Writer's Blot - Anonymity

Dear All,

Identity is a rather elusive matter. For all of humanity’s philosophising, we are still confronted with a void when asking ourselves who we really are. Yet, one thing that we can be sure of amidst the rapid growth of civilisation is our anonymity, our insignificance against the masses. Whilst this may seem like a bleak prospect, anonymity is a necessity within our human condition; in fact, this obscurity may give way to a certain beauty, a beauty that comes with embracing that void.

The writers of this edition have fully immersed themselves within this void of identity: from Emma’s poignant exploration of ambiguity and transience to Anya’s depiction of Austen’s creative process, this edition challenges the delineation between identity and anonymity.

Perhaps it is only when we can confront and accept our anonymity that we can understand who we really are

Thank you for reading this edition of ‘Writer’s Blot’,

The Glasses on the Table

They sit, three of water and one of wine. Each a skeleton of the person that once drank from them. Some are emptier than others, and one has marks around its edges Like clouds surrounding the frame of a window. They are the table’s only inhabitants. It is barren of plates, of cutlery, of any essence of humanity Other than that which lingers within the drinks. People were once there, it is indicated. Lives were lived, laughs were laughed, stories were Unravelled and knitted into elegant tapestries Of memory.

They do not speak of the souls that filled them, That splashed over the edges And dripped into existence.

Anonymity is a gift blessed upon them. The glasses are filled to the brim with knowledge Of what came before, ready to spill their stories to anyone who might listen.

But nobody listens. Instead, they simply clear the glasses And rinse it all away.

Emma

Paper screens

The rusted leaves come loose - the machine falls apart.

(torn apart by calloused hands) The foot-fall crunch. Dewdrops frozen by chilling gusts.

(breathed upon by peeling lips)

Crystalline patterns blanket the lake as you etch the kaleidoscope of light-burned eyes in singular strokes.

Your hand grips the crown while you wind back its handswhile you turn the cogs of your oeuvre.

-- ‘John Shade’

Unknown, Against the Wintered Fury, Oil on Canvas

There is a painting on a wall of that house I hold dear in my memory, A silly affair Mama purchased long ago from a market stall, her eyes laughing

She must have swiped it away on a whim from one of the rickety auction tables

It’s a peculiar thing, peeling slightly on the back, and shaped like a wood chip, The front holds a flurry of men, cloaked and muffled accordingly for the bitter climate

Their numberless miniature heads bowed against the imaginary wind

While forging forwards with conviction etched in their very features

Amidst bruising colours of wintertime spilt on the landscape.

A watery stroke of paint high in the sky - was it a moon or simply shoddy technique? Yet there was no distinguishing between each man that clung to his companion; In some unspoken quest I filled the days of my youth envisaging (a routine of mine), I used to wonder who those men were, struggling in their thousandsWhat their names were, and what they would come home to after a night’s revelry

Perhaps a room infused with warmth, the hearth embracing his ruddy cheeks

Comforting walls of oak and bronzed timber, soft quilts of eiderdown

Or, nothing at all, facing a draughty hall and long night beset by solitude

And the source - a young student churning out third-rate paintings to stay afloat

No, somebody encased in the boredom of age, reinventing their wanderings of long ago,

Painting with a liver-spotted hand embossed with the evidence of bygone life, I wished I knew, but the image that coloured my past is now obscured in my mind, traceless --amber

Withered

Everyday starts the same, With the chickens clucking to the sound of dawn, And he rises, Surely so, To take a sip of the hot water beside him.

Tentatively swallow last night’s aching, Put to rest the soreness in his throat, warm his Swollen hands.

Light cascades in through the window, Falls on the stone floor. Its vibrance soothes the quiet room Just as the heavy storm preceding it. And where the light doesn’t fall Lies his meal, delicately. A vase of plastic flowers beside it, As well as a large bowl of water. It ripples slightly.

A blue cotton shirt is on the chair holding the door, His day shirt, His favourite shirt, Folded peculiarly; The sleeves wrapped around itself, the collar tucked inside. He must grab it and shake it and Pull it undone.

The fabric is strong and sturdy, Yet flattering all the same, wrought against his Sloping shoulders and jagged elbows.

The window paints a larger view, Beyond the pale clouds of smoke. He can peer down with ease, Over his gracious land, And reaffirm that his mango trees Stand tall as ever, Magnificent in the blazing sun.

