UCLan Noted Magazine May 2017

May 2017

NOTED

UCLan Literary Magazine

"A library is where books live for so much longer."

Illustrator and author

Chris Riddell

on libraries and writing.

Interviews

with UCLan Vice Chancellor Mike Thomas and Literature and Creative Writing staff and students

Literature. Creative Writing. Studying. Editing. Publishing.

Selection of submitted short stories and poetry.

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Our Experience.

Undertaking this project has been one of the most interesting and varied processes I’ve ever been a part of. Since starting university in 2014, I’ve wanted to produce something with my peer group to demonstrate our collective enthusiasm and talent. For me, this magazine represents the best of what our little corner of the campus offers; the creative minds, visionaries and passion that emanates from each of us.

We began this journey together back in September 2016 in a conference room in Harrington Building and we end it with the publication that you see now. Every member of our team has put their personal touch to the magazine whether it be in their articles, creative work or design and have all done a fantastic job. I’m overwhelmed by the great response to our creative writing and essay competitions and the calibre of work that we present to you here.

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us through this process; all of the Literature Live students on the other projects this year, the wider Language, Literature and Creative Writing student body and faculty, and to Dr Helen Day for being an indispensable guiding light and support.

- Ellie Sutcliffe, Editor-in-Chief.

Contents

Meet the Team..................................................................4 Writers of Preston.............................................................6 Poem: Before the Fall........................................................8 Interview: Dr. Helen Day..................................................9 A Journey of Self Discovery...............................................10 Interview: Prof. Alan Rice.................................................14 Short Story: Escape...........................................................15 So, What’s Next? Postgraduate Study and Careers............17 Poem: Fire Eaters..............................................................22 Interview: Dr Naomi Kruger.............................................23 Sharing Identities: The Refugee Poetry Project.................25 Cover Interview: Chris Riddell.........................................26 Diversity of Publishing – What’s the fuss?........................30 Short Story: Wait for a Moment.......................................32 The Live Literature Room.................................................34 Interview: Nick Turner......................................................36 Why Libraries Matter to Me............................................37 How to Become a Published Author in Five Days............38 How to be a Writer at UCLan..........................................40 Short Story: The Toaster....................................................42 Poem: Damnatio Memoriae..............................................46 Interview: Prof. Will Kaufman..........................................47 To Last or Not to Last......................................................48 Short Story: The Life and Death of a Spider.....................50 How in Seven Hells Do You Edit a Manuscript?..............52 Interview: Vice Chancellor Mike Thomas.........................54 Interview: Dr. Robin Purves..............................................58 Interview: Dr. Robert Duggan..........................................59 Short Story: Vacuity..........................................................60 Interview: Dr. Janice Wardle.............................................64 Poem: Concrete.................................................................65 Free Writing – The Art of Letting Go..............................66 Straight Lace.....................................................................68 Short Story: Tempest in a Teapot......................................70 The Writing Adaptations Module.....................................72 Short Story: Yellow............................................................74 Poem:From Self- Made Portraits to Lunchtime Aesthetics................................................................77

Contents

Competition Submissions

Poetry I Wanna Make Words With You by Amy Lee Tempest.....78 The Vanishing Girls by Fern Charlotte Keely......................79 Running by Michael Holloway............................................80 Walking Wounded by Hazel Partington.............................81 Free Verse by Fern Charlotte Keely.....................................82 My Brain Hurts by Irene Susan Flack.................................83 Bill’s Job by Irene Susan Flack.............................................83 Carnevale di Convalida by Bethany Harris.........................84 That Place by Jasmine Geddes.............................................85 The Binge by Jasmine Geddes.............................................85 Para by Jasmine Geddes......................................................85 A Time to Cast Stones by Michael Holloway.....................86 Dreams of Flying by Michael Holloway..............................87 Storm by Tracey Ackrell......................................................88 It was Our Love that Destroyed Everything

By Sofia Shakeel.....................................................89 The City by Keiran Nutall...................................................90 Two Kinks in the Night by Keiran Nutall...........................91 Prose Last Charge of the Silver Cossacks by Jack Ebbrell............93 Price by Archie Stones........................................................96 Peaches by Amy Lee Tempest.............................................101 Dogs on the Beach by Michael Holloway...........................103 Epiphany in Arcadia by Kawa Adiyaman-Campbell..........106 The Journey by Tracey Ackrell.............................................110 Descent by Paul Macleod....................................................113 The Book by Michael Holloway..........................................117 Thompson and I by Jasmine Geddes...................................120 What If We Were Spontaneous? by Zahrah Iqbal..............121 Two of The Same Whole by Matthew Jesuthasan..............122 The Girl by Anjulee Bharath...............................................126 Counselling by Fern Charlotte Keely..................................128 The Demon Builder by Lucy Wright..................................131

Cover art by Lisa Ryan Magazine produced by Jenna M. Abbott.

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Meet the Team.

Ellie Sutcliffe

Ellie is a mature student who has been studying at UCLan for three years. An avid lover of storytelling, she has a passion for the new and old - from classic Jane Austen to Terry Pratchett. Her specific interests include transmedia storytelling, fantasy and sci fi and any kind of story that explores the human condition. She’s been involved in a number of organisations across the university, having chaired the Writer’s Society from 2014-2015, a regular writer for Pulse Newspaper and a committee member for the UCLan Book Club.

Andrew Pirie

Andrew is in his second year at UCLan, studying English Literature & Creative Writing. Despite the stress and the deadlines, put simply: he loves it. He is excelling in both disciplines of his degree but is a little too humble to brag about it. He was completely aware of the irony when writing that sentence. He wrote his first poem at 6 years old (which was promptly torn apart and thrown in the bin, lest anyone read it). University has instilled a love of poetry and a “first-draft” frame of mind which now means he rips up a lot less of what he writes. He primarily enjoys focusing on emotion and human connection in his work and is excited to explore any topic he can. With influences spanning from F Scott Fitzgerald to Neil Gaiman, to be predictable would be an achievement. This passion and excitement is to be put to good use when he takes the role of chair of Writers’ Society.

Amy Davies

Amy is a second-year English Literature and Creative Writing student at UCLan. Currently heading for her third year, she plans to further explore stream of consciousness in contemporary fiction for her dissertation. Having spent most of her time outside university writing creative non-fiction, Amy has spent her first two years at UCLAN experimenting with poetic language in fiction, and has a new-found love for writing realism for Young Adults.

Charlie Winstanley

Commonly sighted in Aldi purchasing an abnormal amount of organic grass fed sirloin steak, Charlie is a 2 nd year English Literature and Creative Writing student, local bin man and competitive dog groomer with an unstoppable passion for writing. His writing style was once described by Martin Amis as ‘a combination of monstrously bestial narration and savagely repulsive humour, complimented by a fearless and unethically authentic representation of inter-gender relationships.’ His writing primarily focusses on the traumas, transformations and cold veracities of the male psychology. Typically, the narrators of his fiction are relentlessly narcissistic borderline psychopaths, with a vigorous obsession for unobtainable women and curiously unusual hobbies like neo expressionist soap carving. His major influences are the Kardashians, Paris Hilton and Sauron, who have taught him the importance of not taking life too seriously and the imperative objective to take over the world.

Jenna M. Abbott

Jenna is in her second year at UCLan studying English Literature and Creative Writing. Her process involves free writing while listening to instrumental music and film and video game soundtracks such as ‘Life of Pi’, ‘Amelie’ and ‘Ori and the Blind Forest’. She prefers to free-write poetry and experimental prose and tends to explore sexuality, conflicting themes such as guilt and desire and the concept of ‘bittersweet’. Her influences include poets Frank O’Hara and Allan Ginsberg, musicians Aurora Aksnes and Tegan and Sara Quin, graphic novelist Jeff Lemire, and novelists J.D Salinger and Patrick Rothfuss. She aspires to teach Creative Writing at the University of Central Lancashire and wishes to publish collections of her poetry and short stories.

Jamie Douglas

From his first experience of reading his now go-to favourite book at the age of eight, Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, he has since developed a passion for words and their many wonderful combinations. He finds such delight in the poetic Daphne du Maurier to the terrorising Adam Nevill. His interests vary from horror to thriller to the literary with no real desires other than well-told stories that draw him in. Because of this he could have up to ten different books being read simultaneously. In his own writing, he explores concepts of identity and family through Sci-Fi and Horror. A staple of his writing is children and the world seen through their eyes as a way of exposing truths, no matter how terrible. Other interests include: Video-Gaming, Film/TV consumption, and worrying about bookshelf space.

Natalie Kelly

Natalie was writing and reading at a young age and having always loved it joined the university doing and English degree. Reading mostly fantasy, she also enjoys mixing it up with classics, horror, romance and other genres just to keep it interesting. Her favourite book would be Perfume: The story of a murderer by Patrick Suskind. And including most of Suskind’s small amount of work, mostly for his good use of description and use of the senses that transport you into the story. In her own writing, Natalie also incorporates the senses but really likes to experiment and play with viewpoints and exaggerations to make her stories have an impact. Other Interests Include: Archery, Scrapbooking and Photography

Christopher Oakes 66

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Chris studies English literature and creative writing BA, and would choose to say he prefers the creative writing more. He really enjoys pushing his own work and seeing where he can take it. Chris also loves to read fantasy, especially epic fantasy and usually reads about one book a week depending on other commitments. His dream job is to be a freelance writer with a focus on video game writing, another passion of his.

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Natalie Kelly

Writers of Preston.

Angela Brazil

Born: Preston, 1868 November 30th Died: Coventry, 1947 March 13th (aged 78) Angela Brazil started to write at about the age of ten and published a magazine with her close friend. The magazine included riddles, poems and short stories. Her serious writing started in her 30’s, with her first schoolgirl book being The Fortunes of Philippa, first published in 1906. However, her first published children’s novel was A Terrible Tomboy in 1904.

Brazil’s most famous works include her schoolgirl stories. She is considered to be one of the first to write modern schoolgirl stories, most of which are set at a boarding school.

Her books were widely popular and continued to be until the 1960’s, being read by tween and teen girls. Her books in some cases were banned in certain schools in Britain, as they were believed to have had bad influences on girls’ moral standards.

She moved to Coventry in 1911 where she became well known locally, and often threw parties for adults with many female guests, here children’s games and food were featured. She also often threw parties for children, although she had no children of her own, nor did she marry.

Joseph Delaney

Born: Preston 1945, July 25th Delaney started out as an apprentice engineer and fitter, having grown up in Preston. He then gave this up and instead went to university in Lancaster in 1972. Before then he did his A levels at night school, and after having graduated, he became an English teacher at Blackpool Sixth Form College.

During his teaching there, he helped set up the media and film studies department, adding to the college. He is also available for school, library, and event appearances too. Originally, he published his writing under a pseudonym, J.K. Haderack.

His work includes, The Starblade Chronicles and more famously, The Wardstone Chronicles. These books are aimed at the younger generation and have been sold in over twenty countries. The Wardstone Chronicles also have many spin off books such as The Ghost Prison.

The Wardstone Chronicles span into an imaginary world based on Lancashire, and many of the names are tweaked versions of real places. Priestown - Preston, Caster – Lancaster, Black Pool - Blackpool. The stories, which span several books, follow Tom Ward, the seventh son of a seventh son, as he learns to battle all types of monsters. The plotline develops with each book, and soon we see whether Tom will save or destroy the world.

A J Hartley

Born: Preston 1964, August 17th After completing an undergraduate degree, Hartley travelled to Japan to teach English for two years, later he travelled Asia before moving to America. While in the United States, at Boston University, he completed a Masters and Doctoral Degree in English Literature.

He taught nine years at University of West Georgia, and was the resident dramaturg of the Georgia Shakespeare group. He has since gone on to become a professor of Shakespeare for the department of theatre at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

He is incredibly interested in history, having studied Egyptology in Manchester, and many of his thriller/mysteries show this, especially with the cultural aspects.

He has written for children, YA, and adults, along with a small amount of historical fiction and a selection of academic books, such as The Shakespeare Dramaturg: A Theoretical and Practical Guide.

His children’s books are for the middle grading and exist as a trilogy, The Arkwright Saga. Then there is his young adult series, Hawthorn Saga.

His historical fiction books have been written with another person, for example Macbeth: A Novel was written with David Hewson, and was also narrated for an audiobook by Alan Cumming.

James Hebblethwaite

Born: Preston 1857, September 22nd Died: Tasmania 1921, September 13th Growing up in Preston, James Hebblethwaite’s family were fairly well off, however later suffered devastating financial losses. He educated himself by gaining scholarships, attending St John’s College in Battersea, and left going into teaching becoming the headmaster of the school board, and a lecturer in English at the Harris Institute in Preston.

Having immigrated to Tasmania for health reasons, he joined the staff of the Friends’ School, Hobart, where in 1896 Verses was published. Other works he published in Tasmania included A Rose of Regret, Meadow and Bush, Castle Hill and New Poems.

He is described as a charming man who worked hard as a parish clergyman, while still finding time to write his lyrical poems. And although born in Preston, he is often considered an Australian poet. He married twice and had one son.

Nick Park

Born: Preston 1958, December 6th (Age 58) While growing up with four siblings, Nick Park always had an interest in drawing. When he was about 13 he made his own mini films using a movie camera, with help from his mother. He used to use cotton bobbins in them. He also often sent inventions and crafts in to Blue Peter.

Nick Park worked on his first film, A Grand Day Out, when he was studying at the National Film and Television School. This film, which he wrote, directed, and animated, won him a BAFTA. The film, the first of his Wallace and Gromit series, was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film, but lost to another film also by Nick Park, Creature Comforts.

His old English teacher encouraged him to continue to write and make films, although he says that Wallace’s character is not based on him. Park is also a fan of the Beano comic, and in August 2008 he guest-edited the 70th anniversary.

Francis Thompson

Born: Preston 1859, December 16th Died: London 1907, November 13th Francis Thompson originally trained to be a doctor, studying medicine at Owens College. He never followed this career after his studies, moving to London instead to be a writer. Thompson struggled to find any work and fell into poverty until found by Merrie England, after submitting some poetry to the magazine.

Thompson’s most famous poem is The Hound of Heaven, published in his first volumes of poetry in 1893. It is a Christian poem that became much more well-known posthumously.

J.R.R. Tolkien presented a paper on Thompson’s work and has stated that it was a big influence on his own work.

Due to Thompson’s surgical training and proximity, in 1999 it was suggested that he may have been the infamous killer, Jack the Ripper.

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Before The Fall Andrew Pirie

And suddenly I catch his amber flash, swimming through shades of brown.

He always shows himself this time of year. When the trees spill their palms As if in surrender - the leaves flutter like cares - forgotten thoughts on the wind.

I always thought it backward that trees lose their layers to greet the cold.

My friend slithers onward and stretches his stare to meet me.

He tells me that the amber of last year is long since lost; He is lighter now in colour and in movement.

Through the slick beating of his forked tongue I learn Autumn’s secret.

The old infects us. Stagnates us. And this season holds the cure.

We can’t spring into new spirits without washing the wrongs from our scarred selves.

The trees shed their leaves like my friend sheds his skin They rid themselves of the past so they can start anew again.

And suddenly it dawns on me that I can be renewed If only I could shed, like leaves, the reverie brought on by you.

Jamie Douglas

Interview with Dr. Helen Day So, Dr Helen Day, what is your field of research?

My field of research, at the moment, is unreliable narration in Young Adult fiction which is about narrators who are not telling you the truth about what is happening, either because they can’t face the truth themselves or because they are deliberately lying to you – trying to cover up something. I didn’t think there was a lot past adult fiction, like Lolita, and [The] Catcher in the Rye – which a lot of teenagers read. But there seems to be a growing number of Young Adult books where there is this unreliable narration. And even a few where the narrator tells you at the beginning that they are lying to you, which causes all kinds of other problems because, are they telling the truth about the fact that they are lying to you? So it kind of gets your head in a bit of a mess.

What do you teach in the university?

Hey, I’m very lucky that I get to teach the things that I want to teach. So I teach the Live Literature Projects which means that every year I come up with a set of projects that involve Literature and Creative Writing in the local community which might be the university or schools or libraries, and then I just get to see what the students do with it. I was absolutely terrified the first year that I did it because I had no idea whether things were going to work or not and now I’ve realised that actually it doesn’t completely matter if they don’t completely work. It’s about what you learn about them. And also that I can’t keep a tight rein over everything because then it becomes about what I want and not about what the students want. So I’m a lot more relaxed about them now than I was.

I also teach the group sessions on the dissertation and I was the one who introduced the dissertation conference. The first year we had it we had lots of people writing in saying that they didn’t want to do it because they were too stressed about it and they learnt a lot from presentations anyway so they didn’t see why they needed to do it. And so I was really proud when at the end of the day not a single person said anything negative – they all said that they were really proud of themselves, that they learnt a lot, and they’d also learnt a lot from each other; they kept saying, you know, “I never knew so-and-so was doing that” and “Oh, they’ve just given me an idea for something that I can do.” So, yeah, I think it’s a really good experience.

I also teach ‘The Fairy Tale’, ‘British Children’s Literature’, ‘Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults’, and ‘Creative Writing Science-Fiction and Fantasy’ which I developed because so many students wanted to do science-fiction and fantasy and there wasn’t a separate way for them to do that. So I decided… (she didn’t finish the sentence. But she implied, through shrugging, that she knew she could try to do it for them, which she did).

Just in general, what are your interests outside of the university? Like books or subjects.

Okay. I read every day, at least twice a day. And I listen audiobooks in between buildings, and from my house until I get to my office at work. So I have constant streams of narrative. So, yeah, it is an addiction, and I can’t stand silence without narrative.

But I read lots of Children’s Literature, lots of YA, but also lots of Literary Fiction, and Science-Fiction and Fantasy, some Crime, so I will try and read anything.

I like TV a lot. Don’t think there’s anything wrong with TV. I like building Lego. And that’s about it. I don’t really have that much time for anything else. I spend a lot of time on Book Discovery, so that’s looking at Publishers Weekly and Lovereading to find out what the next books are that are going to come out so I can keep an enormous list. So, yeah, I do that a lot so I can keep up with the trends.

If you could teach any module, without any restrictions – whether it’s budget-wise or room for the module – what would you teach, and why?

That’s really difficult because I teach what I want to teach. ‘The Fairy Tale’ and ‘British Children’s Literature’ were existing modules that somebody retired, and I basically went, “They’re mine.” And I have changed them a bit, to fit them in with what my interests are, but they did exist before.

The ‘Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults’ and the ‘[Creative Writing] Science-Fiction and Fantasy’ were me just deciding that that was just what I wanted to do. And I designed them completely myself.

So they are what I would like to do.

If it wasn’t in literature, and I had a different career, I’m really fascinated with what happens in your brain, and a lot of the psychology experiments. And I also really like Natural History; and I’ve often thought it would be quite nice to be a researcher in the Natural History Museum.

But it doesn’t pay, and I don’t live in London.

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Literature and Creative Writing - A Journey of Self-Discovery.

Ellie Sutcliffe

Since starting this degree I have become accustomed to hearing the following questions: So, what are you going to do after you graduate? Teacher? Librarian? Writing isn’t a real career - what are you going to do for a job?

It’s a common misconception that a Literature and Creative Writing degree is not necessary any more. With more and more vocational degrees available, there’s the opinion and fear that an academia-based study is just not worth the fees. However, a study in Literature can lead you to many career paths that you might not even realise and open your mind and world up to new possibilities and ideas.

One of the advantages of a Literature degree is that, as a non-vocational subject, it is accepted over a very wide range of jobs. You’d be pushed to find a workplace that doesn’t have someone with a literature background.

Why Literature?

A degree in Literature helps students to develop a number of skills that they can carry onto their working lives.

The most obvious is reading skills. Literature students read - a lot! The sheer amount of books, short stories, poems, journal articles and essays you need to read in order to produce good academic work shouldn’t be taken lightly, but luckily a common trait shared by students is a love of reading. Students will develop close-reading skills in order to notice aspects of a text that you might not normally see in reading for pleasure. That close attention to detail is hugely useful in a number of jobs across the board - from office based admin work to editorial and an ability to read between the lines develops you in ways you wouldn’t even consider.

You’ll learn how to organise yourself, to plan and research in preparation for your assignments, and written projects which is very useful! One thing many students not only struggle with, but actively avoid, is the task of getting themselves organised to give themselves plenty of time to put their essays and assignments together. Organisation skills sometimes take many years to hone, but working on a degree certainly lets you become more aware of them, and in some cases awakens a deep seated organisational powerhouse inside you. It’s helpful to learn your own routine (or lack of ) when it comes to your work. What’s most important though, is learning how you like to work and and method that works best for you. Assignments are often a case of trial and error; you can try a method of research and writing that works really well for one type of essay, then find that doing the same thing for another essay might not fit, so you learn to adapt your skills to what it is that you’re writing. Some people like to spread their work out and do it a piece at a time. Some thrive on ‘pantsing’ their work (fly by the seat of your pants) and submit their work closer to or on the deadline. Even pantsing is useful because it encourages you to think quickly and creatively to solve problems.

If you are the bookish writerly type then you probably have a picture of yourself working snugly in a quiet office space without much need to communicate. Wrong! Whether or not you want to nurture your introverted side you will need to communicate effectively. Within your degree you’ll undertake presentation projects, workshops and seminars where you’ll discuss, explain and debate to excess.

Students often come from a variety of different backgrounds and interests - from A Levels to a return to education, and many alumni are amazed at the change they’ve experienced throughout the degree process.

Some go from a very clear idea of what they want to do when they have graduated, whilst some decide on the way. Others find that they have completely changed their career trajectory by the time they’ve finished.

Amy Lee Tempest - Second Year Student.

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So, tell me a little about yourself. Why did you choose Literature/Creative Writing?

I was a weird kid who read the Bronte Sisters, asked for a typewriter for Christmas, and played at being a librarian so I suppose studying literature and creative writing was always on the cards! I applied for the course after A levels but never made it because life decided to take me on an interesting detour. By the time I arrived at uni I was 28. I had to do it because the nagging curiosity about the subjects never left.

What’s been the biggest surprise since starting this course? Was the course what you expected or has it changed your viewpoint since starting?

The biggest surprise has been how much hard work is involved! People laugh when I say this but, I honestly thought university was going to be a nice, easy break from the working world. I thought my days would be spent lounging around coffee shops reading. Whilst there is lot of that, I also spend a lot of late nights heavily caffeinated chasing deadlines. But hard work is good, it means it matters! It challenges me in a fun way I wasn’t getting before.

I’m also surprised by the variety of texts and modules studied. It is not all dusty, old English classics. I’ve studied contemporary and world literature too. I’ve read things I probably would never have come across on my own.

Also, I’ve surprised myself in creative writing.

Being encouraged to try different forms and genres has meant I’ve experimented and found things I enjoy that I’d never considered trying before like writing for drama and performance – I would never have guessed I’d like that!

What career do you want to go into after graduating?

Has this changed since you started uni?

I would like to be a professional student please. Failing that I’d like to do something around therapeutic writing in the community. I’ve previously worked and trained as a counsellor and would love to blend the two areas together somehow. But having been exposed to different opportunities through uni such as an internship, writing and publishing events etc. I’m staying open minded about where I

land after this. And dare I say the unsayable…being a published writer would be nice too!

Are you considering postgraduate education? What do you want to do?

I’d love to go into post-graduate education (depending on the funding situation). Going into social work or therapies seemed to be the obvious choice for me but now I’m not sure. The course has opened up more possibilities than I expected.

What would you say the advantages of taking literature/ creative writers are compared to other subjects?

Aside from all the career possibilities, I think both subjects offer a lot of personal development. It helps you become a more confident communicator being able to write analytically and creatively plus discuss ideas with people. The subjects work well together so that you can apply creativity to literature essays, and you can apply an analytical mind to your own creative writing. You get the best of both worlds.

There’s a lot of room in both subjects to inject a lot of ‘you’ into your work – so if you have a particular interest in certain periods, genres or perspectives you can choose modules to fit around that and research into those areas. There’s a lot of freedom and choice.

And you’re going to fall in love with writers you never heard of, write things you’re proud of and spend your days reading and writing – how good is that?

Amy would also like to add: The tutors in this department are all approachable and have been a huge support at times I was unwell (and threatening to leave to pursue a career in strawberry picking because I didn’t think I could do the degree).

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Katie-Lauren Finn - Third Year Student.

So, tell me a little about yourself. Why did you choose Literature/Creative Writing?

Choosing what course to study was quite difficult for me. I was 19 and still had no idea what I wanted to do in life. My decision was made for me when I was looking at university course options and my mum happened to say to me “Katie, you’ve always loved books. Why don’t you do books?” It seemed so obvious to me then. I always wanted to work in publishing but never thought I could. I found a university close to home that offered a Publishing Masters and applied for their undergraduate English Literature and Creative Writing course.

What’s been the biggest surprise since starting this course? Was the course what you expected or has it changed your viewpoint since starting?

The biggest surprise for me was how many books I’d never read. I loved books before uni and had a whole room full of them but doing a Literature degree has introduced me to so many books I never knew existed. I’ve found that I adore Love’s Labour’s Lost even though I don’t like Shakespeare and I love A Christmas Carol even though I don’t particularly like Dickens. I have learned how to read books differently and get more out of them. I’ve also learned that everything I thought I knew about writing was rubbish and I have developed into a more confident writer - something I’ll be forever grateful for.

What career do you want to go into after graduating? Has this changed since you started uni?

I hope after my Bachelor’s degree to do a Master’s in Publishing. I’ve read the books and I got accepted onto a Penguin Random House Publishing Workshop - I try to be as prepared as possible. I wanted to work in Editorial but since taking part in the Literature Projects in my second year and the PRH Publishing Workshop I now know that a Marketing role is my passion. As long as I get to work with books, I’ll be happy.

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What would you say the advantages of taking literature/cw are compared to other subjects?

When I was applying for University I was told not to apply for English Lit AND Creative Writing because it would have been too much for me. I ignored this and I’m glad I did because now I get to study literature as well as better my own writing. I think the advantages, for me, are that I already loved reading and writing so in a way it’s like getting a degree in my hobby. Of course exams and assignments aren’t always fun, but the topics I get to learn about make up for it. I’ve learned so much about literature before that I was ignorant of and it’s opened my eyes to a world of literature I didn’t know existed.

Since at UCLan what have you done that you can add on your CV? I’ve been involved in lots of things from being a Student Ambassador to being a Course Rep. From taking the lead last year in the Literature Room events to becoming an editor of the university newspaper, The Pulse. What I’m most proud of however, is founding my own society. With the help of three of my literature friends and Dan, my other half, we’ve managed to create ‘UCLan Book Club’. Being the chair of a society is a huge responsibility, and whilst we’ve had a slow start, I’m looking forward to what this semester will bring.

Ian Fyles - Former Student.

Tell me a little about yourself. Why did you choose Literature/Creative Writing?

I’ve been interested in writing stories since my early thirties and attended a number of Creative Writing courses at my local college. I then decided to take it a step further and apply for a place at university. After being accepted and completing the foundation year, I enrolled on a Combined Honours B.A. degree in Creative Writing/History and majored in Creative Writing. The reason I chose to major in Creative Writing was because that was the main reason I came to university, to learn more about the subject I was interested in and it would also keep me writing stories.

Was the course what you expected or has it changed your viewpoint since starting?

Part of the course was what I expected, but a variety of modules and subjects changed my viewpoint. One example was being undecided which subject to take between English Literature and History. I felt English Literature would be a more suitable blend with Creative Writing for my B.A. Combined (Hons.)

Degree. However, Professor Mike Abramson who was head of year zero suggested I take History. He explained that several best-selling authors had made a small fortune by writing historical fiction novels and I now find that I tend to automatically include history in my writing.

What would you say the advantages of taking Literature/CW are compared to other subjects?

I don’t know about Literature as I didn’t take that subject. But I think with Creative Writing you get the chance to write some of the essay/stories of your own choice, rather than being told what to write about.

Were there any challenges you faced during the degree? What were they and how did you overcome them?

There were plenty of challenges I had to face. The university seems to operate in a world of its own. It has its own terminologies for one thing. So I made a point of researching everything university orientated, it almost became another subject on its own, but I found it very interesting. One of the biggest challenges was writing essays in the academic style, of which I hadn’t a clue. So I took myself off to the mentor-

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ing group and I was paired up with someone in my own age group who had just graduated with a B.A. in English Language and with his help and also the tutors, I overcame this problem.

What have you done since graduating? Are you still writing or have you gone on to postgraduate study.

I went on to postgraduate study. I was in the first wave of students to enrol on the M.A. Writing for Children course at Uclan. It was the only university in the North of England who were covering this subject at the time and as I had written a children’s story for my B.A. dissertation, it was too good an opportunity to miss! I am still writing. I’ve written several articles in the local newspapers on archaeological digs I’ve been involved with and I’m writing a children’s historical serial in a local magazine in my hometown. I’m also writing a children’s story about evacuee children during the Second World War who are evacuated to the countryside and by some quirk of fate meet up in a time warp with some druid children with magical powers and between them manage to put an end to the war.

What advice would you give current and prospective students as they go through their undergraduate journey?

Stick at it! This is a golden opportunity in your life you have of obtaining decent qualifications to hopefully set you up in a decent career and earn enough money to enjoy a good quality of life and whatever you do. Never, ever, ever, give up on your dreams!!!

The university lecturers and tutors will help all they can with your problems. Be it personal or study orientated. There are also different departments who can help, e.g. mentoring, finance, The Students Union. They are all there to help. Don’t be afraid to ask and above all enjoy your time at university, Good Luck!

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Andrew Pirie

Interview with Prof. Alan Rice Alan Rice is a Lecturer at UCLan who specialises in literature surrounding the slave trade and the Black Atlantic. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Institute for Black Atlantic Research (IBAR).

Can you tell us about your background and current research?

I come out of an English Literature background, my first degree was in English Literature and History. I’ve become a specialist in Black-American/Black-English literature, in particular. I’ve always done it in an interdisciplinary context. So I also write about Art, Music and film. So, at the moment I’m writing a lot about art. Contemporary Black British art. I do lots of work as part of the Institute for Black Atlantic Research, which looks at a vast variety of different cultural texts to investigate the ways in which slavery and its consequences have affected our society.

What drew you to this area of research?

I think it’s a really important historical event, well it’s much bigger than an event, historical tragedy. And I was very influenced by it and trying to think about the ways in which we can make amends for that. And one of the ways to make amends for slavery to an extent is through art.

Is there any lecture or text that is your favourite to teach?

I do a dramatic tableau of the slave trade, for which I have characters that move around a virtual map of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and I really enjoy doing that. It opens student’s minds to the way in which slavery worked. And the other thing I love to do is, I teach Beloved

by Toni Morrison at least once every year. I love navigating students through that difficult text.

Since you look at texts across different medias, what do you think of the presentation of slavery in recent movies?

I think it’s great that it’s in the popular media, and the explosion of interest in slavery in all

the media has been very positive. It does bring its problems; people make wrong assumptions based on something they’ve seen in the media but that’s far outweighed by the fact that the information is getting out there.

Is there a book you always find yourself going back to?

I always go back to Fredrick Douglass’ memoir (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave) which is a wonderful text.

I particularly love the way in which he talks about not being a writer in one breath and in the next breath writes the most amazing sentence. So he’s someone who learnt to read and write in opposition to a culture which banned blacks from reading and writing, and became one of the best writers of the 19th Century.

Escape.

Christopher Oakes

It was another day like so many others for John; tied to the chair, awaiting his tormentors to return. There was no way to tell the passing of time, save for the bond on his left wrist which he had worked more and more lose.

All that was available to him was to slowly manoeuvre the strap until his hand was free. Maybe today would be the day he finally got free. There was no way to tell, and nothing he could do even if he did know. The process was nearly as bad as the torture itself, the uncertainty, the fear that his one single hope could be dashed at any moment. A snap, and his wrist is free. John lies still for a moment, unable to believe that his efforts have paid off. Surely this is just another trick? No one enters the room, he is safe for the moment. John quickly reaches to the knives on the tray beside him, using it to cut his remaining bonds. In seconds, he is free. Wasting no time, he goes to the single door in the room. A hurried glance reveals no one is nearby, so he leaves, intent on finding freedom.

He races down the corridor, left, right, right again. The air was damp and chill, his breath misting in front of his eyes. No caution in his stride, feet slapping against the floor, masking the sound of his blood dripping from his bruised and broken body. Blood as red as the sweet cherry lips of his first kiss, cool grass beneath his feet, damp with crisp morning dew. Bruises as blue as the salty sea, not a cloud in the sky, an ice-cream in one hand, a spade in the other. John shakes his head hard, forcing those memories back into the chest of his mind, locking the key and refocusing on the task at hand.

Keep following the pipes, get to the control room, and get out. He knows how close he is to breaking, spilling lose all his secrets and letting the pain rule him. Doors and signs blur past, but it doesn’t matter as they are filled with alien symbols and strange characters. A junction, pipes leading both ways, a quick decision is needed. He charges left, racing even faster now, his heart sinking for a moment until he crushes the self doubt. A difficult task, for months of blades, fire and acid have damaged more than just his scarred, twisted body.

Right again, down another dimly lit hallway, doors either side yet no windows, no easy way out of the complex.

Images flash before his eyes unbidden, a woman sat in the shade under a tree, the wind tussling hair long hair.

A newborn, squinting from the newly seen light, yet looking still, curious about the world. A group of men, crowded round a table, drinks in hand and not a care in their heart. Another, firmer shake of the head, the end is getting near.

He hears footsteps pounding on the floor ahead, giving him just a moment to dart into a room off to the side. John pushes the door shut quickly, leaving it open just a crack to watch those who hunt him. Through the thin slit in the door, he only catches a glance of grey as the bodies flicker past. The danger passed for the moment, John examines the room, finding it filled with a wall of screens, a monitoring room. A place to rest, at least for a few minutes, anyone coming near will show up. John slides down the wall to sit on the floor, facing the screens. He breathes deeply, letting his pulse settle, planning his next move. The screens give him a clue to the layout of the complex, but he can’t find a path leading to an exit. Time for plan B, yet he can’t find the strength within to move. Not just yet, surely he’s allowed five minutes rest?

John checks the monitors again and notices movement, someone is coming. He stands and moves behind the opening door. He holds his breath, ears straining for any noise that would give him away. He wishes he could still his heart as well, for surely they can hear it hammering so loudly? John waited for them to leave, gripping tightly the blade in his hand, the blade that had won his temporary freedom. Will he have to take another life?

Then he remembers that his decision ‘plan B’, as if one life here or there matters now. Laughter bubbles up and tries to escape, but he holds it at bay. He knows now madness is close, the madness that was his only rescue from the pain inflicted upon him. Pain inflicted by the man who now stood within arm’s reach, and his makeshift knife rises unbidden. He knows exactly how to kill silently, the years of training ensured that he would be skilled in murder. Even now, with his life on the line, faces flash before his eyes unbidden. Faces of those he’s killed, every one of them as fresh as the day they died. Those who were killed quickly and quietly, a poison in their

15

food, those taken brutally and harsh, a fight with either sides life on the line. Some are even blank, a shot from a distance, never questioning his orders, just another person added to the long list of names on his file.

The visions fade and John finds himself in an empty room. He curses his momentary lapse, which was what got him caught in the first place. He needs to remain focused, now he is so close to the end. Another check of the monitors reveals that he is once again safe for the time being. No more time for resting however, he sees that the route to his destination is clear for now. John waits just a few more seconds, letting his heart settle, then dives back into the corridor and continues his run. He runs straight for a little and is then faced with an intersection. Following the path he mapped out, he goes left and John is confronted with a great double door, steel and thick. A test of the cold, chrome handle reveals it’s unlocked.

He opens the door and walks through, into a blessedly empty room. The lights are dimmed, most of the illumination coming from an array of consoles with blinking, flashing lights. Bright as the sparkle in Anna’s eyes, containing a profound kindness and an endless love. John takes a step forward, stumbling a little, then takes another and another. The decision made, he looks over the controls in front of him and presses the triangular green one to the side. The intercom squawks to life.

“Self destruct initiated. 10.....9.....”

He ignores the voice and walks forward, reaching the far wall.

“8.....7.....”

He presses his palm against the window that dominates it.

“6.....5.....”

His breath frosts the glass, yet he can still see outside.

“4.....3.....”

One last look, a small smile of relief pulls his lips, his journey over.

“2.....1.....”

“Goodbye” he sighs, gazing out upon.....

“Zero”

So, What’s Next? Postgraduate Study and Careers Ellie Sutcliffe

As you go into your third year you might be thinking about what you want to do after you graduate. Many students go on to do Masters degrees, which will enhance your skills possibly springboard you into the career of your choice. At UCLAN there are several postgraduate options that you can consider, depending on your career choice.

Here’s just a few of the popular careers that you might consider and just some of the postgraduate options you could choose.

Writing Many students who choose this degree want to write in some form or another. The good news is that there are so many ways to utilise your writing skills!

Writers feature in all manner of job roles - from advertising, PR and marketing to writing product descriptions for catalogues. Many creative writing students dream of becoming published authors, but the sad fact is that so few authors make a decent living. On average, a writer’s salary alone ranges from £11k - £14k per annum, so most writers tend to do something else as their ‘bread-and-butter’ work and write freelance.

It’s usually the case that writing in all its forms becomes a parallel career alongside your salaried job.

Many writers freelance as bloggers and article writers in addition to following that all-consuming dream of becoming a published author.

Being a freelancer can become a highly rewarding career. Having a good level of self-motivation and organisation skills is essential as you will be taking care of your own work; that means networking, sourcing and planning your time effectively enough that you can make it worthwhile. However, it also means that as a self-employed person you can work your hours around your life commitments, which can be hugely attractive for people with families.

If you run a search on some of the larger online job databases - particularly Guardian Jobs and Indeed, there some freelance opportunities available. You can also try dedicated sites like Freelancer.com and Guru.com, which offers lots of writing jobs available on an ad-hoc basis.

If you are thinking about writing as a career, and especially freelance work, look out for lectures by careers advisor Kath Houston. Kath works as a freelancer and careers advisor at UCLAN and Lancaster Universities and has written numerous books on careers. Also, drop by the Northern Lights suite on the fourth floor of the Media Factory at UCLAN. Northern Lights offers tailored support to students wishing to start their own business from workshops to one-to-one help and advice. They also run regular networking events to help you get your name out there.

For more information visit http://www.uclan.ac.uk/northern_lights/

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Teaching and Academia Although, for many an essay writer, research is a tough and arduous task, some students enjoy the prospect of expanding their specialism through a career in research. Students can opt to take an MRes (Masters by Research) after graduating and then often apply for researching funding for their PhD. The MRes offered at UCLan is an independent project. Much like your dissertation, you choose the subject you wish to research and propose it to your supervisory team. It’s helpful to ask yourself which teachers have inspired you the most during your BA and what subject really ignites your passion. If accepted you’ll be allocated a team of three supervisors who you’ll meet on a monthly basis to update your progress and help you refine your thesis. You’ll begin by setting the parameters of your research in a 3-4 page proposal during the initial 3 month period. You’ll also include a substantial bibliography from your initial research. After the initial 3 months you’ll submit your proposal for committee approval. You can take an MRes as full time over one year or part time over two and will need a minimum 2:1 to be accepted.

Students can go on to do their PhD straight after their BA, although most opt for an MRes first. Most students in Literature and Creative Writing do a PhD because they wish to go into academia as a career, although others do so to perfect their craft or continue to work in an area they love. The PhD project is much larger and it is expected that your research will be, in some way, original as its purpose is to expand the field of research in your area of interest. The PhD thesis is a much larger piece of work that you will do over a minimum period of 3 years full time and will be around 80,000 words. It is expected that part or all of your PhD will eventually become a published piece of work and will be available to buy and to use in academic libraries all over the world.

When it comes to funding your PhD, it’s worth looking at what’s available in different universities, and maintain a close relationship with your lecturers at UCLAN. They will know what funding is available and often bid for grants to provide bursaries. You could also apply to National Funding Bodies like the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council). You can also go to websites such as www.findaphd.com and join websites such as www. graduatejunction.net to connect with other academics.

After your PhD you might want to consider a position as a lecturer or research fellow. Research fellowships open up across campuses and may support the academic work of the lecturers and professors within their field of research or you can work as an independent researcher within the department as long as there is expertise within the Department.

It may be worth considering a Research Assistant post at a university after your BA if you think you may wish to continue your education to PhD level. The Research Assistant is an entry-level role and is usually directly related to a particular research project, probably working under a Research Fellow or supervisory lecturer. It is usually a temporary role and salaries start from around £20000 p/a. Research Fellows can earn from £30-£38k depending on the level of seniority and experience (I assume you’ve checked this?). Academics also feed their need to write and often contribute papers to journals and conferences, where they present their work to their peers to be reviewed.

Your work could be used by future literature undergrads in their assignments! Often academia and teaching go hand in hand, and even if your primary role is a researcher, you may well be given the chance to teach classes under your specialism.

If you want to go on to become a lecturer, you will need to have a PhD. University lecturers will usually work in the field in which they took their degree and PhD research although they may chance their research specialism over time. Their roles will include a variety of different tasks besides actual teaching. Lecturers will have a large portion of office-based admin work, some may take on extra managerial responsibilities (leading to a role as Principal Lecturer) and lecturers take part in continuous training. Lecturers will also be actively involved in their own areas of research and contributory research to their department which is particularly important as their published papers and articles will help raise the profile of their institution. The hours can be long, although part time hours are available.

