Venue Contrast 347

Contrast

Editors Tom Bedford Mireia Molina Costa Kate Romain Saoirse Smith-Hogan

Contrast Welcome to Venueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2018 Arts and Creative Writing supplement: Contrast. Contrast can be found everywhere in the world, from the art we create, to the things we see on the news, to the way we live our lives. It exists in colours, textures, emotions, experiences, and encounters. This supplement brings together all forms of fine art and creative writing (poetry, painting, photography, prose, creative non-fiction, and sculpture) in order to explore this diverse and exciting theme. We have included work from UEA students of all ages and disciplines, and are extremely excited to showcase their artistic talents.

Contributors Megan Furr Ella Dorman-Gajic Peter Goulding Liam Heitman-Rice Judith Howe Jordan Hunnisett Emily Jacks

Sophie Langridge C. E. Matthews Jess Morgan Kate Romain Joel Shelley Annie Tomkins Molly Welsh

We will be holding an open mic night at Olives Restaurant in Norwich city centre to run alongside the supplement. If you have any work that fits with the broad theme of contrast and would be willing to share it, please email concrete. creativewriting@uea.ac.uk. This is an event open to everyone and we would love you to come along and support it. The event is free entry (and of course, there will be a bar!) We hope to see you there, and in the meantime, enjoy getting lost in the world of Contrast.

Photograph by Annie Tomkins

Contents Front cover by

10 ‘Ard

Peter Goulding

C. E. Matthews

Back to Black

Tom Cascarini

Artwork by C. E. Matthews

Poets’ Day

Jess Morgan

Photographs by Annie Tomkins

Lungs

Molly Welsh Painting by Megan Furr

12 Scoop

Ella Dorman-Gajic

Three Contributors

Joel Shelley

Caffeine and Cocoa

Liam Heitman-Rice

Photograph by Jordan Hunnisett

13 Squeeze

Emily Jacks Photographs by Annie Tomkins

One’s Perspective

14 The Pack

Photograph by

15 Segments

Sophie Langridge

Liam Heitman-Rice

Jordan Hunnisett

Judith Howe Photographs by Annie Tomkins

Photograph by Kate Romain

Back to Black TomCascarini

The car ride to the coach depot was a dark one. Michael couldn’t believe he left his art portfolio on the bus. Cocteau Twins played in the background, the sweeping glissandos and airy guitar noises seeming as if they weren’t from an electric guitar, but sampled from the winds of Victoria Land itself. They made the stars in the night sky seem closer to the car, and Michael felt as if he was in an astronaut suit. He wondered what future Michael would think of him now; if he would remember this feeling of joy which only came from being somewhere that wasn’t reality, lost in the otherworldly magic of this new song he had discovered. Michael looked out the car window, and saw in his mind’s eye Charlotte Swatton, sitting down the corridor from him with her back arched over, wearing a knitted white top two sizes too small for her, which she told Michael that she bought by accident. She got it online and didn’t expect it to be so small. Or for it to be a crop top. So she wore a vest underneath. But today she must have forgotten, since Michael could see a cake slice of skin peeking over the back of her jeans, the bottom of her spine protruding against her pale skin, revealing a single mole. He hated how his mind made him see her like this. But it still aroused him. He wanted to envelop her (with her permission of course); he wanted to see her not as an object, but as a human being with a complex body, and a complicated mind, and an intricate personality affected by her memories and experience. He hated not knowing what to say when he sat next to Charlotte. His mind kept screaming at him to tell her he loved her, but the timing never seemed right. There was always the wall of spikes between his brain and mouth preventing him from saying those words. The words he did say, he rebuked himself for saying, as it was always small talk, and he thought she was worth more than the weather. No wonder Charlotte’s replies were so short. No one was going to add kindling to a conversation with such a weak starter.

*** He couldn’t believe there was a time he didn’t know this Mortal Coil existed. But he never forgot the moment he first heard “Lazy Calm.” To this day, it gave Michael the good kind of shivers.

