VORTEX 2022 The University of Winchester by UoW Vortex

Preface This edition of Vortex is dedicated to the memory of Neil McCaw, who served as Editor-in-Chief for many years. His vision and wisdom continue to inspire us all. Each year, a new editorial board of creative writing students comes together to discuss submissions, select work, edit, design and market our annual anthology of poetry and prose. As we welcome you to the sixteenth edition of our literary magazine, we pause to consider what it means to us, and what it might mean to you. This magazine, for us, is about voices – singular, multiple, individual. The aim of this editorial board has been to champion the creativity of our peers and showcase the work of students at the University of Winchester. The submissions this year amazed us with the volume of perspectives on offer and the variety and vibrancy of the content. We hope our selection allows a breather from the world, but also an opportunity to contemplate the times we live in with an open and unflinching gaze. This edition, right here and now – or ‘write’ here, if we may – reflects our contemporary world and challenges us to see it in new ways, as well as riffing on the nature of creativity and the way we use words to portray the human experience. Vortex 2022, along with all previous copies of Vortex, is available to view for free at www.issuu.com/uowvortex. Thank you for reading. The Editorial Board The University of Winchester

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2 | Contents

Contents | 3

Sarah. Sabina. Us. Abigail Lucy

What does the sunrise look like on a Tuesday morning? I wonder if I will ever watch golden rays dance over horizons, alone. Would it be cold? Maybe I’d bring a picnic blanket. I wonder what the stars would look like, without this barrier of glass between us. I wonder how it would feel to walk barefoot in the twilight, take an early morning run, save £6 on the taxi home. £6 would buy two meal deals that I could eat in the workplace where my voice is silenced.

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Living Things Are Always Burning Becca Miles Here you go again. Two steps towards the cave mouth, and you’re planning your retreat. Even the hope of sunlight horrifies. Of course it does. You’ve mapped these tunnels by touch, felt every crevice in swallowing blackness, crawled through shale ‘til flayed knees turned to blood-red ore, carved a bed from rock and laid in it, let your back grow hard and grooved, let the embers of ambition fade, let frost drain the colour from fingers, limbs, face. All that time devoted to fossilising, and now you want to want to be anything but a golem of stone and bone and ice? Yes. I want to want to be my own Prometheus, set myself on fire to guide my journey, let burning light unite with metabolic alchemy, unleash

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free radicals to dynamite the elements, oxidise my guts with every breath, shed cells that can’t be regrown, every reckless division inviting mutation, a fragile tower of biochemistry, daring entropy to bring it down, to howl; to weep for what is lost but not what could have been, blackened footprints where I stagger, scratch a message in the ashes where I fall: ‘And yet she was glad to be anything but that calcified thing, to be one of the hideous living.’

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Eve’s Pudding Sarah Standage

Beyond the window the windfalls on the grass a surfeit of waste. Granny washed the Bramleys. She cracked an egg and, with her little finger, deftly wiped the inside of the shell. I spread the mixture over the fruit and licked the wooden spoon. Granny poured a cup of tea from the Brown Betty teapot. Waiting for the buzzer, a warm aroma filled the room. I peeped at the risen brown mixture covering the soft, succulent apples.

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A Minor Discomfort of the Left Foot Lewis Leverett

There was something wrong with his left shoe. Either that, or his left sock. Or perhaps it was the combination of the two that created the issue. This, sitting at the dinner table with his wife and child, is what Martin pondered. The dining room, which was also the kitchen, was that of every middle class new-build in the south of England. That’s the one with the grey and white counters that reflect light onto the grey and white walls and the grey and white floors and the grey and white tables. Martin’s house was so much the house of everyone around him, in fact, that it would have been quite possible for him to step by mistake into his neighbour’s hallway, walk through into their kitchen and start preparing dinner without batting an eyelid. Not that he made his dinners. The meal was Pasta Arrabiata. He wasn’t in any pain with his left foot, per se. It was more subtle than that. A discomfort he couldn’t explain. A nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Since the discomfort wasn’t there when he was barefoot, he knew it had something to do with either his sock or his shoe, not with the foot itself. Or perhaps that was a premature conclusion. The obvious answer was that he must have put his sock on inadequately that morning. Except it had been a long time since the morning and he’d spent most of his work hours adjusting that very sock. He thought of seeking other opinions, but he wasn’t going to tell his wife about his problem. She didn’t like his

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problems, he had concluded some years prior, especially ones she would consider minor. He had asked colleagues, though. Most colleagues will gladly talk of anything with anyone, especially in a workplace like his. Neil said with a moan that he’d suffered exactly the same thing for his whole life, but with his right foot - a detail Neil found very intriguing. He said that he simply got used to it and maybe that his right foot was a different size to his left, but he’d never verified that. Neil seemed less bothered than Martin about the whole thing. Thinking the conversation tedious, he took none of his advice on board at the time. Some hours later however, finding the Arrabiata equally tedious, he considered the advice again. He dismissed the first point immediately. Scoffed, in fact, though only in his head. Get used to it. What a dreadful solution. An approach too many men adopted too often, in his experience. But there floated point number two. Perhaps his feet were different sizes. After all, there was no discomfort in his right foot. None at all. Perhaps it didn’t matter which of his socks he wore, nor with what shoe. He needed something tailor-made. He needed an expert. That seemed logical. Such a niche and as-yet-unexplained ailment required a skilful and scientific cure that he himself could not provide. Good. He would do that just as soon as he swallowed the last of his pasta. Problem solved. Actually, he wouldn’t do that straight away. It was much smarter, he realised, to first try different socks and different shoes and in every possible combination, before forking out on his new solution. Yes, that was a reasonable course of action. And he was a reasonable man. No longer needing to contemplate his foot-related riddle, at least for the time being, he could now hear the conversation of his family. Luke was talking about some essay he had to do by tomorrow. Or it might have been

