Creative Writing

By bella hatch

Darkness, warmth, then glittering cold and harsh lights. The sounds of a world unmuffled by water and flesh. A sharp hand descends on your buttock and you choke on fluid and air and the first piercing scream of your tiny life. Gently cradling hands and harsh latex gloves deliver you into the world, out of your mother’s womb and into her arms.

A single, tiny candle atop a single tiny cupcake, brought into your close field of vision and then quickly retracted when your curious fingers stray too close to the flame. Birthday cake smeared, saccharine and soft, across your lips. Fistfuls of icing clutched in your exploring hands. Peals of laughter that feel new in your tiny chest, babbling nonsense words interspersed with the occasional utterance that sends parents racing for the camera, quick, quick, what was that, was that her first word, darling, say that again!

At five, you think maybe you’re starting to get the hang of this. Those memories of a hospital bed and mother’s milk have faded in your ever-growing brain, but the promise of safety still rests solidly in the arms of the woman who birthed you, the man who holds you in the night when the monsters come. Whirls of colour and music, a rapidly cycling entourage of children brandishing gifts wrapped in loud, coloured paper and glittering bows. Your greedy fingers itch to touch the balloons, to take them outside and allow yourself to float away into whatever future you find yourself drawn to.

Your first cake containing double digits settles in your stomach alongside a growing pit of wonder. You get the first taste of adulthood on your tongue when your aunt offers you a sip of wine from the table. You order your own food and cut it up with your own fork and big knife. You’re wearing the velvet top your cousin gave you, V-necked and pinched in around the waist you don’t have yet.

Sweet sixteen: young and inexperienced and mature and growing up oh-so fast. A padded bra beneath your birthday badge, a brace-y smile that you haven’t yet been taught to resent, thick foundation over skin you constantly see problems in. Mum’s lipstick and perfume, playing at being grown while blindly navigating that awkward stage between innocence and worldly wisdom. You stand on the precipice of maturity, but don’t yet know how to handle it.

Your parents smile as you sip from flutes of bubbles, much more expensive than anything you’ve tasted before. The whole bottle is yours now - in fact so is the world; a sparkling expanse of unexplored experiences. Adulthood stretches before you, glowing with opportunity, heavy with expectations and excitements. You stand on the edge of a world you can’t even begin to fathom. How poorly these eighteen years have been at preparing you for the biggest world you will ever experience. The bubbles fizz in your throat and you laugh, drunk on the giddy headrush of it all.

By hamilton brown

This is what she had always wanted in life: a nice house which had a white picket fence on the perimeter, a Labrador named Jasper, and, of course, her dream man.

It was all Anna had wanted since the age of seven, when her teacher had made everyone in her primary school class write about their dream futures, about relaxing in her titanic swimming pool in one of her three houses with her tall, dark, and handsome husband.

Very imaginative, but not quite what I set you to do, Anna wrote her teacher.

But now she had all that!

Well, at least she did online.

The real Anna lived in a tiny flat in the middle of London that she found on Rightmove with a couple of old uni friends. Her job was not what one would call glamorous in the least, working in the complaints department of a dog food company.

And she couldn’t believe how her life had changed since a year ago. You see, quite unexpectedly, she got a complaint about her company’s Royal Puppy Meals range from a man who was, admittedly, rather intoxicated. He was complaining that the food was too dry, or too wet, or too something for his precious dog, Charles, and gave her his number in case she could do anything about it in the factory.

So, one night after an unsuccessful date and in a drunken haze, Anna texted him. She explained that this was only a temporary job of course, only to see how the other half lives, and that she had been there for two days and was already bored – in fact, she had just texted Daddy to pick her up in their private jet and take her to Monte Carlo.

To her complete surprise he replied, introducing himself as Hugo and writing something very witty about knowing how she feels, and asking him if she’d join him in his London home as he was quite without company.

Of course she’d said no, but still continued to talk to him, deciding that some excitement in the midst of her dead-end job would be good. She found herself creating the character of Anna 2.0 – the glamorous, jet-setting rich lady. She’d go to expensive stores, relishing the experience of trying on satins and silks – outfits she could only dream of buying – and using the full-length mirror to take pictures for him when he asked to see what she looked like.

