CQ Magazine

Edition 2 : Issue 2 :

CREATIVE QUARTERLY November 2015

CQ

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Contents Cover artwork ‘Storm over Umbria’ courtesy of Dorothy

Berry-Lound, artist. See her w ork on page 58

PAGE 6

CQ Magazine Awards

Notification

PAGE 8

Maria Morisot

Artist

PAGE 16

Joanna Wyndham

Short Story

PAGE 30

Kia Voetmann

Digital Painter

PAGE 40

Ashley Davis

Photographer

PAGE 50

Olubodun Gbajabiamila Poet

PAGE 56 & 76

L.J. Kelly

Long Story

PAGE 64

CQ Magazine

Story Challenge

PAGE 70

Dorothy Berry– Lound

Artist

PAGE 84

The Taable

Artwork

The next edition of CQ Magazine will be in February 2016

The Abduction of Rupert DeVille The Abduction of Rupert DeVille is a thrilling suspense story and a love story all in one.

Written with a touch of wit and humour that will keep you turning page after page.

Paul White has that rare ability of bringing characters to life, making them real people, with feelings, worries and inner doubts, just like you and I. Paul White has masterly crafted The Abduction of Rupert DeVille into a w ork that leads the reader astray, down the dark alleyways of the past, before bringing them back into the glaring light of the present.

Paul manages to do all this while weaving a mixture of laugh-out-loud humour and off beat wit into the story.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Abduction-Rupert-DeVille-PaulWhite/dp/1500374148

CQ Magazine awards AWARDED 20th NOVEMBER 2015

CQ Magazine (Creative Quarterly) is dedicated to promoting and showcasing the works of creative people from all disciplines and genres of the artistic world.

Part of Creative Quarterly’s daily life is searching the web and surfing the internet to find excellence wherever it may lie.

Often it is the work of the unknown, the unsung artisans, the anonymous craftsman which catch CQ magazine’s attention.

We at Creative Quarterly believe that the unacknowledged should be shown the recognition they deserve, that they should be awarded for their craft and skills.

Hence the

CQ AWARDS 2015 ‘In Recognition & Appreciation’

I began creating visual artwork on a daily basis shortly after t

training in art beyond high school. My main medium is the po different formats within that system. The other artistic mediu program Gimp. I’ve had my work censored by Facebook and G Postal Service concerning the nudity in my works. I write poet old.

I am interested in exploring self-identity. I have created two a Morisot, Moan is focused primarily on visual art while Maria from time to time and have accumulated works of mail art th selves exchanging ideas and letters of love even, one to the o within and without this structure of relationship between the reflects these ideas, using the postal system as my main meth

the death of my four year old son, Gabriel. I have no formal

ostal system; I’m a mail artist and have played with many um I favor is digital collage, for this I mainly use the free Google, and have received warning letters by the United Stated try and have been doing it regularly since I was nineteen years

alternate identities for artistic purpose: Moan Lisa and Maria is the poetess. The two of them correspond through the post hat way. My aim is to expand upon the idea of my alternate other. This leaves my (real) self in a strange state of being both e two alternate identities. I want to build a body of works which hod of exchange.

http://mermaid.pink/

THE SAVAGE SEAS is the fourth book in the Dark Clown Series by Paul Anthony Williams, it is an epic fantasy series filled with murder, intrigue, some erotism, and dark humour.

A darkness has awoken over the land, a demon crosses the Savage Seas seeking revenge and blood...where the adventures began in Book One: THE SNAKE OF SNOWSPIRE, here all roads lead to a final confrontation between Demon and Human.

Paul is an English author residing in Rugeley, Staffordshire UK and is a fantasy fiction author who is currently writing/ drafting Book Five of the series. He is also working upon a new trilogy of books based on a serial killer due to be released in 2016.

THE SAVAGE SEAS (THE DARK CLOWN SERIE

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B015RIE9XS/re

ES Book 4)

ef=aw_ss_kndl_dp/

Let me introduce you to………

I just love it when I find a ‘new is something which I have rece particular writer such a special f to me, but until

On the following pages is Joa uncompromising tale of harsh re narrative, which I am certain you

….

w’ writer whose work I love. That ently done, but what makes this find is that she is not only ‘new’ now unpublished.

anna’s story ‘Chérie’ a raw eality written in a unique gritty u will find as captivating as I do.

Chérie By

Joanna Wyndham.

I knowed her before her awakenin’ when she was dreamin’ about comin’ out though I never did uncover the sadness she kept secret. What little I can tell you I found out in bits and pieces when Chérie felt like talkin’, and after she left when I went snoopin’ in the place where she had come from.

Chérie’s family were a bunch of nobodies, I’ll swear to that; her older step-brothers were rat-mean like their pa.

Her own pa took off when Chérie was a tiny thing, after he got her settled down with Lucille. Some say he’s in prison though I never found out for sure. Either way, she growed up on the wrong side of Marlboro where mailboxes hang crooked attached with scrap wire to long wooden rails, and run-down shanties stand haphazard on dusty patches of land where nothin’ grows straight or clean for long.

I heard different stories ’bout her bein’ gone. Some say she left the summer of her 18th birthday, a battered suitcase in hand and her angel tits and fine nose high in the air, swearin’ she’d never come back, not until the upright, upstandin’ town daddies hung a glitterin’ banner with her name in scarlet letters over Main Street proclaimin’ her queen of the May. They owed her that much but she weren’t expectin’ nothin’ from them, that’s what the fine folk that meaned to squash her down claim she said.

Chérie, baby.

Jake Picould had sumpin’ else to say about her after she went missin’. She weren’t movie star shiny but she was the purttiest piece he’d ever saw. That’s how Jake started when I ask him what he knowed, and he were right. There weren’t nobody in Marlboro who didn’t think Chérie weren’t a beauty.

He talked ‘bout her no-account family some like he was better’n they was. Then Jake ‘membered that Chérie went silent sometimes. Peculiar, he called it. Though he said that when she smiled she could lift a man where he stood. He told me he couldn’t figure where Chérie got her looks ’cause he knowed her mama, and Lucille weren’t nothin’ at all.

Chérie had blue-as-the-sea eyes that a man could drown in, Jake said, when she weren’t squinting at what she couldn’t see. But that weren’t the best part ‘bout Chérie.

Every afternoon when school let out he’d watch her come strollin’ down Main Street.

She’d saunter toward the diner with the sun at her back, the bright shinin’ through her blonde hair so he’d swear there was a halo ‘round her head.

She weren’t no angel, though. That’s the rest of what Jake said. Too many boys buzzed ‘round her on account of the way she was poured into her clothes. He smirked and grinned dirty recallin’, and said that Chérie had a wiggle in her walk purely as God intended. He tol’ me he paid her more than he gave the rest waitin’ his tables, because he weren’t the only one who liked watchin’ Chérie come on.

Truth is before Chérie’s first birthday her fool mama was gone to Hollywood, and Bobby Ray was busted for a string of thefts and drug dealin’ that got him incarcerated and shut out of Chérie’s life. Chérie was handed over to Lucille who told anybody who’d listen that the speck of baby girl was hers, ‘til there weren’t nobody sayin’ different.

Chérie got by on her wits, learnin’ fast how to please and faster how to hide when bad turned wicked, often tradin’ on her looks which was her curse an’ her blessin’.

Her hands were quick and her touch was soft. Her fingers could lift a man so slow and sly that he’d never know until she was long gone. That’s what her shiftless brothers said.