Charlotte still came into his head. And it was always when he was alone. Or when he went back home from uni. It came as a blessing to him that he found himself thinking of her less as the distance between them grew. But he would not wish for one second that the feeling of infatuation his seventeen-year-old self experienced never happened. Far from it, he revelled in watching it happen to the seventeen year old waitresses he worked with. There was one who came to visit him in the kitchen often, where he worked as the kitchen porter over the holidays. She kept scraping the food off the plates until they were spotless, and often stayed afterwards to talk to him. She kept apologising for things she thought she said wrong, though it was never a big deal, so he often dismissed it, saying, “Don’t worry about it,” thinking, “Oh my god she is so sensitive, I love it!” It reminded him of his low self esteem and the way he put a microscope over every word he said, which he thought was part of being a seventeen-year-old in love. Love to him now was talking to somebody easily, maybe hesitating a few times to begin with, then after fifteen to thirty minutes, you find that without knowing, you’re facing each other not just head on, but shoulders on, your bodies looking at each other as if every atom in you cannot break eye contact with the other person’s molecular structure. You want to make oxygen; you forget you’re breathing when you’re with her, until you find you’re suffocating when she’s gone. Conversation happens so easily; there’s no need to force words out. Just a friendly conversation, perhaps with some awkward chuckles, and a realisation or two that what you said was a blatant innuendo. He thought all this as he drove to the art gallery. He looked up at the night sky, and turned up the volume on “Lazy Calm.”

Artwork by C.E.Matthews

Poets’ Day JessMorgan

P P

oets’ Day. It’s a nice way to say: today’s the day, we’re getting paid.

oets’ Day 25th October 2014. I remember the date because we’d just got the floor done: carpets up, laminate down. I’d always wanted a wood-look floor. In my imagination, my perfect room was just that way; medium dark wood under foot - something like mahogany; a Persian rug patterned with red and the colours of wine, and on top of those, loops upon loops of black rubber cables. I thought of the recording studios of those introverted geniuses, the ones in all the black and white photographs I’ve collected my whole life. High contrast, with really black black. When I think about Keith Richards, in that big house in France hunched over the piano, with Gram Parsons writing Wild Horses - I imagine this holy trinity of grain, hatches and swirls.

nusually for a terraced house, we had high ceilings and between those and the new hard floor it created a kind of a sound tunnel along the length of the hallway. It seemed to amplify the sounds of keys scraping through the lock or a cough on the doorstep outside. The squeak of the letter-box flap pulled backward on its hinges and the ruffle of something papery being pushed through against swishing brushes could be heard clearly from upstairs. In the gloomy middle hours of the day, those high frequencies had real cut.

heard the unmistakable song of a C6 envelope drop and slide down the inside of the front door and fall onto its short edge, before flattening itself softly on the doormat. There was a postscript, as its thin plastic window rippled a little with the impact, and finally settled itself.

had been left alone in the house - maybe for days. Sometimes it puts me in a silly mood. I came running down the stairs at the sound of the post dropping, the sparkle of gently contorting paper. I was clenching my fists. I squeezed my eyes until they were almost closed, taking each step of the stairs with a variation on muscle memory - shouting out loud - “be a cheque, be a cheque, be a cheque, BE A CHEQUE!” I knew it would almost certainly be a bill, or a parking ticket or a request to purchase a television license…

nce I was sent a letter that had been typed with a manual typewriter. Each letter was punched with different saturation levels of black and made a pattern complicit in the secret life of the ribbon, to resolute fingers, and the dusty rooms in which the owner sat down to write. Small mistakes had been diligently pasted over with sharp white Tipp-Ex even though the letter had been typed on blue note-paper. It had been dressed in an envelope that matched and sent to me on the morning of my twenty-seventh birthday. The first and only love-letter ever sent to me is still upstairs in a box that my grandfather made; from mahogany.

t the end of the hall, I tear open the paper with my thumb leaving the top edges ragged in its wake. Inside is a small piece of paper with numbers hastily written in black biro. The fives wear hats while the ones are undecorated. I have a draw full of them. I don’t really understand the numbers. That’s the sideshow anyway. The sister enclosure is the shimmery ivory, uncreased at 95 gsm, prick-your-fingers-with-the-corners, robust and sexy in equal measure, paper - of a royalty cheque.

he next day I wished for Tipp-ex and Blue paper.

