Writers' Bloc Journal 33: Beginnings

Editor’s Not Dear Reader, This is late, but happy new year! Welcome to Writers’ Bloc’s rst journal in 2022 I would like to thank everyone who submitted, as this journal wouldn’t exist without all of you! Your writings never cease to amaze me, and constantly remind me of why I love this role so much, of how much I enjoy reading and editing your work and putting these journals together. So once again, thank you I am super proud of what we have achieved so far, and super excited for all of you to delve into the pieces in this journal! The theme for this quarter is ‘BEGINNINGS’. I hope the start of the year has been gentle, rewarding, and purposeful for you. If not, I hope you’re welcoming spring with open arms; it’s just around the corner Speaking of spring, my time as Writers’ Bloc’s Journal Editor is almost over. Thinking about this makes me emotional, but also grateful for the opportunity that I have: working with amazing writers and committee members for a full year. The journals have been very special to me, and I hope they are just as meaningful to you. I can gush on forever of how much these tiny books mean to me, but for now I hope ‘BEGINNINGS’ brings you comfort and joy. I hope you enjoy every bit of talent there is in this issue, and I hope you can see how much love I put in every single page.

Christi

Content NIGHT : SHIFT by Hannah Burrow It’s Nice to Have a Friend by Will Mora saprotrophic by Riley Well The Lighthouse by Elayna River One-way. by Akshita Pur Remember by Charlie O The Clockwork Storyteller by Tristan Peisse The Shattering by Kenechukwu Udoetu Rising by Toby Garsid Rebirth by Mia Lyna Tales of a dying girl by Eve Scahill Year of the Donkey by William Byrn Spring’s Past by Emeka Ogos

Daffodils by Jo Birch

we fall asleep with our hands held tight / I wait until your breathing / slows and evens / until I lose the feeling in my ngers / until you shift in your dreamscape and our palms / like continents / diverge / I promised myself on the day we met / I would never be the one / to let go rst.

NIGHT : SHIFT Hannah Burrow

It’s Nice to Have a Frien Will Mora Please read these two pages as one. I’d sit on the grass and as if we’d met at school, would we have been friends at sixth form we were too depresse in secondary she was too obsessed with being popular but for her I would have tried being a social climbe at primary we both got bullied overcome pre-clinical anxiety and tiny bicep or just made her feel less lonely I taught chess matches inside at brea only time I ever lost a house point if we walked home together after school we could stop a plot a star chart then lie down in the very middle of the how to make daisy chains and I’d plait them in her hair how did she know? not everyone has a long and grand pas I don’t need to be embedded in every part of you for this to I know I know but see I wrote this conversation too, wrot

as the partner chastising me for being too sappy

I was a nerd

I could have protected her

she says she got by

never told my parents the par grass like that scene in Tangled everything you know about love is from Tangled

wor her into my futur

instead

we have this brief slip of time, already passed, two peopl toe-to-toe, hands clasped, foreheads almost I think if we had known each other in school we would smash cut to the scene in the lm where she realise that those hours with her head on my stomac goosebumps along her skin in the sun meant something and our lips close the gap between the cuts but I don’t ask for her birthday I go to the pottery place alon

paint a mug covered in daises

Please read these two pages as one.

curled in the dar …

are we going to kiss right now?

daisies in her hair

resolve the time jump

hope that means something

Day three-hundred and seventy-six. I am de nitely missing you less It helps to imagine that you are dead. The map of your skin that I once knew so well has been reclaimed by the earth; the eyes which held me in so much contempt are watery in their sockets. Saprotrophs recycle what remains of your muscle and make something good out of all this pain. They make oxygen with which the rest of us uses to keep living, making mistakes, apologising. They sustain a life of which they know nothing I wish I didn’t know I was going to outlive you When I do not want to watch you decompose, I pretend each day post-you is a rebirth. I have lived three-hundred and seventy-six of these so far, and with each one, some of my cells replenish themselves. Skin is always the rst to go, but it will be another decade before the transformation is complete. It is a long wait, but a worthy one, and when it is over, I will relish the thought that you have not touched this new body. You have not hurt me in this body

