Scrittura Magazine, Issue 5, Autumn 2016

Issue number 5 Autumn 2016

Scrittura Magazine Š Copyright 2016 All Rights Reserved.

Scrittura Magazine is a UK-based online literary magazine, launched in 2015 by three Creative Writing graduates who wanted to provide a platform to showcase new and exciting writing from across the world. Scrittura Magazine is published quarterly, and is free for all. This means that we are unable to offer payment for publication.

Submissions information can be found online at www.scritturamagazine.tumblr.com EDITOR: Valentina Terrinoni EDITOR: Yasmin Rahman DESIGNER / ILLUSTRATOR: Catherine Roe WEB: www.scritturamagazine.tumblr.com EMAIL: scrittura.magazine@gmail.com TWITTER: @Scrittura_Mag FACEBOOK: scritturamag

In This Issue 06 07 11 12 14 16 18 21 22 24 25 28

New Year Tracey Alvarez Smile Yen-Rong Once a Sea Urchin James Bell Dog Days Ed Blundell It’s Our Joe Anthony McIntyre Landscape of Ohio Erin O’Malley The Tower Roman James Hoffman Repetition Ed Blundell In Later Age Sylvia Christie For You Natalie Crick The Uprising Tom Tolnay An Ancient Route James Bell

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A Note From The Editors Welcome to the Autumn Issue of Scrittura Magazine!

Does that sound familiar? It should! This is our second Autumn issue, which brings us full circle, having completed a whole publication cycle! It’s crazy to think that our first issue came out just one year ago. It’s been an unbelievable journey and we’ve met so many wonderful people and read some amazing writing. Thank you all for your continued support, and here’s to another great year.

How fitting that we should start off this issue with a wonderful poem titled ‘New Year’ (page 6), a piece about not waiting until January to make changes. We’ve also got some fantastic short thought-provoking pieces of prose (pages 7, 14, 18 and 25) an ironic poem addressing the realities of aging (Repetition, page 21) as well as a whole host of other literary goodness; there’s something to please everyone.

The cover art is inspired by ‘Dog Days’ (page 12) a fantastic short poem which captures the haunting memories of lost love.

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has submitted their writing or shown their support to us via social media. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading each and every submission and getting to know some extremely talented writers. To anyone reading this who is considering submitting to us in the future, our current deadline is October 31st for the Winter issue and we’re continuously on the lookout for fantastic new writing. So whether you’re a seasoned writer, or just starting out, shoot us an email.

As always a huge thank you to our extremely talented designer Catherine for such a wonderful issue!

We hope you enjoy it!

Valentina & Yasmin

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New Year Tracey Alvarez

I think tomorrow I will start my new year.

January 1st is too far away But tomorrow is closer than ever.

I want to become a new “me”.

A “me” that should have come out before.

I want to start my new year with no thoughts of the bad.

No evil thoughts and no demons attached.

No thoughts of exes and fake people.

I will only think of the good times and never the bad times.

I will start my year off with a change.

A change in self-confidence.

No more body image issues and no more bad people to put me down.

I want to be better So why not start tomorrow?

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Smile Yen-Rong

Poppy passed away today. Mum says that we say ‘pass away’ because then it doesn’t feel like they’re really gone. She says it’s just like they’ve moved somewhere else and that maybe, if we’re very lucky, we’ll get to see them again. I don’t know though; I think people say it because it sounds nicer than saying someone died.

So Poppy passed away today. He was at home, in his garden, so I’m glad he passed away in a place he loved. Not a hospital, hooked up to machines and beeping monitors and all sorts of other noisy people. I don’t think he would have liked that.

We were similar, in many ways. He taught me to read, and not just children’s books, but big books, like encyclopedias and books with writing so small that sometimes it made my head hurt just to look at a page. He liked to be alone and think, and he liked nature. He spent a lot of time in the garden with Nanna, planting all sorts of flowers and fruit trees and bushes, so I’m glad he was with her when he passed away.

Mum got the call this morning. I think because she had signed a piece of paper that said they had to call her if anything happened to Poppy. I was eating breakfast at the time and she went very, very quiet, so I could tell something bad had happened. I didn’t want to ask because I didn’t want to get into trouble. Mum only goes really quiet if she’s sad or angry. So I sat and ate my muesli as daintily as one of my guinea pigs. This was actually really hard, because it was quite crunchy, but Mum didn’t move. I waited for her after I finished.

