BBB Issue #3 Autumn 2014

//poetry

//discourse

//art

Autumn 2014

welcome to the third issue of

BLEAK BLEAK BLEAK, a place for debate. edited by Alice Seville, Emily Watkins & Gary Zhexi Zhang. many thanks to our contributors: Yoon Suok-won, Patricia Geraldes, Carolina Alcazar Rosal, Hollie Pycroft, Mary Rouncefield, Esme Armour, Tony Clerkson, Rosa Barbour, Nico Lillo, Ken Morlich, Mary Thaler, Roddy Shippin, Andreas Nitschke, Viktoriya Staykova, Roy Moller, Brittonie Fletcher & Eileen Budd. photography on previous pages, following page and overleaf: Yoon, Suok-won: Human Being 9 (2005), Human Being 1 (2005), Relations 3 (2006), Relation 1 (2006), & Human Being 6 (2005) – for more, visit http://vimeo.com/yoonsuokwon cover design by Alice Seville If you would like to send us feedback or contributions, please e-mail us at bleakzine@gmail.com

Contents

Comment Minimum Rage Hollie Pycroft BLEAK Referendum Special

it’s all too... beautiful?

Rosa Barbour

post–hope Esme Armour

Prose Native Speakers

Ken Morlich

Jean-Baptiste Night Mary Thaler

Poetry

Roddy Shippin

Roy Moller

Featured Artists Yoon, Suok-won Patricia Geraldes Nico Lillo Viktoriya Staykova Brittonie Fletcher Eileen Budd

Specific Place indian ink on paper Patricia Geraldes

minimum rage As a 22-year-old graduate, I will gladly hold my hands up and admit that having a job and, more importantly, having a job that pays the living wage of £7.65 per hour, renders me totally and completely privileged. I’m lucky that I’m not currently back in the home of my parents. I’m lucky I live in a city I want to live in. I’m lucky I’m not on a zero hour contract, I’m well educated, I don’t have to use food banks and my work isn’t thoroughly demoralizing.

Hey, in today’s world, I’m in a pretty good situation. But a living wage is just that – a living wage. Like most people my age, whether or not we are clutching a degree in one hand and a mounting pile of debt in the other, I can’t save for the future. I can’t put money aside, I can’t dream of owning my own place like our parents once did. That’s not because I don’t work hard, but because in today’s world, there are few employers willing to pay the wages that would support such a lifestyle. That, we’re told, is just the way the cookie crumbles.

Given that my job is going absolutely nowhere, I’m fully aware it’s likely I’ll soon have to take the minimum wage, at an entry level position, in order to get anywhere in the world. On October the 1st, that wage will rise from £6.31 to £6.50, a laughably insignificant rise that we can largely thank Vince Cable for (for want of a better phrase, ‘big whoop’).

The menial increase is a fantastic attempt by the coalition government to convince the masses that we are feeling the benefits of the economy’s progression. If you’re not utterly thrilled about that extra 19p, then you should stop being so fucking greedy. After all, you’re working a worthless job, so you must be just that – worthless.

hollie pycroft That is, of course, what the minimum wage tells employees – you are so utterly replaceable and meaningless that I will pay you the absolute minimum. Like Chris Rock put it: “Hey, if I could pay you less, I would, but it’s against the law”. In lieu of actually trusting employers to pay workers fairly, and pass on financial benefits to their staff, we as a society are contented by minimum wage laws. Even if – as is the case – that minimum wage fails to reflect how much it costs to just be alive, and not homeless, and to live in a dignified manner. By and large, it seems society is entirely okay with the fact that an hour’s pay barely covers the bus fare to work. It barely covers a sandwich and a packet of crisps for lunch. It barely covers a pint at the pub on a Friday, let alone, once your paycheck comes through, the skyrocketing costs of rent, bills and supermarket baskets. It means going home at the end of a long day, exhausted, physically aching, and knowing that when you do it all again tomorrow, you’ll still be utterly and completely skint. How the fuck is this fair?

Crucially, the Conservative party and those susceptible enough to have been outraged by Channel 4’s ‘Benefits Street’ are frequently to be found cursing those who take benefits rather than working. With utter contempt for the poor, they hope that the carpet of measly benefits be stripped from under the feet of those they don’t understand, and cannot relate to. They spare little thought for those who work full-time jobs for the minimum wage - barely more, and sometimes less, than benefits levels. That’s without understanding the demoralizing and often backbreaking work often associated with the lowest wages.

“We are robbing people of their chances to be happy – let alone achieve social mobility.”

This month the Green party announced their call for an immediate minimum wage increase to living wage levels – and a raise to £10/ hour by 2020. It’s a fallacy, of course, given that the Greens are nowhere near powerful enough to effect such a change. What it could do, though, is push Labour to the left on this issue – they, Labour, have agreed the minimum wage is too low, without making any recommendations for what it should be.

about to enjoy a 10% pay rise from £67000 to £74000 – bully for them). That problem multiplies given that minimum wage earners are some of the least likely to vote in the country. If the poorest in our society fail to vote, what politician will adequately stand up for them? Why bother, when there are politically active millionaires whose success depends on paying legally mandated low wages?