You may be able to bid for a sabbaticals of usually a semester to concentrate on your research. Salaries can range from £33000 - £43000 depending on experience. In the UK the ranking is Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, (Principal Lecturer), Reader and Professor. This is different to the US which has Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Full Professor.

Other students may not choose to stay in university education and instead go on to take a postgraduate teaching qualification (PGCE) and go on to teach in colleges or schools. (salary guide courtesy of www.prospects.ac.uk)

Andrew Phillimore - Former Student and Teacher As a graduate and now professional, what was it that drew you to take a degree in Literature/Creative Writing?

In school English Literature was always my favourite subject, as well as the subject I did best in, so I decided to continue onto A-Level and then university. The more I studied it the more I moved away from it as a form of escapism and saw it as a form of expression and insight into the real world. Similarly I’ve always enjoyed writing, so both the degree and MA offered a chance to develop in that area.

What did you do while at uni to prepare yourself for your working life?

I took a broad range of modules that covered a variety of topic areas which I felt would prepare me for further education or teaching. Throughout the degree and MA there were numerous tasks that involved group work which helped to develop the ability to work as part of a team as well as promote the confidence to share ideas and argue points in a manner conducive to the task. Similarly the need to present work to peers, both as a group and on my own, helped to develop that confidence further.

Tell me a little about what you do. How did you get into this career?

I’m currently training to be a secondary School English teacher on a School Centred Initial Teacher Training programme.

Teaching has always been an aspiration so recent changing in government funding has allowed me to pursue that path.

Since finishing my MA I’ve been roofing because of the loan I had to take to cover the MA, but because of the loan and bursary available for this course I was able to apply.

Was the job you’re currently in your first career choice? What did you initially want to do before you started your degree?

Yea teaching was always what I wanted to do, and the further my education went the more I wanted to do it and the higher level. So over time I’d like to carry on with my education in order to teach at a higher level, like university.

What one piece of advice would you give current or prospective students wanting to go into your career pathway?

Take the first step. It’s easy to let fear and uncertainty put you off, but it all has to begin somewhere and once you’re on the path, it becomes easier.

PR, Marketing and Sales These jobs feature far and wide and there are many entry-level roles available for graduates. Although primarily business and brand focussed, these jobs allow writers and literature graduates to use their creativity to provide fun and interesting advertisement campaigns and copy for companies.

One job role that has become more in demand over recent years is working within social media marketing. With companies utilising social media to promote their product, staff come on board to work creatively to produce interesting and engaging content. You can add some extra strings to your professional bow in this kind of role because it helps you develop your marketing skills and allows you to be creative within the role.

If you want to find out more about working in PR visit the Chartered Institute for Public Relations here: https:// www.cipr.co.uk/content/careers-advice/what-pr

Media and Journalism In such a wide industry, you won’t find it hard to find a niche that fits your particular interests within film and media. As a journalist you can cover everything from fashion to politics, video games to television. Writers can go on to working on screenplays and television.

Graduates can go straight into junior roles in magazines and newspapers or can continue in a postgraduate degree.

It’s also worth getting some experience in the Student’s Union Paper which offers a chance to work as an editor or reporter for sections such as Politics, News and Culture. Check out www.pulsemedia-online.co.uk for more information.

You can find jobs and industry news at: https://www.journalism.co.uk/

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Publishing A career in publishing is often a dream job for many an avid book lover. But did you know just how many job roles are available within the diverse and exciting world of book publishing. Editors come in all shapes and sizes, from commissioning to development and copy editing so if you have always dreamed of being a book editor you have so many options to choose from! If you are more interested in leading projects there are also positions in project management. You could work in production where the book goes through the arduous task of perfecting the layout of the book through Indesign, checking the margins, fonts and artwork. There’s also the all-important sales, marketing and distribution departments who take the books to the public and, most importantly, promote the book so it sells. The publishing industry is so multifaceted that there is plenty of scope for a graduate to break into the field, but it’s also extremely competitive.

If you are serious about wanting a career in publishing, then you could opt for an MA Publishing, which is a vocational masters degree focusing on the many areas of publishing. The course is practical and hands-on, allowing students to work on real book projects for companies such as Penguin Random House. Students will also be credited for their work in real publications. You’ll be in contact with industry professionals and will learn not only about the business of selling books but train on the software that is used as standard by the industry.

To find out more information you can visit the web page for the MA at UCLAN here: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/ courses/ma_pgdip_pgcert_publishing.php

Librarianship So, you love books? Where better to work than within a library? As with many careers, working as a librarian and information officer is more than just sorting books. It’s a varied and interesting role and a librarian can work not only with the physical book but now with electronic sources. Librarians will have to work with the public and ensure that the systems in place are easy to use for every type of user. You may also be responsible for selecting and buying in new publications for the year, which can be a challenging process to ensure that the limited budgets are spent as well as possible. Some graduates choose working in libraries or archives as an alternative to academia since it allows you to conduct research within your areas of interest without the need to teach, and attend conferences to present your papers. However, there is less chance of funding and entry level pay is pretty modest.

If you want to work as a librarian you will most likely need a postgraduate qualification in Librarian studies, but you can do this while working as a Library Assistant.

For more information you can visit the CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) website here: http://www.cilip.org.uk/default.cilip

TIPS

1. Get involved with related extracurricular activities while you’re at uni. You can start your own society or get involved with an existing society such as the Writer’s Society or Book Club. Write for the Student Newspaper, or take an editorial role. Look in the wider community at different writers groups that are available.

2. Even if you don’t have a solid career path in mind when you start your degree, you’ll probably have a better idea as you come to the end. Trying different voluntary jobs is great for sparking your passion. One thing you thought you’d like might enjoy could turn out to be a bad fit for you as a person, and you might end up being drawn towards a postgraduate course or career you hadn’t ever considered before.

3. Spend time building your portfolio while you’re at uni. Aspiring writers need good samples of their work to show prospective employers. Build yourself from the ground up if you haven’t published written work before. The university newspaper keeps a pool of students and offers regular opportunities to write for them.

You can write in your area of interest but it’s also useful to write outside of your comfort zone, especially for prospective freelancers because some of the jobs you may have chance for will not be as interesting as you’d like.

4. Take every opportunity available. The great thing about uni is that regular chances come up to tap into your creativity and interests. There are tons of chances to travel, with spots coming up in the spring for 3 or 4 day educational trips. Projects come up where writers are advertised for and you can add another piece to your portfolio.

5. Keep up to date with what’s going on around campus. Sometimes there are events that might not be immediately on your radar so it helps to keep an eye out. Join Facebook groups and be proactive in your involvement. Don’t rely on other people to think to tell you about opportunities!

6. Make connections. Networking is a scary word for a lot of people, but aside from the daunting prospect of standing in a room next to a buffet trying to converse with strangers, networking is surprising easy in uni. If I asked you right now to name people in your own network you’d struggle. Now, think of every lecturer you’ve had a conversation with, then students on your course, then students on other courses. You’ve already got a solid network. Expand and nurture your network while you’re at uni and you have a good foundation for your contacts as you go on into your career.

7. One of the biggest obstacles for fresh graduates in the job market is that so many jobs require some level of experience. Although entry level jobs are available, the job market is highly competitive, especially for creatives! While you’re at uni, keep an eye out for internship opportunities in your field. Even if it’s unpaid work for 3 or 4 weeks, it’s experience that you can put on your CV. The longer you work for a company, the more experience you can claim to have!

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Fire Eaters.

Jenna M. Abbott

Here comes more.

I will not call on every hour.

Not by strength of will.

I’ll just sleep through, like a cuckoo in an unwound clock.

So far, things have been hell.

The new carpet is worn, wearing a few new stains and I can’t feel it under my feet anymore.

I go downstairs at least once a day.

To feed the cats and make coffee and ignore the dishes and to put cans without ring-pulls away.

I don’t want that rug that I wanted so badly from the car boot sale anymore.

The TV sits in the corner with nothing on it except two small stickers; swords from that game we used to play.

Four coasters sit jagged, away from the corners of the antique table, not in line where they used to be.

It took the both of us to bring that in.

The talcum powder candle you made has flooded the wick under hard wax.

How will I get the settee out?

The first hour of its life with us was spent stuck in the doorframe.

I can’t do it by myself.

I’m not butch like you.

I’m glad you left Settlers of Catan, although now we play it with three instead of four.

Katie, Paul and me, keeping score in the back of her daughter’s diary lighting fire in our mouths and forgetting the last thing that we said.

I no longer go easy.

Now anyone could win.

Not just you, like you always did.

Amy Davies

Interview with Dr. Naomi Kruger Ok, so I wanted to ask you, what book or books made you want to try out a new writing style?

So, I was thinking about this and I think it all started with short stories, because I always read novels growing up. I was a bit of a swat so I read all the classics from the age of like thirteen, so Jane Austen and the Brontes, and I didn’t really get into contemporary fiction until a lot later, but when I was at university I was writing short stories, so I started reading short story writers. So, I think Raymond Carver was the big one for me, in the sense that I couldn’t work out what these stories were doing because there was so little to them, they were so minimalistic and harsh and sharp, and yet I couldn’t get them out of my head. I couldn’t work out whether I even liked them or not, but they stuck with me, so that gave me the courage to sort of edit, just cut cut cut, right down to the bone. And then I got worried that I was just imitating him, so I was just reading other short story writers. Alice Monroe who’s a Canadian author, her stories they almost have the scope of a novel. In 3000/5000 words she kind of gives you these whole lives, these people, these communities, and manages to do it in that word count without it feeling rushed or exposition heavy. So, I could see all this richness and, not the opposite of Carver, but just something different, so that made me want to put everything back in there. So, I think Carver made me want to really cut back and that was good for me, and then reading people like Alison Monroe, I was kind of like, oh actually you don’t have to lose all that stuff.

And even Carver, you know, talked about how he felt that his editing was too harsh with his stuff, and needed a bit more room for it to be messy. And then there’s a short story writer called Tim Winton who’s Australian — no British ones I just realised — who writes about landscape and place in such an amazing way that made me really want to start thinking about my places and settings. And then one more, Jennifer Egan who’s American, she wrote a brilliant book called A Visit From the Goon Squad, which is a novel, but it’s actually a novel in stories, it’s like a hybrid. One of the chapters is told entirely in PowerPoint, but it’s about characters and the stories kind of cross over and trespass on each other, but they all sort of stand alone as well. And that made me really curious about the bounds of genre in terms of short stories versus novels, fragmented texts, and multiple voices. So, that kind of made me get out, because at one point I was interviewed because I got something published and they asked

me for a biog and I said something like, in third person, “Naomi Kruger has no plans to write a novel”. It was like a point of honour because I was a short story writer. I’m so much looser about genre now, I think whatever you’re writing finds the form it needs to be, and there’s so much in between the sort of hybrid and experimental stuff.

What is one of your favourite adaptations of a piece of literature?

I’ve got a few for this, but I think I’m going to go with Angela Carter The Bloody Chamber, because I studied it for A-Level and I was quite a sweet innocent —well maybe not actually —but I had quite a sheltered upbringing shall we say, and I’d grown up on Grimm’s fairy tales and Disney adaptations, and I just encountered these stories and again I didn’t know what to make of them, I didn’t know whether I liked them.

They were dark and erotic and I had to read them with a dictionary next to me. But just something about the way she uses language and the way she reimagines, and keeps the sort of darkness and fantastical elements of them but pushes them further and plays with them.

I also really like adaptations like West Side Story, and I’ve got a real weakness for Jane Austen adaptations even if they’re crap — I’ll watch them. I also really like the more experimental stuff like found poetry and Verbatim plays, and the kind of adaptations that take real voices or documents and turn them into a piece of poetry or literature in an inventive way.

I bet you really enjoy teaching that [writing adaptations] module then.

I do. I have played around with found texts a little bit and I’ve used intertextuality, definitely. Teaching the module, I always end up with loads of ideas. It’s hard not to come out of those workshops without coming away with even a little, tiny idea, because there’s just so much to look at. There’s so many options when you look at all the adaptations that are out there, and all the different approaches. Yeah, it’s really interesting.

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What was one of the most invaluable experiences or area of research you carried out when exploring dementia in fiction?

It was, definitely, volunteering at a dementia day centre. I did it for 6 months, and going into my PHD I never ever thought that would be something I’d need to do or would want to do. I almost chickened out of it even up to the moment of being in the car park on the first day, because I was so scared. I was scared mostly about being inadequate and doing something stupid, and saying the wrong thing, and all that kind of stuff. But what it kind of gave me was the opportunity to actually sit with and talk to and actually do painting, like crafts alongside, and sing alongside people living with dementia. Various kinds of dementia and various stages of dementia, although they were all I would say mid-stages. It made me realise that there was no one stereotype. I think there is that responsibility to do the medical research so I did read and look into the common symptoms of Alzheimer’s, because although I don’t mention it in the novel, that’s the form of dementia that my character has. I became aware of all the different kinds of dementia, and that they each had their common symptoms. Still being around people who were actually living with it made me realise that everybody’s experience was, really different, and sometimes really unpredictable. There were moments of kind of humour and lucidness where you’d be sat with someone that couldn’t speak and would suddenly tell you a story or sing a song. So, it allowed me to give my character a bit more freedom, and think more about her past and her life, than what she’s lost. I didn’t want her to be just a collection of symptoms, she actually still has a personality. So yeah definitely, field work.

What else did you do for research?

I did that, I can’t officially call it field work because it was volunteering, but it was a kind of field work for me. I tried to read as many fictional representations of dementia as I could. I did have to focus in on the ones that were trying to represent it either in first person or from the perspective of someone with dementia. So, I wasn’t very thorough on books that were approaching it from the carers perspective for example but, I tried to read as many especially contemporary representations as I could. I had to research it medically, but also then once I decided that she was going to narrate in first person, I found myself in different realms I wasn’t even aware of, so I discovered there was this thing called medical humanities. Which is a whole research field about the way the humanities respond to issues of science and medicine, and I started looking at researching that, about the ethics of representation with dementia.

And then also cognitive narratology, which is to do with the representation of consciousness in texts and the kind of theorising of that and what the relationship between the reader and the writer and the characters are and how

you kind of try and represent cognitive states on the page. So, it rippled outwards as needed, but I’m not naturally a scientific person, and I kind of have that prejudice I guess about I’m an arts person, science is over here, but actually, it all ended up coming together in a really interesting way.

Sharing Identities: The Refugee Poetry Project.

UCLan Literature students - Ayesha Ali, Fahmidah Ali, Zahrah Iqbal, Saba Mahmood, Amy Lee Tempest, Tia Mckiernan-Karri and Adam Javed - have been working on a community collaborative writing project led by Dr Naomi Kruger. They spoke to Noted about their project so far and what we can expect from the project in the future.

Over the course of the last few months, we have worked together with both students and staff from UCLan social work department on a collaborative writing project. With the help of the local charity Pukar, we were put in touch with a group of their service users who were looking to improve their English language skills as foreign speakers. Our aim was to offer a space in which we could work together to create and publish our own collection of poetry.

We aimed to help give voice to people who havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always been heard, and who are new to our community in Preston. We held weekly writing workshops whereby we established a safe space for self-expression. During the workshops, the group worked on creative writing pieces around the theme of identity - individually and in small groups. This led to lots of discussions within the whole group, and a sharing and learning of different cultural experiences. At times, we read our work aloud and pinned them onto the wall to create a gallery of work. The experience of writing and discussing together created a sense of unity within the group, and despite language and cultural barriers, we all managed to work together well. A significant part of the project so far has been in forming a space where there was enough trust for refugees and asylum seekers to write about themselves and their homes.

Throughout the project, our aims naturally shifted from creating great pieces of writing, to using writing as a tool within a small group as a means to better learn about ourselves and each other. We learnt how to facilitate this type of community writing project with the guidance of our mentors and workshop leaders alongside our research. Other areas of research included the ethics of collaborative writing; how to work with speakers of a foreign language; how to develop ideas for writing workshops and the possibilities of publishing a collection of the groups work. We hope, by the end of the project, to have published a book.

Together, our group are now working towards the launch of a small book around the theme of identity.

The book will collate the work from these sessions,

Together, our group are now working towards the launch of a small book around the theme of identity. The book will collate the work from these sessions, alongside a short collection of biographies of those involved, the creative pieces which they worked hard on and further information on the project itself. Each member of the group involved will be able to take away a book which they have helped to create and we hope this will foster a sense of pride and ownership for all of us. We would also like for the outcome to be beneficial to others working in this field as a potential learning resource that may spark other projects.

The group have been invited along to Liverpool university to speak about the project and will also be involved in a workshop held at UCLan which will provide trainee social workers with an insight into this type of collaborative community writing project and what has been learnt from the experience. It has been a great learning experience so far for the group, and we still have a lot to learn before itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s completed. We are all very much excited to see the collection of work in print and to be able to give these to all who were involved throughout the project.

25

Andrew Pirie

Interview with Chris Riddell On 14th of November 2016, Noted’s own Andrew Pirie and Charlie Winstanley attended a talk given by Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell. An hour of anecdotes, illustrations and an irreproachable passion for books and libraries ensued from Riddell. The charming speaker made sure everyone left with a smile that night. But he also made sure we left with a fair few things to think about...

“A library is where books live...”

If you like to read, chances are you got hooked young. Try to think back to when it was you fell in love with literature.

When you delved into a book and found yourself more at home than ever before. Chances are this happened in a library.

Either that or it led you straight to one to find more books.

Through youth it can be easy to overlook this impact that libraries have on us. We think of our old libraries as just a small part of the school experience. Another room that blends in amongst the numbered classrooms, assembly halls and corridors. We never think of the room in isolation. A room dedicated to different worlds. The cases with many shelves.

The shelves with many books. Each book ready to take you somewhere new. The library is a special place. And it’s our inability to single this magical room out; our overlooking of this important space that is threatening the childhood of so many right now. We grew up in libraries, whether we realised or not.

And it’s time to stand up for them. This is the feeling held by the former and current Children’s Laureates. They have been campaigning as of late for the government to pay attention and to start transforming the sorry state of our libraries across Britain. The current Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell, came to the City Hall in Preston to rally the troops for this very cause.

“We want to find out what the current state of school libraries is,” Riddell explained to begin his talk. Brought before us by the Youth Libraries Group North West, Riddell passionately decried the lack of focus on this situation. “No-one in the department of education thinks it’s worthwhile to do this. We want to make them realise how important it is because once they do that research, they’ll realise what we we’ve lost in the past five years, possibly longer.” And just what is it that we have lost? With funds dwindling and the levels of librarians decreasing, Britain’s children could be losing their opportunity to not only lose themselves in literature, but to learn from it and open their minds. “Without books we don’t understand the means of others, people will be marginalised,” stated Riddell. However, a library is more than a mere collection of books. Riddell made it clear that there is a lot more to lose than that, when he recalled the wonders of his own school library.

The lustre of a library I’m sure we all remember the sound of our school libraries; the self-conscious attempts to muffle the shuffle of footsteps. The light whippings of pages turning. Everything punctuated by the repeated whispering of “shh”. The library has long been a place of order and rules. Whatever chaos may be happening within the pages of each book, you can be assured that the reader is sitting in peace. It is this calm and quiet that makes the library such a unique and endearing place for booklovers, as Riddell fondly recalled: “There was a strict code in our school library and Mrs Barnes (the librarian) enforced it. If you raised your voice above a whisper she would take you by the scruff of your neck and eject you from the library.” I think we can all recall a similar stern librarian from our youth. That person that instilled a sense of reverence to the room and taught us to respect the books. “What this did was actually make the library more and more desirable. It seemed fantastic, if you were allowed admittance into the library you were trusted!” Riddell exclaimed. This formative mixture of trust and respect is the driving force of why libraries must be preserved. Without access to a well-funded school library, children miss out on much more than the reading; “Libraries in school are safe places, they’re havens. They’re hubs for all sorts of creativity.”

Riddell regaled us with further tales of how librarians have been important in his life by telling us about a former girlfriend who happened to be a librarian. “A librarian broke my heart,” he revealed, before going on to say that he was given her Saturday job when she moved away. Riddell became a librarian himself which he described as “profound”. “So on a Saturday afternoon, I’d get the book trolley, I’d go off and find a nice, quiet place and stack a book every ten minutes or so. And it was fantastic! I’d read the stock!” Riddell told us with glee, recalling what any book lover in that room would have done had they been given the job. Though the experience may have been fun and meaningful to him, Riddell would ultimately argue that fully-trained, more professional librarians are a must-have, at least for within our schools. It was his respect for librarians, the job they do and what they represent that inspired Riddell (when collaborating with Paul Steward) to feature them in the long-running book series The Edge Chronicles; “we decided that the heart of the series of fantasy novels was to be librarians.”

Beginning That Journey...

Chris Riddell is an enchanting talker and spun many anecdotes during the presentation. Chronicling his “reading journey” as he called it, he talked about how it all began with learning the basics. While some of us may remember the adventures of Biff, Chip and Kipper, Riddell had some similar memorable characters. “I’m often asked “what was the most important book in your childhood?” and I like to throw sort of a curveball and I say of course the most important book was “Peter and Jane” - Ladybird Key Words Reading Skills” he sardonically stated. But joking aside he revealed that he found learning to read very difficult. Until one day, after stumbling on the holy grail of an advanced book in the Peter and Jane series (“That’s what I have to get to and I’ll never have to read anything again!”), another book caught the illustrator’s eye.

Agaton Sax and the Diamond Thieves, illustrated by none other than the inaugural Children’s Laureate Quentin Blake.

This was the first time Riddell said he had a sense of accomplishment from having read a book. Riddell punctuated the anecdote by reminding us of how useful libraries truly are to children; “I went to the school library and found more books just like that. And I began my reading journey.”

Riddell went on to describe story time at his school and his vivid memories of being read The Hobbit. “The class was mesmerised,” he recalled, detailing the power that the book had over them. Due to illness, Riddell missed the ending of the book that so quickly became the talking point of the class. And so this cruel happenstance brought an unexpected reward as it pushed young Riddell to the library once more to read the Battle of the Five Armies in a quiet space alone.

However, special communal reading and story-telling is, it can’t be denied that there is a unique appeal to the personal experience a book offers. A quiet personal experience in a comfortable corner of a library can change the way you look at anything; “this was an extraordinary experience! The Hobbit was a book that completely transformed the way I looked at reading”.

That Itch To Draw First and foremost, Riddell considers himself to be an illustrator before he considers himself a writer. The talk started off by reflecting this. Before even opening his mouth and spinning us a tale, Riddell stood quietly at the front drawing to himself. It was only after the reveal of his drawing that he began to give his talk. Echoing his political cartoons written for The Observer, Riddell revealed his feelings over the then president-elect of the USA, Donald Trump (“The Oompa-Loompa in Chief ”).

Riddell gave us an insight into where his “itch” to illustrate others’ works came from by describing his first encounter with The Catcher in the Rye. “I found it in my art room, wedged behind some of the furniture and it had such a memorable cover. It was the silver Penguin edition with just the writing on it “The Catcher in the Rye” and nothing else, except for this beautiful design that channelled the book’s contents, I didn’t realise until I started reading it but it was so exquisitely done. It channelled the spirit of expressionism and the distraction of thought and emotion; a wonderful spread of ink across the cover. It was beautiful.” Now this cover of Catcher in the Rye may not sound familiar to you.

But that’s because Riddell revealed he had been fooled by the book. “I remember one day I was in a book shop and I looked up and there was the edition I had on the shelf. The writing, the silver cover. And it didn’t have the design on it.

That’s when I realised that my copy just had ink spilled on to it!”. There’s something beautiful about the idea that we place the meaning onto artwork and books ourselves. And Riddell wouldn’t let reality take away his enjoyment of the inky accident; “Every time I see one of the copies of the book I get an itchy finger to draw on it”.

Riddell has illustrated many different books by many popular authors, himself being one of them. He described the itchy finger compelling him to draw directly into books while he read them. One by Sarah Crossan and The Lie Tree by Francis Hardinge (which has an illustrated version available now featuring Riddell’s itchy illustrations) are only two that got the itchy drawing finger treatment. With illustrated versions of these books being released for the public to enjoy, it is baffling to think that all this came from such a small misunderstanding about a book’s front cover, but as Chris confirmed “It all started with JD Salinger and that copy of Catcher In the Rye.”

27

Five Minutes With Chris Riddell Before the Children’s Laureate had to leave the building to catch his train, he graciously allowed us to have a brief interview, covering topics from libraries to his personal writing process. Here is our Five Minutes With Chris Riddell.

It was a fantastic, passionate talk about libraries you gave. Is there a way you could summarise why libraries are so important to our communities?

I think that, for me, libraries are important because they’re where books are curated. In bookshops, you can buy books, you can buy bestsellers, you can get books of the moment. A library is where books live for so much longer. And I think we need trained librarians who curate literature, so that you can go and find the good stuff. If we live in a world which is just Amazon and digital books, we lose all that. My favourite thing The Wise Wizard is when I see the public lending rights payments - these are When Chris Riddell had finished what he had to say, he opened himself up to questions from the audience. Despite the just a penny for each time a book is borrowed from a library.

What happens is, when I look at my books, books that I did warmth of the words throughout the night, silence followed.

The audience, myself included, were all too captivated to have many years ago will still be lent and you’ll see people have still been borrowing that book and that’s such a special thing. any questions floating in our minds. So to fill the silence, Riddell singled out the very person writing this article to ask for my favourite author. When I said Neil Gaiman, Riddell seemed hardly surprised. “You see, Neil Gaiman fans can spot fellow Neil Gaiman fans! I like to think of us as like the best sort of club there will ever be. There should be a special salute for us!” he stated while we laughed along. Riddell then treated us to an insight as to what it is like to work with the fantasy writer. “Working with Neil is extraordinary. What I like to do is go through Neil’s work and draw little quotes from it.

One thing I’ve done recently is I’ve taken one of Neil’s poems, ‘Instructions’, and while I’ve been on the train, just bumping along, I’ve been drawing. It’s really good fun.” It was then that Riddell gave us a magical image to end the night. “I like to call Gaiman ‘The Wise Wizard’. Great coat. Pointy hat. Very interesting hair. I see myself as the companion, so when Neil comes along and says “Let’s go on this adventure”, I say “That sounds very nice”. I saddle up and I just follow him. It’s a wonderful relationship.”

A trusty companion to other writers, whilst a writer in his own right. But overall that night, Chris Riddell proved himself to be a trusty companion to books themselves. To libraries. To children and their right to have access to the stellar facilities they deserve. Taking stock of his 18 months as Children’s Laureate and looking to the future, Riddell declared, “I won’t stop when [the title] is handed down to someone younger than I am. I don’t want to stop travelling to children’s and school libraries. It’s something I enjoy and I want to carry on. I will carry on campaigning for schools to have libraries and to have books at the heart of every school.”

You began your career in illustration and political cartoons, was a passion for writing always behind that or did it evolve from the illustrating?

ALWAYS evolved from the illustrations, and still does. So, I write so that I’ve got something I can illustrate. So, that’s my primary thing, always. If I want to draw something I think, “Right, Ok, if I can’t find a writer who’s going to write for me then I’ll write it myself.” Great when you can work with people like Neil Gaiman but sometimes he’s not available. That being said, for me the natural thing is illustration.

Thinking about the kiss illustration in The Sleeper and the Spindle (2014 Gaiman and Riddell collaboration), this is an example of when your illustration has brought you some controversy...

It sort of did, and yet when you actually look at the context, the Queen steps forward cause the dwarfs are going, “this is deep magic, we want nothing to do with it”, and the Queen says, “well if no-one else is going to, I’m going to step forward.” So, it’s an act of courage. And I love that because then, when you actually start to picture it, it’s got this whole other context. And so, in some ways, it is all about a visual subtext.

And that’s what Neil does all the time, when he writes he’s always aware of the visual subtext. He invites you to sort of make your own framing device. And I find this when I illustrate his lyrics and his poetry. You can often weave your own stories into it, with his permission ‘cause he’s inviting you to.

Could you describe your process when you go about writing something yourself?

What I do is I actually rough out the entire book, particularly when I’m doing younger fiction. I’ll rough out the entire book initially, leaving little lines to indicate where the text is going to go. And then when I come to write, I actually write for those gaps. So I’m doing it exactly the other way round, I’m thinking visually, how the book is going to look and feel, and how the page is going to turn before I then start to write the story. And part of the fun of illustrating for other writers is, in a sense, they’ve given me their words and then I’ve got to impose a structure onto it. So it’s a different experience for me when I illustrate my own work.

Can you elaborate on the difference between illustrating your work and the work of others?

I think that in some ways when you illustrate your own work it is just all your imagination, it’s a personal thing. When you illustrate someone else’s work it’s a collaborative thing, and I love that. I love that sense of being able to enter into someone else’s imagination and bring something of myself into it. It’s why I became an illustrator, because I was a reader first, and this was a way I could actually enter the books that I loved.

You started this talk with an illustration of Donald Trump.

Thinking about the political satire, is there a crossover between the way you approach your cartoons and the way you approach your fiction?

I think inevitably there is, because I work in both fields and so I don’t consciously change my style when I’m illustrating for 9-12 year old readers and when I’m illustrating for readers of The Observer. It’s still my style and my approach. It’s just that there’s a degree of sophistication you can bring in, you can maybe make references that would be picked up on in some other way. But artistically, it’s still me. I think you can still see that it’s my style in both contexts.

29

Diversity in Publishing: What’s the Fuss?

Humairaa Dudhwala

The year 2016 saw a huge rise in media discussion about diversity within the publishing sector: publishing giants Penguin Random House UK launched a BAME-specific initiative, whilst The Bookseller examined the need to address the lack of diversity in the publishing industry. The Spare Room Project offered free accommodation to those who came to London to intern, and numerous openings seemed to be specifically looking for candidates from underrepresented communities.

But what exactly is diversity in publishing, and why is there so much fuss about it?

For me, diversity in publishing refers to two things – both of which are intertwined. Firstly, diversity within the workforce: that is to say, the background of the people working in publishing, such as their racial and regional roots. Secondly, it refers to diversity within books: writers from diverse backgrounds and characters which represent a variety of people.

So, let’s look at the first issue of what I call a diverse ‘workforce’. More and more publishing companies now seem to be seeking candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. Many of these specifically seek individuals who identify as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME).

Creative Access – a charity currently facing closure due to a withdrawal of its funding from the government – was founded in 2012 with the specific aim of providing BAME-backgrounded people with paid internships. Creative Access seeks to address the absence of diversity within the creative sector, and has worked with over 300 organisations across the UK to help them hire talented individuals from a BAME background.

The mass response that has followed Creative Access’ petition to prevent it from being closed illustrates its stellar work. It is one of many campaigns which demonstrate the rising demand – and need – for a representative work industry.

Secondly, and perhaps slightly more popular, is the rising demand for diverse books. What exactly are diverse books? And where do they come from?

Diverse books reflect the lives of all people – and these diverse experiences could include gender, disability, racial background, as well as ethnic, cultural and religious experiences. As for their increasing demand – more and more underrepresented writers are being sought out to offer readers more books featuring diverse characters.

Publishing giants Penguin Random House UK launched ‘WriteNow’ in London, Birmingham and Manchester last year, offering writers from underrepresented communities the chance to attend an ‘insight day’.

Those selected gained the opportunity to receive professional feedback on their writing. The aim was ‘find, mentor and publish new writers with different stories to tell’, as ‘books and publishing do not reflect the society we live in’.

The Spare Room Project, supported by The Publishers Association, took an altogether different approach.

Launched last summer, this initiative endeavoured to match up London-based publishing employees, who were willing to offer a spare room in their residences for a week in July or August, with aspiring publishers from outside of London. The aim of providing free accommodation was to allow talented individuals the chance to take up internships and work experience in London that they would otherwise have had to turn down due to being unable to afford staying in London. The project aimed to address the need for regional diversity, diverging from the established London-centric publishing world to one that is more broadly accessible.

But the search for diverse voices isn’t a new phenomenon. New Writing North is an organisation that supports writing in the North of England, and was founded in 1996 ‘to create more opportunities for writers to work in the region and to grow audiences for their work’. The establishment has undertaken various projects in its twenty years, with its fantastic ‘Northern Writers’ Awards’ programme supporting ‘new, emerging and established writers’ across the North of England since 2000.

More and more opportunities are springing up, as the publishing industry edges towards being more inclusive and more reflective of today’s society.

Of course, social media plays a large part in this endeavour for change. The hashtag #WeNeedDiverseBooks has taken the Twitter world by storm, and it arises from The ‘We Need Diverse Books’ campaign. This initiative, established in 2014, aims to ‘put more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all children’, with the vision of ‘a world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book’. #MuslimShelfSpace, another increasingly popular Twitter hashtag, is a new campaign started in 2017 by author Sajidah K Ali to showcase books written by Muslim authors. The concept encourages people to tweet pictures of the Muslim-authored books on their bookshelves, so ‘others can discover new books to read’. An article on NBC News suggested that ‘One of the most interesting results of the campaign so far was hearing from readers who realized that they didn’t own many books by Muslim authors and having conversations about how to change that’. Both #WeNeedDiverseBooks and #MuslimShelfSpace represent the move towards a more inclusive world of books.

There is also encouragement for individuals from underrepresented communities to get involved in publishing, through awareness being raised about how current underrepresented individuals got to where they are now. Seeing in Colour, a series of essays written by people of colour for The Bookseller, discusses career highlights, challenges and the future of BAME in publishing. The essays range from a letter addressed to the next generation of BAME publishers to why people think publishing isn’t for them (when, in fact, it is).

The range of schemes and initiatives mentioned in this article (only a small selection of an array of opportunities) demonstrate the increasing awareness of the need for diversity in publishing. However slowly, the industry does seem to be moving towards being more representative. Let’s see what the next chapter holds in 2017.

31

Wait for a Moment Jamie I. Douglas

There are many gates to leave by, thirteen in fact, but each to a different bus, to a different place, and his is the very first gate.

He sits in the exact centre of the respective bench to the gate and picks up his briefcase and places it on his lap and places both hands, fingers interlocked, upon it – all of this in silence.

The clock hanging in the exact centre of the gate benches shows the time. He is an exact half hour early.

Beneath the clock’s hands however, on this dual system clock, the digital numbers are all reading exactly midnight. He, and all others here, know precisely that the analogue half of the clock is exact.

He sits, unmoving, waiting – all of this in silence.

An elderly woman emerges in the left of his peripheral vision, and then an elderly man holding her hand.

“Told you we wouldn’t be long,” the elderly man says.

“Don’t like to dally, dear,” the elderly woman says.

“Know that well enough, love. Always have. Never dallied ever.”

“Remembered the tickets in the end. All that matters, dear.”

“All that matters.”

Their walking speed isn’t particularly fast, nor is it particularly slow. It seems – no, is – precisely as it should be. On they walk, hand in hand. In his free hand a cane, in hers a handbag; both brown – they match each other.

“Nothing else needed, was there, love?” the elderly woman asks. “Nothing forgotten?” She sounds slightly hesitant, but neither she nor the elderly man alter their course.

“Have the tickets. Have the gate number. Have each other. Nothing else needed,” the elderly man responds. “Nothing forgotten.”

The man with the briefcase watches as they turn right into the bench area for the fourth gate. He watches them sit, facing him, on the exact first quarter of the bench. The elderly woman catches his gaze, nods with a pleasant smile which he returns, and then the man with the briefcase unlocks his fingers from one another.

Inside, everything appears as it should be: His few folders for work remain untouched, bound by a rubber band to prevent any important documents from simply vanishing. His daily planner is where it is always kept in the corner. His ballpoint pens, ink the colour of bruises, are upright in their pocket. His mechanical pencil, nib reaching out from the top of its pocket, shows no sign of having been used; there are no tiny splinters of graphite to be seen. His small roll of money, precisely rolled together, held together by another rubber band, shows nothing out of the ordinary; two fifty-pound notes, four twenty-pound notes, one ten-pound note, one five-pound note.

There is also a cylinder which he finds still contains five one-pound coins. His own monopoly. Untouched.

Upon seeing a new set of people to his left, he closes his briefcase and places his hands upon it, fingers interlocked – all of this in silence.

He is walking, both hands in his jacket pockets, while she has one arm locked around his and her other is delicately holding the strap of her handbag. Both are at least sixty years younger than the elderly couple.

“Not so loud. Do ya want others to ‘ear us?” the young man says. He isn’t quiet.

“I just don’t understand why you’d say it,” the young woman says. She isn’t quiet. “I mean, that’s not what you should’ve said.

You were wrong to say that.”

“She shunt ‘ave crept up on me an’ said it like that then.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“An’ droppin’ a bombshell on me like that is? Seriously, what’s wrong wi’ yer mam? No-one’s mam an’ dad are like that, are they?”

“Two years and you say that. Two years.”

They both are hurrying. Their pace isn’t glacial or serene. They’re walking so quickly his blackest black jacket is shimmering like filthy waves as she is constantly ensuring her pretty-in-pink handbag strap doesn’t escape from her shoulder.

“I don’t care how long it’s been. You don’t react in that way,” she says. She’s calm despite the rush he has. “Have some respect for my mother. I have respect for yours.”

“Mine ‘ant asked about that wi’ you though, ‘ave they?”

A moment’s pause – not in movement.

“But why would you react that way?”

He escorts her swiftly round the corner of the fourth gate benches and takes her completely to the end of the set, on the opposite side from him. The man with the briefcase can still see what they do out of the corner of his eye.

“We don’t even live together. Why would we think about owt like that yet? It dunt make any sense.”

“You could’ve just said we hadn’t talked about it before. And also that we will when we will. My mother would’ve understood and not been so shocked.”

“Why are ya mam an’ dad so bloody keen on it though? There’s nowt for them to worry about. None o’ them are even fifty yet.”

“I know... I know.”

The man with the briefcase makes out the young woman putting her head on the young man’s shoulder. He can hear the young woman sigh.

“I can’t apologise on behalf of my mother. She was wrong to even try asking.”

“Ya tellin’ me.”

“But I can understand perfectly everything you said. I can’t forgive your manner and attitude when reacting, but I can understand.”

“Thanks, love. I appreciate ya sayin’ that,” the young man says softly now.

“Love you, Mr. Grumpy.”

The man with the briefcase counts the seconds they take in connecting their faces with each other. Two seconds. Then the young woman’s head is back on the young man’s shoulder. After this the man with the briefcase is unlocking his fingers once again.

He checks his possessions once again. The documents, the planner, the writing instruments, the roll and cylinder of money. He doesn’t blink once. Nothing will be moved out of its place without him noticing if he blinks anyway. But still, he doesn’t blink once. Everything is secure inside the briefcase. And so he closes it once more, relocking his fingers when the sound of another male voice enters his ears, opening his senses once again to the bus station around him.

“I told you, I can’t make it no matter how much I try. I told you, I told you.” Distressed. Quivering. Anger throttled back barely. Attempted hushing but clear to everyone within a ten metre radius. He’s moving towards this part of the station, the man with the briefcase sees. He has something pressed against his right ear barely visible under his hood. A mobile.

Even a few other people briefly divert their attention to the youth rushing past them, before returning their attentions to tablets, mobile phones, and reading materials. There’s even a woman who never took her eyes off an infant in a pram.

“No, you can’t do that. I need this, I need this.”

The man with the briefcase sees one of the elderly couple turning their head slowly towards the youth’s voice. She narrows her eyes.

“You can’t do that to me. How is that fair? I tried. I told you, I tried. But you – yeah, I know I said that but – I know that.”

The elderly woman’s mouth opens. Only slightly. Her eyes remain the same.

The youth stops at the benches to the fifth gate. “I’m not shouting at you!”

The man with the briefcase sees the elderly woman turn away. A small smile on her wrinkled face. She’s looking directly at the man with the briefcase as she shakes her head and looks towards the fourth gate. The man with the briefcase does not return the smile all the while. He looks back to the youth.

“You’re not listening to me. How can I listen to you if you won’t do the same? How is that in any way fair?” He pulls back his hood and a scruffy mesh of dirty red tangles fire up in the light. His eyes have dark circles beneath them. His cheeks may have the colour, but the youth is by no means bright in this moment. “I know you are. I know you mean it.” He begins moving again in staccato bursts before turning left into the benches for the fifth gate.

“Don’t leave it by the front door. Please, don’t. I’ll get you it when I get there. Just give me time to get there. I have what I owe you. I swear. Just please don’t put my stuff – I’m not whinging at you. I just need to get back and you’ll have the – Mum? Mum, are you listening to me?” A brief look at the mobile screen before returning it to his ear. “Mum? Mum!” The removal of the phone from the ear upon the realisation.

“Fuck.”

The elderly woman tuts and drags the elderly man up with her before having them both walk towards the end of the bench the man with the briefcase is sat upon. In his peripherals, he can tell they are opposite the young couple. He even makes out a brief, “Much better,” from the elderly woman. He continues staring forwards towards the gangly youth.

“What do I do?” A whimper. No-one else is listening. But the man with the briefcase is.

He unlocks his fingers, grips the handle with a hand, and rises to his feet, knees cracking as he does. He exists the fourth gate benches, skirts round swiftly into the fifth gate benches and sits right next to the youth – all of this in silence.