It’s the holidays, so she normally would have planned something. Yesterday we went to the park and the day before we went to the zoo. I couldn’t wait for whatever Mum had planned today. But as I soon found out, it would be very, very different to whatever she originally had in mind.

Poppy didn’t want to be called Poppy at first. He said that it made him sound old.

Mum and Dad agreed with him, but I didn’t. I was little then, littler than I am now, so I didn’t really understand. I thought poppies were pretty, and why didn’t he want to be called something pretty? I must have forgotten to use my inside voice, and so everyone heard. Flowers weren’t old, I said, they were fresh and lovely and people gave them to other sad people to cheer them up. I think I must have looked really confused, because everyone laughed and Poppy tickled me under the chin and said

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he could probably deal with being called Poppy if that’s how I felt. I smiled and gave him as big a hug as I could give, and sat on his lap for the rest of the afternoon.

Mum was very still for a very long time. I was scared. I was scared that something had happened to her and no one else was in the house and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to poke her because what if she fell over and I made it worse? So I sat still too. I tried not to move, but my nose started itching and I tried for ages not to scratch it but eventually I had to move my hand. I was scared Mum was going to yell at me because she was so quiet for so long. I scratched my nose and I thought it made the loudest noise I had ever made and I was terrified.

Finally, Mum lost that weird look she had in her eyes and came over to me.

‘It’s gonna be okay, Sammy,’ she said. I didn’t know if she said that for herself or for me. Either way, it made me feel a little bit better. I was still scared she was going to yell at me, though. I nodded and rested my head against her shoulder. She smelled of roses and the shower. She held my hand really tight and shut her eyes.

Then she opened them again.

‘I have to tell Julie and Jimmy,’ she said suddenly.

Julie and Jimmy were at the cinema with their friends, and they have some kind of unhealthy attachment to their phones. They always scoff at me when they see me on the couch with a book, or writing in my diary like I’m doing now. Poppy told me not to take any notice of them, that they were just jealous because I got to live and understand bigger worlds than they ever could. They’re also jealous because I like you more than I like them. And then we would share a smile, he would ruffle my hair, and leave me be.

Mum told Julie and Jimmy to get home as soon as they could, and she accidentally dropped her phone after she had finished calling them. It made a loud clattering noise on the kitchen bench, and I reached over to pick it up for her. She squeezed my hand as I gave it back to her, and I said ‘no problem’.

I told Mum I wanted to help. I could see she was sad and trying not to cry, and I wanted to make her feel better. She held my hand even tighter. She said I could help make the house nice and tidy because lots of my cousins and aunties and uncles would be at our house soon. I said okay, and I tried to leave, but she held onto my hand for a couple more minutes before she let go.

I thought about all the bad things it could have been. Did Mum or Dad lose their job? Were they going to live in different houses like Angela or Damien’s parents? I kept my thoughts to myself, though. I didn’t want to risk upsetting Mum more. I didn’t know what to do.

I once asked Poppy what I should do when I felt like this; when I felt like I was

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lost and I didn’t know what to do, or what was the right thing to do. Poppy told me that there were many different ways of dealing with something like that – it wasn’t something easy that I could solve, like one plus one, or even nine times twelve. He said different people had different ways of solving this problem. He said he didn’t want to tell me what to do, but that maybe I should try and write something. Not like something in my diary, but a real story. Like one of those that Poppy and I used to read all the time. I would let Poppy read some of them, but only if I thought they were good. I told him to only read the pages I had told him to, but I knew he sneaked a peek at some of the others. I didn’t mind so much.

‘You have a gift, my dear,’ he would say, his voice creaking like crumpled paper.

I would always laugh into my hand or my shirt.

‘I’m only eight, or I’m only nine, or I’m only ten, Poppy. I can’t write anything good. Not like those people.’

I’d point to the books spread out on my bed and on my bookshelf. The Brothers Grimm, Enid Blyton, J. K. Rowling, Charles Dickens, Margaret Atwood.

It was about eleven o’clock when I finished making the house nice. Mum smiled at me and I gave her a big hug. It was the first time I had seen her smile today.

‘Do you know what’s going on, Sammy?’ she asked me, very seriously.

I knew she was serious because her eyes were a special shade of blue. It was my favourite type of blue. I shook my head.

‘Poppy passed away this morning.’

I didn’t know what ‘passed away’ meant. Mum said that it meant that we could no longer see Poppy. He’s gone. We say ‘pass away’ because then it doesn’t feel like they’re really gone. She says it’s just like they’ve moved somewhere else.