Of course, it wasn’t all bad, otherwise I wouldn’t have lasted so long. There were times when my tongue felt so zzy with happiness that I could have been drunk. There were times when my eyes stung with tenderness, with marvel, with pride. You exist. You exist and you’re all mine. I did not know who I was competing with

saprotrophic Riley Well

All I can ask is that you are sorry, that you get better, that you do not waste your potential Over and over I whisper to myself, ‘I forgive you’, hoping that one day I will mean it. In this new age I have awarded myself the power of forgiveness, though it has not yet worked out for me. I think of Mother Mary, the virgin of lost things, and I wish I could tell her about you. She would know what to do

I pour the kettle. I make the bed. I am wide awake. It’s morning

The Lighthous Elayna River For Brianna, Rebecka, Danni, and Christia Here I go; bags packed, boarding pass in hand. Kisses for all of you— and Mom too. I’ll see you again after some days away toddling around like a real man, captain of his own ship Off to great adventure lurking in the depths. But every sailor eventually has to pull bodies in from the tide. I think w know that better than most. Lived ve lives— Died drowning in each one. Sorry about that. I guess I just can't get over the snowstorms, the dry heat, the kind of weather that leaves you in the same room for days.

Like Mom, but you already knew that.

Bet you didn’t know those empty hallways taught me to make the most out of the gifts she gave me: The shaking at the end of the world, the money here and gone, a crisp and clear vibrato. But this isn’t a confession, nor an accusation. Maybe this is the song I sing while rowing out to sea. Maybe this is the lighthouse, the beacon for lost souls adrift. I hope you see that shifting glow and think of home I hope you think of me at home— wondering where all of you went. No, not like that. Think less of a rainstorm, more of a rainforest Think of the water and the earth, the water in the earth and everything it saturates. Growing up and growing out while I’m busy battling sea monster to make my way to that shore. Tricky feet, tricky earth. Tricky feet on the earth doing their best not to fall over. How have you kept balance?

Phone calls and video calls and text messages that always end in ‘I love you.’ I’m building the cell tower. I’m building the plane that takes off

and never touches ground again.

Maybe I’ll grow up. Maybe I’ll be nineteen forever. For now, this is what I know: I love you. I miss you. I am never coming back.

Another phone call. The same redundant conversation ‘Did you eat yet? ‘How’s everything going? There’s no substance behind the words you say. No humaneness I need to go I’ll call you later I never call you and you always complain. The crowd applauds at our synchronized performance. Granted the crowd is in my mind and I need eight hours of sleep at least this night. But that doesn’t change the fact, that we lost ourselves some time ago. I think it was that evening beneath the dimmed light. On that park bench where I talked and the proximity between us wasn’t oceans wide. I tried doing it, but it didn’t work There was snot on my shirt, and you laughed it all away. Kudos to your dismissal. Your crude compartmentalisation

Another phone call. I’m waiting for the same redundant conversation. Aching even

’

‘I tried something, but it didn’t work.

One-way Akshita Pur

I haven’t been on the stage for a long time. You became the main character of my movie, somehow. I exist in the shadows; I’m lurking in the dark and I don’t know the plot of my heart. My mind, my body, we sit and see you live. Your life, in my spotlight. Centre stage, an actress

Another phone call. I’m dreading this one The tears escaped my eyes last night, and once again I lost the ght of heartlessness and cruelty. I can’t best you in the way you hurt me. Hurt us Are you feeling better now You laugh and I know you’re lying. I hold back my conviction because I can’t deal with the truth right now, not this time. Can we go back to the way we were, in my head, all my life

My mouth betrays me yet another time. You forget my word and keep on gushing, about a new show and someone else that you met.

Way to steal the spotlight. My mouth races forward with words of compassion, my mind lingers behind, strolling in the opposite direction

I gave you another chance, but you failed, yet again. And my words get lost in the middle, in this vacuum between us, just like everything else I say

But I keep listening and my head keeps nodding and my mind lingers behind. It walks back, once again to the start line. And I take a deep breath, smile ever present, as I start to live another chapter of your life, in mine.