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an exam he needed to revise for. Although it was unlikely to have been the latter, since Martin didn’t think it was exam time yet, though he couldn’t be sure. His wife said something that sounded like advice in response. He couldn’t be sure of what she said either; the nagging discomfort in his left foot was getting louder again. He got rid of the three remaining pieces of pasta on his plate and left for the bedroom. Every sock was tried. And every shoe. And every sock with every shoe. But it still remained that the only combination of sock and shoe with which Martin found peace was the combination of no sock and no shoe at all. This meant, at least while that fact persisted - and please god may it persist! - that he had peace for seven hours of the day. But those were hours for which he wasn’t awake. He needed the other fourteen to be as happy. He could go around barefooted. They’d call him insane, but there’d be no laws to stop him. However, he took the Tube to work, and that would just be weird. An hour on from dinner, he decided his little experiment had been a success. His theory was verified. He needed a special shoe - or a special sock? Did they do special socks? He thought about things like this until bed. That wasn’t the only thing he did, obviously. He also booked an appointment with a Bespoke Shoe and Orthopaedic Footwear shop and felt very pleased with himself for doing so. He then booked his half-day ‘time off in lieu’ - or TOIL as it is now appropriately referred to - which he had been saving up for just such an occasion, so that he’d have the whole of the afternoon free to visit the shop. Finally, he took his socks off and climbed into bed with his sleeping wife, a tiny smile on his face. The measurements had gone well. The man was composed, intelligent and deeply knowledgeable about his craft - although he should hope so for that price! - exactly the expert he knew the problem called for.

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The slight discomfort nagged still, while he waited three weeks for the shoes to be made, but that was okay. He found it much easier to endure the problem once he knew the resolution was coming. Life rolled by, at once slowly and quickly, just as it always had, and then the shoes were in his hands. He tried them on under the excited eye of the shoemaker. ‘Oh no, that’s great. Oh yes, very comfortable. I like them a lot,’ Martin had said, along with various other sentences amounting to just the same meaning. They’d smiled at each other and he had left. It is hard for men such as he to feel strongly in a public place such as a shop. To be excitable, for instance, was not at all acceptable for an eight-year-old Martin in his local sweet shop, and so it had been removed from his nature. As such, it was at the moment of leaving the shop that the relief kicked in. No, not relief. Not relief. Euphoria. The annoying, agitating, never-ending whisper of discomfort in his left foot was gone. He felt nothing. His foot fit perfectly in his sock, fit perfectly in his shoe. That wretched wrench had been pulled from the mechanism of his life, restoring everything to working order. He stood still outside the shop doorway and breathed in the street around him, his eyes closed. What bliss. Then he felt it. The worst feeling he could possibly have felt in that moment. It pierced through his heart and his stomach and tore holes in him on entrance and exit. He felt a minor discomfort in his left foot. The bespoke shoe had done nothing at all. His problem persisted. His hell continued. A lesser man would have let his anger boil into fury. Martin held himself together. He thought logically. Okay, it wasn’t the foot on its own, he knew that already. It wasn’t about finding the right combination of sock and shoe. And

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now he knew it wasn’t to do with the size or the shape of his foot. These shoes had been designed exactly for his foot and his foot only. So, what else was left? At some point, he had started walking. Now, he was on a train, heading home. It was here that he realised a flaw in his logic. He had tried every sock and shoe combination, yes, but not with this new shoe. Perhaps the shoe was perfect, but the sock was not. Brilliant! Ingenious! That had to be it! It had to be. He clung to this, just as he clung to the handrail of the Tube train that swung him violently to and fro. He got home. He didn’t know who was in. He went straight to his bedroom and emptied the sock drawers. The laces of the shoes were undone, the shoes taken off, the socks taken off, the new socks put on, the shoes put on again, the laces done up. A quick pacing of the bedroom, this way then that, until he was back to where he started. No, no good. The laces of the shoes were undone, the shoes taken off, the old socks taken off, the new socks put on, the shoes put on, the laces done up. A quick pacing of the bedroom. No, no good. Laces undone, shoes off, socks off, socks on, shoes on, laces done up. Pacing. No good. Laces, shoes, socks, socks, shoes, laces, pacing, no good. Martin stopped. He sat on a bed made of socks. He held his head up and looked straight forward, staring blankly at an eggshell wall. It wasn’t silent in the room, for he could hear his left foot. And it didn’t whisper any more, it screamed. But that wasn’t the horrifying fact that caused Martin to sit motionless staring at the wall. That wasn’t the realisation that made him do what he was about to do. No, it was something far worse than the screaming. Every sock was on the floor. Every sock Martin owned. He was barefoot. But he could still feel it.