If we’re to have any hope in Labour as a genuine alternative to increasingly conservative UK politics, they must immediately wake up on the issue of the minimum wage. Since making it their flagship policy in 1998, they have lost control of the policy, despite continuing to take credit for it. It’s time we as a country began enforcing respect for our workers. It’s time we rolled back the aggressive, unregulated practice of businesses withholding proper wages from their employees. It’s certainly time we learnt when the minimum wage does not support the cost of basic modern living.

We are robbing people of their chances to be happy, let alone achieve social mobility.

So, instead of relying on the supply and demand laws of economics, or the good nature of politicians, or the generous spirit of jobs and wealth ‘creators’, we need to come together and demand better for our society.

As history tells us, a little more cash in the pockets of the poor is hardly a bad thing – the poor just need to go out there, get angry and demand it.

For my part, I’m confident I would genuinely feel safer, less apprehensive and less anxious about my future, if I knew that a minimum wage could support a minimum lifestyle. For that to happen, though, a tidal change must occur in British opinion. Given that many of our politicians have never, and will never experience a lifestyle earning the minimum wage, we simply expect the issue to factor into their consciousness (in fact, they’re just

photograph by Alice Seville illustration by Carolina Alcazar Rosal

FGM or female genital mutilation has in the past been referred to as ‘female circumcision’ - with the true extent of the damage inflicted shrouded in mystery, superstition and secrecy, with women too embarrassed and ashamed to speak out.

It is a procedure carried out on pre-adolescent girls too young to realise what is about to happen to them. It is done without anaesthesia, usually by an untrained female, with female relatives holding the child down, in some cases using a scalpel or sharp blade, the girl’s clitoris is cut away along with the outer labia. The wound is then sewn up, leaving a small opening for urine and menstrual blood to pass through. Girls are taken ‘on holiday’ to countries in Africa for this to be done, during the six week school summer holidays. Many families feel that this is in the best interests of their daughter as it ensures her ‘purity’ for her future husband. As a result of FGM, women find sex painful for the rest of their lives. Childbirth can result in death as the woman will need to be cut and sewn up again.

Midwives and medical social workers have been aware of the physical (and mental) damage done to women for some years; particularly in cities with large refugee communities originating from African countries such as Somalia. Recently, a major campaign against female genital mutilation has been initiated by Bristol student Fahma Mohamed, and this has raised awareness of the issue locally and internationally. UNICEF is now campaigning to eradicate this procedure worldwide. image/text by Mary Rouncefield more information at http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/

WHAT WE DO NOW

A BLEAK REFERENDUM SPECIAL

it’s all too... beautiful?

ROSA BARBOU

UR

At the time of writing, three days have passed since it was announced that 55% of voters did not support an independent Scotland. Statistics from the aftermath have revealed that the majority of voters under the age of fifty-five had voted in favour of independence, indicating the support of a vigorous demographic. For many of the opposing 45%, the decision appeared to be a final silencing of the voices raised with unprecedented hope that this time, they would be heard. On Friday morning, the outcome became tangible. While those who voted to retain the Union were finally assured that theirs was the choice of the majority, I feared that the Yes camp would now face the challenge of channelling a vibrant ball of lost momentum. Many campaigners have expressed an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, feeling they have lost not only their intended outcome, but also their first experience of a politicised atmosphere in which the articulation of personal belief was not futile, but instead helped to form the foundational network of a strong, positive campaign. As Scotland prepares itself to forge onwards, all eyes turn towards Westminster and the next move.

Though I felt very comfortable with my Yes vote on the 18th, the passage towards this choice was by no means free of doubt. Long conversations with my dad, who has spoken with passion for many years of his belief in an independent, socialist Scotland, doubtlessly coloured my eventual decision. My mum, on the other hand, was wary of increased social polarisation as a result of separation. She felt that more financial and social security could be achieved within the union. A few years ago, when the likelihood of an eventual referendum first became apparent to me, I was myself, extremely unsure about the notion of separation from the rest of the UK. Though thoroughly aware of my Scottish identity, wider British culture was – and remains – a huge part of my life and upbringing. As a young girl, not yet swayed by political influence, I took comfort in the parts of the UK outwith Scotland which had coloured my own life: personal friendships, and my grandma’s gentle, lilting Liverpudlean accent. Beyond this, I was attached by smaller, yet personally significant ties – such as the strong creative and personal influence I had gained through comedy, music and writing from all over the country. It had helped form my character, my own sense of humour; my identity. I wished that the UK’s wit and collective landscapes could run within me, complimenting that which I took from Scotland. To me, my ‘Britishness’ meant that it did. As I will touch on later, there of course exist union bonds which go far beyond the sounds of grandparents’ voices and Green Wing on Channel 4.

However, such things had bolstered my own affinity with a United Kingdom, and I did not feel entirely comfortable with the severing of those ties.

