FRESH Congratulations to Katya Johnson, the winner of our prose section for ‘East Mains Industrial Estate. Broxbusn. 1700.’ We found it to be written from a refreshingly different angle - the deserted industrial side of Edinburgh - which makes by contrast the proud and ancient face of Edinburgh with which we are so familiar seem like a strange dream. Finding a quiet moment alone during the first few days on arrival provides the narrator with a rare opportunity to dwell on what it really means to start a life in a new place.
pro se Further congratulations to Algernon de Swan who made us laugh with his heightened and droll social analyses. We think most of the readers would admit to be able to identify with many of the aspects through which our poor narrator struggles. Thank you once again to everyone who submitted entries. Visit the website to read more: publishedinburgh.weebly.com
East Mains Industrial Estate. Broxburn. 17.00. It’s hard to know quite why I’m here. What brought me here. I don’t believe in first causes but if I did (and we rewound the movie reel of actions and events and strange synaptic lurches – if we chased back, contracted the tail of Chinese boxes in search of that illusive first cause, the seed of all that was to come) – perhaps we would see it all prefigured by that thin slip of yellow paper balancing precariously on the balustrade inside. It was for me. A note for me, perfunctorily informing me that I wasn’t there, taunting and chastising me. He’d thrown down his mark, so I’d throw down mine. Fine, I thought, I’ll go. I’ll go directly to the source, to the depot, I’ll pick it up myself.
8
This was not meant to be a quest. I had already been initiated, self-initiated that is. That had been the day that I had chosen to walk with a woozy head, in the most circuitous manner possible to the Firth of Forth, (the estuary, the isthmus, the fistula between
land or ocean or whatever it is.) When I caught my first full sighting of the balking waters, hit square between the eyeballs with that blasting cold wind, gulped down my first mouthful of saline, fishy air; I held onto the sun-blanched rocks like a sailor. I felt like I was in Cornwall again. Leith. I thought. How beautiful you are. And I don’t mind the docks, the industrial shipyards, the loopy seagulls, the schooners, the pea-green ship bound for war somewhere, the modern developments, the terrible, cavernous ‘O’cean Terminal. It is all part of it; the hardness here, the non-negotiability of the water: Grey-black, adamantine whip. You, oh you. I had strayed by the seashore like a harlot, and at one point crouched right down (at the point where the water meets roughly chopped stones like a jigsaw puzzle), and really touched the water. They must have thought I was mad crouching like that, so full of everything. Maybe they thought I was having a wee.