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Martin’s wife came home some three hours later. She went to the bathroom to use the toilet. She let out a noise, as one would when they saw what she saw. The noise was an animalistic cry that comes only in moments of unadulterated horror. A noise she had never made before. She put her hand to her mouth. There, in the bath, sat Martin. He held a saw in his hand. His eyes were red, his skin white. She saw what he had done. It was too sickening for her to scream again. He said only one thing. Five words that pinned themselves to her mind forever. He said them without any emotion. That was perhaps the worst part. Five words. ‘I can still feel it.’

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Killing Me With Deja Vu Oliver Bradby

Oh! The err of repetition! The mistake of repeating, repeating your mistakes. To say nothing, while saying the same Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and until

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Some Bearing Messages Tom Moody

They march towards the high street in protest. Unfounded. The police have confiscated ironic placards linked to widespread algorithms. Gone. Through the alley we hear the bleating of farmyard animals. Some raise bamboo structures. Others chant shame on you. Sheep. Are all arrests proactive? The messages are twisted like headphone cables. So tweet. It doesn’t matter your particular cause or desired outcome. Demand the things you already have. It is all for nothing without freedom.

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Hereditary Apparitions Kate Jarvis

In her dream, Julia Morton has escaped. She wakes too soon, feverish hot and snared tight in the tangled sheets of her sickbed. She wrenches up at a sharp angle, mucus in her throat, clogging and stopping and swallowing up her breath. She hacks at it, a drowning sensation overwhelming her, bringing instinctual, animal panic. Then Mother is there, patting her back, speaking in that insistent, matronly tone. The mucus dislodges, lands on her clean white sheets and stares up at her. A yellow stain. Julia can breathe, but there’s no relief. She slumps back, before Mother is folding her forward again, plumping her pillows, propping her up like a rag doll. Mother fusses around like a bluebottle, fetching clean water and damp cloths and a new sheet, and speaking to herself because they both know Julia is too exhausted to respond. Julia settles back against her pillows, guilty for her disappointment at not being dead yet. The excitement is soon over, giving way to the monotony of the patient’s chamber. Heavy curtains are drawn against the midday sun, too cheerful for any of the inmates to bear. Instead the room is lit by scattered lamps, casting a false, cold light and deepening the shadows in the far corner. It’s the shadows Julia blames for her paranoia, her hallucinations.

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Faces— no, eyes. Dark and crazed and always watching. There are plenty of comforting excuses for the things she sees in the shadows. Her long illness. Her deteriorating vision. Her extensive catalogue of daily medications. Her general state of fear and fatigue. It’s happening now, and Julia is trying very hard to ignore it. It is a rattling breath behind her, so real she feels she could turn and see someone there. It is her most common hallucination. The invisible nursemaid, who watches over her even more relentlessly than Mother. Julia closes her eyes, but that missing sense just makes the breathing louder. She holds her own breath for a few long seconds, but no. It’s not her. When her breath stops, the nursemaid’s goes on. Finally, unable to resist any longer, she tilts her head— up, up, up. Nothing. Dreaming comes next. This one is worse than usual; it brings no release. A cautionary tale that hits too close. It gives a face and a body and a shrill, desperate voice to a name she’s been familiar with for most of her life. Her unconscious mind ought to be congratulated; Lord Morton really does resemble the portrait hanging in Father’s study. A lean man with the Morton looks. Dark, curling hair. Dark eyes. A stern, solid, aristocratic chin. In her dream, Henry Morton is sicklier than his portrait lets on. The artist had been kind. He’s thin, not lean, and looks as if a strong breeze might blow him down. His face is sharper— haggard and shadowed and ashen. His dark hair sticks to the sweat on his brow, and is matted in the back, as if he’s been lying down a very long time. In her dream, Henry Morton promises to tell her the truth, then tells her a ghost story. A warning. A baton race stretching generations, centuries.

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He tells her to listen, tells her to leave. Julia wakes, blinking at the bright sunlight leaking in beneath her curtains. Very deliberately, she does not look at the shadowy corner beside her wardrobe. She tells herself it’s not the dream driving her out of doors that afternoon, when she asks the part-time nurse to wheel her out in the chair. Alyssa walks up from the village four days a week, to give Mother a rest and pretend to be Julia’s friend. In the shade of a great oak , Julia watches the sprawling red brick-manor. She stays put until dusk has fallen, damp and dim, upon the lawn, watching the wide windows, as if she might glimpse something moving there that ought not to move. When she is assisted back indoors, she tries to conceal the ridiculous panic nesting like wasps in her ribcage. She longs to stay out beneath the wide, cold sky, but says nothing; does not resist when Alyssa manoeuvres her back into bed, pulling the covers up high and fretting over the chill evening, the absurdity of having stayed out so long. Eventually, Julia can keep her eyes open no longer. Fearful of dreams, she slips into darkness, hoping that whatever she sees will be forgotten by the time she wakes. Morning comes quick, jolting her awake. Her skin prickles with the sense of eyes upon her, but Mother’s chair is vacant when she turns her head towards it . The quiet is heavy with suspense and she nearly bursts into tears when she realises she’s waiting for something. Judging by the rapid beat of her pulse, she’s sure it has something to do with Lord Henry Morton. She could ask to leave, if she thought it would do any good. She could ask to be moved to a little cottage down in the village, with a spare room for a live-in nurse. But she