Remember Charlie O

When you bury me, bury me with seeds in my palm So when you want to hold my hand, you can grip branche And listen to the whisper of leaves, know I’m singin Singing to you of new days and how it feels to breathe Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, and veins to root And I would wish for a sky that weeps with falling star But I don’t want to be dramatic, just remember Do not bury me at the church with the cold and stones Do not place wilting bundles across my chest, instea Think of the seeds, watch and wait, and wait, and watch me grow Taller than I ever was, you can say a praye Remember our stories, or forget me completel Either way I will begin again, and you will to Growing taller, greener, growing older, grievin All that I can ask of you is that you remembe When I am buried, it will be with seeds in my palms

The Clockwork Storyteller Tristan Peisse It’s a clear nigh so we wait with baited breat till tall and top heavy our storyteller does stride passing towns and villages and darkening countryside tucking the last of the stray clouds gently behind his ears There’s a pause a smacking of the lips then a slender nger taps against the stone temple carved with deep wrinkles Keys are amboyantly plucked from thin ai slotted gently amongst clouds and moss and blots of brown printing ink to be turned the click click click of cogs catchin can be heard as he ticks into a rhythm about wombats and wizard dog ghts high above the sk magpies and mermaids and deserts- sandy and dry

;

Till nally with a whi the clockwork runs stil and no stories come forth, that is unti he comes striding on the ‘morro to quieten our mind and still our fear

gently tucking those clouds behind his ears

The Shatterin Kenechukwu Udoetu when was the last time you were held? The drums echo through the air, frenzied, passionate. The sound of feet slamming on the ground, hands slapped against skin, palms beating the taut hide of the drums. The men sing, drunken and aroused. Their voices crack at the high notes and half of them sound on the verge of laughter come out and play with us, come out and play The laughter is what wakes him up. It reaches him even before the drumming does, crawls through the open window of his room and sits there. He sits up, confused. He stares at the empty space next to him and chest aches. His mouth tastes sour and the room moves even when he doesn’t They are outside his room now, calling out to him. Uzochi, we know you’re in there. Come out and join us. More laughter. He crawls out of bed and stumbles outside, lured by the drums and the singing and the fact that one of those voices sounds like Tobe Between the grief, and the world-bending effects of the kwashi he took before falling asleep, he’s not sure what’s real and what isn’t. Part of him is still dead, still in the world-behind-this-one. There are colours ickering in and out, a pair of eyes staring lazily at him.

He stumbles outside and the men – his brothers - cheer when they see him. He searches their faces, but no Tobe.

Someone pushes a cup into his hand and a voice in his ear tells him to drink and another tells him to dance and a circle forms around him The drink is bitter and makes his mouth hot. He swallows it and takes more. The second drink is sweet and a ush of warmth spreads through his body. He puts the empty cup on the ground and begins to dance. His back archesd, he twists his waist and stamps his feet on the ground. The waist-beads shudder, making soft clicking noises as they collide against each other. Somehow, he can feel Tobe; hands on his waist, guiding him, lips on the base of his neck, a caress on the small of his back, whispers in his ear How long has it been since he’d last been touched like this? Since he’d been held. The absence of intimacy can do strange things to you. It rots you from the inside and leaves you numb. The ground shimmers at his feet, the air whispers over his skin. The circle contracts around him. Hands grasp his limbs and pull him apart, reach inside and empty him. There’s someone in the circle with him – Izu, with his long legs and the metal in his ears. Izu’s face shifts and for a second it is Tobe that he sees in front of him, but only for a second

dance with me. or am i not good enough? Uzochi’s chest tightens with emptiness. Izu lunges forward, and Uzochi retreats. They fall into step, an ebb and ow, one leading, the other following. A sequence of hips and arms and legs. Izu grabs his arm and pulls him

in. Their chests slam against each other. Uzochi pushes him away and the back and forth continues Izu tires soon and admits defeat. The men cheer him on as he returns to the circle. They push a drink into his hand, but his eyes are still on Uzochi, still watching. Uzochi’s feet hurt, and he knows he must stop soon. But he’s scared that if he stops, if he lays down and closes his eyes, he won’t open them again. The drums will stop, and he will tip over, falling into the abyss, his mouth open in a scream no one will hear this is the shattering. a birth, an undoing, the skin stretched tight until it sings. • what are you willing to sacri ce? Uzochi opens his eyes, his head feels dense, his mouth dry and bitter. There is a pleasant warmth beside him, pressed against his body. He rolls over, prepared to see Tobe’s face, but instead his eyes meet Izu’s “I was wondering when you’d wake up,” says Izu. “How do you feel? The memories return to him, the sensation of oating, of being lost, dancing with Izu, arms wrapped around each other, Izu laughing at his jokes, and responding with jokes of his own. Leaning forward and whispering in Izu’s ear, taking his arm and leading him inside

”

“I’m sorry,” Uzochi says, sitting up. “I’m sorry.