33

The Live Literature Project Ellie Sutcliffe and Jamie I. Douglas

In recent years, the Literature and Creative Writing Team have been given a space for students to write and hold literary events for the students and faculty. The room is perfectly fitted for both classroom and events, with a small stage, podium and reading chair for students to read and perform their work. The room also holds a lending library and has been used by societies such as the Book Club and Writer’s Society to host their meetings. The Literature Live room is a regular feature on the second year module of the same name, where a project team will be assigned as managers of the room and organise events and parties throughout the year.

Past events have included a Christmas slumber party, launch of poet Yvonne Reddick’s pamphlet ‘Deerheart’ and the This year, the Literature Live room has held several extremely successful and engaging events across the year, led by the Literature Live project group.

In addition to the project events, the room has also hosted weekly ‘In Conversations’ talks with members of the faculty who discuss current projects and research, all of which have been open to students and staff to watch.

The Literature Live Project group organised and hosted several events across the year. The first event of the year was an Open Mic Night featuring readings from lecturers, Dr Naomi Kruger, Dr Theresa Saxon, alumnus Sam Arthur and Robin Purves. The performers

each read from their work which ranged from creative writing pieces to a talk on research.

We were treated to wine and snacks which were provided by the team. The highlight of the event for me was the poetry reading from Robin Purves who read ‘An Introduction to Speed Reading’ by Chris Goode. Like all great poetry, I was transported for those five brief minutes into Goode’s mind through Robin’s voice and came out at the other end both entertained and changed.

Later in the year, the project group hosted the book launch of Eclipse, an anthology of entries for the science fiction and fantasy writing competition and ‘A Sketch of Smoke’, a book created in a week by the White Water Writers student group. It would be unfair to say the event went off without a single hitch, as there was an instance of drama with the incorrectly published name of a writer in the

Live Literature Team - Angela Hayden, Chloe Hunt, Katie Garsyth, Lauren Moore-Jones and Jack Cherry

Eclipse anthology; this drama was rectified in the days afterwards in both the short and long term: in already printed copies of the anthology notes were inserted informing the reader of the correct name, and the long term changes were made to the eBook versions of the anthology (easily rectified) and also to future printed copies. Aside from this drama, the event was a well-received launch event showcasing the talent and hard work put in by students across the university.

The final event for the project group was an open mic event for World Poetry Day. The World Poetry Day event saw students reading their favourite poems and ranged from Roald Dahlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Revolting Rhymes to Charles Bukowski. The organisers said that this event was especially for students to gain confidence in reading. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Many students often feel intimidated or nervous when reading their own poetry,

especially when more experienced readers are also performing, so we wanted to give them the space to read their favourite poems to their peers,â&#x20AC;? Project leader Jack Cherry said. The plan seemed to work with times slots filling fast and readers volunteering at the end of the session to stand up.

The event was a great conclusion to the year and a testament to the hard work and innovation of the Literature Live Project group.

The Live Literature Project was not just a group full of hard working students who had to complete their tasks; it was filled with students who dedicated themselves to ensuring that anyone and everyone involved, whether they be attendees of events or otherwise, came away from it all feeling invigorated and optimistic as to the future of Live Literature as a whole.

35

Andrew Pirie

Interview with Dr. Nick Turner Nick Turner is a lecturer who teaches part-time at UCLan. He specialises in post-war and contemporary British fiction with an interest in the work of women writers.

Can you give us an overview of your education history? What degree you studied for and what it was like?

My undergraduate degree was French and German, at Oxford. I had a gap of 7 years between this and doing an MA in English Literature at the University of Manchester, followed by a PhD there. Oxford study and teaching is quite odd, looking back on it now. You are generally with your tutor and one another student for an hour a week, as well as many lectures and some seminars. In the tutorials, you took turns to read your essay out - as the tutor paced about listening (and in my case going “No, No!”, it felt like). You had lots of individual time with tutors, who were very talented people, but you were never really taught the basics of essay writing and research. I think they just expected you to know. My course lasted 4 years (with a year abroad as part of it), and apart from some first year exams, there was no assessment at all until the end of the fourth year - then 6 weeks of it constantly. It’s very different from what I see students do now.

Better in some ways, worse in some.

Can you tell us about any current research you are doing?

I’m co-editing a special issue of a journal on women writers and comedy in the mid-twentieth century, and have completed an article on a little-known 1914 novel called The Pastor’s Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim. I also work on the writers Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Bowen.

What is it like to teach English Literature at UCLan? It keeps you on your toes, as I have taught many different areas outside my research area, as is the case with my colleagues. You also find that people have studied some texts in detail recently, and know them really well. You can learn from students’ knowledge that way. I’ve found students really pleasant and engaged, generally. I just wish some of the teaching rooms were brighter!

What is your favourite book to teach to students and why?

It depends. That’s not a helpful answer, but it depends on the class - some texts taught the same way work better or worse at different times. I love Jane Austen and have taught her work a lot in the past. One short story that students always enjoy and makes for great discussion is ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’.

Why Libraries Matter To Me. Vanessa Assibey

Growing up in Ghana meant not taking things for granted. I was born in London, set foot in Africa at eight and the difference in culture to my young eyes was pretty overwhelming. I was reprimanded for addressing an elder by their first name, for handing an item to another with my left hand and tittered at for not being able to cook. It was a different world and I had no idea how to adapt.

That made me unhappy for a while. I found comfort in words, not just from my parents but from strangers who knew exactly what to say when I didn’t. They made an imprint with their words and left me with nothing but their names and if I was lucky, a small picture at the back of a dust jacket.

English lessons were usually boring. Our teacher spent a lot of time incessantly correcting our grammar, our enunciation and altogether feeding her perfectionist tic. Were we exposed to books earlier, we would’ve named her Professor Umbridge.

The only books we were exposed to were textbooks: Maths, Science, Agriculture, History, Qualitative Reasoning and French.

If you’re still awake after reading the previous sentence you might have enjoyed some of the long droning lessons but as a 10-year-old with an active mind, (which was most of the class), it was always a fresh bout of hell. So we had no choice but to turn to television.

The majority of Ghana’s population master English through dubbed South American/Asian telenovelas. These shows usually feature a cheesy couple you are bound to root for from the moment they meet.

That year, the show was Rosalinda. Everyone talked about it — the entire student body - and if you didn’t watch it, it meant you were asleep by nine and if you were asleep by nine, you were a loser.

After the show came to an end, we’d run out of things to talk about at lunch. There was always gossip, but it was never as titillating as finding out that the overnight sensation Thalia and florist Rosalinda were one and the same or figuring out that the love interest’s mother was responsible for the death of many of our favourite side characters.

Then something changed.

A few months later, as per the government’s request, us students were required to read one book of our choosing per week. A library we never knew existed had made itself present on the second floor of our school and we all made it a point to grab the thinnest book we could find. I couldn’t believe we had to look at little blobs of ink for fun at night.

But, on Monday I was Harry, Wednesday I was Nancy and by Friday I was with Fred and the gang, running toward the mystery machine.

The next week, our English teacher asked how our reading went. I looked about the class. We all wore smiles like hats. We had exchanged books like gifts. We had felt the chill of snow and the lick of desert heat, deep voices, squeaky voices, British and American accents, first kisses and fist fights, all from little blobs of ink on paper.

There’s a quote by Linton Weeks that goes: “In the nonstop tsunami of global information, librarians provide us with floaties and teach us to swim.”

That week, everyone learnt to swim. But that week, I learnt to fly.

37

How to Become a Published Author in Five Days Humairaa Dudhwala

Writing a book is a feat many only dream of.

Add to the mix the idea of writing it in a mere five days whilst at university - most would say impossible. But, of course, it is possible...

As part of an assignment for my second-year English Language module, I co-led a project in which a group of eight students collaborated to write a children’s book in a week.

I should probably start at the beginning – or, in this case, with the brief that was handed around the Linguistics Lab on the rain-streaked morning that we embarked upon the UCLan White Water Writers project.

White Water Writers is a project that enables groups of writers to write and publish their own novel in five days. It uses special online collaborative writing tools to create a unique writing experience and thus allows your average Joe to become a published novelist in less than a week.

UCLan White Water Writers started off as no more than a daydream, as myself and Charlotte sat in our British Children’s Literature lecture fantasising, as you do, about writing a children’s book. As second-year English Language and Literature students, one of our modules required us to undertake an English-related project that would in some way enhance our employability (HarperCollins are you reading?).

I had helped conduct a White Water Writers camp in a high school some six months before, and it was this that prompted me to explore the idea of bringing White Water Writers to UCLan. Within a week, we (Charlotte, Carol-Anne and myself ) had a fully-developed, uber-exciting project idea: to collaborate with students studying English Language, English Literature and Creative Writing at UCLan and write a children’s book via the White Water Writers programme. The UCLan White Water Writers had been born.

Once we found our authors (competition) and fixed dates to conduct the project (clashed with exam/deadline week, but oh well) all that was left was to decide on a brief. As the team leading the project, Charlotte, Carol-Anne and I sat together and came up with a plot which we hoped would play to the strengths of our writers.

It was this half-side of A4 that was distributed to the eight writers on the morning of Monday 9th January – a mere few lines of guidance that had to be developed, morphed, Longbottomed – call it what you like – to produce a bestseller, in a week. The countdown had begun.

The first day was all about planning – which, if you’re a student (or have had any kind of

experience at writing an essay) – will know is a task more daunting than the act of writing itself. Plots, sub-plots, characters – the foundations of our beloved book were all set in motion as we worked from a blank piece of paper to a fully-developed plan by 5pm.

Over Tuesday and Wednesday, we wrote. And wrote. And wrote some more. And drank a substantial amount of coffee, whilst we were at it. Without giving too much away (don’t want novelists popping up everywhere now, do we?), we had, by the end of Wednesday, a first draft. *squeal* Thursday and Friday were were dedicated to editing, and, after getting through an extraordinary amount of paper, by Friday afternoon we had our final manuscript.

All that was left was to design a cover, blurb and decide on a title. After four days of debating matters small and large, we agreed on these final niceties rather more quickly than anticipated!

And so, as our countdown struck 59 seconds at 4.29pm on Friday 13th January, we were relaxed and satisfied enough to photograph the countdown, knowing we had done as much as we could to prepare our book for publication.

We had done it – we’d written a book, starting from next to nothing and producing a children’s novel, all in a matter of five days. And we were ecstatic!

A Sketch of Smoke was officially published on Friday, 13th January, 2017, available on Ama-

zon as a paperback and an eBook.

Amy Lee Tempest, an English Literature and Creative Writing student and one of the authors of the book, reflected on the project: ‘I was nervous about the project beforehand, as I had not written much for the age group that was proposed in the brief. My writing usually contains some adult language and themes! I was also worried about lots of writers coming together, all with different styles and ideas. I still cannot believe that nobody argued and that there weren’t any tantrums. I think the fast-paced structure and time limit meant that we all had to work quickly past problems, and we all found a great way of working together.

My favourite part was the lemon drizzle cake brought in for us to keep our energy levels up on the last day! That, and spinning around on my chair when I needed a break from the computer!’

39

How to be a Writer at UCLan. Amy Davies

It’s easier said than done. But from my experience as a second-year English Literature and Creative Writing student, know that I learnt these things the hard way. You’ll think most of it is unattainable nonsense, but if you really want to get going, start here.

1. Learn how to read fast. This may seem obvious. If you can read fast it saves time, time you can spend reading and writing more. It’s a sure benefit for studying English Literature, having such an extensive reading list, you get through it much faster. This is a good skill to have after university too. It makes you a faster worker, and that makes you more employable.

2. Don’t stop reading. Of course, it’s possible to write without reading, and when you dedicate so much of your time to writing, don’t let your writing throw reading under the bus. Your writing will improve much more and much faster if you keep reading. But don’t take it from me, take it from Stephen King: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Seriously, keep reading.

3. Don’t think too much on your first draft. Those creative ideas happen in an instant. Even if you think it’s rubbish keep writing, you might pull out a genius 10-word quote in a sea of 5,000, and it will be worth it.

4. Know when to stop. If you’ve sat at your desk for more than ten minutes without writing anything, move on (for now). Whether you’re doing some creative writing or writing an essay, if you find yourself stumped, try something else. It’s easier to do this with creative writing than it is with essays, but don’t force it. Don’t be afraid to flit between writing different things. You might spend five minutes on one piece then five minutes on another, the inspiration will come. Write what comes easily now, work on that other thing later.

5. Write every day. Every single day. Even if it’s 100 words. Write in your diary. Work on your novel. Write a poem. Write the opening line to your poem. Make some notes. Anything. That stock pile of creative writing piles up. The more you have, the better it feels.

6. Don’t delete anything. Let’s be honest, you’ll never use most of it. But going back to old work that you abandoned sometimes sparks new ideas. Sometimes it’s embarrassing. Sometimes it’s brilliant. Sometimes it’s just funny.

7. Don’t be too embarrassed to write something. If you’ve been dreaming about writing a novel, but you’re worried about the subject or the quality, don’t let it stop you. The only way to improve is to practice. Nobody ever needs to read that document. Save it to your pen drive and store it under the floorboard in your bedroom. Do what you need to do, but get that thought onto paper.

8. Make notes. When you think of a good idea, think of a poetic line, see a quote you like, a new word you like; wherever you are, write it down. Open notes on your phone and create a note you keep adding to.

Don’t read it over for a month then come back to it. You’ll have forgotten all about them. Consider how many good ideas you’ve probably had that you thought you’d remember but you most likely forgot. It will freak you out, but you’ll love it.

9. Fake it till you make it. It sounds corny, it sounds like there should be a hashtag preceding it, but whenever I feel myself doubting the quality of my writing, whenever I feel like I can’t share my writing with anyone and worry that I won’t improve, I shut myself up with this mantra. Pretend you are confident with your writing and eventually you’ll be confident with it.

10. Write first, edit afterwards. There is no point editing yet. Editing stops the flow of writing. Editing involves cutting, and you don’t want to cut until you’ve finished. It may seem irrelevant or unimportant now, but it might not be later.

11. Make writing an essential daily task. Writing should be like your morning coffee, your breakfast, lunch and tea. Incredibly fit people go to the gym so often because it has become a necessity. It is a part of their daily life and there are no questions. The same can be applied to writing. When you don’t write, you should feel it.

12. Treat yourself to a nice notepad and pen, and take it everywhere. This is possibly the only point that may not apply to everyone. When I have a notepad that I really like, I want to fill it and look after it. It’s something that is difficult to explain, but it’s often a good incentive to write.

13. Share your work. It’s a hard thing to do because you need a certain amount of confidence to do it. This is one of the most difficult things for me. Even if you start with one lecturer; send them drafts, talk about ideas, and don’t be afraid of feedback. Gradually build this bank of go-to people. Eventually you’ll only go to the harshest ones, and that’s a good sign.

14. Don’t faff. You might find yourself writing an article such as this one, whether you write a blog, start writing for a magazine, or just fancy writing in this style for a change. With this type of thing, it’s content you want. I’m 39 minutes into writing this article, and I’m nearly done. Be precise.

15. Don’t think of yourself as a student - you’re a writer. This is possibly the most important point. If you think like this, the previous 14 points will follow. Students sleep, don’t turn up to every lecture, read none of the required reading, and write essays the night before they’re due.

41

The Toaster Charlie Winstanley

It was a Monday and Radburn’s working week had begun. He worked as a shelf stacker inside a big warehouse, home to many domestic products, such as toasters kettles and microwaves. Usually his job only involved carrying things to a van. Radburn liked this. It was an easy job that didn’t require him to think too much.

“Go make me a coffee Radburn,” commanded his boss.

“Sir I’m on my break,” he replied.

“Oh really - ah that’s perfect, you can make me a coffee then can’t you?” his teeth clenched as he stared at Radburn.

“Yeah that’s fine.”

He went and made his boss a coffee precisely the way he preferred.

“Oh did I say coffee? I meant tea, doc says I have to avoid caffeine,” said the boss.

“Well technically tea has more caffeine in it sir,” replied Radburn.

“Oh really that’s interesting. Radburn go make me a cup of tea.”

Radburn heard sniggers from the boss and the other floor managers as he left the room. But to be honest that was a fairly good day for Radburn. He cycled home encountering a spot of domestic abuse coming the house on the end of street, there was screaming and smashing but again this was a relatively good day for Radburn and quite a calm day for his neighbourhood.

However, there was something considerably disturbing when he finally wheelied onto the curb outside his house. It was wasn’t anything loud or threatening but it was a disturbance for Radburn, for there was a small boy with a muddy face in his school uniform, sat inside his garden. Something made him feel sympathy towards the boy, he thought he should probably ask the boy if he was okay but at the same time he was anxious to ask. He pretended to be adjusting the chain on his bike while he struggled to gain enough confidence. Then he walked slowly to his front door.

“You okay there lad?” he finally asked but the boy didn’t reply.

“Who are you waiting for?”

“My Mum,” the boy replied, but he never faced Radburn.

“Well can’t you wait inside your house? You’ll catch a cold out here.”

“Can’t get in, Mum has the key.”

Radburn took a quick look at his watch and it was eight in the evening, the boy could have been there since four if he had come straight from school.

“Well is she going to be long?”

“I don’t know.”

“You not got anywhere else to go?”

“No.” Radburn stood there, his throat tightened and eventually his legs began to ache from the anxiety. Eventually he managed to move, he pretended to be attending to his bike again, ducking down so the boy wouldn’t see him as he crept into his house and quietly closed the door behind him. For the rest of the night, while he was making tea, on the toilet or washing up, he would involuntary stare blankly as if going into a trance, while thinking about the boy. He was even dreaming about the boy, as we often do dream about the things that surprised us during the day. In the morning he felt fine, a good sleep always seemed to make him feel better. He put the seat up a little on his bike so he could get more power to the wheels, it was less comfy but it would get him to work faster. The boy was still there, sat in the garden, with his black blazer over his chest like a blanket. Once again he froze up. But it wasn’t for long. There was some instinct working inside his mind, he had a strange urge to protect the boy, which he hadn’t felt for a long time.

“You haven’t been out here all night have you?” angrily asked Radburn.

The boy’s face scrunched up, he was obviously in pain.

“I had only just got to sleep. What time is it I need to go to school?”

“It’s just gone eight, can you get into school yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Just hold on.”

Radburn dashed in and out of the house and threw the boy a cereal bar.

“Oh thanks, I haven’t eaten in a while.”

Radburn felt stupid for just giving him a cereal bar.

“Actually hold on.”

This time he came out with the entire packet of cereal bars.

“Here you go have these, and you may as well have this as well,” Radburn handed over his lunchbox to the boy.

“Oh don’t you need this?”

“Nah it’s all right I’ll just buy something in town.”

The way boy ate the cereal bars nearly forced a tear into Radburn’s eye but he was too embarrassed to let them out, so he quickly jumped on his bike and went down the street. The boy was so busy eating that he didn’t notice Radburn leave.

Radburn was enjoying his day until he was forced to clean the toilets since the usual cleaner was off sick the previous night, and instead of arranging a replacement and wasting money, the boss knew he could just make Radburn do it. On his lunch hour, Radburn left the warehouse and walked a few streets down to a little cheap informal restaurant, inside a side street. It was busy as usual, full of arty people with unusual hair styles, multi-coloured wooly clothes and oversized boots. Radburn couldn’t believe he used to look like most the of the people here, this place used to be like a sanctuary for him, a place where he could feel comfortable, but now he felt awkward. He sat at the breakfast bar, his fingers shaking slightly and his eyes stinging.

“All right Radburn you’ve not been in for a while,” said the chubby man behind the bar. He was the owner.

“Yeah probably about two years in it?”

“Aye probably, what can I get for you? The menu’s changed since you were last here.”

“I seem to remember it changing every week.”

“Aye yeah you mean the specials; yeah we still do that, just on the board there.”

Radburn looked at the blackboard where the specials had been written in blue chalk instead of the traditional white. He felt a form of pressure and awkwardness press on his face, for he knew somebody was waiting for him, even though the owner of the restaurant probably didn’t care that much.

“I can give you a bit more time if you want.”

“Yeah sorry I just didn’t know notice that specials menu, but it’s all right I’ll just have that pulled pork baguette.”

“Any sauces?”

“Just brown please.”

The owner shouted towards the kitchen, Radburn could tell he was trying to get his order in first, which was strange to him because he couldn’t remember getting the same treatment when he regularly came in here.

“So how’s the little nipper?” asked the owner.

“Oh I haven’t seen him for a while. I’m not with her anymore.”

“I thought you might not be because I saw her in here the other week with a different bloke. You still get to see the boy though?”

“Nah not anymore, she was pregnant when we broke up so, I haven’t really seen him a lot.”

“And you have to pay for that do you?”

“Yeah one fifty a month. Not a great thing to return home to when you’ve seen blood guts and limbs spread across your windscreen,” he laughed but it wasn’t funny. “It’s setting me back a bit actually, especially the divorce money because my pension and social security benefit won’t cover everything, that’s why I have to work in a warehouse.”

“Ah that’s really bloody shit man.”

“Yeah I just don’t get it sometimes; she was once the sweetest and most caring woman I’d ever met. For years I risk my life, miss her to death and when I get home – she’s a completely different woman. Angry, spiteful, in love with another man and now I have to pay their mortgage, you know it’s just a big joke really, but not a very a funny one.”

“Yeah she always seemed like a sweet person - you should have refused to do a DNA test. You might not be in such a bad way.”

“Yeah well I was stupid wasn’t I? I was trying anything to make her happy so we might get back together.”

“Yeah we’ve all been in that boat. I’ll tell you what Radburn if she ever comes back in here and orders meat I’ll undercook it and make her ill, her new boyfriend too if you want, just for you mate.” They both chuckled. Radburn had to wait another five minutes before the owner personally came out with his lunch.

“You enjoy that mate.”

He spent another five minutes eating the baguette before the owner personally cleared up his table.

“Can I just have the bill please, I got to get back to work,” asked Radburn.

“Shut up you just get gone don’t worry about the bill.”

Radburn arrived back at the warehouse fifteen minutes before his break was over. He sat quietly back in the staff room. There was the sound of heavy boots coming towards him. Radburn knew who they belonged to. He stared at the wall, with his shoulders hunched hoping the sound would just go past, but it stopped at its loudest.

“Radburn where have you been?” asked the boss.

“I went out for lunch, on my lunch hour,” replied Radburn.

“Are you getting a little bit cocky there Radburn? Are you actually telling me that you left the building? What if I needed you here Radburn?”

“Well plenty of other people go out on their lunch hour.”

43

“Yeah but those people aren’t you are they Radburn?” There was a pause and Radburn caught the stench of coffee on the boss’s breath.

“Are they Radburn?” the boss shouted, bending over into his ear.

“No sir of course not sir.”

“Good. Now the reason why I needed you was because somebody pebble dashed on the far right toilet, so I need you to clean it up right now Radburn.”

Cleaning faeces from the inside of a toilet with nothing but toilet paper, which meant skin to faeces contact was an average day for Radburn, there had been plenty worse.

Luckily he managed to escape early before the boss kept him behind to do more tedious unpayed tasks. He was meant to finish at five but mostly came home between half seven and eight. He arrived home at half five and once again found the boy sat in his garden.

“You haven’t been locked out again have you?” asked Radburn.

“Yeah – my mum still hasn’t been home,” the boy had clearly been crying.

“Do you know where she is?”

“No.” “Well you can’t stay out here in the cold you’ll have to go to hospital, I’m making some chicken curry tonight for tea if you want to come in and have some. I can make homemade sugar bread as well if you like.”

“I don’t know if I’m aloud I’ll have to ask my mum first.”

“Okay fine, I guess I’ll just have to have all the cheesecake to myself then.”

Radburn quickly walked into the house but waited in the corridor instead of going into the kitchen. Then the bell rang just as he predicted.

“Do you have anything else other than curry?” asked the boy.

“Well have you have ever tried curry?”

“Well no. But I know I probably wouldn’t like it.”

“You remind me of when I was young, in fact everyone your age is the same,” he led the boy into the kitchen and told him to sit down at the breakfast bar.

“When you get older there will be very few things you don’t like. What does your mum usually make you?”

“Oh well. She doesn’t really cook that much, but sometimes she’ll come home with a pizza or a kebab and then sometimes she makes me some peas.”

Radburn was gradually becoming angrier.

“What just peas and nothing else?”

“Well sometimes she makes potatoes and then there was this one time that she made me a chicken kiev-” “All right that’s enough – how about you try a bit of curry first and if you don’t like it I’ll make something else?”

“Well what’s in it.”

“Usually chicken with peppers and other vegetables anything you want really.”

“I don’t like vegetables.”

“How about I don’t put any in then?”

“Well I like potatoes.”

“Then I’ll put potatoes in then.”

He spent nearly fifteen minutes making the curry and he put peppers in anyway. They both sat at the breakfast bar. The boy stared for a while at the plate before piercing a pepper with his fork.

“What’s this?” the boy asked.

“It’s a pepper, go on try it they’re quite sweet you know.”

He chewed the pepper with a scrunched up face that gradually relaxed.

“It’s not bad,” said the boy with the food still in his mouth, which caused the curry sauce to launch out of his mouth onto Radburn’s shirt. The boy didn’t seem to notice and neither did Radburn.

“So do you have any idea where you mum is?” asked Radburn.

The boy continued to speak with his mouth open, it was clear he hadn’t been taught basic table manners.

“She’s probably away with friends eating brown sugar.”

“Brown sugar? Oh okay,” he remembered it was a street name for heroin.

“So do you like your curry overall?” asked Radburn.

“Yeah it’s good; I’ll have to ask my mum to make it.”

That was obviously not going to happen, but the boy didn’t know that and Radburn knew the boy didn’t know that, which made him even angrier.

“How about we have some cheesecake now?” asked Radburn.

“But I haven’t finished my curry yet.”

“That doesn’t matter I’ll put it in a plastic tub and you can take it home with you.”

“I’ve never had cheesecake before, but I’ve seen it in the shop, on the corner and it looks nice. But is it really made out of cheese?”

“Well it’s a cream cheese so it doesn’t really taste of cheese,” he went to the fridge and revealed a New York style cheesecake.

“You might not be able to eat cheesecake out the shop ever again after you eat this, it will never be as good as home made.”

“Are you a chef ?”

“No I just prefer to make things myself, it saves money and it tastes better most of the time. No I work in a warehouse, but that’s boring. I used to work as a driver in the army, now that was a lot of fun I really miss it. I got to drive jeeps and co-drive tanks.”

The boy’s face seemed unimpressed.

“Do you not know what I’m on about?”

“No not really.”

“Right then, you sit down on that sofa and I’ll show you something.”

They spent the rest of night eating cheesecake and sweats while watching war films before it was time for bed.

“Well you can’t go and sleep in my garden again; I’ll put you up in the spare room.”

The next day Radburn had the boy’s school uniform freshly clean and a lunch box for him. He also made sure he got to school safely. Then he made his way to work. Radburn tried to get his work done faster than usual to impress the boss, so that he could hopefully leave a little earlier. He didn’t want the boy to be on that doorstep any longer than he had to be. It was about three in the afternoon, about the time the boy would be finishing school, when Radburn approached the boss.

“Oh you’ve finished everything have you, what do you want me to do about it?” asked the boss.

“Well there’s no point of me being here, we have no more deliveries to do today and everything is stacked, so I was just wondering if I could go home early, I have some family problems to deal with.”

“Okay fine you can go home right now if you want, what other days are you working this week?”

The boss walked over to his calendar with a pen.

“Radburn, you’re in until Saturday, now you’re not. You’re not coming in Wednesday Thursday or Friday, in fact take the week off after that as well since you’ve got your family problems.”

“But sir there’s no chance I’ll be able to pay my rent, I’ll be kicked out of my house.”

“That’s not my problem Radburn, you obviously need this job more than I need you. Now I want you to work until nine tonight, since the cleaner is still off you can do all his little jobs. Now go on get busy, I want to be able to lick those toilet lids.”

“No I don’t think that’s going to happen sir.”

The bosses’ face squashed up and there was a long pause.

“What did you just say Radburn?”

“I said I’m not doing it.”

“Yeah I thought you said that. Since you are one of the better workers here, I may forgive this incident, but only if you turn around right now and get back to work.”

Radburn behaved oblivious to everything the boss was saying and picked up the closest object to him, which happened to be a toaster. Then he began repeatedly smashing the toaster into the boss’s head, while kicking him in the lower abdomen. Radburn had never felt better. This was not a psychotic outburst, this was psychological healing, this was better than hours of therapy from a shrink. There was no anger to his face, in fact he felt completely calm. He was not messed up from eviscerating men with his front bumper, he was messed up because he missed it. Eventually he was stopped by a security guard who informed the police who then threw Radburn into a cell that very night.

“Why are you in jail?” asked the boy, who stood outside of Radburn’s cell.

“Well I nearly beat my boss to death with a toaster, but how come you’re here?”

“I came to see if you’re okay.”

“Oh right, so still no news about your mum?”

“No. Are you ever going to get out of here?”

“Well common assault usually means a maximum of six months but since I’m on a mental health benefit, I guess I might be institutionalised to an asylum or something. I don’t think I’ll be there long I’m feeling a lot better, I just want to move on, live a little and start a family like I should have instead of joining the army.”

He looked up and down the prison corridor but the boy was no longer there, he had left.

45

Damnatio Memoriae Jamie I. Douglas

There are many words in my mind ready to escape my lips that I could use to describe how I feel about you.

None of them good, obviously.

The strolls in Roundhay at the start I craved to see us do, for the memories that we’d make.

Yet now, if you were here, I would be strolling at a faster pace than you.

The times we swam in the Cornish sea, in those crystalline blue waves, where, when close, your hands would trace up my arms to my shoulders and rest there a moment before cupping my cheeks to prepare me for your lips.

I would push you out into the waters, a small boat, and swim away from you, knowing you wouldn’t drown even if I wanted you to, if I had the chance.

When spaghetti and meatballs were served, your eyes lit up and we dug in; the lady and her tramp.

That small bit of sauce was spotted in a corner of your mouth and wiped away by my thumb.

Today if I would see it there I’d let you realise and go to wipe instead, as I’d stay sat.

I might even dab more sauce on the other side for good measure.

When you would spin yarns in an eloquent oration, your voice was a wonder to hear, filled with life and spirit.

Now they’d be sharp and dull to me, as pitiful as your lies.

The things you’d do to arouse in that black satin slip you barely covered yourself with, just to drop,

ready for me to deliver the goods.

Did you think I wouldn’t catch you doing this even when I was gone?

You’d let another in?

And I’d stay a blind lamb?

The pretty stained flowers tumbled out of your mouth, trying to mask the truth of your new putrid stench in my life – if I could pick them up, and make a bouquet, I’d force them back into their vase, hoping to crush and drown them.

For something to mean nothing there had to be truth in your words, your actions, your mind – but there wasn’t.

Again.

For just another one of your conquests ready to dispose of when you grew bored.

The tears that darkened your eyes showed your true self to me.

A moment of truth before your judge and jury of profaned love and honesty.

The pain of realisation in your revelations to me.

I want to laugh now.

But I can’t.

Whenever I’d see a tear before this day it hurt.

Not just to see, but to know it did – I hate seeing tears, seeing vulnerability.

And in yours I left.

The truth, if I’d have stayed, would be the cycle beginning all over.

You know it.

I won’t let it happen again.

Not to me.

You can pump someone else’s blood faster and remember, in pain, that it’s not mine.

Charlie Winstanley

Interview with Prof. Will Kaufman Will Kaufman is a professor of American Literature at the University of Central Lancashire and is also the world’s leading authority on American protest musician Woody Guthrie.

His research has lead to interesting discoveries that even had an impact on the American presidential election of 2016.

Kaufman has a number of books available now with another two awaiting release in the near future. Also a talented musician himself, he tours internationally with his live musical documentaries on Woody Guthrie. Dates for these performances and more information on his research and releases can be found at www.willkaufman.com.

What kind of research are you doing at the moment?

For the last couple of years I’ve been researching Woody Guthrie, the father of modern American protest music, huge influence on Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. In addition to writing, I actually perform these live documentaries on Woody Guthrie because I’m a guitarist and a singer as well. I even did it at Glastonbury. I’ve published the first political biography of Woody Guthrie which was called Woody Guthrie: American Radical and that came out in 2011 through the University of Illinois Press. I’ve got my next book on Woody Guthrie coming out in the summer (2017) titled Woody Guthrie’s Modern World Blues. That’s being published by the University of Oklahoma Press. It’s about Guthrie’s engagement with modernity. The following year (2018) I have another book coming up called Woody Guthrie: Down, Up or Anywhere which deals with geography and how that impacted his writing. I’m the world’s leading authority on Woody Guthrie. Next I’ll be giving a TED Talk on Woody Guthrie in April.

I was the one who discovered these writings from the Woody Guthrie archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it was widely publicised about a year ago. Woody hated his landlord in the Beachhaven apartment complex in Brooklyn from 1950 to 1952.

He hated his landlord because he was practically keeping black people from living in the complex. He wrote songs condemning his landlord as well as essays and letters. His landlord’s name was Fred C Trump. The current president’s father. Called him ‘Old Man Trump’. You can look up Woody Guthrie and Trump and all of this will come up. I discovered it and first wrote about it in an online newspaper called The Conversation last January (2016) and it’s still going around now. People such as Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine) and Ryan Harvey have recorded the songs I discovered.

When Donald Trump announced his candidacy and all the racism came to light, all of a sudden Guthrie was relevant from beyond the grave talking about the whole Trump empire and it’s foundations - the real estate foundations on racism and discriminatory housing. So a lot of people picked up on my writings there and it really was an intervention into the

presidential campaign cause people were saying “Did you know Woody Guthrie wrote this about Trump’s father?” and “You know Donald Trump himself has said that his father’s legacy is his legacy?”. The first time Donald Trump was in the New York Times was when he was sued as a landlord for racially discriminatory practises. So it wasn’t only Fred Trump.

Donald Trump was sued alongside his father by the justice department of the United States for discriminatory rental practises. So all of that was relevant to the presidential campaign since he started coming out with all his racial profiling and his ideas of Muslims and Mexicans, etc. So I was instrumental in that and I’m still keeping up with Woody Guthrie now.

If you could turn any poem into a song, what one would you pick?

I think it would be The Mask of Anarchy by Lord Byron. Because of that wonderful line, it’s about the Peterloo massacre in Manchester and the final stanza has “Rise like lions after slumber in unvanquishable number. Shake your chains to earth like dew, which in sleep had fallen on you. Ye are many, they are few.” It’s essentially a protest song and that’s what I like, protest music. I’d put that to a good, rousing protest beat.

It’s the kind of stuff that Springsteen would do, I think. I like Springsteen a lot and what he’s done with the protest music tradition.

47

To Last or Not to Last: From a Writer’s Cradle to the Grave Jamie. I. Douglas

A book is a wondrous thing. Anyone who tells you differently is probably someone who either doesn’t read at all, or someone who doesn’t understand the joy a book can bring. Consider this: how can a book not be considered wondrous if it has managed to stand the test of time? Or even if the book was published little under a century ago?

A ‘classic’ book is impossible to define, but what may be agreed upon is its seemingly endless appeal, whether it is by contemporary critics or readers.

Books released over a century ago, considered classics—timeless in their readership and brevity—include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein from 1818, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland from 1865, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897.

Just this small trio of books, widely considered classics by contemporary readers today, has stood the test of time. If you wanted to go further than 1818, try the Bible’s first speculated appearance well over fifteen centuries ago, around the 4th century. It has been collected by and sold to millions all over the world, becoming the bestselling book ever. Although calling it a ‘classic’ considering the content may be stretching it in terms of literary appeal, it is literally a sacred text for religious purposes that has not been written for its entertainment value, but rather for its sacred religious value. Because of this, it possibly should not be classified among other literature.

Moving within a century ago, we have J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, with the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring, entering the public’s world in 1954, and the last volume, The Return of the King, published in 1955. This epic high-fantasy trilogy’s popularity, as well as the new editions published still today, still capture the imaginations of readers, regardless of age. To show its everlasting appeal, take the Peter Jackson adaptions of the trilogy into account, spanning from 2001 to 2003. Millions absorb Jackson’s depiction of Tolkien’s Middle Earth. In the more science-fiction side of things, we have Philip K. Dick’s dystopian vision of the future in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? from 1968, adapted into the cult sci-fi film, Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott in 1982. Despite not performing well at the box-office (a mere $33 million gross on a $28 million budget), unlike Jackson’s adaption of The Lord of the Rings (grossing a hefty $2.917 billion on its $281 million budget), fans, whether they have read the book or not, still contest to the validity of Blade Runner being a classic like the novel it is based upon. What can be said about both, regardless of money grossed, is that they also regenerated interest in the novels they were based on.

All the books mentioned before have been adapted into films or television series. This doesn’t necessarily say that producers only see money signs in their eyes, but that they know the books seemingly undying appeal on readers everywhere. Each book has different qualities cementing its position in people’s minds and lives, and these qualities may not necessarily be translated into film. They could be translated from the page to the screen by a different medium altogether—one which may or may not be surprising depending on the person.

In this case, I’m referring to the original Russian novel from 2007, Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky, being adapted into the atmospheric and chilling video game of the same name in 2010. As well as being translated into English, in 2009, for the translated novel itself, the video game is not only available in multiple countries, but also gives the option to play it entirely in Russian (albeit with subtitles) as well as in the player’s native language (which is as default depending on the player’s region).

As is the case with bestselling novels, Metro 2033 found its adaption through the medium of video games and, like the novel, was received positively by fans and critics alike. As with the majority of video games, however, there were the usual problems to be found. And these were mainly bugs that can occur often in video games.

If you wanted another example of video games adapting novels which were bestsellers, then look no further than Andrzej Sapkowski’s 1993 novel The Last Wish (first translated into English from the original Polish in 2007). This novel is a collection of seven short-stories joined together by a frame narrative. A video game titled “The Witcher”, based in the world of The Last Wish, was released in 2007 to positive reviews, much like the novel. The subsequent games in the series too, also based upon the works of Sapkowski, have gone on to receive critical acclaim from critics and new fans introduced to Sapkowski since then. What this also did, in the case of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (released in 2015), is garner new interest in the series, so much to the point where The Last Wish, along with The Witcher 3, both became bestsellers in June of that same year, with The Witcher 3 selling roughly six million copies worldwide.

Gamers make up a massive audience, which cannot be denied, but what these games show is the sheer appeal to people worldwide, regardless of native languages. In these cases, there doesn’t seem to be a barrier, and readers can cross the barrier

of only using their minds to imagine the words coming to life, but they can also experience the books first hand, as well as passively consuming them.

To even further show this, the Harry Potter franchise is a series of books with a worldwide audience—the first of which is English— and there have been film adaptations and video-game adaptations of the series. Just ask the millions of fans who have taken this series to the heart, like a student takes alcohol by more than just shots. The franchise of films, video games, but most importantly the novels themselves, have been translated into dozens of languages to compensate for their mass worldwide appeal.

As for enduring appeal, a thought must be spared for the works which find their way into a canon, and hopefully not the kind for warfare; we like books here. We don’t harm them. A literary canon in this context, I will say is a collection of literary works, whether they are from the Medieval period, the Renaissance, or are Modern (i.e. the 20th Century). I think it would be unwise to cite any works from the 21st century, mainly because it hasn’t yet ended. Instead of crossing through the checkboxes as to what makes a canon, I’ll instead list three well-known canons and two lesser-known canons. Bear in mind that this doesn’t mean I’m deliberately saying which I prefer and which I wish didn’t exist.

The five are as follows: The Georgian Canon – most likely you’ll have heard of the works of Jane Austen (of Pride and Prejudice fame), Jonathan Swift (known for Gulliver’s Travels), and Mary Shelley (she wrote Frankenstein, in case you forgot). These writers tend to fall easily into the category of the classics, and that mainly could be because of how often we are reminded of their existence.

The Victorian Canon – getting closer to the 21st century, such authors of Queen Victoria’s era are comprised of the Brontë sisters (for their brooding words), everyone’s favourite orphan creator Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy (who murdered Tess of the d’Urbervilles). Again, a majority of the writers in this canon have their works regarded as classics.

The Renaissance Canon – even further away from the 21st century than those in the Georgian era, include writers such as poet John Donne (The Flea), Edmund Spenser (The Fairie Queen), and good ol’ Bill Shakespeare (who hasn’t much to do with anything).

As for the canons which you may not be as aware of, it could partly be because they are so old you wonder why they still distract scholars and academics, or that they are so young they won’t leave the house just yet, and so wait to be remembered in time. These include: The Medieval Canon – the poem Beowulf whereby no-one knows who wrote it, and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

The Modern 20th century Canon – consisting of people such as Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot even though the guy never turns up), Joseph Conrad (with his Heart of Darkness), and T. S. Eliot (The Waste Land which is better than it sounds, despite the content).

True, works of fiction from the 20th century may make people scratch their heads knowing they exist as canons, as well as classics. But the reputations of such works may outweigh their popularity thus extending the shelf-lives of the works.

Readers have a vast range of works across the centuries to discover, a huge selection of classics to flick through, but because these works never seem to disappear in time, they earn their classic status and thus they last. It also may be cruel to mention that sometimes the death of the writer may help its enduring appeal. People want to know what kind of people wrote these things and want to find out more. They don’t have to wait for someone like Stephen King to write about what he did on a certain day; they’ll have history lessons about him one day. Not because of the person he was, but because of the body of works he left behind, adding further to the 21st century canon.

Now, all of this ultimately leads to the most important question: can a book’s permanency be greater than ever imagined?

