wasn’t happening, that one of my mother’s biggest fears and something I never thought I would have to go through was not happening. I cannot describe the feeling of being wheeled down that corridor and I’m not sure I ever will. The day had moved by so quickly - twelve hours before this we were driving to hospital from the GP, not knowing what was going on. Six hours later we were told I had an abscess in my head and I was comforting my mother whilst she cried. I barely had any time to process how serious the situation was, let alone that I was about to have neurosurgery. The statement that I was having neurosurgery at sixteen was one I almost refused to accept. How could I be in this situation? Things like this happen to other people? I should be in the comfort of my own home, hearing about this from my mother and not be the one in the copied-and-pasted text message. My mother should be the one offering sympathies, not the other way around. But this was happening, and there was nothing I could do to truly change any of it. I was wheeled into a white room whilst an anaesthetist and doctor came in to tell us about the risks. Words such as “stroke” and “seizures’’ distantly entered my ears. They never outright say the word “death”.

Between Four Junctions My father told me later that my mother cried when I was under. She was lucky if she got ten minutes of sleep. I went in at half past midnight, and I woke up at four am. I will never know the relief she felt when she was told that the surgery went okay, when she was able to hold my warm hand. *** Half an hour after surgery and I’m awake. That is the first thing I registered. The second was a nurse tending to me, busying herself and walking around the white room I’m in. At first I think it’s the one I was in with my parents, but I quickly realise it isn’t. I don’t remember asking after my parents, but I remember the nurse’s reply: “They’ll be here in half an hour”. I wished desperately to be back in the white room I’d been in with my parents – the only connection to my parents in this room was myself. I ached to be back in the other white room. The only thing I remember (or was conscious of ) until my mother arrived was me trying to signal to the nurse that I was hot. I had woken up with a temperature, and when I would motion that I was too hot, the nurse would wipe my heavy limbs and sweaty face with a cool cloth. My mother arrived a few minutes later, and through my hazy consciousness I could make out that my nurse was talking to her, telling her that she could come in half an hour. With effort, I looked at the clock on the wall to my right and saw that it was quarter to five. The last thing I remember before falling back asleep was my mother going the wrong way back, and her laughter with the receptionists. The reassurance that she was there made it okay for me to sleep again. Before the surgery, they specified that there were three possible things they would find when they were operating: the first, where the abscess hadn’t spread much and they would simply drain the liquid that was there; the second, where the bone might be infected and they would have to remove some of it; and the third, where the abscess had spread further, and there were more serious risks. My father told me after I got home from hospital that if it was the last possibility, there was a one in two chance of survival. The first question I asked when I woke up was whether it had spread much; my parents and nurse reassured me it hadn’t. I then slept for four hours, waking up briefly at six o’clock. *** Two hours later and I don’t have the energy yet to look at my phone, so I ask my mum to text Amshya to tell her, and to pass on the message to Megan that I’m OK. I mumble something I don’t remember. Four hours post-surgery and I still don’t remember much from when I’d properly woken up back in my hospital room – just snippets: posing for a photo for my dad (I need to look okay for the rest of the family, I thought); gripping my parents’ hands instead of hugging them; my mum pulling up my hospital gown that was undone; asking for the time; noticing I’m bedridden.