Caffiene and Cocoa LiamHeitman-Rice “What would you like?” Daniel asked. Will grinned. “Can I push my luck and ask for one of those deluxe hot chocolates?” “You won’t have any teeth left by the end of it, but sure.” Daniel ordered the drink, with an Americano for himself. “I can chip in for that if you like.” “No, I’ve got these.” “Sweet, free shit!” Daniel laughed and slapped Will’s shoulder, quickly squeezing it. The muscles were warm and gymhardened. Only the outline of Will’s biceps was visible beneath his jacket, but Daniel’s memory of him in a t-shirt informed the true majesty of his physique. It was often stifling in the office, its lack of airflow demanding a loose dress code. When handling health insurance claims five days a week, Daniel accepted these displays of skin as welcome invitations to fantasise. Their drinks were ready. Will bolted to the counter and returned with a hot chocolate buried under a mound of cream and marshmallows, coated in chocolate powder. “Oh my God, this is going to kill me. Where do you wanna sit?” Daniel pointed to a small table in the corner of the café, beneath a large window looking out across the river. There was enough sunlight to illuminate conversation, and few other tables to invade privacy. Daniel took his own, very black, Americano. “After you,” he said, watching Will’s buttocks rise and tighten with every step. “You think we might get in trouble for this?” Will asked as they sat down. “What do you mean?” “Like, workplace relationships. Dunno if that’s allowed?” “We’re not going to be reported for it, no. This isn’t Nineteen Eighty-Four. The worst we’ll get is office gossip.” Will sucked a scoop of cream off his teaspoon. “We could give them something to talk about, I suppose.” “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Daniel said. “Frigid, are you?” “Far from it, young fella.” He coughed and thumped his chest with the side of his fist. “But when you’re old and sensible like me, you’ll learn to keep it in

your pants.” “Oh, and of course that’s why you invited me out, like, barely two weeks into working with you, to teach me patience and chastity. And I’ll bet you chose this place specifically because you knew it had this little secluded corner, so I’d be all yours.” Daniel held out his hands and nodded. “This isn’t your first rodeo, is it?” “Ha, nooooo. You learn a lot about this kind of stuff by the time you’re twenty-two.” “Yet you think you could expand your mind by hanging out with an old fart like me?” “You keep going on about your age.” Will frowned and leant forward. “Like, chill out, I don’t care.” Will looked up at Daniel’s face. His lips were thin, bracketed by dimples that stood between his nostrils and his chin. Fine, sand-coloured hair swept over the top of his ears and fell just above his shirt collar. His eyes were dark blue and lined with crow’s feet that extended to his temples when he smiled, which was very often. His skin broke into a cobweb of small lines when he spoke. Nothing in his face appeared coloured, filled, or adjusted. This apparent abstention from vanity set Daniel apart from the boys Will’s own age, and made him far more attractive than any of them. “Whenever I go out with someone older than me,” Will said, “they always bring up the age gap. They seem amazed that I’d want to be seen with them.” “Well, I have to admit I was quite surprised when you took me up on my offer for a drink. I imagine there are plenty of others in the office who’d like to be sitting here now.” “Yeah, I had wondered why everyone was being so especially polite to me when I started. It’s just they’re all a bit…” Will clamped his teeth together and rolled back his lips, “Bland. Just because you sell insurance doesn’t mean you need to have the entertainment value of dry glue. But you,” he pointed with his teaspoon, “You were the one with that silly pink tie, and you held on for just a touch too long when we shook hands. Subtle, you are not.” “I never held much of a premium on subtlety.” “Good.” He slapped his hands on his thighs and declared, “Then you can expect to see me again, Danny.”

