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ISSUE ONE

STAR GAZER

EDITOR’S NOTE I have to say, I think I might have been a little ambitious when it came to the notion that we could put a whole student made magazine together in a few weeks. For the sharp ones amongst you, you may recall that we originally intended to publish this in December. Cut to April (I am seriously hoping this has an April release… I fear I may have jinxed it now), and we’re still making final edits. It’s been a long road to getting this done, but along the way, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to actually create a magazine, and that it takes a lot more than just some ideas and opening up a pages file. Thank you to everyone who submitted - even if you didn’t make it into this one - thank you for taking an interest! We will be reopening submissions soon, and hopefully this next one will take less time … I hope you enjoy the work of all the writers who have contributed. They’re a talented bunch, and I’m very proud of them. Thank you so much for reading, Emmy

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 2. EDITOR’S NOTE 6. ODE TO SHORT STORY 7. CIRCLE OF LIFE 13. HERE ARE SOME SCOUSE WORDS 14. DING DONG 20. MAY(BE?) STREET 21. BANG SNAP 24. THE SPACE BETWEEN THEN & NOW 32. APPETITE 33. PISS & WANKERS 42. THAT STAR WHO LOOKS AT ME

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 43. COMETGAZING: THE COMET X STARGAZER 45. THE MADNESS OF BEING 49. THE ROCKET 50. COMING UP 51. MUCK 56. CHESTERFIELD 57. LITTLE ACT OF TERRORISM 61. FUCKING NEIGHBOURS 62. NAKED 64. BIRDS OF A FEATHER 72. CREDITS & THANK YOUS 5

ODE TO SHORT STORY The way they talk about short stories is almost rapturous, reverent. They close their eyes, raise heads and hands to the heavens and declare someone a fine practitioner, an elegant crafter, a purveyor of words, a connoisseur of the arts. I’m just a girl with a beer soaked pen and it makes my hands shake with the weight of it. What does it mean to be good at this? To be good at all? How is so subjective a form of expression elevated, exalted? One could claim convenience’s sake, if the person in question is particularly cynical. After all, it’s much easier to mark short pieces. But it spreads beyond that. I suﬀer from a need to complete (and compete), an incurable condition exacerbated by agonising self awareness. Tell me everything, and I will tell you even more. Ask me why, and I will return to you with more questions than answers. I say I understand now, but a part of me never will. I fill in the blanks myself, and if there are no answers, I will go looking.

EMMY HALLAHAN 6

CIRCLE OF LIFE When does life end? This may seem like a silly question to me and you when his heart stops and the doctor writes down the time of death, when he is taken away in a bag and put in a fridge, when the ink dries on the death certificate and his family begin to mourn. That is when life ends. Have you ever really thought about it though? How with CPR, a defibrillator, sheer dumb luck, we suddenly have the power to reverse death? A person can be resuscitated more than ten minutes after their body has died. Does that not tell you something? Does it not make you at least curious? For some- the Blake family, to be more specific- by no means does the death of the body equate to the death of the individual. It is either beautiful or repulsive, depending on how you look at it. Hear me out before you decide which. The Blake family wouldn’t do funerals as such, more a … moving on party, shall we say? I’m sure they had a name for it, but you’d have had to have asked them. They’d decorate their dining room with colourful banners and balloons, set out photos of the deceased, talk about fond memories they made with them. It’s like if funerals were meant to be happy, which is actually quite a lovely concept. It's going to get a little more divisive now. They’d butcher the body of their loved one. Carefully and delicately they’d slice flesh away from the bone, trimming away any patches of thick yellow fat- leaving just a little for flavour. They’d chop the body up into bite sized chunks and keep hold of everything else that can’t be eaten. The men would then spend hours in the kitchen (very 8

progressive, I know) stirring and seasoning and frying. They’d make different recipes, although I was told that traditionally they were to make a stew from the meat of the shin. Apparently the meat is more tender than any animal you’ve ever eaten- and it’s true what they say, would you believe? It really does taste like pork! I can appreciate that this is a lot to take in, it’s certainly a unique tradition, but the idea behind it really is quite nice. You see, the Blake family don’t believe in death. At all. The body dies of course it does, but that doesn’t mean that the person is dead too! Really, think about it. If I cut your leg off then your leg will die. It will rot and turn into fertiliser. That doesn’t mean you're dead, does it? Sure, they could use the flesh of the deceased as fertiliser, but in a way they already are. They nourish themselves instead of the soil. It doesn’t stop there though. Remember I said they keep hold of everything that can’t be eaten? Nothing would go to waste, not a scrap; the bones were fashioned into cutlery and utensils, teeth turned to jewellery, skin preserved and used as leather, hair woven into wool for blankets and scarves and jumpers. Because how can your loved one be dead when they still feed you every day, you show them off when you wear your new boots or necklace, they keep you warm on cold nights? This tradition is not for everyone, granted, but you must see the appeal. I know it’s macabre but I like what they were going for, they just went a little too far when it came to the execution. As I’ve said already, this was a family tradition. That was how it started anyway, how it was intended. Unfortunately the Blakes got a little carried away with it all, I think the taste of human flesh became a little too compelling, and for them to be around other people was all of a 9

sudden the equivalent of walking into a lion enclosure after drenching your clothes in meat juices. Bless them though, they didn’t even realise it themselves. This tradition was so sacred and beautiful for them that, for a while anyway, they genuinely thought they were helping people- guiding them on the path to eternal life. They had always been a charitable family, everyone in the town knew that. They were wealthy enough to make generous donations to their local hospice, and unfortunately this provided them with a way in. At the start of their descent into madness, it was pure luck that they weren’t caught. They stole the bodies of the hospice patients that they truly cared about and wanted to ‘save.’ Nobody caught on for a while why would anyone suspect the family that cared about these patients so much, and had donated a great deal of money, would do something as awful as to steal cadavers? It was all over the news for a while, stolen corpses, and everyone was worried about what the thief could possibly be doing with them. I would argue that in fact, they got off very lightly, as far as stolen bodies go. Through all this, you could still say that the Blakes were acting out of love, they just wanted to help people. After a while though, things changed. I guess human flesh can have quite an effect on a person in such high quantities. The hospice patients weren’t enough anymore, there’s only so many times you can steal someone in that sort of a place before fingers get pointed at you, so they started getting clever about it. Really, anyone can get away with a murder if they choose their victims properly. The Blakes knew this. They began targeting very specific groups of people; prostitutes, the homeless, drug addicts- vulnerable people who accepted their offer of help, people who they knew wouldn’t be missed. I 10