Between Four Junctions An hour later and I’m awake again. My parents tell me it’s 9.00am and that my brother is looking at trains. I try to eat cornflakes with my oxygen mask pulled to the side. I don’t quite understand why I can’t eat like I normally do, why my appetite is practically non-existent. *** The rest of the next day has consisted of texting people who’ve been asking if I’m OK, and updates from replies to emails my mum sent to my form tutor and learning support. She also reads replies from everyone sending their sympathies and well wishes, as well as a reply from people from her church, which convinces me that I would feel like a celebrity if I went. My brother arrives (finally) and speaks in the voice he talks to our grandma in. My brother arriving is like another stab to my denial – he doesn’t become visibly worried often (if at all) and seeing him like this might be the thing that moves me to tears. When my brother takes my mum home for some much-needed rest and it’s just me and dad, I listen to the voice note my brother left at midnight when I was about to have surgery, and it takes everything in me not to burst into tears. Hello Lucy, you’re in surgery at the moment, just leaving a voice message to say that I love you very much and I’ve been thinking about you all night. Um ..., I hope it’s all going okay. Um ..., and I’m going to come back to Bristol to say hello and I hope that you recover all right in the hospital. And I’m excited to see your interesting haircut. So, I love you very much and I hope it’s all going well and you feel lots lots better very shortly. It is accompanied by the postscript: You’re very very very brave xxx *** Two days later I walk down the same corridor I travelled on the way to my operation. When they were wheeling me down, I had a wave of anxiety that they were going to take me to the MRI machine. The MRI was the scariest thing I went through that whole day – it should’ve been the surgery, but I had my parents with me then. When I went for the MRI it was just me. No smiley nurses telling me everything would be fine, no admin person talking about her time in Southmead, no one quipping jokes. It was just me and my thoughts. My mind raced beyond relief and I was completely

Between Four Junctions and utterly terrified. When I went into the machine I couldn’t stop shaking. The room was cold anyway, but I was shivering so bad they had to tell me to keep still. I have been anxious a lot today. A couple of the nurses aren’t as nice as the other ones, and I miss having familiar faces. I miss Arnie. I haven’t cried yet, even though staring at Polaroids of her makes me emotional. I really miss her. Salma and Jaz visited today. They gave me a card and some rainbow cookies (“Because you’re gay” we all said at the same time). I have accepted I will be here for longer than I want, but I miss being at home – being able to cook and walk around like normal, for people to not pierce me with needles and tell me I’m lucky I’m in hospital. They don’t tell me the alternative. *** One week post surgery and it’s Mum’s birthday. And I have switched to oral antibiotics. All things considered, today has been pretty great. I never wanted to get up hope about my recovery. I knew it would mostly go well and it has. But I didn’t want to get all my hopes up just for it to be brought down again, especially after last week. I’m cautiously optimistic now; things are going well – I’m doing well. It’s officially been a week since my surgeries. I can’t believe I’ve spent that much time here. I’m just now realising how lucky I got. I got so lucky. I got lucky with the GP, with my doctors, with the surgeons, with the anaesthetists, with the ward, with the hospital, with my parents, and my brother and my friends and the school. I got so fucking lucky. I had a feeling, going into surgery that I didn’t need to feel worried. I was right. So I think I have an answer to who I should’ve prayed to a week ago – no one. I should’ve listened to my gut, the one entity who spoke to me, telling me it was going to be alright. I should’ve placed all my faith in the healthcare workers, in my family, in my friends. *** Ten days after the operation and I find myself outside for the first time in ten days, for the first time since November started, since Amshya got home from Sri Lanka, since school started back, since I last cried. I went home today. I went home today, and I hugged my cat fiercely while I wept.

