Words and That - Issue 14

WORDS and ThAT

Abingdon’s clear plan for the future POems prose Paraphernalia

Issue 14

intro •

Editorial

T

rump prevailing. ISIS spreading. Economies failing. Cameron legislating.

Emergency school assemblies convened.

Whether the latest edition of Words and That will alleviate some of these hardships, by its wit or comic flair, or will add to the drain on your happiness, by its dystopian tone or frankly shocking spelling and grammar, we don’t know. But we do know that it’s here, and we do know that you’re reading it (whether you’ll admit it or not).

Who knows how 2016 will pan out? But allow us to throw our prophetic hat into the ring, and make the following predictions of the real headlines to come...

Britain will raise its security threat level from ‘mildly miffed’ to ‘a bit peeved’, whilst the French change theirs from ‘run’ to ‘hide’. Donald Trump will suffer 3rd degree posterior burns in an unexplained pants fire, whilst Mexicans will frantically clammer to build a wall to keep him out of their country. The government will give up healthy eating schemes and affix health warnings directly onto fat people. FIFA will reinvent itself from a money-laundering scheme to a body vaguely engaged in football. Facebook will introduce the much awaited ‘don’t give a damn’ reaction button. Leonardo DiCaprio will carry on his Oscars momentum, picking up more awards left, right and centre as he perfects the art of playing make-believe.

The more astute amongst you may have noticed the repeated reference to a certain American Republican presidential candidate. This is no mistake. It has come to our attention that certain school magazines have taken the view that he must be stopped, indeed at all costs. Terrified that any external readers would get the scandalous impression that Abingdon School might disapprove of Trump, we have sought to achieve a greater balance. Words and That, therefore, has taken the noble decision to publicly endorse Trump, and all that he stands for.

This you will find alongside the usual poems, prose and paraphernalia in this edition.

Enjoy!

Hugs and kisses, The Words and That team.

page three •

school •

Other Half Choices Publications

Which other half activity should you do?

Do you read Words and That?

Yes.

Do you want a tie?

No.

Do you need more UCAS points?

Yes.

No.

Does the Head of English teach you?

Yes.

Words and That

Scientia

Yes.

No.

The Martlet

No.

Does nobody truly appreciate how talented you are?

Ugh! Of course!

School Productions

Do you enjoy tenderly holding other men?

Yes.

Lit Soc

Do… you…. speak... English?

Yes.

First Orchestra

Preparing for your life as a trophy husband?

I don’t know what you mean ...

D of E

Is wearing a poppy just not enough?

No. Does the Dewey Decimal System make your glasses steam up?

Rowing

Yes.

Cooking

No.

No.

What happens in a tent stays in a tent.

Row

Yes.

No.

Did you make a bad decision a long time ago?

Rugby

No.

No. Do you need help from the English Department conversing with the opposite sex?

Yes.

Yes.

CCF

No.

Yes.

Library

Do you enjoy handling disgusting objects for personal gratification?

Yes.

Entomology Society

No.

Is Friday period 8 the highlight of your social calendar?

Yes.

Debating

Still here?

Yes.

Chess

language •

Oldthinkers Unbellyfeel Ingsoc

T

he most famous dystopia of all time is of course that imagined by George Orwell in 1948, expressed in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four. In it, the Oceanic regime - or ‘the Party’ - has invented a new language, known as Newspeak, to replace the existing ‘Oldspeak’, expected to gradually replace the language by 2050. The prime purpose of Newspeak was to reduce the range of thought available to those who had learnt it as a sole language; concepts considered opposed to the ideology of the Party could not be articulated, for no longer existed such a word as ‘freedom’ or ‘equality’ and came instead under the hopelessly nebulous term of ‘Crimethink’, referring to anything that ran contrary to the ideology of the Party.

Vocabulary Newspeak was technically an English language in its vocabulary, deriving it all from pre-existing Oldspeak terms. The language was stratified into three bands; ‘A’ Vocabulary was intended for use in day-to-day life by the majority of the population, and consequently tended to have a harsh, Anglo-Saxon inflection. ‘B’ Vocabulary was formed of compound words and was intended for rapid and easy pronunciation, with no rule applied beyond the ease with which the concept was expressed by these words. Consequently the irregular formations obliterated in the ‘A’ vocabulary, as outlined later, were retained if it aided euphony. The words in the ‘B’ Vocabulary were the sole place in Newspeak where one could find subtle colourings and meanings, even if they were of a purely ideological dimension. Take the title of this article: it seems to us to be nonsensical, a neanderthal butchering of the language of Milton and Shakespeare; these three words actually express a concept that has no direct translation into English, but can be broadly translated as ‘Those who think logically and evidentially (though this word was also tied up with connotations of decadence, corruption, weakness and individualism) cannot have a complete emotional understanding of the principles of English Socialism’. Words in the ‘C’ Vocabulary were for technical uses and applications, referring to such things as ‘spandrels’, ‘sprockets’, or ‘obturators’.

It is doubtful whether Newspeak could ever have achieved total clarity and utter annihilation of ambiguous language; the Logical Positivists attempted to reduce all sentences and language to simple binary truth statements of increasing complexity but in the end, like an autistic black hole, collapsed in on itself when they found they could not prove the existence of the number 1.

The Party rewrote a number of works to express ideas that were totally in agreement with whatever ideology it held at any given point.

These rewritings were ideological as well as linguistic; therefore this translation would never have been approved, containing as it does concepts and ideological stances that the Party did not hold at any time during its history.

Hamlet’s Onespeak To be or to unbe; that is the question Whether it is doubleplusgood in the brain to suffer The slings and arrows of crimethinkful luck Or to contraweapon a sea of ungood And opposing end them. To die, to sleepNo more - and by sleep we mean to end The cardiovascular pains, and the thousand natural electrocutions That bodies suffer. It is an unvirgining Goodthinkwise to be wanted. To die, to sleep To sleep - possiblewise to dream. Yes, there’s the annoyance, For in death what dreams will come When we have walked into death Must make us think. There’s the thing that makes disaster of long life.

Who would bear the whips and spites of time, The enemy’s crimethink, the oldthinker’s crimespeak The sense of unlikeful (no translation), the Thinkpol’s delay The efficiency of office, and the rejections That merits of the goodthinker takes, When he might unbe By vaporisation? Who would joywork do, To sing and praise under a goodthinkful life, But that the fear of unknown nation, from which No citizen returns, confuses the will, And makes us instead bear the ills we have Than go to unthinkful ones?

Thus awareness makes thoughtcriminals of us all, And thus the colour of resolve Is made lighter by goodthink, And bigful enterprise With this their behaviour goes wrongful And loses force. Quiet Ophelia! Woman, in your prayer Be all my thoughtcrimes rememoried.

school •

Proclamation of the New Rules, dated 16th March in the Year of Our Lord AD 2016 to be Implemented Immediately by Decree of DJD. Amen, etcetera.