The simple answer, as annoying as it is, could be ‘yes, it can. Look at the Bible’. And then another could be ‘no, it cannot.

A novel like Fifty Shades of Grey should not be remembered like others should be’. However, surely this is just the plain and simple appeal of such books. They don’t necessarily need to have cemented themselves through teaching, they could be just pure escapism, or in Fifty Shades of Grey’s case, being tied up in a room somewhere to ‘escape’ from everyday life.

I want to say a book will last forever—I really do—but ultimately, a phenomenon like The Twilight Saga and the Harry Potter franchise, seems to hang in the balance of an audience’s appeal rather than simply being a classic.

This may be sad to be told or to know, but it’s also brilliant, because it’s just as true as a book’s enduring appeal to the readers across all of time.

49

The Life and Death of a Spider.

Natalie Kelly

I finally managed to climb up. The smooth plastic of the slug tank was difficult to manoeuvre, each of my legs seemed to have little or no grip. Looking up I could see the Web. Home. I could see the missus, she scuttled towards the sack of eggs. So many of them and soon they would spin little webs of their own, sometime, someplace. Behind the Web, past the top of the building was an expanse of blue, no white. It was a glorious sight and I urged my legs on. The second back left still dragged behind me.

Mowers, always trying to digest me. The odd creatures with their four legs, slinky tail and sharp fangs.

Taking a rest beside the hose of the slug tank I watched my surroundings. Then there were these even odder creatures. Like the Mowers they had two eyes and a mouth but only two legs. Just two! They must be so unstable, that’s why they ride in their enclosures for any length of travelling would exhaust those two legs. Mominoms. They tend to ignore us for the most part which is how I prefer it. We’re a lot smaller than them so can go unnoticed, unheard and be on our way quite merrily. Sometimes one would be inherently afraid of me, it makes me chuckle, for I am so small and they are so large. If I was caught underneath one of them, I would be as flat as my web. One of the enclosures came to a halt right in front of me. It was a rather large one and I was fairly surprised when it was a small Mominom who vacated it to fill its enclosure with slug. This was the deposit where all the enclosures would come to get slug, injected by being connected to the slug tank where we made our home. He wore coverings, like all Mominom’s. So odd. This one also wore an extra piece atop its head. Perhaps to shield it from the rain.

I loathe the rain, it comes in large magnitudes. It creates bodies of water which I cannot cross, forcing me to take the longest route home. It creates chaos. Things become slippery. I try to climb and I slide all the way back to the bottom where more great drops of it crash around me. It’s terrifying. I imagine how I feel is the way some of those Mominoms feel when they see myself.

The ones who scream at me and run away. I nearly drown each and every time that I get caught out in the rain. It had rained for many nights but finally I was heading home. I could feel hot air running up my back. I turned and came face to face with the Mominom and the expression across its face made me freeze. In his hand it held fire. The small flame waved back and forth slightly, then flickered sharply before returning to the gentle wave.

I suddenly had images racing around my mind. Of orange and red and yellow. We used to live in a Mominom home with one of those families. In fact we were part of a whole colony in the Mominom home. The Mominom, barely noticed our little Web just above the fire hollow and we knew the danger. If the fire was lit we must stay away or we would perish. I had watched many friends including an old lover of mine fall into the scorching flames. The calls of agony and screams of fear still ring in my ears. Piercing and painful. The memories never fade. It hurts.

One year the Mominom family ended up with a Momiling and once this Momiling got old enough to walk it started to notice us. Its shriek was much louder and much more painful than those of my spider friends. We were clearly not welcome anymore, however it was our home and we stood our ground. We weren’t very large and didn’t take up much room after all. Then one day, one of the Mominoms did something terrible. Something they had never done before. With the shoosher they used to sweep the floor, they attempted to sweep us into the fire. They are quick creatures despite their size and the shoosher is almost impossible to escape. The long stiff spikes trap you as you slide toward the heat. Or even getting caught underneath it could result in being squashed. Again, I witnessed dear friends die at the sweeps of the shoosher. I also saw a very small number get away, survive. But they never came back to the Mominom home to live. I don’t know where they went.

One day it was my turn. I crawled along the front of the fire hollow, heat burning the right side of my body. I kept glancing over to where the Momling was sat playing with fake Mominom effigies. These really are the oddest creatures in the world.

They smelled richly of something sickeningly sweet. And they often added scents, another incredibly odd quirk of Mominoms.

One day they would smell salty and awful, then later or the next day, they would smell like plants.

I was as quiet as possible, hoping against hope they wouldn’t turn to see me. But they did. The loudest shriek I ever heard made me freeze. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move. Frozen in fear beside the melting heat of the fire. And then, the brown spiked shoosher glided towards me and suddenly the fear kicked in and wave of energy and motivation surged through my body. I moved all my legs, quick as I had ever moved them. The sound of the shoosher was the next thing I remember and that sound made my heart drop. I was gone, I was done for. It swished behind me and I felt it catch my back legs and I stopped. I was yanked backwards. Desperately I curled up trying to loosen myself. A fall at this height wouldn’t kill me, I’d be able to scurry away. Away out of sight. But I was caught. Then the shoosher shook. Violently. Up and down, side to side, back and foreword. I flailed about helplessly. Then it dawned on me. If I was to fall now, I would fall directly into the fire. And die.

I was brought back to the present, the Mominom was making noises. After many years of listening to them I understood that this was their form of communication. It made sense. Their great big bodies made that much vibration, it would be difficult to tell when they were asking a question or simply moving. These strangled noises hurt to listen to. The Mominom was slow. But the flame became closer yet I could not move. The hairs on my legs stood erect and I could feel myself panicking. What do I do? Where do I go? But before I can decide the Mominom lunges forward and the flame smashes the slug tank beside me. The slug tank shakes and I feel unsteady as I start to run upwards towards the Web. I thought of nothing else but the Web and how I must be free of the heat behind me. Then there’s some rumbling, a god awful noise and a horrible shaking beneath me.

There was a ringing in my head, behind my eyes, there was a scorching heat all over my body yet I was touching nothing. I floated in space. Nothing anywhere and falling. The ringing subsided and I listened to the other sounds. Crashes and bangs and Mominom screeches. My vision incredibly blurred. I saw only colours in an artistic mess. There was dark oranges and yellows here and there. Over there some blue, then down there black. The smell too was overwhelming, it smelled like the slug for the enclosures but burnt. The fire must have tripled. It was everywhere as I seemed to fly. Fly in slow motion. Even while tumbling through the air, I could feel the pain. My back leg in more agony than before. I thought of the web. If the fire was truly as large as I had glimpsed, then the whole Web would burn and fall to ash. My wife and the eggs, not yet even had their first scuttle, they would all perish too. But what could I do? If I truly could fly I would have spread my wings and headed straight for home.

I’d swoop in and carry my family away from danger. We had often thought about relocating. There was a few trees not too far away from the slug tanks.

Then the ground met me. I was a shock. And it hurt. My body seemed to sink in between the jagged rubble. The crater I had landed in would go unnoticed by a Mominom. I was on my back, legs pathetically flailing in the air, the injured one however hung at an odd and concerning angle. Next was the pain. More of it. It hit me like I hit the ground and it flared through my back and seared through my head. I screamed. I yelled and I cried and I shouted with vibrations. But there were no other arachnids. There never were, we were the only ones in residency here. And my family were all up on the Web. It was only then I realised that I missed the colony. The familiarity and safety in numbers. I imagined what the Web was like. Perhaps it was safe, only my missus would have seen the whole ordeal. Saw the flames burst and witness myself flung from the slug tank and away into a gravely crater.

As I lay there, my mind flicks back to the colony. In the warm home of the Momonom’s before they had a Momling. I miss how easy it was to capture fliers and lices, the community meant nobody went hungry and nobody was alone. But that home, was also dangerous. We would not have lasted long there. As the pain coursed through me, I began to wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if I had fallen. That day where I clung to the shoosher so tightly that the Mominom threw the shoosher with me on it out into the frozen plants. If only I had let go, perished in the fire. It would have been a much quicker death, I would have been gone and my wife, she would have found another spider. And they could have fled to a better home.

Their Web would have been intact, unlike ours. If only I has let go and perished instead of running away. That surely would have been less painful.

I could just see our Web, hanging like my leg. But I could hear no shouts or cries from my wife. I wondered…just maybe, could she have escaped? Scuttled as fast as her legs could go, to the safety of another slug tank, of a Mominom enclosure? I began to feel exhausted and somehow relaxed. The Mominom’s were thundering around and often splashed the rain over into the crater in which I lay. The large splotches soaked me, almost like a blanket. I pulled my legs in towards me as tight as I could and closed my eyes. I started thinking. Remembering. What the first feeling of scuttling on wood felt like in comparison to earth. What the heat of the fire felt like when I almost died then. The sounds of the Mominom’s and their odd enclosures that rolled along on four balls. The Mowers, and their hunger. Is that how I would end up? In the insides of another creature. It dawned on me. That was how it worked. Maybe, we ate the fliers, the Mowers ate us, and perhaps the Mominom’s ate the Mowers. But there were so many creatures in the world. Beaked fliers, croakers and the ones that were similar to Mowers but rode around in Mominom enclosures, as if they were companions going on a great adventure. Where does everything connect? I closed my eyes, blocked out the sounds and wondered.

51

How in Seven Hells Do You Edit a Manuscript?

Charlie Winstanley

Editing, you either hate it or tolerate it. I don’t think anyone can truly enjoy it. But nonetheless we can’t avoid it forever. Luckily you will soon have nothing to fear since after reading this guide, you’ll feel like a brave knight in shining armour ready to slay monsters, save princesses and probably get murdered at your own wedding. We’ll be covering methods on how to strengthen your work, how to edit efficiently and how to make it look pretty.

The first technique will be like the wielding of the one ring when it comes to editing, since it will indefinitely have a radical effect on your work. The problem is I haven’t come up with a cool name for it yet. So, for now, we’ll call it the film simulation effect-thing, for the sake of making it obvious. Many writers have found it useful to imagine their story as a film or TV drama. You must simulate your story as a film in your head, and you’ll start to notice that things very naturally begin to change. This is because you’re imagining your story in a realistic and published format. You’re essentially giving it a scaffolding where everything must make sense. You will begin to make conversations more realistic, implement plausibility into particular scenes, and strengthen plot. You will often find yourself asking questions like: does this even make sense? Is this really needed? Would that really happen?

So, whenever it comes to editing, use this technique. You can do it while waiting for a bus, eating your lunch or even taking a dump. However, before you jump into the saddle, you still need to know the key features of a story that need a meticulous focus for when it comes to editing.

They are the following: Pace Happy and sad Structure Language And then all that boring stuff like grammar and spelling, (especially since if it’s too bad an editor may simply refuse your work). Pace basically means the speed of each scene.

You need your pace to be jumbled up a bit, since you can’t have the characters shooting the hell out of each other in every scene; sometimes you need to them sit down in a pub, have a pint and just have a chat. But at the same time, you can’t have them drinking calmly for the entire story, because that would obviously get boring, and all your characters would die from alcohol poisoning.

You will also need to be conscious about the balance of happy and sad moments in your story. You can write a fairly depressing story, but you can’t write it in an intoxicatingly miserable way. You need to take a break from the tear-jerking scenes, otherwise the effect of a horrific

moment will have a lesser effect on the reader. At the same time, you can’t have a story too frequently jolly, even in a comedy, because the comedy will eventually become over saturated. What will be hit harder by a heart-breaking moment? A heartbroken reader? Or a reader laughing hysterically?

When it comes to structuring your plot, there is a basic formula you can follow, (but also intentionally break if you’re feeling ambitious).

The formula is the following: Open to an everyday world A call to adventure Protagonists’ goals become clear Antagonist’s goals become clear Rising Action The deeper mysteries The showdown And everyone lived happily ever after, (or not) So, this may just sound like a typical adventure story, but you’ll be surprised how transferable the formula is into every genre of story. You can obviously bend the formula slightly, but if you don’t make your protagonist’s goals clear, then a story can become hard to follow, because people won’t really care about what’s going on.

Let’s run through the formula’s stages. Firstly, we have the everyday world, which definitely should not be taken literally in contemporary writing. When I say everyday world, what I really mean is don’t shower the beginning of your story with a bundle of complicated information, banging on about a character’s family history or the origins of the universe, because nobody cares. Be a little calm, be a little ordinary, but don’t be boring. It’s always best to open a story with something actually happening, like something tense or a little dramatic and mysterious. But don’t bring action in too early and don’t be too mysterious, because you don’t want to completely clobber the brains of your reader before the story has even started; you can do a little bit of that later but for now, keep things easy to follow and intriguing. At the end of the day you want people to keep on reading. Imagine a reader trying to wind down before they go to bed. Do they read your book or do they just watch Netflix? You want them to be so enthralled in your book that they give up the lazy options, otherwise they’ll keep on watching Netflix, forget about your book and pick up something else when they’re next at the bookstore.

Secondly, we have the call to adventure, which essentially means what is actually going to happen in your story, and why the hell might somebody read it. A lot of books have the problem of not doing this early enough into the story having spent too much time building up this everyday world, until it eventually becomes as interesting as an everyday world. Normally this is represented as a problem or any form of imminent conflict, which could range from the end of the world to a broken finger nail. You give your protagonist a problem and you say, “Go on, crack on and sort it out”.

Our third stage goes hand in hand with the call to adventure, although sometimes a protagonist’s goals can have nothing to do with his adventure. People don’t normally want to do things like saving the world just for a laugh or from the generosity of their hearts, instead they want money, sex and/or power—because they’re human. It’s definitely important to make this clear early on in your story, reader’s need to know what the protagonist wants and how much they will suffer to succeed.

For the next stage, we have the antagonist’s goals. The antagonist is the person or force that is directly attempting to prevent the protagonists achieving their goals. It could be as big Sauron creating an orc army to invade the world and take the ring back, or as small as a wicked step mother not letting Cinderella go to the ball. The point is that the antagonist has to be revealed early in the story, otherwise your reader is going to be thinking “When does the story start?” The antagonist brings conflict to the story and it is a necessity, otherwise you have no plot.

Next, we have the rising action. This is when you begin to tone down your hooks and mysteries, because you’ve already gotten your reader interested, which means it’s time to do some proper writing. But obviously don’t be boring from here on out. This is the point where you have to have something happen—this is when Luke Skywalker infiltrates the death star, when the fellowship battle orcs in the mines of Moria. However, it doesn’t necessarily have to be adrenaline pumped up action, it could be as small as Jack taking Rose to a ‘real party’ in Titanic, since this is the beginning of their romantic relationship. Imagine that this point in the story is when you roll a snowball down a hill. The snowball is going to build up with tension, drama and sneaky foreshadowing, then finally explodes as it is smashed into a rock at the bottom of the hill.

Which leads us onto our next few stages. The deeper mysteries and the showdown is a mushy area that can be thrown around the room a bit. The main point is that you need to have a showdown where the conflict comes to a climax, and the mysteries of the plot should be revealed (or at least most of them). It can happen in any order or even at the same time, but something has to be resolved, unless you are intentionally writing an unsatisfying ending like Cormac McCarthy did (don’t do it to yourself), and taking a more experimental approach (seriously don’t even think about it). The protagonist’s goals must be achieved, or not achieved or subjectively achieved—it doesn’t really matter—but that goal shouldn’t be hanging about after the last page. Otherwise your story hasn’t really ended and readers are just going to be frustrated (think of how annoyed people get when a season of Game of Thrones ends).

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Andrew Pirie, Jenna Abbott and Christopher Oakes

Interview with Vice Chancellor Prof. Mike Thomas

On 16 November 2016, three journalists from Noted Magazine were lucky enough to sit down with the VC of the University of Central Lancashire and get some of his thoughts on the English Literature and Creative Writing courses at UCLan, the importance of Literature, and some of his own literary loves...

Andrew: English literature is one of the oldest and most enduring University subjects. Why do you think it’s become such a staple to the academic world?

Prof. Thomas: I think English Literature helps to develop imagination, and I think the reason why it endures in Universities is because it’s complimentary to the STEM subjects and helps us to articulate our discoveries. I also think that English Literature helps people to analyse how societies react and change.

I also think it helps people have insight into other people: if you’re a student studying it, it’s fantastic if you’re looking for jobs that are about people, emotions, how they interact with each other, how to analyse it, how you measure it. I think that’s why it endures.

Andrew: Why do you think Creative Writing has become so popular recently?

Prof. Thomas: There’s probably three reasons. One

may be the world-wide web. It’s provided an easily reachable audience that read for the pleasure of it.

It removes some of the stress of contracts and making money; you can just write and send. There’s also an interactive community online to share writing and ideas, so I think that’s increased its popularity. I think another reason is the freedom to use your imagination. The third thing is, I think creative writing is becoming more popular because people recognise that there are opportunities out there. It seems to be that there are a lot of publishers who seem to like those who have done creative writing and keep an eye out on their outputs. So, it does give an avenue into the market.

Andrew: Humanities and social sciences is a diverse and multi-layered school, what do you think makes humanities at UCLan stand out?

Prf. Thomas: I think the passion of the staff for the subjects. In general I think most academics fall in love with their subject areas for life really, and I think that within creative writing and social science there is that passion which I hope the staff pass onto the students. I think the students are creative; we have a reputation here for creative students in that area. It’s fairly highly skilled as well at undergraduate level, and thirdly it has really strong links with industry. It really has good links with the publishing

outlets, with festivals, with Lit review bodies and things like that. I think those three together help that area just keep going from strength to strength.

Andrew: Looking at your current research, you’re researching compassion and kindness in leadership, and there’s lots of research to suggest that reading literature can help make people more empathetic, more kind and compassionate. What do you think of the idea?

Prf. Thomas: Yeah absolutely, it would be foolish to say no. I think it’s self-explanatory that literature will provide insight into how other people operate. It’s how people use it I’m interested in. And why people use it. My interest in compassion and kindness is about whether people use leadership positions and power in a way that is good for them or good for others, or is there a compromise? It’s based on Friedrich Schiller’s work. He was a philosopher in the 19th century in Germany who was a bit anti-Kantian. Immanuel Kant is the father of utilitarianism; essentially the greatest good for the greatest number. Schiller rejected Kant on three grounds. What Kant calls duty is based on intelligence and intellect. Schiller said you can’t plan your contribution to society on intellect, what you do is plan it on your emotions. The other is, he didn’t like Kant because he lacked humour. Schiller liked to write plays and music; he ran a series of play groups.

He loved that sense of humour and connection with the arts. He thought Kant lacked humour and that utilitarianism wasn’t what the human spirit was about. And the third is he absolutely rejected the end justifies the means, because you can go, well it’s good for everyone if we go there, what about minorities? If you took the Kantian view, the black civil right movements, the gay movements, the women’s movements, they would have never have got through because it would have been utilitarian—it’s not good for the great. Take Schiller’s view.

He was the father of pragmatism. Today people say pragmatism is “well, make the best of it”. That’s not what he meant. What he meant by pragmatism was sit down and say, “what do I think about it, what do I feel about it, what’s good for the most people I can help?”. He’s not as big here; we have a reduc-

tionist philosophy.

It’s easier for people to be utilitarianists. It’s easier to sit there and go “let’s cut this budget”. The whole of the UK at the moment for several years now.

We’re training young people to think of everything in economic terms, which is really just a tiny bit of your life. There are more important things in life.

And I think English Literature surreptitiously feeds that resistance to the instrumentalist approach that we’re just born, and you work and you contribute economically and you die. Most of all the utopian literature is anti-utilitarian isn’t it. It’s fantastic, really. Right from Aldos Huxley onwards. It’s always “a bad world will be formed by people who have this sort of economic reductionist view”, and it’s how people survive on it.

Andrew: I think it’s stated in the backbone of your philosophy—one of them was a playwright and one communicated his messages through novels and I think that shows how English Literature can be used to project that message.

Prof. Thomas: Well the first president of the Czech Republic was a novelist, wasn’t he? Creative people should be allowed to have more say in the corridors of power. But it’s easy for economic reductionists to say, “How does a writer pay their way?”, “What jobs do they create?” and “Where are their factories?”, which is just dismal. Literature allows that continuity of constantly allowing pressure groups to come out. Fantastic.

Chris: Do you have a favourite book or a favourite literature character that has resonated with you?

Prof. Thomas: I don’t have a favourite book; I go through phases. At the moment, I’m going through as many Scandinavian authors as I can get my hands on. I quite enjoy it. I got through a lot of German authors last year and Japanese literature that came out a few years ago. I go through phases like that. As for books I go back to, I’ve read Moby Dick about five times, and I love it. I just love the prose—I read it and think, “If I had any ambitions to be a writer, this book would kill it.” It’s just brilliantly written, technically sound with the descriptions and everything. It’s all about obsession

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and I’m a psychologist. It’s a fantastic insight. I keep going back to that. Sometimes when I’m fed up, I dip into it at random because I just like the prose.

Another novel I really like is called Johnny Got His Gun written in 1938 by Dalton Trumbo. Banned in America, it’s about this first world war soldier who loses all his limbs and his face in the war. The whole of the novel is inside his head. He’s trying to communicate with the outside world and as the book develops a nurse comes to realise that his constant head patting isn’t neurological damage, he knows Morse code. So, she does it on his chest. It’s an anti-war novel, and the character states that he wants to be exhibited and let the people see him without a face and without any hands and legs, and then talk to them to say that this is what war does. It’s a fantastic book, it’s the first I’d read that was fully inside the characters’ mind. The American Mother’s Association got it unbanned after the second world war because somebody must have read it and realised how powerful its message was.

My lecturer when I studied in Manchester told us to grab a novel and read it before writing our dissertation on Care. So that’s why that novel has stuck in my head. So yeah, I think novels help people get an insight into other people. Tomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd is also one I find myself going back to.

Jenna: The “just grab a novel” idea is really interesting. Are there any other interesting ideas that came from your studies?

Prof. Thomas: Well I did a stream of philosophy which led to my interest in kindness and compassion. I’m currently reading around how “kindness” differs from “niceness”. Everybody thinks being kind is being nice. But anybody could be nice, being kind costs you. Poorer people unfortunately give more of their time and their income to just causes than the wealthy, proportionally. It costs the poor more, but it’s more accepted that they help each other. Which I find fascinating. But I’m trying to find novels that look at those certain things at the moment. I’ve just finished Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami . Fantastic. There is a plot, but there isn’t an ending

of the plot. There is a sub-plot of a murder which is never resolved—it’s just been left out there. Because the whole book is about “what does this guy think he is to the world?”. He thinks he is colourless and grey, and its only when he interacts with friends who’ve gone on in their own lives and he meets them sort of sixteen years later, that he realises that his life is not colourless. It has a really interesting ambivalent ending.

Chris: I enjoy those kinds of books. I remember for part of our course we had to read Slaughterhouse Five. The desensitisation of Vonnegut repeating “so it goes”. It can sometimes seem like real life is reflecting that at times.

Prof. Thomas: There is literature out there that look at those sort of things. One of the things I was interested in was the difference between pity and sympathy. Sympathy goes to compassion and then kindness. Kindness seems to be, from the social science statistics, very much around actions and behaviour. There’s a certain price, and there are loads of novels around that. Some novels look at time as the price, and that gets really interesting to explore that. Patrick White wrote The Vivisector and got a Nobel prize for it. I think it’s loosely based on Picasso. It’s about an artist and he’s constantly looking for light, but really it’s about how the artist gets old.

He begins to question if his eyes fade or he can’t reflect the light anymore, then what would happen to him as an individual?

The conversation then moved onto admiration of the technical side of writing and its practical use...

Professor Thomas: I admire the skill of writers. I like music, especially jazz, and when I read I hear the rhythm and I think that is a great skill. So, writers can stop the rhythm, change the rhythm or some will just have free form. For instance, Joyce will just say “I don’t need full stops”, and there’s Last Exit to Brooklyn [by Hubert Selvy Jr.] which I thought was a brilliantly technical book ‘cause every chapter where the couple fell out was written in capital letters. Every time it got to their chapters you’d think, “oh no, it’s just going to be noisy”.

Through that and the prose it really conveyed Brooklyn and Italian Americans shouting at each other. When you get to the next chapter in normal font you really get into that rhythm again. It is a real skill.

I’ve not met a great scientist who’s not into Literature. I met loads of really good scientists who don’t do literature and they’re really singularly focused, but they can’t convey it. When you go, “tell me about it”, you’re bored in three minutes. Or they go, “how can I convey twenty-five years of single lab research into a sentence for you?”. Those who seem to be into Literature or culture in any way seem to have that emotional intelligence to communicate their message without coming across as rude or unapproachable. So, it’s those that have that interest in Literature that are able to learn that ability. For instance, when IVF first started you had articles published that consisted of analysis and data, it took people like yourselves to adapt that for the public.

It’s like how Dolly the sheep became a character in the public eye, but it really conveyed a sense of, “this is genetics”.

Our journalists and the VC take the current generation and rising narcissistic tendencies to task...

This is genuinely meant: you three are really important for the future. Everybody these days is talking about Project Me—it’s so egocentric. Literature is going to have to work hard to keep the awareness that it isn’t all about you. It’s you and other people!

Jenna: This is why I have a problem with the concept of Identity sometimes. ‘Cause it can just be limiting to declare something about yourself and to close off any other possibilities.

Prof Thomas: It would make a good plot to a novel: the disintegration of the Project Me generation.

The madness of it. Digital media is almost a digital repository of memory because the imagination is almost not enough.

Jenna: It’s almost like it’s telling you how you’re supposed to be happy sometimes.

Prof Thomas: It’s about authenticity, isn’t it? It’s like Catcher in the Rye. Is this Project Me authen-

tically you? I picture it like Abigail’s Party [play by Mike Leigh], really inauthentic people pretending to be authentic.

You’re wordsmiths: you practise with words. When you look at the project me thing there is a use of language that is hyperbolic. Everything is more dramatic, we’re now having to invent words ‘cause we can’t be “super super excited”. Nothing can be “alright” anymore. Could an individual survive using these toned-down words to describe things when surrounded by all these hyperbolic people around them. “I’m having breakfast, it’s the best thing of the day!”, and you’re just having porridge. It’d make a good comedy novel.

Prof. Thomas turns the conversation to us and expresses an interest in the creative process of writing.

Prof Thomas: So how do you persevere when writing? You must have colleagues and peers telling you to change certain things, etc.

Andrew: I quite like that. ‘Cause sometimes you’re so stuck in your own head you don’t see it from anyone else’s perspective. Writing itself may be an isolated activity but the result of that is a very communal thing; a book, a poem, it unites people. So, you have to have that someone or people to keep you in check and tell you where you’re going wrong or if it isn’t quite adding up. They can also read ideas into your work you would never have noticed. I think, looking into the kindness and compassion, that’s how we learn from Literature. It’s ‘cause we put a little of ourselves into what we’re reading.

That’s why each piece of Literature may have more value to different people.

Prof Thomas: A lot of the French philosophers look at that in great depth. They take the view that there is no such thing as value—it’s just your own interpretation of what you see, and that’s as good as you can get.

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Natalie Kelly

Interview with Dr. Robin Purves

Could you tell us a little about your research?

In the last twenty years, I’ve been writing on poetry. Especially fairly recent poetry; Poetry written in the last ten, twenty, thirty years, mainly in Britain but not exclusively. I’ve written about American poetry and I’ve written about European poetry as well. Usually French poetry, specifically 19th Century French poetry. So a bit of a mishmash really. But my main research has been experimental poetry written within the last twenty/ thirty years.

Do you have any favourite poets?

Yeah, the person I’ve written on most is probably JH Prynne, I’ve published approximately five essays on him. He’s still alive, he’s in his eighties now but he’s still about and still writing. He’s English.

He just sent me his new book of poems two weeks ago. He’s going to be eightyone this year and he’s still publishing, still travelling, still teaching, still writing criticism and poetry. I’ve probably learnt

more from reading him than I’ve learnt from anyone else.

I thought I was done with poetry because I’ve been developing a new research interest in writing about music music and lyrics together and how they work together. So I’ve published two essays in that new thread and that’s something I want to develop. I had thought I might have had two more essays to finish about poetry and now I’m thinking I’ve got about four I want to get out of the way. Things that have been hanging about, old conference papers that I never quite finished and published.

Natalie Kelly

Interview with Dr. Robert Duggan

Could you tell us a little bit about your research?

Generally speaking, I teach modern and contemporary fiction. And contemporary British fiction is my broad research area. So as part of my teaching I focus on that, I teach a final year module on Modern and Contemporary Literature called “Shock of the New”. I also teach on a number of other modules because we’re not a huge team, we have to be flexible on what we teach. I have teaching interests across a range of topics. I teach first years, second years, third years, I’ve supervised PhD students. So I teach across the whole range.

My research interests are, broadly speaking, in British fiction since the 1970s onwards. I did my PhD at the university of Kent and worked on the grotesque in contemporary British fiction, which is the subject of my book. So my PhD research was initially on 4 writers which then became 6 writers for the book. I was particularly interested in ways in which contemporary British fiction was tied up with discourses over the history of the grotesque. And that had to do with a particular kind of humour, a particular treatment of the human body, and a particular kind of excess or exaggeration or hyperbole that you can see in a lot of different writers. So there’s a mixture in writing of the 1980s, 1990s of moving away from convention-

al realism and onto something a bit strange.

So my research was really to find out what that kind of fiction was and to have a scholarly account of it.

What inspired that research area?

As an undergraduate I went to quite an old fashioned university so a lot of my degree was old and middle English. So I looked at a lot of old English, a lot of Chaucer. I was always interested in the contemporary and then for my MA, I did an MA in modern English and American literature so that was getting “more modern” if you like, than my degree.

Then by the time I thought about my PhD I was interested in contemporary literature, particularly its variety and I guess in its sense of experiment. I wanted to try and understand the different kinds of literary experiments that were going on and what new writers were trying to do with their work.

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Vacuity

Andrew Pirie (n. Complete absence of ideas; vacancy of mind or thought.)

Morphine is only just beginning to pierce through the migraine. Johnny lies motionless. The machine to his right does the breathing for him. Other machines surround him, beeping, chattering. If it wasn’t for the coppery smell of blood, the ICU and the man inside it could be mistaken to be at peace. If he can just hold out a little longer, he’ll make it. Just a little longer. A wee bit longer. If he repeats something often enough, he’ll start to believe it. The swelling’s gone down but his eyes still refuse to open. His limbs are stone. His lips are ice. His brain is twice the size it’s meant to be and his skull doesn’t agree, not one bit.

Johnny would wince if he could. Maybe he can make one of the machines do it. Why not? The machines are doing everything else for him.

Johnny would fight. Johnny would refuse the concrete setting his bones still. He would force the blood to his black-blue lips.

He would raise his eyebrow as tall as his middle fecking finger and say “yea think a pissin’ car crash can tak’ th’ fuckin’ Hammerhead oot?!” The machine sighs for him. No-one calls him that anymore. Not surprising. The Hammerhead wouldn’t have got himself knocked off the road. He is lying on eggshells, one tiny shift and his fragile balance is gone. The machine to his left bites it’s nails.

The door creaks open. Four legs drudge into the room and take seats on opposite sides. The left pair are long and smooth.

Electric, one touch and they fry up your brain. The legs are a trek up to almighty summit. Travelling further up, her chest lunges in deep stabs of breath. A black tear runs down her cheek. The same black mascara that used to stain Johnny’s pillowcase.

Her eyes are glass clouds, fixed on her intertwined fingers. Her nails are painted; the dark night sky with stars of glitter. She stares; and for a second, a measly second, she isn’t in the room. She’s a million miles away, in the endless, black, infinite. Well, he did promise her the stars. The legs on the right are slenderer. The thighs are covered by a black skirt. She sits next to Johnny, perfect, as though she had been moulded from clay. Her eyes list down to the floor, watching each tear bounce. The IV assaults their eardrums. The ventilator screams itself sick. More seconds tick by, until the girl on the left finally splits the violent silence with a wet click of her tongue.

“Y’know...” She begins, “He’d be laughing, right now. If he could, he’d be snortin’ a fecking storm up. That mad cackling shit he did when he was too proud of one of his really shitty jokes.”

The girl on the right sniffs and gently nods. “Yeah. He did that all the friggin’ time. You wouldn’t even know he’d said a joke till he started, like, staring at you blank in’t face just waiting for a laugh. Then he’d give up and laugh himself. Rattling the pictures on the wall. “ She smiles. Johnny never did do subtlety. “He wouldn’t be laughing at us, Sarah. You know that, right?”

That accent grated at Sarah. Johnny was a through and through Scotsman and she was his toaty lass. The only one he’d ever need. Then Laura came along. Only a fucking Scotsman could find a Laura from Lancashire exotic!

“How’d you know? Seems like he’d a been laughin’ at me a fair bit recently. But obviously I’m just a wee div cause I cannae stay away.” Johnny wished she had. The IV rolled it’s eyes. This is just typical of Sarah. Woe is her.

“You’re not stupid, he never saw you like that” “What’s that supposed to mean, eh? I believed everything that came oot a his mouth. All I’ll always and I’ll nevers. I believed every word he shat out to me, and then you came along and it meant nothing. 6 years, pished down the drain cause I wasnae good enough. But I believed him for so long!” “ People change, it’s just how it goes. We never wanted to hurt you. It’s just something that you’re gonna have to deal with!

Did you really come down here to give him what for when he can’t even hear you?”

The silence wafts in again like an unwelcome smell. Johnny tries to lift his head. His arm. His fucking finger. Not even his littlest finger will budge. He tries to scream. He wants them to know he can hear them. He wants then to stop fighting and pay him some damn attention. He is the one in the hospital bed. He wants them to scratch that itch starting just at the side of his head.

“If you feel like that then why are you here? If there’s no going back, then why did you come here? To yell at me while a tube drinks for him? I never thought of you as such a cold bitch...”

“I’m here to see the bastard, though. Regardless of why, I am here and you have to deal with it. He’s a fecking bastard, true, but you donnae just forget 6 years you spend with someone. “ His head. The itch was burning a canyon through his temple now. The fiery itch struck the gasoline migraine and the morphine choked on the thick black smoke.

“He’s not who you spent 6 years with. This is my Johnny. You need to forget yours. People change...”

“I don’t think they do! I donnae think you can have a life and a love and just fuck it all off with a click of your finger! No, I donnae believe that. My Johnny’s still there. And whether I’m gonnae watch him wake up or kark it, I’m gonna be here. I just need to decide which side I’m rooting for.

“Sarah - “ “Laura! I’m not gonnae sit at home, thumb up my arse while he’s lying half-dead!”

She’s adamant. Adamant and loud. Johnny heard her over the fire in his skull. Why did her pluck surprise him? Wasn’t that why he liked her in the first place? Wasn’t it part of what pushed him away? The pitter-patter of machinery took over the room outside Johnny’s head.

“It’s scary. Ya’know, to see him like this” Sarah muses.

“I’ve never seen him so still. so...” Laura trails off. She has been stroking Johnny’s hand for what seems like hours now. It’s what Johnny is trying to focus on. His distraction while his head is being torn apart. If he could move his finger she’d know he was fine. She’d know that he’s still in there. He tries. He tries again. What use are these fucking machines, with their clicks and whistles, if they can’t move a bloody finger?

“It’s no something you get used to seeing. I seen him out on a hospital bed once before this and it was no laugh.” Understatement of the year. It was absolute hell. Johnny winced at remembering it. Well, the heart monitor winced for him.

The flames could be seen for a mile in any direction. She always ended up in the middle of things. “Typical Sarah” she thought as she tried not to choke to death. It was only a matter of time before she found herself in a house fire behind a jammed door.

With no self-regard and no time for regrets, Johnny charged in. He didn’t blink. Not even when the smoke seared his eyes.

The street heard him bellowing “I’m no leaving without you!”, before the door crunched. It still stood tall so he charged again.

Another crunch. He ran again. The hinges. That’s what was crunching. He was ripping the door from its hinges. At the exact moment he looked up to make this discovery, his head collided with the door. At least it opened this time. At least Sarah was safe. In fact, she came out more than safe. It turned out she could’ve even waited the extra two minutes for the fire-fighters to arrive and get her out in a more “rational” way. Who cares if it was rational or not, Johnny was a hero that day. She sat comfortably in the ambulance as Johnny lay, grinning with ease. He tries to grin now. He tears his face apart. Each muscle stabs and his lips lie cold. Nothing moves.

“Next time I see stars, I promise, I’ll give them to you.” Having just received a major concussion, Johnny thought this was the most romantic thing said since Shakespeare’s heyday. Despite the fact it didn’t make much sense, the sentiment was clear behind the garbled words. And Sarah understood. That’s who Johnny was. That must be who Johnny still is. Somewhere.

What was the last romantic thing he had said to Laura? He couldn’t be the same man. He couldn’t even move. He couldn’t even feel Laura’s hand in his anymore. Oh god. How long had he not been able to feel her? He was going numb. The machines breathe deeper for him. The machine to his left dilates its pupils in panic. Machines to his right scream. What is going on?

Overload. That’s what’s going on. The IV pours something lukewarm and mysterious into his system, his body fights back

61

and his mind is flash-flooded. Colours scream and voices smell funnier than they’ve ever tasted before. Song’s dance in his head like diamonds glittering in the sun. He has no idea how long he has been lying there but he starts to feel himself sink further and further into the bed.

Johnny wants to scream out. He tries. Nothing can help him. He cries, he screams and he flails all his limbs in complete, manic defiance. But outside the four walls of his head, Johnny sits perfectly, perfectly still.

“I cannae believe that the man I loved, who loved me, fucking turned into the pile of shit he did. Leaving me like he did.

Shacking up with you. I donnae believe someone can change with a click of their fingers like that but what the feck am I meant to say when the prick proves me wrong while lying right in front of me?”

He’s an atom bomb that’s just not detonating. So much power inside but the shell remains still. All the while the ingredients are still active. By God, they are restless. Neurones twist and turn like ropes stripped thin. His eyeballs roll round. He sees inside his head. It’s ice on fire. It’s a cabaret and every kicking dancer is wearing knives on their heels. Sanity’s wake is happening in the far corner. No-one brought flowers, but the banner is nothing short of spectacular. Should he be missing his lungs? Nah, what good did they do him anyway? They shut down, went listless. These zeppelins are much sturdier. They can carry more air too. His eyes flicker back and forth. His brain’s a mess. Morphine’s last stand had left destruction in its wake but it doesn’t matter now. The dancers weave around the debris to form a line. Johnny tries, one last time, to move. The mortar in his bones has set. No flick of the finger. No flicker of hope. Johnny takes a seat beside the piano, to join in with the rest of his chemical pantomime.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Johnny. Loved. This. Song.

Red. That’s all there is. The walls, the windows, the statue of a body on the bed between them. Even the air. Thick and red.

Like blood. Sarah is sucking sound out of the room; taking silence beyond its limits. Laura is channelling a ketamine-addled Brian Blessed. Johnny hears none of it.

Doesn’t really matter to me...

Finally, calm. The blood in his veins isn’t sand anymore. He still can’t move. But he has no reason to. That pesky itch has gone. Besides, the show is captivating.

“You keep fucking saying shit about him...”

Put a gun against his head, pull my trigger...

“He tells me every day that he loves me! That’s who Johnny is! What we have...”

But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away...

“It’s all cause you can’t get your head out of your own ass. You wouldn’t be able to sit there and spout your shit, if you ever even thought you loved him.”

I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me.

“You think he only saved your life, love? Fuck that, anyone could’ve jumped into that house. Only one man could be my Johnny.”

What was that? Laura? Johnny tries to roll his eyes back to reality. They are stuck, just like his feet and fingers. Maybe his eyes don’t matter, can he make his ears focus on the outside world? Frantic now. Rabid. Change the radio station. Johnny pleads with himself. His body is useless. His mind’s all that he has left, don’t take it away.

Spare him his life from this monstrosity.

The dancers lose their footing. Their knives turn upwards, tearing their feet apart in clumps. At the back of his mind, the candle is still burning. Johnny is sweating inside of his flesh.

Will you let me go?

Johnny screams in silence. The machines retch and bleed as they toil to pull him back.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

This is it. The candle dims. And with it goes the light in his eyes. His mortar is set. But he won’t let his mind set too. The cabaret has come to a stop. And the cables of his mind start to weave themselves together again.

“My Johnny was perfect. He said that I calmed him. Like you never could.”

Just gotta get out...

The cables tighten in a cold, electric burst. The candle burns out. ...just gotta get right outta here.

The machines reel him in like a fish on a hook. A difficult, bastard fish. His eyes roll back. Flood relief starts draining the chemicals from his brain.

“And if you can’t get over yourself then you can just fuck off like you made him do!”

He could cry. The machine next to him is sick of crying for him and refuses this time. So Johnny has to settle for silence. As does Sarah who is struck speechless. Laura’s breathing calms. Apologies are made and accepted by both as they realise the

insensitivity of fighting in an intensive care room. Silence hits the room again like a cudgel to the skull of a bank robber. Not the usual bank robber either. It was as if the detective had been chasing this bastard for over a year and he finally got him. That cudgel hit was nothing short of monstrous. This monstrous silence lingers before it is bludgeoned itself, by Johnny’s phone asking the room if it likes Pina Coladas. He doesn’t like that song. But Laura doesn’t like it more. That justified the 99p download.

That is who Johnny is.

“Jus’ let it go off ” Sarah quietly suggests.

Laura takes the phone anyway. And gives the screen a quick, quiet look.