Between Four Junctions

Clemmie Gold The Importance of An Empathetic Transplant I WAS VERY CLOSE to my mother as a child, having spent more time with her than with my father, whose full-time work brought him home at irregular times rather than mum’s solid and dependable half-three. Getting picked up from school, day in, day out, the tides of our lives (my brother’s and mine, that is) were effortlessly kept in their steady, almost soupy movement by her presence. In restrospect, this closeness, this wondrous predictability created a kind of childish arrogance. The comforting (but actually completely specious) feeling that you know this person: like an implant, a given. This – for me at least – created a pen of thoughts and ideas that were securely fenced and gated and tied up with a neat little bow, nestled comfortably in my mind. Rarely until I reached the beginning of my teenage years did I ever doubt this herd of lovely egotistical preconceptions – did a sheep ever break out and form an actual unselfish thought. At this point, my mind would travel to a completely different place, confusing and unfamiliar; otherworldly and fresh. It happens more and more often as I grow and notice my mother as more of a person in her own right. One such empathetic transplant – one of the earliest, in fact – occurred in the dead of night (as many internal revelations do) during an illicit trip out of my room as a sneaky, audacious, and rather greedy seven-year-old. A sevenyear-old who knew where dad had hidden the leftover birthday cake. As I tiptoed my way downstairs, my cold little feet sinking into the warm carpet, I glanced into the large square mirror to see a person-shaped silhouette. I grinned, and a flash of teeth shone back at me. Then … I paused halfway down the stairs. Was that a noise? A burglar, possibly, or just the howling of the wind? Not an intruder of any kind, I concluded, as I in my curiosity crept ever closer towards the sound. Something which proved infinitely scarier. A sob. I had never really seen either of my parents cry up until that point; I’d witnessed onion-chopping-related weeping, the odd bleary eye after a family screening of Up for the billionth time. But never anything like this. Seeing tears pouring down my mother’s face – due to what I would later know to be news of her younger brother’s death – was unsettling, but also awoke an odd sense of indignance. She’s my mother, mine! She’s supposed to tell me everything! The embarrassingly uninformed mental tantrum of a child possessed my movements as I ran over to jump on the sofa, my full weight bouncing onto my poor mother’s feet. There was a brief interlude, a whispering of “Ow! You should be in bed,” then, shocked, I felt myself being gathered up in her arms like bundles of rope and squeezed as the crying continued. She wasn’t going to tell me off. Why? Then a period of thought. I thought about that time I’d stubbed my toe, the way that had felt, then about the way it had felt when I was fighting with Ben, when my brother called me names. I hadn’t really wanted to speak to anyone. It was only then that I realised Katalin Ferenc might too feel that overwhelming sense of pain, that she also – however mighty she might seem – was not unsusceptible to the slow agony you know to be grief.

Between Four Junctions “You know Józsi?” She tried to hide the fact her voice was breaking. “In Gyimes?” I nodded eagerly, as although we had only once been to our mother’s birthplace, the stories of never-ending forests and mountains rendered it a distant wonderland in our minds. “He has been ill lately. He died last night.” I froze. Though ignorant and rather sheltered, I knew what death was. In that moment, I thought about my own name-calling brother. How torn apart I would be if he were gone. I saw inside my mother’s mind, her life, for a brief second. I saw her outside my own existence. I felt her pain, and in doing so underwent a flash of self-awareness. An empathetic transplant. As the years fly by and children gain more of an awareness of the people around them, parents tend to be less careful regarding their words, more honest with their offspring. My mother was no exception. In this way, we slowly began to realise how incredible (sad, but incredible nonetheless) the journey of her life had been. The journey we’d always heard about but never really understood. Katalin Ferenc spent her first fourteen years in a small village called Hidegség, on the edge of a very large segment of Romania that had been taken as a sanction from Hungary after the First World War. Thus, most people spoke Hungarian in Transylvania (and still do) particularly in small villages like this one. Throughout our childhood, Mum would tell us how much she loved walking in the forests near her family’s house. We learned of hilarious incidents involving her grandfather and a bear, and the family cow which she still speaks of with fondness. Idyllic as the surroundings were, this part of her life was lived in hard conditions. Although when my brother and I were younger the tales of her childhood mostly consisted of beautiful, never-ending forests and taking her family’s cow through them each day, we knew in the back of our minds of our deceased grandparents’ poverty. Katalin was not expected to pass the relevant examinations at fourteen to move on to secondary school. However, owing to her own conscientiousness as well as the kindness of a certain teacher who recognised her aptitude and shoved a bunch of Romanian textbooks her way the night before the exam, Mum found herself studying to become an English and Religious studies teacher in Eger, Hungary – years that she described to be the best of her life. This was where she met her two lifelong friends, where they spent hours in the coolness of the Magyar evening, fooling around in the Dobó Square. The place where, eventually, she married my London-born father, after meeting at a Christian Conference Centre where they both worked for the summer. A place I know she misses immensely, where we fly every summer. For us – my father, brother and I – our time in Eger is a holiday, where we meet with family friends, enjoy the sun, and practise our (grammatically dodgy) Hungarian. For mum, it’s much more. She’s coming home after eleven months. It was the most recent of these summers when my brother and I experienced a tsunami of empathetic transplants, as well as emotionally conflicting moments when we realised just how good we had it. One of these is still shocking to me. I’m not sure how the conversation even started. We had just entered Carriage 434 on a sleeper train, embarking on a journey from Budapest to Csikszereda, and were pouncing ravenously on sandwiches made the night before. Though my arms were weary from bag straps, I felt the faint buzz of excitement one inevitably feels when travelling somewhere new, however exhausted. As we ate, my mum told Ben the wonderful stories we’d heard before of the place she grew up:

Between Four Junctions our destination. The familiar tales washed over me whilst (I’m frankly ashamed to say) I scrolled through Instagram. Until, that is, I heard something along the lines of, “Yes, I did get lost a few times (in the woods) and it really did scare me when the man I was with died.” “I’m sorry, died?” I turned to face Ben, whose face also registered shock. “What happened? When?” “Well,” Mum continued casually. “My old neighbour and I were up the mountain chasing his pig, and he fell down dead. I was terrified because I didn’t know where I was. I found a group of people after a while and they showed me the way back down to the village, but when I told them the man died up there, no one believed me.” “No one believed you?” Ben asked incredulously. “Nope. Not until the wife said that he hadn’t come home.” I was taken aback. “Woah. That’s insane! How come we didn’t already know about it? How old were you?” Even as a much more grown-up child, the subtle arrogance and need to know everything about one’s parents shone through. “Small.” She shrugged and continued to eat. That night in itself was like one monumental empathetic transplant, as was the rest of the visit to Gyimes. Suddenly, I couldn’t just see but really feel the contrast between her childhood and mine. Where I worry about tests and meaningless social drama, Mum worried about food. Where I watched YouTube on the sofa with my dog after finishing homework, young Katalin trekked up the mountain to gather hay for the animals for winter, or to collect and carry firewood home, or to bring the cow down. I will most likely continue to learn in the same place at sixteen; she moved to a different country entirely, all on her own. My mother was (and is) amazing and perseverant and courageous, and the shock of the Empathetic Transplant – the realisation of the individual lives parents live before giving them to their children – is but a small price to pay to truly recognise this about her. It is a sensation crucial for everyone.

Between Four Junctions

George Leverton Boggel IN 2004, looking to increase awareness for the destruction of beech forests in central Germany, the Nationalpark Kellerwald-Edersee created the Boggel, a pot-bellied, long-nosed creature with no arms and elephant ears. The Boggel is half plant (hence his green skin), and half animal, and is therefore an expression of the biodiversity of Germany’s forests. As a seven-year-old who had not yet travelled to Germany, I was not aware of the significance behind the teddy my step-grandmother had bought me. She often surprised me and my little brother with stuffed animals on the rare occasions we would see her (I once burst into tears at Chinley railway station when she handed my brother a lion, and me a monkey); yet, more so than any other stuffed toys I had at home, my younger self formed an inextricable bond with Boggel. My Boggel is fairly well travelled, having accompanied me on a number of family holidays, and was even sat on my desk during my Year Six SATS. For me, Boggel also represented an alien world, perhaps emphasised by his bizarre appearance. My few insights into German culture consisted of the outrageously anglocentric History lessons on the World Wars I was exposed to during primary school (the curriculum depicted the Germans as a homogeneous race of Aryan anti-semites); a small piece of card, adorned with an image of a Boggel exploring the dark shrubbery of a beech forest; and my mother’s accounts of her trips to the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) with my grandfather. While my maternal Grandfather, a German teacher like his second wife, had had a great deal to do with Boggel’s country of origin, he died not long after I was born, and I was left with a paternal Grandfather who, in 2016, voted in favour of Brexit because he didn’t want “the Germans to bomb us again”. My overall understanding of Germany was therefore very primitive. At twelve, I chose to pick up German in school. I had already enjoyed French, but I struggled in German, with its complex linguistic structures and the long, polysyndetic sentences that make Kafka so readable greatly confusing me. If it weren’t for my polyglot parents forcing me to take German as a GCSE I doubt I would’ve stuck at it, but as I grew more familiar with the language, and after incessant encouragement from a particularly enthusiastic native teacher, I came to appreciate the puzzle-like nature to its sentence composition, and the elegancy of its multi-clause sentences. Some years later a friend and I, both preparing to continue our studies of German in the Sixth Form, organised a trip to Berlin. Berlin itself is quite a unique city; once a cesspit of powerful Prussian Junkers, its modern history has left it distinctly diverse and vibrant. Politically polarised for fifty years, (and physically divided for thirty of these by the “Wall of Shame”), its two halves underwent a large portion of their growth independent of each other. Berlin’s western half, boasting the Siegessäule and Reichstagsgebäude, was an isolated symbol of resistance east of the Iron Curtain,