As I began to read more of what was available surrounding the referendum, I soon became aware of the popular unionist argument that the Yes campaign was grounded not in concrete economic fact, but rather a romantic notion which in reality would prove impossible to sustain. It was to this argument that I consistently returned in moments of self-doubt. I have long acknowledged a certain idealism within myself which has existed before this debate came to the fore. In my own writing, I tend towards fiction; creating worlds and characters over whose little planets I have complete editorial control. Though I hold a strong belief in the potential for the imagination to colour all areas of life, I grew anxious that my own tendency towards romantic thought would become an overbearing and potentially insensible influence over my final decision. Just as I had tapped into my relationship with the wider United Kingdom, I thought now about what Scotland meant to me. The car route through Glasgow - my home - and beyond: a fanfare of happy yellow trees that seemed to

congratulate our departure from the M8. I thought of weekends in the East Neuk of Fife; inky late night car-drives up the A9 to Portmahomack; seeing the sun set there over the Dornoch Firth. I thought of the simple beauty of Dougie McLean’s ‘Caledonia.’ Some time into my reverie, alarm bells rang, as though there’s still a wee bit of my brain that is programmed to identify ‘daydream mode,’ and whose function is to ground me before I hit the clouds.

I was reluctant to dismiss my daydreams quite yet; they felt so directly aligned with my natural instinct that I didn’t doubt their sincerity and importance. However, it was now necessary to identify the political perspective with which I felt the most safe. With the words ‘Beware! Romanticism!’ flashing in red neon in my brain, I continued reading. And yet, the more I read from the Yes perspective, the more obvious it became that this was a case far removed from flimsy, irresponsible stargazing. These were writers, politicians and journalists, setting out in simple, concrete terms, the argument in favour of independence. Their points did not seek the embellishment of poetic visions of Scotland’s braes and bracken. There was nothing far-off in Tommy Sheridan’s eyes when he asserted that a Yes vote would put a firm end to Scotland’s subjection to Tory governments it didn’t elect. I doubt that playwright David Greig’s pen shook when he wrote that he believed an independent Scotland would be ‘disliking of bullying or boasting, broadly egalitarian, valuing of education, and internationalist in outlook’. These intended outcomes made sense to me. I felt safe with them. Time and again, the foundational concept that a country should govern its own affairs blazed through.

If I didn’t want to be separated from what I liked about being ‘British,’ I realised that perhaps it was more important to seek distance from what I didn’t. Vonny Moyes, in an article for The Guardian, criticised the pro-union argument that, as well as claiming that Yes voters are predominantly ‘mercenary nationalists,’ they are also ‘hopeless romantics’. She warned this label was as dangerous as that which dismissed the bulk of the No camp as ‘sleekit Tory sycophants.’ Moyes assured her readers that an ability to look beyond the economy was far from romantic; that it spoke instead of accepting the potential for struggle in the hope that a Yes vote would facilitate social improvements, such as renewed commitment to tackling Scotland’s widespread financial inequality. Her words were what I needed to continue my reading with a sense of justified hope.

I began to recognise the pro-independence outlook as the one which, to my mind, offered the greater potential for fairness and progress in Scotland. Lesley Riddoch cites the time she spent in Norway as cementing her belief that ‘a fairer deal is possible with indigenous culture at the funded centre, rather than the near-voluntary margins of society.’ Talking at Glasgow University in March, Tariq Ali encouraged his audience not to become frightened by statistics. He dismissed the argument that an independent Scotland would become overly-parochial, and instead promoted his belief that a redefined Scottish democracy could ‘enrich Scottish tradition and act as a model for other parts of Europe.’ As for the question of economic viability, Joseph Stiglitz, a recipient of the Nobel prize for economics, presented a strong argument for the monetary strength of an independent Scotland within Europe. As I began to realise, there was another prevailing argument coming to the fore: that far from being a naïve, thin perspective, this was a campaign rooted very firmly within the realm of common sense.

photographs by Tony Clerkson http://tonyclerkson.photoshelter.com/

It seemed important, now, to consider the sources of staunch union bonds. In his recent Panorama documentary for the BBC, Allan Little argued that for much of the 20th century, the ‘British State’ was a meaningful, substantial concept; its people bound with a sense of shared enterprise. The union held great importance for mining communities, whose perception of strength lay with the idea of the national union of a country ‘built on coal.’ Shipbuilders in Glasgow did not wish to drop affiliations with companies dotted throughout the UK. Scottish nationalism was often rejected on the grounds of a united industrial workforce. Describing the slow breakdown of this particular foundation for the ‘British State’, Joyce McMillan states that, in the moment when Thatcher and the conservatives gained power in 1979, the consequences for British industrial communities were devastating. Thatcher’s ‘unsubtle’ grasp of the politics of the union contributed to the breakup of an old Britain, in which the opportunity for a functioning welfare state began to crumble. The devolution referendum of the same year did not return a significant enough proportion of votes to produce enforced change in Scotland. During the Thatcher years, there emerged a belief, now widely-held, that decisions made by an English electorate did not reflect the Scots’ own choices at the ballot box. The SNP took the opportunity to distance itself from its ‘mad-cap,’ overly radical and anti-English reputation –offering instead an alternative to politically disillusioned Scots. Beyond 1974, the SNP became the fastest growing political party in Europe. The creation of the Scottish parliament, rather than putting an end to any concept of Scottish nationalism, created a wave of new expectations; rode by Alex Salmond as he undertook his first term as Scotland’s First Minister in 1990.