‘Do you understand?’ she asked me. I nodded.

I ran up to my room and dug out this book. I started writing something new.

I didn’t know what I was writing, but my pen was moving across the pages. I didn’t cry, even though I should have. I loved Poppy and he loved me. I cried through my writing.

Julie and Jimmy cried when Mum told them. Even Dad cried. Everyone loved Poppy. I don’t know if it was bad not to cry. But I did think of Poppy when I wrote.

Hopefully I will continue to think of him when I write or read. And think of how happy he was to share his books with me and to teach me the meaning of a new word.

Years later, I imagine people will ask me if I was sad when Poppy passed away.

If I cried at his funeral, when Mum walked up to the podium to talk about him, when I saw the big brown box that was at the front of the church. I will always reply, I don’t know. Maybe I will see him again.

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Hopefully, some of what I wrote is good. Hopefully, I get better. I want to be able to make him proud of me. This is what I wrote today. I copied it out from my notebook.

Sometimes, if you sit still enough, you can hear the wind whisper through your skin.

Goosebumps, people call them. But I know better. I know what they really are, but you have to discover it for yourself.

You try. Just sit.

And maybe, if you wait long enough, the words will come to you. You will see them as they float on the air. Silent, crackling with magic.

Listen, and maybe – Maybe you will see.

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Once a Sea Urchin James Bell

round and sandy at first sight flat on the bottom small - an immediate discourse on the expected shape of worlds and how they float in the heavens

you look down on an oval blemish as a giant god mass a lot softer than this hardness looks like a cartoon eye

singular in its larger bulk a fossilised creature in a small world - has a lizard-like top that was once part of leathered skin

smoothness suggests a long time in water dotted vertical patterns that could be echinoid though they did not have eyes

Celtic tradition says they formed from froth thrown into the air by snakes and held magical powers on falling back to the ground will keep it close for comfort

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Dog Days Ed Blundell You told me how you loved that dog, You played together, child and pup.

It comforted your teenage sulks And sympathised when others scowled.

It then grew old and passed away.

You kept its picture by your bed.

And now that you have also gone, I keep it to remember you.

You walk my haunted dreams each night, You and a dog I never knew.

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It’s Our Joe Anthony McIntyre

‘I want you to take care of this,’ said my mother, pushing a battered old shoe box across the table towards me. ‘It belonged to your great aunt Doris and I know she would have wanted you to have it.’

I always remember great aunt Doris as a joyous Lancashire woman who found humour in everything.

‘Eee, it’s our Joe,’ she would say whenever she came to visit, ruffling her hand through my hair. Mother explained that great aunt Doris, one of eight, had six sisters and one brother, Joe, who fell at the battle of Loos in 1915. I had inherited much of his looks and was a pleasing reminder.

As I picked gingerly through the contents of dog eared photographs, newspaper cuttings and old receipts, I came across a telegram, almost hidden amongst a passport dated 1953. It showed a serious looking married couple I recognised as great aunt Doris and great uncle Joseph. The telegram explained her only brother had been killed in action.

Great aunt Doris was born in the winter of 1902 and eighteen years later married her husband, also a Joseph, a coal miner who died suddenly in 1955, weeks after the passport was issued.

‘She never used it, the passport, but keep it safe, son,’ Mother said as I turned it over.

That was fifteen years ago and I duly placed the shoe box under the stairs and almost forgot about it until watching a television programme commemorating the battle of Loos, in which the presenter named those that had fallen. It was only when he read the name, Joseph Hamblett, Sergeant, that I remembered the box under the stairs.

Leafing through its contents, I picked out the telegram and the passport. It was then that it occurred to me that great aunt Doris and great uncle Joseph may have been planning a trip to France.

A serenading skylark broke the respectful silence as I arrived at the war memorial. I reached into my jacket pocket and pinned the passport photograph to my lapel.

Rows upon rows of marble gravestones protruded from the earth, each with a brightly coloured plant at their base. Three semi-circular apses and a fifteen foot wall

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displayed the names of those that never returned. We found Joe’s name amongst the twenty thousand that fell there and together the three of us spent several hours in quiet reflection.

When the coach came to take me back to the town, I unpinned the passport and held it against the window until Our Joe and his comrades disappeared amongst the French countryside.

