The Inkwell The Inkwell
Ebb and Flow
Ebb and Flow
We are pleased to welcome you to The Inkwell, PublishED’s
semesterly literary publication. As a society, PublishED aims to encourage a creative and constructive literary dialogue for all. We hold regular readings, writing workshops and society socials to allow writers to share and reflect upon their work. We have also collaborated with The Talbot Rice Gallery and the University of Edinburgh’s Literature Society with various events throughout the year. Our team is very proud to present this issue of The Inkwell. In reading this magazine, you are helping us in our aim, and we thoroughly hope you enjoy doing so.
Marianne
Editor-in-Chief General Editor Poetry Editor Prose Editor Drama Editor Copy Editor Head of Design Web Editor President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Social/ Events Radio Broadcasters
Kimberley Webster Mika Cook Clea Skopeliti Ella Patrick Pauline Jaccon Rosanna Marshall Tess Glen Jemma Hoolahan Marianne Wilson Laura Lynes Snigdha Koirala Saskia Solomon Erin Gleeson Pratyusha Prakash & Isabel Wood
Cover art Kateriina Yli-Malmi Illustrations Julia Oborne 1
The constant coming and going of things in life is inevitable but
a struggle nonetheless. We yearn for cosy winter nights by the fire tucked up with our loved ones but when it comes we realise we can’t afford the heating and then crave a hot summer’s day with blue skies and open windows. We are beings unable to enjoy the present moment, living in a turmoil of clinging to the past and wanting to dive into the future head first without having to wait for the things we want or enjoying the journey towards them. It is the ebb and flow of life, of love, that is ingrained in our existence and that we fail to fully accept or enjoy. Seasons change, time passes, the world moves on around us and we must remember that no matter how alone we may feel, we are all struggling against the same tide. This issue of The Inkwell aims to amalgamate ideas of nostalgia and longing for the future in a way that reminds one to not forget the present. Before you turn this page, take some time to make yourself a cup of tea: choose your favourite mug and favourite teabag, watch the water swirl around the spoon and know that this moment is just as important to your life as the next and as the one before it. Come back to this magazine with your tea in hand and let yourself be content with the world moving on around you, while you sit still and cherish this moment.
Kimberley
2
Alanah Knibb 3
Stomachs belong to the state
Kalanda , we are raised through the smoke and stink of dumping sites, In dusty broken streets of dingy shanties Chilling culture of poverty whipping our backs and slapping our scarred faces Kalanda , we passed through rough fingers of the state Purity of sisters corrupted by bowls of spaghetti in district light cafes Kalanda , their smiles plant want than wheat on our doorsteps
Mbizo Chirasha 4
Af fection
Close and wet after the moist morning fog the dunes sit beside the waists of the mountains that extend upward like drowsy arms, stretched and scarred from the movement whose name I can’t think of, which crawls on its hands and knees in and among the graphite peaks and pedestals that turn air into song. Now the mist has thinned and the grains of sand are making room for warmth and for my prints. I feel early and unwelcome. I think of how often this space has been disturbed. I wonder if she has dreamt this place, too, if I am a part of the landscape in the same way that she is. We are always running into each other in this small city, in the spaces that can pull apart as easily as they form. I can imagine her outline emerging from behind the fir, at first just a configuration of lines and shadows, the kind that children draw when they shade the sun into the top corner of the page. But she does not stay long, and falls into the chunky bark of the tree before thought to ignore her. The tree, up close, was exactly how you’d expect a tree to be: shy and dying of thirst. She descends deeper into the forest, and jumps from ash to ash, swinging from their roots. At this rate she has beaten me to the spot where I am headed. The bushes take me deeper into the forest, lighting the path with the berries that will become bird droppings after I am gone from here, the same way that déjà vu is not just a coordinate where short term and long term memories meet, and a mecca is something you feel, and the way she said milk sounded like love. A herzgefühl. 5