They was proud a’ her that way.

I ‘member her darin’ the world, swearin’ she’d have what she wanted. There was one time that I knowed ‘bout when she was downright reckless. We was young then—she was thirteen and I was older—but I’d seen her do it with my own eyes. Chérie pinched the devil’s wallet and then slid into the crowd without a backward glance.

That was the hardest part, she tol’ me later. The urge to turn and check that she was in the clear was so fierce that it burned a hole in her chest, that’s what she said. But Chérie din’t give in, not at first. Nose in the air like she was sumpin’ special, Chérie clamped a hand over her pocket and headed to the archway that led to the back door of the Orpheum Theater.

I watched as she ducked inside, knowin’ how she relished the freedom that came from bein’ apart and hidden in the dark. But her mouth was nerve dry ‘cause this devil was different. I could tell by the way she licked her lips and risked a quick glance back; and then she smiled at what she had done.

The white suit was exactly where she had left him, bent over a street vendor’s wares and fannin’ hisself with his hat. She knowed straight off this one weren’t gonna go easy which is why she wanted him bad. She laughed as a bubble of pleasure escaped her sweet mouth. And it weren’t only the adrenalin talkin’ after she made a good nab. It was the art of the game, the thrill of the chase that Chérie adored. It was the touch and flow, the way she moved fast, but not too fast. It was the risk and the gettin’ away cleanand-wicked that elated her.

Like Jake said, Chérie weren’t no angel.

Her dreamin’ started in high school. Fanciful dreams ‘bout gettin’ clean of the Marlboro filth that never washed away.

That’s when Daniel Bennet took a shine to Chérie, rubbin’ an’ polishin’ her sumpin’ fierce like she was his own little diamond in the rough.

Jake spit mean ‘bout Bennet so I figured he held a grudge against him for turnin’ Chérie’s head. He swore Bennet ruined her with sweet talkin’ and touchin’. Shared her books and learned her fancy speech, givin’ Chérie airs so she started thinkin’ she might be somebody. That’s what Jake said.

He had speculatin’ to offer ‘bout Bennet’s disappearance and ‘bout why Chérie left town sudden the way she did. Jake figured she ran off to get away from something bad and I understood that so I left the rest alone. But there’s more to know ‘bout Chérie. A shit storm’s worth.

Chérie’d been three years gone when Lucille started jabberin’ and carryin’ on ‘bout Chérie sittin’ pretty, her honeypot snaggin’ the gold ring.

Tellin’ folks how life smoothed over for her once she left Marlboro, an’ ‘bout the road liftin’ high and mighty takin’ her somewhere else.

Lucille said Chérie guitar-picked her way to Nashville where she made herself a little name in lower-case letters, enough to make her more than nobody. That’s what Lucille said, goin’ on an’ on. The sour, boozy stink on her made the talk unbelievable. Weren’t true anyways, leastways not all and not for long.

Chérie’d hit the jackpot smack on. Lucille got that much right. But the jackpot had fists hard as hammers, eyes blazin’ like fire, and a poundin’ prick that meant to make Cherie cry. She stayed caged-up and fearin’ until he’d hurt her one time too many. Then she started figurin’ a way out.

It took months of plannin’ to fake her death, but when chance happened Chérie was gone, fast as a skittering mouse desperate for a hidey-hole. She succeeded well enough so that she b’lieved it true. She had set herself free, but fearin’ she was hunted she ran searchin’ for a safe haven. She never rested in one place for very long, always hopin’ she’d never see him again.

Chérie stayed safe until the day came when she stared into a pair of flamin’ eyes blazin’ evil at her through the dark window glass of a sleek limousine; slow an’ stalkin’ while passin’ her by.

Sure as she breathed she knowed him right off, and then in a heartbeat she knowed he would kill her when he wanted.

Hell froze over and the demons broke loose the night he spied her; comin’ so close, tormentin’ her wicked. Nacherly Chérie was runnin’ again.

She hopped a commuter plane bound for anywhere, meanin’ to fly as far as nerve would carry her. Grit and pluck greased Chérie through the cracks, and for a time she breathed easy. She was safe, so she prayed, as ungodly wind buffeted the cracker-box plane and swirlin’ snow blinded the world white. Her good luck Chérie thought as the deadly weather forced the rickety plane off the radar and brought it down in a nowhere place. Well, maybe God knew where. Perdition, the pilot had said.

Alone and half frozen, she was hunched against the cold in the deserted airport terminal. Oddly she counted herself lucky. This was bad but she’d knowed worse.

“Hey! Where’d you go?” Chérie looked about the lonely place for the man who had promised her that she was next to be bussed into town. “I told you I was going to the Ladies’ Room. I said I’d be right back!”

Turnin’ ‘round Cherie shouted but nobody was there. The way her voice bounced back from the empty corners of the abandoned hall spooked her, pricklin’ the fine hairs of her nape. Before there’d been a crowd of weary folks pushin’ and shovin’, and a harried custodian with a rolling garbage can gatherin’ up the overnight trash, but now there was just Chérie, and there weren’t a scrap of litter marrin’ the pristine bleak and cold. I knowed Chérie an’ I knowed she liked things clean and tidy, an’ I also knowed this weren’t sittin’ right with her.

“Oh no . . .” she pleaded, whimperin’ the way she did when she were a bitty thing an’ Lucille was usin’ her nasty. Erratic thumpin’ started wild an’ fierce where her heart hid in the dark. “Pretty please, mama . . .”

She was dreamin’ a nightmare; worse than the first time she’d run from him ‘cause this time her guard been down.

After, when I found her and coaxed her into talkin’, she rang odd clatterin’ like a wind chime jangled by a storm. She kept lookin’ over her shoulder as she whispered bits and pieces that made no sense.

She cried and I listened, and I figured his fixation with her was crazy and menacin’ from the start, but in those days she’d been vulnerable and he’d knowed how to mesmerize. Like Svengali, she said, talkin’ fancy jibber. I understood what she meant on the last day, but by then it was too late.

“Is anybody there?” Her fingers fumbled madly with the useless keypad as she shouted into the wall speaker. “Can you hear me?” Chérie cried, slappin’ at the silent receiver as fear iced her bones. Rakin’ tremblin’ fingers through her hair, she turned and nervously walked the length and breadth of the hall, back and forth, pacin’ nervous like a cat on a high wire needin’ to jump an’ lookin’ for a place to land.

Angry an’ uneasy at bein’ left behind, Chérie stopped beneath a motionless security camera and waved her arms frantically. “Come on, dammit! I want out of here!” she sobbed, beggin’ the indifferent eye to respond to her frustration.

‘You want out of here, do you?’ she heard his echo.

Chérie spun ‘round, her panicked gaze skitterin’ into dark corners, her skin shrinkin’ tight and her blood runnin’ cold as his voice resounded off the glass and concrete. He surrounded her then, coilin’ like a python an’ snakin’ her legs to slip inside her, up an’ up fillin’ her head. He were there all right an’ she knowed it, ‘cept that Chérie couldn’t see nothin’ but her own reflection in the window black.

Yet the broken little puss from Marlboro, she knowed fer shur she were possessed.

‘Nothing but a fool with her demon, isn’t that so, baby?’ his voice gently chided.

Exhalin’ dread, Chérie ran for the EXIT. She’d find a security guard or a taxi driver, or she’d crawl if she had to. The town was just beyond the door, and Chérie wasn’t waitin’ a heartbeat more. She had to get out, but the devil was tied to her tail. That’s what she said, mean-like and bitter when I aks’d her what happened.

