Issue 2 by DNA Magazine UK

Issue 2: Identity September 2017

Contents

Divine Delivery

5 Alphabet

A Eulogy in Stamps

6 The Food

Chicken Run

8 Flicker

Soup

Vicky Henly

Lu Bailey

Christina Tang-Bernas

Stephen Connolly

of Life

Mariah Feria

of Recognition

Lyndsay Wheble

Die Booth

Hair Today ... S A Leavesley

Helen Victoria Anderson

10 Delusion

The Cutter

this greenhouse...

22 Who I Am in

Blood Knot

24 Part-Time

A Visit

26 The Book of

Ten Chapters

Rob Walton

Michelle Fox

to Myself

Science

Kate Jones

Joanna Nissel

36 Digital

Monica

Strangers

Christopher Stanley

Phil Berry

Cover Image: Chris Brogan (Tumblr)

Lisa Reily

38 Stigmata

Unfamiliar

Thomas McColl

Diane Simmons

Death Camp Victims

28 Sagrada

Meera Chandramouliswaran

34 Domestic

Vegetarian

Security Pass

Victoria Richards

32 Note

Marie Gracie

Michael Carter

Editor’s Note

he Oxford English Dictionary defines identity as ‘the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.’ This is a magical phrase—in cold, analytical language it grants us the power to define not only ourselves, but the world around us (including the people in it). These definitions can be formed around the cultures we grow up in, our political/religious views, or even our experiences, hobbies and interests. They can be fluid, changing as our priorities change, or they can be fixed—like neat boxes we organise our lives into. They can also influence how we and others perceive ourselves, both positively and negatively. Identity is such a personal subject to write about and takes great courage. It’s like looking into a mirror and trying to see yourself for who you are – including the warts, blemishes and scars that you’d rather hide from. I’d like to thank every writer who submitted work for this issue, for opening up an aspect of their identity for other people to read and judge. This issue features 3 pieces of Twitterature, 2 poems and 17 pieces of flash non-fiction approaching the topic from a variety of different starting points. In Monica, Victoria Richards relates the tale of a Big Issue seller, breaking down the stereotype that these magazine sellers are, at best, just urban nuisances. Joanna Nissel shares why her surname is so important to her, Stephen Connolly sheds light in Chicken Run on the long shadow cast by leaving South Africa at the age of 18 while Meera Chandramouliswaran reflects on her polyamorous identity and her attempts at erasing self-hate. Finally, Phil Berry explores the effect high-profile medical cases have on our public consciousness in Stigmata.

Katie Marsden Editor-in-Chief

With thanks to: Alexander Jones Eliza Burmistre Gary Clarke Caroline Harris Mixam Printers

dnamag.co.uk hello@dnamag.co.uk

@DNAMagazineUK

rights of our contributors.

DivineDelivery Vicky Henly

Got home, heard a small voice calling my name.

Image: Matlevesque (Pixabay)

‘God?’

No, just our lovely neighbour with a package for us.

A Eulogy in Stamps Christina Tang-Bernas

Image: Christina Tang-Bernas

collect postage stamps. It’s one of the few acceptable ways I’ve allowed my hoarding urges to manifest, a legacy from both sides of my family. My mother used to bring home random ceramic cups. My father stores old items in the backyard. He says they’re still useful, the metal bones of the old gazebo repurposed into supporting his thriving grapes. When my grandfather passed, one of the few things we inherited was his drawer full of scissors. And since my seventh birthday, when I received a glossy green stock book with a message from my parents in shimmering gold pen inside, I’ve collected stamps. I don’t know whether a stranger would be able to see anything beyond two thick binders full of cheap page protectors, two stock books full of mismatched stamps (one more ragged than the other), and a few stuffed cardboard mailing envelopes. They probably wouldn’t understand the way anything is organized, or know how often I have re-organized each page, the barest inkling of my daily struggles with controlling compulsions allowed to leak through. They wouldn’t understand why I chose to purchase one sheet of stamps over another, or why I even chose to purchase these sheets of stamps in the first place, transforming what used to be practical bits of daily life into objet d’art that serve none of the purpose for which they were originally created. They would not see that each stamp is a tiny tile making up the mosaic of my mind, a peek into what fascinates, delights, and intrigues me. Would they be able to intuit that the first day cover with my childish scrawl across the front of the envelope was a gift from my grandfather? Or that the envelopes with Chinese addresses, stamps yellowing at the edges, found in one of the cardboard mailing envelopes, are one of the few things I have left from my grandmother. They won’t live through the hours I’ve spent in postal offices and outdoor market stalls and cool dim out-of-the-way shops sifting through boxes and albums and peering through glass cases, nor ever meet the people I’ve spoken to in my quest for one thing or another. They’ll never see me sitting cross-legged on the ground, letting the history of an old postcard whisper ghost stories to me, smoothing fingers over the image of a favourite author, or allowing the colours wash a sense of peace over me. My collection isn’t particularly valuable in a monetary sense, but, if you know how to look, it’s probably the truest sense of me you will find out of everything I own. And when I am gone myself, my collection will remain behind for my daughter just as I will inherit my mother’s mismatched cups— the best eulogy I could hope for.