My legs are carried deeper into the weather. Two birds meet in fog, two birds as blue as the sky at night, cutting shapes into the mist with their chatter. The evaporating air lifts their voices skyward. They sing what they were bred to call their song. They sing because they imagine that it sounds nice. My sweat starts to swell to the smell of the shores and the weeds— looking beyond these trees feels like betrayal. Three steps in and an otter in the shallow end of a rock pod. He knows I am here but carries on as though I am not, rounds the pool on his back and his front, always circling. I see him hit his body against the rocks, and that he bounces makes me feel guilty. The otter stops alongside the rocks and suddenly dives beneath the surface. I can no longer see him, only trace him by way of the air he exudes, the tension that the water feels beneath his small body. Like a mother does her ducklings, I imagine him guiding his ripples to the water by the shore where I was standing, until he disappears beneath me. He finds himself in a large underground cavity; similar in depth and width to the ones I will have removed from my teeth in three years time. The roots hang from the ceiling and the water is tethered to the dark edges of the cave, alive with the droplets of water falling from the trees. The water is murky and brown from the tannic pines that have fallen from the black spruce into the water. Gravity is weaker in places where the sun hides. I take a seat on this shore, uncomfortable knowing that somewhere below me the sand becomes air. I look to the water, confused at how far it is that I am actually seeing. I try not to think about her. It works. The same way that televisions work, and construction workers work. The sea was just a sea and the fact that the water was partially salt and also contained life meant nothing more than it should to most. 6
And yet she still managed to appear, lying on top of one of the dunes neighboring my own, perched with her arms folded across her scabbed kneecaps. I imagine they are scabbed because I imagine her doing strenuous work that is not befitting to a harrowing frame, because I want to help drive her places and carry her groceries. Her boots are too heavy for her. I am frightened for her, the girl that is sitting on the fleshy mound beside my own. She is looking into the salt, she is testing her toes, long and slender and thin like her neck. Someone would struggle to breathe down her neck. I never noticed it before, how well she hid in her clothes. I do not think she sees me yet. The otter returns to the pool of rocks. He looks up to me. He treads water while I look at her body through its reflection in his small black eyes, black like the eyes of Van Gogh’s sunflowers in the yellow room where I was always waiting. Her arms were beyond her, reaching as far back as the main road, and her legs shot rounds into the fog, her toes spindling enough to sew with. The otter waded now in the same position as she was. A swish of his tail and she rolled to her belly, she kicked the air with his legs, and he splashed the water with hers. He spit water from his mouth like a fountain and she became one, sitting atop the mammary as if it were granite, and then it was.
Elle Rose Heedles 7
Rachel Lee 8
Avoir Le Cafard A man made of glue runs towards the sun, In his hands, close to the bosom, he holds the moon. The moon heaves with each beat that dances off the wet rims of wine glasses. Each pulse glides on red socks that slip intentionally on ice. Above, the sun, like a crocodile with a turtle’s buoyancy, steps on eggs, letting the yellow gelatin of hope trickle down the ebony tarp of the sky. The sun spins in turquoise blue, with a hand cupping the eye of God, while the other hand, points gingerly at the earth.
9
The sound of rushed, anxious laughter emerges from the man, teeth and nerves crackling like shrimp slipping on soap bubbles, slip and pop slip and pop. The man made of glue, with each heavy footstep, leaves milk colored scars on the unfertile earth. He approaches the sun, and pauses under its smile. He allows his moldless being to suck the moon, pushing its body into his craw, a bead forcefully pushed into dough. Pregnant. He jumps.