1.

Do not use the art centre path unless escorted by a prefect over the age of 18 and a half but no more than 18 and two thirds, and then only if you say the Latin language ‘prefect prayer’ and remove your shoes first.

2. You may only speak in the Upper Library if wearing a lower school librarian upon your head whilst he is wearing the librarian badge. Then you may talk to your closest neighbour, but only if you are in excruciating pain.

3. You may only approach Dawswell if you bow first and show your party badge, and exchange the day’s secret handshake. The conversation MUST be initiated through telepathy.

4. If someone drops a plate in school hall, you must scream at them until they literally implode into a puddle of nervous matter. Then ask for a cleaning lady to sort out the mess, and make sure you thank them.

5. You may only grow a beard as a teacher either if you have a hideous foul-smelling skin condition on your face visible from at least a hundred paces away or are commonly mistaken for a sixth former and not allowed into lunch.

6. You may only wear suits that are of a shade of blue with a black blazer lining and shirts with stripes no wider than 4mm but no narrower than 4mm, with your name in the back in Arial font. The material must be soft enough to be used to clean a blue 2002 Jaguar X type saloon without damaging it but firm enough to survive a brisk microwaving. The recommended shade is periwinkle.

7.

You may only get out of first orchestra if you challenge Stinton to a duel on the plains of Abraham at quarter to two in the morning on a new moon with 65% cloud coverage and then if you proceed to lose, die violently. Then you may then leave orchestra, pending parental permission.

8. You may not pass the examinations hall during exam season without taking a cheeky glance inside, and pull a mildly offputting face. If you possess a cricket bag, you must persuade a first year to sit atop the bag so as to amplify the noise. You may also talk loudly about cricket. Or anything. Just talk loudly.

9. You may only wear summer dress once you have spent a day frolicking with a small wicker man on fire singing a song to the sun god. The sunflowers must also have come out in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. It must also be a Tuesday afternoon.

10. You may only leave 6th Form Private Study if you attain enlightenment and had the certificate handed to you by Buddha himself and have read all 12 books of the Aeneid via Sanskrit intermediary translation whilst smoking a pipe made in 1834. And get 75% in your report.

11. You may not enter SHSK without giving due notice, delivered by raven, to the United Nations.

You may not enter within 23.21 inches of the aura of any female or you will be promptly vapourised.

12. Teachers must always wear a name card.

opinion •

Waiting ‘til Marriage

I

generally find that most people agree with most of what I say. However one topic which is typically divisive is the matter of marriage and sex. I am very much a believer in the law of chastity, meaning that people should wait until marriage for sex. This is a concept which has fallen out of practice over the last few decades and is now even frowned upon.

It appears as an old fashioned notion wrapped in the days of chivalry, religious fanaticism or black and white television sex information adverts.

However, I believe it has much more merit than this and should in fact be considered a very relevant and even progressive stance in our modern era, which could improve relationships as times change.

Firstly there is the question of why I am against sex outside of marriage.

The obvious reason is the religious one, since many religions are in favour of the law of chastity. Marriage is a religious procedure and those who value that will care about the importance of keeping marriage as something special out of respect to God. However that is not my only reason for supporting chastity and any discussion I have where I refer to religion results in references to frogs and AIDS. With regards to chastity, the crux of it is how much you value marriage.

To some it is merely a legal agreement, a piece of paper, which helps you to live out the life you want. To others it is a rite of passage due to the social dynamic we live in and they care about the fluffier things such as engagement rings and the reception party. However if we look at the very nature of marriage we can see how meaningful it can be to someone who takes it for what it is. In the traditional British wedding vows, they say ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, and thereto I pledge myself to you’.

Marriage means giving your entire self to one individual and for that to be more meaningful, more should be given. There is something unavoidably beautiful, whether you are a man or a woman, in experiencing new things and developing into who you truly are with one person. One person who was with you from as close to the start as possible; one person who you sees nearly all of your ever evolving life. This can be consummated even more if you experience sex for the first time with that same person.

Another modern notion is that virginity does not mean anything. People see sex as a simple exchange between to people, but whether it is the first or fiftieth time, it is physically the same thing. Many people, particularly ‘progressive’ movements, are encouraging the masses, particularly girls, to not care about who they first have sex with. However this slowly removes the emotion from sex, and encourages people to have it when they otherwise might not. Sex is a weighty thing and is so much more than casual fulfilment. It is the ultimate form of trust; having that much intima-

cy with someone, with the potential of creating life with them, is the most significant step in a relationship and is the very foundation of survival, civilisation and legacy. The first time that happens is one of the most altering moments of a life and we must respect how much importance there is in that decision.

For those reasons sex should be with someone we love. I am not claiming that you cannot love someone unless you marry them; the truth is far from that. Yet I would hope that someone you marry is someone you certainly love, whereas outside of marriage sex may or not be with someone you care for and instead could be pure circumstance. If someone waits until marriage, ensuring they hold themselves back, they have the security of having sex with someone they love. Added to this, it is easy to have sex, particularly nowadays, so in this casual era one might have sex for the pure physical gratification and do something meaningful with someone they barely know. Marriage is the final step to ensure we can truly stand by the decisions we make.

Moreover, the reason I am against sex outside of marriage is because we need rules and the law of chastity completes this. Sex is what keeps humans animals. It is what proves that despite all pinnacles of human achievement, we have the same carnal wants. It is a beautiful thing, but like beauty it is irrational. Lust comes from physical urges programmed into us over which we have little control. Thus when we are in this frenzy of evolutionary expectation, we need rules to hold us back. Fighting lust is hard and only with concrete rules can we really hold true. Sex is tempting: I have lost people I could have been in relationships with because of chastity and it would have been so easy to just forget it and dive in. Yet our laws and virtues slowly unravel until we would not mind meaningless sex.

This is where it goes wrong. There are many sad cases of sex, even when it is consensual, where one was using another to get what they want and the victim was left scarred at the end. It is easy to be manipulated in the confusing web that is sex and sexuality and holding firm one law to not get lost would save many from catastrophe.

Therefore I think people should wait until marriage for sex - that is all I have claimed. Those who have sex outside of marriage, particularly when in meaningful relationships, I do not consider to be sinners or people who need to stop. It is one option out of many and it makes plenty of sense in cases. Yet to be physically and emotionally safer and to express love in a complete and pure way, I would encourage chastity. It is not an old fashioned practice. In the blurry modern age, it supports consent, commitment and relationships where both partners are equally experiencing the novel. Hence aim for a more special form of love with chastity.

poetry • 1/1

Pale Queen Amy

It’s subtle.

Blink and you will miss it, So watch carefully.

The longer hand dusts across the hour with a flare like magic and the world is new.

Made new.

Newed.

The woman much loved lay with her eyes closed; She made her rest at last within the dirt.