Chicken Run Stephen Connolly

cool Autumn day in June 1984. My brother and I climb into Dad’s car for the long drive from Durban up to Joburg where we will board a British Airways flight to Heathrow. We have been called up for military service by the SADF, the South African Defence Force, so we’re leaving. Remaining would mean two years military service and the very real possibility of being sent to fight SWAPO ‘insurgents' on the Namibian border. We arrived in South Africa as Permanent Residents in 1981, not subject to military service. But native-born whites are grumbling about immigrants enjoying the lekker lewe ‘the good life’ and leaving the fighting to others and the Nationalist government has changed the rules: immigrants below the age of 18 become full citizens on their 18th birthday. Next week I am due to join a Signals regiment in Kimberley, my brother an Infantry regiment outside Pretoria. The night before the journey I sleep on the sofa. I’ve been living in lodgings close to work, the oil refinery outside Durban, I don’t want a last night in my old bedroom. I sneak one of Mum’s cigarettes, the first time I’ve ever done it, the last chance I’ll get. Dad drives north up the N3 along the Valley of a Thousand Hills. We pass towns from the Boer War: Ladysmith, Colenso, Frere. Further north are Rorke’s Drift and Isandlwana. Places I would only read about years later. Mike Franco, a fellow student at UND died on this road, driving home to Zimbabwe for the long Christmas vac, the road so long and straight the driver fell asleep. The spoil heaps around Joburg, like truncated pyramids, make the city look half finished. At Jan Smuts Airport, there’s not much to say. Dad gives us some cash and bids us farewell. Do I blame him for dragging the whole family to this hot, confusing country, or did that happen later, over time? We are not fugitives from justice: technically we only commit a crime when we fail to turn up at our regiments. But handing over our passports to the policeman at the check in desk feels like a scene from The Great Escape.

Image: Stephen Connolly

I am returning to live with my godmother in Fife and unemployment in Thatcher’s Britain. My university career imploded last year, I have no qualifications, only a secret desire to write. My brother is heading for London where he will smoke too much dope and drive an aunt close to a nervous breakdown. It’s been three years since I’ve seen my old school friends. They are nearing the end of degrees, they have futures, plans. What will we say to each other? I don’t remember saying goodbye to my mother or sister. It hasn’t sunk in yet but on this day, the family of my childhood ended. We will not all be under the same roof again for another ten years.

The Cutter Die Booth

hen I was a kid, me and my brother always had to share cakes. ‘One cuts, the other chooses,’ Mum would say. To make sure of equal share, like. We’d flip a coin. ‘Tails.’ I always chose tails, because I liked the lion on the back of the ten pee piece. Steve pretended he didn’t care which face he got, but I knew he was just bluffing and he liked the lion best too: getting to choose tails was one of the few perks of being the eldest I could see. The coin spun, with a rumbling round noise on the gingham-printed table top. Sometimes I’d get lucky, but others it would whirr to a stop heads-up, and Steve would say, smugly, ‘choose.’

Image: VintageSnipsAndClips (Pixabay)

You don’t want to be the cutter. My hand always shook, as if this dissection of chocolate sponge and oozing red jam was the most life-or-death of surgeries, more critical than a game of Operation. No matter how hard I tried, how much I steadied my hand with the opposite hand, I could never get those pieces of cake even. I could only watch in despondent impotence as the spoils were divided. ‘Which half would you like, Steve?’ That’s what Mum always asked, which was stupid, because halves are equal—something those two pieces of cake were decidedly never. As if to underline this outrageous dichotomy, Steve always answered, without hesitation, ‘The biggest half!’ The biggest half. I ask you. Never be the cutter. No matter how hard you try, how diligently you practise, you know your hand’s going to slip and you’ll be the helpless architect of your own deprivation as he takes the slightly larger share. Nobody wants to do all the work then get less of the profit. Nobody wants to be the cutter. Feels like it’s been my life’s occupation ever since.

Alphabet Soup Lu Bailey

nother eighties’ record hits the speakers. Another car rolls past. Another lover drops to his knees, declares his love, is accepted with a kiss. Rainbows upon faces, upon banners, upon t-shirts and naked torsos; this, we shout, is who we are. A fizzy tang of celebration in bottles of coke and Carlsberg. A pair of butterfly wings from the chrysalis of teenagehood. A parade of glitter. An elderly lesbian couple march proudly by, hands held aloft, golden bands on show. Behind them, a young mum and two kids in bold Stonewall t-shirts. Natives and migrants walk as one. There’s one lone marcher, followed by a float with tens of people clinging on, throwing sweets and condoms. This is my first ever Pride. An event marked on my calendar for years to come. My sweaty palm grips my boyfriend’s hand, pulls him with me, and I wonder how he must feel being pressed against eyelash extensions and feather boas. But I, too, am overwhelmed. In the millions of people we jostle to get a good view of the parade, but I am happy enough to be caught up in the emotion, the celebration, the relief that I am able to be here, alive and proud. I feel my very Self bubbling under my binder, my Some People Are Asexual: Get Over It shirt. My skin burns from the bright sun and sheer joy. I’m here, I want to yell, and I’m queer. And around me everyone else is shouting it too, from the storefronts to the banners to the smiles bright on everyone’s faces. Look out world, we’re thousands. Thank you for giving us today, this one day, to dance and laugh and sing. From the LGB to the TQ+, all represented in one part of London. We are the Alphabet Soup. Now turn up that Bronski Beat.