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won’t ask. Mother and Father would never allow it. She can hear the breath behind her again. It sounds close, closer than it’s ever come before. Her ghosts are growing brave. Late morning offers some reprieve from the sickroom. Rain is pressing upon the windowpanes of the manor, prying its way in through absent roof tiles. It will keep them all inside today, like bugs in jars. Julia is nervous, noticeably so. She can’t help wondering what else is trapped inside with her. When Mother’s attempts to soothe do no good, she passes her along to Father in the study. It’s uncomfortably warm, all four walls insulated with heavy, leather-bound tomes. Father is looking over the ancestry documents when Mother parks the chair up alongside the desk. He looks up at them as though he’d forgotten they existed. Julia paws gently at a few pages, feigning interest. The last thing she wants is to stumble across anything involving Lord Henry. Naturally, his name jumps out at her on the closest document. A scanned letter, penned in 1841 by Sylvia Morton, the mother of dream-hopping Lord Henry. It tells, in a clipped, cursory manner, of her son’s passing. His heart had stopped in the night. He had been found in the morning. It had been a solace to know that his death had been peaceful. After a short, painful life, even his mother had evidently felt it a relief when he was gone and they were, all of them, free. Father has not noticed Julia’s hands shaking. She looks away, folding her hands in her lap. This is how Father copes. She can almost sympathise. It must be difficult, living with a daughter condemned to such sickness by his own bad genes. His only child, too. Julia watches him, and he makes admirable attempts to include her. She doesn’t understand it, personally. Her

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family history is not something she has ever wanted to look at too closely. It’s too much like looking into the future. Lord Henry had been a healthy child. So had she. Lord Henry had fallen abruptly ill in early adolescence. So had she. Lord Henry had never truly recovered from that first episode, and with each repeat, he had only become worse, only grown weaker, less capable of convalescence. She’d been just the same. Against her will, her gaze returns to Sylvia Morton’s letter. It’s too soon to say, but she feels it likely that their deaths will be one and the same, too. ‘Here,’ Father says, holding a small red book out to her. He’d caught her looking and, as usual, he’d misunderstood. She takes it automatically, turning it over in her hands. There is no title, no author. There’s ice in her veins when she flips to the inside cover and reads, ‘Property of Lord Henry Morton’, written in smooth, faded ink. A journal. She nearly drops it. Her hands are shaking again. She returns them to her lap, the book with them. Its blank red cover stares back at her, like a warning twice given. It is hours later when she finds the strength to read. She skips to the final entry, and soon wishes she hadn’t. I feel eyes on my back, on my face, Lord Henry writes, his hand becoming increasingly unsteady. I wake and feel those eyes— invisible eyes. They come too close. I lie in my bed all day long. My strength has abandoned me, I cannot even stand. My legs will not hold me. I only wait. Wait for it to happen. I lie here and I feel those eyes and I feel it coming closer and closer and closer and clos— A blot of ink, then nothing. Clos, orphaned in the middle of the page, with only blank, pocked parchment to follow. Chilled to her bones despite the stifling heat of her weighted blankets, Julia feels her skin prickle. Tears sting in her eyes. She can hear that rattling breath, so close.

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In the morning, Julia is worse. Mother coddles and Alyssa fusses, but this is all so normal that the finality does not appear to either of them. They are used to the up and down and up again. Julia is used to it, too, but this time feels different. The end is creeping up onto her bed, filling her lungs and stiffening her bones, as if rigor mortis is impatient to begin. Crypt fever burns her brow, even as it freezes her fingers and toes. Closer and closer and closer and clos— She falls asleep, her medications too strong to resist, and later wakes to an almost empty room. Mother is gone, Alyssa gone too. Father has not visited yet. It is something so abundantly Other that stands at the foot of her bed. Even as it horrifies, it is familiar. This presence has long been known to her, despite never having seen it. She’s felt its eyes. She’s heard its breath. Nightmare made tangible, flickering between transparency and solidity, watching her with a pair of dark Morton eyes, set deep into its wasted, chalk-white face. It is just the kind of face she would have envisioned for her invisible nursemaid, if she’d ever been brave enough to consider. Julia cannot move, cannot even flinch, as the creature reaches a hand towards her. It comes closer, closer, closer, until— very abruptly, it is over. Julia feels something like a pinch, like a twisting pain in her side, and then she notices that she is not where she’d been a moment ago. She is outside of herself now, watching as another spirit flickers behind her closed eyelids. The grandfather clock on the landing is striking one o’clock and Julia’s mother is coming up the stairs to check on her daughter, who has been dead since thirty-six minutes past twelve. The body is cooling rapidly beneath the sheets, and the eyes are closed, as though her final moments had been

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peaceful. As though she had slipped away in the midst of a sweet dream. A spirit did leave the manor at thirty-six minutes past twelve. It drifted up through her ribcage like vapour, but it was not Julia Morton. In the deep shadow between the wardrobe and the wall, Julia Morton rocks back and forth in her own arms, a strange coldness spreading from the place where her heart used to beat. Her mind drifts further every day and, while she still can, she wonders how long she will be able to resist the frenzied, rising desire to push someone from their body and take it for herself.