admit, at this point you do kind of have to accept that this isn’t just a tradition anymore. Eating so much human flesh did quite a number on the family, they were like addicts. I don’t know if that’s possible but truly that’s how it seemed: they began to subside on humans alone. However, because of the particular - shall we say - clientele they chose, this flesh was no longer nourishing them. It was poisoning them. They were constantly desperate for more and more. The ritual was no longer a priority to them, no love and thought went into the preparation of the meals, and now they ate everything- the liver, the intestines, the brain. The Blakes very quickly became quite unwell, they simply weren’t themselves anymore. Before they got into all this business it would have felt wrong to call them cannibals, even though that’s technically what they were, don’t you think? You couldn’t deny it now though. It was as though they were struck by a terrible curse. They weren’t of course, they just shouldn’t have eaten the brains, they did it to themselves. They were a sight for sore eyes to say the least, pale and skinny with brittle hair and dull eyes due to malnutrition. Their appearance was disturbing, but it wasn’t a patch on their laughs. Observing them felt as though you’d stepped straight into a nightmare. They would burst out laughing, completely maniacally and out of nowhere. It was awful. As things progressed they became incontinent, patches of their bodies starting to rot, and they eventually became completely unresponsive. All they could do in the end was lie in bed, laughing and decaying. They ended up in the same hospice that they donated to their whole lives, which was only to be expected really but there’s a sweet irony in there somewhere. They died, of course they did, but doesn’t it make you think? 11

I'd only ever thought about death before in the same way that you have until now. But dying in the same beds as the people they consumed to help them live a life after death? It worked, didn’t it? It isn’t the life I would choose, that’s for sure, but those people really did live on. I knew the Blakes quite well in the end. Naturally, they were caught for all these murders- when you contract a disease caught from eating human brains, a disease which hadn’t been seen for decades, the case of the missing bodies really solves itself. I had always known the family to a certain degree, I’m a hospice nurse, you see. I bet things are really adding up for you now. They’d always seemed like a perfectly kind and normal family, I even remember complimenting one of them on their beautiful woollen scarf, which they kindly gave to me. It’s such a lovely scarf, so soft and warm. It’s even more precious to me now than ever. They spent an awful lot of time at the hospice, and even sent me a card after my daughter’s accident. I thought a great deal of them. When the first of the family arrived at the hospice, the gig was already up for them. She was still of sound enough mind at this point to tell me more about their traditions, and to accept my thanks once more for the scarf she gave me those years ago. I told her how much it meant to me now. It was made from her aunt. I’d never met her but I feel so close to her. A lot of what I first learned about the family was from the news (it was kept relatively quiet, as with any scandal of this nature, so you may not know about it if you weren’t local) but I was lucky, I got to learn about things from their perspective. I think it’s beautiful. The police oﬃcer stationed outside her room told me that they caught the Blake son, he was found in a back alley chewing on still warm and quivering intestines with blood dripping down his chin. He told me as though he 12

was disgusted by this. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it must have been a shock for whoever found the poor sod, but it just breaks my heart that the little thing was so desperate. I think it’s my scarf. It isn’t just the eating part of this tradition that keeps these people alive, is it? She keeps me warm in cold winters, she’s a part of me. The family had always accepted me with such open arms, they were so kind to me and in the end, I really felt like one of them. I’m sure you can see where this is going now, but let me establish this first: I am not a killer, a cannibal, or mentally deranged. She gave her whole life to this beautiful tradition until it consumed her, and it just kills me to think that she won’t get to be a part of it. She died about an hour ago. I am the one to take her body to the morgue. I am going to pick her up, put her in the passenger seat of my car, put on her seatbelt, and drive her home with me. I will prepare a stew from her shins, adorn my dining room with decorations left over from my daughter’s last birthday- I'm grateful now that I couldn’t bear to throw them away, and I will eat her. I will then turn myself in to the police. I know well enough that this isn’t something I can get away with, but I want to do it for her. She deserves to be a part of this beautiful circle of life that she helped to create. I don’t suggest that you start digging up your family members to eat them- as I’ve said already, this isn’t for everyone. Just think about it though, would you not want to carry your lost family members with you? I only wish I could have done this for my own daughter, but it’s too late for her. It isn’t too late for Mrs Blake though, and it isn’t too late for your family. Open your heart to the universe, let yourself be saved.

ALICE GARDNER 13

HERE ARE SOME SCOUSE WORDS Jarg. Blag. Bizzies. Screff. Plod. Sprog. Hozzie. Meff. Scran. Boss. Aggy. Scrap. Geg. Johnnies. Kid. The Clap. Scruff. Shithouse. Gimp. Goblin. Coke. Lemo. Calling It In.

(Shit. Off Brand. Police. Meff. Police. Young’un. Hospital. Screff. Food. Great. Aggressive. Fight. Nosy. Condoms. Friend. STI Fright. Messy. Scared. Meek. Ugly. Cocaine. Cocaine. Cocaine.)