Images: Levi Saunders (Unsplash) & Andrew Robles (Unsplash)

The Food of Life Mariah Feria

Images: Tookapic (Pexels) & Congerdesign (Pixabay)

’ve recently realised that my life so far can be mapped through food. When I was younger, we ate plainly, boringly, frugally. Pies were made without onion—though sometimes it was grated so fine we couldn’t see it, unknown to my fussy younger brother. The silver slithers hid amongst the meat, consequently hiding the dissatisfaction my mother held with her married life. She made our lunch boxes with love, placing Christmas tree shaped sandwiches into brightly coloured bags, sometimes with a note reminding us she loved us. We weren’t allowed fish often, my Dad didn’t like it. When we went to Spain—the origins of my exotic sounding name—the fresh strawberries, watermelon and grapes amazed me. We were lumbered home with hunks of chorizo, punnets of strawberries, and even eggs—much to the delight of my mumbling grumbling mother. Everything was better in Spain, we were told, even the eggs. As I got older, and I headed off to university, to meals out with friends and dinners at my boyfriends, my stomach groaned. I was seeing things, tasting things, but they weren’t always better than the plain food I remembered from my childhood. I gave up gluten, but I ate cheese by the block. I read every packet so carefully until I couldn’t be bothered anymore. Maybe it wasn’t gluten causing the discomfort in my body. My parents got divorced and I taught my Dad how to cook. ‘Do you cook the pasta before you put it in the sauce?’ He asked. I laughed. But who had taught me? I couldn’t remember. I heard he lived off ready meals and jars of sauce. I didn’t care, we were no longer talking. My Mum? Despite the post-divorce attitude where she could ‘eat when/ what she wanted’, she’d soon gone back to being someone’s carer. This new one didn’t like mature cheddar. He’d never tasted red pepper. Eating out was my escape, my reminder that I was still a normal person who could do normal things, despite everything. We spent our evening at Italians, Mexicans, and American-style diners. Our student loans took one hell of a beating. Then one day, it stopped. I could no longer eat, not in public anyway. I devoured packets of biscuits alone and could spend an entire afternoon munching on crisps. But the smell of a home-cooked meal repulsed me. I was losing weight, yet I was also on the other side of the world where no one noticed. My Australian counsellor asked ‘What is your goal?’ I said ‘To eat in front of my boyfriend again.’ She said ‘Do you know where you can buy fish?’ I kept going, and it got better. I kept eating, and I got fatter. I still eat cheese yet I also eat gluten. I still prefer eating alone yet I can enjoy a meal out. I add extra onion to my recipes now, just because I can.

Image: Ingo Joseph (Pexels)

Flicker of Recognition Helen Victoria Anderson

es, I am The Mother of That Beautiful Young Dead Girl. No, you do not need to cross the road to avoid me. Unless you never liked me Before.

Delusion Lyndsay Wheble

flared the skirt of my skater dress out over my seat. Tartan. Red, black and grey. Around me, the V&A Café rang with the sounds of jangling tea pots, ringing cutlery and women calling out to one another to say that they’d managed to find a seat. My friend Natalie sat opposite me. She was talking and eating with impassioned speed. ‘… and then Hayley announced that her and David were moving in together. She hadn’t told me this privately, so I had to hear it with everyone else. And both Laura and Sarah are pregnant. At the same time, like it’s some kind of communal activity. I mean, God, it’s so boring…’ Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades. My legs boiled within my black tights. I’d forgotten that April in the city was, for all intents and purposes, June elsewhere. ‘… and of course, they can’t do anything now. They sit at work and expect me to do everything, just because they decided to get themselves pregnant.’ I’m not sure they got themselves pregnant, I replied. That would be quite the skill. Natalie rolled her eyes, raising her eyebrows in concession. We both smiled in straight lines across our faces. I finished my scone, using my thumb to lift stray crumbs from the plate. ‘Just look at them,’ Natalie said. I looked up to see her glaring at a family across the café. A Mum, a Granny and a little girl who I’d take to be around 18 months old. Mum and Granny looked knackered but relaxed, clearly enjoying the sight of the little girl finger-picking the peas out of a posh deli salad. ‘Why would you bring a baby to a museum?’ Natalie asked, huffing and looking away. ‘An easy way to ruin everyone’s day, I suppose, if that’s what you’re after. But they won’t be able to look at anything, they’ll ram everyone’s ankles with their enormous pram… and ten minutes from now, she’ll be screaming…’ My feet were pulsating inside my ankle boots. I pulled the dress off my chest and blew downwards. I surreptitiously wafted air beneath my skirt. Maybe I didn’t have to say it. Maybe one of the ornate light fittings could just fall down on our heads… ‘Natalie, I’m pregnant.’ She stopped talking, her mouth open, as if I’d slapped her.

Image: Two women in a Cafe Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Wikicommons)

‘Seven weeks,’ I said. My daughter is now 18 months old. Natalie has yet to call. Prior to that outing, I’d thought that the red of my tartan dress gave it a classic warmth, whilst the black and grey made it chic and edgy. When I look at it now, I see a naïve cut that was already out-of-date when I last wore it. I see the tartan of a school uniform. I see two aesthetics, failing to meet. It is a misshapen ghost on a hanger. As if I would be the exception, it says to me. As if.