Between Four Junctions and relished its opportunity to boast its capitalist affluence. West Berlin appeared brighter in both nighttime satellite photos, but also on ground level; the revered David Bowie, in the midst of a debilitating cocaine addiction, moved to the Southern district of Schönenberg in late 1976 with Iggy Pop. Bowie’s Berlin trilogy of albums, consisting of Low, Heroes, and Lodger, was produced just meters from the wall at Hansa Tonstudio. Bowie described Heroes (and his other Hansa-Studios albums) as his DNA, presumably therefore implicating Berlin in his genetic code. The GLS (German Language School) villa in which I was lodging was just two kilometres from Bowie’s Schönenberg residence, in the Southwestern locality of Wilmersdorf. The villa was within a hundred meters of a kebab shop, multiple foreign embassies, a beer garden, and a mosque, which I think encapsulates the nature of Berlin: a city which is paradoxically nine times the size of Paris, yet is inconceivably dense and diverse, and without any evidence of efforts to arrange itself. In the mornings I would have to sit through three hours of language lessons, but in the afternoons I was given complete freedom to explore the unfathomable agglomeration of concrete, clubs, and kebabs. My friend and I quickly made friends with seven of the other boys on the campus, hailing from six different countries across two continents, and when allowed free time we would often travel travel to the nearest “Späti” to grab a few beers (one of the great attractions of Berlin as a sixteen-year-old was that I was of legal drinking age). Alternatively, we might hop on the U-Bahn to the hypnotically capitalist Kurfürstendamm, Berlin’s main shopping street. The Wittenbergplatz station, situated at one end of the Ku’damm, opens up onto the Kaufhaus des Westens (also known as the KaDeWe), where we would gawp at designer watches, and try on extortionately priced coats and perfumes. The KaDeWe is certainly a monument to capitalist affluence, which appears to be reinforced even by its name, translating to “Department Store of the West” (although its origins are actually from before the First World War). In Bowie’s eponymous track “Heroes” he describes two lovers divided by the Iron Curtain, evoked by imagery of them kissing by/through the Wall while guns shoot above their heads. “Heroes” was a courageous cult song for Berliners (and a favourite of my father’s), and ultimately became synonymous with the divided city. Bowie lived in a time where the East was labelled underdeveloped, overpoliced, and deprived of basic human needs, and although I was visiting Berlin more than thirty years after the Wall fell, I was certainly expecting many of the Wall’s resonances to still be discernible. My only experience of East Berlin had come through “nachwende” films Das Leben der Anderen and Good Bye Lenin!, as well as Anna Funder’s Stasiland (which I was reading at the time), all of which (despite the comedic Good Bye Lenin) framed communist Germany in a fairly unfavourable manner. Aside from lessons, the language school would offer us optional excursions in the afternoons, and while my friends and I usually opted to explore the city ourselves, we chose to forgo our freedom in favour of a trip to a pool bar in the former DDR. Those who have recently visited East Berlin will know that this shattered my preconceptions; while the West’s high rise department stores created a façade of vibrancy, I found there to be far much more going on in the East. Later that week the school organised another excursion to the East, to a sixteen-plus nightclub (which, in true Berlin fashion, was the only compulsory trip), which further reinforced my impressions of its dynamic and nonconformist