‘Hello, my angel. Daddy’s here,’ the demon threatened softly. Then he slithered close and licked her while his whispers kissed her ear.

‘Where you goin, baby?’ he hissed softly, his touch pettin’ her quiet.

‘You know you’re mine.’

Chérie closed her eyes and arched her neck, givin’ over, lettin’ him as she knowed she must. He covered her, his dark force pulsin’ inside her, his roilin’ thunder comin’ louder and louder inside her head.

“You owe me, bitch—” Not him but another was snarlin’ mad, loomin’ over her when Chérie came awake. She saw the bloody scratches on his face and knowed better than to fight when he came at her with fist curled and strait-jacket in hand. When she was strapped tight he slapped her hard, snappin’ back her head, leavin’ his hand print and humiliation raw and red upon her velvet cheek. Chérie was bent, her head hangin’ loose an’ crooked, her arms bound and her legs sprawled wanton upon the dusty floor when he slammed the door shut an’ fixed the bolt.

Along time passed by ‘fore Chérie felt sunshine on her angel face once more.

Joanna Wyndham

Oddlywood Little nightmares too cute to keep in a cage; short poems to make you laugh with a bit of black humor:

www.oddlywood.com facebook.com/oddlywood tinyurl.com/oddlywood (Amazon)

Hello: My name is

Kai Voetmann

,

I am a Digital painter from Stavanger Norway.

My story as a digital painter started 10 years ago while working as a freelance web and flash designer. To reach out to clients you need to have a webpage these days, and a nice one is of course a plus.

At first it all went great. Jobs came pouring in and I was pretty busy. Since I was working as a freelance designer I felt I had to make my own portfolio webpage to showcase my work online. But I wanted to do something a bit out of the ordinary.

Flash was kind of starting to lose its grasp, and I though what if I make a webpage that looks like a painting instead of flashy animations and bold text?

Lucky for me, back in my younger days I had attended an arts and graphics design school, so I had some idea how to paint. So I started doodling in Photoshop trying to create some kind of webpage that would be not to artsy but still nice and clean with a professional painting look to it.

After some trials and errors I was still not truly happy with the results, so a friend of mine said I should consider buying a Wacom pen tablet.

When it finally arrived I fell in love with it, so much in fact that I decided this was the thing I wanted to focus on. Not writing html and java scripts, but creating paintings and getting my creativity out in a whole different way.

So I said ‘GOODBYE’ to web design, withdrew to my apartment just playing with Photoshop and the tablet. The first few years of work and many of my paintings are just practice pieces; I have never actually showed them too many people, just some of my close friends.

As time passed I became more confident with my work and created a Facebook and an Instagram page where I post my work. I guess the rest is history as they say!

Now I have been painting on a far more professional level and have created works both on commission and as an individual artist. Some of the works include album cover art for various artist and genres and other works of art for peoples living rooms and homes.

I believe that creativity cannot be forced. I have a day job, so I am unable to create a great number of paintings during a year, but I am most happy when I can spend time for myself on my computer creating art.

When it comes to my paintings I do not really know what to say, you see, I don’t write words, I paint!

I do not want to tell you what to think or feel when you look at my work, I

Some of my pictures don’t even have a name. This may seem strange to some, but if it is true when they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, then I think you can make your own story without me trying to putting words into your mouth, or mind if you prefer! (I guess I should name them just for the sake of telling them apart?)

The one thing I can tell you about my art is how I make it. First of all, you have to see them the way they are meant to be seen if you really want a clear picture of my art. And that is: printed, signed and hanging on a wall. :) When I get a main idea I start of by searching the web for images I can use as reference. Then I make a sketch in Photoshop and start painting when I’m happy with it.

That's it I guess!

By using photos as reference I never really know 100% what the end product will look like, but I can choose the colour and the main mood, which I do. I almost always use strong colour contrasts to make the main motive stand out; but like I said, I’m a painter not a writer, so I think I’ll just stop there. If you want to know more I would love you to check out my Facebook or Instagram page. Feel free to contact me anytime. Thanks for reading and checking out my stuff.

Have a good one --

Kai Voetmann

--

Facebook.com/voetmannart http://hello-onlinemedia.com/push/tag/kaivoetmann#

To Spot a Cat

Boo

ogeyman

Suck it Selfie girl

Path Finder

Waiting

My name is Ashle theatre at Performe lengthy contracts w entertained thousa playing Tim Burton Throughout my tra Project", as a back Aladdin and King R channel fours awar Spinner.

I have always had graduated from the to specialise in por working with actors

Since a young age, I have also had a great passion for shooting very fortunate to travel the world and experience some amazing specialise in portrait photography, I thought why not capture wild every face tells a story including those in the animal kingdom. T required a lot of patience, but knowing you come away with the rewarding.

To see more of my work, please feel free to visit my website:

www.ashleydavisphotography.co.uk

You can also find links to my social media pages where I often upload im expeditions.

Thank you for exploring my work.

Ashley Davis

ey Davis and I originally studied professional musical

ers College in London. After graduating in 2009, I had two working for The Walt Disney Company in Paris, where I ands of guests on a daily basis. One of my main roles was n's Jack Skellington, from "The Nightmare before Christmas". aining, I appeared on Channel four's "The Sunday Night king dancer for Lily Allen and also appeared in pantomime as Rat in "Dick Whittington". More recently I have featured in rd winning period drama "The Mill", playing a small role called

a great interest in photography and in the early part of 2012 I e Photography Institute. I knew straight away that I wanted rtrait photography and the majority of my work to date is s.

wildlife and I have been encounters. As I dlife in the same way as The images taken have perfect shot is so

mages from recent

I'm

Olubodun Gbajabiamila.

A polymath;

political scientist, poet, blogger, writer, youths empowerment advocate, social media influencer, PR and Community Development Strategist. I'm also a member of the Nigerian Institute of Management (Chartered), Lagos, Nigeria.

I love creative writing. I work as a social media editor at Herald Media (Nigeria) Limited, Lagos, Nigeria.

I'm an adept observer of nature and various elements that keep it real and natural. I write about things in both physical and human nature.

I write on whatever muses my inspiration. My dictions though simple yet ambiguous.

I operates two blogs:

www.greatmindpoetry.wordpress.com and WWW.bodun gbajabiamila.blogspot.com Twitter : @BodunGbaja Instagram: @BodunGbaja Facebook: Bodun Gbajabiamila

If I Die Today If I die today Which is certain To quit the pain Being already grey In eyes and lashes What are ashes!

I’m not a waste It’s my dear fate.

For all I care Sown to man Doing the best I can To many clans I can And run days with time To be sang like ditty rime.

Olubodun Gbajabiamila ©2014

This Sunset

By Olubodun Gbajabiamila 2014

I stand so close, waiting for time Halting to see round yellow sublime Lured hopefully in hopelessness Agog of tick-tack ticks of ticking time Don't care the dying of angry Light!

This day seems so bored for a kite, Like whirlwind I disagree with the Sea: This sunset must adore my creeds; I'll come here determined again, I'll wait aloof as she heads to prey, I'll dare dodge this slow poor ray, I'll work and walk tall to the Tent.

I'll weed weeds with WILL I feel!

This sunset sets to grey my day I know the Moon won't give her say.

I see brightly my dear hope alive...

I'll strive else I cease to strive To see this sunset bow to my creeds.

I'm back to my restless town With crested laurels and medallions From an exile for a while Home away awake, soul at home.