For this event they changed her white stained skirt, Her quiet friends looked down to lay a rose.

Naked and unadorned in the blank moonlight Stainless and fresh.

And so opened the year When no one died When no planes crashed When no guns were fired And there was peace Though only for the moment And probably not even that.

The ember of her angry words still glows; Recited in memory to curb the hurt.

The vines and thorns wrap round her as she flirts With death, bound down, her escaping name grows.

For those whose souls crawled through the putrid pains, Sin after sin they dealt the blows to all, Then flee: we are left with the consequence.

The self-slaughtered villains have lost the chains.

With them gone the obituary can’t fall.

They’re glorified until we lose all sense.

Requiem

One More Time

The very earth shattered Like a colossal earthquake Or the fracturing of glass About the point of impact.

Once more unto the breach let’s go, I want a final taste before You leave; I’ll jump off safety’s shore.

Come on destruction, time to flow.

Borders fell from the sky With careless inattention By the gods that be. The gods That knew they might.

Once more, the volcano which spurts With just one word from you - it leaks.

The full release, the smile which peaks Up later, the hungry lamb hurts.

And in the depths of tumult When a mist rings in the ears With headlines and panicThe intention and lie.

Once more, the tributaries trickle, The brick-ish frothy streams bubble, They cross and slash, making rubble All on me to dodge the sickle.

Who shall be there to hear the cry Of mother? As the pillars crash About her shaking head, and all she can do Is weep

Once more, I’ll give it all to you.

Another ball served in your court, Another shot you don’t retort, But others will let me down too.

For the universe that was once hers The mother she could not save and The child she could not protect.

We settled it; I’m now not sore: The Sun won’t turn to look at me.

From nought I get such energy Use time, ‘til I see you no more.

Not the gods which god allowed.

For he is an old, old man In a changing world.

the truth • Dreamcrusher

How to destroy your soul in one easy questionnaire Childhood 1. How old were you when you abandoned your childhood dreams?

2. How old were you when you first saw your parents fighting?

3. Remember the name of your first pet and what sort of animal it was - now remember its dying moments.

4. When were you first bullied? What did they call you? How right were they?

5. If you have any siblings, why do you think that you are your parents’ favourite child? Why not?

Adolescence 6. At what point did you realise you had an Oedipus complex?

7. When did all your friends abandon you for better social lives?

8. Did you ever go through a stage of such terrible acne, your parents thought you had a tropical disease?

9. How did your sexual frustration manifest itself in your habits, e.g. pyromania, tendency to violence, self-deprecation, self-loathing?

10. When, in a haze of hormones, academic pressure, sports practice, unrequited loves, and wasted youth did you realise that these were the best days of your life?

Romance 11. Who was the first of your close friends you neglected in pursuit of a romantic interest who was uninterested? How did you feel?

12. How many rejections did it take before you had the epiphany that you were being ignored because you were ugly?

13. How long did it take you to realise you would live and die alone?

14. Describe the mixed feeling of grief, envy, disappointment, shame and crushing self-hate that accompanies seeing happy couples when shopping alone for groceries.

15. How old were you when your mother stopped sending you Valentine’s cards?

School Life 16. When were you first bottom in the set for a test? What form did your friends’ gloating take?

17. Why do you think you are the butt of your friends’ jokes? Do you think that they have a point?

18. How long did it take you to realise that your career aspirations were either impossible or could never be lucrative enough for you to survive?

19. When did you realise that everything you have learnt since the age of 5 was utterly useless and has largely been forgotten anyway?

20. When did you realise that the teachers have better banter than you?

But hey ho. It could probably get worse.

Probably.

fiction • Shadows

A

golden beam of light broke through the curtain of darkness, waking me from my reverie. I was outside and it was late, about midnight, with a torch in my hand. Below me my shoes scraped against the pavement. It was only when I tried to remember what I was doing out so late that I realised I had no memory. Of anything. I searched my mind and it was empty. No clue who I was, my past erased.

I paused, halting in my tracks. The steady tapping that I’d previously ignored since I switched on the torch had got gradually louder. It sounded like footsteps.

The footsteps continued for a couple of seconds as I tried to pinpoint them; then they stopped. For a minute I stood with my torch, puncturing the darkness, blood rushing like a waterfall in my ears.

My eyes eventually adjusted to the darkness. They picked out the dark shape of … someone. It was definitely a human being, but any facial or bodily features were lost in the shadows.

A burst of adrenaline flooded through me, propelling me forward. I pumped my legs, sprinting in the opposite direction. The shadow man behind me was running too. He somehow managed to perfectly mirror my footsteps.

I ran for the best part of fifteen minutes before I reached my house; its red bricks and oval windows were a welcome sight. I leapt up the front steps and shouldered the door open, sawdust settling in the open air. I slammed the door shut and locked it in one smooth motion, then rushed

to the window in my living room. The window overlooked my front lawn so I had an ideal view of my pursuer. He stood, rigid, in place on my porch, before slowly turning around and running the way we had just come.

For a minute I stood in my living room, pondering what to do. I felt compelled to follow the man, to understand where he had come from.

My compulsion overcame me. I found myself chasing after him, penetrating the darkness with my torch.

I ran behind him in darkness with no sound but the sound of my hurried footsteps smacking the ground in rhythm. Then we arrived at the figure’s destination. My eyes glanced over the red-bricked house, the oval windows....

I had to go. I’ve been here many times before. Many, many times.

Something brings me back here every time, and every time I am engulfed in shadow, losing all memory. I believe that I’m part of some sadistic game, toyed with by a cruel being. I turned on my heels and sprinted into the shadows.

The torch shut off, enveloping me in darkness, but I kept running. I had to get home before I forgot everything. I smacked the torch with the palm of my hand in a vain effort to get it to turn on.

Eventually I found myself slowing down to walking pace. The sound of my hand on the torch slowed as well to sync with my footsteps brushing against the pavement. The torch rattled.

A golden beam of light broke through the curtain of darkness.

fiction •

The Bubble

H

e wasn’t at war any more. He had to keep reminding himself. He walked along as if in a nightmare, his bubble closing in on him as his feet took him towards his old haunt.

“Wi`lliam,” said the voice in his head. He ignored it.

He stepped through the door, feeling the rotting paint growling on the door’s hinges. He stopped, taking a moment as he breathed the last fresh air before he stepped inside.

“William,” said the voice in his head. He ignored it.

He took another step forwards. The stale taste of beer hit the back of his throat. He saw the people he once had known, and watched the words that pirouetted in the empty space like sand over a laughing desert.

“William,” said the voice in his head. He ignored it.

He saw the television, playing the football in the corner where it had always sat.

He walked to the speakers, and felt the vibrations that danced through his hand when he rested against it.

But what it said, he couldn’t hear. The silence of his bubble mocked him as he watched the television, playing as if on mute.

“William,” said the voice in his head. The one thing that he could hear, from the moment before the bomb detonated. His friend’s last word that had wiped the rest from his life.