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Question Marks and Deleted Lines Eden Irving

Open the file, format the document. Save… save again… rename the file, you fickle perfectionist. Fingers and thoughts align to find the sublime and create a final product worthy of high-handed standards you uphold from within. ‘To be or not to be,’ you foresee as you agonise, penalise, quantify words and worth. Quotes bookended by citations and footers;1 only in places those leaving comment wish to have name attached else let their advice be washed away in anonymous angst. L e t t e r s scatter the margins as digits of dialogue, given new fonts to affront expectations.

Energy depleting [BEEP] as the battery starts [BEEP] flashing in desperation. [BEEP] Close the file [BEEP] for today. [BEEP] Reopen when you’re ready [BEEP] and only then. New day, new beginning; new paragraphs and chapters where I see fit some endless spiels packed with passionate, perfected professionalism, others short. Snappy. Fading into obscurity with little to add. Wandering around the page with question? marks? over my head, 24 | Question Marks and Deleted Lines

curious queries and judgmental phrasing to follow. Bold, italic emphasis thrown in to sweeten the deal and highlight underwhelming lines. Carry on, on, hurry up, up, build momentum, -mentum… Damn blue screen! Loss of the knowledge that you have something to show for yourself. Reload, reload, reload – not nearly fast enough! Restart, reopen, only to find… half your work wiped. Nothing new there.

1 though only where fit

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Landing Night Florence Hoyle 8:11 PM - The Red Bell, London ‘To the Martians!’ The man to my right thrusts his beer into the air, peppering my forehead with flecks of froth. ‘Sorry mate,’ he grunts, without turning to me. His looming presence overwhelms me from a seat away. I clutch my drink, fighting against the mess of my fringe to take another sip. ‘They’re not Martians,’ his friend hisses. ‘Does it matter?’ The big guy dunks his moustache in more beer froth. ‘Listen,’ his friend continues, ‘we’d best be more polite with them. My cousin in the army reckons some of them have already landed.’ ‘I’d spot them a mile off,’ the big guy scoffs, wiping his lip. ‘That’s the thing mate. Apparently, they can look like us.’ The men stop talking, consumed by a shared tension. It’s probably nonsense, I think to myself. It feels like every set of eyes in the pub are glued to me. I don’t need to worry about shapeshifters on top of th‘Is this seat taken?’ I pull myself out of my drink and turn to the voice. A tall girl with shaved sides and a leather jacket grins at me. She’s holding a Ribena with a straw in it. I don’t want her to sit with me. ‘Go for it,’ I croak. Damn it. She sits down, loudly sipping her Ribena as if to declare her presence. I ignore her, focusing on the stream of

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hypnotic bubbles in my glass. ‘What are you drinking?’ she asks. ‘Vodka and coke,’ I say after a long pause. ‘Nice! An earth classic.’ She looks probingly at me with silvery eyes. The men next to me get up from their seats and I feel much smaller. Apparently, they can look like us. My shoulders tense. ‘Are you gonna give me a name?’ she chirps. She’s suspicious. Use a fake name. ‘Mo.’ Shit. At least it’s only my first name. ‘Well, greetings.’ She bounces her Ribena against my glass, making a graceless thumping noise. ‘I’m Winters....’ That has to be a fake name. Who calls themselves ‘Winters’? ‘...you don’t wanna know my first name.’ ‘So… Ribena?’ I ask. That’s all I can think of. ‘Oh! Yeah,’ she chuckles, ‘it’s a fairly cheap mixer.’ She flags the bartender down and orders a shot to mix into her bottle. ‘Where do you work?’ I ask. This might get me answers. Her smile falters for a second and she takes a long sip from her straw. ‘I, uh… drive. Buses. I’m a bus driver.’ Before I can respond, a sharp bang punctures the ambience of the pub. A boot kicks the door open and armed men flood through the doorway, stomping across the wooden floor. ‘Everyone needs to be out in five minutes! These premises are being seized as an emergency landing facility!’ The pub responds with silence. The soldier’s eyes narrow. ‘Move it!’ The pub erupts into a chorus of jeers, which gradually deflate into sulky muttering about ‘bloody aliens’ as they down their drinks and leave. I try to lose Winters in the crowd, but she skips along next to me, Ribena in hand. ‘This keeps happening - it’s the third time tonight! There must not be enough room to process them all.’