Before 1979, though in favour of home rule, my dad had been alienated by the SNP’s ‘Tartan Tory’ reputation. He was not prepared to give his loyalty to a political party who had ejected its left-wing element, The 79 Group, in 1982. In subsequent years, leading members of the group were readmitted, allowing the party to develop more progressive, non-traditionalist policies, and to re-attract those who had been disillusioned by the party’s dismissal of left-wing values. In recent months, positive facets of the Yes campaign have allowed many to redefine the concept of ‘Nationalism,’ limiting its alienating connotations - such as a lust for segregation based on anti-English sentiment - and focussing instead on the simple right for Scotland to have a government of its own choice. David Greig, discussing his own journey towards a Yes vote, states that for a long time he had kept one eye on Scottish nationalism, ‘distrusting it, expecting it to reveal its true dark heart.’ Instead, he saw repeated evidence of Scottish nationalism as a ‘civic, social-democratic, multicultural movement.’ He points to the SNP’s opposition to Trident, in addition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and their commitment to sustainable energy and arts funding. Of Salmond, A.L. Kennedy wrote sharply, ‘he’s the only politician I’ve ever met who didn’t make me want to wash… Thus far, he has steered an elegant course reflecting Scotland’s left-leaning population, has sabrerattled against sectarian bigotry and has kept a pro-Scottish agenda free from racism by widening the definition of what it is to be Scottish in a heartening way.’

This idea of a positive, inclusive agenda for Scotland appealed greatly to my own vision of what could be achieved through independence. I appreciated Salmond’s support of the multicultural nature of modern Scotland, and his commitment to the rights of its people. Throughout his campaign, he demonstrated an unwavering opposition to the enforced privatisation of the NHS, and spoke of his wishes for an independent Scotland to incorporate an unfaltering system of childcare. David Greig stated that his

only hesitancy in voting ‘Yes’ was that it would ‘condemn the English left to perpetual opposition,’ a point that recalls Allan Little’s observation of the radical choices of the Scottish electorate. In response to such arguments, Billy Bragg pointed out that only two Labour governments since 1945 have relied on Scottish votes to win a majority. ‘When England wants to throw the Tories out,’ he wrote, ‘the English are quite capable of doing it themselves, thank you very much.’ Although highly aware of the potential for a certain amount of wool-over-eyes promises in any such debate, I realised that, with such arguments, I had found a natural alignment. When a dedicated friend suggested I try a morning of canvassing in Pollok, my nerves were bolstered by the knowledge that I had reached my conclusion on terms with which I was comfortable. I sought compassionate policies, explained simply, but with feeling. I could explain now, where I couldn’t before, why I did not associate a Yes vote with an inward-looking and parochial Scotland.

Instead, it was a vote cast in belief that we would be granted the freedom to take steps in that world with a renewed sense of identity and vigour.

The poet Kathleen Jamie has spoken with great sincerity on her own perception of Scottish identity. Acknowledging the problems of land ownership in Scotland, she cites the ability to make ‘imaginative forays’ into the mountains and glens as a valid act of reclaiming them, where political means fall short. Her poem ‘Scotland,’ inscribed on the rotunda at Bannockburn, comprises lines and fragments borrowed from Scottish poets of the past, and was written as an avoidance of Nationalistic exclusion on racial grounds. The poem is a ‘generous gesture’ to all who experience Scotland; the assertion that while the land belongs to ‘none but itself,’ the country is won by those who take it ‘most to heart,’ Scottish or otherwise. Her ode to an inclusive and determined Scotland will be read by the thousands of visitors to the site of Scotland’s historical victory; yet serves not to reaffirm bloodshed, but to remind of a country whose beauty and resilience runs deeper than past battles lost and won. Jamie’s views on poetry’s influential potential recalled my own perceived tension between imaginative thought and political reality.

Her belief in meaningful verse as a catalyst for positive change granted my wish that, within this debate, there was a place for both. As I reached my final decision, I felt it was important for others to lend weight to personal, instinctive reactions which they may have dismissed through fear of external dismissal.

In the aftermath of the referendum, it is vital that we do not associate this loss with the loss of individual self-determination. The wealth of creativity and political engagement the referendum sparked has been overwhelming. 97% of voter registration showed the world that the people of Scotland took pride in the democratic right to decide the future of their country. There exist shades which go beyond the black and white of two opposing sides. Speaking of Lesley Riddoch’s openness to a fairer, more inclusive climate within an independent Scotland, my dad said simply, ‘she sees the colours.’ His words remain with me, as I see evidence of thousands who allowed the hues of their own decision to shine forth. They will shine on, as we continue to channel a newlyformed, special energy; an energy which has dissipated any fears of losing momentum.

Social media and general discussion have already begun to reflect the positive steps being made toward new campaigns for renewed social justice within and beyond Scotland. Due acknowledgement has been given from all sides to the unprecedented, impassioned political energy of recent months. Scotland is a country galvanised for change, invigorated with the affirmation of her potential; a sentiment which I hope can be echoed by romantics and realists alike.

post-hope esme armour

The morning after the referendum.

Having just disentangled myself from a warm pile of sleeping bodies in the bed of our no-voting friend, we haven’t even a few moments grace of forgetting which side won out.

We are day-drunk, the sky is grey.