Images: S A Leavesley

Hair Today... S A Leavesley

1989 – wanna-be-a-teenager and never-gonna-try-this-again over-curly perm style; 1993 – basin bob and home-trimmed fringe style; 1995 – soft blond, shortish but framing face almost heart-shaped style; 1997 – drastically cropped, drastically bleached and almost androgynous; 2001 – mid-length carrot-colour, dyed the bath oops, over-hennaed not quite funky style; 2003-2009 – hair-definitely-still-there, baby-pulled and mostly tousled in a don’t-you-dare-take-an-effing-photo, no-chance-to-get-it-cut, wash-me-now frizz-that-hates-combs style; 2010 – over-chlorined, tired and dry-ended swimming-to-lose-the-fat look; 2012 – foxy red, I’m-not-aging, hip Mum for book jacket pic; 2013 – pink streak then purple tint, blue-smudges-on-the-pillow, slick I’mstill-a-rebel pose! 2015 – long dark chocolate brown, it-took-me-months-to-grow, wavy and don’t-you-know-not-a-single-grey-hair return-to-natural style; 2016 – consider shaved head and changing-name-to-Annen-Karmazen-orsimply-midlife-crisis cut… 2017 – long plait wild-woman-in-the-wood, happy-in-my-own-skin lets-seewhat-each-day-brings, quick-glance-in-the-mirror, tuck-tidy-and-leave-witha-swinging-step trim-and-smile style.

this greenhouse... Rob Walton

aah. this greenhouse. sigh. I watch a video of some bloke taking one apart before I sort out appropriate tools before I enlist the help of a practical friend before two hours of carefully removing panes of glass and clips and carefully stacking them and carefully numbering them and less carefully taking photos before the bastard frame rears its head with rusted nuts and rusted bolts and weird bits round interior corners neither hands nor spanners could ever have reached and then there is another hour of graft and grunts and sweat and rushed thoughts and the worry about the next job and the job after that in a crowded Sunday and my mate’s angle grinder comes out and the frame gets a going over and gets twisted going into the transit and gets twisted being passed over the fence at the allotment and so it goes on and it gets twisted a bit more and I feel a bit twisted and I look at the bits of twisted frame behind the shed and the bits of broken glass and the full panes with their green tinge and this is a million miles from safety glass so I worry about my daughter and her friends and I think about that and my inability to finish jobs and be remotely practical and yes it’s all right having the ideas but at the end of this and most other days I’m a fey poet or at least a slightly rough-arsed version of one and I’ll end up writing something about the way the light passes through

Image: Peter Merholz (Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

the glass as I look at it stashed against the side of the shed in three or four years’ time and the grass growing ever longer in the space where the greenhouse was going to go but that’s not just me that’s what happens in these lives and we should all smile when we see the disassembled and unassembled because that’s what we are as humans there’s none of us complete and we need to remember that the finished article doesn’t exist now and it never did and it never will.

Blood Knot Michael Carter

here’s an old saying that you find out who you truly are on a trout stream. I believe that’s true, but the way I discovered it was not how you might expect. It wasn’t the serenity of being on the water’s edge that opened my mind to who I was; it was fear. Stalking a trout stream in the middle of nowhere, or rather the middle of everywhere, can be an idyllic experience—the cool rush of water, robins skimming the surface for insects, a light breeze weaving through fir trees, the ground speckled with colours of flowering plants. It can also be deadly, especially in bear country, where I found myself one morning. Golden stoneflies were hatching, so I went to tie one on. As I reached to my pack for my fly box, I saw what appeared to be blood on my hand. I looked to my waders and saw some there. I’ve pricked myself with barbed hooks many times. It usually accompanies slight pain and a few drops of blood. I didn’t remember feeling a prick but there was quite a bit of blood. I heard a trout rise so I wiped my hand hastily and proceeded to tie on the stonefly. Before cinching my knot, I moistened it with saliva by licking the line and, incidentally, my still slightly red fingers. I completed the knot and a few seconds later it happened. My tongue and hand started to burn. My fingers became inflamed. Nausea kicked in. I felt like falling. My eyes jittered and my skull felt like the vibrating head in Jacob’s Ladder. What was happening? I had enough sense to retrace my steps. After a few paces, I stumbled upon my bear pepper spray foaming a red-orange mess. The canister had fallen from my pack, punctured itself on a rock, and spray shot onto my hand and waders. All sorts of thoughts raced through my mind. Would I make it back? Would I trip and crack my head like the canister? Would the bears finish me, leaving only a pepper-spray tongue and hand? Would I die out here as some lonely trout bum without friends or family by my side? As the jitters settled I was reminded of who I really am. I will always be someone who wanders the water’s edge, in faraway isolated places. But I am also more than that—I’m a family man. And when my life flashed before my eyes, for those few seconds, my family is who I wanted to be around. It was time to go home. l

Images: Michael Carter

A Visit Michelle Fox

t’s late, and I’m trying to sleep above the din of the TV downstairs, but all I can hear is my Dad shouting instructions to my Mum. I’ve no idea what for… His voice escalates, ‘You got to go backwards. Backwards. Go backwards! Not forwards. Backwards! You’re going forwards you fucking prick!’ My Mum stops whatever it is she is doing to shout back, ‘Fuck off!’ To which my Dad hollers, ‘I told you “go backwards”, but you kept going forwards!’ ‘Oh shut up,’ she calls back to him, ‘You’re fucking nasty you are, you cunt.’ My Dad’s incredulous but makes no apology, just laughs and mocks her for going forwards when she should have been going backwards. God only knows what they’re doing: they’re both rooted to their recliner chairs. In the hospital waiting room, a silver-haired woman with a cardigan draped over her shoulders introduces herself. She tells us she’s from the chaplaincy and my Dad immediately cuts her off with, ‘I don’t believe in religion.’ She smiles then chats to us for a while about the weather and barring his initial bluntness, my Dad is polite, but I can tell the woman looks a bit shaken. After she’s gone, he laughs and says to me, ‘Years ago people were paying loads of money to the priests for burials, and they were just ditching the bodies in the Thames!’ My Mum tells him he was rude to the lady. He says he wasn’t, then talks about his funeral and how he wants to be buried in a cardboard box, no hymns, only songs and no speeches, just, ‘He’s gone. He was a prick. The end.’ Last night, my Dad turned off the TV and said he’d been lucky in comparison to friends who’d died rapidly after their diagnosis of cancer. He told me he’d sorted out his funeral and said, ‘The woman asked if I wanted a tour along the sea front, but I said, “no love, I’ll be dead, I won’t know nothing about it.” Then she said, “How do you know that?” So I said, “I do, love: just take me straight to the crematorium and get on with it...”’ It suddenly struck me, that although my Dad is terminally ill, he has an extraordinary force of character that makes him appear stronger and fitter than he actually is.