BILLIE DEEN-OWEN 14

DING DONG I caressed and fondled my phone like a sentient fidget spinner. A Karen and a soft-boi are fighting over toilet roll in the supermarket. A Ukrainian school is on fire and the soldiers are doing the floss. Chinless Men are advocating for female only cities. An AI journalist has been nominated for the Pulitzer prize. The toilets on the floor above ours remained without power and lights, since almost of the firms in building still worked from home. Not us lucky folk, we’d been back two weeks now, thanks to my boss Tony. ‘Doesn’t the commute just make you see sense in the morning?’ he said in the office car park, play-swinging his golf clubs at the windows of his mustard-yellow jeep. The commute to the office was in fact a moving tapestry of despair and deprivation. The homeless ambushed the traffic lights, trying to coax generosity through self-deprecating slogans written on fragments of cardboard boxes. And others, who looked slightly more to-do, used shabby looking shammies to wipe down the endless army of 4x4s, hoping for pity. Each new neighbourhood seemed a new gradient of despair for which I could only manage a sad an sympathetic stare. If only I could live permanently in the world inside my pocket – a world more carefully curated. In this world, in this dark cubicle, there was no permanence of satisfaction or trauma. A conveyor belt of images and news stories. On my lunch I chased the highs – or they chased me - all the way into the

dark corners of my little world. I was dependent and exposed half-naked to blue light, spending my lunches alone, and glued to my phone. I signed in into my doorbell, some six miles away. In the two weeks since installation, I started my break watching my wife walk eagerly to her car and speed oﬀ. Then I waited impatiently for an hour or so –motionless except for a twitching thumb—just to watch her slink back past the camera and into the house, looking worn out and used. Every day, just like clockwork. Instead of confronting her, I spent my afternoons fantasising about her excursions. Later, Karl, who sat at the desk across from mine, leaned over the clear plastic divider between us. ‘How’s your doorbell getting on, Marc?’ he asked. ‘My doorbell?’ ‘Yeah, the old girl gets a text when anyone in the neighbourhood gets one.’ ‘You have one too?’ he nodded. He came round closer to me, shoving his phone in my face. ‘Every single day, without fail, she sends me videos of the kids coming home from school,’ he said, ‘annoys the hell out of me.’ But then he looked sheepish, awkwardly locking his phone. ‘I know I’m lucky,’ he continued. I smiled courteously. ‘Mine doesn’t even know its recording,’ I said. He chuckled and so did I; hoping to fend oﬀ the encroaching melancholia. ‘Listen why don’t you and Marjorie join us for dinner sometime?’ he asked. ‘Sure.’ I knew we wouldn’t; we couldn’t. We’d only end up 16

reminiscing (as you did when you reached a certain age) about the primitive days in which we grew up. Remember dial-up? Or Ceefax? those were the days, we’d say. And inevitably, they’d ask about our how we were ‘getting on’ with the doorbell and my game would be up; the secret revealed. In any case, we were past the stage of faking happy families, we’d already failed in that regard. It was two years since we’d lost our son. Still-birth. We talked at times about getting a dog or a cat or even a hamster, but deep down we knew, we shouldn’t bring anything in to our creaking world. Our twenties came to their end in the dull afterglow of tragedy and independently we indulged in early onset midlife crises. She quit her job to start a charity and her initial but short lived enthusiasm birthed fantasies involving fundraisers with local celebrities, and she made futile attempts to involve me. ‘We could have Tony come; he’ll know a lot of people,’ she said once. ‘Sure.’ I said, twisting the skin on my arm, the genesis of my new catchphrase. Now, she stayed at home to work. Most mornings she complained of feeling tired or ill, and I doubted that much work was being done at all. I began to spend my weekends lost in one screen or another. Window shopping that turned into actual shopping. Payments made in three interest free instalments. Next day delivery. When my doorbell came, she put the oversized brown parcel down on my desk in the spare room and said nothing of it. When I set it up, I didn’t tell her that it wasn’t just a doorbell. 17

Sixty or days or so after installation (I wasn’t counting), I tuned in live from my usual spot. There was something increasingly different in her step: a rhythm of exhaustion and her hair looking thinner and her pale face more sullen. Wrestling with my conscience makes me tired too, I thought. But what if she’d had found out about the doorbell? I convinced myself that she’d found a remnant of the box or a trace of the pdf manual on my laptop. I started to panic. I wished these things still came with paper instructions like they used to—I could have simply burned them after setup. No forgetting to clear the recycle bin. No automatic back-up to the cloud. I began to vibrate nervously and paced around the stall. The throbbing sickness told me I had to get out of there but to where, I didn’t know. I’ll tell Tony I need the rest of the day off, I thought. ‘He’s on his lunch,’ his secretary told me. ‘Lunch?’ I asked. In all my years at the company, I had never known the man so much as take a piss, never mind a break. Since when did he need a secretary anyway? Even on holiday he answered his own calls. ‘Every day at one-thirty,’ she said ‘at least, since I started.’ ‘And when exactly was that?’ ‘Two months today, actually!’ She spoke with a naïve smile, clearly unaware that it mocked me. I glanced first at the time, 1.50. And then out the window. I saw that big yellow eyesore about half a mile down the street, heading out of town. ‘Can I take a mess—,’ she shouted, but I was already out the door. I stumbled down the stairs to the fire exit and flagged a black cab. Through the thick traffic I trailed the jeep to Tony’s house. The place 18

was an exercise in attempted lavishness but instead, it resembled a foundry car park –filled with gaudy Romanesque statues around a porcelain cherub themed fountain. I was disappointed by the lack of class in this affair. Where was the back-booth at the hotel bar? The white bathrobes and champagne on ice? The knowing wink from the worldweary concierge? Perhaps burn out was setting in. It’s probably like any relationship really. At first, you’re doing it on the couch, or in the kitchen, then it’s reserved only for the bed, and then before you know it, you’re not doing it at all. I thought for some time about turning back. I considered carrying on life as normal, in controlled cycles of indifference and indulgence. But the game was up. I crept round the side, thinking no-one around would hear me - for the place was huge and the neighbours were a maze of walls and gates away. The backdoor was open, and so I slipped in. I creeped carefully up the stairs, which creaked ever-so slightly. I could hear moaning coming from behind the only closed door to the landing. I pressed my ear against it, grimacing but having to pry myself from the cold wood. Three. Two. One. I stormed in. I briefly caught the sight of legs and arms akimbo, bodies wrestling through a ruffled mess of white linen. ‘Marc!’ Tony shouted, flipping on to his back and under the covers. Her head was hidden by the sheets, though one foot dangled out from the end of the bed. It had a dark brown birthmark on pale-pink skin, neither of which belonged to my wife. Time slowed and I reversed out of the room. I was distracted by a palpable craving and pulled out my 19

phone. Five missed calls from a withheld number and one notification from the doorbell app at 2:28. 15 minutes ago. Shit. MOTION ALERT: ACTIVITY RECORDED In my hypnosis, I played it. Marjorie dragged herself out of the car; she was holding a white paper bag with a green cross; she stumbled and retched at the pavement. Then she collapsed to her knees; she stared intently into the camera, and mouthed a word gently. Help. Before she fell further, motionless and silent. The scene remained still, and then the phone started to ring. ‘Mr Mallory?’ said the voice. ‘This is him.’ My ears fended oﬀ the shouting from inside the bedroom. ’Sir, you might want to be somewhere private for this.’