A stumble along Byres Road, a passing stranger yells Wear ye badge wi pride hen!

On the bus home, head against the window and eyes closed, saltires wave in negative across my eyelids. I’m English - what does that matter? The scottish flag has never made me uncomfortable the way the St George’s Cross does. It is a symbol of hope, not hostility.

As Alec Finlay happened to mention, ‘this was never about ‘independence’, it was about the self-determination to enact policies of love, not hate and victimization.’ So it felt the previous night, as Jesse Rae, in full leather armour, kilt and battle helmet, bellowed Scotland’s future is for everyone! And the whole room dripped in sweaty elation.

I never had so much hope for the future!

I never felt so sick!

Later that night drunken men thrash about on top of a shipping container. The next day I examine a pinky brown bruise on the back of my hand from when Clackmannshire declared, and I ate my fist with anxiety. Later that night we watch videos of violence under the union jack.

The point where my motivation, privately, was - I’ll vote yes, it won’t happen anyway, what do we have to lose, is distant. Since then, the Common Weal, National Collective and Women for Independence; and the spineless mainstream media and meek or patronising cohorts of Better Togethers convinced me a different scotland is possible. Beautifully, simply possible in two strokes of a pencil. It is also necessary. People even talked about how they never talked about politics, ‘til now.

So what.

Walking down Sauchiehall Street I meet the eyes of strangers with a shared look of absolute gloom. Perhaps Glaswegian faces always looked miserable. (But not last week, last week! When anything was possible!) The murky, hungover, hopeless privileged question arises: what do I write on my jacket now? The generation that wrote hate across their shoulders in emulsion is not my own.

Bargaining is a stage of grieving: what if I’d started wearing my badge a few months earlier, replied to one of those organising emails, nagged my boyfriend not to miss the deadline for a postal vote, gone door to door? If only, if only I’d been more involved than just investing hope. But after the depression lifts, acceptance?

YES. A different scotland is still possible.

(Nico Lillo lives and paints in Hamburg)

Massage Oils on Canvas 2014

http://nicolas7812.tumblr.com/

Guard Oils on Canvas 2014

NATIVE SPEAKERS KEN MORLICH

I was not happy to be walking out to the barbecue place, because, if I am honest, I had never liked Vinton Grant and I resented doing him a favour. I also intensely dislike walking, especially if the weather is warm, which it was. It was around 3pm on a June Sunday, and everything was closed up: shuttered against the sun and thoroughly uninviting in a way that only small towns can be. I swore and rummaged in my bag for the moped keys Vinton had given me. They were there, under the case for my sunglasses, my lipstick, a couple of johnnies and an open, half-eaten packet of biscuits. I swore again: not because I’d lost the keys, but because I hadn’t. Sorry Vinton, I could have said if I’d really lost them. Sorry honey—I couldn’t bring back your fucking moped because I wrapped the keys in a wafer fucking thin chicken steak and fed it to that fucking massive rottweiller you sometimes see lying like a beached fucking walrus in the front courtyard of the weird house with the galvanised sheet metal veranda and the ten foot square fucking vineyard. I’m sure it’ll shit it out in a couple of days, and you can probably explain to the owner in broken Slovak—which is all you speak other than American—why you need them so damn badly. I also didn’t get the moped because I think you’re a cunt. There. I’ve said it. Vinton, I think you’re a cunt, and if there weren’t an unspoken rule that anglophones have to be polite and hang out together when living abroad, I’d probably never even say hello to you in the street ever again, let alone go drinking with you. You cunt.

I slung the bag back over my bare shoulder, seating the strap centrally on its cushion of slick, sweating flesh just to one side of my vest and bra straps. Fuck, I thought. Fuck, fucky fuck. I don’t even know how to start a fucking moped, let alone ride one. Vinton fucking Grant, if you weren’t already in the nick I would start sounding off about some of the properly bad stuff you’ve got up to as an ex-pat sex tourist, and have you locked up for much, much longer. Except that you’d probably just have your visa withdrawn and be straight off to the next place where a US citizen can bang nymphets without arousing too much comment. Italy, perhaps. They’ll make you prime minister.

About three hundred metres before I reached the trout barbecue, the pavement ran out. I was glad of my flat shoes: flip-flops, really, with a cork heel an inch thick, but even so I was stumbling on the gravel pieces that passing cars had flung up onto the thin, dusty grass of the verge. A car load of village boys cruised slowly past: three across the front two seats of the carefully maintained 1970s canary yellow Škoda, three across the back. They didn’t shout or whistle, but the ones nearest the windows on the passenger side craned out and followed me with their eyes. I stuck two fingers up at them, then wondered whether a single middle finger was better understood internationally.

The trout barbecue was a collection of rickety picnic tables with fake-rustic thatched rooves, gathered around a central grilling station constructed from whitewashed breeze blocks. Fish grease dripping from the slit bodies of the trout had dribbled and splashed onto the blocks, staining them brown and leaving a lingering smell of burnt fish oil. Now, although technically open, the place was quiet. Everyone was at the reservoir. I had been once, but I’m too big for a bikini now— and when I swim, I like the water to be clear enough that I can see my feet.