Image: Michelle Fox

I snapped this photo during one of my visits. It was early, before Dad’s trip to the hospital: Mum was complaining, ‘he thinks he’s Teasy-Weasy Raymond!’ And Dad was laughing and telling her to ‘Put a sock in it.’

On the ferry home, I feel guilty for leaving, for knowing how utterly tragic the situation is, but desperately wanting to go. A groan goes up from the other passengers. Suddenly, I’m thrown forward. There’s a loud grinding noise beneath me. We’ve stopped. A boat blocks the path between the ferry and the jetty. A voice from above us shouts, ‘Go back. Backwards! Go bloody back!’ I watch and wait until it passes.

Security Pass Thomas McColl

’ve just been made permanent, yet already I know I’m completely expendable. In any event, I’ve today received, at last, a ‘full’ security pass. It even comes complete with a freshly taken photograph, my face displaying a grimace that was nothing more than confused surprise at the sudden camera flash, an expression that could almost pass for a desperate act of brave defiance, though no-one’s fooled and no-one cares. Well, anyway, the doors opening in this building aren’t opening for me but for the magnetic stripe across the card. I know full well already that it’s numbers on a line, not the letters in my name, the system recognises—that a thin row of binary will always trump any last shred of humanity. Let’s face it, though it’s now clearly displayed in bold print, my name, Thomas McColl, remains completely incidental, as impotent as a name that just about belongs still to some hitherto proud family firm—which, having got swallowed up by a vast conglomerating entity, is slowly but surely stripped of its former identity, until there’s nothing left but the name itself. The name that’s only being kept in place, in any event, to satisfy some irritating legal and contractual obligation. Thomas McColl Limited. That’s me: Limited—extremely limited—a lowly worker whose pass gives him access to just one floor in a forty-two-floor building. Well, here I am, on the forty-first floor. As soon as I exit the lift, there it is, directly in front of me, the main door, and there, above it, the clocking-inand-out security camera, an irritating little creature which is probably related, in some way, to the camera that took the annoyingly crappy picture displayed on my pass. Then, dismayed at catching my reflection in the door’s dark glass—an expression that could almost pass for a desperate act of brave defiance—I realise, in a flash, that my mug, in fact, has now been set to project a permanent stamped-on-the-face look of confused compliance, and that my brand-new pass doesn’t represent me, but that I simply represent my brandnew pass.

Image: Coombesy (Pixabay)

Monica Victoria Richards

onica sits where she always sits, on the stone stump by the supermarket, her chin in her hands. She watches people go in with wallets bursting with cash from the machine outside, and come out again, twenty minutes later, laden down with bags of wine, organic fennel and free-range meat. ‘I just needed a few bits,’ they say, embarrassed. They pat themselves down for change, an exaggerated display. Their pockets are always empty. Monica clutches a half-empty packet of flapjacks, a gift, the only thing she’s eaten today. She has three sons and is pregnant with her fourth child—a 20-week scan revealed this will also be a boy. Monica cried when she found out the sex of the baby. ‘I prayed for a girl,’ she says. ‘Boys eat too much, they’re so big and strong.’ She looks years older than she is—her face ruddy and creased; her hair, shielded by a headscarf, wiry and streaked with grey. She wears long, ragged skirts and a fleece to protect her from the cold. I guessed she was 40 before she told me her true age. ‘I’m 22,’ she says with a shrug. ‘I am an old woman now. I’ve had enough of this life.’ Born in Bulgaria, Monica was the only daughter of a cobbler and his wife before a tram accident made her an orphan. She was nine. ‘I was all alone,’ she says, with childish disbelief. Her words are scattered, filled with pain. ‘My uncle... no good. Drunk. Bruises. Worse. I spent a year living on the streets.’ She slept in doorways and at the back of shops. Proprietors would throw rubbish at her in the morning ‘like I was nothing.’ She met her first boyfriend in a homeless hostel at 13. ‘My belly was getting bigger, but I didn’t know why.’ A stranger insisted on taking her to hospital. She gave birth weeks later. ‘It was a boy. My boy.’ Monica came alone to England with her baby and was placed in a shelter in King’s Cross. Describing this, her voice is clipped, her words staccato. ‘Hard place. Scary. Drugs.’ Monica now lives in a single room in north London with her husband and their three children. She’s so anxious about the future she wakes every night, at midnight. ‘I feel something choking me, I can’t breathe. My heart beats very fast. I’m always thinking, ‘What can I do? What can I do?’ I pray to God but he doesn’t answer. Sometimes I think it would be better if I died.’

Image: Alexander Jones (Flickr)

While we are talking, Monica receives small gifts, simple offers of kindness. One man walks past and gently places a coffee in her hands, another buys bread from a nearby bakers and gives it to her. It is still warm. She clutches it to her like a child. I ask her another question. It feels rough and awkward. ‘Who is Monica?’ She starts to cry. ‘I sell Big Issue,’ she says. ‘I sell Big Issue.’