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‘How many are there meant to be?’ ‘Must be thousands!’ she says, grinning. ‘You seem happy about it.’ ‘Who the hell wouldn’t be?’ 9:03 PM - Oxford Street Swarms of people have gathered in the street, and every sidewalk is packed with haphazard booze stalls eagerly serving the crowds. Green parade balloons and banners blot the sky as London prepares for new history. My cheeks hurt from smiling. Mo is dragging his feet behind me. ‘Do you want another drink?’ ‘I need one,’ he grumbles, barely audible. We stop at a stall, run by an elderly man wearing a pair of fuzzy green antennae. ‘Aren’t you worried that’ll come off as offensive?’ I ask him, ordering our drinks. ‘How could it? We’ve no idea what they look like!’ He winks at me, obliviously sloshing spirit into plastic cups. ‘That’s a fiver love.’ Christ. I just about manage to put the coins together for the man, before passing the drink to Mo. To the left of us, a group of teens are loudly sniffing something underneath a table. Mo is studying his trainers. ‘What’s up?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean why are you moping during the biggest night London will ever have?’ He pauses for a bit, giving his shoelaces another intense inspection. ‘You’re walking around with a total stranger. Aliens are landing in London. The whole city is either partying or hiding. Why aren’t you scared?’ ‘Why should I be?’ ‘Because we don’t know them! The government won’t even tell us where they came from! Why are we treating

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this like it’s New Years?’ he shouts, earning several glares. ‘I just think people need to take this seriously,’ he whispers, recoiling into himself. To the right of us, a man with posters on his front and back is drunkenly waving a bell. ‘THE ALIENS WILL SNATCH YOUR CHILDREN’ is proudly stamped on his front. I gesture to him. ‘Do you think he’s taking it seriously?’ ‘I… no, I guess he isn’t.’ Mo sighs, sipping his vodka. ‘People have been sucking up beer and shitting out hope for years now. The change is scary, sure.’ I pause, realising the Ribena just hit. ‘But I’ll take something new over the concrete hamster wheel we trapped ourselves in any day.’ Mo chews on my words for a bit. Then he smiles. ‘Concrete hamster wheel?’ ‘Hey! It’s all I could come up with in the moment.’ He smirks at me. ‘No, no. It worked.’ 10:24 PM - The 73 Bus from Stoke Newington ‘You’re serious? Every bar is closed?’ Winters exclaims, wrapping a newly discovered necktie around her head. ‘Seems like it.’ The woman on the porch takes another drag of her cigarette. ‘Fuck.’ ‘Howa we sposed to get drink now?’ I stammer, balancing against a streetlamp. I must be several vodkas deep. ‘Not my problem. Stay safe, loves.’ The stranger stamps out her cigarette and stares at the sky before hurrying inside. I swear Winters knows everyone – half the people on Oxford Street seemed to greet her. She skips up to me, looking like a wild schoolboy with that stupid tie on her head. ‘Any ideas?’ I prop myself up using the greasy streetlamp. A bottle shatters across the street as a man drunkenly swaggers out of a big red vehicle. A big red bus.

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‘Winters, you’re a bus driver...’ I say, gesturing to it. ‘I’m drunk!’ ‘There’s a curdle - a curfew. We’re breaking the law anyway,’ I stammer, heading towards the bus. The bus driver stops to smile and wave at us before continuing to puke into a drain. Winters reluctantly opens the driver’s door, staring at the empty seat. ‘I lied.’ ‘Huh?’ ‘I’m not a bus driver.’ I knew it! I knew she wasn’t hu‘I’m homeless. Have been for years.’ She slumps into the seat. ‘Why would you lie?’ ‘You get this far by building a network of people to rely on. Fix someone’s telly, and they might feed you. Look after their dog, and they might let you stay the night. Eventually, a lot of people recognise you. Meeting you was like -’ ‘- a chance to be someone else?’ ‘Yeah.’ She fiddles with the wheel. Her smile is absent. With nowhere else to sit, I lean against the walls of the bus. ‘Fuck it,’ I murmur. ‘I worked at this factory, right? For robots?’ ‘Ah, you’re the one killing all the jobs. Nice one.’ She chuckles faintly. ‘I guess so,’ I reply, breathing in to sober myself. ‘Thing is, I don’t like talking to people. I just can’t do it. It got so bad that I couldn’t even ask people for help. One day, some of the machinery went haywire. I needed to call for someone, but the words just hid in my throat. Eventually the malfunction became critical. ’ I pause, lifting my fringe. ‘Leaving me this scar.’ She winces as though someone sprayed her with lemon concentrate. ‘It didn’t hurt much, but I was asleep for a while after.’ ‘How long?’ ‘Two years.’

30 | Landing Night

‘Christ! So, the aliens…?’ ‘...were the first thing they told me about when I woke up last week.’ ‘No wonder you’re paranoid.’ She chuckles awkwardly. ‘Everyone else got a head start with it. I feel left behind.’ We stare into the night. ‘Do you ever wonder how they feel about it?’ she asks. ‘Who, the aliens?’ ‘Yeah. They must be terrified.’ ‘Well… I guess they won’t be scared of you since you’re homeless.’ Her trademark grin returns. ‘And I guess they won’t be scared of recovering coma patients, either.’ Her laughter engulfs the dimly lit bus. It’s loud, and I realise it’s mixed with my own. ‘What’s your first name?’ I ask. Her smile fades. The bus creaks slightly. ‘It’s Daphne,’ she mumbles. ‘Daphne?’ I snigger. ‘Don’t laugh!’ ‘I won’t, I won’t. Promise.’ I ended up breaking that promise after two minutes. 11:48 PM - Russell Square ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this!’ ‘Keep your hands steady!’ Mo guides my hands, sobered by the stress. The major roads have been blocked off by the military, so we cruise the red bus through empty backstreets at a snail’s pace. My assistant pilot checks his watch nervously. ‘Win- Daphne?’ ‘Yeah?’ ‘We’re going to miss the landing at this rate.’ I can see a park ahead of us. There’s a gap in the fence defended by flimsy wooden barriers and construction signs. ‘Hey, how do you reverse?’