“I had a feeling this would happen,” says Izu, his voice laced with disappointment. “You wish I were him instead? Uzochi shakes his head. “That’s not it,” he lies. Izu climbs out of bed and reaches for his clothes, scattered on the oor. “I’m not a toy. You can’t reach for me whenever you want something to play with, and then toss me aside when you change your mind. He never meant to hurt Izu. They’ve known each other for years, fought beside each other. The desire for him is there, Uzochi can feel it in his chest, but there’s also loneliness, and the longing to be held by someone, by him Izu stands by the bed, fully dressed and staring at him. “I won’t ask you to choose between me and the memory of Tobe. But do not come to me again. I don’t care how much you drink or how lonely you get.” Izu picks his sword off the ground and storms out of the room Alone, Uzochi curls himself into a ball. The loneliness is spreading, threatening to overwhelm him, to leak out of his pores and ood the room. The pounding in his head grows stronger. The day must only be a few hours old – too early for more kwashi. This has never stopped him before, but too many days have been spent in the world-behind-thisone, and he knows that although his brothers have been tolerating it, thor patience may soon run out

”

Uzochi will have to brace himself, to live with the pain clinging to his insides, to bite down and do something, anything. At least until the sun sets and he can lose himself once more

• when were you broken? The drums are quieter now, speaking of seduction, of bare skin and whispered promises. Maybe reconciliation will be possible tonight, under the ink-stained sky. The circle opens for him and Uzochi makes his way inside. Tobe is already there, waist twisting as the music works through him, waist-beads sliding along the skin of his hips, slapping against each other, making music of their own Uzochi approaches, cautiously putting one foot in front of the next, until they’re face to face. Tobe doesn’t open his eyes, but his lips curve into a smirk to show that he’s aware of Uzochi’s presence. Uzochi stares at his chest, at the markings drawn in white and red clay, the metal rings through his nipples, the scar that ripples across his stomach Are you just going to watch? Asks Tobe Uzochi doesn’t answer If this is what you need, I understand. I don’t mind being watched. The smile stretches a little wider and Uzochi is lled with the longing to reach out and touch his nipple, to twist the metal ring until Tobe cries out Do it.

Uzochi raises his head, and sees Tobe’s subtle nod. He reaches out, but Tobe grabs his hand and leads him lower, and lower, until he places the hand against his hips. Tobe’s

If this is what you need, I understand. But don’t think I’ll ever let you kill me. Don’t assume I would ever make it that easy for you. • how much does it hurt? The sky opens and a downpour begins, thunderous and heavy, the raindrops caressing Uzochi, cooling the res on his skin. He leans back, a buzzing in his blood, and rests his head against the ridges of Tobe’s chest. Do you miss me? asks Tobe Uzochi nods How much do you miss me? There is a list of needs in his head, ranked in order of importance. Water, food, Tobe. Every thought of Tobe comes with an ache so violent it passes through his body and leaves him shuddering Do you remember the rst time we danced together? Images ash in Uzochi’s mind, the way Tobe’s body looked, twisting and glistening underneath the moonlight, ames dancing over his skin, the look of ecstasy on his face.

“No, I don’t,” he lies

movements are uid, every twist, every thrust. Uzochi slows him down, guides his hips, leading Tobe where he wants him to go. He looks at Tobe, the boy’s eyes are wide open, and the smirk is gone

do you ache? Uzochi rolls over, violent heaves force the bile out of his mouth, out of his body. Tears roll down his face as it splatters on the ground. He wipes the vomit off his lips, the tears, he leaves. He stands and kicks sand over the puddle of vomit. As he walks, he runs his ngers over his waist-beads, slipping each one between his ngers. The realization that he needed to kill Tobe came to him one night, amidst the longing and the ache and the kwashi. Wrapped in fever and slick with blood, the thought sprang in his head, fully formed and screaming Tobe is a sickness in his body, rotting from the inside. Like all sicknesses he needed to be handled with aggression; cut off, burned out, bombarded with medicine and prayers. Kindness is not a language Tobe understands, and Uzochi is not good at the emotional warfare that Tobe practices. But violence? This is something they share. Tobe wants to hurt him, almost as much as Uzochi wants to be hurt This is not what he wanted. The devotion was real in those rst days, it took over his body and left little room for anything else, for anyone else. But then came the distance, and the cruelty. Tobe’s death would be the consummation of their relationship. It would set him free.

what do I do when you’re not here?