“It was Michael. From the firehouse.”

“So... do they know yet? or are you going to have to tell everyone that he’s gonna be a little late for work?”

“I don’t think they know. There’s texts though. From 3 of them. They seem worried.”

“For Johnny? If they donnae know what happened, then why are they worried ‘bout him?”

“I wouldn’t have a clue. But Michael seems to bloody know something I don’t! Have a read of this!”

The phone gets passed. Johnny tries, he tries oh so hard, pulling every piece of muscle, tendon and sinew in his body, he tries to intercept. He remains perfectly still. With a look at the phone it’s all over. They’ll know what he hid. They’ll know why.

Michael: I’m sorry, Johnny. U can’t blame urself tho. Please come into the station & we can talk properly.

Johnny: This wasn’t a regular. I fucked this one! We had the time and I fucked it.

Michael: ffs, we all fuck things some time or another. This is nothing other than a tragedy. It was meant to be this way. Fate had their # today. PLEASE John, come to the station.

Johnny: It’s just like the Barlow’s house last May. You remember those?

Michael: Course I do, Johnny. Don’t go down that road tho. It’s not your fault, Mate. The job we have comes with these risks.

Think of all the people you’ve saved! Theres kids out there now with smiles on their faces, in schools, in playgrounds, cause you SAVED. THEIR. LIVES! Johnny please come over, man. We’re getting worried.

Johnny: Why?! You think I’ll do something stupid like last time?

Michael: I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just saying I know where losing the Barlow’s girl took you. You bringing her up again is just a little... y’know... alarming.

Johnny: I’m in control now, Mickey. I got cleared to work again. That’s all you guys cared about.

Michael: You’re cleared, true. But we still worry of you can handle it, Johnny.

Michael: Johnny please just talk to us. We’re your friends. We can organise counselling again if you feel you need it. There’s no shame. Even I’ve gone a few times, mate.

Michael: Johnny please answer me at least...

Michael: Johnny are you alright??

Michael: Fuckin answer mate!?

“It just carries on like that...” Sarah muses.

“That’ll be when the car hit him then, I guess” Laura swallows.

Johnny pulls every muscle trying to get up, to hold them, to explain. The PTSD, the horrible nights lying awake, the times when he did sleep and all he could see when his eyes were closed was Laura standing right where the little Barlow girl was.

Chloe. That was her name. Chloe Barlow. She still talked to him in his dreams. Thank god the morphine hadn’t knocked him out after all. Rather his mind be ripped apart by the migraine than hear the syrupy voice of Chloe again.

Johnny wanted to rip off the wires and tubes. He wanted to answer each and every question. He wanted to make it all okay.

But he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t. The machines continued to beep and whirr, echoing around the silent, silent room.

63

Amy Davies

Interview with Dr. Janice Wardle

I just wanted to ask you, what is your most and least favourite Shakespeare piece?

That’s a difficult one I like so many of them. I think I like Much Ado About Nothing, that’s my favourite, probably.

And my least favourite would probably be Troilus and Cressida.

Why is that?

I don’t know, I don’t really like the problem plays, perhaps because they’re a problem. I don’t really like those that just seem something like bitter and anti- anything kind of positive. It’s sort of very negative about the world and, sort of sex and violence basically. I think someone in Troilus and Cressida says, lechery and war. So, I think I don’t like that play because of that. I don’t really like Measure for Measure either in that same sort of group of plays. I’m not intrigued by their problems.

What are your most and least favourite adaptions?

That’s a difficult question as well. I like the adaptation of Jane Austens’ Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson.

I like that, that’s kind of quite lively and I get some nice mixes of mood in it, and I like Jane Austen anyway.

My least favourite, or ones that I find the least successful, there are just so many, too many really. I think I was quite disappointed although I don’t teach these, The Hunger Games ones. I quite enjoyed the novels but I didn’t enjoy the film. I think they went too much toward spectacle in the end, although the novels themselves have got a lot of spectacle in them but, too much action and not enough words.

Concrete Amy Lee Tempest

Under a low and dirty sky Florescent men drill All the way down into the passing time.

Nothing new happens here Except a new pavement or perhaps a Pretty flower pot.

I watch over, pen held Waiting for the words to appear.

But they stick like drying varnish And come as dull as a diggers day job.

They start And stop And start again, Landing like summer time rain Dripping onto pages in showers.

But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not enough.

Metal drags on concrete and I wish They would dance across like Prince or Bowie on the jukebox.

65

Free Writing and the Art of Letting Go Jenna M. Abbott

When face to face with a blank page, writing can seem a daunting, almost impossible task. Whether a writer has a fully formed idea or no clue at all, the act of sitting down and writing can be a stressful, confusing and sometimes painful experience. The story, poem, essay or article doesn’t exist yet and it is up to the writer to create it.

From scratch. Before it exists, the writer may have high expectations; it must be interesting, unique, entertaining or thought-provoking. It must provide the audience with… something. Something that hasn’t been said before. Sudden bolts of inspiration do not strike as often as a writer might hope, therefore waiting for them should be disregarded as a reliable method of idea generation. Painters don’t sit around waiting for the right shade of paint to materialise on their palette. They mix the colours they have. So what does a writer need to have? The answer is simple. Thoughts and the freedom to record them.

It is important to recognise that the only thing that prevents a writer from the simple act of ‘just writing’ is the limits they put on themselves during the process. Some may feel tempted to edit as they go, to correct mistakes or to cross out and start again. Others may feel self-conscious, that their writing isn’t beautifully constructed or meaningful. Or perhaps they may not know which direction the plot is going to take. Either way, all writers should keep in mind that a masterpiece does not just fall onto the page. It begins with spilling every idea that comes to mind, selecting certain ideas that work and discovering new ideas along the way. The method with which to begin this process is called Free Writing. First of all, the writer must set a goal. That may be a time limit, word count or number of pages. It should be something simple and easy to achieve, for example: twenty minutes, seven hundred and fifty words or a page of A4. Then comes the easiest part. As soon as the time begins, begin writing. It can be anything at all. The writer could begin detailing the fact that they are sitting in their room feeling incredibly silly that they are writing anything that comes to mind. They might describe their surroundings or where they might prefer to be. Or not. They may open up about how they are currently feeling. Or they may just repeat one swear word over and over again until they eventually start to form coherent sentences. Either way, with this method, there is no such thing as a right or wrong way. Some people find it simple to let the words flow freely through them, others may

regard this type of writing as a waste of time because they may not be keeping on task. That’s when adding prompts and flair comes in.

If a writer must keep on track, for example if they are writing to a deadline about a specific topic or they have a certain theme or mood they would like to explore in their creative writing, a prompt can come in very handy in order to keep ‘within the lines’. If a writer has to write an essay on Edgar Allen Poe for example, they might conduct background research on him, read relevant texts by Poe himself and decide upon a small question such as “Why is Poe so obsessed with madness?”. It doesn’t matter how simple the question is, or how simply the writer answers it.

Anything that might spark an idea, no matter how small, is valuable. A writer may free write seven-hundred words and only choose to expand upon a single sentence, but that single sentence came out faster and more organically than it would have done if the writer was to sit and think for twenty minutes rather than just writing. Another way to begin free writing on a specific subject is to open several books on the subject to relevant pages, highlight appropriate points and attempt to include points from each book during the exercise. The writer may begin exploring their opinion of the points, or structuring different points into an argument. It doesn’t matter if the structure of the writing is technically wrong, or if the points don’t quite link together. This can be looked at while editing later on.

Often, connecting ideas appear during simple exploration of the subject.

Free writing can also be an effective method of generating ideas for creative projects. If the writer does not have a specific brief, the act of free writing without any prompts enables ideas to emerge through quick free-association. One idea leads to another. A useful way to use prompt-less free writing is during plotting. Often a writer may feel stuck with how to move a story onwards or how to tie loose ends together. They may have a character in mind, but the story may not exist. In this case, when free writing, do not try to write the actual piece of work yet.

Rather, the writer could free write plot and structure ideas until the story becomes more well-rounded. Plotting in advance has great advantages, such as the fact that being stuck for what happens next will not get in the way when the writer is fleshing out the chapters. It also prevents the need to edit past chapters when a twist is introduced and foreshadowing is required. The writer may include little quotes as they come to mind which may eventually be used as dialogue, brief descriptions of certain items, vehicles, clothes, etc. The writer may also question themselves during plotting, such as ‘Why doesn’t that character just solve the problem the easy way?’. Questions such as this are a necessity in smoothing out any loopholes or inaccuracies.

If a writer would like to create mood or explore a theme in their creative writing, using music as an accompaniment to Free Writing can really set the atmosphere. Music with lyrics in a language you know or are familiar with may not be the ideal choice – the words themselves can be distracting and may not be relevant to the theme or mood the writer is exploring. Instrumental music, particularly original video game soundtracks are ideal. Video game soundtracks are purposefully designed to keep the player focused on the game, particularly arcade games such as Tetris - which may not offer much in regards to creative inspiration, but serves as an energetic anchor point. Since the days of 8-bit gaming, particularly in the indie game market, video game music has become much more widely appreciated. Indie games such as ‘Ori and the Blind Forest’, ‘Braid’ and ‘Bastion’ have won awards for their original scores. Due to the range of genre in gaming, many games explore themes from grief, love and horror, to dystopia or the effects of communism. No matter what the writer wishes to achieve, there will more than likely be a soundtrack suitable enough to write alongside.

The editing process is probably the most difficult part of writing. The writer must select parts of the free written draft to expand. The writer may find that ideas have come about that they may wish to use for something else. The most important thing is to organise these ideas and to not delete anything. When making selections from the free writing, the writer must ask themselves whether or not they are missing any vital points, whether or not they could look more closely/go deeper into a strong point and whether or not the points are structured in a way that is coherent but also makes a solid, balanced argument. For a creative piece, the writer must be ruthless with their word choices and willing to exclude or change most of the ideas when writing the first draft of the final piece.

The writer should not delete any creative free writing, as ideas can be used elsewhere. Considering the hardest thing about writing is actually writing, it wouldn’t make sense to delete writing. If the scraps are kept, it’s easier to document your development and allows you to find patterns in themes and emotions so to learn to avoid repetion.

67

Straight Lace.

Jenna M. Abbott

You did it. You did it again. You punched yourself. You fractured your cheekbone. Knowing your own strength; knowing how to get the right angle. Not the left. Not left anymore and everyone can see the bruise. They can see that indentation. That sorrowful sore. They’re expecting you to work. But you don’t work. They’re expecting you to write. So close your eyes and write. Write about what you need. What you think you want. Then again, everything you ever wanted made you unhappy. It was a lie. Why chase it? If it’s not fun don’t do it.

That doesn’t mean if it is fun do it. Oh no. When you’re free, you can’t put your hand where you want to. You can’t rest your gaze on the back of her, her or her neck. Especially not hers. Oh that sick, sweet-scented neck. No. You’re not allowed. You’re not allowed to talk too much. Not to her. You’re not allowed to ask: “So what’s your biggest fear?” You’ll get to close. Avert your eyes. You’ll look again. Watch her tongue along the pen. Shift in your seat.

Observe as she crushes her left earlobe between her finger and thumb.

And what happens when you get too close? She doesn’t want to be that close. You’re reading, but you’re really leering. Can’t you tell? She’s leaning. Sit up straight. Straighter than that. Cross your arms and plant your feet. Shift in your seat. It’s all subconscious of course. Yes it is. Her lip flicks across those crooked teeth and you’re full and bursting. Yes it is.

Why do you like that? Is it a perversion? Because she sucked her thumb too long as a kid and you like that? You wonder what she looked like as a kid sucking on that pickled thumb, tearing that skin away and now she’s a grown up. Much more grown up than you. A few years younger but she’s older than you. She’s good. Her handwriting looks like type. You ache to see her bad. You want to get her drunk and laugh at her. Laugh at her when she can’t take a drag of your wet cigarette. You want to bless her to your friends for all her innocence, then you want to support her weight on your shoulders and lead her into the back of a taxi. You want to fuck her till colours dance on her white ceiling. You want to fuck her until she wants to fuck someone worse than you and it will be an accident. They trip, it’s always the same. They fall face first into some other cunt. Then you’ve done it. You’ve done it again.

So punch yourself again and finally, in the bar after class, do that smile. Only to her. Do that smile. The shadows surrounding you can have the other but you need to show her that one. Slacken your voice and husk your darkest secrets to her with your hand on her waist and your other not spilling the bourbon. If she glances to her real friend, tighten. If she’s looking at you, we have a winner. Make her laugh. Make her laugh when she’s not supposed to. See those reasonable shoulders talking to you? She’s being polite. Stroke the braille goose bumps. She has those veins you like. The ones that coil under her skin when she types. Read those qualified hands and break her fingers.

Rewrite her past. It doesn’t matter who she was. Right now she’s who you want. Make her lose against you. She’s naïve. You’ve done it plenty of times before. Make her lose. She’s just a person. Just like anyone else. Break your fucking nose. Bleed on her. Slice her chest open and set the cage alight. That’s where her heart is. Hook up and drain her dry. It’s the same skin. It’s the same blood. It’s the same heart. Either their chins are too big or their travel journals are too full. But there’s that blood flowing to you, looking exactly the same as all the other blood.

You want to lick the hand she’s sneezed into. When she presses her fingers into her palm you want it over your mouth, snapping your jaw out of place. Punch your jaw out of place and leave it to hang over the thought of her future hangover. You’re not drunk enough yet. Perhaps she wipes her nose on her sleeve when she thinks no one is looking. Beautiful. Watch her tongue press against those teeth as she talks those long complicated talks and remember you only skimmed the things she’s read. Then she coughs and apologises and continues and you nod and nod and expect that you might find something relatable in what she’s saying but her delivery is enough. Her sincerity is enough. Get jealous of the poetry which moved her so much last year; of twenty-six shapes in order. You’re twenty-five. So nod and nod and make a mental note to read that book. Then forget. You wrote it in a notebook you will never review. You’re always afraid to ask what it was again.

Why do you want to know so much? There’s an element of her that knows you. So what do you know? Use her biggest fear. Make her think you listen. Make her think you care and buy her a drink when it all comes falling down.

They’re all effective tactics. Listen. Oh, there’s that music she likes. Slide a hand into your jeans. Oh, that crescendo. Imagine her coming over that crescendo. Punch your guts in on that crescendo. Don’t drop the glass. Stand up

straight. Knees your age never buckle. Look at her laugh. A laugh, but with softer eyebrows and eyes looking directly at yours. Maybe she screws her nose up like some of the others did. Eyes shut, puncturing the silence with short, suppressed breaths. Then a sharp moan. Or maybe she just blows the roof off.

Or maybe she will just hold the glass to her chest and look into you. Then she’ll be onto you. You can see the way you’re feeling in her eyes. She knows you’re trying to lead her down a street she’s never been down before. You’ve lived on that street for thirteen years. It’s all you’ve known. Pass her theory test. Tell her how you started young. You fucked a twelve-year-old. She won’t hate you because you were a twelve-year-old being fucked. Burnt into your adult mind. That’s the first time. Take a pair of scissors. No. Put the scissors down. Cut the gap between your lips and hers.

Vanilla? No? Just a little closer.

You didn’t orgasm until you were nineteen. When you got high and watched riskier porn. She told you she never has. Take that rounder’s bat and break your right arm and now she’s leaning into you. And now she’s not. Stand up straight. Straighter than that. Let’s play a game called don’t look like a creep. You have to win. The prize isn’t for you but you have to play. No one told you how they do it. You barely know the rules. Cope. How could anyone trust you if you don’t? She’s too good. Good in all the wrong places. And she would probably never trust you. She will never go with you to that show, it’s too far away. And she’ll never lay in bed with you at two in the morning fingering the last flecks of weed around the tin watching reruns of Friends and judging which celebrities she would fuck. She goes to bed at ten. Reads. Turns off her lamp and tells herself that tomorrow is another day. Turn her around. Turn the apprehension away. Imagine that. She laughs and her eyes roll slightly in her head. Imagine that.

She’s drunk enough and the harder you push the more she falls into you. Why? No one can know, of course. Take her outside and offer her that cigarette. It’s raining. You’ll both be soaked way quicker than you think. Her hair will separate into thick soggy strands that snake over her face like iron bars. And you’ll realise there’s more than rain in her eyes. Hope. Hope hard that you’re good enough. The part of her you want is just a small part of a whole. She wants to show you. Even if it’s only to tell you she wants you right now, this second. And you’ll do it. And she’ll dig those teeth into your mouth and bite hard and you won’t be able to catch your breath in the time it takes her to forget. Tomorrow is another day. But that vanilla. But that warm sweet skin, thick in your mouth. You’ll trace your hand along that constellation of moles on her neck spreading over her throat and down her chest. You’ll say let’s go somewhere, let’s just get away for a minute. Just for a minute. Just to a different place. Her lips will brush against yours and whisper. “I live close”. Slap yourself. You know better than this. But that vanilla. But that tickle on your neck. But those veins as she grips your arm, holding herself up in her short heels. It’s enough.

No more words after then. Just a warm, hazy roam through the wet city streets; driven by all that frustration and courage and forgetfulness. That cut grass and watered down coffee and eventually the smell of her different furniture.

Smash the mirror in her bathroom. Take a shard. Carve lines from the corners of your mouth to your ears. If you’re doing it, you’re doing it right. Don’t think too hard. She’s coming.

You’ll go home with a headache the next morning and take out the last can of beer from your fridge. You’ll pour it into the only clean glass in your study and sit at your desk and type. The sun will set and rises behind your back and you won’t stop until McDonalds starts serving breakfast. Then you’ll sing. You’ll find any old song and sing it better than you could have months ago. Yes, months. But you’ll do it. You’ll do it again on a different cheek. She won’t ring, she doesn’t even have your number. The only solace you will find is in the mind of a friend you’ve known just over a year. He’ll be your diary. Write in him for five hours a day and he’ll wind gauze around your limbs. Then cross everything out and go to the theatre.

69

Tempest in a Teapot Christopher Oakes

Tempest walked down the street, although he did not call himself that yet. He had only recently been Bestowed and the insanity had yet to fully take hold. For the time being, he still thought of himself as Mark. Mark smiled as he neared his destination, he would describe his mood as buoyant. Maybe it was the weather, clouds gusting in the wind and electricity in the air from the building storm, maybe the sense of power uncoiling within, the feeling he could reach up, grab the sky and hurl in downwards. Whatever the reason, Mark felt strong, as unstoppable as an approaching tornado, and he liked the feeling.

An old lady was in Mark’s way, waiting to cross a street busy with carriages. His first response, to pluck her up and fling her across the road, was tempered by his mood and so instead he called forth a powerful gust to batter the carriages themselves. The air was filled with screams from both the horses and the drivers, the crash and splintering of wood, wet smacks and sharp cracks of bodies hitting stone walls. Ah, what a sweet symphony.

Mark turned to the lady, a wide winning smile on his face, he always had been proud of his teeth. Strangely, the woman said no word of thanks, she merely stood open mouthed, her eyes bulging. Mark nodded and continued walking. What a nice lady, he had thought people’s eyes bulging was just a fanciful description, how kind of her to show him it was real, he would remember.

The crowd of people in his way was much thicker now, drawn cattle like to the calls of pain from their brethren, such simple, sweet beings. No-one impeded Mark however, he cut through the stampede thanks to the winds swirling around him.

And any who did get to close got a little shock as a reminder of who and what he was. What a glorious feeling, freedom at last from all but one shackle, the most terrible chain of all, boredom. That was the largest yet most elusive, it could wrap around you tight as a vice in the middle of the most pleasing distraction. Thankfully he was on his way to ensure that remained a distant reality, once Mark collected some funds to live a life of amusement. He looked up at the sign above his destination, in nice, big, inviting letters was WESTBERRY BANK. Mark stood still outside, gathering his concentration, merging with the chaos of the sky, never controlling it, for what self-respecting storm, could be? He beckoned like to like and tugged the gusts in a cloak around him then flung it forth at the doors, shattering them wide open. More melodic screams and cries for help arose as Mark gusted inside. As expected, the security guards had guns and wasted no time firing at Mark. You see, Bestowed individuals were still uncommon in those days and Dims had yet to learn their place. The gusts swirling around Mark easily deflected the bullets, causing the guards to stop firing, looking at each other confused.

Mark raised his hands, for purely dramatic effect of course his powers didn’t require simple gestures like a mere magic trick.

On his command, a lightning bolt jumped from his fingers to strike the guards. There was a blinding flash of light followed by a crashing boom from the shockwave, flattening the other patrons. Mark took a moment to appreciate the silence that follows a horrific event, the only silence he could abide nowadays, before speaking to the crowd.

“Hello there, as you have most likely worked out, I am Bestowed and in need of money to fund certain projects I have planned. What’s more, I’m even in a good mood for the minute so if everyone pitches in and helps me gather every last coin in this place I’ll probably let you all go unscathed! Now, all of you get to it in a flash or you’ll end up dead in a flash, hehe, your choice!”

Mark was met with silence, and not the good kind. He frowned, the winds surrounding his body began to swirl faster. Still silence, the fools clearly couldn’t take a hint. Mark slowly rose his hands before him, mirroring his actions that led to the deaths of the guards. At that point the patrons jumped to their feet and scurried like good little mice to begin collecting all the money for Mark to take with him.

Mark waited patiently, only sending off the occasional lightning bolt to speed them up. The mice worked quickly and in 15 minutes, the contents of the bank had been collected in bags in front of him. They did such a good job, Mark rewarded them with a quick death, he would make up the missed screams later. He raised his hands once more, and began to build the lightning bolts again. With a smile, he released the strikes, but before they struck, a curtain of shadows rose from the floor, obscuring the people in the bank. Mark growled, it seemed someone was here to ruin his fun.

“Where are you?! I was here first, you fucking spoil sport!” Mark fired off bolt after bolt, hoping to draw out his new nemesis. Each one was swallowed by the wall of shadow, the light from the blast illuminating and highlighting the darkness instead of banishing it. Time to change tactics. Mark concentrated, he could feel the air around him and focused his attention on that. He bid it to swirl and gather strength, before rushing forward and battering the shadow. Still the wall remained, time for a more physical approach. He commanded the wind to carefully pulled the bags of cash to the side, whilst using individual gusts to pick up chairs, desks and cabinets and crash them into the block of darkness across the room. Each object sank into the nothingness, leaving the shadow undisturbed by the object’s trajectory. He realised that nothing was working so paused his efforts for the moment, prepping another lightning bolt in reserve.

Slowly the shadows collected, forming the silhouette of a human. Mark didn’t know this one, though in fairness he didn’t know many of the Bestowed, they seemed boring. No artistic flair, or they tried to defend the boring Dims. Realising that no more blows were coming, the silhouette shaped itself into a young man, dark hair, dark eyes, wearing all black. Nothing like sticking to a theme. Shadows pooled around his hands, clearly he was not yet prepared to let down all his defences, smart.

Mark continued to wait, this was usually the bit where they monologued. Still nothing, time to take matters into his own hands.

“Hello there, any reason you are trying to piss me off ? I’ve been having a good day so far.”

The young man scowled back and opened his mouth to reply.

“Only you don’t see me coming along and spoiling your fun” Mark said before the boy could speak.

“I am Shade! I am here to stop your evil ways, evil doer!” he exclaimed. Shade, a rather simple name in Mark’s opinion, gathered the surrounding shadows to him and puffed out his chest.

“Oh really? Well maybe you should first work on your ‘hero speak’. I mean come on, you said evil twice in a row…”

“Silence! I am not here to converse; I am here to end your evil ways!” The swirling shadows gained speed and formed into sharp lances.

“That’s three now. Come on, I’m just stood here at your mercy, I’m so completely in awe of your power. No harm in a little chat.”

“I said enough!” Shade rose his hands to command the darkness to shoot forward and strike Mark. Clearly an amateur.

Mark let the gusts swirling around him push him first one way then another, without the need to show what he was doing.

Each spear came one at a time, giving him plenty of time to avoid each one. One at a time! Clearly amateur was too much of a compliment, he didn’t know the first thing about his powers. Mark continued to dodge the strikes, using the wind to boost his movement, waiting for Shade to get bored. It took a good 15 minutes, this ‘hero’ types always had such a high tolerance to boredom, one of the few things he respected about them. Eventually the attacks stopped and Shade stood still, ironically an interesting shade of red himself.

“Satisfied?” This prompted another five minutes of attacks, this Shade character was lucky he had caught Mark on a lazy day.

“Stay still and let me smite you villain, your evil days are over!”

“After all this time, you still couldn’t think of anything other than evil?”

“Why are you doing this!? You should be using your powers for good!”

“Why?” This seemed to throw Shade a little, his control over the shadows broke such was his confusion.

“What do you mean why? We have been Bestowed to help people, to use these powers for good.”

Mark laughed, he didn’t think people could be this stupid.

“Of course we’re not here to do that! Did you even ask?”

“Ask? Ask who?”

“The Light, you know, the thing where you got your powers from? Bloody amateurs.”

“The… The Light? It talks?”

“Of course it does, we had a nice chat, I still visit every other Sunday.”

“What did it say!? What is our purpose? Are we not given these powers by God to save the world?”

Now this really tickled Mark.

“Of course not! It Bestowed us just for a laugh! Look at the rest of the Dims, they don’t give a shit about each other, why would a magic light be any different? Here, I’ll show you”

Mark remained relaxed, hands at his side and focused his concentration, keeping his face as blank as a cloudless day.

He willed the gusts that were his domain to push a table to Shade’s right fast, flinging it through the air. Just as expected, Shade quickly turned to the oncoming table, and begun to raise his hands to ward off the blow. While Shade was turning, Mark unleased the lightning bolt he had been holding onto and commanded it to fly towards Shade. The young boy, in a piece of irony Mark found amusing, light up brightly before vanishing into the light.

“You see? I got bored and you vanished. That’s what the powers are for.”

Mark called upon the winds one last time to collect the bags of money and rose out the ruined wall behind him. He rose into the air, free from all those invisible chains that held the Dims below him, gravity merely the most obvious of them all.

71

Writing Adaptations Module Amy Davies

The writing adaptation module attempts to explore the ways in which an original text, image, or piece of art can be adapted into different forms, such as fiction, poetry, and drama. Before this module, I had never considered using a minor character in a story to create a parallel story, not paid much attention to the idea of creating blackout poetry with an old newspaper, and hadn’t put a thought into taking inspiration from a piece of art. Indeed, there are so many levels of adaptation, it’s easy to get lost in it — whether you’re interested in re-writing a story, parodying it, or taking certain elements from a narrative or style of writing that you like, this module shows you how to do it, and explores why we as writers might do this to begin with.

It’s interesting to see the process of adaptation over time; one of the main points of reference through this course has been the adaptation from myth, looking most often at Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Picking one at random, it’s so interesting to see how many adaptations have stemmed from the original myth. Look at the story of Perseus, the titan who defeated Medusa in Greek mythology, instantly you think of representation in film such as Clash of the Titans and Percy Jackson, in literature you can find references and adaptations of the character everywhere, like Carol Anne Duffy’s poem Medusa written from the perspective of Medusa herself, Gorgons are even referenced in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

Looking at the myth of Perseus and Medusa within the context of the actual characters, the image of Medusa is a popular one. Representations of Medusa do change slightly; in Clash of Titans, Medusa is depicted as a beautiful woman with snakes for hair, as well as taking on the body of a snake; in Percy Jackson, Uma Thurman wears a black leather suit and plays a more contemporary and seductive version of the creature. Even mixing Greek myth and fairy tale has been experimented with, most notably in Clash of Titans and TV programme Once Upon a Time; the image of Medusa and her ability to turn people to stone is often the same, but she has been placed in different contexts and stories. In Once Upon a Time, Snow White transforms Medusa to stone using a mirrored shield after Medusa turned her beloved, Prince Charming, to stone. Of course, there is enough allusion here to the original myth, in which Zeus gives Perseus the mirrored shield to help defeat the Gorgon Medusa, without specifically referencing this or even having this understanding be an integral part of the story. But the world in which she finds herself in is, once again, very different.

Concerning Medusa, the image and function of her powers has been the focal point of adaptation, especially in more contemporary adaptations, her image as the “monster” that turns people to stone is incredibly well known. But there are other Greek myths that have been adapted more in the allegorical sense, as the myth holds strong parabolic qualities, that make for good adaptations of questioning human behaviour. Take Pygmalion, adaptation in film are so numerous and yet I’d overlooked them before I researched them and studied the adaptation module. In this example alone I can now link popular films such as My Fair Lady and Pretty Woman, to Shakespeare’s play The Winter’s Tale, the children’s tale Pinocchio, and even an episode of TV series The Simpsons named Pygmoelion, to the original myth, Pygmalion. Whether the adaptations are obvious and in need of prior knowledge of the story, or serve as none-integral references to the style, characters or plot; poke fun as parodies, or praised by pastiche; there are so many to explore.

And finally, the course explores the implications of writing these adaptations, and shows the student how to practice adaptation in a legitimate way.

If you find you have little interest in writing these adaptations yourself, the module is still great for finding inspiration, not to mention discovering new films and texts. This course is also great for anybody interested in the Literature and Film module in year three, that goes more in depth concerning literature and the film adaptations.

For me, the most interesting area has been learning about pastiche, and how I can imitate the style of an-

other piece of art, in a way that acts as an appreciation or tribute to the original – the references you might see often in film and TV that aren’t necessary to understanding of the story, but if you know the reference, it makes you feel “in on it”, so to speak, are really fun to try and achieve in your writing. In addition to this, I don’t consider myself a very good poet, but have found bricolage to be a very interesting and almost therapeutic way to create lots of interesting poetry adaptations. I just get a newspaper and marker, then annotate, fold corners, and highlight words to create interesting poetry to my heart’s content. Nor did I explore scriptwriting as much as I’d like before this module, but discovering the play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard has really rekindled my interest in writing minimalistic dialogue.

But don’t just take my word for it:

“The writing adaptations workshop has opened a gateway to an alternative form of writing I had never previously considered. I learnt how there are endless means to adapting a piece of work to make it your own. It has reminded me that there is always a different story to be told - challenging my writing process and influencing my creativity.” – Aysha (English Literature and Creative Writing student)

“The writing adaptations module has introduced me to works that I may not have seen otherwise.

Also, the technique itself is an interesting aspect of writing to learn about. It is a very popular trend in writing recently especially in TV and film” – Gareth (English Language and Creative Writing student)

“Writing adaptations has greatly improved my writing process due to brainstorming and researching the variety of forms used to experiment in writing. My favourites include adapting myths and response poetry as they are equally moving and comedic.” – Zahrah (English Literature and Creative Writing student)

And finally, from the module leader Dr Naomi Kruger:

“Writing Adaptations is one of my favourite modules to teach because the material is so varied. It’s easy to assume that adaptation is just about turning books into films or plays, but there are so many other possibilities. For example: Writing from the margins, adapting myths by re-imagining the stories in new places, cultures and historical moments, response poetry, verbatim plays, parody, bricolage and ekphrasis. It’s all about producing an imaginative transformation of the original material, turning it from one thing into something else, finding a new angle, a new order, a new emphasis. This can be challenging but it’s never dull.

Students experiment with source material from established classical or canonical texts as well as historical archives and found material. They have to engage with adaptation theory as well as selecting their own source material and deciding on the best approach – the most appropriate and interesting way to adapt it. It’s a way of producing original creative work that forces you to become acutely aware of the possibilities of intertextuality and influence.” — Dr. Naomi Kruger (Lecturer in Creative Writing, UCLAN) I have learnt so much about research when it comes to creative writing, and now I have much more extensive knowledge when it comes to writing terminology and technique; bricolage, pastiche, ekphrasis, and allusion are just some of the terms I’d known little about before this module.

It is just not possible to walk away from this workshop without learning something new or finding inspiration in some way.

73

Yellow

Amy Davies “I adore you,” I say. I should find new ways to say it. She hates how you say and blushes. That yellow dress. She looks perfect. Don’t say it. Give her roses and say nothing. Instead. I do and she speaks no words. She says it with teeth and lips and beautiful tits. What would she say? She would laugh with those perfect teeth and say,

“You like these tits?”, fingers half-painted and pointed.

“Yes.” I’d say. Careful mouthed. I know what I’d say if I were bold. Even bolder.

“So, can I see?” ¬¬¬Bite them softly between my teeth. The thought of it. That every day for the rest of time? Another bottle of something please, nothing calms me like the taste of wine. Always red. Never white and always red. One more glass, fifteen kisses, get lucky and bed. Or the sofa, if she wanted. Not there this time. But that time she did and I’ll never forget it.

Curtains open. She’d taunt me and not regret it. Bite my lip, remember, and sleep.

Hand glided up my Stone Roses t-shirt. Just a little. Just enough and not enough.

“No further? Ok. Whatever you say, if you must.” Yellow never looked so fucking good. My dream is yellow, it smells of her. My dream is her and warm and yellow.

Wake. She wears yellow. Don’t know how much more I can take of yellow. Too many things she wears are yellow. She’s made me aroused at the colour yellow. Never tell her. Never tell anyone. I throw away everything that’s mine and yellow.

She disappears.

I love you. I love you. Where are you? I love you. Three quarters of her way down a bottle of Something she loves you too. My hands sweat too much when I hold hers, she says. I’m nervous. She doesn’t like it, anymore. Dripping fingers, recoil hers. Let them linger a little longer. It matters. Bad days at work make bad days at home.

“I’m fine,” she says.

“I’m fine,” she says.

“I told you I’m fine,” she says. Kisses only upon request these days.

Can she? Will she? No kiss? Why don’t you kiss me? Won’t you. Please don’t, you’re killing me, you. Hand on her waist. And say,

“Do you want to talk about it?” Kiss her neck like that. “I know something that would help”, I say. Beautiful neck like that. Left hand on her neck like that. Right elsewhere like this. Face in hair brushes away as she blows on it. Breath on it slowly. Do again just do it again, please. Sigh on it.

“I don’t feel like it,” she says.

“Fuck, but you look just like it,” I say.

She’s wearing yellow but she smells of grey. A jumper remember that my grandma knitted. I’d smell it. Never wash it.

Never ever wash it. Smell it when sad. Smell to feel sad. Smelt good but bad. Moth balls and dust and bad. Wheezing all the time. But it smelt like then, it made me feel good. But then was then. That’s how yellow was now, and then.

“We should go out tonight,” I say.

“I don’t feel like it,” she replies. Roll eyes slow too slow to the side.

“Baby there’s some sleep in your eyes,” I say. Left one. I could get it. Sticky, leave it.

She wouldn’t like it. Are you listening?

“Maybe tomorrow”, she replies. Every day for some time till I die inside, and for some time after that. Found her last quarter from too late last night. Drink. Quarter gone. Summon dreams, think of other three, and sleep. Badly.

Wake. She’s getting dressed. Yellow shirt tucked neatly into black skirt. Hair messy. Hugging thighs. Sit up, smile. She smiles briefly, walks to my side. Kisses head. My legs off the left side of the half-made bed. Parted little. Stand wrap arms around her waist. Should tell her I adore her still. I want to still. I want her closer. Still. She feels effects of her yellow through my black Calvin Klein underpants. Recoils. Ashamed eyes, disgusting and wide. Sleep built up, I’d get that. Pick.

“Is that all you ever think about?” she says. I let go, fast. Only if she wants ever wanted. Resist urge to cry, and bye. Slam. I’ll see her later. If I didn’t love her so much I’d hate her. Hole in plasterboard. Hole in heart. Shower on. Wank over some fabulated tart. Blonde, brunette, and red all over. All faces known by me, morphed, screwed all at once and shown to me. Wears red and then nothing, more nothing, nothing nothing nothing. Resist the urge to cry. Resist. Resist. Out the shower and write a shopping list. She hates me but its ok, I’ll cook dinner. Potatoes, lamb, carrots, and wine (white, not red). Different somethings. Something’s different. Bed, lie face-down. Squash nose. On the pillow on the bed, on the right side of the half-made bed. Press hard it hurts until it hurts, really hurts. Get that fucking filthy image out your stupid filthy fucking head. IPod on. Plug it in. Juice Newton – Angel of the Morning. Relate with it endlessly until it gets boring. Unplug.

Door slam and she’s back. Dinner. Table, try footsie but I’m unable. Reach her. Can’t reach her. Drunk. I still love her. I still love

you. This time only half way down the bottle when she says it too. Quarter less guilt than last night mate.

“Night darling”, I say, “it’s getting late”.

Wake. She rolls over to mine. Touches cheek. Stares eyes. Search reasons she still loves me, I decide. Don’t know if she finds it. Way deep down inside. Way too face full. Maybe thoughtful, and something else. No thoughts, at all? This morning, and all before. What would be worse? Not find it with sadness, find it with hate? Contemplate and open that heart wrenching gate, for twenty minutes. Set off work bus it’s raining, wet. Bus and wait. No umbrella. Twenty minutes late.

Home.

“A hug won’t make me feel better,” she says.

“Just leave me alone,” she says.

“Just leave me the fuck alone,” she says.

“What have I done now?” I ask. Set about the task to get talk, and strops. These deep frowns look a bit like... Remember, think, listen. She’s talking. Are you listening?

“It’s not about you,” she says. “It’s me,” she says. Oh, fuck this. Fuck you.

“FUCK YOU,” I say. Walk away, but not so far. IPod, play. Stop at 1:16. This teenage Scouting for Girls bullshit is too upbeat for me. No more wine for me. Too much me for me. Early night for me. Way over to the left side of the bed for me. Think of right side. It’s bright side. It’s her side. It’s side yellow. Her yellow side. Sleep.

Hand glided up my Stone Roses t-shirt. Just a little. It’s not enough and it’s too much. Hand reaches my heart. Twirled dark hair around long nimble fingers. Nails half-painted and pointed claw out my heart and it’s everywhere. Fills plasterboard hole. Beating. Filling and gaping again each beat. There long enough to see…

Wake. Sweating. Head, heart aching and breaking, again. She’s there. Hair messy, dressed in that yellow gown she likes to wear.

“I know,” she says. Grey eyes on my grey eyes. Wipe dry eye. Watch dead-eyed.

“I have to go home now,” she says.

She’s gone been gone while. A while. I’m coping. Today. Batteries out alarm. Just. Fire pit in sink. Stone t-shirt with roses hugged licked in warm orange. Fuck this. I Wanna Be Adored radio it plays on it. Another hole in plasterboard. Fix it. I thought her voice, again, door at the front. Break it. Horrible voice. Beer and beautiful voice. Sing me, for us. Inviting that floor. That living floor. Roll fingers crumbs between that dirty floor. Dirty carpet. That dirty room. Sex you have had in that room. Sat. Sat small and sprawled. Call, should call her. Floor, get off the floor, should. Should do. Drown in it, it out. In and in and all the way in and out. Radio up turn it up radio in the corner, play loud out loudest. Crumble crumbs dust to and sprinkle. Why are all the best songs about love and losing it. It’s lost it. Losing My Religion – play. I’m in it. Repeat it till pass out. Please can pass out now. Beer hand, it’s cool. Cry. Tuck leg other leg under chin. Sore chin and red knee. Why won’t she love me. Cry. Never tell anyone. Cry. Text tell everyone. Cry. Wipe face shaking hands wipe it. Turn off. Power button glistens wet salty dew sadness.

Left finger tips on this. Leave it there, I’ll leave it. It will, will it dry by morning? Glisten. Sofa. Sprawl and sleep.

Hand glided up my Stone Roses t-shirt. Just a little. It’s enough and it’s too much. Hand reaches my heart. Push it away.

Push her down. Plead. You, she should. Twirled dark hair around strong fisted fingers. Don’t stop. Keep going. Punch till you break crack squelch through her chest, showing. And squeeze. Cruel heart. It’s everywhere. Stop start stop. Squeeze. Want it.

Wait and slower. Broken stands wearing deep crimson. It’s beautiful. Hanging bits. Drip. Drip. Up look. Falling bits. Finger handless. Chest rib-less. Body lifeless.

“I have to go home now”, she says. Drip. Leaves through front door. Leaves forever.

Leaves prints. Leaves red broken bits. Lead away from me. Drip. Lonely bones, scattered floor, glisten with wet red sticky glaze.

There long enough and too long to see...

Wake. Sweating. Dripping. Beating. Feeling yellow. Effects of yellow.

“Fuck off fuck off fuck off!” Hole in plasterboard. Hole in plasterboard. Hole in plasterboard. Cry. Scream.

“I hate you,” I scream.

“Please don’t fucking leave me,” I plead.

I sleep.

Wake. No quest this morning. No searching eyes morning. Sit up. No yellow mornings. Get to it. Used to. Don’t shave face morning. Bathroom. Search mirror. Call work “I’m sick”, morning. See what she. Find what she, and shiver. Takes fifty different faces, ten different hairstyles. Hits me, the layers of nothingness give gave giving to her. Downstairs. Scattered rubbish spilling. Hers, some was. Hold cans and squeeze. Squeeze. Drop. Imagine mouth that drinks. Should clean my teeth. Upstairs.

Downstairs. More no cans. Kitchen. Sink week’s dirty pots and pans. Pasta hers, is was good. Feel ribs. Run fingers over and play like sad instrument. Grumble. Glide. Top to bottom. Heart music. Tap. Cry accompaniment. Getting nowhere. Phone and IPod somewhere? Screen cracked. Inbox empty. Bills unpaid. Wine box, plenty. Shuffle. Bad shuffle. Fuck all, nothing. Hoover

75

crumbs. Regret make new ones. Can kick. Sing. Can crunch these crumbs. Laugh, no reason. No tears more. Some more here.