Who I Am in Ten Chapters Marie Gracie

I I’m always dirty and up a tree or by the river. No dresses. My siblings are away at school so I get to crawl into bed with Mum every morning. On Sunday nights, I eat Heinz chocolate baby food after my bath and Mum sings. I refuse to use my name but the abbreviation is not girly, so that’s fine. II I’m sad. My brothers and sisters are still away and since Mum died, my Dad has learnt to make chicken casserole and butterscotch instant whip. I sing to myself now and read books. A lot. And I’m so grown up that Dad tells me everything, which I don’t particularly like. I’m the posh kid at school. III I’m cross. Because I’m not sure I like my new step family and I miss living in my sleepy village. My Step Mum tries hard but my Dad is having another nervous breakdown. I do what I like, and pretty much have ever since. I work really hard at swearing and smoking so I’m not the posh kid now. On my 16th birthday, I change my name by deed poll. IV I’m leaving home. Dad thinks I’m getting married or something. He freaks when I say that I can’t stay in that angry house and I need to get good A levels. And I do. V Now I am getting married. 19 doesn’t seem young when I’ve been buying my own school uniform for ever and I’ve already got a mortgage. My husband and I are our new family—it is everything we don’t have.

VI I’m qualified. And still my father is not proud of me. He resents my first company car and says nothing when I get into that boardroom. I enjoy chewing fat with the CEO late into the evening. VII I’m divorced, a little depressed but abroad, clicking my heels on the beach, loving the sailing but drinking too much. I am studying though: Shakespeare, the Enlightenment, 14th Century Italian Art, post-colonial literature. Not an MBA. I miss my friends and am allergic to everything. VIII I’m primigravida. My life now makes sense and I would stand in front of that truck to protect my baby. But a classic guilty mother. I sob as I drive down the motorway in the morning darkness after my brief maternity leave. I miss them all day. IX I’m needed: the wise counsel, the trusted friend. The adoring but shouty Mummy. Dad is finally proud but when he dies, I just want my Mum to see my kids. X I’m furtively creative. Self-indulgent, throwing paint around and converting weird dreams into flash fiction. Who is that person still wedded to the boardroom when her family is full of painters, singers and seamstresses? I think my tomboy buried something along with her Mum but creativity must be a strong gene. Maybe I’ll start using my old name again soon.

Part -Time Vegetarianism Kate Jones

I worry about her diminishing diet. About her idealistic views, and the reality that might shatter them. I realise that she’s watching, and learning, how and who to be. Much of that watching is focussed on me. I feel the weight of it every time I make a thoughtless comment. Relaying the day back to my husband, expressing my fears, but also, the joy of her idiosyncrasies, he shrugs. Remember the first gift I bought you? I smile. A t-shirt from The Body Shop emblazoned with a slogan about saving

Image: Andrew Poynton (Pixabay)

itting across the table, she forks peas around her plate in formation, hiding one under her mashed potato. Long, straight, golden hair brushes the sides of her sun-touched cheeks, impossibly long eyelashes fringe blue eyes, perfect rosebud mouth and button nose. It’s inconceivable that she’s a perfect little package of girlhood, yet reflects shades of myself as a girl. A time when I was awkward, didn’t fit my own skin, tried to appear invisible. She’s stopped eating meat now, refuses it with such reasonable argument I find myself unable to disagree. Suggesting lamb chops for dinner, she asks, What? Sheep’s babies? I drop the bloody meat back into its cellophane wrapper. Later, she’s in the bathroom, which looks like a tsunami aftermath. Squinting into the steamed up mirror, towel wrapped high on her head like a Geisha, she says, I’ve decided I don’t want to grow big girl bits. I want to stay like the boys, they have the most fun. I laugh, but want to cry. She thinks she has a choice. Like any of us do. We walk past the farmer’s fields, and she feeds a horse. She has no fear, speaking in whispers to the animal, which towers above her. Her tiny hands, with constantly filthy fingernails, rest on its flank. Her leggings are slightly short, and her jacket faded, but she refuses new ones. She likes them just as they are. I have a love/hate relationship with her stubbornness. She points out the lambs, feeding from their mothers. See, she says, those mummy sheep would be really sad if you took their babies away for chops.

elephants. I wore it until it fell apart. I remember throwing out my Dad’s shaving brush when I discovered it contained badger hair. I remember his irritation at this daughter with crazy ideas. Have I created this personality in her? By allowing her freedom to become whoever she is, have I inadvertently passed on my own deep and halfremembered causes? She sits at the table as I serve a rare cooked breakfast. I plate her egg, beans, toast, as requested. I see her eye her sister’s bacon rashers slyly. Everything okay, HB? I say. A beat before she answers. I was thinking, maybe I could eat meat on special days, like special breakfast days. Does that still mean I’m a vegetarian? Mostly, I say, passing her the extra rasher I’d made just in case.

The Book of Death Camp Victims Image: Joanna Nissel

Joanna Nissel

heir names take up an A3 page. 1 photo survives: combed hair with hopeful smile. I decide then: marriage will never take your name from me.