•

Risin Toby Garsid Beginning the da Alone in quiet darkness Before the light comes You can see it now Creeping over the edge Of the world. Slowly Rising as bloody re Spanning the endless dark gul That’s stretched above yo Daubed in crimson light It surges as hot magm Burning your pale ski But the burns feel grand You awake, staring awestruc Caught in its red gaze You become trapped, drowned Held in its arterial grasp Staring unendingly You do not mind, though If it just means that you ca Freely bask in warmth

Far away from fea And pain and righteous anger All of that is gone

Melted in one view Scorched away into nothing Only bliss remains But then the light fade And that one moment of peac Withers into dust

You sit there, sighing And, resigned to normalcy You get up for work

Rebirt Mia Lyna It’s full. Before I take a step in, I can tell it will over ow when I lie down. Still, I undress. Put my clothes in the bin and imagine it on re, burning my self-expression. Take the bobble out of my hair and throw it in the direction of the sink, my hair springing out of its grasp and rolling down my back. It hits the middle of my torso now; maybe I should cut it? Slip off my glasses and rest those gently on the shelf, next to my current read (some vague contemporary about a self-hating woman in her early twenties) and my phone (it’s dead). I rub at the mark where the bridge of my glasses has pressed into my nose and sigh at the mirror. I move the items from the lip of the bath - platinum hair dye, some rings, and my half-empty mug - and dip my hand delicately into the water. It stings, but after about ten seconds my skin gets used to the feeling, and we reach an equilibrium. Standing as bare as the day I was born (I don’t remember it, but I assume I didn’t come out in a cocktail dress), I reach over the top and open the window of the bathroom; I need the balance of heat, or all the steam goes to my head and I almost faint when leaving. A gust of wind whistles in and steals some of the steam fogging up my vision, and I slowly step in. Heat travels over my body and I hiss at the contact, letting out a breath through my teeth to let some of the steam out.

The fever that is slowly taking over me will soon burn through the illness: the old me. She’ll be gone when I step out of here, she’ll be washed away. I routinely squirt

The water rocks dangerously against the porcelain bath, close to spilling over as I scoot forward, undigni ed and alone. Still, I dunk my head in; my ears feel horribly full and the world is blocked out. It’s uncomfortable and unpleasant, to have liquid rush into your ears, but if I bear it for a moment longer there is silence, and the outside is nothing more than a dull throb that I choose to ignore. I move my hands to my head, rhythmically smoothing out the products until it’s all in the water and not in my hair anymore. Then, I sit up and think. I realise that my idea of complete self-invention is rushed and bordering on maniacal, but I think it’s manageable. I dry my hands on the towel I placed next to the bath and read for a while; the protagonist’s breakdown in the middle doesn’t help with my situation; in fact, she actively makes it worse, so I put it down again. I guess I can gure it out along the way, a personality change doesn’t just happen overnight

I dunk my head in again, and my ear canals ll with river water- no boats or thoughts going through, the canal lock is closed. The heat evaporates what is left on my skin, washes away anything I have connecting me to my past self. Nothing there matters now- when I get out, it will all be down the drain, spilling into the underground and ltering out underneath the city

shampoo, then conditioner on my hand, dragging it through my ragged strands. My eyes are closed and I massage my scalp, relishing in the vanilla scent that now comes from my head. I scrub myself with peppermint and tea tree until my skin is raw and I stink of cleanliness. The vanilla marinating my head starts to smell sickly, so I move and prepare to be enveloped.

I don’t know who she is anymore. When all the suds are washed off and I am wrapped in the softest towel I can nd, who is she? When I leave my hair hanging wet down my back, dripping, and making the towel heavy, is this what she does?

I don’t suppose it matters, too much. I’ll be different anyway, and begin again

I raise my head, drain the water, and sit in the slowly cooling tub for a while. When I start to shiver, and my ngers and toes start to prune, I rise and climb out; wrap a towel around my shiny new body and smile wretchedly, wickedly. I am born anew.