The air, light now, was thick just the night before. A cricket’s chirping crawling up his ear, And a slow-settling darkness. He felt swallowed, Yelling, wailing Through the bleak night: Rather to exhaust himself than Conquer the aches in his fingers.

Another side of the wall Housed a smaller room. His wife had grown bitter, With the long nights coming back. She would learn as she had been taught, To cradle her silent acquiescence.

Zara

By a Lady

Her head was whirring, as the final ideas competed with each other to secure their place on the page. The ink was starting to blot in protest; she was moving her quill simply too fast for its liking. Yes, the idea of this ending had sat stagnant in the back of her mind since she first began writing, but the burden of choosing the precise words to articulate this final scene was too much for her to think about prior to this exact moment. That is the reason her hand danced around the page, barely in a straight line, for she had finally attained the perfect formula of words to carry the ending towards the readers.

The readers – the thought was enough to make any man with sense scoff. ‘What readers?’ they would say to her if they knew of her illicit hobby. But she had intentions that laid too deep within her own integrity to ever dissociate herself with. This book was going to be read, she would make sure of that. The men with their sense seem to feel attacked by the thought of a woman holding more power in the fingers that gripped her quill than they ever would in their entire being. They claim to have sense, to be prudent and wise, when in reality the security of their power is dependent on their belief of being the superior sex. Their power is fragile, and when it is threatened, they become irrationally emotional. They have a lot more sensibility than they do sense, she decided. She’d return to this comparison later, she thought, as already a spark had been lit in her mind. Perhaps here lay the topic of her next piece of fiction.

The ink in her inkwell was dwindling, but she had no need for much more. It simply had to last the final sentence.

“Darcy, as well as…”

In the final few moments, she was overcome by a surprising sense of calm. Her hand, which had been stinging from the force of her grip on the quill, relaxed; her quill was thankful for its release. Her mind lay bare of any more ideas for this exact novel, but already ideas for the next one were starting to brew.

“… of uniting them.” With the final press of the quill against the paper, a sense of finality sunk in. She had finished. And now came the sentence she had decided on before she even decided her protagonist’s name. The sentence that brought with it pride and distress, for even though she wished so strongly for the world to know of her achievements, she signed off simply ‘By a Lady’.

Age of a Goddess

I, at forty-nine, Jump the gate at night to swim Dangerous water. Cool, dark carp slink beneath me Brushing my legs like lilies.

Parchment Mornings

sun rising on a parchment morning, blurry and amorphous as–the birds flicker here and there.

the weight of space crushes the tedium. it feels like the perfection of motion.

in a time of silence and leaves, a static sound of ineluctable existence, reflection is the caress of dew.

carefree quivers and arresting infinitude, the sun is a lemon glow; for now being is suspended; (i am the world’s mirror.)

the sun has risen.

Tessa

Imaan

let me see the Canvas

"let me see the Canvas", I beg (the ghost-white slate you began with) no answer ...

congealed paint sits in protest but the painters are silent.

their process remains elusive and i only face the canvas alone, scarred with a vermilion stroke but what was the hand that cast it?

i wear the Canvas like my skin, watch fresh washes of colour darken (with permanence) i wish to reveal the blank screen beneath, strip back the suffocating layers of paint so the painters can see what the canvas was beforebefore they interferedgrafting branches of their own onto mine such that you see my colours blend with the other canvases

you will walk past in a gallery past thousands and thousands who wear their Canvas mesmerised by the colours butmissing the texture of the surface underneath

your eyes gloss over the vibrancy unable to see past the mask on the Canvas, desensitized to the colours which swirl across the whole gallery coalescing into one (one body, one spirit)

"let me scrape off the caked layers of paint", i cry ... but no one is listening the painters have vanished and a stream of painted people walk by

‘the masked painter’

Echo

Of me, my foes

Know more

Than friends who forsake me; The brine of scorn and noise

Is deaf to the dreams

It’s audience spills

Over living memory, Treasured are her wasted days

Upon the stage.

In the unforgiving grip of circumstance, Man writhes in blindness

For the solace of day, But no longer can I get it By groping round for yesterdays, To worry my way

To a fearsome future.

Longing for sleep

As I in infancy slept, I wait on time to make

As much as it has broken, And all the while

Mute voices claw through me. --Eden