Landing Night | 31

‘I think you pull this?’ ‘Thanks.’ I quickly reverse a good fifty metres. ‘What are you -’ I slam the accelerator and we hurtle into the park. Mo falls on his arse and I cackle as we reduce the construction barrier to splinters. The bus grinds to a screeching halt before Mo can move his hair out of his face. He dusts himself off, glaring at me. ‘You’re an idiot.’ ‘I know.’ I wink, delicately swinging the driver door open and hopping out of the bus. I shiver in the cold of the night, watching thin trails of smoke squeeze themselves out of the grille. The trees of the park glisten in the wind. Mo looks at the cracks in the windshield and grimaces. ‘Hey, it was your idea to steal the bus.’ ‘Don’t remind me,’ he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Come on.’ I pat his shoulder. ‘Let’s get a better view.’ We manage to climb onto the roof of the bus by wiggling our way through the top deck window. I sit with my back against his as we lose ourselves in the starless sky. ‘Are you still scared?’ I ask. I feel his shoulders tense against mine. Then they loosen. ‘Not anymore. I just think… I think the world’s going to be crazier.’ He pats the roof of the bus. ‘Maybe I need more of that.’ The park is empty. Everyone is either on a rooftop or hiding in their living rooms. The sounds of sirens and barking military megaphones seem to have suspended themselves in the web of the moment. ‘I wonder if they’re looking at us,’ Mo says, softly. ‘If they’re anything like us… I think they are.’ ‘I hope they like it here.’ ‘Me too. Maybe we’ll get used to it.’

32 | Landing Night

Mo laughs. ‘That’ll take some time.’ A flash of light spills across the sky. Mo squeezes my hand. The light fades to reveal shapes suspended in the inky black. Silver obelisks, twirling in the night sky like baubles the size of skyscrapers. At first, they hesitate. Then, ever so slowly, they descend towards the streets of London. ‘Welcome to Earth,’ we whisper.

Landing Night | 33

Man’s Best Friend Molly Penney

‘Oh keep the dog far hence, that’s friend to men, Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!’ T.S. Eliot Take him to the nail bar down the village next to the butchers Watch him stroll towards the window and watch as cows hang upside down Their blood feeding the weeds and dirt Take him to the nail bar and sharpen his claws Tell them they must get it right, do a good job Tell the dog to sit up straight and still Floss, strip the bones from his teeth Drag the intestines from his stomach half unrecognisable Make sure they make his nails look presentable He will get restless as all dogs do I’m sure But there’s plenty of women there to fuss and pet him Keep him company while he’s waiting for the paint to dry Tell them to close the windows and face the wall Well we can’t have him running off to the butchers next door His bloodlust is uncontrollable, I don’t know where you found this dog! I did say creatures like that couldn’t care less about death They have felt much worse than a pin prick on the temple Or a bullet in the head

34 | Man’s Best Friend

He is in the garden again looking for his friends Dig there’s his toe Dig there’s his ear He must be an orphan spat out from the mud A dreadful ugly thing scared of nothing but fireworks And wet socks

Man’s Best Friend | 35

The Hero’s Romantic Interest Lily Annis

They were in the kitchen. She sat at the table; knees pulled up to her chin. He was on the sofa, fingers loosely curled around a fizzy drink. She’d only given in because she was lonely. She didn’t even really like the guy. He spouted nonsense about graphic novels that meant nothing to her. She nodded and said ‘yeah’ noncommittally every thirty seconds or so, to keep him talking. She didn’t dare let silence fall. The room would be too empty otherwise, and the chill of loneliness would creep back in. He had an almost monotone voice, just enough volume for his words to cut through her thoughts. He shifted on the sofa, lifting his legs so his feet pressed against the wall opposite. He leaned back, head touching the corkboard behind him. She didn’t mind him taking up space. It gave the impression that there were more people in the room. The kitchen itself was small, cramped. Realistically it could barely fit in three people, even if they were standing. They’d be like sardines, squished and pressed together, arms pinned by their sides. Everything about the kitchen screamed one person. ‘It’s a bit gory,’ he said. He was still talking about the graphic novel. She nodded. ‘Right.’ Realising her reply wasn’t enough to sustain conversation, she added, ‘I’m a bit squeamish.’ He laughed at that. ‘You shouldn’t read graphic novels

36 | The Hero’s Romantic Interest

if you’re squeamish.’ She smiled. As long as she didn’t read them over dinner, she was fine. Of course, she found the gruesome bits disturbing, but she could distance herself enough to carry on. When she was captivated by a story, her eyes were glued to the pages. He looked away, out of the window. It was dark outside. Winter was slowly creeping into the autumn nights, icy wind rattling the window latches. ‘I suppose I should get going,’ he said. She wanted to tell him to stay, to keep her company for a while longer. Maybe even overnight – ‘Okay,’ she said robotically. Reason always won out.