Sagrada Unfamiliar Christopher Stanley

We waited in one of several fidgety queues at the Police station. I blinked the sweat from my eyes and wondered how it could be so hot in a building that was obviously untouched by the sun. Somewhere in front of us, voices turned sour. I didn’t understand the language but I recognised the friction from the loud, punchy exchanges. I held my breath, stayed alert. And then a fight broke out. In a humid, windowless room, we described what had happened for a third time while the Police officer completed a blue form. ‘Blue for British citizens,’ he explained. ‘How do we go home?’ I asked. The officer handed us the carbon copy of the form and said, ‘Take this to the airport.’ And that was it. In the post-911 world, could it really be so simple? My wife’s bag, the one she put down to wipe my sleeves, was her hand luggage from the flight. Her passport was gone, along with her purse, plane ticket and phone. We kid ourselves that suitcases are important but clothes and l

Image: Siggy Nowak (Pixabay)

e’d just stepped down into the darkness of the underpass when gloop landed all over my jacket. I thought it might be milkshake but the man with the tissues said it was definitely bird shit. At that moment, another man, following his guide dog, walked straight into us. Before I could say anything, my wife had taken the tissues and was rubbing at my splattered sleeves. Normally we’d take a taxi from the airport but this time we took the bus. We didn’t feel like tourists anymore; we were friends returning to a city we’d visited on many occasions. The Sagrada Familia, with its fairy tale spires, was such a familiar sight we used it as a landmark when searching for something new. Sure, we knew the risks. The wandering fingers that sneak into unguarded pockets. But despite many attempts, nothing had ever been stolen from us. We were too smart for that. In the underpass, the kind man with the tissues and the blind man with the guide dog were gone by the time my wife said, ‘Where’s my bag?’

toiletries can be replaced. When they took my wifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand luggage, they stole her identity too. Our suitcases bumped along the uneven pavement as we hurried towards our apartment. We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel like returning friends anymore; we were strangers in a hostile city. The air was stifling and the cruel spikes of the Sagrada Familia towered over us like something from another world. How could we be so lost in this place we knew so well? We spent the rest of our holiday looking over our shoulders. Avoiding shadowy alleyways. Every thought, every conversation, every unfinished dream always returned us to the airport, where we tried to negotiate our way onto the flight back to England with a variety of possible endings.

Note to Myself Meera Chandramouliswaran

Image: Kaique Rocha (Pexels)

t wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just leaving the bindings And running slightly more aware Breathing without something digging in Small thing. Tiny, not to one here Amidst the land of closed eyes, devout lips Nor the stain, pomegranate coloured, Leaving pert imprint on their every phalange You catch your breath in your reflection now Instead of looking away And not just to suck in, compress Non-existent folds. You are more than that you decided to stay, Walk with your shoulders raised Like your voice on the dais Ringing in every ear Or ramble, looser, lighter, louder than in tight print and tell no other eyes need move over. More even than your holding hands No distinction of what lies under coverings, Nasty, useless that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll leave You call across worlds, fragmented. You know your identities in clear non-negotiable terms; Yet they fly and morph by evening Welcoming more in their embrace. Flitting to stand proud by the shoulder of yet another, Unashamed, so self-assured, How you fight. How oblivious to your strength How you hate, deny your magnitude. How I beam when you stand unyielding Enunciate no and claim your space. See with my eyes.

Domestic Science Diane Simmons

ark’s family haven’t stopped talking about science since I arrived. I keep quiet, concentrate on dealing with the fancy dinner. Eventually, his dad smiles at me. ‘Did you go to Queen Mary’s, Joanne?’ ‘No… the Secondary Modern.’ He looks like I’ve slapped him. There’s silence until he clears his throat, waves his fork at his wife. ‘Bicarbonate of soda in the greens next time, dear—they’re rather pale.’ ‘But that’ll destroy some of the vitamins,’ I say. ‘Vitamin C, vitamin D, riboflavin…’ Mum is waiting when I get home. ‘How did it go, love?’ I grin at her. ‘I managed fine.’

Digital Strangers Lisa Reily 1 minute ago

ingers slide and a rapid succession of words and images reflects in her eyes. Her timeline is full of happy snaps, trips and travels, silly jokes, sunsets, and achievements. Below each post are rows of encouraging comments from friends, old and new. A yellow smiley. Thumbs up. A love heart. From post-asticker friends. Her ‘Like’ friends. She breathes through the images, scrolls slowly down, and notices her real self among them—the one who doesn’t really give a shit about those stupid laughs and photos she posted. The quiet one who signs petitions every day, supports refugees, walks miles to recycle, picks up other people’s plastic, rescues birds from the road, pats stray dogs, embraces strangers… And she sees, clearly, for the first time. They don’t know her. She withheld so many times, to avoid upsetting her friends. But when she finally posted something real and sad and important, she was ignored. She tried again and again and, on one lucky day, she procured a single ‘sad face’ for a refugee. Determined, she scrolls through their posts—finds a photo screaming racism, sees jokes about vegans, support for guns and war and stupidity. Votes for Pauline Hanson. Clinton. Trump. Murder. Recipes full of fat. Games that tell you nothing, except which celebrity you look like. She is held by the flare of her PC in the dark. They don’t know her. They don’t want to know her. And now she knows more about them… Delete.