One or two of the tables were taken, but there was no-one at the grill station. I walked round the back of the portacabin that served as an office. A pair of darkly tanned men in cut off jeans and vests, and a grossly overweight woman in a flowery print dress were playing cards at a plastic table.

“Co chceš?” asked one of the men. What do you want?

I explained to him about Vinton’s moped. The woman reached over the table and, with a brown, sun-spotted arm, pulled a pickle out of the jar.

“You’re picking it up for your friend? Good luck!” mullet guy said. “It was smashed up pretty good when he brought it in last night.”

“He didn’t bring it in,” panted the crone, recovering her breath.

“He crashed it into our fucking palm tree.”

“Palm tree?” I looked around, and sure enough, occupying a gap between two spans of chain link fence, grew a scruffy, stunted

palm with its trunk painted white. I couldn’t think how I failed to notice it on my trudge from town.

“Only palm tree for a hundred kilometres around, and he aimed right for it. Wham!” The woman said.

“Your friend’s pretty smooth,” said mullet guy.

The second man, who wore a gold chain with fat links like those from a watch strap round his neck, seemed more sympathetic. “He was lucky his friends were drinking here. He crashed right outside, and there was a bunch of teenagers in.”

“Just having a meal,” put in the woman. “Drinking beer and eating trout and...”

“He was really drunk—so drunk we noticed him even before he crashed. He was up on the verge; over in the other carriageway,” said gold chain guy.

“And we thought, Jesus, Maria! He’s a goner if a truck comes through,” said the woman.

“One of those double-axle Tatras: you’d be like a mashed hedgehog if one of those things hit you,” gold chain guy continued. “So your friend hits the palm tree...”

“Boof !” said mullet guy, slamming his fist into his outspread palm.

“Well,” continued gold chain guy, “there wasn’t much noise, but when we went to see if he was OK, he wasn’t. Not really.”

“Not OK at all—Jesus, Maria!” The woman wheezed with laughter, her rolls of belly and back fat shaking as she relived the moment.

“He was moaning a bit, right arm flapping around, a cut on his scalp,” said mullet guy.

“But he was drunk, so he didn’t feel much—did a bit of singing,” gold chain guy continued, “something from Nashville—Kenny Rogers.”

“Yeah,” said mullet guy, and began to croon in his grating, chainsmoker’s voice: “the cheaper the grapes are, the sweeter the taste of the wine.”

“And all the kids from the table over there,” gold chain guy motioned to one of the tables, “saw the whole thing, and ran over, and they were like, are you OK? and, can we help you? And then one of them, a girl...”

“Very nice girl: Czech girl,” mullet guy became serious for a moment.

“Says, God! it’s Vinton,” continued gold chain guy.

“He was their high school teacher,” said the woman. She too suddenly became serious, as though, just for a moment, everything they had been telling me as a comic anecdote—a trivial mishap of no consequence—was somehow now causing her great personal distress like an embarrasing ailment that she couldn’t hide from the people she knew. “He was so knocked about, we offered him some barbecue.”

“Come with me, we’ll get the moped,” said gold chain guy, rising and leaving the other two at the table. They resumed eating pickles, and their conversation drifted away from the subject of Vinton and his crashed moped.

We rounded the corner of the portacabin, and there was Vinton’s Babeta: a sky blue, 1980s moped, now featuring a visibly buckled front wheel and a dented mudguard. Otherwise, from my limited knowledge of what a moped was supposed to look like, it seemed to have survived the ordeal pretty well.

“We called the ambulance, and the cops came with them,” gold chain guy resumed his story, “but we didn’t tell them he was riding drunk. The kids hid the moped, and they told the ambulance driver he’d been on foot and got hit by a car.”

“That was good of you—good of you all. More than Vinton deserves,” I said, really meaning it.

“Why isn’t he here to pick it up himself ? Are you his wife; his girlfriend?” he asked.

“No, he’s got a Czech girlfriend,” I said. “A village girl who bakes, but doesn’t ride mopeds. I’m just here because the police have got him in the drunk tank. This morning he must have been too hung over to remember what happened—he reported his moped stolen, and the cops filled in the missing pieces.”

“Jesus, Maria!” he exclaimed, downcast. “I thought the cops were stupider than that.”

With his help, I pushed the Babeta to the road, let him start it for me, and puttered slowly back to town. §

Earlier in the day, I had been summoned into the private language school where I worked. Not very common on a Sunday, but not that unusual either. As I entered his office, the director was sipping delicately from a glass of Mattoni water. He placed the fountain pen he liked to use as a dramatic prop at the top of his blotting pad, lined up parallel with the maple wood trim of his fancy desk.

He met my eyes and said, in that insinuating manner he had that always infuriated me, “I was talking to our mutual friend Vinton yesterday evening. He was...” here he gave a little snigger, “quite inebriated. He was talking of this and that, the way drunks talk.” The director took another sip of mineral water. “He was quite—how do you say it in English—indiscreet about some of the details of your personal circumstances.”

I replied something about Vinton’s lack of personal integrity. What I was thinking was altogether more violent and colourful, but that’s all I said.

“Vinton spoke of a certain Petr,” the director continued.

“Petr’s nineteen, he can do what he likes,” I said.