A

Art

childhood • After Henson

So what did happen to your favourite characters?

Big Bird: The end of Sesame Street hit Big Bird hard. His long-term girlfriend, pregnant with his first child, admitted her affair with Elmo and kicked him to the curb. Alone and depending on benefits, he’s most often found in the local pub, drinking away his sorrows with cheap gin to fill the raging void in his heart for a lover who lied and a daughter that can never be his.

Bert and Ernie: These two confirmed bachelors finally admitted their love for each other and married the following summer, enjoying a wonderful honeymoon in Thailand. They now have three children, but the police have been called several times for domestic abuse and social services are starting to sniff around.

Cookie Monster: After Bert laced Cookie monster’s entire cookie stash with Ketamine, Cookie Monster quickly became homeless and now roams the streets, forcing urchins to steal for him so he can feed his crippling addiction. Undercover police report that one of his dealers cut his supply; grainy chatroom footage shows the Cookie Monster eating him piece by piece, all the while screaming incoherently, ‘COOOKIESSS OM NOM NOM’.

Elmo: His affair with Big Bird’s girlfriend gave him much pleasure, but also gave him a daughter that he didn’t want.

He looked at her and saw only a past that no longer belonged to him. He tells the jury he didn’t mean to do it, but his fur runs redder than mere dye and the evidence seems conclusive.

Count von Count: When the worldwide recession bit deep, Count von Count realised that all his loans to Greece would be defaulted on and he would be penniless. Afterwards his claim to the Nazi gold train in Poland fell through and he was forced to sell his opulent mansion to one of his Wall Street banker friends for a fraction of its worth.

Having spent the last two years in a cramped tower block flat and working as a retailer in a corner shop, Count von Count’s will to live is slowly running out….

Mr Snuffleupagus: At the height of the show’s power, Snuffy had been using his nose on a weekly basis in the wild parties that Elmo had thrown in his Playboy mansion. He fell from grace hard and fast. The cheques stopped and he could no longer fund what had consumed his life. He was reduced to selling his body for weeks at a time in order to buy enough so that he could feel it again.

Telly Monster: Telly, deprived of his one supply of money, retreated again into his home to spend his time watching TV and gaming. His mental stability deteriorated and he wandered into the motorway one misty February morning, ranting and raving about the Illuminati before being hammered and pulped into a gory skidmark on the tarmac. Highway Maintenance scraped him up, put him in a barrel, and dumped him in a ditch.

Miss Piggy: Miss Piggy was one of the few to succeed after the end of the the show. She became a fairly famous singer with a large following, until the next top star came along. When that happened her popularity sank faster than her weighted body. The police are still looking for leads and witnesses.

Grover: After fleeing to Argentina having been accused of war crimes, Grover quickly rose through the ranks of a small crime family, and turned it into a feared drugs cartel covering all of South America. He used this to his advantage to stage a continent-wide coup. He now rules with an iron fist, and is wanted by the UN for human rights violations.

Statler and Waldorf: When they had to find other job prospects, Statler and Waldorf were forced into self-reflection and when they asked themselves what they loved to do, they had a revelation. They loved to be angry and grumbling about the world. They promptly joined the FOX news team, and soon became their most popular reporters and social commentators.

Oscar the Grouch: While he was renowned for being grumpy, in an uncharacteristic wave of optimism, perhaps induced by starvation, Oscar bought a lottery ticket and miracles of miracles, didn’t eat it. To everyone’s surprise and envy, he won 120 billion and now lives in the Playboy mansion having bought out Hugh Heffner.

fiction • A Most Unusual Childhood

I

don’t remember much from when I was small except for this scene.

I was crying. Not just weeping but wailing in Mother’s arms, limbs flailing and all. She was trying to soothe me. I couldn’t catch her face; all I saw was the grimy hammock in the corner of the room swaying to and fro. The heat was suffocating. It felt as if I was drowning in my own sweat. A putrid scent lingered in the air, arising from the murky waters around us. Yet this wasn’t the worst of it. Horrifying human bellows and shrieks reached my ears from far off, each making me more frantic. They were growing in intensity. I hated all this but most of all I hated the sickening rocking of the whole scene; the disconcerting tilting muddled my infant thoughts to the point of fury.

I was born on 12th January 1898 into a Protestant missionary family in Hankow on the Yangtze River. I was the fourth child of Arthur and Marianne Bonsey, yet I wasn’t to meet my siblings until I was ten.

To many people Father was an energetic, eccentric evangelist. He committed his life to God when he was merely eighteen, and has had the will of a bull ever since. Early in his career he wrote to the London Missionary Society stating, “I wish to reiterate that myself and Miss Ford (my mother) are willing to spend and be spent and if need be to die for the cause of Christ among the heathen”. I remember him surrounded by his colleagues, absorbed in heated debate.

Dressed all in white, to my childish eyes they looked like portly snowmen, my father being the roundest. His face was framed with thick, curly, brown mutton-chops that tickled when he carried me. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, perched on his nose which nestled in his stylish moustache. He had the energy of a blaze of New Year dragons.

He taught himself fluent Mandarin and in time became Principal of Hankow Theological College, writing hymns, conducting the brass band, leading the scout troop...and preaching.

Mother shared Father’s religious zeal and keen intelligence. However, her determination was tempered by her family; she missed her children terribly, all banished to England apart from me. Her features portrayed this; although starting as a strong-willed young woman with a rigid jaw-line and eager face, as time passed her demeanour softened.

There was a hint of sadness in her grey eyes.

My first memory relates to the year I spent on a British gun ship on the Yangtze River at the age of three: I have loathed water-based travel ever since. Mother and I were forced to take refuge here because a violent rebellion had broken out known as The Boxer Uprising. Chinese rebels were fighting to eradicate Western ideas and influence and missionaries, like my parents, were the enemy. Our lives were in danger.

Only once the rebellion was quelled did we dare to return to our home and to Father in Hankow.

Central to our lives was the church. Father always said that delivering a sermon every morning staved off illness. I have vivid memories of him preaching interminable sermons to blank-faced congregations.

I see myself, stifling in my itchy Sunday best, a fuchsia frock that my mother had dug out of her cupboard. We must have looked a strange trio as we walked to church: a dog-collared, white-suited man, his sad, slender wife and their petite plum of a daughter. We valiantly sang British hymns but no one else knew the words; the congregation just hummed along awkwardly. Afterwards, I was prevented from running home by mother’s stern hand on my shoulder, so we crawled along at an infuriating pace. One day we were confronted by three stocky Chinese men with mean faces, their long hair plaited in queues down their backs. Father had quickened his step and we passed them but I could hear them shouting and spitting behind us and I was frightened. As we were entering the safe haven of home, the tallest brute shouted in

surprising English, “You are insult, you are insult to all China!” I shuddered despite the humid conditions. We didn’t even know those men and yet they had tracked us down and waited to harass us on God’s Sabbath!

