Words and Pictures

WATER

The most pure and sacred creature on earth. Source of all creation. Give of hope. Tender to the land since the birth of time. Simple yet complex; common yet most prized. The holiest of all our possessions. Bearing fresh. Born upon a single tear, succouring the earth, her dependent child. Divining all growth from oceans to clouds, from flowers to forests, from fish to men. Painting even the skies with her splendour. Nourishment to the world. Nature herself. Liquid life.

Andrew Wallis 1992 (Lower Sixth)

HEMP

How carefully I've shaped you in the solitude of days. How peaceful in my mind entwined in and around my fingers. How sweet the days I've marked in knots I've tenderly caressed. So many times I've touched you, reached you, teased you. Now fingering these veins of hemp, their hair upon my skin. And how gently, quickly you will sleep. Slip into my collection with its bristles, coils, intentions. Yet your words will be unfruitful before I set you free. Slip as life is bound to slip from this empty disorder, then tied and laid upon the floor in perfect symmetry 'til the frayed edge of your lips on mine positioned, placed at ease once more. 'Til this restlessness returns I turn and turn and turn again. Andrew Wallis, 1993

EARTH

The pregnant grass gave a heaven-scented sigh, as she sucked upon the sun's lazy beams: while a fresh cloud of blosson on the sky wafted forth, as upon some sun-kissed dream.

Bumble-bees fumbled over flimsy flowers, hungry for honey in the August heat; and summer smiled on her drunken workers, lapping up sugar with their hairy feet.

Summer haze dripped from the air, softly down the blue sky to the fresh pastures below. The loving sun kissed nature's womb, to drown in heaven, a garden of ecstatic woe. Andrew Wallis, 1993

Andrew was awarded the Skrentny Prize for Creative Writing.

We watched, dejected and tearful, as a pack of hunting bulldozers mindlessly trampled over the wood leaving in their trail lifeless rubble. The men and their machines were pulling down the swings and climbing frame in the adventure playground in the clearing in the wood. I flinched, and clenched my fists as they tore down my swing — the soft, comfortable rubber ring where I had sat for so many hours gently swaying to and fro.

Looking away, not being able to take any more, I saw an excited young boy of about six, gambolling along the tree-lined road which led to the entrance, with his mother trailing behind. Then, he stopped and looked around, thinking he had led his reluctant companion to the wrong place: but his mother realised. She, unalarmed, explained what had happened to her bemused son. She did not understand the child's feelings towards his paradise. After a few moments, very disappointed and almost crying, he left with his mother, who offered him the poor consolation prize of a biscuit. Adults just did not understand us children, I concluded.

However, not everything could retreat to the safety, if comparative boredom, of home. For some, this rapidly depleting woodland was home. Frightened away by the noise and destruction, screeching jays and thrushes abandoned their nests and flew away. A flash of brown just evaded the wheels of a truck carrying away concrete blocks and reminded me of the time I and my friends had discovered a young rabbit who had strayed from its burrow. At that time we visited the area almost daily, and chased each other around the trees, or climbed them. It had seemed perfect to us. A gushing river flowed through the wood, and we could jump from rock to rock to get from one bank to the other. The place was a retreat, a haven where under the supervision of our parents we could happily spend hours on end. Going to the wood, and the adjacent playground, became part of our daily routine, and so part of us. We had freedom, and used it to the full extent, but now it was being cruelly stolen from us by uncompassionate authorities.

Many workers arrived to effect the demolition, all of them swearing, smoking, arguing men who gradually reduced the area to starkness. Where previously oak trees had obstructed the view, one could now see the industrial smoke which poured out of the factory chimneys along the bleak horizon. The wood had been frequented by many children, so it seemed pointless to us to convert it into a huge car park and a few houses, but they were being built, right in front of our eyes. Even now we felt the need, as if by habit, to return each evening to the site and mourn our loss.

After several weeks, the new houses, although by no means complete, must have been advertised, and the prospective inhabitants of these skeletons were arriving in trickles. One evening while we were sitting on partiallyintact perimeter wall, reminiscing depressedly of our childhood adventures in the wood, a car drove up to one of the half-built houses; and a young couple with a toddler got out. The same thought went through all of our heads — how sad it was that this boy would not grow up able to reap the same pleasure as we did from this second home. It seemed impossible to imagine an existence without such a place where we could escape to, away from the polluted minds and atmosphere of the adult world, and exercise our liberty.

This boring, flat, barren expanse of land that had been created by the demolition team represented to us the total lack of freedom experienced by adults, and their lack of will to live freely and enjoy themselves fully. The squabbling men had further persuaded us that we did not want to grow up, if we lost our lust for life, and became like them. I suppose our loyal friendship and worriless existence were merely due to an innocent, unblemished character, not yet subjected to the restrictions of adulthood and associated behaviour.

We miserably kicked a football around, not in the mood to exert much effort. However, soon we were arguing, and this broke into a fight. We were angry, and blamed each other, constantly disputing amongst ourselves. I realised that we now resembled the workmen we had seen, and reflected that this was a sign that we had gone past the age of freedom, and innocence. The wood was a symbol of these, and as it had now been destroyed, so had our freedom of spirit and mind. Jonathan Reeves

Jonathan was awarded the Fourth Form Essay Prize for this short story.