In the wood with my attitude I was engaged above usual range, I pet my days unswerving loyalty I rest my chest admitting their jests I exhaled my anger via my anus; The resistance between night et days, A guardian unguard guarding grudges; This I brawl to budge indulging urges, In this I'm lured as it occurred to us all Is it that we were used and dumped?

Strange looks expecting our plentitude, These siblings with egos not gratified, We're left in Wall streets to hoard hope, Aids to trade without Aids-to-Trade, We're left to the left, not sure the right For how long the darkening days?

Are we strangers among villagers here?

Olubodun Gbajabiamila Š2014

EXILE

BE AND NEVER BE

Never but love opposing your heart Show your best, not the rest Nor smile otherwise your Be not agog in all your quests: psyche.

The outcome you should arch You may let this lines be your track. If you must love, let it be real If you don’t, let them know Lesser force Earth streams flow, unknown.

Patiently all plants shall grow.

Which is that fish so wished Be the rare heiress you may be though Never force yourself on thee Dived in sea and ocean in just a Initiate priceless arts and seeds And you’ll be lone peacock in kings’ flow. fields Never live in fear nor exist in And the air heirs will never err a doubt. while.

Know all is not fair, why in Just be nice and industrious by will. doubt?

No fashion fashions long forever!

Never be afraid of your enemies Hold the fine wheel of your dreams; That the world is clever nice, Tactically outwit your way through never!

No silver for those in life’s fever Go slow and kowtow to foes to Make your marks while you know shine The senses they sense for their Bury your fierce fear at the defense riverine Fence your senses with common Let me see dimples on your sense Hard to fight foes, be focus and wise cheeks Break all doubts with heavy Don’t quit! You may be silent in Olubodun Gbajabiamila bricks. disguise. ©2013

The definitive poetry collection

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teardrops-WhiteDoves-Paul/dp/1507858914

L.J. Kelley

Is a new author, licensed

registered nurse, and adoptive mother. She has a B.A. in Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and a B.S. in Nursing from Saint Louis University. L.J. has completed her first young adult novel and is excited about her next project, an anthology of short stories. Some of her initial flash fiction work has been published on Mash Stories, an online writing community magazine. She lives with her husband and two children in Winston-Salem, and is a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network and

Julia checked her pulse again. Probably around 95 this time. It had all started out innocently enough; she just wanted to make sure. Make sure that she was okay; that nothing was going wrong in her unpredictable body. After all, you never really could be entirely sure when things would head south. And when they did, how much time you had to stop the terrifying process. Could be minutes, could be seconds. Could be years, but she wasn’t going to be caught unprepared.

She knew it was the loss of control that scared her the most, not the actual death.

She’d discontinued life support on enough patients to appreciate that once death took over, people were blissfully unaware. At that point, the residual damage produced fell solely on the living; those that still actually gave a damn about the recently deceased.

They checked out and left an unfillable hole in their wake. The idea of never speaking to them again, never seeing them smile again; that’s what really got to most people, when they realized the person was truly gone.

Julia hadn’t always been this way. She longed for the days when she always ran late, when she was chronically unorganized and completely unconcerned about everything and everyone. When did it all change? Although it seemed like there had been the flip of a switch, somewhere in her viscera she knew that it hadn’t happened all at once. No, this had been culminating for years. All the stress she’d encountered in her life, all the loss, compounding at one moment. Her shrink referred to it as her “psychotic break.” She thought it sounded marginally sexy, in a dangerous sort of way.

Well, at least it meant she was interesting.

As a young child while Julia matured, she’d watched a lot of movies with her mother.

Lifetime movies, where the heroine was often a victim because she was, to sum it up briefly, too nice. Women who’d given it all up to support their husbands, boyfriends, families, children. Inevitably, the characters got screwed over in the end. Murdered, cheated on, abandoned, you name it, it happened on Lifetime. Julia credited those movies with giving her the point of view she held as an adult: don’t sacrifice everything for anyone else at the expense of yourself. Martyrdom was for the weak; the codependent.

It never ended well. Why surrender all of your own dreams only to be either purposely taken advantage of, or simply taken for granted? Not this girl, she’d vowed, even while she played with her expansive collection of Barbie dolls.

. She’d turned Ken into an indentured house servant, and had Barbie driving around in the plastic yellow corvette alone while he cooked and cleaned for her back at the dream mansion.

Long nights in the intensive care unit had afforded Julia with a lot of knowledge that she wished she didn’t have. Knowledge that made her tremendously uneasy about every little twinge, every creak, every groan her body protested with. The relentless checking had taken over her every thought. She hadn’t been able to function for some time. How long? She wasn’t sure, and really had no way to find out. When the repetitive thoughts had started to flood her muddled brain, she’d known something was amiss. These thought patterns aren’t normal, she’d say to herself. If anyone finds out about this, they’ll commit me. This is humiliating; I have to get myself together.

Every morning began with Julia researching a different illness on the internet. She spent hours upon hours, only breaking for a trip to the bathroom or a low-carb snack.

Although she was a nurse and not a doctor, she knew how to dissect a medical article well enough and find the essential main idea and message the author was trying to communicate. What she lacked, however, was the perspective to make sense out of the articles enough to discern hyperbole from common sense. As her obsessions with death and disease grew, Julia found herself internally diagnosing everyone she knew, but mostly herself. Her roommate Adam hadn’t realized what was going on, because she hid the online research sessions from him. Some part of her, a part that was no match for this new obsessional monster that governed her brain, knew that her behavior wasn’t normal; she didn’t want anyone to find out what she had become.

She reserved her medical research sessions for times when she was alone. If Adam was home and he stepped out of the room, she found herself diving for her laptop, searching “ovarian cancer” or something else that was, in her mind, a death sentence.

Unfortunately, many of the diseases that she researched had exceptionally vague symptoms and presentations; this only fueled her certainty that her own death was imminent. Nausea? Check. Bloating? Check. Headache? Check. Trouble sleeping?

Check.

Then began the thoughts of compulsory acceptance; if she could only accept her fate, just think how powerful her existence would become. To live absent from the fear of mortality. It would be so empowering.

She would be invincible if only she could accept her inexorable fate and live with total abandon. She chanted to herself, millions of times a day. You will die. You will die. You will die. She wanted to be Buddhist about the whole thing, really. Like one of those enlightened monks in Tibet or something. To remove fear, shame, embarrassment. If she could accomplish this, nothing could stop her. Now, if she could just get those images of the dead ones out of her head; the ones with the really revolting infections, foulsmelling wounds, or terrible neurological deficits. How many times had she thought to herself, that she would rather die than end up like that? Perhaps that was really what it was all about; part of her wanted to die, rather than grow sick and old.

After it went on for several months at a frenzied pace, Julia accepted the fact that something wasn’t quite right. One morning, after a particularly bad night of lying awake with chilling thoughts, she grabbed an expired bottle of antidepressants from the medicine cabinet. My thoughts aren’t right, she’d told herself. I can’t even function; I can’t work or live like this. Julia had been in the habit of picking up extra shifts at the hospital to help cover her expenses, but in her recent state, she’d been unable to do so.