I had the passport photograph and one of the war memorial framed. It now hangs on a wall near the Loo. I know great aunt Doris would see the humour.

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Landscape of Ohio Erin O'Malley 1. bits of beetle and leaf suspended in the silken sleep of a spider’s web 2. tree, frost and bug bitten, carved out cavern or cathedral 3. cicada bodies strewn among cicada skins, shatter-veined wings like stained glass 4. these woods are of shadows, reaching over the branches of chapels and the roofs of trees

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The Tower Roman James Hoffman Geordie opened the door, walked into the waiting room and was surprised to see no receptionist’s desk. It must be because the new test results are so fast, he mused.

Apart from the geriatric security guard seated reading a newspaper in the foyer, he had walked straight in from the street and had encountered no-one.

He felt a pulse of disappointment that he wouldn’t be using the name of an old school bully again, but was nevertheless relived that he would be spared the indignity of filling in a personal information form. His mind flicked back to the shame which had pierced him before–feeling the eyes of the receptionist on him as he completed the form, but avoiding him when he handed it to her.

He looked around the room: there were only two other people; men whose eyes were conspicuously locked on magazines. He took a seat near the window and approvingly observed the soft autumnal colour scheme of the room, the design and layout of the furniture, and even the obligatory potted plants. Everything seemed to have been chosen by someone with a genuinely sensitive eye and designed to put one at ease.

God, that last one was horrific! He thought, images of the harsh whites, sterile light blues, and hospital issue seats of the previous clinic stabbing his mind. At that time he and Martin had gone together, deciding to get tested together as a gesture of openness and a sign of their deepening relationship.

‘You know what this reminds me of?’ Martin had asked.

‘What’s that?’

‘Catholic confession,’ he announced, looking proud at the comparison.

‘I’m not sure I follow you. How exactly?’

‘Well, y’know, you’re supposed to go into a cramped little box, confess your “sins”, and the priest tells you to say “three hail Marys” and prays for your salvation, right? Only here the box is this grim place,’ he gestured with his head to the cold glare of the waiting room. ‘Where we’re supposed to think about our “sins”, right?

Only here we’re not anonymous…’

‘Yeah, like that bitch of a receptionist.’

‘Precisely. And it’ll be the same when we get our blood taken…and when we come back for the results. In the meantime, we should repent our sins and pray for our souls.’

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A door opened. A man came out and walked towards the exit. Geordie examined his face for jubilation or despair…but saw nothing. Was that bad? Surely he would be smiling if he was negative. Or maybe his relief was a more subdued one. It was hard to tell.

A doctor poked her head out and essayed a friendly smile: ‘Who’s next?’

Another man stood up and entered the room. Geordie shuddered, picked up a gossip magazine, and began flicking through it. A few idle moments passed and then he put it back on the table. He rubbed his face, stretched, turned to look out of the window, stood up and walked a few paces, sat back down, and rubbed his face again.

One minute: that’s all it would take this time. The time he and Martin had gone they had to wait weeks for the results. They collected the results together and Martin was called in first. It was agony for Geordie. Worries rampaged through his mind; wondering what facial expression to show when Martin came out, wondering if he would know before words were spoken, gauging his levels of consolation if Martin were to be positive, oh God! And then the pendulum of worry would dramatically swing to his own selfish concerns. They had been safe since they started seeing each other three months previously, so if Martin was positive it didn’t mean he would be…unless it was from an encounter before he and Martin met. There were a couple of times when he had been so wasted that at the time he didn’t care if he was safe or not. He had never worried about it though, believing that he wouldn’t catch anything. Until he met Martin. Until he found someone that made him want to stay around as long as possible.

Martin came out and Geordie instantly knew he was safe. They hugged, and Geordie went in. As he sat down, he scrutinised the doctor’s expression and wondered if she wore the same soft smile for both positive and negative results.

At the news, he shrieked with joy, leapt out of his seat, hugged the doctor, and ran out to hug Martin. They could barely keep from touching each other as they got the bus back to Geordie’s place where they had unprotected sex for the first time.

The door opened again. The man came out and rested against the wall, his head tilted back, his hands covering his face. The remaining man got up, went in, and the door closed. Geordie watched. A few seconds passed and the man uncovered his face, slowly lowered his head and saw Geordie watching him. He took a deep breath, nodded at Geordie, smiled, and left.