RORY LUCK 20

MAY(BE?) STREET

every day feels like a heart attack, all my friends are never around, all my friends live in different towns, maybe i should move to a different place, blast off in a second-hand spaceship, try my hand at an alien friendship, because lately my left face has been melting like ice cream, my words are dribbles when i scream, all i see are disasters on tv, on the 6 pm news and i’m praying on my knees at a wedding in the pews watching some girl i used to love in a dress with a dude that holds her like i wanted to, and they’ll kiss at “i do” and afterwards, i’ll walk home in the dark, find a wet bench to sit on alone in a park, spark up a light and burn it down to the butt, then reflect on my feet down May(be?) Street.

CALLUM CARRIE 21

BANG SNAP ‘This is a fucking pisstake, I hope you know,’ said Darren, bracing his arms across his chest. Darren, his son Andrew, and a few of his coworkers were huddled together on the roof, wind whipping the colour from their faces. It was the usual suspects from the oﬃce, a myriad of grey suits with equally grey expressions. Andrew clung to his father’s leg, his hands closed into fists, ‘Any terrorist threats must be treated with the utmost importance,’ said Anne from HR. She was squinting at a blue plastic clipboard. It had a crack in the bottom left corner. Darren thought Anne from HR was a huge bitch. ’Okay, but why are we on the roof?’ Darren insisted. Anne huﬀed, pointing at the clipboard as if it gave her some kind of authority. ‘Emergency Exit Q: Rooftop, is our nearest emergency exit,’ ‘Okay, yeah, fine, but what I’m saying is, if we are being 9/11-ed-‘ Anne looked up at him then, with a glare that made his bollocks shrivel back up inside him. ‘If this is terrorist activity,’ Darren mocked her tone of voice, ‘Then us being on the roof only serves to give us all hypothermia, it’s not going to protect us from an imaginary explosion, or shooting, or whatever the fuck you think this is,’ ‘We all heard the banging, Mr Hopely, there are safety procedures in place,’ ‘It’s November! Of course you’re going to hear explosions,’ 22

‘This is a government building, we cannot be too careful,’ ‘There’s literally fucking fireworks going oﬀ over there-‘ He pointed wildly. Brightly coloured embers could be seen fluttering through the sky in the near distance. ‘Hopely, if you continue to use that kind of language with me, I will have to issue you with a warning,’ He turned away at that, scratching at the back of his head with two fingers. Andrew whinged into Darren’s leg. ‘Anne, for the love of Christ,’ Darren indicated the eight-year-old clutching his thigh. It was Bob who spoke up this time, ’It’s been twenty minutes, how long can it possibly take to shoot up a building?’ This was surprising only in the fact that Darren had never heard Bob speak at all, in fact, he’d been certain that Bob couldn’t speak. Bob might not even be his real name. They might have all just made it up. Even Anne was too stunned to admonish him. She peered down at her watch, accentuating every wrinkle in her face with the expression she pulled. She shook her head. ‘Sod this,’ Said Darren, ‘I’m going in and getting shot.’ Darren began to move towards the doors, but Andrew, cemented to his leg, wasn’t letting him. ‘Andrew let go,’ he said. Andrew grasped tighter. ‘Let go,’ He said it through his teeth this time. ‘Fucking let go of me, Andrew!’ He attempted to pry his son’s arms away from him. 23

Anne observed them, a mixture of horror and amusement on her face. Darren could have sworn she jotted something down on the clipboard. Pop. There it was again, that sound that had sent them all outside in the first place. As Darren hoisted Andrew away from him, the sound could be heard again. One pop after another. Dozens of miniature explosions, oﬀ somewhere in the distance. Anne was looking at Andrew. So was Bob. Darren looked down at his son and it was only then he saw it. Andrew had a fistful of those tiny black pebbles in netting that you give to kids - bang snaps or something like that. The ones that explode when you throw them on the ground. ‘You are fucking with me right?’ His voice wavered as he said it. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. ‘Can we go inside now, Dad?’

DAVID NICHOLSON 24

THE SPACE BETWEEN THEN & NOW She’s looking at the baby clothes again. She tries not to every time she goes past, tries to avoid them on her way up to the fourth floor to have a nosy around the home section. She tries to walk past them, hurry onwards to her destination. Maybe she’ll get a candle or two, or a slightly gauche wall print that she’ll regret buying when she sees it sadly displayed in her flat. The last one she bought was pathetic - Live, Laugh, Love - hanging up on an otherwise empty wall, too small to even attempt to cover the Blu Tack stains from the previous tenant. She’d chucked it in the bin after. She’d felt bad about it and all, ashamed Greta Thunberg would look at her in disgust if she knew, but she didn’t think a charity shop would want it. People in need, she thought, deserved better than Primark. But here she is again. Work doesn’t start for a few more hours, and although she’d usually go and have a chat with whoever was on the open, sit and smoke in the pub garden and have a little catch up - she can’t face the idea of that today. She’s itching for a cigarette though. She catches the eye of a pregnant - heavily pregnant, by the look of her - woman, and smiles. An attempt to assuage her guilt. She hopes she can’t tell she’s craving a fag. It feels a bit insensitive, to someone who can’t smoke. Well, shouldn’t, at least. She shouldn’t really, either. The tiniest pair of dungarees she’s ever seen are right in front of her. She seriously doubts that a baby would even fit in them. Her cousin had a kid a few years ago, and when he was born he was a massive lump 25