The Hero’s Romantic Interest | 37

Just... Because... I Can Sarah Locke

I don’t know what I met her for She seemed a little sim ile to me She’s all al lit eration And just a touch of ass on ance Does she di a logue? She’s a sort of con son ant girl Juxta moment it seems too black and white I am bic in pen tam eter She has her ups and downs It’s on a mat a pe uh Dit dit doo or is it cluck cluck cluck She seems to have come to a con junction And was confused by the lexis The nuts and bolts were concrete And the arrows pointed upwards.

38 | Just... Because... I Can

A Young Ranch Hand Told Me Becca Miles

He saw a black patch in the grass, big black eyes met his, and he knew, knew if he got too close, she’d bolt, tumble over the broken barbed wire, down into the murky creek; that he would have to rescue her, as he was the one who’d startled her, and she was very young and the creek was deep and cold, and even Texan Februarys have no mercy; that she’d splash and bash herself against the cliff, hooves slipping on the rocks, kicking at the waterfall, while he monkey-crawled on twisted roots, hanging upside-down to grab her; that she’d wriggle from his grip, that he’d have to go in after her, water to his navel, icy fingers round his ribs, squeezing the air, feet turned to lead, yet she would weigh nothing at all.

40 | A Young Ranch Hand Told Me

After, as he wrung the creek from his clothes and future bar-room back slaps from his head he saw her in the grass again, as if she’d never moved. She looked at him as if he were a rock or tree, with neither gratitude nor blame, nor anything except a pair of big, black eyes.

A Young Ranch Hand Told Me | 41

Out of Sight, Out of Mind Esme Merrell

there’s a dead body in the corner of your kitchen ceiling, first noticed as you sat down for dinner but now it’s been three hours since you ate and there it remains, suspended in mid-air a small black dot at the edge of your vision caught in a web you had not noticed before easy to ignore but still it’s a dead body in your kitchen and at the very back of your mind it was a nuisance while alive and now it serves only to remind you to dust that corner or pick up your vacuum and allow that to dispose of the fly instead

42 | Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Profound Nouns Eden Irving

You think them dehumanising, unable to wrap your head around a concept existing long before all our conceptions; a christening preluding your birth and mine. Both. Neither. Either or, as they see fit while you have a fit as you bathe in the confines of your invalidating basin, washing in tainted water. Patronise as you theorise why they are the way they are. Yes. They. No ifs, ands or buts in their rejections of the ABCs of he’s and she’s societal ways, embedded in grey sands of time. They are neither ancient mysteries nor modern slang. They are not lost, or scared, or wrong. They are not here to question your life; they are here to live theirs. So set aside your angry armchairs, hollow honesty and misguided use of taboo terms. We’re not here to force you to join our parade. We’re asking for a world where we needn’t hold one.

Profound Nouns | 43

You Are Not Rude Tom Moody

but shy. So keep smiling – even when she laughs to fill the silence. Can you hold her gaze? The answer is no. So fold your arms like a pamphlet and nod. You are really pulling this off.

44 | You Are Not Rude

Find One Sarah Standage

The world has shrunk the poet said Spontaneous interaction is what we miss You have to book a slot online And I agree A gongoozler. I didn’t know that word But yes! Standing at the canal on an autumn day watching the activity at the lock That was me He talked about a live performance Inflating and deflating the tension Making a joke I thought of a balloon Wherever there’s poetry there’s a community The world is our audience Look and see Scroll down and find one

These lines were written while listening to Andrew McMillan and Joshua Judson when they were interviewed online at the York Literature Festival in October 2020.

Find One | 45

The Design Team Eddie Irving Art Editor David Stanley Designer Francesca Herring Art Editor Emilie Vala Tveitan Artistic Director/Illustrator Tuva Søiland Helgesen Illustrator

The Marketing Team Lucy Pope General Marketing Abigail Lucy Copywriter Kendra Attard Event Manager George Williams Event Manager Molly Guilmant General Marketing Sarah Standage Marketing Manager Danielle Beuker Social Media Manager

The Editorial Team Eden Irving Copywriter Alex Birkett Bios Editor Bee Morgan Copy Editor Tom Moody Poetry Editor Susie Beckley Copy Editor Rebecca Carter Prose Editor Katarina Peters Submissions Manager Erin Glenys Wade Copy Editor Chloe Quinn-Hales Copy Editor

46 | Credits

Our thanks go out to... Richard Kelly Glenn Fosbraey Judith Heneghan ...without whom this edition of Vortex would not have come to fruition.

VORTEX Literary Magazine

“Writing to blow your socks off.” Neil McCaw

VORTEX 2022 The University of Winchester

Articles inside

‘Landing Night’

‘Hereditary Apparitions’

‘Some Bearing Messages’

‘Living Things Are Always Burning’

‘Sarah. Sabina. Us.’

‘Man’s Best Friend’