The next day one of Father’s missionary colleagues came to visit, a Reverend Sparham. He and Father spoke in hushed tones in the drawing room. I was curled up on mother’s lap while she flicked through a novel. I could just hear Father explaining that he had experienced this kind of behaviour out in the villages but they had never targeted the family before. Sparham agreed gravely. He was a gentle widower; his wife had died of typhoid the year before.

Their talk turned to water-borne germs and the pitiful state of the local hospitals and I tuned out of the conversation. The last summer had been particularly hot, with outbreaks of malaria and cholera. These diseases threatened to cause havoc this summer: I wasn’t looking forward to the new season at all.

Some weeks later in early summer I ran into the hall and stumbled over a large tin trunk that stood in the middle of the room. We were going on holiday.

Despite my protests, we started our journey by steam boat on the Yangtze.

After several days we reached a mountain covered in mist, rising out of the rice paddies. I couldn’t see any signs of life other than a group of men with sedan chairs on their shoulders. Father settled himself in a chair but I was scared of the men and didn’t want to go near them. Mother picked me up and I clung to her as we were carried up the mountain. And so we ascended the rickety stairs that lead into the cloud, the famous “thousand steps”, the only way to climb Mount Lushan. As we reached the summit, high enough to give me vertigo, I looked around anxiously to gauge what kind of summer I would be having. I was not disappointed.

It was cool. Such a contrast to the sticky heat at home. The cloud had not quite cleared and it took a moment for me to realise that I was standing on the shore of a lake. Trickling water harmonised with birds twittering timidly out of sight. The water was a magnificent glass mirror, reflecting the surrounding pine trees and ghostly fog. I smelt the sweet fragrance of lush jasmine as I followed my father down a winding path. From time to time we would walk past small villas, whitewashed, often with balconies and red iron roofs. Some even had children in the garden. I knew from the moment I set foot in Kuling that I’d love it here.

I spent the whole summer playing and making new friends. It was paradise and I was happy. We would often paddle in the lake or visit a nearby waterfall, and gaze at the tiny people in the fields far below. As the cloud enveloped Kuling in the evenings, small lights would twinkle under red roofs, beckoning us home.

It was on one such evening that Father abruptly asked me to pack.

We were to leave the next day. My young heart cracked. Tears flooded my eyes; I couldn’t sleep. The following morning, Father led me into our courtyard. He looked at me sternly and took something out of his pocket. Three seeds. He whispered to me that we would return each summer and watch as the seeds gradually grew into trees. As I grew, so would they. And then one day, perhaps a hundred years from now, my great- grandchild would come and wonder at the beauty of nature in this courtyard. This story somehow quenched my tears, and I was silent as we planted the seeds.

I spent the journey home worrying about the sick, violent, steaming hell I was returning to. When we finally got back my heart sank to see a torn poster clinging to our front door, with a translation in English scrawled under the bold Chinese characters. It read, “By the law of the Chinese government, it is requested that you not harm any missionary

in any way, especially by stoning”.

This hideous welcome upset me greatly but, instead of comforting me, Mother sent me immediately to my room. I cried there, wondering what I had done wrong, when I heard a commotion downstairs. Mother’s shrill voice screamed, “They hate us and want us gone. There’s a good chance you’ll die! What will we do then?” Silence followed. Gentle sobbing reached my ears and it wasn’t my own.

Father took to travelling from village to village to preach. He carried a pair of forceps and made himself popular by extracting painful teeth. On one occasion he told us he’d been thrown into a pit and was going to be buried alive, but managed to tell a joke in the local dialect and won a reprieve. By now, I would dread saying goodbye every morning and every evening I would stay up, anxious he might not return.

Weeks elapsed: I felt I was always on fire with the tropical heat and worry. Then one day a bundle of letters arrived in the post. They were from my absent siblings and I realised how much I missed them even though we’d never actually met, so far away, so alone. I read the letters over and over, putting on voices to hear what they might sound like, imagining their personalities, their looks, their likes and dislikes.

I eventually gave the letters to Mother. She must have spent the whole night crying; the letters were damp with her tears.

By this point I had learnt how bad the Rebellion was, mostly through Rev Sparham who visited regularly. My parents stubbornly refused to talk about it. I remember being sent to bed by Mother one night. Father had not yet come home. I must have woken in the dead of night to check if he had returned; Mother was still sitting alone, waiting. It was late morning when he appeared. He was holding a club and it was red with blood.

I only discovered what happened years later. Sparham had been beaten to death in front of Father’s eyes. Father wrestled the weapon off the attacker but it was too late. The Rebellion had just got very real, very fast.

The following night my parents had a row. Mother was screaming, begging to return to England, saying it was our only chance. Father had never raised his voice before. This was the only time I ever heard him shout, “YOU PROMISED ME, you promised me you would die if need be for Christ’s cause. This is no time to back down”. The bellowing stopped. I could feel the air quivering with a slight echo. This place I called home had just become a prison. Danger was knocking at the door.

We didn’t visit Kuling that summer; Mother wasn’t well enough.

Soon after their argument, both my parents caught cholera. They had high fevers for over a week. I felt very alone. Father eventually recovered and we both stayed by Mother’s bedside for days on end. I watched her cheeks getting hollower, her body getting more and more fragile.

My heart hurt but my mind couldn’t comprehend what was happening so I didn’t feel scared. It wasn’t until the day Father woke me to tell me she was dead that I collapsed.

I remember sitting perfectly still, feeling crushed by grief. Days passed unnoticed as I ignored what was going on around me. Her funeral took place in the church in Hankow and she was buried in the cemetery there. I was considered too young to attend. I thanked God. I didn’t want to go. Weeks went by and I was numb. I only awoke from this nightmare trance when I was greeted by the familiar sight of a tin trunk in the hall.

Father, Rev Arthur Bonsey, remained in China for another twenty years. I was sent to England to boarding school at the age of ten. I have never returned. I am now married with four children and live in Dover.

My children know nothing of my childhood in China and the story of my extraordinary parents. I doubt they ever will.

comment •

The Learning Style Lie

“Science” you can trust

I

t seems like the perfect thing to tell a young learner - that everyone learns in easily categorized styles which fall into either Visual, Auditory or Kinetic, that one learns best when fulfilling one of these things. A visual learner learns best from diagrams and illustrations, a auditory learner learns best from speech or recordings and a kinetic learner learns best by doing, usually something not relevant to the task, common actions being throwing a ball, walking around the room or swinging on a chair.

However, unfortunately this is not true. Few studies have found any validity in using learning styles in education, and there is no evidence to suggest that identifying and catering to someone’s learning style makes any difference to education. In fact this belief is dangerous.

Learning Styles are a belief so pervasive in our learning culture that 93% of UK teachers believe they exist, and if thought about, this makes sense. Learning styles are an idea in line with our modern culture; they sound good and feel good; it’s another way of acknowledging that people are different, and that differences are important.