Phenix Kim 10
Emily Hall
The Encounter A glass of red wine, tainted with the kiss of a woman’s lipstick. She smiles at the waiter. Simon’s always been especially kind to her, always the first one to serve, always the last one to see off. Simon stares at her from behind the counter, not being able to decipher, once again, the meaning behind her impassible smile. Why she keeps coming to such a rotten place, he still hasn’t been able to discover. Each time the dread of her not ever coming back begins to creep up inside him, the scent of her newly painted nails and her oversweet vanilla perfume enters through the door. He never says much. There is just plain understanding, almost a sort of comradeship between them. In their silence, they both create their own stories and get to know each other so. 11
Today she has chosen purple-colored nails to match her pendant. If her husband knew where she ends up every other night he would not believe it. But this is a place she can call home, a place far away from those stupid jokes, away from those hollow faces and snob dealers. Here it is just her, her and Simon, and the guy at the piano. The smoke caresses her cheeks and the light plays around, suspended in the air, trying to overcome the shadows created by her cigarette. She takes another sip of wine. Not the best one. But it’s a familiar flavor, one that she would never dare to try outside this grotesque hole. Simon’s hand appears through the smoke. More wine is poured, breaking soundlessly against the glass. The sound of the out-of-tune piano resounds in her head, interrupting her trance. The thick and dirty hands of the piano player try without success to recall a blues melody. *** The sound of high heels on the pavement, a sensuous metronome barely heard over the traffic noise. The metronome suddenly stops. ‘The usual. And TIME magazine, please’. A cup of warm coffee is handed to her, leaving a strong trace of bitter smell behind it. She pours a sip of white milk into the coffee and stares fascinated at the new spiral of colors formed by the playful combination of both liquids. She smiles and relishes the taste of both flavors in her mouth. ‘Bye, Tom. See you tomorrow’. The sound of his flirtatious response fades in the air, as she gives her back to him and walks away. With the coffee in one hand and the magazine in the other she maneuvers her way through the crowd, oblivious to all the different faces that place their eyes upon her. Tonight she will stop by at Anna’s new apartment downtown; her friend always likes to celebrate every single little change she considers important in her life, and this to her is an occasion worth celebrating. She sits on the only bench she sees in the small quaint park to drink her coffee and page through her magazine. She knows what the party will be like and also realizes that Mark will be there. She sighs and crosses her legs, not realizing how much skin she is exposing to the pleased passers-by. 12
The daily routine goes by quickly. Office work, blank papers and nerve-racking phone calls. Coffee pause. Fake laughter, hollow faces. More office work. The suffocating feeling, followed by two or three cigarettes. Mark’s usual sickening gaze and grin. And, finally, the relief found in the end of another day’s work, which is unexpectedly overshadowed by the dread of the party. ‘See you in a couple hours, sweetie’. Mark’s voice calls from the opposite side of the hall, making her start. His voice remains painfully in her mind for some minutes. A stabbing pain in her chest leaves her breathless, followed by a nauseating feeling. She rests her body against the wall, taking slow deep breaths. The fluorescent light blinds her, drawing her towards a dream-like reality. *** The bar is empty, but the few regular customers are waiting outside, pretending to have their minds set on something other than their glasses of whiskey and scotch. Simon prepares the usual drinks absent-mindedly while John Coltrane’s saxophone resounds through the bar. The night runs as usual. Same music, same old customers, same drunken voices. ‘Whiskey. Double’. He turns around slowly in surprise, as he can’t recognize the voice. It is definitely a woman’s voice, though low and shattered. As he looks up to her face, he finds himself again taken aback. It is a pale face he is looking at, perhaps ill-looking. However, the features behind the sick expression of her face are somewhat attractive. Eyes that could be considered too big, scarlet lips, slightly puffy, and a thin nose, which is barely noticeable. Before he can continue analyzing this strange young woman, she says emphatically ‘please’. He realizes he still hasn’t served the drink, but has instead stared at her absorbed. Ashamed, he pours the whiskey, keeping his eyes on the bottle. Before he has the chance to look up again, she turns around and sits at the corner table at the back of the bar and stares blankly at her whiskey before drinking it all down in one gulp. 13
Simon catches a glimpse of her watery eyes from behind the counter. The hours pass by and she sits still, surrounded by a cloud of smoke and asking now and then for another drink. The paleness has been replaced by a rosiness in her cheeks. ‘Everything okay, ma’am? We’re about to close in a few minutes’. Without moving from her trance, her eyes staring nowhere, she speaks softly: ‘would you mind sitting with me until you close?’ Intrigued, ‘sure, ma’am. I’ll invite you to one last drink. Let me get another glass and some wine’. The waiter sits beside her, looking at her uncertainly. With effort, she returns the stare, moving closer to him. *** ‘Sorry, I got caught up doing some paper work’. ‘The party is almost over, sweetie, but we can have a couple more drinks’. ‘Sure’. She smiles awkwardly and goes quickly to the bathroom. The mirror reflection looks back at her, with messy hair and run lipstick. Quickly, she arranges a casual ponytail and completely removes her lipstick. She smiles, complacent, and sees herself sensual for once. She still feels the stranger’s hands over her body, the caresses, the spasms. The memory of his lips brushing against her thighs makes her tremble again. There was smoke, that distasteful wine, a saxophone. Her arched back, his deep moan, a whisper. A blush, a kiss, farewell. She flushes the toilet and smiles back again at her reflection before heading for the last drinks of the night.