The man’s relief was palpable and yet it imparted to Geordie a glimpse of the abyss. Worry pierced him: what if he was positive? How would he explain it to Martin? The memory of how they lay together that afternoon after their test results, the fragile sun resting on their bodies and the smell of sweat had created a bubble

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of bliss he wished would last forever. That afternoon melted into an early evening where he cooked for Martin before making love once more.

He wished he could defy the laws of time and space, retreat back to that moment and then defy the laws of time and space again to spend eternity in those few hours. He cursed his own weakness: why had he got so drunk at the party? Why had he allowed the memories he had created with Martin to be stained by his folly?

Even if his test was negative again, should he tell Martin what had happened? How many confessions should someone have to make before they could be happy?

The door opened. He froze, not even caring to notice the expression on the man who left. The doctor gestured to Geordie with her friendly smile. He stood up and went in.

‘Just put your finger out for me,’ the doctor said.

‘You’re not going to use a needle?’

‘No need. With this new test we can just take a small sample from your finger and have the result in a jiffy.’

‘Wow.’ ‘Yeah. Knowledge is advancing every year. Just hold out your finger and…there we go.’ She wheeled her chair back a little and studied the device silently.

Geordie took the opportunity to look at her face: she was maybe in her late forties with smiling eyes which made her presence comforting despite her reticence.

He attributed it to the unenviable awkwardness of not knowing what to say to the people waiting with her for the minute which could reveal a death sentence.

His curious gaze continued until he saw her smiling eyes dim slightly. She turned to him and, as she calmly informed him of his options, he began to wonder if he was really so sinful.

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Repetition Ed Blundell When I was young, I swore that I Would not repeat the same old yarns.

Ask, “Have I told you this before?”

And then go on to tell the tale.

But sometimes now I think I do, I see it in my listeners’ eyes, That they have heard all this before.

I stop mid- sentence and ask, “Have I already told you this?”

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In Later Age Sylvia Christie

They used to be called bobbysoxers – The teenage ravers Chucking their knickers At the latest crooner, Explicit in their desires.

Now they have aged; Think twice about attending festivals, Watch them on TV, howling at the screen; Consult the local rag for gigs They’d once have travelled countrywide to see.

In later age, feelings intensify, Reverberate with subconscious memories And dreams recalled, now seen as almost true, Where might-have-been becomes a miracle Of possibilities fulfilled, of love Shown, welcomed and accepted.

So the smile Your mother smiles in her care home armchair Is for the night she spent with Ringo Starr, Or danced on stage with Springsteen, In dreams reality will never stain.

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For You Natalie Crick This month her depression began.

He obsessed her.

She tied her heart with ribbon like a present, Licking his fingers and kissing his feet.

Words failed her.

She breathed him in like a terrible secret, A childless woman beneath the ivory moon.

But what about his eyes, his eyes, his eyes.

Walking in the winter trees Were his shadows in the fog.

He was innocent as a lamb.

Sleep, my Angel, Deaf and dumb As the drugged summer sun.

My Love, I want you.

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The Uprising Tom Tolnay No one in this embattled old world seemed to have sufficient imaginative or intuitive powers to establish, unequivocally, precisely when, where and, especially, why it had started. Startled as everyone had been by this deeply disconcerting development, millions hurriedly, worriedly began speculating on its genesis. Once their quirky, often foolish suppositions had been invoked and exchanged, however, all that remained in the wake of this global soul-searching was a tenuous consensus that the uprising had not been the result of a well-planned, perfectly executed strategy at a particular time/place, but had combusted spontaneously, like a jar of gasolinesoaked rags, in and around human settlements of every class across the seven continents.

Theories were rampant, too, as to how the movement had managed to coordinate such a far-flung, multicultural commitment to stand together. At first, most imagined these activists had simply plugged into wireless social networks, but no one had reported seeing them carrying iPads, laptops, smartphones. Ultimately the masses came to believe, to varying degrees of credulity, the extraordinary solidarity being demonstrated–especially considering the condition of these extremists–had arisen not out of down-to-earth, strong-willed leadership so much as from an intrinsic, subterranean well-spring of spiritual vigor.

All that could be stated with certainty was what citizens saw happening in village graveyards, parishioners’ burial grounds, farmyard family plots, urban paupers’ unmarked resting hollows, and among rows and rows of white crosses in national cemeteries: mounds of interment soil yawned open, and the clammy bodies and flimsy souls of the dead were upheaving out of the clay and sand which hitherto had contained them quite securely, quite permanently.