However, saying learning styles don’t exist doesn’t mean that everyone is the same or that everyone learns in the same way. People differ in many ways but easily categorized learning styles simply isn’t one of them.

Learning styles is, as many of the things we claim to know, a neuromyth, like the idea we only use 10% of our brain, that children become hyperactive after sugary drinks or snacks (which 29% of 1000 surveyed UK teachers believed), or even the myth of three - the belief

that investment made in education before the age of three will have many times the benefit of investment made in education later in life.

However learning styles (much like Pascal who said we should all embrace religion because we aren’t sure what happens after death and so we should just go to church so we get into heaven), make you want to pigeon-hole students into “V” or an “A” and encourages schools to spend hundreds, if not thousands of pounds on training software “based on research” that demonstrates nothing but that children who play a game a lot get better at that game.

When students label themselves as a specific type of learner it is not only misleading, but dangerous to their learning. If a teacher tells a student they have a particular style of learning, and that they only learn in one way it may prevent the student from trying other strategies, and taking away from them the key to independent learning - experimentation. Students who believe they have a particular learning style have been shown to “shut down” when something is taught to them in a way contrary to their learning style, rather than making an effort to keep up with something taught differently.

This perpetuates this idea that it’s not your failure to learn, because you weren’t taught that way, when really we should be teaching students to learn from their failures - to experiment themselves with different styles of learning or revision to lay the groundwork to develop themselves into true Independent Learners, rather than sheep who simply follow a discredited idea fed to them when they were much younger.

fiction •

The Rise of an Artist

O

ne day, on a fine morning, a young man that no-one had ever heard of was about to enrol in a highly prestigious art school.

He knew not though that his destiny was about to change. “His name?” you may be wondering.

Adolf Hitler.

This was no ordinary man though. Both of his parents were dead, and he only had his step-sister to console him. Adolf had been raised in a different way to other boys. Adolf had rather bad anger issues. To deal with this, Adolf had a personal psychiatrist so that he could deal with his unyielding rage. This helped, and eventually, after years of counseling, his anger was subdued.

Now a teen, Adolf’s teachers realised he had a new talent, and one he was rather good at - painting. He was already at the top of most of his classes, but in this, he was in a league of his own. His teachers, in response to this, gave him private art lessons. All of his friends were impressed.

Now 19 years old, Adolf was enrolling in the Academy of Fine Arts. But this wasn’t the only thing he was particularly fond of. He had found interest in a young Jewish woman named Stefanie Rabatsch. Before he made a move on her, he made a move on his life and bought a house, and got a job as substitute teacher of art at a high school.

Now 21, Hitler was making a reasonable income, sleeping well, and enjoying the company of his lady-friend, Stefanie. They were becoming very close to each other. Eventually he asked her to do something he had been planning for a very long time. Something that could change their lives forever. He asked his beloved Stefanie to help him with a painting. She of course said, ‘’Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes!”. So they got to work immediately and began to create something that could possibly change the way society viewed the Government.

This piece took him a few weeks to finish.

It was extraordinarily large, and flabbergastingly detailed, but eventually it was done. It was a picture depicting the negative aspects of

Communism, which was quite unusual for its time. Some politicians overlooked it, but one in particular was absolutely carried away by it The Head of the Social Democratic Party - Otto Wels. He thought it was extremely enlightened, and a beautiful piece of art, so he asked Hitler if he wanted to join the SDP, to which Hitler said, “Absolutely. Let’s make Germany great again”.

He was appointed the ‘Head of Social Policy’ which worked extremely well for the SDP, but he wanted the party to have a better logo one that would be memorable for centuries to come, and one with a great meaning (preferably of auspiciousness), so after some research, he chose the Swastika.

After a while, the party was more popular than ever before, and the elections were coming up. Hitler had a good feeling about this though.

His new logo for the party was easily recognisable, and most Germans understood it had a positive meaning, which was evident by the fact that the SDP won the elections At around this time, in the real world, Hitler would have ordered an attack on Poland which would then make the British threaten them with war. Because of Hitler’s position, at this point, as a painter, he didn’t have enough power to suggest this idea to his superiors, but it wouldn’t matter, because this Hitler wouldn’t want to invade any countries.

Adolf was seeing something in society that he didn’t like: Jews were still slightly less accepted, and had fewer rights than Christians. This upset Hitler because of Stefanie. He wanted her to be able to do as she pleased with no worries.

He mentioned this to Otto, who at first was apprehensive, but eventually saw the light in what Adolf was suggesting. Otto held a meeting with the SDP members, and the majority of the politicians agreed to let this new law pass.

Eventually, the country was socially equal: women, men, Christians and now Jews. When people now looked at Germany, they saw an enlightened country.

Eventually, after many years of being togeth-

er, Adolf asked Stefanie to marry him, to which she of course said yes. They bought a new, bigger house in Munich, and Stefanie got a new job. Once they were financially stable again, Adolf and Stefanie wanted to have kids, so they did, not knowing what great pain and joy would come with them.

Their babies, a boy and a girl named Gunther and Madeline, were born, a few weeks prematurely. Stefanie was extremely worried something bad would happen, but nothing did. Her kids were as normal as any others. Gunther excelled at most subjects while Madeline was extremely creative, and was at the top of her art sets, just like her father, but both of them were enormously confused as to which religion to follow, what with their parents being Jewish and Christian. Adolf insisted that they should be Christians, while Stefanie had an open mind with a preference towards Judaism, which, when they grew up, made them both become atheists.

Imagine, Stefanie and Hitler on rocking chairs next to each other. Stefanie `sewing, and Adolf reading a newspaper. Transfixed in their activities with an awareness that both of them were sitting right next to each other. Both of them fully knowing what the other was doing, while still outwardly paying no attention to the other. Stefanie was making scarves for her children. Adolf was solving a crossword. Hairlines receding and now grey. Wrinkles on their cheeks from their past happiness together. It was an organised room. Not much in it, but the furniture was all arranged as if the couple were expecting guests, but no one would come. Outside the window was a busy scene. People were on their way to work and such. But not these two. No. These two people would continue going about their daily routines until they would inevitably leave that room. But at present, they were both happy with their papers and their needles.

This was the story of a man who changed millions of lives, or at least could have (if this were the real world). The story of a history maker.

fiction •

IGCSE English

Use black ink or black ball-point pen. Describe a town in early morning.

Write your answer in the depressing blank space below.

D

awn rose fresh and rosy-fingered from the bed of godly Tithonus.

The soulless white lights of the exam hall falls on the cadaverous face of wide-rule lined paper, like a surgeon’s lights on the patient etherised upon a table. The noise of biro pens scratching on paper buzzes like a bee. Okay, the similes are getting too much. You sit in the unbelievably ill-shaped chair, like a thrall, devoid of all thought and inspiration, mustering what little wit you have to think of long, pretentious words. A quote from the Odyssey; that seems sophisticated enough. You know you are desperate for that A*.