Photograph by Jordan Hunnisett

One’s

Perspective

Leila

Sophie Langridge

He seems so different. Almost peculiar. Yet, for some reason my eyes continue to flicker into his direction. He’s branded as the “odd one” from the upper sixth, but really, he appears to be quite sane. Delicately he weaves his hands from his coffee to his pen; he is writing rather a lot. Nobody ever talks to him. I guess that’s because he speaks Portuguese. Danny and Maddy pass him without even registering his existence. It’s like his body becomes part of the common-room, molded into the background. He never shows that he cares, not that anybody would be looking anyway. But I am. As he looks down at his notebook, his crisp brown hair covers his tanned olive skin. In a way he was rather handsome. Not in a stereotypical way, though. He seemed to juxtapose against the rest of the room; there was nobody quite like him. I hug Katie, my best friend, before getting-up and going to class. “Um, Leila, yes? We do, um, mathematica juntos.” Says the shadow behind me. I turn around to find Bruno pointing at himself and then at me. He was attempting interaction, and there’s me holding a stifling number of notes, a handful of orange peel, and a now very red face to match his jumper. Fumbling to exasperate some sort of communication, I mutter gibberish. I am the one who can speak my own language, why can’t I say something half intelligent. “Hello,” is all I can manage.

Bruno

Why is she staring so oddly? I don’t understand these, what do you call them. Oh yes, veganos, vegans. Do they like meat at all, or is it a strange concept? Does she want to eat me? I don’t understand this girl. She is confusing me a lot. I feel like I am being watched by many hundreds of eyes. Bruno does not like this sort of atenção. So strange. She is beautiful but weirdly attentive with her eyes. Her friend though is something so hot, hotter than the paprika on my sandwich. I wouldn’t mind them both, hmm, yes. I shall write that down on my notes for later. How is she even eating that hummus-dish? I can smell it from here, and it is disgusting. A note suddenly appears, it reads Bruno, leia agora. How offensive of Danny, I can understand “read now,” it doesn’t have to be in Portuguese. Looking down into my lap written is, “Leila would have sexo with you.” Ah, so this is why she is staring so much. She can’t have normal meat so, she shall have mine instead. Perfeito. Leila can have as much as she desires. Vegan and meat-eaters can live side-by-side. I feel so much better about the world already. Time to make my move. “Um, Leila, yes? We do, um, mathematica juntos.” I say, my voice purposefully deep. She turns to face me and goes an extravagant vermelho ketchup colour. Orange peels slowly drop from her hand. I know what I can re-place that veganos food with: my meat! Maybe it was the amount of cabbage that she eats, but her eyes glowed green. “Hello,” she says sweetly. So different, yet so similar to people like me. How refreshing.

Danny

The common-room is as dull as my face without any sparkles. There has to be something interesting to do here. Glancing around the room I try to spot any new cute guys, anything pretty to look at to get me through free period. “Oh my god, Maddy, can you see Leila staring at Bruno? How fabulous.” Maddy flips her hair and giggles like a twelve-year old girl. “I can indeed. Too bad Danny, you thought Bruno was gorgeous as well.” I flash her a scowl. It is so hard to be gay when you’re surrounded by a pond of very, very straight males. Grunting, I tear a page from my biology textbook, and begin to write my magic. “Danny, you’re not actually going to stir like that are you? You know too well that Bruno is a greasy hipster, looking for anything with a pulse that will come near him.” “Yeah, I get that Mads, but it brings me one step to closer to Mr. Mysterious, and Leila gets the attention she oh-so-craves!” My heart begins to race, my head goes dizzy. Passing by I slip Bruno the note. Oh, how we contrast. He seems not to care.