Tales of a dying gir Eve Scahil

…

Forgive the title, won’t you Morbid, I know. But when you only have the summer to live… You lose the will to really care Shame I’m dying over the summer season It’s the only season in England Where people aren’t total bitches Mhm… maybe that’s just me What? I’m dying Mum, let me call people bitches I’ve called people a lot worse Let’s move on, my Mum is giving me the face Where were we? Ah yes, dying and summer Yes, it’s an awful shame Summers where dreams come alive The sky an electrifying blue and the sun a golden disco ball Its golden light making the world a lighter, cheerier plac Summers are the most romantic, joyous and uorescent of the season So naturally it’s only tting I’m dying through one Seeing as I am the most romantic and joyful person to exist And apparently the most orescen If I were dramatic (as you can tell I am clearly not) I would say it’s the beginning of the end Get it? As the beginning of summer will be the beginning of the end of my life Mum… don’t cry! I’ll be okay, I’ll be with the doggos Glad I’m theatrical instead of dramatic the Might make the family cry again if not

Year of the Donke William Byrn (CW: reference to drugs and violence “Cocaine is like an escort's Swiss-army drug,” Angeliki said. “No one wants to admit it, but it is. If you pump the man with enough funny powder, his cock stops working and suddenly, he’s paying for your company. If that doesn’t work, you pump yourself with the shit and the job doesn’t seem so bad. It’s not bad after all.” She gave a teethy smile. “Twelve pound fty please.” The guy at the bar looked like Tobey Maguire, his box chin and unassuming smile confronted me at the new year countdown, we made ddly eye contact, and each raised a glass. I prayed to God he hadn’t been hearing our conversation. Jesus, I’m so awkward. He didn’t look Assyrian. I wondered if they think I’m Assyrian. Angeliki opened her purse revealing dozens of notes, mostly twenties, some fties. It was New Year’s Eve—or just past it by about thirty-two minutes. Angeliki was twenty-six years old to my eighteen and Hollywood attractive, dressed in a white Faux Shearlings fur jacket with a red Dior mini lady handbag; those two items alone would justify the most deranged of street muggings.

)

My friend’s brother's friends occupied this Assyrian bar most of the time and I’d been asking Jean if I could come along for a while. Anything is better than spending New Years alone wallowing in my own virginity, watching Star

Trek: Deep Space Nine and masturbating on my mother’s kitchen knives. Standing outside, we awaited the countdown, our beer glasses sucking the warmth from our ngers. I scanned the place for attractive women rst thing. Miss Hair Dye looked taken, tall girl was too tall and she was taken, and the Indian girls at the back looked sexually oriented away from yours truly and his kitchen-knife-ruining-genitals. “Yo Finnegan, maybe I should just climb that pole,” blurted Jean. “What will that do?” I replied. “Don’t know, be a laugh?” “It’s got a big sign on; won’t that be a dif culty?” “You clearly don’t know shit about the sport of pole climbing, we call those mounting checkpoints in the biz.” A guy in a baseball cap strolling by the door started to get a tad ery with the bodyguard, he smacked him in the face and was immediately shoved out into the road. The glass, Baseball Cap was holding, shattered on the oor, his hands inging left and right. I stepped back from the action. Everyone else had the same idea.

“He’s chipped my tooth; look it, he’s chipped my fucking tooth!” A white boy shrieked at his friends. Baseball Cap lurched across the street and opened the trunk to his vehicle pulling out a shiny metal blade barely perceptible from where I was standing. Half a dozen partygoers and

friends guarded around Baseball Cap begging him to calm down. “What’s going on?” Angeliki introduced herself with a warm, thick Italian accent. “A bit of a kerfuf e,” I replied. “A knife has entered the chat.” “Shit really?” One friend eventually grabbed the knife, forcing Baseball Cap to trot back to his car like he had just been castrated. He drove off. Piss drunk. Great idea. Jean had gone to nd a suitable street to urinate because he quote-unquote ‘doesn’t wait in lines to empty his pissbag’ leaving me alone to small talk the Italian. A man in a blue tracksuit walked over to Angeliki. “Come on babe, we’re going to a party.” Tracksuit grabbed her arm and spoke close to her ears. Angeliki winced. “I feel much safer with this guy, I’m going with him. “What? No, you’re not. No. You’re not.” Angeliki didn’t respond and followed me inside the establishment.

”

“No, you are not! Yo—really?”

The guy looked at me, stomped on the ground and plodded towards his car. I grew a semi the moment she started talking to me and it persisted all while she bought my vodka and coke. She told me she was from Rome, dropped out of Cambridge within six years after giving up on her PhD in Translation and Interpreting—Virgil’s Aeneid got a little dry the seventh time through. She then got addicted to cocaine and became an escort for hire, to this day I was unsure of which came rst. “What are you drinking?” I said. “Kyoto, wanna try?” “Sure.” The tables were cleaner than most places, bougee owl decorations littered the walls and everything was either gold or some variation of it. “You can sip the edge, no straw required.” I took the glass in my hand and gulped the bubbly, scarlet liquid down. She looks deep in my eyes and smiles revealing those ten, straight, white, creamy, evolutionarily re ned, teeth on the top of her mouth. Suddenly, I was doing the boner walk towards the bar as Angeliki continued smiling along with her drink. I was two persons removed from this environment but not nearly as out of place as Angeliki was. Angeliki was too high on some cocktail of glue, cocaine and/or alcohol to care.