“That is the case,” replied the director, “but his father is an important man at the clinic. Petr has a girlfriend his own age; his father thinks this is more suitable.”

“I don’t work for the clinic.”

“No, Jacqui, you work for me.”

I don’t know why, but I hate it when people who pay my salary— however shit a salary it is—use my first name.

“And the books you lent him,” the director carried on talking, determined to confront me with every last detail the idiot Vinton had drunkenly blurted out, “Vinton tells me they were, shall we say, unusual.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with lending books to a friend,” I said.

“Anïas Nin,” he replied. “Quite high brow pornography, truly. He tells me you are physically involved with other paying students as well: Jakub...”

“Twenty-one,” I said.

“Tomáš...”

“Eighteen. How do you know Vinton, anyway?” I demanded.

“What’s the bastard doing sticking his nose into my life like he’s some sort of moral fucking arbiter?” For a moment I wondered if he was about to try and strike a deal: negotiate some extras on top of my salaried duties—a discreet hand job, perhaps—but, instead of making a proposition, he just sat there at his desk blinking up at me through his tiny, rimless spectacles. I was still standing, the right time for taking a seat never seemed to have presented itself, and just at that moment I noticed something I’d never spotted before: high up on the wall behind his desk hung a photograph of the director on horseback, dressed as a cowboy.

“I don’t know him well,” said the director. “But it’s good to have regular conversations with as many native speakers as possible. You can go now.”

I nodded.

In any case, it wouldn’t have worked out. I can’t rouse any enthusiasm for men his age.

photograph by Gary Zhexi Zhang

JEAN-BAPTISTE NIGHT MARY THALER

It took an hour and a half with a webcam and a friend two provinces over before I finally managed to choose an acceptable top to match the sheer black tights and cut-off jeans. Most of that time was spent outlining the advantages of cowl versus V-necklines and the recent life trajectories of every student from our department at university.

She kept saying remember. “Remember Jennie’s dress at the English Awards Ceremony. Remember reading the Ulster Cycle out loud in the basement lounge, and when Chris came in, looking disapproving, we’d yell, it’s for a paper!”

Above my computer desk, the breeze stirred the sheer curtains. Outside I heard the first shouted greetings, the first smash of glass. I couldn’t remember Chris’ face, or whether or not he’d dated one of our roommates, and the voices that floated up from the sidewalk, full of musical French elisions, kept distracting me.

“I might as well just wear this one,” I said, desperately.

At last I escaped to this curb where I’m sitting now, holding a bottle of beer between my ankles, my toes extending into the street’s flood current. It’s Grande Allée on Jean-Baptiste night: a thicket of bare arms raising digital cameras overhead. Tiny screens capture the glittering crowd as it frays and re-knots itself, like a ragged silk flag rippling over the shiny cobbles. Bon St-Jean! At eye level, a kelp forest of brown legs. I could not have travelled farther from those dilatory evenings sprawling over the cheap furniture of an east-coast school dorm. But part of my mind must still be back there, because out of the tinselled crowd my eye is following a scene out of Celtic Mythology class, and a voice says, Remember that? Remember Ferdiad at the Ford?

Two boys, identical in cargo shorts, hoodies, buzz-cuts and baseball caps, are rough-housing beneath a disco ball that hangs from an eighteenth century stone arch. Female passers-by clutching their handbags dive off the curb to avoid collision, while the two circle each other in loopy revolutions, like sun-drunk hawks. One manages to grasp the other on either side of his neck and holds him there, wrestling against gravity, preparing to say something that requires all the impact of arm’s length.

Ferdiad and Cuchulainn were fostered out together. That’s the myth.

Years later, in the middle of a river, they fought to the death over a stolen bull; the lethal quarrels of another age reduced to baffling triviality by the obscuring centuries.

My beer is empty but I remain sitting, watching their heads droop towards each other. I imagine the harsh, double-beat of their breathing, but there are things I don’t know and can’t fill in: if they shared a skateboard when they were twelve, what each one thinks of the other’s girlfriend, and whether he is really whispering Come on you sissy or is it just, Come on.

Come up, the girls were calling from the balconies as I left my apartment building. It was very dark—I don’t leave lights on behind me—and whoever their Romeo of the evening was, the big forsythia hedge hid him from sight.

Their pale arms hung over the railing, searching through the leaves of the dark-crowned chestnut. Come drink some shots, they called. Come dance with Marie-Ève. Let him go without you this year.

Let go. But each moment the required sequence becomes less obvious.

Some words must be formulated; someone’s fingers must loosen. Ferdiad was killed with a fifty-barbed spear, and to get the tiny hooks out they had to open him right up, from the roof of his mouth to the soles of his feet.

They had to cut out the green-gold afternoons training together under the warrior queen Scathach, and the smell, on rainy mornings, of Cuchulainn’s muddy boots beside the door. They had to cut out failing the same history exam in grade nine, and taking a driving test, and a high score saved on his computer and never beaten; everywhere that the iron lay close to his heartblood, they had to cut. They dragged it to the curb in a great tangle, and on bonfire night they burned it. Then Cuchulainn’s skin, a little loose and wrinkled but still animate, sat down in a dark apartment, in front of a blind webcam and an empty screen.

That’s the myth. But in a city of strangers, speaking a strange language, all my past might as well be fairy tales.