Jessica Janeiro Obernye 14
Ceòl-na-Mara There once was an ocean before it dried up and there once was a man who sailed who now drives who sang as he too waited to dry.
15
Coco Tsui
Wickaninnish II
A great writhing mass of jelly had washed on the shore. It was either bleeding or strawberry.
Wickaninnish IV tofino
I never took those steps on the shallows of the sea. I was merely the water dreaming of an evening stroll.
Brandon Shalansky 16
1 Bedroom, Bath. 1 Bedroom, Bath. The hessian white walls of his 1 bedroom, bath are littered with the sharp cornered prints from exhibitions that have long since expired from small talk, and
from his ceiling the factory produced drapery of another trendy religion hangs, breathing with him.
He would like company (please) but he can’t handle the pressure of someone blinking at him, .so. most nights he thumbs the squidgy button of a remote allowing tiny inverse Homer dematerialise Simpson’s, Kevin MacCloud’s and James May’s to materialise and in the moist window of his eyeballs.
om
He prefers to be the one who’s doing the blinking.
om
He sits stiffly, trying to remember the lotus position, his face waxen and
vacant.
He imagines there’s another version of himself that lives within the grey of his brain, condemned to prop up the precariously balanced furniture of his personality.
This person’s run out of arms, legs, hands, om toes
everything up.
and teeth to hold
He’
s sprawled out,star - fished, s t r a i n i n g
and
tiw thc i n g,
with an anxious, tentative frown. Sweat descends with a cartoon-like clarity. This trembling furniture reminds him of the cannon-shook Edwardian decor from the Banks’s family home in Mary Poppins, (or the initial tremors before some devastating earthquake)
He tries to shake the feeling of waiting for an absent owner. Of being destined to
indeterm y
float amongst the decorative clutter of his 1 bedroom, bath, like a forgotten pet fish…with an un-remembered sense of there being something else…
His head makes a mental note to change the filter of Claus’s tank…. .. .. . . . . spasms {time fgidets and spas ms} spasms spasms
He tries to think of nothing and ends up thinking of the sand people from Starwars.
….
{he opens his eyes and turns over the tape that whispers ‘Om’} When he scrunches his eyes he can feel the walls of his flat laughing at him. Why did Hessian White make him feel so distant when the decorator said it was supposed to resemble the ‘here and now?’ “All this living in the present is making me tense,” ________ he hears his mind mutter_____ om He thinks of the previous, faceless occupants of his flat and feels edged out of existence. Their separate lives crawl like insects under his skin. He thinks of their blurred figures bathing, reading and fucking. The plants they’d keep on the windowsill, the residue of their laughter, the poster’s they’d hang up. .A nonymous fingers twirling round the cord of a land line . A wordless voice calling out to some long limbed lover from the hallway.
om
.Life is bigger than us. He remembers Oprah saying as unread credits spilled over her face. {he leaks enough of the room into his scrunched eye to confirm that the tape still exists}
om
His mind is going empty and silent, but not in a good way, in a waiting-room, blOOping water dispenser way. Red squiggles and tv static begin to DancE over the stretched curtain of his eyelids. The sound of a key burst
om
MOLESTING
a lock would make his heart
.The decor of his flat begins to leer at him.
That
silkscreen from The Tate’s “Beyond Pop” exhibition makes him think of repressed childhood trauma. That
minatel
om
promotional poster from the John Cage performance at The Barbican makes him think of cancer. .His father in a vintage poster of Marlon Brando. .His mother in a Cher album cover. .His death in HOLMO floor lamp. .His castration in a bowl of off potpourri. .Humanity in creaking stair.
He ponders this -
“unremembered sense of there being something else” in a promo leaflet for a Royal Caribbean cruise. Then he remembers it in a photograph of his high school lover.
om
oO O
Two black eyes, brown hair. To her black eyes, brown hair.
He imagines the miniature mind version of himself slip ping, the borrowed and lifted imagery of his mind dribbling out his walls, om
om .A Rorschach diagram of. Everything and everyone, bleeding out over an infinity of white______________________________________ His first erection. The bully that punched self doubt into him. The girl with the orthodontic smile that dragged him out of virginity. Carrots half eaten by “deer” on Christmas morning. Water craters imprinted from stones skipped by his father’s hand. Grubby knees. Twix wrappers. Him swelling with pride at his mother telling off that husband his ornery dog next door. Backpack straps. His dads hands around his in a golf club. Velcro. Bringing an extra coat just in case he needs it. A pockmarked adolescent face disagreeing with its reflection. Heartache. Water in his nose. Scrubbing encrusted bird shit of their Fiat Punto. Church. Running his fingers along the wall of his home. Love. Misery. The the death the Compromise.