The Tobey Maguire-looking man leans against the counter. “There’s a problem with the drinks mate, you haven’t paid.”

“She paid.” “She hasn’t paid.” “She—She hasn’t paid?” “Are you going to pay?” “You—One second.” Am I being fucked? Is this the grift? Step 1. Locate the weakest looking man in the bar — physically, spiritually, morally, nomologically. Step 2. Offer to buy him overpriced drinks only to have something ‘go wrong’ during the transaction. Step 3. Leave with a free drink and a petty anecdote. “Angeliki, the bartender’s saying you haven’t paid.” “What? Of course, I paid.” She walked up to the bar and started ferociously interrogating Maguire. Turned out she had given the money to a different bartender which caused confusion with the billing. “Next time, if I’m taking your order, you give the money to me yeh? It’s easier.” Angeliki grabbed two sandwiches from the counter, and we walked outside, sitting down and close on a secluded section of the street.

“I went to get my second covid vaccine high on cocaine, that was interesting—but yeh, don’t try heroin. Nitrous oxide maybe.”

“Found a bunch a nitrous oxide capsules in my brother’s drawer one time—” I uttered. Angeliki got out her phone and scrolled down her contacts. “What’s your brother’s phone number? I’ve been meaning to get my hands on some nitrous oxide for a while.” “Well—he, I don’t think he does it routinely so.” “Oh sure, sure that’s ne. You haven’t eaten your sandwich.” I thought I was going to be sick. If one were to open my stomach up like that scene in Jaws, you'd see a partly digested slushie and half a dozen deep-ridged crisps functioning as my only fuel for the past 24 hours and now I was expected to consume four vodkas and a stodgylooking egg mayonnaise sandwich. Angeliki pushed her hair back and I couldn’t understand how beautiful she looked at that moment. My hair didn’t grow in patches around the front of the scalp. Hadn’t for over nineteen months. I have Temporomandibular disorder in my right and left jaw from clenching my teeth or perhaps from cracking them left and right with my sts as a child. Still unsure. The TMJ in the bottom half of my face then caused me to develop hypertrophic masseters which in turn caused me to look rather asymmetrical.

“So how was your day?” I asked Angeliki while making rm eye contact with Jean as he stood outside the bar. He

smiled at me, and I carried on talking for dear life – in two hours I had managed to attain her Instagram, phone number, and Snapchat whilst she ranked her favourite drugs — depressants and stimulants each with their own category, of course. The masseteric hypertrophy in my jaw was no doubt also caused by my failed attempt at ‘mewing’ a practise popularized online in which a person perfected a diet of hard, chewy foods, and geared his tongue posture towards the roof of the mouth to allow the skull to develop forward much like a tumour would, except this was to make you look like a ‘Chad’ and not the Elephant Man. I bulge out my eyes in Jean’s direction and wave out my hand. “Okay so walk with her down the street and you’re gonna see an underpass, that’s when you move in for the kiss yeh?” This was Jean speaking. “Okay sure.” He began contriving a plan to secure me this particular piece of poontang. “I know it sounds weird. It is weird.” He patted me on the shoulder. Jean’s friend Phil had managed to distract Angeliki with a conversation of the Book of Boba Fett until Jean had said his piece. I looked at Angeliki and softly grabbed her by the arm as we walked down the road. The headlights of the cars ared up one's view and the sky begin to spit.

“Where are we going?” She asked.

Sometimes when I chewed caramelized almond nuts a packet at a time my entire jaw swelled up. When I went outside the cold air braked through the muscle bres and weakly pierced it, meaning I have to perform nger massaging exercises my physiotherapist aunt recommended to numb the pain. We carried on walking, I couldn't nd the underpass and settled for a bus stop. Everything is grimy concrete with patches of grass sporadically placed as if to say, ‘life can withstand this place... maybe?’ I think about kissing Angeliki on the mouth. Before hesitating— “Maybe we should just head back inside.” I said. “Really? Cause—” “Cause what?” —And throwing up a crunchy stew of sickness on the bus stop bench. “Fuck! Ah, Jesus—that smells disgusting! Are you okay? God that’s gross.” Angeliki stands ve paces away from me as the stringy vomit oozed off my ngers, my teeth, that seat.