The boys’ lips have stopped moving, but they hold on, shuffling their feet to preserve the centre of gravity between them, threatened by the jostling crowd and their own orbital decay. Fireworks stutter; and in an instant the distance collapses. Teeth snap together, a fist glances off a throat, and the broad shoulder of a security officer is pushing between them. All right, gentlemen. Around them stream boys in felt top-hats and girls in blue sequined bras, two-fours and muscle shirts and blistered feet in high-heels.

All right, gentlemen, that’s enough.

They fall apart, dizzy from the dark whirlpool, eyes averted from the stranger’s gaze. Be friends now, he says, thinking they have been fighting.

photographs: Brittonie Fletcher, Angie, and (Rob) Scar, Freckle, Face, Tat http://www.brittoniefletcher.com.

overleaf ‘Inside’ series by Viktoriya Staykova https://www.behance.net/Vikt

Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is is Autodialer Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer my name is Autodialer Hello,Hello, my name is Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer my name is Hello,Hello, my name Autodialer Hello, my is name is Autodialer Autodialer Hello, my name is Autodialer

MORNING Bleary eyed Screens blinking Ears clamped Heads set We connect.

Sat round our cabled hubs

POETRY IS THEFT I’m writing poetry on their time, scratching subversive ink into scrap paper.

In between calls I commandeer my hands letting the seconds stretch to near-minutes, chiselling away pennies from productivity.

The circuits drone to life

In snatched, iambic seconds I am a professional writer.

Scripts slide cheerily From rented larynxes

Around me, the office is thick with subterfuge: smuggled crosswords, half-hidden phones,

The mainframe begins to ripen With information.

If we don’t revolt, we still rebel.

I might even steal this pen.

AFTERNOON Here, between the headset and the coil, I plough a languid furrow.

THE HOME STRAIGHT after the last break we feel it approaching deliciously slowly, but surely now scripted words roll lighter less frequent: the drone covers a multitude of conversations outside the afternoon is diffusing, the evening is drawing in slanting the last light over the trees muffled ears can still discern the sound of 200 shoulders collectively untensing

CHASTENED As the hysterics subside and the supervisor begins his lecture on Professional Conduct, we begin to question whether “Fake Novelty Yorkshire Accent Hour� was the most far-sighted of ideas.

DIFFUSION The sun is behind the clouds, which are behind the blinds but osmosis cannot be accounted for.

If not tethered by cable, our chairswould circle like dissipating balloons. I’m twitching like a caffeine addict approaching an overdose, which, true, might have something to do with the caffeine, but also with soil

and the diggers’ low rumble.

There are moments when it is hard to focus on Joan from Falkirk’s opinions on Scottish Independence, or Tim from Norfolk’s Skoda maintenance costs or even Anita’s considered thoughts on the place of mayonnaise in cake baking. I wonder if this is shared. My guess is the others have noticed too, or most of them.

We have the look of detectives. This desk in front of me, for example, must have been part tree at one stage – swaying with the others by a clearing, roots and branches spreading any which way, bugs and bird calls sinking deep into sap.

Even now, fixed and laminated, it can’t quite hide its origins; we study the surface with ferocious concentration in case a twig might sprout from smoothed-out, fossilised grains.

images: Roddy Shippin

poetry by Roy Moller

collages by Andreas Nitschke

BATTLE OF ORGREAVE

What did you do during the Battle of Orgreave, brother?

I sat in smoke with the Habitat generation in supreme reality, earth colours banished.

Where were you during the Battle of Orgreave, brother?

In a council flat in Cumbernauld, primaried with Rubik's take on Mondrian, time abstracted high up there by a yellow clock with white hands.

What did you wear during the Battle of Orgreave, brother?

Colour riot textile and stonewashed denim.

Head mulleted peroxide, never more au courant. Never more on the surface.

LINES

My line's run out. This dumb-bell day has dared me to shoulder it, this day filled with you and the ogee curves that form your arching eyebrows; you, the line of officers gaping at your VDUs like battlefield commanders sat stupid, stern, presented with communiquĂŠs of huge strategic bafflement behind the lines.

brittonie fletcher This project-in-progress is an exploration and initial phase of learning the wet plate collodion process which began in the summer of 2012.

Wet plate and Sandy Bells are paired for a sort of dual reflection in their mutualities with community, craft and tradition which can be found both in the practice of the medium as well as in the space known as Sandy Bells folk pub, between its real ales, bartenders, brewers, musicians and punters.

The plates are aluminium coated in a solution of ether, alcohol, collodion, and silver nitrate. The term ‘wet plate’ comes from the short working life span of the materials which is limited to roughly 10 minutes, while the chemicals are still wet.

These plates were prepared, shot and developed on-location, on sunny days between my shifts as bartender. I would like to thank the graciousness of every subject I pulled away from their pint, instrument, or cigarette break, and my boss, for letting me build a darkroom in the beer cellar.

in order of appearance, top to bottom: Brittonie (self-portrait); Big Dave; Gillian; Andy Chung; Kirsty Law; Keith; Mike the Postman

We are interested in everything.

Please send your questions and contributions to bleakzine@gmail.com

paintings by Eileen Budd