She couldn’t focus, and was afraid she’d make a mistake. A mistake could cost someone’s life; she couldn’t take that kind of a risk or be saddled with that amount of responsibility. Her friends remained unaware of her quandary. Jules smiled and nodded at the appropriate times when conversing with them, and although many of them thought she’d been “quiet” of late, none of them knew the extent of it. Julia’s mind spun and whirred with obsessional thoughts about disease, death, and dying most of the day, every day. Hours upon hours she tried to distract herself, to no avail. The harder she tried to eliminate the thoughts, the more they laughed heartily at her. We’re not going anywhere. Good luck with all that ‘having a life’ business. You’re crazy now, and you always have been. But you knew that, didn’t you Jules? Going to work in a hospital environment just wasn’t a possibility at that point. In her heart, she knew that it was only a matter of time—a short one, at that—before everyone found out about the cerebral baggage she’d been carrying around. Julia couldn’t even imagine the fallout. After all, she’d always been so “promising.”

Julia had always been an overachiever; since birth, really. She walked early, talked early, read early, and was so far ahead when she got to kindergarten they’d had to find her a special tutor. Always an anxious, nervous, child, she’d had difficulty making friends and was often lonely.

School had been the one thing in her life that made her feel successful and she enjoyed the sense of control; if you work harder, you earn better grades and a lot of praise from adults. Julia had learned this formula early on, although if she was honest with herself, she had always known that something wasn’t quite right. Things were more difficult for her than others; changes were harder, adjustments at the last minute seemed impossible. She was a control freak and a “what-iffer,” and the two things combined made her very inflexible. After many years, she’d decided the decrease in anxiety she felt from controlling everything far outweighed the benefit to having any real friends.

People were just additional variables in a big experiment that she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the conclusion of.

Julia had decided to become a nurse during her sophomore year of university, when she had decided that the responsibilities of a doctor would be too much for her to handle given her allotted temperament. She didn’t want to be the one to make the final call; she didn’t need the glory. It was enough for her to know what the doctor would order before he or she did. The validation, really, was constant in that way. She could keep her head down, with diffidence, but know in her heart that she could’ve done it, too. She was intelligent enough and had taken many of the right classes. The thing that couldn’t be taught was flexibility and being adaptive to change.

Perfectionism, she’d decided, had no place in a high-stakes job. There was no room for the continuous self-beratement when someone had to have the confidence to pull the trigger on a decision at a moment’s notice. Yes, until she could overhaul her unfortunate personality, Jules would never be first-in-command.

Julia had met Adam in a Spanish study group at Temple University. He’d needed her help desperately; he was failing and needed to pass in order to remain a physics major.

Like her, Adam was often awkward socially and way too introspective for his own good.

He lacked the confidence needed for a sexy, corporate engineering type, so his career trajectory encompassed being on faculty somewhere. He was interested in theoretical particle physics, which bored Jules to tears.

She could certainly understand why he’d never been a hit with the ladies. Although he was attractive, he had no confidence and constantly shortchanged himself. She and Adam had never had romantic feelings for one another, but as friends they were an unbeatable team. He understood her like no one else ever had, and vice versa. Twice a week, Adam would have a couple of his grad school cohorts over for a beer and a science fiction movie.

. Several of them had been interested in Julia, but she wasn’t concerned with any of them. She found dating messy, and having a relationship with a real live person was just too filled with doubt. Julia liked her life to be predictable, and on schedule. She had a fish and a box turtle that she kept in her room as pets, and wasn’t a very snuggly type of person. Everything else in her room was decorated in shades of black, white, or navy. Things were so much easier when it was either black or white, after all. It was the gray areas that Jules had never liked to venture into.

Julia had been working as a nurse in the ICU for two years when the thoughts started to creep in. Many nights as she drove home, she cried intensely about what she’d seen on her shift. People screaming out in pain, or even worse, being totally incapacitated while their undignified bodies died at a leisurely pace. The stench of rotting flesh had taken up residence in her nostrils somewhere around the time her ninety day orientation was over and had never left. Julia had seen things she didn’t know were possible; she’d seen people live through dreadful things that should’ve killed them immediately. Some of them, unfortunately, soldiered on through the most ghastly circumstances. Flesheating bacterial infections, auto-immune diseases, accidental disembowelments, fatal medication errors; Julia had seen it all in her short time as a registered nurse. Every night when she arrived home, she would pull Adam aside and make him promise that if she wound up like that, to just pull the plug.

“Just make sure I don’t know what’s going on, that I’m anesthetized or something. I can’t stand the thought of knowing that my body is dying and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” Adam would always wave his hands, palms up, in agreement. He’d stopped really listening to her many months ago when she got into a state like that, choosing instead to focus on reruns of Battlestar Gallactica or Torchwood. He didn’t want to admit there was a distinct possibility that Jules may have serious mental problems any more than she wanted to admit it to herself. He busied himself with teaching at the university, grading papers, and watching Japanese anime porn on his PC in the evenings. To take responsibility for Jules was something that he would never be up to. *** Julia had her first panic attack approximately ten hours after swallowing the first pill; the old anxiety medication that she’d had stowed away in her rusty, mirrored medicine cabinet for God knows how long. While she had banked on its worst side effect being inefficacy, or even anorgasmia, this was unimaginable.

As a nurse, she should have realized what was happening to her fragmented brain.

As a brand-new mental patient, however, she should have cut herself more slack.

Terrified to let anyone know, she suffered in silence as the bolts of lightning zapped down the lengths of her arms and terrifying, thundering heart palpitations kept her awake at night. Afraid to reach out to anyone, she’d never felt so alone. Have I cracked? What’s happening to me?

Petrified to drive, Julia walked the three blocks to the all-night diner one evening.

There, she found a group of medical students studying for an exam the following day. After a lengthy discourse with herself, she decided she didn’t have anything to lose. She was already on the verge of losing both her job and all of her friends, anyway. She approached the group somewhat apologetically, and described what had taken place those several days.

“It’s probably that medication you took,” the East Indian one had said, his mouth engulfing a sloppy mouthful of his western omelet. After his friends and colleagues backed him up based on the description she’d given regarding her symptoms, Julia knew what she had to do. The next day, she found the most highly rated psychiatrist she could online and called the office for an appointment as soon as possible.

Just to make sure they took her seriously, she told the receptionist she had been having suicidal ideations but “didn’t have a plan.” Yeah, I’m thinking about it but not completely sold on it yet. After all, she didn’t want them to show up at her doorstep with a straitjacket, she just wanted the first available appointment.

The doctor’s office was a pale green color. Jules tried to remember the results of the study she’d read about wall color in prisons. Was it green or blue that initially calmed the inmates, but later led to acts of aggression? Since she wasn’t an inmate (yet) she decided it didn’t apply to her situation. She wasn’t sure she was up to being aggressive at that point, anyway. She was too afraid of her own thoughts to strike out at anyone else. More than anything, she just wanted to be unconscious so the endless ruminating about her impending demise would finally stop. She could no more stop counting her heartbeats than she could stop breathing.

After what seemed like several hours of waiting, the obsessions spinning and her heart pounding rapidly the entire time, a nurse came into the waiting room to collect her. “The doctor will see you now,” she’d said.

Julia wondered how they knew who she was in the room of several other people; she was thankful they didn’t call her name out loud. She was going to ride the crazy train privately as long as she could; no need to let everyone know her recent struggle. She had the momentary concern that she would run into a medical professional that she knew, but then decided she had no choice but to travel this route.

The doctor was tall and lanky, with a bald head and a greasy comb over hairstyle. His face was elongated and reminded her of a horse. Jules tried to ignore the parallel she had made; horses had always frightened her. After she finished telling him her tale of anguish, she surveyed him warily. He continued to take notes for at least one entire additional minute, then spoke quietly.