Photograph by Liam Heitman-Rice

PeterGoulding

‘Ard

The more I saw it, the more I saw through it, or maybe behind it. Big Northern blokes, strutting with their elbows out like they had sunburned armpits. Thousand yard stare, no one talks to me like that. Barking their orders for their pints, looking through you, because you were a skinny eighteen year-old barman. Some were frightening but deeply pathetic: one of the doormen from a pub up the street was the biggest twat I’ve ever met: on and on about badger-baiting, winding up the barmaids, fighting with his lass, unfunny, every joke about him throwing his weight around. Kathryn, a barmaid I liked a lot, didn’t handle him well. She couldn’t let his bullshit slide, so he would work himself up into a fury, stamping round saying ‘I am a respectable man!’. I think he thought it meant that people should respect and fear him, rather than the image I got which was of him wearing a top hat. Once I heard him moaning “I wish I was back in Amsterdam. I was happy there.” Others were hard in packs, but you could deal with that, before the tables started flying. If the right music was on, they’d be happy: we had the male half of a whole pit village in once, singing along to Bohemian Like You, they all hooted the woo-hoo bit in unison. It was funny and nice, they all said goodbye when they left, brought their glasses up to the bar. That’s a gesture that counts for a lot. Some became my friends. One would talk about fighting, but it was his mate Paul who was really good at it. He never had to that I ever saw. His fists were likes socks full of ball-bearings, his head was shaved and round like a pool ball: he was good at pool. We’d play it, he’d thrash me, then we’d spend an hour on the quiz machines, where I would earn us money. Paul only answered about sport, or any question about birds. He knew everything about birds, and it took me a long time to notice that. He hated people who weren’t white I won’t use the words, you already know them. It was genuine too. His Dad wasn’t like that, also called Paul, he taught him ‘all men are the same’, but his Grandad, who had served on a battleship in WW2, hated ‘them’. Paul loved his kids, especially his first son Samuel, who he wanted to shelter from the world. Samuel had had to be circumcised when he was a little boy, and Paul was scared, really anxious, that other kids at school would pick on him for being different. He taught him how to fight, by nine the kid was lethal. When I was ever round at his house, he played on his computer games like no one else I had ever seen, a bright young boy. I couldn’t help crying in the pub one night. My dad had just been diagnosed with cancer and was about to start a six-week power-slide into a painful and undignified death. Paul put his arm around me, it was like being hugged by a plank, and stared at anyone who dared to glance over. People were looking anywhere but at me and him, they could smell the threat. He leaned into Photographs by Annie Tomkins me: “Don’t let them see, son. Don’t let them see.”

Lungs

MollyWelsh

Found my body washed upon the shore and panting The love that my soul shared reminded me of swimming And I remembered my child heart singing for the ocean. A wreck upon the ocean floor I remember the water in my lungs. Drowning and gasping breaths, I found that I could breathe again. I would dive even deeper if I could remember how to swim; To take the plunge and realise my reflection from above Is the same as when I am below the waterline, And staring right at you. Transparency surrounds and it deludes the truth that it reveals. Long for the orange Earth that has committed to a light far bigger than me and you. Absorb the bright beams that will aid you and never be alone in an absolute dark. If only I had kept my infant eyes, But had revealed in a dream I dreamt that they were lost, In a field of fake red roses.

Painting by Megan Furr

Scoop EllaDorman-Gajic who scooped me out? who took a spoon from their draw and just started digging. digging at my pure, white, vanilla flesh. now you have only my vessel left.

ThreE CoNtributors JoelShelley

did i taste sweet? cold? sharp? i bet i shocked you. numbed you. sent shivers through your bones. who were you to do this to me. perhaps it made you feel less alone. less volatile. to bury something deep within, then yank it out, it gave you that rush, that kick. like a pill, a high only destined to be sent crashing. and now I knock on doors of new men hoping for them to take me in with the same immediacy; the same lust. it’s thick and i’m stuck in it. wading through it. freezing, frozen, crumbling, waiting.

This place is my domain not theirs, (The giant one’s too I daren’t mistake) So I’ll rid us of those nightmares The verminous wretches that take and take. Pompous and smug, vain thieving thugs They steal, divulge, a gluttonous hoard— I’ll squash them like bugs For robbing my gracious overlord Who will surely love me for this gift!

and once a man houses me, unpicks the thorns in my cotton, melts away the ice on my shoes, warms my face with his palms i will be thinking when will this send daggers through my already exhausted heart.