“I’m—” I brokenly remarked before I went in for another hurl. Shrieking beyond a socially acceptable volume as the egg mayonnaise sandwich fell up my throat. I then spotted a small shiny stick on the concrete, sharp on one end. I

examine it more closely. It was Baseball Cap’s discarded knife. Shaped like a hippo’s tooth. “Hah! This girl man, this girl!” Cut to Angeliki giggling along with a big-boned man named Sandir outside after I cleaned myself up in the bar’s bathroom. I gave him a nasty stare, but he merely smiled in my direction while blabbering about some guy he knew that was super into MDMA and it was super important that you knew all about him. He knew what he was doing, he knew I knew what he was doing, and he did it anyway. A super cunt. “It’s a hypothetical situation in which an ass that’s equally hungry and thirsty— Cut back to me in a seminar hall, laptop fully out of juice trying to concentrate on the lecturer as he begins etching out a shoddy looking donkey on the whiteboard.

”

“—is confronted by two equally bountiful lots of hay and water each equidistant from him, the donkey will stop dead in its tracks until it has died of both starvation and thirst.” The professor continued. And they kept talking. And I needed to make a move, it was fucking--I just needed to make a move. I saw our future before my retina. A stream of saccharine, cliched moments I had spooned out of a lifetime of sitcoms — we sat on a bench on a hill as the sun set, two earbuds between us playing Radiohead’s 2004 ComLag EP. I think about our children, Jules and Dimitrios going to private school with her escort money that she used as capital for a ne art investment strategy. I think it, but I don’t say it. I

don’t say anything. Instead, I just stand there mute while Sandir talks her up a forest re. People who were insecure about their intelligence didn’t take IQ tests, why break the illusion? Why roll the identityshattering dice? Wasn’t it better to live in the warm bubble where your intellect matched Von Neuman? It might be true. “Hey so Angeliki—I can probably get some nitrous oxide if —" I massaged my masseters. “God—you smell disgusting dude; I don’t mean to be rude, but I mean lynx it up at the very least.” Sandir remarked, eyeing at Angelika’s long-winded laugh. His eyes then darted down to my hoodie, and I noticed a string of vomit missed from the scrubbing process hanging from my zipper. “I never really liked the urr- smell of Pynx—Lynx I mean, well, Lynx Peace maybe? But—” “Okay, I’m, urm, probably gonna go with this guy.” She said, cutting me off but smiling to soften the blow. “Oh—okay then. You followed my insta?” I whimpered. Sandir was already walking towards the club, Angeliki pretended not to hear me.

“Angeliki, are you coming or what?” he said

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Angeliki jotted towards him, he put his arm around her hair, those ten creamy, white teeth showing in her smile.

The rest of the evening was spent eating a double quarter pounder with cheese in an empty McDonalds while Phil and Jean ranted about Ethereum. Turns out four different sexually transmitted diseases can be caught via saliva oral herpes (HSV-1), genital herpes (HSV-2), syphilis and wonderfully named cytomegalovirus (CMV). Interesting precedent set for the New Year, I thought as I ngered my swollen masseters and ddled around with Cap’s blade. Kitchen knives didn’t seduce you, made you hard just to leave you with a broken heart, a accid dong, and potentially four distinct STDs from a shared cocktail. Forget the clubs, the libraries, the museums, and the people-hubs, all you need to nd real love is a ver in your wallet and a suf ciently stocked John Lewis

Spring’s Pas Emeka Ogos What is a beginning but an ending of an end When leaves surrender life, so new life may bud What is a beginning but the ending of a war When winter wanes succumbing to the thaw And from blood and frostbite survivors rebuild There is no 'past' to remember at a beginning Only the scaffolds that once upheld 'its' war engines Only blueprints of what could have been but wasn't Then seasons mould, so last winter's survivors wil Breed a life that must one day bear the cold Old leaves brown, teaching only of the mud Only of blood, and the deeds that drew it

What is a beginning without an end, if not the beginning of an end

Daffodil Jo Birc

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Xanthic shards pierce shar stony umber detritus Cobalt winter leaves.