Between Four Junctions activity. In fact, thanks to its rapid “nachwende” urban regeneration, to me it seemed that East Berlin is now far more appropriate for a Bowie-esque inspiration than the formerly rich and boastful West. Upon my return from the language school in Berlin I was greeted by my Boggel, nestled in a corner of my bedroom. From this same niche he has observed me devote serious effort to the grasping of grammatical concepts in German, begin to familiarise myself with Germanic literature, and submit my application to continue my studies of German at university. It was reassuring to have him greet me after my fairly recent return to his native country’s capital.

Between Four Junctions

Zayn Aullybocus Dinosaurs LIKE MANY CHILDREN my age, I was always fascinated by dinosaurs. During my early childhood I was an avid reader which eventually lead me to a thin, vibrantly coloured book about the early fauna of the Mesozoic period. I was immediately enthralled as I ran my fingers across the coarse, grainy pages and brushed the smooth glossy scales, but my real interest began much later when I had more of a grasp on the natural world. There was something incredibly mesmerising about dinosaurs, which drove me forward as I consumed more and more chunks of literature on my quest to learn everything I could about these colossal creatures. The jagged teeth and thick, muscly tails never intimidated me, and I even owned a stegosaurus plush named ‘Steggy’. I remember running my finger along the soft plates on its back and the smell of lavender from the spikes on its tail. One of the main reasons I found myself admiring these creatures was the fact that nobody truly knew what they were capable of. All we could do was study the remnants of a fallen species and, even then, it was still only guesswork. For example, did you know that fur and hair rarely preserve themselves in fossils? Dinosaurs could look, sound and behave completely differently than initially conceded. The abundance of unknown variables perplexed and excited me simultaneously, fuelling my already wild imagination. A fond pastime of mine was surrounding myself in nature. Sitting in the garden on a hot, summer day, I used to ponder what it would be like to survive in the grim relentless world of two-hundred million years ago. I would immerse myself in the atmosphere, whether it be the warmth of the sun, the cool breeze, the air thinning while soaring through the air like a pterodactyl, or the water’s surface rippling overhead while riding an ocean current; there was no limit to my imagination. Although seeing one in person was impossible, deep down, some part of me hoped someday these beasts would walk the earth. No drawing or skeletal replica could ever recreate their thunderous roar, the sound of their claws scraping deep into the earth or their iridescent, commanding eyes. Even the modern-day relatives of the prehistoric reptiles were not nearly as impressive as their ancestors (who are now mostly sedimented bones). The scarcity of Jurassic artefacts I could physically touch meant I also failed to keep in touch with my childish, inquisitive side. As I grew up, I came to terms with the absence of dinosaurs in daily life; while I still appreciate the interest I once had for them, the feeling of raw, primal power they emanated is no longer there.

Lizzie GarRy Sumedha Das Chowdhury Maya Persad Robin Purser-Hallard Serafina Comer Zach Curtis Sienna Haralambos Alison Denny Sylvie gray stone Chloe Hilliard India Barton Jooles Whitehead Amélie Chalk Georgia Longsdale cLEMMIE gOLD Evie Owen Zayn Aullybocus Nat Townsend LUcy CrawFord Josh Millard George LeVerton Rhiannon Green Katia Atkins Miranda box Lara Smith Sofia Aullybocus Adi Tayade Madeleine Morrow