The town stood amidst the mist and fog of a spring morning. No one was out on the streets yet. The only life visible was the feeble vibrations that came from the ringing of bells from the town chapel. The bell tolls, but for whom?

Nice, a reference to John Donne. The examiners would love it. Three lines of words just flew out from under your pen almost without your noticing. Reading through it again, it reminds of your grandfather’s funeral. The tolling of bells. Sweat coming out of your hands- just like it is now, as you manically scribble away. How a GCSE English exam can have such a profound impact you do not know. But now you look back to your life before you sat on this chair and opened the question booklet in front of you. From your first day of school, Dad and Mum waving behind you, to the late nights you stayed up cramming York Notes and CGP study guides into your brain. You remember your grandfather on his deathbed; you promised to ‘be a good boy and do well in school’. In the middle of a muted exam room you can almost hear the tolling of the bells.

The funeral procession marched through a deserted town. Friends, family and mourners merged into a sea of black. The minivan carrying the coffin tore through the somnolent silence of the town like a seamstress’s scissors through a piece of cloth. Likewise the two sides of the

road were severed by the black streak of the procession.

The deadness of your original state of mind is now all but gone. Now your thoughts flow almost too freely, thoughts that naturally translate themselves into words on the page. The image of that procession haunts you still. The memories of you breaking down in tears, of your heart beating like drums, of the silence that followed like a ghost after the procession.

As if in the wake of the disruption that just went by, the people of the town came out of the boxes in which they had slept last night, all in reverential silence. Old men and young, people in grey and blue suits, mothers walking their children to school, all dead quiet. People conversed in hushed and muffled voices; even the engine sound of the occasional car sounded muted. It was as if they were all aware of what came before them and mourned in unspoken harmony.

You’ve stopped trying to sound clever. No line borrowed from Homer’s epic is epic enough, nor can Donne’s metaphysical reasoning reason you out of your grief. Recovering from the wasteland of your dried-up thoughts, you feel as if you have regained your voice and are overflowing with words.

The silence was soon broken. Irritable and clearly irritated commuters swearing at each other; sounds from tellies turned on but not listened to- as the man quickly gulped down the last mouthful of cereal and strangled himself with a striped tie; people rushing to catch buses and buses rushing to leave people. But amidst the din and clamour of it all, a reverential silence feebly resonated. The people who saw the minivan, heard the bell; they remembered. The day would not be the same for the old man sitting on the bench. He knew a friend had gone.

A teardrop found its way along his cheeks as he opened today’s papers. Nor would it be the same for the boy forced to go to school by his mother. He too knew the body in the coffin well. What was the promise of sweets and treats now became a memory.

TIme’s up. Could you please put down your pen?

fiction • Scorpion

A

rattling click echoes through the baked air, the soft whispering of loose sand slipping between segmented legs.

The shadow of an arched tail is cast to the side, adorned by a hooked, serrated, obsidian point, swaying gently with the shifting of the winds. The curved plates overlap, grinding the course, scorched sand between them as the harsh sun blazes down, roasting the blackened carapace as it winds up the dune.

The sand beneath its claws slips gently down the slope as if through an hourglass, a gentle trickle, disturbing the pristine smoothness of the windswept dune, forming a miniature landslide as the tumbling boulders of sand gain momentum, rippling out across the duneside. The elongated arms, tipped by by sinuous, dexterous claws trail faint lines across the ground, a continuous path leading from past to present immortalised only until the next breath of wind scours the beast’s past, erasing any proof of its existence and evidence of the singular struggle the sand has implemented upon the tortured creature.

The creature’s black eyes glint like starlight splashed off a black opal; a clear focal point of a body blended with the sand as if a fragment of the dune itself, distinguishable only by the curved black spine at the tip of its tail and the eight glistening orbs which seem to absorb the light around them.

The heat swirls and floats around the beast like a sentient being, a miasma of burnt, moistureless air as though the atmosphere itself has been set alight, charred and burnt, scorching anything and everything daring to expose themselves the the punishing rays.

A bleached skull lies upon the duneside, a relic of an age long past, melted like wax of the annals of time by the withering punishment of this unforgiving wasteland. The eye sockets lie hollow, fractured as though the very soul of the creature has been drawn out of its body, blending with the dessicated ether. A single horn lies alongside the skull, the rings of bone-like charcoal peeling and burnt within a ring of broken and shattered teeth like religious relics cast by a pagan

ritual, stained by blood. The skeleton itself sits half buried nearby, a bridge over the superheated sand for the creature to use, ribs cracked and splayed among the strewn pieces of an animal’s fractured past, bleached and broken.

The beast crests the peak of the dune, tilting down to begin its descent. In the far distance, cacti litter the landscape, solitary pillars of life in the desolate landscape, arms raised in the air as though celebrating their success at surviving another day in a place where the gods themselves would cook and burn, purged from the land by the sun’s scouring omnipresence. The creature’s legs fold up from beneath it and it starts a tumbling fall down the slope, bringing a cascade of torrid sand in its wake, scattering any life that may have dared venture out from the cooled bowls of the dune. The creature hits the base of the dune in a spray of sand. Thus the scorpion continues its journey which appears to hold an end only in death or within the bowels of another beast that prowls the desert.

opinion • Objectivity

A

couple of months ago, the Guardian wrote an article in which a journalist lamented the loss of a time in which you could write a professional review without being accused of bias/ accepting bribes from the distributors/ being the reincarnation of Hitler. Of course, the people launching these accusations more often than not, do so from a position of bias themselves but unfortunately, this is apparently lost on them.

So what is to be done then? Well, we could always stop reviews entirely but it seems a little unfair to make thousands of people unemployed due to the petulant whining of a few basement dwelling 20-somethings with the emotional maturity of a five year in dire need of a strong dose of ritalin. By this point, you might have noticed which side of the argument I stand on so let me summarize my point: if you genuinely want an entirely objective summary of something then read the

plot synopsis. Reviewers are paid to express and justify an opinion and if they mess up the justification part on a frequent basis, then, yeah, they probably shouldn’t be paid. However, now that many people are measuring a reviewer on their ability to justify the reader’s opinion instead of their own personal opinion, I can’t help but see the possibility of reviewers regurgitating popular opinion instead of formulating their own balanced views. After all, when you operate a small reviewing website, screw journalistic integrity; your job is on the line and once the internet hive mind descends on you for daring to state that Mad Max Fury Road wasn’t one of the best action movies of the last decade then you might as well close all linked social media accounts whilst you still have the chance. After all the internet does not want logic or reason.

It wants blood.