already. This tiny, delicate pair - labelled for a newborn - would have never stretched over him. She picks them up, running a hand over the metal fasteners. They’re cool beneath her skin. Solid. Real. The woman next to her smiles, and she shoves them back on the rack immediately. Face burning. She turns her back on the woman, and makes her way briskly over to the home section. Might as well get what she actually came here for. On the way out, with a shitty candle in her pocket - allegedly comforting carnation, but it smells faintly of Parma Violets - and a photo frame in her bag, she goes past the kids’ section again. The dungarees are still there. Hanging. Waiting for someone to pick them up. She doesn’t know what makes her do it, but as she walks past, she grabs them, shoves them deep inside her bag. She picks up her pace, practically running down the stairs. She expects someone to shout after her. Nobody does. Surely, someone must have seen her. Nobody cares if you steal from Primark, she thought. They don’t pay their employees enough to give a shit. She still has time. She’s not exactly sure how much time, but if her maths is right, and what she vaguely remembers from year eleven sex ed is still accurate, she’s got some time. She hasn’t told anyone yet. Why would she? It’s her own fucking business. She doesn’t owe shit to anyone. She knows the process. Knows what to do, where to make an appointment. Even knows what happens, roughly, at least. She’d just wanted to ignore it, that’s all. To live in blissful ignorance for a little longer. To live in the before, pretending the after wasn’t looming in the distance, a terrible shadow. 26

Now though, she has to head to work. She’s never enjoyed her time at the bar, and the customers today seem worse than usual. There’s nothing wrong with your pint, you entitled bastard. The time passes slowly, and then all at once. For an hour or so, it feels like the clock entirely stops. Then it’s over, and she’s done. No more pints to pull or cocktails to pour. She doesn’t drink after. Just in case. She has a fag though, sitting on the kitchen steps. Her mum smoked with her, and her nan smoked with her mum, and she turned out alright. She doesn’t know why she cares. It’s not like she’s keeping it - she could snort a fuckload of cocaine right now, and it wouldn’t fucking matter. The end goal is the same. The thought almost makes her giddy, in a sick way. She doesn’t want it -she’s never wanted kids, let alone now when she couldn’t even if she wanted to. She can barely handle her own shit. Her long list of absolute shit. Shitty studio flat, shitty minimum wage job, shitty - not even a boyfriend, a fucking situationship. She hates that word. She’s not told him. She doesn’t want to. He’s the one who’s adamant they’re not really together. He reminds her every time he doesn’t want to meet at hers for once, or even get a drink at a bar because god fucking forbid he treats her like a person rather than a means to an end. Maybe she’s being too harsh on him. It’s not like she’s ever asked him for more than he’s given her. But, maybe he should know. Maybe he should be the one to ask if she’s even okay with all this shit. Maybe she can’t expect him to read her mind. Maybe she just needs to give up on men for now. That, or find one of those horribly earnest, sweaty behind the ears guys. The kind who’s a bit too close to his mum. Works in his dad’s mate’s small oﬃce in his home town. Somehow gets enough money to put down a deposit on a 27

house before he’s even twenty-five years old, because he’s living in the depths of nowhere. That last part is usually with the help of his high school girlfriend. The one he’s inexplicably been with since he was fourteen. So, on second thought, it might be hard to find one of those lads unless they’ve had an early divorce. And they are lads too, fucking pint of darkfruits, screaming at the footie, cheeky Nando’s, shouting ‘wahey’ kind of lads. But this man would make her miserable with his empty headedness. She’d make him miserable too. With her always wanting more, and emotions he just couldn’t understand. She’d never be happy driving Aiden-slash-Brayden-slashHayden-slash-Jayden and his little sister Ava-Alexa-Lily-Daisy-Mae, or whatever to fucking football or ballet or school. Spending the portion of her life that’s not spent cleaning up after them sitting in coffee shops. Her only company the girls who peaked in secondary school. The ones who have identically named offspring. What do they even do all day? Some of them have jobs, allegedly. They can’t all have the specific kind of jobs that allow them to sit in Starbucks every day with their endless fucking skinny caramel fucking macchiatos. Maybe it’s the coffee shops that pay them to take up tables. To keep undesirables out. It doesn’t make any logical sense. She enjoys the thought nonetheless. She’s in the grip of paranoia, scrolling on her phone before bed. Does Mark Zuckerberg fucking know? She’s been on her Instagram explore page for all of two fucking seconds. The first thing she sees is a reel of some woman, who calls herself namingwithnadia. She’s listing what 28

she calls the ‘absolute most adorable names’. She can’t help but watch. There’s some of the usual suspects on there, but by the end of the video it’s completely derailed. Adorabelle, Zephyr, Gracelynn, Phineas. Who the fuck is calling their kid Antoinette? Might as well call her Beheaded. Bea for short. She shouldn’t be trusted with that shit. She’d call a child something stupid for a laugh - although that’s all the rage anyway these days. Maybe it’s stupider to call your kid like, John or Emma. Emma for a boy, John for a girl, obviously. Just for kicks. She wonders if it’s a boy or a girl. Not that it matters, like, she totally doesn’t care. Besides, whatever it is might not turn out to be that. Like, it’s all bullshit anyway. Throw the whole fucking concept away. Good for them, if they are, anyway. Not that they will be, because they won’t be here. Calling it they instead of it freaks her out. Back to it, it is. She asks herself, not for the first time, how many before and afters are there before you’re in the after? There was before this, and there’ll be after this. But there’s before what comes next, and after that. All the intersecting before and afters. Before she’d moved here, after she’d left home. Before this job, but after the last one. After what comes next, but before whatever happens because of it. There’s three kinds of these now. Before it, before she knew, and before she sorts it. After it, after she knew, and after whatever she does about it. She’s not sure how many Venn diagrams that is, and for a moment she’s seized by the urge to draw it all out, to categorise who she was and is in each moment - to see if it means she can answer the question of who she’ll be. She’s never been a list person, an organised person. She doesn’t even know if she’s got a working pen, paper, whatever. She’s not exactly 29