Now no more. Move on. Go. Move furniture, move it back. Hate the difference. Hate it back. Bin dead flowers and hate the difference. All yellow things put in the bin. Too many yellow things. Shitty shitty yellow things. Out the bin. In the bin. Out the bin. Kick the bin. Smell the pillow. Throw the pillow. Fuck the Yellow. Sleep.

Smell. Bacon, eggs, toast. Heart attack, stroke? No. Smell not burnt. Liver failure? Downstairs cooking. Radio on. Sizzling fat. Spat. Hand jolted back wet dew over burnt pink skin. Rolling Stones ¬- You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Dances it’s bad. Stand and watch a while. Pick up coffee that has too much milk in it and smile.

“Hi,” I say. Shy. Eventually she smiles too. Like hair up. Quiet. But for today a look and a smile will do. Do have patience. God knows what I’d be without you.

“Mind if I change the song?” I say. I change.

“Beach Boys. Really?” she says.

“Oh, this has nothing to do with you”, I say. Sing first line and sing and wink.

“Very funny”, she says.

Bliss, it’s bliss. Careful not blink two blinks and she’d gone again. Trail wiped fat down her forearm. Quest begin. Follow it. Thumb pressed up glides with ease against it. The final one. Touches cheek. Stares eyes. Find reason she still loves, decide.

Don’t know if she finds it, but she smiles. Knows it now, she knows it. Hope she remembers when next time who knows it.

Remind tell show me to find it. I love you. Say. Don’t tell. Grey eye. Older eye. Beautiful eye. You, will kiss me? Does. She says it tickles her face. Laughs lightly. Promise to shave. You. Only ever for you. Ever noticed how good she looks in blue? Touches, touched, touching me everywhere briefly, too softly. Takes off her blue and she’s every colour now. Yellow blue and all others somehow. Yellow isn’t the only? That’s ok. Fuck it let’s try blue today. Days, more days. Deal with the rainbow till I find I’m colour-blind. Bathroom time. Razor, foam, clean. Smooth hands over face. Occasional resistance. Slap it. Stings. Mirror. Look.

Grey eyes on blue eyes. Blue eyes? Look longer, while longer. Finger point toward it. Look. Squint. Look too long. Something wrong. Corner eye. Corner ceiling. Crimson seeping slowly creeping. Quickly pulsing. Nose bleeds, taste it weeping, thick and bitter. Back hand blooded. Crimson walls look better this way. Arm stretched out sink cracked and broken. Plug hole hand rips Stone Roses t-shirt open. Pull. Wearing? Pull. Up in orange. Up in yellow. Pull.

“Never coming. Never comes. Never comes back,” it laughs. Hand snaps bones.

Giggle snap giggle snap. No more left. No more laugh.

“Back never back,” it says. “Never never coming back.”

Heart. Crack. Bleed. Drip.

Wake.

Roll.

Empty.

Sleep.

From Self-Made Portraits to Lunchtime Aesthetics Ellie Sutcliffe

Those automaton dreamers laser-gaze into the constant stream; screen flashing blue and white blurring in a vertical river Swathes of bodies flow Treading facelessly with a mind interrupted Step left, veer right Or you’ll get trampled by android apathy!

Swamped by headlines Scratchings of original thought Fogged within a twitter of gabbling rhetoric Baited to click by nonsense headlines that push buttons; worn down to nothing by too many jerks of the knee or maybe you already know the five ways you can… passively accept the banality of it all!

Words pour through a hash of tagged filter-less drivel a chasm of teams; yelling indiscriminate “Bigot, racist,” they shout the spark of discourse dulled and, no longer content with the physical now litter the digital landfills with troll-shit and wasted words Watch as they write their mundanity… their lives reduced to 140 characters designed to fill the cup of admiration while robotically reporting their status let’s award them for achieving their daily chores whilst the room outside this cosy blue field remains empty with only the needy poster Calorific worlds inside the photo-stream of sandwiches and slated salads Disconnected from the flavour Painted lattes hand in hand with a digital click Taste the likes Mmm, frothy!

We hold our eyes to all the pretty idiots And their ironed flawless faces Sprayed with lashings of orange concealment And angled so their chin fat won’t ruin it.

“You’re special,” they say Snowflakes drift down the screen All of them ‘unique’ we see un-remarkableness in the same pursed lips; quack into your camera!

While you smooth your abs in the mirror snap the mundane, lured into the aesthetic like a glittering fish, sequinned scales glistening but when you look closer, filtered films distort the shine!

77

Poetry Competition Winner

I Wanna Make Words Amy Lee Tempest

I wanna make words with you.

I wanna take clauses paired with pauses Held by semi colons and commas And the occasional ellipses Coz there will be no full stop To you.

I wanna make verse after verse out of you.

I wanna make lines leading to lines With repetition and internal rhymes Making sentences sound like a tune That only I know sings For you.

Coz I wanna give life to you.

And when your name is secretly scribed Inside and Between lines Down the margins and The spine Of pages and pages Combined, They spell out that one thing I simply cannot manage to say In just three little words.

I want.

I want.

And I want.

Until it hurts

Poetry Competition Runner-Up

The Vanishing Girls.

Fern Charlotte Keely

He has a mouth that scorches like acid as it grazes mine.

He tells me I am too bold in my love, unabashed in my adoration.

I ‘expect too much’ from him. He didn’t know that I was winter fire; a dazzling inferno – hypnotic and wild. I could pull you in then set you ablaze. Come closer and you’ll go up in flames.

Words are emptied into me. I swallow them whole, ingesting malice.

Spite slides down my throat like bleach. It pollutes my innards, blackens my centre. He seizes my colour; washes me out. I am diluted, fading.

He equates me to a mouldy peach - says you wouldn’t know by looking at me, that I am not like the others in the batch. At first glance, I am lush and enticing. Beneath the skin, I am rotting away. My insides spill out. They are sour and decaying; not fit for human consumption.

Sometimes, intimacy creeps into our home – an uninvited guest – one who makes ‘go away’ and ‘come here’ sound the same.

In the sequestered dark, he claims me. We are a collection of limbs intertwined, nothing but temporal flesh. Yet we feel limitless, immortalized in the moment. Our fingers laced, we tell each other that we belong this way; that we always have. Afterwards, there are weeks of unanswered calls, passive aggression, 4am appearances, kisses too chaste.

In these hours, I abstain from social gatherings. I neglect basic hygiene.

Drinks. To dull the ceaseless dread: go on - I’ll have one more! Tequila because it’s natural for me, to seek out the thing that burns, and make it mine.

Ripping into my chest, he cracks open my ribs and tears out my lungs.

I am hollowed out, empty. I think of all those other girls – the ones before me: organ donors before they are dead, offering their hearts so freely to him.

He never pulls a rabbit out of a hat but - like a magician - he makes us disappear.

79

Honorary Mention

Running

Michael Holloway I went running near the beach one morning – the river banked on the sand, spilled sanguine, buried in the spur – the sky held up its red hands, wringing together forming clouds. I went running through a cold, fierce wind, my hair blown back like the head of a gull.

My father was Catholic, my mother Protestant and they fought each other like the Irish. It happened every day when I was a boy and I ran away a couple of times, headed for the beach. I ran into the wind-whipped sand – the only ones awake, the birds.

Sand blew and hewn in whorls of giant golden skirts. I imagined a girl dancing, twirling in the music of morning now, lonely here as Autumn – but my thighs ached and my calves burned and she went away with the wind.

I ran at her body, in it: a baptism of flies. Buzzing and whooping at my ears, their fangs swiping and digging, wings like little fleshy paper.

I turned and ran from the beach. Heavy concrete and gravel Midas-gold, my breath dry and raw. Walking home I saw a pregnant rat. Its belly engorged and stretched, pink and balloon-like. Its black eyes saw me and she ran away.

Just fitting through a hole in a garage door.

Walking Wounded Hazel Partington

No visible scars, no bandages or slings But our wounded hearts are full of many things; The way she breathed her last, the way he said goodbye, And how we clung together to survive.

We seem ok, we laugh, we smile.

We live our lives, but holding all the while Our sadness, with bright threads woven through; The memory of her eyes of brown, The memory of his eyes of blue.

81

Free Verse

Fern Charlotte Keely When the news of you arrives, I’m making us a cup of tea. All I recall after this, is seeing our telephone, dangling off the hook.

The wires are sinewy spider’s legs, a snake coiled in on itself leaving a trail of insipid poison in its wake. Who would have thought that its venom would be delivered in the form of softly spoken words by uniformed men, in luminous yellow.

A ghastly reminder of the bile creeping up my throat.

Sleep eludes me, days passing weeks merging and sympathy like all other things, like you, has a ‘use by’ date.

Eventually, someone decides enough time has passed and your name is spilt clumsily, along with my wine, over the dinner table. One leaves a stain on my cloth, the other on the atmosphere. I hold my breath, hopeful that if I do it for long enough, it will come to a stop.

Even in the ground, you tower above us all, placed high up on a pedestal.

Spoken of as the pinnacle of human perfection immaculately polished and fault-free. You are now the coffin you rest in.

Having discernible flaws is a privilege reserved for the living.

I’m thankful to have known you better. At times, I craved your absence.

Whilst I hate myself for knowing you weren’t perfect I’ll always love you more for showing you weren’t perfect.

Sometimes I think of you, rotting in the muddy earth the scent of you clings to your favourite jacket and I’m fearful for the day it won’t.

Why didn’t I bury you in it? I know how you hate the cold and I pick at the skin on my fingertips all night, wondering how I could leave you.

I’m making myself a cup of tea and thinking that maybe there will come a day where I don’t call out your name and ask if you’d like one too.

“Thank you for coming,” said much more than it is meant.

I tell them how much you would’ve appreciated it.

Then I accidentally lock eyes, with Mandy, from your work you hated that bitch. Suddenly I am ripping out clumps of her fake hair and bludgeoning her to death with the heel of her own cheap stilettos.

Only on the inside.

Cards are offered, I rip them apart soon as I am home, trying to plug up the emptiness with rage. Exhausted of seeing the same three images – picturesque flowers; delicate butterflies; immaculate sky lines – symbolic of a heaven you didn’t believe in.

My Brain Hurts Irene Susan Flack

My brain’s full It’s bursting With voices, noise, lights Colours, people, so many sights STOP. IT HURTS, Please turn the world off.

I can’t keep up with this hullabaloo I need an anchor which I can cling to This constant Kaleid osc opic li Whir ng STOP TALKING TO ME, don’t tell me more Cos my brain’s full It’s hurting My mind is so sore

Bill’s Job

Irene Susan Flack “Nay, ‘e’s got a good job with the Co-op,” Said Bill’s dad when his lad got a chance To sign to play football professionally.

And now Bill was heading for France.

While crossing the channel to Normandy He wondered why no-one asked him, Before he entered water seven feet deep, If he could actually swim.

“Keep your rifle dry!” shouted the Sarge And Bill obeyed this command As he struggled through enemy waters To finally make it to land.

“Hello, Smithy,” came a familiar voice.

“How the f**k did we end up here?”

Bill turned to find an old school-mate He’d not seen for many a year.

On a day of heroics and history They ‘just got on with the job’, Then Bill went back to the Co-op To earn his steady few bob.

83

Carnevale Di Convalida Bethany Harris

When the laptop comes to life, for her, it’s always Carnevale.

People teeter past, eyes digital white, with fingers outstretched and tapping softly.

A party.

Masked, they like her.

She’s the me they’d rather see.

A Chinese whisper.

A catchpenny print.

A vague mockery.

I’m trapped, lost, in a thrumming directory.

It’s still better than a book, saves so I don’t have to bend the page because creases, folds...

They’re ugly.

The Binge

Jasmine Geddes Whether it be eating, sleeping, drinking or simply overthinking. Come the moments we know won’t last because once the binge is over it’s time to fast

Para

Jasmine Geddes Everyone, everyone everywhere I see you when you stop and stare.

No matter your condescending platitude there’s no altering a paranoids attitude

That Place Jasmine Geddes

Place of no time Place of no rhyme, or reason Place of no paradigm That place in my mind

85

A Time to Cast Stones Michael Holloway

Your eyes were stones cast across a muddy field. They had a kind of glister.

They shone like silver in the moonlight. But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to find your eyes now in this world of rocks. A time to cast away stones, this click clickey click of them hitting each other. The rain is you crying.

We canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see each other anymore.

Your mouth was that low-hanging crescent moon as if the moon had fallen over. I remember kissing you, your spit just like water, your lips like the pulsing heart of a dying deer.

I still see you on that hill, coming towards me with a made-up smile.

Your pupils dilated, your irises shrunken. Your face fronting ships Eastward.

Now, squashed up like an overripe fruit, falling apart so easily, it seems I turn the other way, see the stars shining, see the birds whining, see the ghosts murmuring, see something sprout in the cold wet field.

Dreams of Flying Michael Holloway

It is a wet month out the window, cars winking their lights in the light rain, the day darkens so soon. The cold takes people. They shiver to death. I sit roosting with my eyes closed dreaming and I dream â&#x20AC;&#x201C; makes blotchy boils goosebump until pubescent feathers sprout from my skin, sluice my shoulders to the aerofoil of my arms.

Harsh arrogant beak, bones curve, bend, snap and I fly out the window. Not many people know, but the world below the sky is hidden.

Before you see me in the sky, where I fly in a haze of sunlight and fog, you too close your eyes and dream the same dream. You fly in a folded-up earth, screaming from the yellow conical bone, exerting yourself from your tiny, fragile body. You swoop immediately before you die. Gliding, drifting, floating. Up here the rage canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reach. And so, the birds, they fly away for the winter, some die, some live forever, but no one sees the same bird again. And I fall, as I must, near a chimney.

My sleep kills me and I awaken in front of a far away rain. But I have already gone to Ireland, for Dublin is my Paris.

87

STORM

Tracey Ackrell You swirl and dart in tempestuous dance, Use lightning bolts to snap the air, With howls and wails with ferocious intent, You batter shores without guilt or due care.

You violate and ravage lawlessly, With indignant fury and callousness, Leave carnage behind you so recklessly, And continue forward with ruthlessness.

But you make music with your snaps and howls, And waves dance like ballerinas with grace.

You fly through the sky with great skill like owls, Your speed so fast that no one can outpace.

You may be beautiful and majestic, But you act like a mad egocentric.

It Was Our Love That Destroyed Everything Sofia Shakeel

It was our love that destroyed everything.

We thought we could have it all, That there would be no repercussions.

How foolish.

NaĂŻve children playing an innocent game.

Nothing could fill the hole you created.

They made me watch you burn as punishment Because love is not for the likes of us.

They started a war To bring me back and in the end I burnt to save you.

Love; There is nothing more dangerous and powerful.

89

The City

Kieran Nutall The same face a thousand times A bittersweet concoction Of arrogance and misery A lonely distance.

Somewhere, A security man Sits by a security phone “Male, mid 40s, Dark-skinned; as such My suspicions arise Left his bag on the train Seven times out of seven Or was it nine times of eleven?

Either way, a cause For national concern” “And no doubt” Professionals swarm Running, sweating Not from the grind But the tense atmosphere of the mind The world could end & we’d never know

Two Kinks in the Night Kieran Nutall

Two kinks in the night Lay side by side As the stars gathered round and the Moon stood astride As if by surprise, Their ears found song and they danced and they swirled And they circled till dawn Entangled they became, ends bound tight.

Each made run to be free But instead took joint flight â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Cross valleys of green Oceans of blue Through moonfalls and sunsets To the heavens they flew They stopped on a cloud A throne of sorts Looked over their kingdom and silenced their thoughts They settled in bliss, Troubles now gone.

It occurred to them then Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d found freedom as one Two kinks in the night Lay side by side As the stars gathered round And the Moon stood astride

91

Short Story Competition Winner

The Last Charge of the Silver Cossacks Jack Ebbrell

The expedition now finds itself collapsed at the periphery of an insurmountable and uneven forest. The men are panting under a bombardment of soot-like snow. The roots reach for the horses from the ground and snag our progress, until every rivulet of our effort is sapped. The scene holds an odd shade, between the trees dead and dying and ground flecked with snow or blood-red leaves. The tents are buckled under the frost and stand lopsided because of their hasty construction on the crooked ground. Those within can be heard sleeping feverishly, though most remain awake with disquieted expressions as they stare into the fires. To our east is a great flatland; tufts of heath and longdead trees are the sole landmarks on the plain, but we can see no further through the besieging snow. They are out there still, always circling and mocking. The whinnying and snorting of their beasts carry on frail winds, and unearthly laughter echoes just at the moment that twilight beckoned to deny the men sleep. But the worst of it is the trampling, always the constant trampling, the impossible storm of hooves that tear the earth beyond our sight. It is them, it has to be. The Silver Cossacks want the men scared.

Three days ago, General Gasparov made his devilish gambit known to the officers. Following the rout of the enemy, the men had sacked and plundered their village like the Norsemen of the last age. Coins and grain and daughters were our spoils. Spoils — of course — shared between ourselves and the great Silver Cossacks, eternal host of the Twin Rivers, takers of the Silver Hills, triumphant sons of the First Scourge, and the finest mercenaries between the edges of the map. In battle, where others stand their ground, the Cossacks take it for their own. As muskets choke the autumn air, through bullets that fall through the air like bladed rain, the Cossacks roar their will and make their presence known on the point of lance and sabre. The enemy had almost decided the battle that day, but through their flank tore the Silver Cossacks and their lines broke to splinters. Gasparov rejoiced in their grand slaughter, but knew that he had to pay their grand price. The hoard was gathered and counted two score times and a dozen more after that, but counting did not add to it any more. Their ruinous price was too great for our army to afford.

“Once we return from the campaign trail, how soon will it be before they turn on us? Without coin to stay their blades, they will turn them on our own bodies and put their torches to our own homes in the north!” Gasparov said.

This was how he told the officers of his treachery, which would soon be ours as well.

The two camps lay outside the ruined burg under waxing blue light, Gasparov’s and that of the Silver Cossacks.

In ours were but a few of their number, revelling among us. They were slit first as they slept in stupor, or revelled amongst the friends they had made. A handful tried to run or to fight once they saw their brethren stabbed where they sat, but they were soon dragged down and, thrashing, brought back to the campfire. Those who fought were beaten and gutted once their strength had leaked away. I don’t know whether the sting of betrayal showed in their eyes — I never looked.

The infantry was roused and told of the General’s plan. There were more than a few grim faces, but the black silence was clear and free of objection. The march was short and unnaturally fast, it seemed. Given the thoughts that swam through the ranks, the soldiers expected an arduous journey so as to mull over their task, but the lights of the Cossack camp grew brighter and closer all the same. In silence as cold and hard as stained glass, the men formed up in trees and behind mounds and all of the while tried to keep their breaths shallow, out of fear of their rising wisps betraying the army. Every rustle and clank and snap was dreaded, though they surely couldn’t hear us over their songs. Guns were passed from the pack horses: powder loaded, flint shaved, bayonets twisted, and lead rammed. The moon was the only witness, staring through weak, lonesome clouds. I knew he was judging us.

It took a single breath for the soldiers to pace into the glare of the bonfire. The front kneeled into the ember-lit snow and the ranks took their aim. They didn’t even stop smiling when they saw us, didn’t put together what we were to do. That stuck with me.

93

With a bellow from Gasparov, the volleys started. Mechanically, they fired into the tents and the horses and the bodies in the fire glowed. Their tethered horses screamed but were silenced; there could be no means of escape.

Cossacks drew their swords and ran for their rifles. None made it more than ten paces before being felled like rotten trees. Crash after air-shattering crash the guns fired, all-but drowning out the feral men before them. Shots roared over one another for glacial moments. You couldn’t tell time by the volleys after long, once the men started firing at will. Faces that moments earlier were portraits of the macabre were now completely void like death masks. In the commotion, tents erupted in gouts of fire. Smoke fled the mayhem of that camp and lost itself within the egg-smelling gun smoke, before hiding among the trees behind us.

It must have been me. My shot. Somehow untouched, the mighty Silver Prince could be seen scimitar in hand, dragging his brethren to wherever he thought he might find safety. His beard was flecked with silver circles, and his cuirass boldly displayed a stampede along two rivers. There could be no mistaking him. The sword itself seemed to glimmer poisonously, as though the light from the moon took a new form with its touch. The men around him toppled with moans and geysers of blood, but he didn’t look to surrender. He took his band to a few loose stallions and calmed them despite the storm of battle, and the damnation Gasparov had wrought. Now I saw that he wasn’t untouched — a gash on his shoulder hindered his riding, leaving his left arm pressed crooked to his side — but his face betrayed no ounce of pain, only fury. There must have been about forty men with him, mounting and arming, but the smoke mostly shrouded them. Their rallying cry drew some more warriors, many bleeding and some burned, and all of them as enraged as cornered wolves. With a final cry, they surged towards the line. I had held my shot, but in a frenzy I trained the gun onto their centre. The shot seemed somehow shriller than all the rest.

Their gallop had been impossible, like they had sprinted from the top of a great hill or been pushed by a rogue wave. Over scores of dead Cossacks they soared, and with each corpse passed their speed trebled. But after my panicked shot came a silence. The Prince lurched back, twisted in his stirrups. He broke with his men and slowed, and his arms fell from him. And he fell. The clang of his ancient sword scraping the iced ground cut through the smoke and the fall of hooves. The steel sound sliced their speed. The wave faltered, and like coastal cliffs our gunfire broke it.

My reverie dissolves. We are still for too long. Time to move again. Time and time again we crawl along the edge of this daunting forest until our way is lost. The uneven terrain and snarling roots had tripped our horses and turned our wagons, tossing our exhausted men like driftwood. The shod of the horses was tested and found wanting so, at last, the wretched creatures were abandoned in the woods. We have been making this godless march on foot. The snow is ever-falling. It is damn cold. I make use of a gnarled old giant for my shelter, though it can offer me little by way of warmth. How strange it is to think that in such scenery under different circumstances it might be perhaps quite beautiful, the starkness of the red and orange in the trees, that still had life against the pelting pure white of the snow and the absoluteness of the shadow.

They are quiet for now, but they are surely out there in the snow, following like silent carrion birds. Not a hint of fire alludes to their presence. The Silver Cossacks could be upon us at any time. To travel among the innards of the forest is impossible, but we daren’t brave the desolation of the flatlands. Not anymore. Gasparov’s host has lost half of its number, if it can still be called Gasparov’s. The general was run down when last the scourge came. Lost in the fray, he was found pinned to a trunk by three lances thrust so hard and so hatefully, that their reddened tips emerged through the lumber and bark on the other side. His visage was taken with his head, but the uniform and belly, pierced though they were, were surely his. Many are hewn in their charges, but most are taken in despair. Every minute that passes is marked by the desertion of a dozen men. They take their packs and torches and, on occasion, their weapons in a gesture of futile resilience. At first we wished them well and promised to follow. Later we would beg them to stay. Now we watch their departure with apathetic porcelain eyes. The flames they carry pelt or stomp their way through the blizzard via the flats or the woodland — it doesn’t matter which route. When one loses sight of the torch, it is best to try not to listen. The slashing and bludgeoning and screaming holler into our skulls and stop us from swallowing. The flashes of rare, valiant shots in the dark, from those lost souls serve only to illuminate the grim limbs of our phantom tormentors and their deformed steeds. The better part of a thousand have been picked off over many dozens of hours since the night of carnage, by our timepieces. But it is uncanny: this is still that same night. The sun hides as though ashamed, and the full moon continues to glare hatefully on us. None talk

of it. I think they fear of what it means, of where it means we may already be.

The only warning for attack is silence. As stillness falls among the snow, it lasts just long enough to fool, long enough to suggest that maybe they have gone. False hope may be the coldest blade. Then they emerge with the rancour of hateful men, hacking through the mist and snow. Their weapons gleam in the moonlight and race forward.

They are upon us before a single scream is loosed. Pulping hooves and whipping swords and steady lances come at us hellishly, again and again. Many men are now so tired and drained of will that they are reaped as they amble numbly through our haphazard camp. Limbs and human trunks are strewn through the snow, impaled and cast aside, and soon buried again under dunes of snow. As abruptly as the plague arrives, it again fades away.

It has become starkly apparent that this will not end. What little dry wood we have found is being packed up. The tents are being rolled in a haste and the remnants of the food is wolfed down to keep from wasting it. I have made a morbid decision. Some of my most loyal came over to persuade me to join their retreat, but I won’t. Maybe I can’t.

They understand my wish, and I understand their drive to persevere. God help them.

I can tell the Cossacks are building to something. The quiet is over and their swirling din has returned. It sounds somehow more intentional, as though aimed at me alone. That glistening scimitar calls for me on thunder.

While the lights of the army march sadly further from me and the leafless protector I shiver beneath, I consider — in a moment of desperation — calling out some apology to the invisible horde. A delusional idea. The storm cometh and I can’t avert it. This is my time of judgement, and I know there is naught to do but embrace it. A debt is to be repaid.

Stillness pools again. Perhaps this time at last they are truly gone. Perhaps they will show undeserved mercy. Or perhaps the time has come for the final charge. My heart counts the moments.

95

Short Story Competition Runner-Up

Price

Archie Stones Underneath the pristine buildings of the College Arcanum, a vast network of pipes permeated the rock and left through the surrounding cliffside. Some were used for ventilation, some for human need, but the majority dealt with magical waste instead. The Rainbow Cliffs were quite renowned, though they were certainly less impressive once you knew their origin.

As Danny descended the ladder into this underbelly, the oddly energizing blend of decay, waste and sharp arcana tingled his nose. He wouldn’t miss it.

Reaching the bottom, he lit a torch and held it aloft. Arteries of the college, the menagerie of pipes sprawled towards an opening far to the left. A narrow pathway wound its way through.

Martin, his older brother, reached the bottom a few moments later, coughing and holding his robe sleeve to his nose.

“I really should have found you a better job than this,” Martin said. “I had no idea it was so unpleasant down here.”

“An odd time to feign interest,” Danny said, ducking a pipe as he led the way down the walkway. “But don’t worry, this is a palace compared to where we, well, lived.”

“I…” Martin faltered. “I should have come to visit you both.”

“Yep.” Danny shifted the equipment sack on his shoulder and hastened his walk.

“You can talk to me about it, you know,” Martin said. “I know it can’t be easy, but it was right. What you did. I would have done the same.”

Danny stopped and turned. “Easy to say from your cushioned college,” he said. “I know it was bloody right, it’s just… I should have gotten Jill away from him months ago.”

“You couldn’t have stopped her doing anything.”

Danny gave a short, mirthless snort. He continued walking. “Probably not. Could’ve stopped him sooner, though.”

“How could you have known what—” “He was?” Danny interrupted. “We all knew Gavin was a pussbag, but he was my boss. Gods above, how he left her…”

Only heavy thoughts filled the air between them as they reached the end of the walkway. Here, the pipes opened onto the stained cliffs below. One vomited out a stream of vibrant pink liquid. Another coughed bluish vapour.

Danny passed the torch to his brother and clambered over to reach the pipe closest to the wall. It had only ever emitted hot air in the years that he had worked as a weeder, which made it the perfect place to dry out the plants.

Dropping to his stomach, he carefully pulled himself to the pipe’s opening, the final few feet suspended a great distance from the sea below.

Reaching inside, he pulled out a large bundle of brownish-green looking weeds and tossed it behind him. With the help of his scythe he just managed to get the other, stashed further in.

“My word Danny,” Martin said from the safety of the walkway. “Everyone knows the weeders sneak a little from their harvests, but this much? How would you even get it past the gate?”

“Gavin’s men would row up close to the cliffside,” Danny said, shuffling back and grabbing the bundles. “We threw.

I thought you Arcanists were supposed to be smart?”

“There’s not that many classes on drug smuggling.”

Danny didn’t reply, his attention turned to checking over the stock. He pulled one strand from the bundle. It could have used a few more days in ventilation; the purple of the root stem hadn’t completely faded yet, and when he moved his fingers away the plant limply wagged towards them. Still, all that mattered was that it burned.

Taking back the torch, he held it far from his face and raised the strand to the flame. It recoiled slightly, but after a few moments it thankfully caught alight. Compared to mundane material, the amount of smoke produced from burning a single strand of arcle was immense. He quickly dropped it and stamped it out, lest the sparkling smoke get anywhere near his lungs.

“Uh… You’re absolutely sure it won’t harm them right?” Martin said, eyeing the small cloud of smoke uneasily. It avoided the sunlight; wherever it touched, the smoke shimmered a purple hue before retreating into the shade.

“Not long-term,” Danny said. “With this much, it might knock them out for a few days depending on how much they breathe in, but they should be fine. Some of them might even enjoy it.”

“I hope you don’t.”

Danny shook his head. “No, it… For most people it’s different. Some get euphoric, I’ve seen others paint the most amazing things. It must have done something for Jill. It only made me see things that shouldn’t exist.”

“Wait, Jill was on this stuff ?”

“Not today.”

Martin said nothing, but his eyes did.

“Really?” Danny said. “You really want to judge her not a day—” “Judge her? How could you let—” One of the pipes to the side rattled violently and a black cloud burst from the end, engulfing the two of them as the wind caught it and blew into the tunnel.

Sputtering, Danny grabbed his brother and dragged him to the ground. Visions of his hair turning white, his skin peeling, his fingernails turning to mush all filled his mind. Things he’d seen happen to his crew. Luckily, this seemed to only smell absolutely repugnant.

“Alchemists,” Martin said, coughing. “Only see the world for what they can turn it into, damn those of us that have to live in it. Almost glad it’s their building we’re targeting.”

“We?” “You might trust in the effects of that weird smoke, but they’re my colleagues,” Martin said, taking two strange white masks out of his satchel. “If things go south they’ll need someone clearheaded to help them. Besides, it… It might be the last time I see you.”

Danny regarded him. A memory stirred, of his older brother dragging him and Jill out of their parent’s house. He’d been there before, with them then, before the College caught wind of him.

“Alright,” Danny said. They nodded at each other.

He took one of the masks off his brother, turning it over in his hand. A long beak extended from the front.

“The healers wear them when they research diseases,” Martin said. “There’s a cloth filter in there which should keep out the smoke. And lavender, to help with the smell.”

“When you said you had a mask, I was expecting just a rag and some string.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a friend in Medical…”

“Let’s get started, then,” Danny went to one of the pipes, and slammed it four times with the scythe handle. Then he did the same at the next one, and the next eleven. Hopefully whoever these pipes belonged to were paying attention, as this signalled them to stop their work. If they weren’t experimenting, then hopefully they wouldn’t be wearing any masks themselves to stop the fumes.

Stopping them was one thing, but just as important was— Large gouts of colour-streaked water rushed from most of the signalled pipes, carrying whatever sludge was left from their work. Satisfied, Danny went back and forth from the bundles of dried arcle, stuffing several handfuls into each pipe.

“I’ll head up now,” Martin said. “I’ll start in the east wing. Find me if you need anything.”

“Okay,” Danny said, “Alright then,” Martin said. “Good luck.”

Martin’s footsteps echoed down the walkway as Danny gathered a large knotted rope from the sack. He looped it around a pipe his crew had cleared yesterday, then relit the torch. Going to each pipe in turn, he slid over to the lip and lit the arcle before tossing the torch over the cliff edge.

Strapping the mask to his face, he carefully lowered himself down the rope before grabbing the lip and heaving himself inside the pipe. Martin wasn’t joking about the lavender; he could feel it in his eyes.

The tight confines of this long crawl wasn’t the worst part. Pitch darkness pressed upon him, giving no inclination of how much farther he had to go. He never thought he’d miss the arcle, but he begged to see one of their lights, or just one stabbing green tendril.

97

Eventually, the pipe began angling upwards. The climb-crawl was harder, but change, change was good. As it became nearly vertical, his knees and elbows functioned to wedge— A violent tremor shook the pipe.

Danny slid down a few feet before catching himself, his breath loud in his ears. He waited a few moments, but no more tremors came. The gods alone knew what that was.

Hurrying his pace, he scrambled upwards. His arms and legs burned. It couldn’t be far now… Yes. There, above.

Flickering light.

The pipe veered horizontally again before opening finally into a room.

Peeking in, he saw that the smoke clouded the room, just barely above his head, but more was trickling in from around the door.

Oddly, a man was sat at a desk across from the pipe, scribbling away on something as if nothing had changed.

“Yes, yes, yes, this is it. This. This, it’s so obvious,” he was saying to himself.

Danny began to ease himself into the room, when the desk below caught his attention. Various vials and pots littered the surface, liquids within sizzling and bubbling. Reaching down with his scythe, he carefully moved them aside. The man didn’t seem to notice the noise.

Reassured, Danny pulled himself through. As he hit the table, his foot caught the side of a large bottle. It smashed on the floor, green viscous liquid spilling out.

The man whipped around, his eyes wild. He took in Danny, the bottle, the smoke above. He frowned. Then went back to his writing.

Well, it was working, and this was as good a room to start in as any. Looking around, the man’s desk was piled with an assortment of books, but the rest of the room seemed devoted to whatever mixtures were on the desk. He didn’t want any of that stuff anywhere near him, but the books might fetch a price.

As he went to take one, the man grabbed his wrist without looking up.

“No. I need that one.”

So Danny took another. No objections this time.

Opening the door, a wave of smoke billowed around him into the room, and Danny instinctively pressed the mask tighter against his face. Through the lavender, he couldn’t smell anything at all.

In the next room, two figures lay on a bed. One absently rubbed the wall, the other seemed to be sleeping. They paid Danny no mind.

Some glass orbs with embedded gemstones on the desk, a set of scales beside them. He took both.

The ground shook again as he went back into the corridor. What was that?

The next door was open, inside a woman was frantically throwing things down the smoking pipe in her wall. She wore a mask much like Danny’s, only black, and spun to face him as soon as he peeked in at her room.

“A-ah good, someone else. With a mask on, good,” she said, before turning back to her efforts. “Help me, we’ve- we have to stop this. Nothing’s working.”

“Uh, it isn’t?” Danny said, looking around for valuables. Something shiny was on her desk. Something gold?

“Just, keep trying. You’ll fix it.”

“No, no, no. Tell me, my hand, does it seem large to you?” She held up a perfectly ordinary-looking hand.

“Looks fine to me,” Danny shrugged.

“Oh, oh no,” she said, before heaving up a large simmering pot of clear liquid and pouring it down the pipe.

Another tremor. The gravity of what she was doing suddenly sunk in.

“Wait you, you have to stop. Stop doing that,” he said, his words coming slower than usual. He tightened the straps on the mask. “Can’t you feel the ground moving?”

She dropped the pot. “That… That didn’t seem real. Oh…” Suddenly, she looked to Danny, then at the smoke, sparkling all around. “We have to leave, right now. I don’t know what I’ve done, but this - I don’t know how to fix it.”

She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him out of the room.

“No, no. I’ll stay. I’ll think of something,” Danny said, shrugging her off.

“Fine, whatever,” she said, and ran off down the corridor.

Grabbing the shiny thing from the table, Danny beamed. It was a little golden dragon, with wings. This was working

better than he’d hoped; he should easily be able to afford passage with this alone.

Its little head then moved, arching back, and a small gout of flame blew out of its mouth.

Inhaling, the lavender stabbed his nose. The dragon immobile and mundane on his palm.

Oh. Oh no.

Rushing into the corridor, Danny saw the woman running down the far end. He ran after her. He had to get out.

He tried to limit his breathing, but the smoke was everywhere.

He tore out into the foyer. A grand set of wooden doors stood open, sunlight parting the smoke. A crowd of people were gathered outside, worriedly looking in. Thank the gods, he could— Martin. The east wing. He’d come from the west.

Pausing for a few moments to catch his breath at the gap in the smoke, Danny pressed the mask and ran towards the other corridor.

He flung open each door he came across, quickly looking for his brother. Robed people slumped in chairs, on floors, in the hallway.

At the fourth door, he… found his own room. Not his recently abandoned one, but the old one, in his mum’s house.

He stepped in. It— —was strange. The house was so hot, but he knew it was winter. Wasn’t it supposed to be cold? He went to his bed and sat down, picking up his blanket.

Martin would be home soon. He’d know what was wrong.

Holding the blanket to his face, he sniffed.

Lavender.

Startled, he dropped the hem of whoever’s robe he was holding.

Running out of the room, he went to the next door. And the next.

Then, the last— As he approached Jill’s room, he sighed. Gavin was here; the smell of their smoke leaked into the hallway. So they’d started doing it inside, during the day. It really had to stop now. With any luck they’d only just started, and she’d still be of a mind to listen.

Gavin leaned over her on the floor. Hastily, Danny pulled back. Not something he wanted to see.

“Huh, Danny, wait! Something’s wrong, I don’t think she’s breathing,” Gavin said.

“What do you mean? She’s just high,” Danny began to shut the door; he’d dealt with this before.

“No, she- she started convulsing. Then this, I can’t. I can’t, my skin’s bubbling.”

For the God’s sake. He went back in. Gavin was freaking out, rubbing his palms into his eyes. Danny pushed him aside.

There was no smile on her face. A cut across the cheek. She was usually at least happy when she did this. He felt her hand. Cold.

“What did you do?” Danny said quietly. “I told you. I told you stop giving it to her.”

“I- I didn’t! I, it was you. You got it.”

“Anyone but her. I. Told. You.” His scythe was in his hand.

“Wait, wait, think about this. It’s me—” Gavin. The blade was in his neck. Untouchable Gavin. In his stomach. You-need-my-money Gavin. Through his cheek. Your-sister-loves-me Gavin. Into the back. The body slumped to the floor. Better Gavin.

Danny turned back to his sister.

Hesitantly, he held his fingers to her neck.

A pulse.

Lavender.

The woman he was leant over certainly wasn’t Jill. Her hair was similar though, a soft curling blonde. On the desk, a live arcle was dancing in a flask. How’d she manage to get that? It looked quite beautiful outside of the pipes.

Bladelike leaves waved around, veined with purple, feeling the air. The luminescent balls shone brightly amongst the sparkling smoke in the room, like moons in a night’s sky, a sky made of its own destruction. It truly was— The smoke. He ducked his head and crawled out of the room, pressing the mask against his face. What a load of good that would do. He was going to kill Martin when he found him, he’d said they would work.

99

An explosion. A crack sounded from below. The building lurched, shattering glass in all directions.

Danny slid into the door across the corridor. Trying to stand at a forty-five degree angle, he was more straddling both the floor and wall. He had to get out, now.

Oh, his robes were tattered. How was he going to go to class like this? Never mind that. He was late.

Shouldering his satchel, he jogged as best he could down the corridor. Why they had designed the building at a slant, he didn’t know, but the Arcanists were certainly a bizarre bunch.

They really needed to get some better ventilation too. How did they expect an alchemist to work if he couldn’t see properly?

Something heavy crashed into the wall in front of him.

“Gavin! Why is your cauldron not secured?” Danny called to the room to the top-left. “No apology, really?”

Tutting, he skirted the cauldron, glancing into the room above. Gavin’s head peeked around the edge of the doorframe, smiling, eyes closed.

“Honestly, you’re hopeless,” Danny said, before again hurrying along. Master Martin didn’t take kindly to tardiness.

At least he’d remembered his mask this time.

Lavender.

Bless these masks, at least the scent brought him back. He was going to kiss his brother when he saw him.

At the end of the corridor, the exit was to the right. Only, it couldn’t be. The large wooden doors opened not into sunlight, but layers of rock and metal. Bodies clumped against it. Did they want to go underground?

Purple! Up to the left, light parting the smoke. An open window.

Clambering on all fours, Danny scurried up the floor. He forced himself to breathe through his nose, flooding him with lavender. Desperately, he clutched at the window frame and heaved.

Air. Clean air.

Like the cliffs, the stone around the windows was stained a multitude of colours. The Rainbow House, the alchemist’s building was often called. Pretty.

Out. He pulled himself through the window and slid down the wall face-first, tumbling onto the stone floor.

Hands grabbed at his shoulders, trying to pull him up.

No, Danny tried to say. I’m fine. It came out as a groan.

“Quick, pull him away.”

“He needs to go to Medical.”

“What’s a weeder doing—” “Wait, is that—?”

The hands let go.

“Th- There’s someone else over there, let’s help them first.”

With shaking arms, Danny pushed himself up. A throng of robed people stood off to the right, staring in horror at the building. Some were helping slumped figures, but most just stood, transfixed.

Stumbling to his feet, he veered away from the crowd. A few began to walk towards him, but something stopped them in their tracks. They murmured something to each other, before pointedly turning back to the building.

Ripping off the gas mask, he dropped it to the floor. Its red was just another colour.

Walking across the oddly vacant campus grounds, Danny searched for somewhere to just sit down. He eventually made his way behind a building, with a view out to sea. He’d be out there, one day. No, today. That was what he was doing. He had to get away. Wasn’t Martin coming with him? No, Martin was a wizard now, or something...

He slid down against the wall, breathing deeply.

Eventually, Danny felt his senses return to some semblance of normality. The sound of cries reached his ears, dimly.

He peered into the sack. Brass and bound paper. Gold and glass. He put it to the side. Instinctively, he rubbed the handle of his scythe.

Strange. It was sticky.

Peaches

Amy Lee Tempest I sit down in my usual seat, at my usual bar. But today is unusual. Today I was two hours early. And I am never early.

‘I wasn’t expecting you so soon,’ Sally leans over the table just enough for me to stare down her deep ‘v’ neckline.