Photographs by Annie Tomkins

Oh cloudy night reach down your kind hand to us We bless your appearance so forgiving and beautiful You cover those pretty stars those deceiving spies That betray us to that enemy of ours who hunts My brothers and sisters and has killed so very many And grieves me for I forget their names They were the most unremarkable siblings But still it keeps us from our feast From the food laid out so neatly And all I want is to engorge But the monstrous clawed Beast needs our meat I do not wish to—

Good job cat, Another bloody body on the mat.

my already exhausted heart.

There is anger like a drug. urging you to crush, throttle, destroy. The quick blaze stains your guts, twists them. You What would happen if you said no? hate it, that fire flexing within you, lighting veins with It whispers threats. It would consume you, throw purpose, pushing smoke to your tongue. you to its master’s mercy. It would place the hand of You hand wants to grip, to squeeze. Darkness on your back. Your body wants to show the world how much you A hand flutters, breath rattles through your fingers. hate it. The energy churning inside you flashes restless She is so young... warnings of what might happen if you do, what might But so were you once, before the beast curled up happen if you don’t. inside you, before it made a bed of your thoughts, a Something sits in the depths of your mind. playground of your insides. A low hiss slithers. It is darkness and nothing at all, A merry-go-round creaks in the distance, trees swirl waiting to consume you, singing to you, threading by, whirls of ice and pine. Your skirt was flying with your dreams with black, seething desire. It whispers them as you soared in dizzy circles elated, screaming how easy it would be, how you need that release, that to stop, to go faster. The memory trembles in the rush, that feeling when you just. Let. wind. Little red ladybugs on buckleGo. up shoes. You were so young... ze It feeds tinder to your hatred, S Phantom claws sully the back of your stroking flames with a gilded claw, neck with soot. coaxing them into something harder. Keep going, it sighs. The feeling is not a good one, but it You squeeze her neck harder. She has is one you cannot live without. eyes like a rabbit. Green stained with A face floats before you. silver. They hold a reflection, a face; Perhaps it has wronged you, taken gaunt hollows where there should something from you. Perhaps it is be chubby cheeks. Dark pits have better than you, and you can’t stand replaced sunny eyes, they look like it. wishing wells, pillaged of coins. Red Eyes glint. Too bright, too mocking, mars the image as her blood vessels too alive. A pulse fills your ears, it is pop. She sucks a final breath into not your own. Hollow screams echo moribund lungs. She understands in the wings of a stage. Irrelevant, now; there is nothing she can do. futile. Pleas shrink to rasps. Sweat kisses her Heartbeats waft toward you; tangible skin with beads of pearl. EmilyJacks bursts that pop on your tongue, The beat shivers beneath your filling your mouth with the taste of midnight. They fingers. It stops. She is still warm. You withdraw. The look like crows. Black feathers brush your skin, you bruised print left by your hold glows blue against smile. ivory skin, already tinged grey by Death. The shape There is something in your hand. is small, quiet. There is no threat in the sight of your You watch it, wriggling beneath your grip. Your hands. You look down, the claws are gone; replaced fingertips are black stains against snow, filing down to with the stubby fingers of a child. bitter talons tipped with frenzy. They remind you of You were so young when it took you. the crows. Your hold tightens. Smoke drifts at your shoulder, tugs at your pigtail. The prey is soft, pale white in the red fury of your Good girl, the demon tells you. vision. Something thuds within it, a fragile beat just You look at your feet instead of the body, little red below the surface, stifled by the thin membrane of its ladybirds glint in the moonlight. prison. There is an emptiness now, darker than your master. Perhaps you should slice it open and set it free... Absence seeps into every pore, every thought. It sits Shudders ripple. A whimpering plea seeps through. on your hopes, crushing them, feeding wishes to the A throat convulses against the claws, supple flesh hounds. It makes you greedy for the kill, for just a presses into your grip. You feel it, but you feel moment without it. nothing for it. You feel nothing at all - just that You don’t feel the anger anymore. consuming force, curling through the moment, But you crave it all the same.