“I think you should stay on the medication. It will take a while for it to work. Perhaps we just need to lower the dose. Let’s sneak up on it.”

“Seriously?” she asked incredulously. “After the eleven panic attacks I’ve just had over the past day? I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m not going to take any more of this horrific medication; forget it.” Obsessions were bad enough, but to experience the awful physical sensations that accompanied the panic attacks were too much.

Julia couldn’t afford to be out of commission for the couple of weeks that it would take for the drug to wash in to her system properly. This wasn’t the warm, fuzzy, therapeutic response from a psychiatrist that she’d wanted. When he’d passively told her that the session was over, she leapt from her seat in an effort to remove herself as quickly as possible.

They parted on civil terms, but Julia was determined not to follow the plan of care Dr. Kent had prescribed. She just wanted to go home and distract herself as best she could. When she looked at her phone to check her email, she noticed there was a voice message waiting for her. As she dialed the code for the mailbox, another panic attack struck and she slid down the smooth wall onto the grimy floor. Her heart pounded hurriedly, as pure adrenaline shot through her system. Jules listened to the message as her body continued to betray her.

“Julia, this is Larry, the nurse manager. Don’t bother coming in tomorrow. You’ve missed two shifts in a row now without calling, and I’ve been hearing some not-sofavorable things about your performance recently. We’ll send you your final paycheck in about a week.”

Continued on page 76

Once

upon a time, not so very long ago, I posted a picture on a

media site, suggesting that those within my writing circles use it a prompt to stimulate their muse.

The suggestion was to write a short story of no more than one thou five hundred words. The response was excellent.

I was amazed at the range of different perspectives that a single im generated. As the saying goes ‘a picture is worth a thousand words this case 1,500!

My favourite story from that exercise was ‘Cherie’ written by Joan Wyndham. After two or three or four! Edits ‘Cherie’ evolved from a provisional draft into an amazing tale. You can read ‘Cherie’ in th edition of CQ Magazine, it starts on page 18.

a social

as a

usand

mage s’ or in

nna a his

The

CQ MAGAZINE SHORT STORY CHALLENGE Which bring me to this challenge, the CQ STORY

CHALLENGE. Your story must take its lead from the image posted here. The word limit is 1,500. Stories can be of any genre. All submissions MUST include two or three images which relate to the content.

It really is that simple to enter.

CQ will choose three entries as the winners. Second and third places will have their work published in a future edition of CQ Magazine.

The overall winner will have their work published in CQ Magazine and on the blogs A Little more Fiction, & Brilliant Blogshare which are shared worldwide on the major social media & blog sites. If the winner is a published indie author they will also have the opportunity to promote their books and links along with the winning work.

MUST be with me by the 31st of January 2016.

All entries, including accompanying images, All submissions to:

paulznewpostbox@gmail.com Please mark you entry ‘CQ Challenge’ to avoid being classed as

AWETHLOG

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Our children a

are the future

Dorothy Berry-Lound also known as Shannath Shima, promotes life, work and energy balance through her art, poetry and writing.

Born in Brighton in East Sussex, UK, she now lives in Paciano, Umbria, Italy with her husband and menagerie of animals. She is a Tai Chi instructor and Reiki Master and a member of the Fellowship of Authors and The use of healing colour is an imArtists and the Arts and portant focus for her artwork as she Healing Network. produces art for interior dĂŠcor that contribute to the balance and harmony of the home, healthcare setting and office. The images she creates always have a story, a depth, a message she am trying to get across or imagery to make you stop and think. Dorothy specialises in photo painting - using her own photographs and using digital software and her imagination to develop the images further with colours and textures. An article looking at her spiritual art work appeared in the Healing Power of Art and Artists http:// www.healing-power-of-art.org/dorothy-berry-lound-balances-spiritualart-with-spiritual-practice/ Dorothy was Artist in Residence for April 2015 at 1stAngel Arts Magazine

http://1stangel.co.uk/artist-in-residence-dorothy-berry-lound/ You can see Dorothy’s entire portfolio here http://dorothy-berrylound.artistwebsites.com/ and she has an art blog

http://www.shannathshima.me.uk/artblog/

Peeling Grapes

Clematis Azure Pearl

South Downs View

The Child Angel

Š Dorothy Berrry—lund

Storm over Umbria Features as the cover photograph of this quarters CQ magazine

OBSSESON continued from page 63 Crazily, Julia felt nothing but relief as she hung up. The gig was up; no more suppression of who she really was. No longer did she need to act put together when in reality, she was clearly losing it. Acting like her old self might have been an option several months ago, but certainly not now. I just need this medication to leave my system; that’s the first step.

The following morning, Julia abstained from taking the medication. She’d already been on it for about two weeks, and the thought crossed her mind that she may have some withdrawal. Adam hadn’t really been around the past several days, which pleased her to no end. If he saw her like this, who knew what kind of ludicrous intervention he would set up? She loved Adam, he was her best friend, but he was often a strange bird and she didn’t want to imagine what his idea of “supportive” would be.

Since she had no job, Jules slept in late after another terrifying night and refused to get out of bed. She couldn’t stop calculating the number of heartbeats she heard rushing in her ears every second. She’d found a group of people online that had these same sorts of panic attacks; many of them reported being unable to stop tracking their pulse. It was maddening; all day, every day, to constantly be aware of her heart beating. She kept waiting for it to stop abruptly, to meet her end. She knew it was just around the corner. Maybe as long as she counted the beats, her heart wouldn’t stop.

Her morning ritual of searching online for various diseases continued as she fell deeper and deeper into her delusional state. Julia was afraid to sleep; afraid she wouldn’t wake up. For some reason, she was certain that her time was up and just couldn’t accept it. Her constant analysis of the factors that had led her to her current situation didn’t help the obsessions; if anything, they grew stronger by the minute.

She had never been in the habit of contemplating death or mortality, but supposed that the death of her father earlier that year had been the catalyst for her going completely over the edge.

Julia’s father Edward had been a jovial, pleasant man whom everyone wanted to have around. He’d been her favorite person since she was young, and she had always counted on his no-nonsense approach to things and his relentless levelheadedness.

She’d envied these things about him, having always been an overly emotional person herself. It must have been wonderful to ascribe logic to a decision making process, but she’d never quite gotten the hang of it.

. Jules often rued the fact that she’d unfortunately wound up with more of her mother’s individualities than her father’s. When her mother walked out one day and never came back, she’d hoped that she would become more like Edward; unfortunately, she seemed to resemble her mother both mentally and behaviorally more with each passing day.

By the time the doctors discovered Edward’s lung cancer, he was already in Stage IV. A tumor had overtaken his lower spine and another had started to grow in his brain. A routine visit to the doctor to get some muscle relaxants for his back pain had led to the MRI of the spine; it was at that time the golf-ball-sized tumor was discovered. After the diagnosis had been made, it was only a short three months until he died. Friends and family members were shocked; he’d not been complaining of anything except his intermittent back pain, which his family practitioner had chalked up to improper posturing while working at his computer workstation. It was impossible to know when the cancer had started to grow. Perhaps what made the whole situation worse was the fact that Edward had never been a smoker and had been an athletic, healthy guy his whole life. To be the recipient of such an unlucky fate seemed more than unfair; it was criminal on the part of the universe, the higher power, the deity du jour.