Only the salt and pepper pots obscure my view. I move them.

‘I quit. I’ve finally quit,’ I speak straight to the centre of her chest and watch it rise and fall, rise and fall. She is my favourite waitress.

‘That bad was it, babe?’

‘Bad? It was worse than bad. I’m too good for that kind of place.’

I glance out through the window, through the wall of rain, and see the swirling silver letters cut through all of that city grey — ‘Lambert and Sons’ — looking down from a dirty heaven. The door of the factory stands tall underneath the letters. I had just moments earlier slammed that door shut. I will give them something; they know how to stand out against all the red brick and grey skies of Manchester. Now, Lambert I could deal with, it was his sons I couldn’t work with anymore. Young, smart, rich and with all the arrogance and Armani that goes with it. They were always wanting more and at £7.20 an hour I sure as hell wasn’t going to give it. Something about the youngest one’s shiny shoes today had wound me up, and I knew before he opened his snarky mouth he wasn’t going to like my reply. But it’s hard to care when you’re on little money.

‘You want your usual, Carl?’ The usual being a bloody steak and chips with a single whiskey.

‘Gi’ me the usual and a double’.

Today was unusual, and unusual calls for a doubling up. Sally walked back to the bar and I looked from the tip of her heels up, and up, and up. That simple pleasure I could rely on. Yes, she was definitely my favourite. Peachy.

Several doubles later I press up against the bar. I knew that if I ordered one more then that was me out for the whole night. It would be girls and gambling until the factory doors open again. I look around the bar to see if I can spot Davey. Davey always had the best coke. But no, it was too early for Davey. I could call it quits now and pick up a bottle of cheap wine on my walk home, whilst I still could. No, I’ll take the girls and gambling. I’ve worked hard for these simple pleasures.

‘He’ll have a double whiskey,’ a heavy voice speaks from the empty space to the side of me. Only now it isn’t empty. It is full of her. Her voice, her scent, her body. Her. ‘Of all the bars in Manchester you walk into mine,’ I didn’t need to look to know who it was. I felt her.

‘Your bar? I’ve been coming here after work at the same time for the last six months. It’s my bar,’ she pushes the glass of whiskey into my hand. It sends shivers right down to the base of my being, and a thousand memories blaze.

‘You couldn’t ‘ave. I come here after work every day and I’ve not seen you here once,’ I stare ahead, unblinking at all the glittering bottles lined up, and contemplate the contents of each of them. I pour the whisky straight down to my stomach where I feel it fuel the fire.

‘What time?’ she asks.

‘Eight.’

‘Ahhh! I usually leave around seven,’ I feel her small step closer by the way the hairs on my arms begin to rise.

‘So you’ve been right under my fuckin’ nose after a year of me lookin’ for you,’ my voice became a growl and I didn’t know if it was the burning whisky or a warning for her to step back. I look at her for the first time in a little over a year and catch her confidence wane. She drops those big, Betty Davis eyes for a second. It takes this opportunity to give her a good looking over. The knee length skirt and the shirt tell me she succumbed to the office job in the end. I wonder if she is doing better without me.

‘You looked….?’

‘Of course I looked. You still owed me two hundred on the rent and had taken half of my records. Of course I fuckin’ looked,’ she had left, packed all of her belongings and half of mine and drove away in our car. Since that day I drink twice as much and slept half.

‘Yeah…sorry about your records. I’ve still got ‘em if you…’

101

‘And the rest. Another man no doubt,’ I order another double and a red wine for her and think back to all her red wine stained kisses on my whiskey licked throat.

‘He just let me stay at his house for a while whilst I sorted myself out. It wasn’t like that…’

‘Oh fuckin’ hell, Cathy. I knew it,’ I slam the glass down so hard the contents jump out and run away.

‘For God’s sake. Why is it always about another man with you?’

‘Because there is always another man. But where is your man now, eh? Where is…’ But she had turned to leave. I look from the tip of her heels up and up and up and higher than Sally’s legs could ever take me and higher than any gambling and whiskey combined ever could. Cathy had legs that could tease a bad man up to heaven. Or was it a good man down to hell? Wherever it was I could feel myself being pulled back there. I grip the edge of the bar. I can see her dancing in my kitchen whilst I choose the records, and we drink gin from china tea cups and she laughs, no, we laugh together. And then I see him. Another smarmy Armani prick. I bet she shined his fucking shoes…

‘Are you going to sit there and stare into nothing all night or are you going to come with me?’ She holds the door open, wide. As she buttons up her suit jacket, pulling her thick hair from out of her collar, I am reminded why I have never said no.

‘Baby, that isn’t nothing,’ I look at her legs. That was everything. She is. Her. ‘Come on then, Carl,’ I had left one boss today already.

You can’t blame me for being hesitant. We would have four months together, maybe six if we were lucky. We would spend our days tangled up together – the loving, the talking, the walking in the parks. But our nights would become speckled with trouble – the dancing, the drinking, the smashing of glass on the bedroom floor. And the flirting. Always the flirting with other men. I would always wonder. I would make my stomach sick with wondering which one of us would ruin it this time. The worry and the subsequent rage would spread like ink in water.

‘Carl,’ her heels click into the cold night and her swinging hips work like a hypnotist’s pocket watch. Peachy.

I begin the slow walk back to her, back to us, back to everything that would once again become nothing. ‘But’, I reason with myself whilst watching her hips swing into the distance, ‘the sweetest of peaches will always rot. You’ve got to bite it whilst it’s sweet.’ And my God was Cathy sweet.

Had I already forgotten the bitter aftertaste that comes from something so rotten?

Honorary Mention

The Dogs on the Beach Michael Holloway

It started with an Anadin. Two of them. She took them. She sat L-shaped like a mantis. Soon it faded, the pain. It went away. Jane sat staring, drained. I asked her why she always thought she was in pain but she just sat, tired-looking, musically tapping her fingers as if this were her response, so I asked her again. I said, ‘Who do you think you are being in so much pain?’

Her eyes looked pale. Her skin was pale too and I guessed she was sick but I didn’t believe she was sick because she always lied. The hem of her skirt, a thin cloth-like fabric hooked at something, revealing the black-tights of her thighs, and I looked away.

Immediately I apologised and looked into her eyes and held my expression, until she believed I was telling the truth. It wasn’t raining outside any more. The window held a monotonous post-game colour, as if the world outside was on a commercial break. I asked her to go to the beach with me, and we could make fun of the people walking their dogs. She said, ‘Okay.’

It was cold outside and the air tasted of metal and Jane’s misery was getting me down so I said, ‘Why don’t you stop being so miserable, it’s annoying me.’

‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ she said, finally.

‘What what’s like?’

‘Being me.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘Well you don’t know what it’s like being me. You ever think about that?’

‘I have thought about that a lot,’ she said. ‘I often wonder what it’s like being you. At first I imagined living your life and then I began to wonder what it would like to be a man. I suppose it is difficult. You have a lot to deal with. So much testosterone. It must feel pointless. You have so much to complain about. I’m glad I’m not you.’

‘And I’m glad I’m not you,’ I said.

She took another Anadin as we walked. I thought she shouldn’t have taken any more but I didn’t want to sound like her dad so I let her. Her parents didn’t even know I existed. That I was eleven years older than their daughter.

‘I don’t like coming up here,’ Jane said. ‘You hear about these murders. Joggers always find dead bodies.’

‘Don’t worry, we’re not jogging.’

‘But these are the places people go jogging. If I see a dead body I’ll just about die.’

‘There are no dead bodies around here. You’re completely safe.’

‘How do you suppose some people get away with it?’

‘With what? Dead bodies?’

‘With killing people.’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.’

‘Suppose you were walking around in the dark at home and someone comes up behind you and you panic and kill them. The lights come on and it’s your father. You killed your own father and now you have to live with it.’

‘Why would that even happen?’

‘I’m supposing,’ she said. ‘Suppose that happened. You’d be the man of the house. Like a Hamlet of your home. I think that’s what happened to these dead bodies the joggers find. An ironic punishment for someone lashing out in the dark. Killing their own fathers. Now there’s someone out there sorry for killing their own father because it was an accident since they thought someone was coming to kill them. Ironic, isn’t it?’

We got to the beach. There was hardly any light. The morning hung heavy. There was a strange darkness, a peculiar inwardness suppressed by our silence with Jane’s mood suppressed with an Anadin and bottled water. I was curious what was the cause of her pain. ‘You,’ she said.

‘Me?’ I said.

‘You’re causing my pain,’ she said. She didn’t say anything after that although I questioned her over and over

103

to be replied with silence. Her eyes followed the swans and the crows. The wind pushed apart her black hair and she smiled and I asked what was she smiling at but she didn’t say anything. I thought maybe she was mad at me for some reason and I tried to think back to whatever I had done or said but couldn’t think of anything. It was even colder on the beach. The dark sky seemed asleep somehow, the colour purple pushed like a birth through the clouds after the rain so the sand was a dark gold and the people were few and the dogs were just lively jumping-about creatures with black or red collars and the white, non-shining sun like a moon cast dingy, morose shadows like people’s moods long over the sand which doubled them and doubled the dogs so the dogs now ran in pairs.

She took an Anadin. I said, ‘You shouldn’t take any more of those.’

‘You’re not my dad,’ she said.

‘I know I’m not,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want to be.’

‘If you were my dad I’d probably have to kill you. I’d leave you in a ditch for the joggers to find. And when they’d find you I’d see you on TV and I’d wonder What does that make me?’

‘A murderer.’

‘I don’t think so.’

I watched her take the pill, swallow the water, gulp. I watched her breathe and shiver. I watched her breasts move outwards and in, the curious way her shoulders slouched forward while she thought no one was looking, the sad way she didn’t smile when she didn’t feel the need. To her, I was a liar as much as she was, so I’m very biased of her appearance. She looked at me and smiled and I was glad.

Two people walked on the beach. ‘Look at them,’ she said. ‘You think they’re married?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Divorced. He’s trailing behind her, see? He’s desperate for her to sign the divorce papers.’ She laughed.

‘How desperate can you be to want someone to leave you?’

‘I think some people are that bad.’

‘If someone wanted to leave me I’d let them.’

After a while it began to rain and I suggested we head back but Jane didn’t want to go. She walked ahead of me and said something about the dogs.

‘What did you say?’ I said. ‘About the dogs.’

‘I said, Why do people feel the need to bring their dogs to the beach?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think the dogs belong to them.’

‘You don’t?’

‘I don’t think the dogs belong to anyone.’

‘You mean like stray dogs?’

‘No, I mean like look at them,’ I pointed at the dogs on the beach. They were wandering like free things.

They were happy and obedient with a sense of curiosity and fear. And the people with them. They too were generally happy. They were obedient and they too had a sense of curiosity and fear. They all poked around the sand like dogs.

Every single one of them.

We walked further in the rain and in the sand by the cliff wall there was a body in the sand. We both stood there watching. It was a dead girl. Her skin was pale blue and her eyes were closed and she looked quite young. It seemed she was sleeping. It seemed like her face was just a mask half-buried in the sand. Jane held my hand. ‘What should we do?’ she said.

‘Just leave it,’ I said.

‘Shouldn’t we tell someone?’

‘No.’ ‘But someone’s probably missing her. We should tell someone.’

There was an old couple on the beach. They were walking a dog which ran ahead of them. I didn’t like them, they were everything we weren’t. The dog saw us and ran over to us. It seemed incredibly happy to see us, as if it was an old friend. Jane stroked it in a childish way and she looked happy. ‘I wish I had a dog,’ she said. She held it tightly around the neck until it whimpered but still wagged its tail. ‘I love it so much I could just kill it,’ she said. The dog turned and sniffed at the dead girl and nosed at the clump of seaweed tangled in her hair. The dog seemed to say something but didn’t do much after that. I wondered who the girl was, but to us it didn’t matter. We just hovered on

the verge of moving and not moving.

‘I’m going to pull her out of the sand,’ Jane said, but she didn’t. I waited for her to do it but she didn’t. She just took another Anadin and stared at the girl as small grains of sand blew across her dead face. I thought maybe Jane was jealous of the dead girl but I don’t know why. I guess she thought she was like her. Like we were all unidentified like dead bodies. Or nameless and ignorant like dogs on the beach. The old couple stood in the distance watching us. The dog ran back to them.

105

Epiphany in Arcadia Kawa Adiyaman-Campbell Part I His eyes opened.

The peach painted ceiling looked curiously dull this Saturday morning. Why? Eugene lay there on his bed, surrounded by an arcadia of perfection and valor; drapes hung magnificently upon rugs embroidered with intricate detail and enigma. There was a deep, rich, dark wood-crafted desk with chairs standing ever so honorable and portrait paintings hanging perpendicular to Eugene, protecting him while he was in slumber, guardians of the one percent. Nonetheless, this morning Eugene couldn’t cleanse this feeling of dissatisfaction that all that he’d achieved was for nothing. How ironic.

He took a deep breath, with a wheeze of asthma and sat up. Eugene fumbled for his walking stick with frail, million dollar hands, and when said hands clasped to the handle like a one in need of a rope, breath escaped his sticky lungs, also with a wheeze of asthma. How sad. Eugene was a dying man, dying with no one to pass all his treasures too.

How he yearned for genuine company. For while Eugene had plenty of acquaintances, Eugene was truly alone. Lost in the labyrinth of formalities and reputations, never expressing his true motives or desires, constant inconspicuously.

Scandals and net profit dominated freedom.

Cristina was one of his many maids, a favorite. She was the only one who didn’t smile at him, the only maid who was honest with him. “Go fuck yourself, you pretentious, rich white man,” is what she might as well be saying, with her sneering gaze and teeth, like a wolf ’s eyes moments before a kill; he admired her honesty. He also admired that though he had the power to send her back to God-Knows-Where, she always found the time to stab at his self-esteem with snide cynicism. She ignored the class and wealth and went straight for the throat. After all, we’re only flesh.

She just finished cleaning a set of laundry when Eugene wandered into the spare room. “Where did you put my journal?”

Cristina’s head calmly pivoted towards Eugene and when finally locking sight, her eyes seeped condescension. “Your journal? How would I know? Is it not yours? But I think I saw it in the living room.”

Eugene ventured down the corridor, shuffling towards the living room to find his journal, mumbling curses with a subtle smirk hiding under his loose pug face.

His journal was there, sitting patiently on the stool by the settee like a loyal dog waiting by the door, ready for a walk. Eugene leaked an ugly grunt while easing his slow body into the cushion and let out a breath of relief when body and seat made contact. He reached for the journal and ink pen, ready to pour his white-hot emotion onto the page: This corrupt world. Dog on dog. Every man for himself. One dies we weep for a day, then back to work to get that money. Fathers beat mothers, mothers beat children, children grow and the fucking cycle starts all over again. So desperate they claw at crumbs and pennies until their fingertips bleed with guilt and shame, and still they carry on.

Can’t you see that we corporations extract and exploit every fiber of your very being and discard your useless remains like last week take out? You pathetically crawl through life like a cripple without his wheelchair. Scum cower in the corners and back alleys and ambiguity lingers through the streets at night and up their skirts. For God’s sake, there are venereal diseased orphans so hungry they eat each other while drowning in their own poverty and excrement.

While us fucking big cats wash our filthy hands with the blood and tears of the raped and homeless. I’m done with this world. I’m giving up everything. I quit.

I’m leaving everything I have to Cristina and her family, to the homeless, to the workers. To the people.

- Eugene Stopforth.

His hands hurt.

Now that this idea of his was written down on paper, Eugene felt obligated to his promises. He left a carefully crafted note lying on the table in the maids’ barracks for them all to read:

Beloved workers, you have maintained my castle and me for nearly a decade. You all are the blood pumping through this property. Without you, I would live in a vast and blind pandemonium of laundry and used tea bags. You have held my hand threw the final quarter of my life and now it is time to return the favor, eye for an eye as it were. I am leaving Stopforth Manor forever and living the streets of London, with only a few belongings. I will leave each one of you the sum of £100,000 and the communal rights to Stopforth manner do with it as you will. Cristina, come to my study before I leave, I have something for you.

His hands ached.

Eugene waited in the study for what felt like eternity, when he heard distinctly sharp footsteps ascending the staircase. She looked different, wearing casual blue jeans with a light grey top. She appeared ever so content with life, for the first time ever, Eugene saw her with hope glistening behind her face. Cristina, while holding the ecstasy inside her with trembling smile, she held out her arms. Eugene’s baggy face broke into genuine happiness, lifting his saggy cheeks. Happiness and goodness swam in the blue of his ocean eyes, he embraced her lifted arms while she buried her face in his shoulder. He could just make out the muffled ‘Thank you’ over and over again until he stopped her and spoke.

“Darling, it’s okay.” He began to explain himself as to how he was sorry for his bitterness and he was always fond of her spirit. He also told her one last thing, of something she needed to protect.

Cristina stood there in complete awe, like one witnessing birth.

“Will you look after it for me?” He perused.

After a long few seconds of a distant gaze in her eyes, she snapped forward into reality. “Mister, I thought you hated me! Tha-thank you so so much. I-I can’t speak.” Cristina slapped her dancing hands upon her mouth and after a few seconds of shrieks and cries of ecstasy, she attempted to thank Eugene for a second time. “Eugene, you are a good man, I will look after it of course for alguna vez, yo cuido de esta casa como si fuera mi propio hijo,” Cristina slipped into her mother tongue like a baby in her parents arms. This cued Eugene to interrupt her babbling with a hug as he was growing impatient. Eugene decided to queue his departure with, “I’m going to go now, I wish you all the best.”

His words were light but firm.

With that concluding departure, he flew to the door with motivation beneath his wings, sorting his coat, fixing his tie, preparing for Armageddon. He felt liberated and cleansed. Yet incandescent fear smothered him as his slouched, feeble body stood there by the pavement clasping his rucksack like it was an asthma inhaler in a dusty room. After his panic attack came to a close, a good few minutes went by with him in a sort of daze for he had no clue where to go from here. After a while, Eugene aimlessly took a right down the road he called home. The road he had filled with a bible of memories.

He remembered buying the house, remembered walking upon the perfectly paved stone for the first time, head towards the flamboyant property with a cigarette between his lips and future in his eyes. He was only thirty-six then, still ruthless, still evil. Not like now though, now that his drive for more had worn and his acquired taste for truth arose among the ashes, he saw clear. He was a monk on a pilgrimage with nothing but his faith to drive him.

Eugene turned to the burnt orange sky. The crisp sun was just beginning to sink into the horizon; the skyline was burning, as clouds were bows of dancing flame, and the sun itself an ember: the eye of chaos.

It seemed truly free.

As time passed while he was there facing the crimson landscape, a droplet of rain tapped Eugene on the nose.

He smiled, as he felt curiously safe standing there on the road in complete solitude. A few moments passed when the simple droplet morphed to a falling sea of rainfall. In seconds, Eugene was dripping. As the old man stood there watching the very sky lit in flames while he himself was being washed from his sins, he broke simply into euphoric sobbing. He was witnessing Utopia and owned nothing.

Eugene had been walking for hours when he passed an ally with a dirty river of blankets and bodies. It seemed to be where the homeless and lost came to seek refuge; this is where Stopforth will rest his enlightened soul for tonight.

He stepped over the dozens of sleeping people, stopping in the middle of the mess to find a place to call home for a night.

“Hey guy! Over here!” Blankets and beer cans beckoned him to a free space. Eugene smiled, nodded, and made his

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way to his new friends. “You’re lucky! David, who was there before, left just yesterday” “Oh, yeah?” grunted Eugene “We didn’t really know ‘em that well. He said he was going to see someone in Brockenhurst. ‘Long walk’, I said!”

“Blimey, that is a walk!”

“Anyway, now he’s gone and you’re in. Hey. I’m Todd.”

Todd reached out to Eugene with bony, awkward hands and a smile. He had straight greasy light brown hair, up to his neck. He also had a single spectacular zit on the right under his chin and small, sniping eyes. Todd seemed around twenty-five. Eugene met Todd’s outstretched hand and proceeded to carefully lower his body into the floor.

“Hi, Todd, I’m Eugene.” he grunted after a successful landing onto the stubborn-cold floor. After a few seconds of awkward exhaust two heads appeared over Todd’s shoulder, one man and the other a woman both in their twenties and both looking equally filthy, like two cigarette butts in an allyway.

“Hi, uh, I’m Ava,” she giggled. Eugene nodded to confirm his acknowledgment. She broke into a welcoming smile, and returned to peeling the label off an empty water bottle.

“He’s Jamie. They all did a line of AMT, so they’re going to be a bit weird for a couple hours,” Todd informed him, but Eugene didn’t really care. He was still trying to catch his breath from his two-hour pilgrimage as a sixty year-old man.

AMT? That’s new. God! Humanity is always trying to invent new ways to escape reality, it’s in our genes. Always looking for an easy way out. Short cuts. Cheats. Favors. Easy. We’re never in a straight line, always slithering through loop holes like snakes in tall grass. Were animals aren’t we? Then why don’t we chase what we want? Does a Lion hire a cheetah to catch the gazelle? No. It chases its goal until it can’t. We chase ours until we grow bored, then waste our potential on lost cycles and meaningless droll.

Eugene lay there questioning the very morals of western humanity with the discussions of drugged teens behind him. He clutched his blanket like it was life, begging it for more heat but only getting just enough. He enjoyed the blanket teasing him, and he wanted comfort. The blanket, however, was only giving doses of satisfaction, just enough to keep him from crying but not enough to stop him wanting more. For once, he enjoyed not ‘having’. Besides flirting with a blanket, his mind fell upon David. David, the guy who left. Where could you go when you have nothing?

The old fool lay there listening to the bubbling banter of his new acquaintances behind him, until his eyes and thoughts started slipping into slumberous oblivion.

Part II Eugene’s mind was churning restless thoughts while his shut eyes lay peaceful and still. He was hanging in an epic wonderland: thin fog glided over the floor and the floor was faintly breathing, turning, moving. He aimlessly stumbled through this abyss while his face lay nonchalant, he was dreaming.

Chell appeared through the fog six meters ahead of him. He felt numb. She made her way to Eugene and lifted her lean finger towards his face. She was perfect, forged by Aphrodite herself. Locks of golden hair made their way down a figure of vibrating tension. Her back was curved to a katanas blade. Her face so inviting, yet primal anger hid behind her pupils. She was a Siberian cat, groomed by royalty yet still an animal.

She leaned in.

Kissed him.

Her lips plump and playful, teasing. Eugene stood there, his eyes closed but tears slid down his face and a lump grew at the back of throat. She pulled away and there they were: her eyes were dead. A living paradox. Two marbles in her skull that had no passion. He knew what came next.

“Honey, I don’t love you anymore.”

His heart sank down to his ocean of regrets. A black sea, of disappointment and wrong turns.

While Eugene dreamt of his ex-wife as beautiful but soulless, they had had happier days. Before she fell into her fatal depression, she glistened. Her presence made eyes gravitate and her laugh would make you forget. He remembered her breath against his ear on Friday nights but his mind swiftly turned to the darker corners of their marriage. After a long streak of happiness and monogamy, he would come home with lies and the stench of whores still

clinging to him. She would question him and from there sparked years of white-hot fury, incandescent anger fueled their battles. Trust and honesty flew out the architecturally sound windows and onto the perfectly groomed garden.

Statues and garden gnomes watched as these two lions tore at each other until they were ankle deep in hatred and flesh.

One night, at four a.m., Eugene came through the front door, swaying side to side as he walked to the music of whisky... to find plates and family photos torn, broken, and scattered across the house floor like beer cans and cigarettes at a stepfatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feet. He remembered staring at the scene that lay before him, blurred vision and numbed head altered his reaction but something was off.

She never took her anger out on the childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photos before?

He followed the broken glass and ripped wallpaper up the stairs and into their bedroom. Anticipation, rung at his ears as he pushed the door open.

And there she was, floating. An angel.

Rope kept her up by her neck and a chair fallen by her feet. Swaying gently to and fro with limp arms by her side.

Her mouth was parted ever so slightly and her eyes were still open, bloodshot, staring into the abyss.

Looking back, Eugene always liked to think her body was watching her soul in heaven, living amongst the angelsâ&#x20AC;Ś now Eugene could live amongst them too. With her.

Eugene never woke up that night.

He died, next to Todd and Ava and Jamie. But if Heaven is believed in, then he was not with three junkies in an alleyway; he was with Chell, laughing and crying and loving, with her. If Heaven is not believed in then he was just another homeless corpse, lying in the street.

109

The Journey Tracey Ackrell

Florence Hanson placed her little luggage bag on the overhead rack of the carriage which she noted to herself were corded like hammocks. The rest of her luggage had been put on the train by the kindly porter who offered her assistance on arriving at the station.

The compartment of the carriage was made of dark mahogany and had beautiful dusty pink padded bench seats: one facing the engine and the other with its back to the engine. Florence had decided to travel facing the engine so she could enjoy the views along the way as the train approached them. She had already enjoyed watching the trains leave the platform.

At the big London station, it was lovely to look around. It looked so majestic and important. The trains would be letting off their steam with a deafening blast before snorting away as it picked up steam. She loved the sound the trains made as they moved along the tracks; she found them almost hypnotic. There were the pounding pistons, hissing steam, rhythmic clattering wheels on tracks and screeching whistles. She thought to herself how these huge hissing beasts must drown out the song birds.

Florence sat down making sure her dress was not crumpled underneath her. That just wouldn’t be correct and mother would be most displeased, she thought to herself. The task was easier said than done though because her mourning dress had deep trimming of crape so as not to embarrass her family. She came from landed gentry so the more trimming the better and it was important always to keep up appearances.

She sighed to herself as she finally finished arranging her dress. The dress did not altogether displease her. Although she despaired at having to wear black and the tightness of the jacket. She found it odd that the jacket would fit tightly around the torso and arms yet be so puffed up at the shoulders. This was something new to her because when she left to work in India with her husband Reverend Gerald Hanson, puffed sleeved were most definitely, not the fashion.

She was already missing the looseness of the Saris that she used to wear. There was no need to wear stuffy, tight, and heavy dresses in India. Instead she would wear luxurious silks of vibrant colours. The thought of having to wear black for another eighteen months saddened her and she longed for the chance to wear yellow, orange, purple, blue, and green once again. She couldn’t really care less what colour she was wearing as long as it was not black.

There was no need for wearing black in India. To wear black was considered disrespectful to the dead whereas white is the colour of purity in Hinduism. They wore white to funerals in India and afterwards would discard of their clothes. This is because family members were to purify themselves and the homes where the loved one lived.

Florence remembered how she did not enjoy having to wash herself in the river afterwards due to it being the only auspicious place nearby to purify herself. She chuckled to herself, “Nowhere is perfect.”

Florence took off her black suede gloves and gazed through the window. She placed her gloves down on her lap and noticed that the guard had his flag and whistle ready to give the all-clear for the train to start moving. A wave of emotion soared through her. She was excited at going back to her family home and seeing her beloved mother and father but her heart ached for her husband and the life she has left behind in India.

Florence and the Reverend Gerald Hanson had married in the summer of 1890; on July the fifteenth to be precise.

Gerald had adored Florence from the moment he set eyes on her. It had been a beautiful day and everyone had said how it was a good omen. Gerard had mentioned how her silky, naturally curly red hair was sparkling like rubies and her green eyes was shining like emeralds.

It had been a short engagement of just six month. Gerald had been commissioned by the Church of England Zenana Mission to assist with a Christian missionary in India. This had been Gerald’s lifelong ambition and he was eager to share his dream with Florence. Although she was scared at the thought of leaving England to go to a place so far away, she relished the challenge and the thought of spending a lifetime with the kind and gentle Reverend.

Life in India was hard and often sad and despairing but the successes and the support and acknowledgement of her hard work from Gerald made it all worthwhile. The work she did involved saving girls and young women who were forced into prostitution by the priests of Devadasi and the likes to earn money, all in the name of custom. It was hard work and the priests would get incredibly angry, but Francis, with the help of Gerald, would stand strong, despite being of slight build and statuesque.

As she thought to herself how she was relieved she wouldn’t have to dye her skin with tea bags any more, the train jolted forward and the whistle started screeching. Within moments she could hear the rhythmic shunting of the wheels clatter, clatter, clattering. On and on it went and Florence muttered to herself in time with the shunts, “The end of the journey is near; the end of the journey is near.” Not that Florence could see a thing. She was happy she had left the window shut as it had turned black outside from the smoke. She feared that had she left the window open, she would have surely perished, especially with her delicate constitution of present.

Florence only had four more hours to go until she reached Norwich. “Four hours until the end of this tiresome, tedious, and long journey,” she said to herself. Norwich was not as big as London but it was considered the second most important city in England, and she was proud to come from there. Although she had left her wealth and privilege behind, she was proud of her heritage. Florence was herself a lady of means but with Gerald being a proud man, her money was left in a trust, in the care of her father.

Florence longed to take her bonnet off and let her curls wave around in the wind just as they did in India. She found it extremely restricting having her hair pinned up and disliked wearing a bonnet. Even a graceful petite Marie Stuart coif, with long ends at the back which she considered to be pretty if it were any colour than black, did not lessen her discomfort. She did give a little thanks to God though, in that she did not have to wear one of the stiff bonnets that were in fashion when she left England which encased the whole head. She also longed to take off her shoes. They were elegant and beautiful with their delicate little heals and striking bows but she was used to not wearing shoes on most occasions. When she did wear shoes, they would be Punjabi jutis which just slipped on, and it almost felt like your feet were bare.

As the train departed London, Florence opened the carriage window to allow the late summer breeze to flow in.

Luckily, the wind was blowing the smoke over to the other side of the carriage so the smell of the coal burning was only mild and not so unpleasant. It was now twelve noon and she felt a slight rumble in her tummy. It was a bit earlier than she would normally eat but she felt it would not hurt on this one occasion.

She had stayed in the family home in London overnight and the kitchen maid had made a little picnic for her on the train. She reached up to the rack to get her bag down and took out the package. She had a beef sandwich, made from the beef left over from the previous evening’s meal, a boiled egg left over from breakfast, and an apple.

There was also a bottle of Coca-Cola. The kitchen maid had informed Florence that the drink had come all the way from America. It had been introduced to the country that year and she had been reliably informed that it was rather nice. Florence looked forward to trying it.

The Coca-Cola was nectar on her tongue. She had never tasted anything quite so good before in her life, she remarked to herself. She ate her sandwich and her boiled egg but decided to leave the apple for later. She had another three hours travel to go and she didn’t want to be arriving in Norwich feeling famished. She placed the bottle carefully, upon recapping it as ably as she could manage, by her feet. She then replaced the bag back on the shelf above her head and settled down once again, adjusting her dress to not crease it, ensuring the Coca-Cola bottle was not knocked over. She remembered that she had not made sure it lay properly the last time she sat down and hoped it was fine.

Florence was not used to being so idol. The whole journey from India had been so tedious with very little to do other than reading. Firstly, she had to travel for two day from Dohnavur to Bombay and then she had to sail by ship to London which took twelve and a half days. She had travelled with the British India Steam Navigation Company on a ship which was both steam and sail. Florence did not have sea legs and the sea had been rough for the last two days of the journey by ship. She pitied the poor people who had to travel for six months on cargo ships before the arrival of passenger ships and steam. She was also pleased that the family had a London residence which she could rest at for a day. She did not believe she would have coped which the last bit of the journey, even if it was just four hours.

As the halfway mark of her final trip approached, she found herself thinking about her dear, departed husband and of the life that was so cruelly stolen from him. He had died from Cholera and the memory of watching him die brought tears to her eyes and before long they were streaming down her face. It was the first time she had been able to properly grieve for her husband and it strangely filled her with relief.

There had been a famine which had resulted due to the failure of the summer monsoons. It was so terrible that cattle had died in their millions, and over one million people had died from starvation and the accompanying diseases

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such as cholera. Gerald refused to eat much when so many were starving so he had no strength to fight his infection.

Once the monsoon arrived there was an epidemic of malaria and, unfortunately, Florence had been a victim. She became very angry at God for allowing her to live while allowing Gerald’s tragic demise. Though she said she would never understand, over the next few months she learned with the power of prayer to forgive him. It was only after forgiving God that Florence was truly able to heal. She recovered quite swiftly thereafter and, although still weak and pale in complexion, could begin her journey back home to England and the care of her family.

Florence had an hour of her journey to go and until now had managed to have a compartment in the carriage all to herself. Now though, a strikingly beautiful young lady had entered her compartment. She sat opposite her next to the window and started reading a book.

The young lady had blonde hair which was pinned up underneath her straw bonnet with the odd strand hanging down the sides. She had the same sort of complexion Florence usually had when not ill. She was fair but had blue eyes and was of slight stature. Florence found herself feeling envious of the young lady. She was very young; Florence assumed very early twenties with her whole life ahead or her, whereas she was now thirty-one and would probably spend the rest of her life as a widow. Not only that, but the fact she was wearing a beautiful, elegant, and youthful dress which was white and made of embroidered net. Florence imagined herself in the dress dancing around the lawn at her parents’ home. She had done that many times as a little girl and yearned for those innocent days once again.

The young lady looked up from her book and saw Florence looking at her. “Are you from around here?” she asked.

Florence replied, “I was born in Norwich, but for the past ten years I have been living in India with the Reverend Gerald-” She paused for a moment, and said, “Sorry. My dearly departed husband.” Florence felt her eyes swell up again but managed to hold the tears off.

“My name is Mary Cooper. I am travelling back to Norwich,” replied the young lady in a soft and caring voice. She informed Florence that everything would be fine and that she would keep her company for the rest of the journey.

“You are too kind,” Florence replied, and she meant every word of it. She no longer felt envious of the lady but blessed instead. She felt like an angel had been sent to her in a moment of need and she felt instantly calmer.

Florence remembered the apple that she had left from her picnic earlier and retrieved it from her bag and shared it with Mary. She also shared the Coca-Cola. Mary told Florence the same story that the kitchen maid in the family home in London had told her. Having not tried the drink before herself, she described it as nectar after having her first taste, at which point Florence laughed. “I thought the exact same myself,” she informed Mary. They both giggled like school children, like they hadn’t a care in the world, about the silliest of things. It was just the tonic Florence needed and she couldn’t stop smiling at Mary.

About thirty minutes before the ladies arrived in Norwich, Mary felt confident enough to ask Florence about her story. She took Florence by her hands and leaned in slightly, taking care not to invade her personal space, and Florence told her everything. She mentioned how she met Gerald, how amazing he was as a man and how kind and gentle he was to her. She told Mary of the good work they did while in India and told her of his awful death.

Although it was hard talking about his death, Florence did enjoy telling Mary all the good memories she had of Gerald. Mary was a good listener so it made it so easy. Florence hoped they would meet again while in Norwich; it would be lovely to have such a kind and good friend, she thought.

Mary noticed they were going to be arriving in Norwich in a few minutes and informed Florence so that she could compose herself and get ready. All she had to do was put her gloves back on which she dually did, before picking up the empty Coca-Cola bottle, but she appreciated the time given to her to compose herself.

On arrival at the station Mary offered to assist Florence in both disposing of the bottle and finding her father who was coming to meet her. Florence thanked her but informed her she would be all right. She could see her father standing on the platform, through the smoke of the trains. Mary and Florence embraced for what seemed like forever, before Mary made the move to leave the train. She made a backwards glance and with a friendly smile on her face waved good bye. Florence took a few minutes to brush down her dress with her hands and to check her bonnet was on straight and then picked up her bag. “It wouldn’t do for the daughter of the landed gentry to be looking dishevelled,” she muttered to herself. With a smile on her face she opened the door to the carriage and stepped down off the train towards her father and the rest of her life.

Descent

Paul Macleod 1 Darkness descended over Beckett as he listened to the hail bouncing off the tin roof. Three weeks, three horrific weeks had passed, and Beckett was helpless to protect his people. He knew one thing for sure, this would be his last night in this cage, or at the very least his last day on earth. The hail felt like razors on his frozen skin, the time in the cells had been tough on them, had taken a toll on all of them. More so on Beckett, as he shouldered the blame — this was his doing. He blamed himself. After the dead started to feed on the living, spreading their virus, Beckett believed that their only hope was to group together. On the second night, the outsiders blindsided the armory guards and took over control of the camp. Since that night, Beckett and his group were chained in cages and treated like animals. Beckett was kept alive due to the twisted ego of the outsider’s leader; he needed Beckett to know just how badly he had lost. Beckett had tried to resist, resulting in the vicious deaths of five of his group. Beckett had remained as patient as he could, waiting for the perfect opportunity to escape — he knew he would only get one chance. Chipping away at the concrete that housed the chain bracket had taken weeks, but it gave him the time to plan how he would save his people.

The outsiders were intelligent enough to keep Beckett and his squad separated and outside the camp walls. They used chicken coops as makeshift prison cells, built underneath the base of the motorway ramp that housed their camp. If any of the undead monsters found their way to the camp they would be drawn to the cells, making the prisoners an early warning. The civilians of his group were inside the camp and used as collateral and for day to day tasks. Beckett, Williams, and Hawkins were all that remained of Beckett’s six-man squad. As winter approached the nights got longer and darker, it was getting more likely that the cold would kill them before the undead.

His plan was hastened when two drunken men tried to force themselves on Williams, and when she tried to reject them they kicked and punched her unconscious. Beckett snapped, screaming and shouting at the men; he baited them into attacking him. By pure luck the noise of the increasing hail storm drowned out his shouting, and only those under the motorway heard him. William’s body went limp suspended by her chains and the men moved towards Beckett’s cell. The two men were carrying large knives and dressed in thick rain coats. With their hoods covering their faces, Beckett could only see their wide smiles. They were looking forward to this. As the door opened Beckett ripped the bracket from the wall and rushed the door, trapping the first man’s head, he bounced back and kicked the door as hard as he could. The man slid down the door frame, stopping the second man from closing the door. Beckett heaved the door open, and as the second man lunged at him knife held high, Beckett threw the chain bracket at the man, striking him in the face. The man’s nose crumpled into his skull, and a river of blood flowed down his face. Beckett grabbed the hand the man held the knife in and forced it up into the man’s neck. As they fell forward Beckett landed on the man, sinking the knife through his neck, and into the frozen ground.

Standing and turning to the man in the doorway, Beckett picked his knife up and drove it into the soft spot in the back of his skull. He checked the men’s pockets, searching for keys. Once he found them he rushed to Williams, she looked near death; the lack of food and filthy conditions had taken a toll on her. He knew he needed to keep moving, this was his last chance. He removed the chains from Williams, he sat her up and tried to get her to wake up. Williams was one of the people Beckett trusted the most, she was always trying to help people, she made people feel safe. Normally a bubbly and cheerful person, he knew this ordeal had damaged her. As she came too she smiled through bruised lips, “You look like shit.” This made Beckett laugh and then wince in pain.

“More so than usual?”

He helped her to her stand, both were in clear pain and movement was tough. Hawkins was stood watching as Beckett and Williams limped towards his cell. Like the others, he was in terrible condition, his once muscular frame

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was faded and gaunt.

“About damn time.”

Neither replied to him. Hawkins had never wanted to let the other group into their camp and blamed Beckett.

“How we doing this?”

Unlocking the door, Beckett pointed towards the corpses.

“They are going to get us in.”

Walking towards the dead men they noticed that the noseless man had turned. He was groaning and trying to sit up, the knife pinned the living corpse to the ground. As Beckett kneeled over him he watched as it tried to sit up, biting at him. He brought the knife down on its head. The monster fell silent.

“William’s take the other one’s clothes. Hawkins this one’s yours.”

Both nodded in agreement and slowly started to dress down the dead men — it was a slow clumsy process. The rain helped to wash away the blood on the clothes. Once disguised as their captors, the group made their way to the ramp and the outer walls of the camp. Beckett hid in the frozen darkness as he followed Williams and Hawkins towards the wall.

As they approached the wall Beckett went numb, not from the cold, but at the sight of those he had failed. Impaled and hanging from the wall were the bodies of his friends; their undead arms reached out through the night as they groaned and hissed at him. One of the bodies stood out. The small frame of Olivia was almost torn in half by the pike, her decaying corpse was pulling itself apart as it reached for him. He felt his heart start to race, his head was spinning. He locked his gaze on the ground, unable to look at the result of his failure. He cared for Olivia and her mother like they were his own — his hands trembled, not that he could feel them. He had promised to protect them, to keep them safe, but he welcomed their murderers into their home. He had wanted to save everyone, but in this dead world that was never a possibility.

The noise of the undead attracted the attention of the two armed guards patrolling the wall. Using the darkness Beckett flanked into position at the side of the gate. Williams and Hawkins wore the disguise of the guards Beckett had killed in their escape. In the dim light, they hoped it would be enough to get them back into the camp, their home. They all paused waiting for the gate to open, or for a hail of bullets. To their surprise the gate slowly started to open, and Beckett watched as his group walked through. Hearing the gate beginning to close, Beckett rushed the guard that was closing it, and grabbed her by the throat. As the second guard raised his weapon, Williams pushed the barrel of the rifle down and put her knife through his throat. She was surprised at the ease of the takedown: her body hurt all over, but these people were not military and they were not prepared for tonight. Hawkins charged to help as Beckett and the other guard fell forward into a heap. Beckett emerged on top and drove the metal bracket — still chained to his arm — down on the woman’s face. Blood spurted out as she tried to scream for help, and he continued hitting until her body went limp. Williams placed her hand on Beckett’s shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. Turning to face her as he stood, several dimly lit fires broke the darkness’s hold on the camp, and for the first time in weeks they saw each other. She tried to smile at Beckett, in that reassuring way she often did. Beckett dropped the bracket into what remained of the guard’s face. There were ten more by his count. They quickly closed the gate and threw the corpse over the edge of the motorway.