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Stigmata Phil Berry

hen the baby was born, he filled the eyes and the minds of his parents. Then, as he began to weaken, his unmarked hands encircled a small part of the doctors’ and the nurses’ professional concern—and more, because caring for babies stimulates a kind of love. You did not know him then. Silently, the mechanism within each cell for turning food to energy and energy to growth failed. His brain quietened and words died in his ears. But this is none of your business. Why are you trying to look inside his gentle skull? His potential as a boy and as a man collapsed, undercut by cruel nature. But this private tragedy burst the walls of the hospital and flooded the space you occupy, the air over your breakfast table, the words you exchange with colleagues. Your opinions. Because his parents disagreed with his doctors, every detail was presented in court, and some of those were relayed by reporters’ fingertips to untold millions. Events attracted sympathy, invective and censure. The baby, his sensorium blanketed by painkillers and the limits of his age, nevertheless touched most areas of the world. As he pivoted in life’s balance, others argued over the quality of that life, and whether it was a kindness to be released. You know this. You had an opinion. Perhaps your opinion, light as dust in the scheme of things, communicated by hard-thought homilies or a raised eyebrow, added to the weight on one side of the balance. You will never know. It’s not your business.

The judge presiding will not present his conclusions until days after this page has been received by the magazine in which you read it. It would be tidy if we knew how things turned out. It would make for a more satisfying experience; a beginning and an end, or the absence of an end... That is how we like our stories. They call these â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;stigmata casesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, where the tribulations of the one challenge the moral values of the many, and force the courts to develop a framework for changing times. While he wears the marks of medical intervention that all children in the balance accumulate, you must not be afraid to read them, and form your opinions. When he leaves us, be it soon, or in a miraculous generations, he will have helped form your appreciation of life.

Contributors Vicky Henly is running out of ideas for how to avoid the real world, and in her efforts has obtained a BA degree and is now working on a Masters. She believes that cats are superior to children in every way.

Mariah Feria recently graduated from UEA, having studied American Literature with Creative Writing. She has a passion for travel-writing, and enjoys exploring when time and budget allow. @mariahferia_x

Christina Tang-Bernas has been published in We Said Go Travel, Tincture Journal and Brevity Magazine. When not writing, she copyedits academic manuscripts. Find out more at christinatangbernas.com.

Helen Victoria Anderson writes prose and poetry in Teesside. Author of Piece by Piece: Remembering Georgina: A Mother’s Memoir (Slipway Press) and winner of the Ink Tears Flash Fiction Contest 2015. @HelenVAnderson

Stephen Connolly grew up in Scotland and the Republic of South Africa. His plays have been performed at Salisbury, Bristol and Brighton. In 2014, he completed an MA in Scriptwriting at Bath Spa University.

Lyndsay Wheble’s work has appeared in Litro, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Danse Macabre and on the shortlist for the Yeovil prize 2015. She is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes.

Die Booth lives in Chester and enjoys exploring dark places. His short story collections My Glass is Runn and 365 Lies—one flash fiction a day for a year, with profits to the MNDA—are out now. diebooth.wordpress.com

S A Leavesley is a poet, fiction writer, journalist, mum, multi-tasker and woman of multiple shape-shifting hairstyles! Her latest books are plenty-fish (Nine Arches Press) and Kaleidoscope (Mantle Lane Press).

Lu Bailey was born with a pencil in their hand and has been writing ever since. Their identity ranges from cricket fan to Radio 4 listener. They cofounded AtoZsoup.com and now spend their time making lattes in Bath.

Rob Walton has flash fictions in Spelk, Number Eleven, Flash Frontier, Ham and others. He’s a past winner and current judge for NFFD. He also writes poetry for adults and children, and sometimes collaborates on visual art projects.

Michael Carter is an attorney who lives with his editor and their son in the Western US. He continues to fish bear country, but will never tie another ‘blood’ knot. He’s online at michaelcarter.ink

Joanna Nissel is based near Brighton and is an MA student at Bath Spa University. She interns with Tears in the Fence. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Irisi, Amaryllis, Clear Poetry and Eye Flash magazines.

Michelle Fox lives on Tyneside and studied Creative Writing at Northumbria. She began writing nonfiction in 2017 and A Visit is her first published work. She also writes and directs short films. @Micheyfox

Christopher Stanley lives on a hill with his three sons who share a birthday but aren’t triplets. His stories have been featured in The Molotov Cocktail, Retreat West, Raging Ardvark’s Twisted Tales and Firefly Magazine. @allthosestrings

Thomas McColl has work published in Fictive Dream, Burning House Press, Paper & Ink, Sick Lit, Hi-Viz Press and Ink, Sweat & Tears. His first collection, Being With Me Will Help You Learn is out with Listen Softly London Press.

Meera Chandramouliswaran is a student of biotechnology. She delights in the written word and hopes to read more and write better each day. She has been published in Quatrain.fish, Singapore Unbound and Poetry India.

Victoria Richards is a journalist who has worked for the BBC, The Independent and The Times. She won the inaugural Oh Zoe! Rising Talent Award 2017 and was long-listed in the Bath Short Story Award 2017.

Diane Simmons’s stories have been placed in many competitions and widely published. She helped organise the first ever Flash Festival in Bath earlier this year and is a keen participant in NFFD. @scooterwriter

Marie Gracie is easing herself out of corporate life and rediscovering her creative side! She attended the inaugural Flash Fiction Festival this summer and is busy practising skills learnt there. @mk161965

Lisa Reily is a former literacy consultant, dance director and teacher from Australia. She’s now a budget traveller with two bags, one laptop and no particular home. More info at lisareily.wordpress.com

Kate Jones is a freelance writer based in the North of England, with a passion for short fiction and creative non-fiction. Her work has appeared in The Nottingham Review, Spelk, The Real Story, and Feminartsy. @katejonespp

Phil Berry writes short fiction, poetry and a regular medical ethics blog. He’s a London-based doctor who specialises in liver diseases. Find out more at philberrycreative.wordpress.com @philaberry