going to scrawl it on kitchen roll with some eyeliner, Life, she thinks, is an overlapping series of circles. Before, but after, but before, but after, and god knows what’s after that, or before the next after. Neither before nor after make any sense to her anymore. They’re just sounds, letters, jumbled nonsense. She books the appointment. It’s easier than she thought it might be, and she muses on where this before and after falls. She decides that before is everything up until she gets on the bus. After is the journey, too. The journey is part of it all. It’s like when they all knew her nan had died before they even got in the car to drive Up North (her mum had always said it like it had capital letters, so she did too). They all knew, but nobody would say it. Saying it makes it real. But not saying it, somehow made the journey part of it. It was like once she got in the car, once she buckled her seatbelt and her mum turned the key, then - and only then her nan was dead and she’d be in the after labelled ‘after nan dies’. The bus journey is different to any she’s ever been on before. Even the furry texture of the seats feels wrong. Harsher under her skin. Like she can feel every fibre individually pricking at her thighs. She regrets wearing shorts. For more reasons than one, actually. Will they think she’s a slag if she shows up in shorts? It’s thirty fucking degrees outside, so there wasn’t much choice. Not unless she wanted to sweat her arse off in jeans - jeans she’d be taking off anyway, and then what if she left sweat stains on the chair or whatever? The summer heat is thick and heavy. She wishes, not for the first time, that the windows on the bus opened. She spots a car, driving 30

parallel, a golden lab hanging out of the window. Her tongue’s flopping out of her mouth, spilling over. The speed of the car is whipping her fur around, blonde strands in the breeze. She wishes she was a golden lab, or even one of those ugly fluffy white little dogs that look like they’ve got shit in their eyes. She wouldn’t have to do anything. No responsibilities, just go on a walk and sleep and eat and shit and repeat. Dogs don’t have to deal with stuff either. If a dog gets knocked up, the owners just sell the puppies and everyone moves on. She questions, though, do the mothers miss their puppies? It’s not like they can speak. They just wake up one day and their kids are gone. The more she thinks about it, the weirder it feels. Poor dogs. The car is way out of sight now, but she hopes the dog never loses her puppies that way. If she even is a girl. She’s not an idiot. She knows the same thing happens to some people. Which is fucked up. She’s lucky, really. She doesn’t feel it. But she thinks about it, and feels a bit guilty. Not guilty that she’s getting rid of it. Fuck that. She feels bad for the people who don’t get a choice, who get forced one way or another, and then those who lose their kids to dodgy adoptions, or trafficking, or whatever. She’d seen an infographic thread about it. It’s fucked, really. Like, it wasn’t even legal for her nan to abort her mum. She wonders if she would have done. If she’d had the choice. Cut the family line off generations ago. Not like she can ask her and all, but she knows she wasn’t married. Her mum never knew her dad. They didn’t talk about it. Not back in the day. She’s not really sure why she’s trying to justify it to herself. Oh, look how lucky you are to live in a country where you can get it sorted for free, and without punishment, and all of that shit. Lucky. It was a fucking 31

accident, a mistake. It should be a basic human right. She hates how preachy saying that sounds. And how apparently it’s such an issue to some people, but she doesn’t care. She shouldn’t feel guilty. She doesn’t want to be oh so fucking grateful that some bastard old men gave her the right to do something with her own fucking body. Whatever. She doesn’t get into politics much. She doesn’t need to justify it. That’s the key concept. Something she remembers reading at some point. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, it’s the choice that matters. It’s not far. She booked one a bit further away. Like, second or third option. She just doesn’t want to run into anyone she knows. Not because she cares. God, no. She just doesn’t want to have that conversation. Like, what the fuck do you even say? You can’t ‘hi girlie’ your way out of that one. There’s not long left now. Not on the journey, anyway. She looked up how long the whole process would take earlier. Somehow both more and less time than she’d thought. She stretches her legs as she gets oﬀ the bus. The sun is basking in its midday glory. Someone’s laundry is gently flapping in the breeze. The familiar sharpness of lemon bleach stings her nostrils, just a little. But in a good way. It makes her feel clean. There’ll be an after to this. There’s a finality hanging over the day, in the shadow of the trees. It’s quiet outside the clinic. Nobody’s there. Ghost street. It’s over. Once she goes inside, a before ends, and an after begins. A new after. She pushes the door open.

EMMY HALLAHAN 32

APPETITE

I’ve been cooking up parts of me to serve you on a plate. I spend all day carving: slivers and chunks, muscle and sinew. The skillet spits pieces both raw and charred; the recipe is complex and there’s no space left for the discarded dishes – cuts crusted with charcoal, others pink and pulsing. I slash at my thighs, strip the flesh, assemble it: a sculpture in the pan. The skin shrinks and wrinkles, a crisp golden coat; it sizzles, oil spluttering with a hiss like a creature cornered. I serve me up with jigsaw hands, laid bare on the kitchen table where you shred me between your teeth.