Julia was his sole survivor; there were no other children. She’d been a nurse for only two years when the whole thing went down, and she sat helplessly with her father in the doctor’s office while he received his diagnosis. She’d accompanied him to his chemotherapy sessions as often as she could until he made the decision to end treatment. The treatments made him sicker than the cancer, and since it appeared incurable, he wanted only to enjoy the time he had left as much as he could. He and Julia went on a final trip to the mountains, where they spent a week bonding for one last time. After they returned, it only took about twenty days for him to pass away. Julia got through the funeral arrangements and burial with Adam’s help, and returned to work in the hopes of resuming her life as best she could.

But with each new terminal patient assignment Julia received when she arrived at work every other evening, the seeds were planted. She had only one motive: it wasn’t going to happen to her. She wasn’t going to be blindsided by some illegitimate death sentence that she didn’t earn. No, she would be vigilant. She would be ready.

. As she cared for patients with HIV, multiple myeloma, and particularly end-stage lung disease, she watched and waited. She monitored her own body endlessly and compared it to what she saw in their charts and records. Without a lot of friends, no one noticed her starting to slip. Adam was busy with his own life, and her workmates had never really taken to her in the first place. She moved in and out of her days, largely unnoticed by everyone she passed. She was, as she liked to be, invisible.

As she scheduled more and more frequent physician appointments just to ensure that nothing was going to take her by surprise, Julia began to experience her own private hell. She couldn’t clear her mind from the repetitive, unsettling thoughts that her body was being overtaken with a lethal disease. Day by day, week by week, she gradually lost her mind. Totally alone and with no one to turn to, she had no choice but to fake it for as long as she could.

The panic attacks had started to subside by the second day without taking the medication; it must have, indeed, been a dosing issue. She had set up an emergent meeting with a therapist specializing in anxiety disorders, and as she got ready for the intake appointment she was shocked by her own appearance in the mirror. I look like a psychiatric patient, she thought. Julia had never been what someone would call classically beautiful, but she had always taken pride in her appearance and was never short on male attention when she went out. Now, her hair stuck to her skull in oily, lumpy, lifeless clumps. Her skin looked sallow, and she had red splotches all over her face and arms where she had been picking uncontrollably with her fingernails and any sharp objects that were handy. She soothed herself with the knowledge that this woman would have seen much worse, and grabbed a bottle of water as she walked out the door to catch the train.

The psychologist’s office was in a business district of sorts. The mid-rise building was clean but dated, with dull, worn carpet and generic artistic prints of barns and sunsets hanging on every visible wall surface.

She checked in with the receptionist and took a seat in the waiting area. She didn’t want to look through a magazine; she couldn’t risk coming in contact with the millions of germs that would most assuredly be on every page. She removed her cell phone from her purse and began to check her usual websites: Mayo Clinic.com, WebMD, and MedicineNet.

While she was perusing a particularly informative article about lupus, a woman opened the door separating the waiting room from the back offices.

“Julia,” she whispered in a hushed undertone. While Jules appreciated the thought of discretion, she was really way past the point of caring who saw her in her current state. She knew she couldn’t keep up the disingenuity much longer; soon, everyone and his brother would know her as a lunatic. She often wondered, will people think it’s tragic, or will they laugh at what I’ve become? What would I do, if I knew such a person? She’d decided that it would depend on the kind of day she was having at the time. If she was miserable, she’d laugh at the poor bastard. If she was feeling particularly confident, she would mourn the loss of someone’s functionality and, more importantly, dignity.

Jules followed Dr. Gunnar back to her office. The hallway was lined with approximately twenty doors, ten on each side of the hallway. A red name plate with a different therapist’s name was nailed at eye level on the outside of every door. White noise machines sat on the floor at the entrance to several of the doorways; since the construction wasn’t exactly top of the line, it was very possible to hear what was going on in the office next door if things got too loud and crazy. Every creak of the floorboard startled Julia; in fact the disquieting noises were the only things that interrupted the consistent thudding of her heart. She was relieved to hear her heart beating again after the conclusion of each disruption. If I stop counting, it will stop. It will just stop.

Her eyes shifted around rapidly, taking it all in. Finally, the doctor stopped at the end of the hallway and gestured for her to enter the open door on the left.

“So, why don’t we start with what brought you in today, Julia? I read a brief description of your troubles on the email contact form, but I’d like a more extended, detailed explanation now.” She took out a leather portfolio with a notebook inside and began to take notes. Why are all of these damned people always taking notes? Do they forget what you tell them right after you walk out of your session? It was difficult for Julia to pinpoint the beginning of her obsessions, so she was forced to pick a random point and go from there.

After it all spilled out in a nonsensical deluge, she finally averted her eyes from the floor and directed them toward Dr. Gunnar’s face. She was completely unaware of time passing, and very unsure of how long she’d been talking. Dr. Gunnar’s expression was neutral, and she’d stopped writing.

. Julia could see the notebook from across the small room and could tell that in actuality, the doctor hadn’t taken that many notes at all. She surprised herself with her reaction; first she’d been unhappy that the psychologist was taking notes at all, now she felt as if the doctor hadn’t been paying enough attention and hadn’t written enough down. The constant tug-of-war in her brain was exhausting. If she wasn’t so afraid of dropping dead, Julia could have slumped down on the pleather couch and crashed.

She hadn’t slept in three weeks, at least.

Dr. Gunnar hesitated, then spoke. “From the acute nature of this panicky activity, I would say that perhaps you had an unfavorable reaction to the medication you took.

However, I’m not a medical doctor, so I really can’t comment. As far as what started the obsessional thinking in the first place, I think that’s pretty obvious. Your father died fairly recently, from an illness that no one saw coming. For a control freak like you, that’s too much uncertainty to handle. I can understand why your thoughts turned, initially, to saving yourself from the same fate. When you started seeking too much reassurance, though, instead of just viewing it as taking the proper medical precautions, it turned into something harder to keep under control. I would say at this point that you would fall under the diagnosis of someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

Jules sat across from the doctor, dumbfounded. Her pulse forever echoed in her ears.

Although what the psychologist had said made sense, she had trouble understanding the implications. If that is what I am now, does this mean that I will never have my mind back? I can’t stand to live a life this way. Julia wanted to sleep, to eat, to watch mindless movies on television with Adam. She wanted to have genuine conversations where she could actually focus on what the other person was talking about instead of on herself and what was sure to be her imminent death. She couldn’t stop. Just because she knew deep down that the fears were irrational and absurd didn’t mean she could shut them down. In fear of losing control of her body to death and disease, she had completely lost control of her mind.

“I’m going to outline a treatment plan for you, Julia,” Dr. Gunnar said matter-offactly. Julia cringed. The principal moment in her own psychological experience was just another day at the office for this woman. She cringed at the power imbalance of it all. She listened, as best she could, while the doctor explained to her how OCD was usually treated, what the studies showed, and how long it might take to get relief.

“This is not going to be an easy road to travel, Julia,” she implored. “I understand your hesitation to consider pharmaceutical treatment again, but at some point, you may have no choice.” She thought about the panic attacks, and the terror they brought with them. All of these options don’t really seem like…options, she thought resentfully. She couldn’t bring herself to speak, and wouldn’t have known what to say, anyway. She busied herself with writing a check for the hourly fee while Dr. Gunnar thumbed through her calendar to establish a follow-up visit. She took the appointment reminder card, thanked the doctor, and stood up unsteadily. Evidently, learning that she had a significant psychiatric diagnosis hadn’t done wonders for her lower leg strength.