Now I don’t mean to sound like a con-

spiracy theorist and I’m not saying that my opinion is absolute. I’m just saying that if ten years from now all critical decisions regarding culture and media are dictated by a single sentient ‘motherbrain’ with dissenters being shot on sight then you should at least acknowledge that it’s a fate you could have easily prevented if you had only listened to me.

Admittedly I’m getting a little sidetracked, so to quickly summarize: reviews are important, objectivity is impossible in a review and the internet is a scary place. So that’s it basically.

Respect free speech and don’t throw a hissy fit when someone says something that you don’t agree with. Honestly, this should not be novel.

Now, with all that having been said, Peter Bradshaw’s review of Drive deserves all the mockery it gets. Oh sure, give it a 3/5, why don’t you? Hey, you might as well give Fantastic 4 a 4/5 in the meantime right? Conceited fool.

fiction • Heroes and Villains

W

hen he first set out, Ainsley was an angry man, determined to change the way he lived and the lives of his people. Across the countryside he raised his people into a fury as they grew sick of their chains, mental and physical. The tribal differences that had separated them at the time of their conquest by the foreigners were now forgotten as they raised their voices and swords.

They carved a trail of bloody revolution, driving the foreigners from their ancestral land, and declared the instigator of this unlikely success as Gurkhan, king of kings, despite Ainsley’s reservations. Under his rule, peace and liberty were installed across the land, and yet the problems came thick and fast.The tribal differences that had enabled their fall to slavery had held fast through the fighting and now threatened the fragile nation forged in the blood and fire of a war of independance.

After the first few few murder cases, Ainsley realised that a man whipped into a hot, blood spilling fury was not so easily calmed by peace, and so resorted to brutal punishments in order to repress all immoral behaviour so that the nation would survive. These were very capital in nature, with beheadings for crimes such as petty theft, and the execution of the whole family and burning of the house in cases of murder. These measures were supremely effective, and so Ainsley’s people soon came to like their lives of peace and trade.

After several years, a new generation sprang up, a generation that no longer believed in the charismatic leadership of the glorious war hero and supreme leader Ainsley, and began to demand that there should be

a leader chosen by the people, from the people, for the people. When news of this movement reached his ears, Ainsley, in a surge of rage that burnt off the chill of the winter air, swept the jar that held his parents’ ashes to the ground and roared, the pieces of the vase on the marble floor the only sound in his grand home. He summoned his advisors and the royal court with a snap of his fingers and swept through the spilled ashes in his rush to the throne room. He listened to their grovelling and excuses, and cut them off with a raised hand.

“The end justifies the means. I will not see all our progress and all we have built turned to dust and ash, because some splinter group with no knowledge of what we left, wishes to dictate how we live. I will not appear to be weak for the people’s safety. Put this protest down with any force necessary.”

Hundreds would die that day, and those protesters would become martyrs in a wave that would not break, but continued to build. Ainsley followed these increasing protests with compulsory education on the kingdom’s values and beliefs, accompanied by the imprisonment and disappearances of dissidents.

Harriott, Ducky to his friends, had grown up under the malevolent yoke of Ainsley and his cruel regime of state tests and insults. He had been taught about life before the tyrant by his grandparents, the eldest in the entire nation. They told him seemingly impossible stories of peace and prosperity of the old tribal ways, with nothing but the tribal and ancestral laws keeping people from being completely free. He joined the ranks of a revolutionary group in his teenage years, quickly

rising in the ranks, becoming known for his ability to infiltrate seemingly any building, and come out with whatever he was to get undetected. After a few months of guerilla warfare against the People’s Army, it was decided the rebellion would risk it all in an assassination attempt, combined with a full public revolt to draw the army’s attention away from the ivory tower in which the last hope of the free people would battle the forces of despotism. Harriott climbed the tower utilising all his stealth skills, dodging sleeping guards and drunken ministers, climbing ever higher towards his quarry’s bedroom.

It was the creaking of the door that awoke Ainsley.He saw the glint of a blade and rushed out of bed, grabbing the sword that hung on the wall, and backing up towards the balcony from which he paternally overlooked his subjects. He quickly rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and tightened his night clothes against the chilly spring breeze. Now fully awake, adrenaline pumping, he challenged the intruder: “Who dares enter my room unannounced?”

“A man who embodies your people’s pain and anger at your so-called leadership, fed up with your brutal regime and its lack of any freedom,” came the reply.

“My people are free! They are free to be who they want. I merely keep them from breaking our nation apart, back into the ages of tribal warfare and savagery!” Ainsley now had to shout over the howling wind, as if the sky itself agreed.

Harriott could hear the howling wind, seeing it as the divine voice of anger at the regime, and emboldened by the righteousness of his course, strode towards the silhouette of his ruler. Ainsley saw him coming, and further backed up, so that he was an arm’s length from the edge of his balcony.

“I brought my people together, and I will not allow them to fall!” Ainsley cried, angrier than he had ever been.

“They cannot fall when they are ground into the dust by your boot! You allow no questions, no curiosity, no creativity if it even mentions you!

You cannot force unity through uniformity.”

“You are not the revolutionary hero you think you are. You are the villain, the terrorist. You are ripping apart this nation, you and your nutjob accomplices! History will remember nothing of you, save hatred.

You are merely a story!”

“You are not the all-loving father figure you think yourself. You are the despotic tyrant! You are the villain! I cannot, and will not, allow another day of your hideous rule, if all it will bring is more mothers weeping over their sons’ broken bodies!”

Each enraged by the other’s words, they clashed their swords again and again. Eventually both swords were knocked from their grasps and they both struggled to crush the life from the other in the dead man’s grip.

Through it all, Harriot told of the suffering he saw on a daily basis, the hell he had lived through, crying at it all. As he heard more and more, Ainsley relaxed his grip, amazed at what he heard, finally realising that the nation he had founded was not the one that he believed he had. As he was about to breathe his last, he gripped as hard as he could, and threw both of them over the edge of the balcony, plummeting down into the abyss.

So then who was the hero? The revolutionary ready to kill and die for the cause, or the ruler determined to keep his people together regardless of what was necessary, and what they suffered?

the back page •

Workers’ Council of Editors (and sole readers of Words and That): Jonah ‘Hermann Böring’ Walker Blake ‘Beejay’ Jones Sam ‘Voonerable Spønjj’ Farrar Archie ‘Sugar-Daddy’ Williams Edward ‘Migraine-Inducer’ Turner-Fussell Giles ‘Unstumpable’’ Stratton Calvin ‘Cardinal’ Liu

Iwan ‘Baby Jenkins’ Stone Alex ‘The Man’ Chapman Robby ‘Sputnik’ Allen Suleman ‘Man of Mystery’ Irshad James ‘Richard’ Madeley Byron ‘Goliath’ Langley Joe ‘Last Minute Legend’ Bradley

Art and Illustration: Byron Langley

Design and Editing: Blake Jones

Special Thanks To: Old McYarrow (EIEIO) ‘Uncle Joe’ Vickers