Breathing citizens of all ages, status, temperaments, persuasions were shocked, sickened, terrified, hysterical: shrieking into cellphones, bellowing out of windows, pounding keyboards, blathering this ghastly news on street corners. Some brushed aside what they were hearing from family, friends, strangers, or were seeing on televisions, computers, in newspapers.

‘The dead cannot walk among the living!’ these skeptics argued vociferously.

But they were unable to continue rejecting these claims, for the dank figures had

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formed ranks in the aisles of their neighborhoods, and were reported far and wide to have begun marching in remarkably even formations into the byways of mankind.

Media coverage was so intense there wasn’t enough time or space for other news: global economic conditions, casualties from combat zones, national elections, local crime. Not even civilization’s wisest citizens: political scientists at think-tanks, university philosophers, gurus on mountaintops, were able to assign a credible raison-d’etre to this worldwide undertaking. Most troubling of all was that no one could agree on what should be done about the phenomenon.

Reportedly, the parade of death kept sweeping up new recruits from forlorn, unkempt burial-fields to marble mausoleums in well-tended parks, gathering inestimable numbers of followers as they flowed like great rivers along highways, avenues, main streets. The multitudes marched gravely, woefully, yet determinedly, becoming increasingly horrific to billions of living witnesses. Except for the muffled tramping of what was left of their feet, they advanced silently, the worms having gotten their tongues.

‘What do they want from us?’ was frequently heard in numerous languages, as civic leaders, military officers, members of congress and parliament, presidents, dictators, kings and queens stared with revulsion, irresolutely, at these processions– mostly from high windows or on interior glass screens, none of these officials wishing to rub elbows with these gruesome marchers. The stricken corps were mutilated, fragmentary, drifting along without legs or arms; some, it was observed with spine-chilling outcries, had lost their heads. Much like the shredded wrappings in which they’d been buried, the demonstrators were themselves in tatters, as if souls as well as bodies were subject to decomposition.

While these decrepit beings embodied enough substance to be observed by the living, they did not have sufficient physical presence to be slowed, detoured, or stopped by material obstacles, strutting through vehicles, brick walls, storefront windows as if it were their inalienable right. Police were powerless to arrest them!

Transportation on land, sea, and sky stalled, preventing grocers and butchers from restocking foodstuffs. Doctors refused to see patients; hospitals shut down. Brokers quit peddling life insurance. Teachers ceased teaching. Artists experienced brainfreeze. Worldwide, the media gave up reporting.

Responding at last to this mushrooming crisis, governing bodies–in freely elected nations as well as those ruled by dictators–amassed their military might to face the legions of dead on their own terrain. They rolled out aircraft, tanks, artillery, handed out grenades and rifles to citizens, planted roadside bombs. Since the enemy consisted essentially of porous matter, however, bullets/bombs had no effect on them, though some of this firepower passed through them and ripped out

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the hearts, brains, intestines of their living comrades-in-arms; collateral explosions scattered chunks of countless bystanders to the wind.

In the aftermath of this universally futile effort to halt their progress, civilians could be heard whimpering, ‘Please crawl back under the dirt and let us live out our lives!’ But though such pleas were shouted over loudspeakers, in fervent prayers, at emergency meetings, in blogs, the dead continued to march without losing a step, never needing to catch their breath, to take a drink of water, while fouling the very air the living needed to survive.

A breakthrough in comprehending this spectacle occurred when jobless journalists from both hemispheres made an important discovery. After touring cemeteries surrounding the cities in which they resided–recording dates chiseled into thousands of gravestones, clicking into historical websites, and emailing reporters they’d met abroad while covering assorted armed conflicts–they arrived at the conclusion that every one of the deceased marchers had lost his or her life in religious crusades, tribal clashes, civil wars, insurgencies, rebellions, border incursions, retaliatory strikes.

Though these journalists had mostly been raised under different political systems, espoused different cultural values, spoke different languages, prayed to different gods, they recognized they were united by a common denominator of human history. Unable to carry signs or shout slogans, the dead veterans had only their spear-pierced, sword-slashed, bayonet-jabbed, bullet-torn, shrapnel-laced, mortar-shattered, rocket-scorched bodies and souls to offer in protest.

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An Ancient Route James Bell

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the track is narrow allows for one traveller in one direction at a time though it is not one way provides a choice to travel one way or another that fifty-fifty chance flip of a coin to say where your dust blows dust settles in rain and you find shelter later flip a coin again

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