And it wasn’t like she was completely cat-fishing him; she used her own face in the pictures she sent, and she only created small fantasies that weren’t entirely her life. But she found that Hugo liked her, and that made butterflies erupt in her stomach and she smiled dreamily at the thought of him kissing her. After a year of texting, Anna still had the guise of a wealthy woman. They FaceTimed a lot, but had never met up as she hadn’t the nerve to own up to him about who she really was. However, this afternoon he’d asked her to join him for their first official date. Hugo said he has something important to ask her. After contemplating her relationship history with Hugo, his voice brought her back from her reverie to the two-hundred-pound restaurant they were sitting in and drinking wine she couldn’t afford. ‘So, Anna,’ he smiled, twiddling his thumbs. ‘Yes?’ she sighed, resting her hand daintily on her chin. ‘I want… I mean, will you…’ He produced, as if out of nowhere, a rather large, purple velvet box. Perhaps it wasn’t an engagement ring like she’d presumed, and her hopes deflated. He opened the box to reveal – an avocado? ‘Will I… eat an avocado with you, Hugo?’ She laughed but it wasn’t funny. She tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice. ‘No, darling! I know how much you love avocados, so I thought of the most romantic way of doing this…’ he cracked open the avocado to reveal a ring where the stone would usually be. ‘Anna, my darling, will you marry me?’ ‘Crap!’ she said under her breath. She completely forgot that she had said to him that she loved eating avocados on a regular basis, the reason being they’re tremendously healthy. She remembered typing that when she was in the midst of eating half a tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream, flicking through a health magazine where they had mentioned avocado toast for breakfast. Anna 2.0 loved avocados. Real Anna hated them. Suddenly she had a moment of clarity. ‘Uh, sorry, no, Hugo. I’m sorry, but I can’t accept your proposal. I cannot marry an idiot who thinks it is cute to propose with an avocado – nobody likes them!’ Anna stood up abruptly, ignoring his crushed face, and left, feeling rather content and clear headed and, unexpectedly, proud of herself. It doesn’t matter how attractive or rich you are, if you like avocados you’re just weird.

By Molly Phillips

There is a statue in the square with my face stitched on to it in stone. It is uncanny granite, and I stare at it a long while, face to face with me, eyebrows raised so they are higher on flesh than they are on stone. I smile at myself.

There is a statue. In the square. Where I grew up. And it has my face and body, my poetry in his hand. There is a plaque below the stone feet, which says: Milton Oliver: a celebration of Pefenton Village’s own bard. ‘Celebration’ seems a strange word considering this metal man is my obituary.

I have been dead for the length of time it takes to carve a statue, but in contrast, there is also a gravestone a few streets away that says: Milton Oliver: beloved son and husband. That is a different celebration. A sadder one; one that the wife made herself so it should be more touching, but it actually isn’t because there is a statue of me in the square.

Me, in the square of my hometown, where I coughed smoke into my youthful lungs, and lay looking at the drunken stars. Pefenton’s own pre-bard bard. Or something. Now bronze, stone, with well-shaped metal cataracts, taller than me, holding a poem carved in stone. Not my finest. I wish they’d chosen Graphite Essays.

They’ve all been buying my books. Pefenton and beyond. I’d like to know why they didn’t do that when I was alive and could have used the royalties, but now, I suppose, I am Royalty. I am the celebrated, late poet, Milton Oliver, and they are remembering my life and times. I mean, I can’t say I blame them. Life of the party. If this was a celebration of my life in life, it would be raucous. No wonder they built a statue of me. The only funeral that could compete with my birthdays.

A statue of me in the square. And, look, there’s some lads I went to school with. Ian… something, and… something Smith. Or something. They’re stopping, too! I knew Ian and Whatshisname would never forget me; from that very first moment they stuck my head down the--

(James, of course! James Smith!)

Well, I’ve had better parties.