QueE

JordanHunnisett

The Pack

‘—Südi!’ He hits the breaks and we’re thrown forward in our seats – I fling my hands onto the dash, saving myself, but I hear Silvija screech in the back as she slams against Juris’ chair. The dog slips from his perch on her lap, yelping as he topples to the floor. The headlights blink, the breaks tick, tick, as we stop on the forest path. Juris’ shoulders slump and falls back in his chair, his hands gripping the wheel, gnawed nails digging into black leather. The colour has drained from his face; his cheekbones, long, protuberant, seem like they stick out even further without red to flush them. I follow his gaze out the windshield, expecting something to be on the track, but there’s nothing to be seen but old tyre marks imprinted in the dirt and fallen, cracked brown leaves strewn over them. Glancing back to Juris, I reach out to comfort him, but he flinches away. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?” He doesn’t reply. Instead, he opens his door, swings his muddy boots outside and jumps into the night. He slams the door behind him, rocking the whole car. Silvija sits up, recomposing herself. She flicks her golden hair back behind her ears, revealing the face like that of leering fox. ‘Christ, that hurt. What’s he tryna’ do – kill us?’ She rubs her arm up and down soothingly, then picks up the dog, holds him in her lap. As he whines at us, Silvija and I share a confused look. We try listen out for Juris, but the dog’s whimpering is deafening. I open my mouth to speak, but then something changes in Silvija’s pose. She seems to seize up, her face dropping. Before I can say anything she’s snatched her hunting rifle from beside her and, like Juris, leapt out the car, the dog going with her. As the door closes a chill falls over me, as if I’ve been plunged in an ice bath. Juris must’ve seen it. I open the door, bitten instantly by a cruel wind. Zipping up my jacket, I close the door, and fumble in my pockets for a torch. It takes me a while to find it and, when I have, takes me even longer to switch it on. My hands won’t stop shaking. My breathing is just as erratic, the pale air from my lungs clouding my face in short, infrequent bursts. I see Silvija ahead of me, storming off the track and into the darkness. The dog is at her heels. Swallowing hard, I follow. Silvija’s calling for Juris, her rifle poised to shoot. Her voice trembles. She takes uneasy steps through the undergrowth. I approach quickly, moving round the car and through its noxious exhaust fumes, holding the torch to light our path. She glances at me briefly, her eyes flashing bronze in the light. Snap! The torch almost slips from my fingers as, somewhere ahead of us, something breaks. The sound is a knife in the chest. Silvija lifts the gun and the dog’s lips pull back, revealing his growling, frothing jaws. “W—who’s there?’ I call out. ‘Come out. I promise, w—we won’t hurt you.”

Silvija looks over to me, nods towards the trees. “C’mon.”

She starts creeping forwards – I wince, reluctantly joining her. Whilst the wind whistles through the branches above us, and the full moon casts silver over the ivy crawling up the trees, we clamber across the forest floor. We find ourselves on a slope, descending into a clearing blessed with white wild flowers, a sweet, vanilla-like aroma filling our noses. There’s a tugging sensation on my bones, drawing me towards the centre – Silvija must feel it too, and the dog, who now calmly trots through the dirt, unconcerned. I look to the middle, and see Juris standing in a pool of scarlet blood. He turns towards us as we enter the clearing, wiping his dagger on his thigh. He stands as if wires pull him up by his limbs. His expression is perfectly blank. Between his feet lies a body, shifting to another form as it dies. It’s maw turns to a pair of pouted lips. It’s paws turn to soft hands, small feet, claws to delicate fingernails. Its scruffy hair thins out, sinks to the scalp, becomes silky, until it’s a wave of brunette curls. Silvija lowers the gun, mesmerised. I similarly can’t tear my eyes away, as the corpse of the beast shifts from wolf, to girl.

Segments JudithHowe The mirror refracts The eyes’ limitations exposed, You can’t take in the whole image: Forced to focus on elements, Gaze distorted, Everything abstracted. Trying to piece the fragments together is futile. He sees the whole, it is difficult to comprehend how the segments can be beautiful. Revel in the alteration Reframe as a Picasso, call yourself Cubist There is beauty in the difference between the parts and the sum: In the fractured.

Photographs by Annie Tomkins