As she rode the train home, Julia’s thoughts continued to revolve around a generalized overattentiveness to any physical sensation she experienced. Was she getting enough air? She’d lost the ability to take a normal breath. Now, in addition, when she had a thought, she immediately tried to extinguish it; to send it back to whence it came. She’d tried this technique before, and it only seemed to make things worse.

After the shock of her diagnosis, it seemed, as the train sped along its meandering tracks toward her stop, that the bulk of the obsessions had turned not to the actual thought of her imminent death, but to the obsession itself. The more she tried to restrain the thoughts, the harder they fought to knock down the door of rationality into her stream of consciousness. The only escape is sleep, she thought. She held her bag tightly, and exited the train at the station next to the apartment she shared with Adam. She approached the two-story walk-up with new resolve.

Luckily, Adam was still working at the campus. Jules opened his medicine drawer and pulled out some of his sleeping pills. She knew that he’d taken them for a couple of years for his insomnia, and hadn’t noticed any crazy side effects. I just want it to go away for a while. She took three of the little blue pills, disregarding the dosage information printed on the label. It was only four o’clock; Adam wouldn’t be home for at least three hours. If he was meeting any of the students he tutored, it would be longer than that. She went into her room, with the pictures of her college friends hanging all over the walls. She didn’t have many friends anymore; they’d all left Philadelphia after graduation to pursue sexy careers on the west coast. Julia checked her pulse one last time, to see if the Ambien had slowed it at all. She wasn’t trying to off herself, after all. She lay down on her bed, with its untidy comforter and clothes strewn everywhere, and fell into a hard sleep.

She awoke to Adam’s frantic voice.

“Julia! Wake up! What the hell is going on?”

Who’s snoring? Who’s breathing like that? As she regained consciousness, she realized that it was her. The medicine must have hit her harder than she’d thought. “What time is it?” she asked blearily.

“It’s almost midnight,” Adam had stressed. How long have you been asleep? I tried to call you several hours ago to see if you wanted to meet us out for dinner, but you didn’t answer. I just got home and realized you were in here. I heard you breathing funny, so I picked the lock on your door and came in to see what’s going on.”

She tried to listen to what Adam was saying, she really did. But the thoughts had already started up again. She’d started to count her pulse, which seemed much too slow. You’ve got to get it out of your head. You’ve got to stop this. You can’t keep this up. People are going to know. She’d given up on having any kind of meaningful conversation some time ago, and relied mainly on others’ facial expressions to guide her into some vague representation of what might be socially acceptable. He looks upset; I should respond with concern. She furrowed her brow and reached her left hand out to touch his arm. Eventually, she did catch part of what he continued to blather on about. He’s worried. I have to make him think I’m okay. She dragged her sleepy body out of bed and walked into the main living area with Adam. She casually turned on the television and then went to the kitchen to make some popcorn. Once he’d settled down and had turned all his attention toward the movie, she relaxed back into her compulsive thought pattern. It was like an addiction; she couldn’t shut it off. Like some kind of guilty pleasure, but taken way too far. This would ruin her; be the end of her.

After the movie had ended and Adam announced that he was heading off to sleep, she nodded in acknowledgment. She sat on the burgundy futon for several additional minutes, trying to decide what came next. She knew she already had too much medication in her system and was having trouble holding her head up. It wouldn’t take much more, really.

She pulled the bottle from the pocket in the black cardigan she wore around the house.

Calmly and with total certitude, she walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Julia had never been a fan of red wine, but from the looks of it, she had no choice. She pulled out the fanciest wine glass she could find and poured herself a drink. She’d never liked swallowing pills, but she sucked the rest of them down hungrily, urgently. Sixty-five, sixtysix, sixty-seven. On and on, never stopping. Couldn’t imagine living like this any longer. As she sat down again on the futon, she turned on a 24-hour news channel and allowed her eyes to glaze over, then close completely.

When she’d awakened in the very ICU that had recently fired her, a ventilator forcing stale oxygen into her exhausted lungs, Julia had cried uncontrollably. As soon as she had adapted momentarily to her new, sterile surroundings, it all began again. Twentytwo, twenty-three, twenty-four. I’ve got to stop. I wanted this to stop. Now everyone knows. Thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight. Sleep overtook her intermittently; she had to be sedated again to allow the ventilator to work with her body. Her waking moments were overstimulating, with the alarms on the monitoring equipment and IV pumps sounding relentlessly. With each deafening alarm, the thoughts resurfaced, even more unremittingly: I’m crashing, I’m dying.

Later that afternoon, the intensivist physician rounded and let her know that they’d had to spend over forty-five minutes bringing her back to life. She almost hadn’t made it. Julia had always had a close relationship with Dr. London, which made her feel even more like a failure. He’d often told her she was his favorite, and that he wanted her to work with him as his primary nurse. She couldn’t decide now if it was harder for him to meet her eyes or vice versa. How humiliating. She wanted his respect, not his pity.

Several days later, after the team was able to get Julia breathing on her own again, she was stable enough to be transferred to the psych unit. When she arrived to the unit, they took all of her personal belongings and locked them up. “You’ll need a sitter,” they’d told her matter-of-factly. Fifty-four, fifty-five. Julia was assigned to a small, private room complete with a nursing student stationed in the doorway with a clipboard to document her activities and location every fifteen minutes. They’d had an issue with a patient using his sheets to hang himself in his room the previous week, so they weren’t taking any chances with her. Most of the student’s time was spent texting someone on her cell phone; if she got caught doing that kind of thing, Jules knew she’d be canned. Suicide watch was no joke.

Since Julia was in the psych ward, she couldn’t have a television in her room; no potential weapons or sharp objects allowed. She dreaded the thought of Cindy, the nursing student, following her around in the day room and going with her to group therapy. She could hear the other patients out in the day room, as they fought, screamed, hallucinated, and hurled the old, metal chairs across the room at the staff.

She decided then and there that she would stay in her room. No human connection could help her now.

No, she had every opportunity now to be alone. Alone with her thoughts.

THE END

The TAA

Axel Oswith y Amanda Kus

multidisciplinar dedicado a

intersección del arte y el di

interpretaciones ingeniosas

hacen en la serie "Barbie", l

AMANDA & AXEL OF

THE TAABLE

Vision: It’s one of those brilliant things that’s obvious and recognizable to others, but to the visionary, it may be hard to see it that way. How you see the

world and interpret your surroundings may be innate and seem lacklustre to you, but can be wondrous when shown to others. A unique and insightful perspective is the difference between being good and being great, but realizing this is often the greatest hurdle to overcome when trying to craft a business as the visionary.

Founded by Axel Oswith and Amanda Kusai, the taable is a multidisciplinary creative studio offering art direction and photography, all rooted in their

personal, collective vision. Working at the intersection of art and design, Amanda and Axel’s passion for visual and youth culture drives them to transform the everyday and mundane into something extraordinary. Topped with a dose of wit and bold color, their cleverly photographed interpretations of daily life have landed them an impressive client roster, and press in dozens of publications, from Elle Magazine and Martha Stewart Living, to VSCO, Buzzfeed, CQ Magazine and beyond.

ABLE, Una Mirada a la Cultura Visual

sai son los cerebros detrás de The Taable, un centro creativo

a la dirección de arte y fotografía. Su trabajo está en la

iseño, transformando lo ordinario en algo más, con sus

s e inteligentes del día a día. Curiosa es la desconstrucción que

lo cual dice mucho sobre la cultura visual actual.

Goodbye

Please do not forget me

xx