ELLIS DAVID 33

PISS AND WANKERS They say life moves fast in the heart of Carlisle but does it fucking shite. It’s the same old dusty bollocks day in day out. Wake up, scran the dry, tasteless corn flakes your mam made you that morning, then fuck oﬀ out the door to join every other wanker aimlessly patrolling the city centre. Our mate Frankie Bean always says, “it’s an absolute pisstake, there’s fuck all to do” but what does twenty-year-old Frankie know? Frankie’s just another one of those smackhead junkies who waits half an hour for admission into Twisted Wheel, only so he can wait another thirty-something minutes queuing for another kind of line in the gents. Several of them at that. So, fuck what Frankie says, Frankie just crashed the fucking car. The car didn’t belong to us, it belonged to Fiver’s mum’s boyfriend and every time Fiver wanted to borrow it, he had to pay the cunt fifty quid. It was one of those Peugeot 405s, a red one, and due to Frankie’s irritating obsession with leaning over from the back seat to turn the radio to full blast, the 405 now had a large tree-shaped dent on the driver’s side of the bonnet and a missing wheel. I stood watching Fiver chase Frankie around the 405 from the grubby payphone we conveniently crashed next to – the only bloody payphone on Warwick Road – as I dialled the number of our employer. ‘Freya, it’s Chess,’ I said, shitting bricks, ‘we’ve got a problem.’ Freya was a Swedish woman around her mid-thirties with fuck all patience and a propensity for kicking the crap out of wankers who wronged her, and up until now, we’d done jack shit to upset her. 34

‘Did you get my product?’ she asked. I could make out the sound of her lighter sparking up and the singeing of her cigarette on the other side of the line under the sound of my mates arguing. ‘Is that Fiver shouting?’ ‘No, we didn’t get to the meeting on time.’ ‘What’s Fiver saying, Chess?’ Wincing, I pulled the phone away from my ear and held it out. ‘I’m gonna break your fucking fingers, Frankie!’ Fiver screamed, banging his fists on the poor car, ‘then I’m gonna fucking kill you!’ I put the phone back to my ear. ‘People in this business like you, Chess.’ she explained, ‘You’ve never disappointed me. I’ll give you a chance to make this right. I don’t care how you do it, just get my sixteen grand by the end of the week.’ A tsunami of relief hit me. ‘Cheers…’ Freya interrupted, ‘If you don’t, I’ll feed you to the bitch alive. Bollocks first.’ The payphone went dead. After breaking up the lads’ fight, we went to Turf Tavern. It was a shitty little pub surrounded by torn-up roads, empty car parks, and it had this distinct pub smell of beer-drenched carpet mixed with old smoky wood surfaces. It’s not a great pub – the pints are piss, the prices are wank, and all but one bar lass is over middle age – but it’s our pub and we can get away with pretty much anything here because Frankie’s aunt’s brother owns it.

‘Sixteen thousand pounds in four days, you two are buggered.’ Frankie said, choosing to forget it was all his fault as he carelessly gulped his fourth cider. ‘Do you know what Freya does to wankers in our position, Frankie?’ I asked quietly, leaning in towards the table, ‘she covers your gob with duct tape so the neighbours can’t hear your screaming as she cuts your toes oﬀ, one by one, with pruning shears.’ Fiver leaned in as well. ‘All fuckin’ dick of ‘em, and while yan fella holds ya down, Freya uses the barrel end of a two-two rifle to force them up ya arse. Pulls trigger, nighty night to the poor fucker.’ ‘I’ve got a grand in my savings,’ Frankie blurted, clearly panicking. ‘Same,’ I said, looking at Fiver. ‘How’ve you lot only got a grand when I’ve got three?’ ‘Because he’s a junkie, and it’s always my bloody round!’ The clinking of glasses interrupted us. Collecting our empty pints was Mary, one of the bar lasses. She wasn’t originally from Carlisle. I guess she was lucky in that regard, she was an Edinburgh lass with a smile like sin and a strong scent of cigarette perfume. You could tell she didn’t enjoy working for Frankie’s aunt’s brother. He was a bit of a dozy cunt to be fair – Frankie’s words, not mine, Actually, you could tell that she really hated working for him, but money’s money at the end of the day. Mary didn’t seem to get along with the other bar lasses, probably due to the age diﬀerence. When she was on her break, Mary usually went outside for a quick smoke. At least, she had when Fiver, Frankie and I left Turf Tavern. 36

‘Can I pinch a fag?’ I asked. The lads hadn’t noticed I’d stopped walking. ‘You don’t smoke, Chess.” ‘Aye, suppose I don’t,’ I said, but she passed the one she was smoking to me anyway, ‘Couldn’t ask you for a favour, could I?’ ‘As long as you take me for a nice roast on Sunday,’ she joked, ‘What you after?’ ‘The lads wrote the car off today and we need a lift from The Griffin tomorrow,’ I explained. ‘What time?’ ‘Around 3 o’clock.’ ‘Alright, I’ll wait outside the station.’ Fiver had finally noticed I was gone. ‘Chess, hurry the fuck up, we’ve got shit to do!’ ‘Keep your fucking cock on, I’m coming!’ I took a final drag of Mary’s fag then passed it back. ‘You’re a star, Mary, see you then.’ It didn’t take me long to catch up to the lads. ‘What’s the plan then, Chess?’ Frankie asked. ‘You still have your grandad’s shotgun?’ I asked Fiver. ‘Yeah, it’s somewhere. Why?’ Ordinary wankers screamed as we ran out The Griffin doors onto the street with a black bag of money and dusty old shotgun, wearing rubber Arnold Schwarzenegger masks. It didn’t take us too long to find Mary in her silver three-door Opel Kadett. We sprinted through the minefield of cars. As I opened the passenger side door, Mary began slapping my face. 37

‘It’s me, you daft cunt.’ I hissed, tugging the mask just enough for her to see. After the lads faffed around climbing into the back seat, I got in and we were off. We couldn’t hear the horneys yet, even whilst we drove down Botchergate – the road notorious for horneys hanging about – and then London Road. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, robbing a bloody pub and dragging me into it?’ she slapped me once more, ‘and take those fucking things off your heads, you look like sexual predators.’ It wasn’t until passing over the River Petteril that three armed unit vans shot past, blinking light and all. We kept driving down London Road until we stopped at a crossroad junction. I directed her to Freya’s house – 129 Warwick Road, not too far from the 405 crash. She didn’t say anything, she just did it. I got out onto the road and let the lads out. Mary hadn’t spoken for a while. The car was still running. I expected her to put her foot down and get the fuck away from us, but instead, she got out and grabbed the bag from Frankie. ‘Chester Gardener, you’re so lucky you have a forgivable face.’ We started walking around the house, then barged through a white wooden door that was always wedged shut. Down a grubby little alleyway into an equally grubby smoking yard, then into the house by the back door. I’d done it maybe a thousand times before and I hoped I’d still be doing it a thousand times more, at least. Once we were inside, the atmosphere changed – no more fucking around, all business. On the left was another wooden door, and behind it was the basement stairs. I pulled the door open, walked down the 38