{the tape spooled and repeatedly spat out ‘O’.}
He tried to think of the sand people from Starwars and ended up
o
o o0o o
om
nking of nothing.
Silas Curtis 19
t h i
Kateriina Yli-Malmi
20
A weakened reef Thoughts crash upon a speckled reef, hither to of course unseen. White washing over a calm blue scene, speaks to wrecking region teeming, lying not too far beneath. Distant land’s shore, fickle facial features, protecting from foreign invaders natures largest constant haven, docile distant moans mistaken Each set of waves comes in three, Ignore the ancient rules please? The innocence of loss in the mind. Unemphatically subconscious, frothing black on white, defines The relationship contrasted of all parody of logic brought to light and paradoxical modern fright. Starve half the children. Starfish. The pressure of waves only build lack of depth a crushing truth. Reef a topographical relief, of all that exists for wet feet. Red foreign forgotten sands.
21
Better becomes worse, worse becomes better. Tide ever ebbing, moons never reverse, blood on these hands begins to flow all our regrets caught in tow. And this ever ending morose. Sweet is colour of red rose For those who live monochromatic, Manichean clearly preaching, never doubting inner prose. And as last few thoughts crash into my disdain my dying body leaves nothing but the pain, reasons to revel my own plight? My own self-centered narcistic pretend humanistic pleasurably self-antagonistic delight.
Fraser Barr 22
Anna Vesaluoma 23
Nostalgia for the future.
It isn’t strange to have nostalgia for the future Dreaming now of fair times still to come Touching memories yet to be remembered Cross the shore beneath the dying sun Lost were human hopes too long imagined In future’s gaze we often too long dwell When all that truly matters is the present Where in the dawn I hear yet the cry of gulls Love is often promised like an answer Though we’re sure one day it’ll come along Dancing through the dew and misty sunrise Come to take your hand and sing a new song
Morgan Powell 24
While Dicing Vegetables If the cut on my wrist had creeped 5 more centimetres to the right I would not have to see the sight Of you holding someone else’s hand. I would only have to endure 5 more minutes Of failing to understand Why you didn’t love me.
Sarya Wu 25
Emily Hall 26
Julia Oborne 27
Ebb & Flo Saturdays were always a big day When I was wee, Trips to Woolworth’s and Wallace’s bridies for our tea Me sitting at my dad’s feet While he read the People’s Journal before Grandstand on TV. And I’d read his paper while the sports were on, Most of it too complicated for my seven-year-old brain, But there was a cartoon strip called Ebb & Flo That I loved. Ebb was the blundering, well-meaning husband, A bit like my dad, Flo the long-suffering but forgiving wife, Not at all like my mother. My mother was a woman who let her disapproval be known. She had married a Calcutta jute mill manager And moved into his mansion, Unaware that his affluence was only temporary And that soon we’d all decamp to a bungalow In drizzle-drenched Dundee Where she’d be expected to keep his house. So while my father watched his sports My mother dropped dishes into her sudsy sink, The frigid pink of her rubber gloves Expressing her contempt with an icy calm. 28
My mother despised the kitchen and, In the days before ready meals, Cooked with a tin opener, Venting her spleen in the blood red entrails of Heinz spaghetti, Serving up Dairylea triangles of scorn On slices of barely warmed toast, Expressing her icy disappointment With Kraft cheese slices, Oiling her ire with margarine, Greasing her resentment with Trex and Cookeen, Planting her poison pellets in the hard shells of Surprise Peas, Stewing her wrath with BrookEbbbond Teas. My mother Spelled out her frustrations in Alphabetti Spaghetti On the pages of white Milanda Bread Opened up cans of condensed resentment from cold cupboards Just waiting to add water and stir, Dust-dry packet-soup-mixes of Old and Broken Promises Simmering on a back burner of Birdseye Fish Fingers Finger-pointing At my Father Who sat in his arm chair His plate on his knee, Feigning indifference while Eating his Humble Pie.
Max Scratchmann 29
Helen Redman 30