echoing steps, and then through another door. The basement was surrounded by white brick walls, and it was cold. Freya and Klas – her muscle-head second cousin or something – were standing over a body with its bare arse on show. Frankie’s jaw dropped. The cunt’s face said it all, the “I think I’m about to shit myself” look. Klas strolled over. ‘Chester-mate, it’s good to see you,’ he whispered, ‘I put in a good word for you, you know because you’re like a second cousin to me.’ ‘Cheers, mate. Appreciate it.’ He stepped aside. I took the bag from a hesitant Mary and placed it on a small wooden table in the middle of the room. ‘Haven’t counted it yet but there’s a fuck ton of cash in there.’ I said, nervously. Freya said nothing, she just counted. ‘Everything alright? Need some help counting?’ Frankie asked. His face was met with a swift knock-out punch from Klas. Freya didn’t keep him around because they were family after all. I’d never seen Fiver shit himself that badly before but if he was scared, what the fuck was Mary? I think only I could notice that her hands were clenched, and she was trying to slow her breathing without drawing attention to herself. I, for one, thanked God. It was Frankie who got us into this mess and thanks to his tendency of not shutting his gob, he was seeing more than just some stars on the floor. ‘This is eight grand. Where’s the other eight, Chess?’ ‘That’s all we’ve got, Freya, personal funds and all.’ Freya turned to grab the two-two rifle sitting in the corner as she waved her hand at Klas. ‘Start with the girl.’ 39

Klas grabbed Mary’s arm, dragging her across the basement. Fiver and I knew we couldn’t do anything. ‘I can get you eight grand by this time tomorrow!’ Mary’s voice echoed. Klas stopped. ‘I can, swear to God,’ she repeated, ‘there’s a safe, in Turf Tavern where I work, in the oﬃce.’ Freya considered it for a moment. ‘I don’t care how you do it, just do it!’ The Opel Kadett tires screeched to a halt outside the Turf Tavern. It was around midnight, but a couple of lights were still on. Mary hopped out of the car first and went in. She’d suggested going in on her own, pretending she left her house keys, wallet, or something to check how many wankers were still inside before the rest of us came in. ‘Masks on, safety oﬀ.’ I said. ‘Fucking hurts, Chess,’ Frankie was poking and prodding his nose, ‘think it’s broken.’ ‘Good!’ Fiver said, yanking Frankie’s Arnold mask over his face. A gunshot sounded. We bolted through the doors and stood there altogether like daft cunts wondering what to do next. It was eerily quiet for a moment; all I could hear was our heavy breathing under the masks until a bald head popped up between the bar pumps. ‘Get out my fucking pub!’ My head snapped in the direction of the voice just as a shot was fired. I dove onto the grubby carpet flooring, pulling Fiver and Frankie with me. More shots sounded from another room, I assumed it was Mary 40

and some nobody staff member taking potshots at each other, but I was more focused on finding some kind of cover for me and the boys. I scrambled to my feet and sprinted to a booth with enough cover for us all – even with Frankie’s lanky legs. ‘Quickly, while Stevie Wonder reloads!’ I could still hear shots in another direction and then two more, one right after the other, closer. I peeked my head out just enough to see the horror on the floor. Frankie’s head was enveloped in a puddle of blood, his face mangled and splattered all over Fiver. I stared at Frankie for a heavy minute – I knew Fiver was doing the same – before a bloody scream snapped me back to reality. I fell from the sticky booth seats onto the floor again. Fiver started gasping for air, his chest expanding out and deflating rapidly. I pulled off my mask. I couldn’t see from all the sweat in my eyes. I couldn’t breathe that rubber smell anymore. ‘You fuckers killed Paul!’ I got a whiff of something burning before hearing the smash of a bottle. Flames burst onto the wall near my only living mate and spread like stepped-in shit on the pavement. I was too distracted to notice Fiver on his feet, white as a sheet, just standing there clutching his mask with his pistol next to chunks of Frankie’s face. The fire had spread to patches of the beer-drenched carpet. Bang. A cold wave ran from the pit of my stomach to the ends of my fingers and toes, I felt breathless and empty, faint, and disorientated. Stood frozen pointing the rusted barrel of a shotgun against Fiver’s lower back, the middle-aged woman screamed once again – probably horrified at the reality of her situation. I jumped to my feet, raising my pistol at the cunt. I’d never used a pistol before, but I figured how hard could it be. I 41

only had six rounds; the dull silver pistol only held that many anyway. I began firing, the recoil smacking my hands upwards each time until the bangs were only clicks and I realised the wanker was still standing. The bitch fumbled to reload the shotgun as I panicked. I ran over to Fiver, who had fallen beside a patch of flaming carpet, to see if he was still breathing. ‘Alright mate,’ I said, clutching my dying mate in my arms, ‘how we doing?’ My eyes were stinging – probably from the smoke – almost all the seating area was now on fire. The fucker faﬃng with the shotgun still hadn’t figured out how to reload yet, I knew once she had that was it for us, but I kept my eyes on Fiver and smiled. Fiver wasn’t dead yet, but he definitely wasn’t living another five minutes. Finally, I heard that dreadful sound. The cocking sound of a shitty old shotgun wielded by a shitty old twat, then a gun fired. As I looked towards the sound, Fiver’s last breath sprayed blood onto my face. I saw Mary, holding the bag I assumed had the money, pointing her pistol where the woman who’d dropped to the ground had been. ‘Come on, Chess!’ I could finally hear the horneys on their way, probably threearmed unit vans, but I wouldn’t let go of Fiver. ‘Leave him, Chess. He’s fucking dead!’ I just held him tight and bawled my eyes out. Mary raised the gun to my face. I stared at the barrel.

CALLUM CARRIE 42