Beckett stared out at what was left of the camp, although it was almost pitch black the damage was evident. Beckett and his group had tried so hard to make this place into a home: they had reared livestock to produce a supply of eggs and milk, but the group that took over the camp had killed them all. As the group moved quietly through the camp, it was clear that they had drained almost all their supplies. They had lived in luxury as Beckett and his group were living in squalor. They had burnt through the supplies Beckett and his squad had risked their lives to get, and rubbish and waste littered the motorway. Small barrel fires dimly lit the camp that were slowly going out due to the heavy rain. As Beckett and his squad approached the living quarters they stacked up at the large tent entrance.

Hawkins and Beckett looked at each other and nodded at each other. They entered quickly, one by one, weapons drawn. The tent that once contained the sleeping quarters of Beckett’s group was all but empty. Several people were cowered together in a small cage at the back of the dark room. As Beckett walked over to the cage, a thin woman in rags struggled to her feet. Beckett couldn’t recognise her under all the dirt. She held his hand through the bars.

Beckett whispered, unsure if she heard him.

“Karen?”

She slowly nodded.

“I thought you... that they killed you.”

“Olivia.”

“I saw, I…” Beckett gripped the bars, trying to focus his anger. “Where are they?”

“They sleep in the large tent at the back.”

Williams and Hawkins turned on their heels. They knew where their enemy slept, and they wanted this nightmare over.

“We will come back for you. I promise.”

Beckett let Karen’s hand slide through his fingers as he turned to follow his squad. He heard her calling to him, but he had to keep moving. The rain continued to lash down outside — luckily no other guards patrolled. It had taken Beckett and his group years to build this camp into their home, and the parasites had destroyed it in a matter of weeks.

“I want their leaders alive.”

Beckett marched towards the tent used by the invaders, and without breaking pace he stormed through the entrance, his knife drawn — he was ready for vengeance. William struggled to keep pace, but this nightmare was almost over.

2 The sun had started to rise behind Beckett as he dropped to his knees exhausted and broken. Tears ran down his face, leaving streaks in the blood that covered his face. His gaze fell on the ground in front of him. Lacking the strength to look up, he remained still as he wept. The clothes he wore stuck to his skin covered in dry blood, sweat, and dirt. He removed the combat knife from his belt, hands trembling as he raised the blade. He placed his left hand on the wooden cross facing him to steady the blade, and his hand continued to tremble as he started to carve.

The blood on the blade began to crack and chip away as he carved ‘Olivia Anderson’ into the front of the cross. He placed a red scarf around the arms of the cross before wiping the tears from his face. Beginning to stand he tightened his grip on the cross, his gaze slowly moved to his side, to the six other freshly dug graves. The faces of the dead haunted his thoughts.

On the ground beside him lay a thick chain with the wall bracket still attached. Standing, he picked it up. The chain was matted with chunks of flesh and bone, a grotesque reminder of how far he had fallen. His fist clenched as he turned to face what remained of his home. The makeshift camp Beckett and his group once called home lay in ruin, desecrated by their captors. The walls that had once protected them, were until recently, used to display the reanimated corpses of Beckett’s friends. The hostiles that had imprisoned Beckett and taken control of his camp had turned it into a cesspit, living like rabid animals. When the dead started to rise up and feed on the living, he had thought he had seen the worst that the dying world could throw at him — he was very wrong. The parasites had no interest in working together to help other survivors, they were only interested in what they could take, draining settlements of all resources before moving on, and bringing their horrors to their next victims. They had kept Beckett and his squad imprisoned, forcing them to hunt for food, using the rest of the camp as insurance for their cooperation.

Beckett moved slowly up the off ramp of the motorway towards what remained of his camp, dragging the chain behind him, it’s grinding noise echoed through the camp. Those that had survived the harrowing ordeal had started to venture out of their tents and makeshift huts, most unaware of the events that had transpired during the night. The large CDC tents that stood at the sides of the camp had sections torn that flapped in the wind. When Beckett and his group found this camp, they had thought their luck had started to improve. Hastily constructed on the outskirts of the city on an unfinished motorway, it provided perfect protection from the wandering dead, but it was the living

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they would learn to fear. The back of the camp sat at the edge of the motorway, once used as a dumping ground for the infected. Passing through the camp, Beckett could not look at any of the survivors — he knew what was coming, what he had to do. At the edge of the camp stood the last two remaining members of his squad, weapons drawn on three men that were on their knees. Beckett had bound these three as they took back control of the camp. They had moved silently through the camp at night, slitting the throats of their captors as they slept, but these three were special, these were the ones in charge of the parasites. Beckett made sure these three were spared, and they gagged them with the pillows they slept on. They once belonged to Beckett’s group, but they were now reduced to sleeping in filth.

Standing over the three men, Beckett gestured to his men to remove their hoods. Two of them looked up at him in complete fear. The bigger of the three, their leader, showed no emotion. A small crowd had followed Beckett through the camp, still in shock from suddenly finding Beckett back in control, some were unsure if the man they saw was still Beckett. The condition of his friends made him feel sick and the weight of his failure was crushing him.

Malnourished, filthy, and wounded, all had seen better days, but none looked as bad as Beckett. He looked like one of the walking corpses. His terrifying ensemble completed by the crude chain hanging from his arm. Beckett looked down at what remained of the group that was responsible for so much horror. Every inch of his body ached. Other than the tents being buffeted by the wind, the camp was in silence. Beckett’s breathing quickly became more forced as he succumbed to his anger. Pacing in front of his three captives, Beckett paused at the one on the right. The man reluctantly looked up at him, mouth still gagged, the fear evident on his face. The natural stench of the man, made Beckett want to gag.

Letting out an enraged scream, he threw his arm back and whipped the chain forward, smashing the solid bracket into the man’s skull. His skull shattered, sending bone fragments and brain matter splattering out in a cloud of blood that covered those nearby. The blow was so severe that teeth bounced across the ground, dancing through the blood.

His body went limp and fell forward; a pool of blood spread over the ground. The man on the far left screamed through his gag and tried to bolt forward. Beckett was on him in an instant, and grabbing him by the shoulder, he drove his knee full force into the fleeing man’s gut. He immediately dropped. His face bounced off the ground with such force his nose crumpled. His gag prevented him from spitting up blood and he started to feebly choke. Beckett was already in full motion of swinging the chain down on the crippled man’s head as he hit the ground. The chain bracket cracked the man’s skull and jammed deep into his head. A jet of blood sprayed Beckett in the face. In an attempt to free the slab of metal, he pulled back on the chain hard. The man was wrenched forward along the ground by the force, and his drowning screams filled the air. Beckett slammed his boot down on the man’s skull several times, each blow more ferocious than the next. The chain broke free as the man’s head was turned to pulp.

Beckett quickly refocused on the third and final man, the leader of the parasites. He had let this man into his group, believing they were going to help. He knelt down in front of him, expecting to see fear in his eyes, but he saw only anger. These people were less human than the undead monsters that had destroyed their world. Wiping blood from his face Beckett flicked it to the ground, into the thick pool of blood that had formed around them. The chain was now dripping in blood, with fresh pieces of flesh and bone stuck in it. Beckett grabbed the man by his hair and dragged him forward towards the edge of the motorway. The man’s hair was filthy and matted with dirt. The man kicked and squirmed trying to resist, but his strength was no match for Beckett’s. Stood at the edge he pulled the man up. Beckett towered over him and hit him with all his remaining strength in the throat. He fell to the ground, doubled over in pain and gasping for air. Beckett reached down wrapping the chain around the parasite’s neck. Stepping over the sorry state of a human, he clipped the other end of the chain to a nearby vehicle. Beckett paused for a brief moment, and watched as the last of the group that had terrorised his people lie squirming in the ever-expanding pool of blood. Picking up the wretch of a human by the throat, Beckett stared straight into the man’s eyes. Both looked like monsters. Beaten, broken men covered in blood, and dressed in filthy tattered clothing.

Using the last of his energy, Beckett threw the man forward over the edge. Half slipping in the blood, half passing out, Beckett fell backwards into darkness.

The Book

Michael Holloway

It was evening when Anton finally sat down to write his book. It was like someone had pulled a gun on him and said, ‘If you don’t write it, I’ll shoot you!’, but no one was there. Her voice was lingering and thick against his ears, a less-than-soothing voice — parasitic and no longer his — that wormed its way into him, leaving scars.

He said, ‘Oh, how I miss her...’ and so on and so forth, but no one answered him because he was alone. The light of his lamp lit up the room, cutting out black and grey geometric shadows that haunted him with boredom, as if boredom was a ghost. A violent poltergeist throwing useless objects at him which he could not use. A spectre, a ghoul, a spirit of the deceased, of those who once died of boredom, saying, ‘Oh God, I’m so bored,’ creating a haunted house of nothingness where nothing happened, and nothing happened. Julia, her name was. He wrote the name down and wrote about her. He wrote until his hand ached and a heat rose through his arm and to his chest and head and to his half-erect penis and to his swollen feet and to his bulging eyes and until he feared a real fear that a bullet would enter his head and blow his brains out. When he stopped writing he thought he might die, but really he was just sitting in his room by himself, the cold wind blowing in through the window.

He sat there for three years. He wrote pages upon pages of a story he’d forgotten the beginning to, going and going, never seeming to end. The story was about a woman who meets a man. Or a man who meets a woman.

He forgot which way round it went, but it seemed the only story he could think of. All the greats wrote about dying love, he thought. Why not me? Only upon writing page number 10,847, he wondered whether he’d written too much.

He looked around the room. The lamp stopped working two years ago so he usually worked in the daylight.

At night he strained his eyes with a lit match. He ate mainly fruit and drank water. He became thin and ill. He grew a beard and looked a hundred years older than he was. But the story of Julia didn’t stop. The words came out of him like a birth and the life he created lasted actual years, until the fourth year, when he heard a knock at the door.

‘Who is it?’ he said. His voice phlegmy and aged.

‘My name is Detective Blake,’ a voice called to him. ‘There’s been reports you’re dead, sir. I’m here to check on you, see if you’re alright.’

‘I’m alright.’

‘Are you sure, sir?’

‘I’m not dead, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘I have to come in, sir. If you don’t let me in I will have to break down your door.’

‘You’ll have to pay for my door if you break it.’

‘That’s fine, sir. Your door will be paid for, after I break it.’

‘Will it be a new door or the same door?’

‘Excuse me, sir?’

‘After you break it are you going to pay to fit the broken one back in its place or will you buy me a new one?’

‘I’ll buy you a new door, sir. I’m coming in now, sir. Stand back.’

Blake broke down the door and came in. The smell was pungent of ripe fruit and sweat. ‘Hello,’ Blake said, ‘I can see you’re not dead. That’s good.’

‘It is good, isn’t it.’

‘I suppose so. But you’ve been missing for four years. There have been search parties, sir.’

‘But no one thought to check my house?’

‘It was locked, sir. You saw I had to break the door down.’

‘Well can’t a man stay hidden away for years if he chooses?’

‘Of course you can. It’s just that people thought you were dead. If people think you’re dead well that gives me a problem, doesn’t it, sir.’

‘What sort of problem?’

‘Well I have to investigate, don’t I. I’m here, I can see you’re not dead. But I still have a problem.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Well, I’m sorry to say it, sir, but I was sort of hoping you’d be dead.’

117

‘Why on earth would you hope I was dead? You don’t even know me.’

‘And I would like to get to know you, sir, if the circumstances were different. You see, there is a reward of £10,000 to anyone who finds you.’

‘So why do you need me dead?’

‘Well I can see you don’t want to come with me.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Then I have to kill you, sir.’

‘This is ridiculous. I’m trying to write.’

‘That’s what you’ve been doing all this time?’

‘Yes. I’m writing a story.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘It’s a tragedy. It’s about the love of my life who left me. I’ve written over 10,000 pages. It’s all I know to do since she left.’

Blake tutted. He said, ‘Ah, that is tragic. My wife left me once.’

‘She did?’

‘Yeah, just the once.’

‘What happened?’

‘She died.’

‘Well that’s different. She didn’t stop loving you, did she?’

‘No she didn’t. But it’s still tragic, sir. A death is far more tragic than a love who runs away.’

‘You have a point there.’

Anton looked at the myriad of pages. Piles and piles of paper stacked unceremoniously around the room like Grecian pillars. ‘I don’t feel like writing it now.’

‘But you’ve come a long way.’

‘Your story seems better,’ Anton said. ‘The death thing. I never thought about death until now.’

‘Never?’

‘No, not never. I did. I’ve thought about dying, but it’s blasé.’

‘Everyone thinks about death sometimes,’ Blake said. ‘It’s like a joke. It’s one of those funny things you think of and can’t stop thinking about.’

‘Death isn’t funny.’

‘It can be.’

‘How could death possibly be funny?’

‘If my wife was killed by a clown.’

‘Is that how she died?’

‘No. She was a clown. She was killed by a thief. He took her purse. Quite tragic, as I’ve said.’

‘Look, Detective. I’ve spent four years of my life writing my story. You’re disturbing me.’

‘I’ve come to take you, like I said.’

‘Fine, take me away.’

‘Oh no, you have to finish the story. What use is your dead body with an unfinished story?’

‘But I can’t think of anything to write. I can’t even remember what she looks like any more.’

Blake pulled out a gun. He pointed it at Anton. He remembered Julia and how she smiled. He remembered the touch of her, what she felt like, smelled of, tasted of. Everything. But it was a long time ago, like remembering a death.

‘Write the story,’ Blake said, ‘Or I’ll shoot you.’

‘But you’re going to shoot me anyway.’

‘It’s your choice. If you want to say what you want to say, then write the story. Otherwise I pull this trigger and it ends mid-sentence and you’d only have wasted year upon wasted year, while Julia forgets you and forgets your story.’

‘Julia would never read the story anyway,’ Anton said.

‘So why are you writing it?’

‘I don’t know.’

Blake cocked the gun. Anton looked at the gun and imagined the bullet going through his head and blowing his brains out, ending the story there. Stopping all those thoughts where they stood. So Anton wrote. He wrote about Julia but he hated writing it. He couldn’t bear thinking of her, let alone writing about her. The beauty of her in his mind was now ugly, tainted. She was old and decaying. She turned to dust and blew away in the wind. Her dust, like a spirit, floated for miles and miles across deserts and cities and finally settled in the ocean.

‘Is that how it ends?’ Blake said.

‘I don’t know,’ Anton said. ‘I think so. But I regret calling her ugly.’

‘It’s just the idea of her. Unfortunately if you saw her again you’d fall in love again. So goes the pain of the heart.’

‘That’s quite poetic, Detective. Where did you read that?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘What happens now?’

‘Now I have to kill you, sir.’

‘Okay.’

Blake shot him. He shot him in the head and blew his brains out. For a long time he looked at Anton’s body.

He wondered who Julia was and why she left him, why she did what she did to Anton to make him write thousands upon thousands of pages of a book. Blake collected all of the pages which took hours, and eventually put them all in his car. He turned Anton’s body in and collected his reward, using some of the money to pay for a new door for Anton’s house, where someone else now lived.

119

Thomson and I Jasmine Geddes

If running was still a sport, I would be an Olympic gold medallist. Thomson wouldn’t. Thomson wouldn’t even be on the bench. Thomson isn’t slow he just isn’t fast. That should be a problem but for me it’s a blessing. Thomson’s loud with his heavy breathing and his heavy footfalls. I am quiet. I seem to have no breath or footfalls. With me Thomson has no hope. Without me Thomson could win the race. He could finish but without me the race wouldn’t have even begun.

Thomson has a habit. Thomson always looks back, always double checks. It may be the reason he’s slower than me.

I do not look back. I only focus on what is in front, my only focus is forward. It seems to always have been. Thomson has gotten louder, his breathing more laboured and his steps banging clumsily. The concrete and high ceilings are helping the sound. The concrete and high ceilings are not helping Thomson. The concrete and high ceilings are helping me.

Thomson always looks for cover. In this place there is none. I don’t need cover, I will never need cover. Thomson has to stop looking back it’s making him slower. I am getting faster. I am still looking forward. Thomson is the very opposite to me, loud, slow and scared. I am not scared. Thomson is terrified, that might be why he’s slow. Thomson is gasping rather than breathing now. He still hasn’t stopped yet. I haven’t stopped either. My breath is still non-existent. My steps are still light.

Thomson prays. He whispers with his half breath to all the deities. I do not pray. I have no breath to waste on redundant whispers. Thomson is looking back more frequently. Thomson’s getting even slower. I am still getting faster.

I am still looking forward. Thomson is panicking, he’s still looking for cover. I am calm, I still have no need for cover.

Thomson’s going to stop soon. I am going to stop soon. Thomson is crying and Thomson is in pain. I cannot cry and I cannot feel pain.

Thomson has kept going. He is still trying but I keep going and I am not trying. Thomson is sobbing now. Thomson is no longer whispering his prayers he’s shouting them. I am still quiet, I still have no need for prayers. Thomson is nearing a door, he seems to be getting faster but I am still faster. Thomson thinks his prayers are being answered. I know his prayers are never going to be answered. Thomson doesn’t know whether to open the door. I know he can’t open the door.

Thomson has stopped. I have not stopped. Thomson has given up; I don’t have anything to give up. Thomson and I are complete opposites. Thomson is loud, slow and alive. I am quiet, fast and dead. Thomson calls me names. Lots of names all of them horrible. I should call Thomson dinner or maybe I should call him lunch. Thomson and I will soon no longer be opposites. Thomson will be quiet and Thomson will be dead unfortunately Thomson will never be fast.

Thomson will find his end here. I will find my beginnings. Thomson is fleshy and succulent. I couldn’t have chosen better. I will be Thomson’s last. Thomson will be my first. Thomson is large, he is more than adequate. It’s the first bite. Thomson shudders, I shudder. With the next Thomson whines. I whine. Thomson can no longer scream no matter how much he wants to. I will never be able to scream no matter how much I want to.

Thomson finally exhales and so do I. We are both covered in blood. We are both shaking and overwhelmed. We are writhing. We are shocked, unprepared and in awe. We are together. We are unable to do anything. Time is of no importance to us. There are no interruptions. We are together. We are becoming messier blood still covering every inch of us. Streams of muscle, bone and skin blanketing us.

We are cold. We are pale, gaunt and unmoving. Time is on hold; we don’t need it. We no longer need anything. We are together. We are sleepy, we are tired. Neither of us need sleep but both of us crave it. Time resumes, we don’t need it. We are embraced. We no longer can. We no longer feel. We no longer want. We are nothing. We are needless. We are sated. We are slow. We are together. We are one.

If running is still a sport, I would be an Olympic gold medallist. Greenwood wouldn’t. Greenwood wouldn’t even be on the bench. Greenwood isn’t slow he just isn’t fast. That should be a problem but for me it’s a blessing. Greenwoods loud with his heavy breathing and his heavy footfalls. I am quiet. I seem to have no breath or footfalls. With me Greenwood has no hope. Without me Greenwood could win the race. He could finish but without me the race wouldn’t have even begun.

What If We Were Spontaneous?

Zahrah Iqbal

What if we refused to follow routine and listened to the yearning of our hearts instead?

Inhale.

What if we treated ‘Monday’ as our ‘Friday’ and slept in a little longer?

Maybe the bus driver that you see every day decides to take another route. He checks his mirrors and signals right at the traffic lights instead of turning left.

Maybe you smile at the one who brews your coffee every winter or maybe you just ask the florist how her day is going. She squints at you through her glasses to clarify that you were not talking to yourself. You repeat the question, she chuckles and sets down her arrangement of lilies. Time ticks as conversation warms you.

Drive into the city and sit outside a local café, ordering the most appetising plate on the list. Pay without feeling guilty and devour that chocolate cupcake. Yes, it contains calories but doesn’t everything? Smile at the heart shaped wafer nestled gently above the warm waffles.

Italy is only a few hours away. Check the time. Book a ticket on the cheapest flight and pack. Don’t worry about those teenagers rioting on the cobbled pavements. Their desire too is to up and leave.

Conquer your cycle of overthinking. Go tell the one that occupies your mind at 2AM how you feel. Send them a handwritten letter. Rejection is just that – rejection. Pick yourself up and appreciate all that you do have. Be vulnerable. Believe that there is beauty in vulnerability and courage.

Plant a tree in the countryside. You’ve never liked the Sun but soak it up for today. Love the universe and it will return a deeper, more profound love back to you.

Hear the splendid chimes that echo through the vintage store. Go to a museum and read about the lives of those who existed before you. Spend a few hours mesmerised and leave feeling inspired.

Message the old friend you haven’t seen in a while. Life had other plans for the two of you. Know that we never know what the other person is truly feeling and somehow the mystery of not knowing puts you at peace. Forgive Make room in your heart for life’s new energy coming your way. Sure, the soft smell of lavender will remind you of her and the strong scent of musk will remind you of him but breathe in and let it go. Look at your future and embrace all that is to come.

In the distance, you see the glistening sun setting, sinking ever so slowly into the sea. Smile, for the night has begun.

Jump on a bicycle and cycle to your hearts content. Feel the evening breeze tickle the hair that sways left and right as a child’s chuckle grows louder. Greet the shadows that pass through your childhood memories.

Put your camera down and look at the stars. Look at the way they twinkle for you – like a million little suns. And when the heat of the Earth and the atmosphere electrify with friction and intensity, like you will too with your lover, when it all gets too much and the clouds explode into a thunderstorm, dance. Dance in the rain that first falls while your arms are open wide.

Exhale.

Darling, look at all the things you can do when you follow the heart that yearns to feel alive?

What if we were spontaneous?

121

Two of the Same Whole Matthew Jesuthasan

I fell into that dreamless sleep and in a blink of consciousness, we had arrived at our destination and all those we knew had died.

The console came alive as we stepped forward onto the metallic floor. Our footfalls dully echoed and resonated with the rumbling internals of our new home, and as if in response to this noise, camera feeds popped into existence in a collective moment and at once, we could see the marvel below us.

An aurora in several of shades of blue, gold and green, which were all flecked with a blackish hue. It coated and caressed the white mist below it, which barely hid the vast mountain ranges that contoured the land like a blasted crown. And you remarked how soon, we will be wearing it, as sole inhabitants of such a place.

The ship rumbled as it entered the atmosphere in its descent, the slow internal trembles turned into deafening uproars. The turbulence tried to shake us around, but our cabin moved in motion with the seismic movements. We covered our ears, until our uneasy journey came to a stop, and marvelled at the poor resolution feeds of the outside.

It didn’t take long to get ready for our sojourn out into the wilds of our new home, the conditions were akin to Earth and it seemed safe, but in that instance, you recommended the suit. Ever the rational one you were, that’s probably why we survived together for so long.

Once we left the airlock of the shuttle, the fog consumed the chamber, swarming the unassimilated air and for a second, you were scared at the sight of it. I think of your face in that moment sometimes, just to remind myself that you are human. We left it behind us as the extraction fans did their work; and the thick cloudy haze was invisible thanks to our visors.

Do you remember our first glimpse of our new home? The needle-like stature of the leafless trees that seemed to protrude out of the chalky soil at obtuse angles, and in that perfect moment when we could see that sky from the surface, how the clouds rolled northward like a herd of wild horses, melting away into that fiery horizon! You praised its majesty and beauty, and while they were those things, they didn’t exude warmth and comfort like you did.

“It was fortunate that we landed where we did,” you remarked “Any closer in that forest and we would have a hard time landing, and not to mention trying to escape it,” I replied without a pause “It would have been exciting though,” you said, with a snicker “Well, we certainly have the time. Maybe one day we can get ourselves lost.”

“Yeah… maybe one day.”

“But that day is not today!” and we charged forward in unison We bounded forward down the slope, often tripping on the vines that seemed to spring out of the earth like dolphins. The trees seemed to block whatever light that could make its way through the fog, but fortunately we had our goggles that pierced both the fog and darkness, illuminating the path before us.

It wasn’t too long before we made our way down the uneven hill and escaped from the edge of the forest. We ended up in a rolling expanse that seemed to stretch into the horizon. The soil was bare and uncovered, even the vines of the slope stopped showing their long stems as we got to the basin.

While that seemingly feature-less expanse was without warmth and even objective beauty, the close and tantalising prospect of our next few hours; you and I exploring together and learning about this long dead planet, sent my mind into a haze.

As ever, I was wrong and you were right, as you pointed out the rocky outcroppings that were obscured by distance, as well as the holes that perforated the rich dark soil, that ran too deep for our internal illumination to uncover fully.

The eeriness of this lonely expanse, set among ancient rocks and blackish soil, touched us both, I reckon. Untrodden and almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath the fleeting light of the closest star, whose light trickled down through the fog like desperate escapees.

“If we were light, do you think we would be like those?” I pondered to you “I suppose, but I think light cannot own a planet, unlike us, it can only become a part of it,” you answered prosaical-

ly. I couldn’t see your eyes, but I was sure they were betraying you and glistening in wonder.

A moment passed as we both pondered those words, our eyes fixed on the task ahead.

“Well, then. Shall we be off ? We need to explore our new tomb after all,” you sighed.

“Hush now, we’re here for research. Anyway, who says you cannot make a tomb a home?”

“Normal people, that’s who!” and I could see the suit bulge and move as you chuckled loudly Without further words, we set off along the barren expanse; a very short spot of sightseeing was on the program as we marvelled at the foreign flora of deep reds and matt blacks, they were so still and unmoving to light, that it felt we were floating on the River Styx, with you as my fair ferry-women, navigating us through the hellish and beautiful planet.

Time passed as we performed rigorous and boring tests on the soil, rock and air; the only form of motivation being the exoticism of each sample, the unexpected results that we got every time and your radiant presence. How long did we spend out there? Reality seemed to glide by when I was you; your captivated audience to your many terrible impressions of Hutton and Darwin, they were laboured and annoying, but I laughed anyway, because I loved you. I still love you.

One of the chief pleasures of that sojourn however was the sense of privacy and exclusivity that was afforded to us, as we joked and danced in defiance of the barren landscape, not caring about the loudness of our voices, or the silliness of our words and movements.

However, all good things must come to an end, as we grew tired. Remember how you remarked on how the rocks that sparsely adorned the great expanse looked like antediluvian monsters? Many of which you could name, and we stopped and forgot our tiredness as you acted out that old folk story, jumping upon the ancient beasts as you would name their appendages and the terrible things they did, playing the role of a hero as you struck down such beasts with those exaggerated and elegant movements. I wonder if I stopped you, I could have stopped the painful flow of time and just be frozen in that moment with you.

Victory was in your grasp as you were about to pierce the heart of the foul beast, but it had one last trick up its sleeve, as its hide was slick with the water of the fog, and you slipped and fell towards one of its sharp appendages.

You nearly impaled yourself as you were so close to standing triumphant as the hero; the beast below had the last laugh. You managed to catch yourself, and save yourself from being struck down, but it pierced the thick material of your suit all at once, like a sundering strike. We knotted our fists together over the puncture in a desperate attempt to stop the flow of mist, but when your vision became clouded and the invisible mist wrapped around your skin, you held your last pure breathe, thinking it would save you. But you couldn’t keep at it forever, your eyes were panicking and bulging, and the world seemed to grow darker, and when your body stopped resisting, in that moment, I knew you had accepted death and we cried.

It did not come, as you coughed and inhaled the mist and the faint taste of honey graced your tongue, and you found that you could breathe.

The silence between us felt deafening, as you did not utter anything aside from coughs. I wanted to say that you were a hero in my eyes, but you probably already knew.

I saw you drunkenly stepping, with random pauses between your footfalls, as if you were enchanted into some fairy dance. I was enamoured by your form, and our minds were overcome by drunken reveries. I saw you gliding, across that blackened soil, gliding like a figure skater and this planet was your ice.

Then all at once, we fell.

123

In our enchantment it looked as if we were spirited away down into the depths of that hole. Our visors were the first to smash, as the glasses cut our faces and our vision went black as we were embraced by the abyss. The loud thud of our bodies being smashed echoed against the winding tunnels, and as if some deity took pity on us, it stopped; as the cool and honey-scented rush of air and mist surrounded us.

When our ears stopped ringing, and our rapid descent came to a halt, I wondered if we were in the world of the living, as an iridescent light pooled through our vision and seeped and struggled its way through our swollen and battered eyes, to finally illuminate our surroundings. This must have been heaven I thought, but you were still there.

“Are you alright?” as words and blood slipped out of my mouth in equal amount. You didn’t respond however, but I could feel your battered body, your chest rising slowly but reassuringly.

“Let’s just rest a little here,” I mumbled slowly, as we embraced the ground below us, which felt like warm agar gel.

Despite the pooling pain and blood, that moment felt so comfortable, and it was so easy to wrap up with you in that darkness, and just sleep our troubles away. § The light was there, when we were beside each other. I saw your form for the first time: your dark thunderously blue eyes, your wrinkled but proud face and that long black hair that seemed to wrap like a elegant border to canvas. I was jealous for a brief second, as you wore those features better than I, but even you melted away in the presence of the light.

Spires formed in the distance, towering above the sea of saffron and sickly hue, the waters of which seemed to palpitate below the quivering black forms of the spires. I wish we could have seen them together, but the echoing of my pleading voice, in that multi-coloured sand only seemed to resonate against the surrounding colourless mountains and for the first time in my life, I felt alone.

The desert joined the sea. Lumpy forms of sandy men went on mass exodus towards the lapping waves, which seemed to edge closer and closer, pulling the bulbous spires on its back. I tried to run, but could only move horizontally as each movement would send me to the clouds, or the sandy pits below; a large volume of which was fleeting.

Then I was climbing, my hands engorging themselves in those malleable lofty spires, an eternity passed and they finally all merged into one great citadel and I found myself at the summit, looking at you across the crown, below us was a mirror surrounded by gold and silver leaves. I looked into it for what seemed like an eternity and I could see both of us, our forms identical.

I could see mother, weeping for us both, as she clutched that letter in her hand. She looked so small in that room.

Like a delicate glass figure, almost timeless.

The skies opened up to reveal the iron-bound and melancholy tome of our lives, the pages of which were like liquid morass and begin dripping down ever so slowly through those fiery clouds. The pulpy inked paper would drop down in large lumps around us and would blot the mirror with memories. I took careful steps to avoid them, but you stood there, so adamant and brave, even as the lumps covered you in waxy effigy. Then one of them hit me.

In a misty coiled haze, I saw the tearful and proud eyes of Rupert, as he stumbled over his farewells.

His forehead was wrinkled and his mouth did that half-smile that showed too much teeth.

“I guess it’s too late for me to ask you not to go?” he said half-heartedly through that half-smile “Might be a bit late. Tell you what, if you can catch nine year old me and make me fall in love with economics or writing or whatever instead of dead and forgotten things, then maybe, just maybe you’ve got a chance,” His wrin-

kled forehead smoothed, along with his countenance as he laughed, but his eyes did not.

“Don’t look at me like that, it would be a shame if that’s the last face of yours I remember,” I muttered in order to break that sight, and he stopped that chuckle.

“I’m just talking a good long look, you know you look like a raisin right now with that forlorn expression,” he said, chuckling through that ever present half-smile “Oi, watch it. This may the last time you-” “Don’t finish that sentence. We will be seeing each other. Heck, considering how far you are going, and the rate we’re progressing; they’ll finally solve the ageing problem.”

“Then when you come visit me, I expect you to bring that with you. I don’t want the wrinkles of an old lady!”

“The way you’re going now, you’ll end up like one at the age of 30,” and we both chuckled at the frightening prospect “You promise you’ll visit me then?” I whispered intimately “Of course,” he said, his eyes piercing mine as I felt my cheeks grow hotter.

“Well, I’d best be off, I’m leaving early tomorrow and I do not want to get into that pod without any sleep,” and as I finished that last word, I moved in closer and we embraced, and without further words, I left.

As I worked through that door, I saw you emerge from that effigy, your face larger and glowing like those iridescent lights, that seemed to shine through your pours; basking against my skin and colouring me in envy and awe. I moved to embrace your beautiful form and as I drew closer, my legs moving despite my vision long being blinded.

And all at once the abyss greeted me as my legs gave out and my muscles trembled and flattened under the weight of that melancholy tomb of molasses that draped and suffocated.

The darkness was beautiful. I drifted through it as spectator over my battered body, which floated in the black air; it plodded along in the distance, each jolt of its movement sending pain through my spirited state. I thought death was an end to pain as each surge of agony would send my mind to terrible heights, but I was wrong.

The rumbling reverberated through my battered bones as I woke up surrounded by blankets in my small room on the ship. Relief and pain dripped from me in equal amounts, but the latter started coursing through my veins, as it became apparent that you were not there to relieve it.

I could only think for those three long days, as the ship sustained me in my bed-ridden state. The only thoughts I could muster are ones of you, which would burrow deep into my chest and make my heart ache in agony and even as I write this, I pray that you have not forgotten me and that we can meet in those lofty spires again. § She then folded the letter neatly, and purposefully strode towards the airlock without her suit. Despite the occasional limp, the marks of broken bones and torn muscles were hardly noticeable.

As the airlock console beeped for the third time, the outer door opened and mist snaked through like tangible coils.

She ignored them however, as they no longer tasted like honey, and without a halted footfall; she passed by that dreaded hole and stopped beside that antediluvian creature of rock and stood there, lightly tracing her fingers over the dirt marks.

In that windless plateau, she left that letter of love pinned to the rock and without a further motion of sentiment; she walked onwards through that blackish soil, scanning it for signs of life.

While little light made its way through that seemingly endless fog; she could see the way forward.

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The Girl

Anjulee Bharath She shivered and wrapped her coat around herself tightly. The frozen leaves crunching under her boots, even they didn’t escape from the harsh weather of winter. Walking down the familiar path she could hear the faint sound of music and people chatting loudly in the distance. As she opened the door she was suddenly engulfed in lots of pairs of arms. Lily screamed. Her friends started to laugh and hug her. Once they’d finally stopped laughing at how she’d screamed they pulled her to the table they were already sat at. This was their usual Wednesday girl’s night out. The bar was heaving with students. Lily thought to herself whilst half listening to her friends chat away. It was a student night though after all. One of them asked her if she had heard about the girl from their university who had been followed home after a night out and had been killed. Suddenly her attention was brought back. Lily remarked she hadn’t heard about it, but commented saying the girl must have been very drunk to get herself in that state. Nothing was said after that and conversation returned to the usual, boys, work, and their lack of money. Excusing herself from the table Lily walked over to the bar with the lingering thought that she might have even seen that girl. Pushing through the crowd to the bar she ordered a drink.

That was the fourth tray full of shots Lily had finished, she now regretted them along with the 3 bottles of cider she’d had before she’d left her house. Head spinning she looked at the clock on the wall, how was it already nearly 2am, it had only been 10pm the last time she had checked. Looking around, there weren’t many people left apart from her and her friends. She decided it was probably best to go home now, her stomach lurching and her drinks threatening to come back up as she tried to stand up. Saying bye to her friends she left and walked in the direction of home. Without warning, she felt raindrops on her eyelashes, it started to rain heavily. Perfect, just what she needed. Wiping the rain out of her eyes she did not see the broken branch on the floor and nearly tripped over. There was no way she could walk home in the drunken state she was in, let alone in this weather.

Pulling out her phone to ring for a taxi, she found it had run out of battery, mentally cursing herself for forgetting to charge it she quickly remembered there was a telephone box in the market, the last one in the city. Luckily she wasn’t too far away. Heading in the direction of the town centre she thought she heard footsteps behind her. Turning around she saw nothing. It was probably just the rain. Taking a shortcut down a side road she thought to herself about the girl that had been followed home. Looking down at herself Lily realised she was in the same state as that girl had been. Exiting the alleyway she heard bins clatter loudly. Lily just hoped that it was a cat rather than something far more dangerous. Carrying on down the road, she felt the temperature drop. Wishing she had more layers on she pulled her coat tighter the rain beating against her back and gathering in pools on her head. Crossing the road into the main path into town she thought she heard someone shouting her name. Blaming the alcohol, she turned away and carried on trying to carefully walk on the cobbled path. She thought she could hear the tapping of shoes behind her, Lily turned her head to the side and could see a shadow of someone else. Lily’s heart rate sped up and her mouth went dry as if she hadn’t drank anything for months.

Was this the same man who had killed the girl the other night? Had she been chosen for his next victim? Who was he? Had he noticed her in the bar or leaving that bar? Why hadn’t she been more careful? Lily didn’t know what to do, she could scream, she could shout, would anyone even hear her in this part of town in these early hours of the morning. Lily started to break into a sprint as best as she could, running up the sloped hill to the market. Was he following her? She couldn’t tell, all she could hear in her ears was the sound of her heart beating so fast she thought it would jump out of her chest. All she needed to do was get to the telephone box then she could ring 999 and hide.

Looking over her shoulder, she couldn’t see anything. Maybe she had lost him. Lily was so preoccupied looking behind her that she didn’t see the high curve of the pavement in the road, her heel on her boot slipped, wet from the rain and missed the corner of the pavement and she fell. Her body lay there, her neck twisted from falling against the ground. Blood ran from her head wound down the cracks on the cobbles. It wasn’t until morning when people were setting up the market that anyone found her. The police came and moved her body, onlookers horrified at the sight of her body. Was this the work of the killer that had murdered the other girl? However, when it came to the autopsy results her blood alcohol level was found to be 30%, close to the lethal level of 37%. Her friends cried when they found out about her, why had no one made sure that she got home safely? They knew that she had drunk a lot.

Letters from the police and the university were handed out the next day urging students to stay safe at night and warning students about the effects of alcohol and how it had destroyed and blown this bright young studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future into a million pieces.

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Counselling

Fern Charlotte Keely

Session One ‘I’m fine’ she insists, crossing her arms and shrugging her shoulders, as if to do so would demonstrate how care free she is, ‘my fella thinks I need counselling, not me.’

I smile. I am composed, stoical. I’m in it for the long haul. I lean back on my chair, crossing my legs and folding my hands. The fingers are laced together, the right thumb resting on the left. After a pause.

‘Why does he think that?’

She sighs. Then she tilts her head, sticking out her bottom lip and rolling her eyes towards the sky. She toys with a strand of hair. Always the same strand, over and over. She pulls it taut with her index finger and thumb, then lets it go and allows it to bounce back against the soft wool of her cardigan. Then after what seems like an eternity, she sighs and says ‘I dunno.’

‘Let’s start with an easy one. What do you do for a living?’

She looks interested for the first time, ‘I used to be a dancer.’

‘Did you always want to do it?’

‘Always.’

‘What made you want to be a dancer?’

‘What made you want to be a counsellor?’

‘Ah! I believe we call that projection,’ I smile. She laughs. Her laugh is musical, a delight.

‘Well I suppose I just… I dunno really. It’s weird…’

‘Go on’ I encourage.

She looks down at her legs, picking the skin at the tips of her fingers.

‘It’s just that when I was a little girl, I used to watch like superhero films, you know? Like Superman, Batman, whatever. Not the Batman with George Clooney in though, that one was shit. Anyway, when I was little, it made me really want to fly,’ She smiles, wistfully ‘and I guess... well.. when I used to see people dance, the way they moved… well it’s kind of like flying, isn’t it?’ she looks up at me and laughs, embarrassed by what she’s revealed, like a girl who has too often been told her ideas are ridiculous or stupid. ‘I used to think if I learnt how to dance, I could learn how to fly.’

She laughs. I don’t because I know she still thinks that she could. ‘So why did your husband want you to speak with me?’

‘Oh, I think he thinks I’m a nut job. He says he worries about me and stuff because sometimes he finds me talking to myself. Like I hear and see things that aren’t there. But honestly, I’m fine. I’m just a bit stressed, that’s all.’

‘You lost a baby,’ a statement, not a question. I wait for a volcano of emotion to erupt.

‘Where did that come from?’ It never does, her calmness matches mine.

‘You act as though you don’t care. But you do. For weeks after it happened, you slept with the scan under your pillow.

You cried yourself to sleep for months. At first, you couldn’t sleep. You took tablets to help.’

She looks shaken for the first time since we met. ‘How do you know that?’ Her eyes are narrowed. ‘Who are you?’

I remain silent.

‘Who are you?’ She repeats.

‘Do you still dance?’ I ask.

‘In my spare time, yes. Who are you?’

I remain silent. I smile. Time is up for this session.

I am at the studio watching her dance. I think that maybe this is inappropriate when you consider the nature of our relationship. Perhaps some element of professionalism is lacking on my part. That said, once I’m there, I find I cannot leave. I am not sure how I got here. Every surface is a mirror except for a laminate floor and she glides across this with limited effort. The room is large and airy and she occupies the space by propelling her body into every corner. Her movements are wild, frenzied. They are poised, graceful. The contrast makes me feel something but I am not sure what. Her limbs move with supple precision as if independent from her body. These moves are deliberately

ferocious in their execution. Her unrestrained passion is beguiling. It never seems like her feet touch the floor. It must be odd to feel as if you are floating.

Session Two. She’s staring out of the window with her back to me, arms crossed, dark hair dangling down her back, shivering with the cold.

‘I know I’m not supposed to say this,’ she says, turning around to face me slowly. ‘Because I’m a woman and because we’re meant to want this stuff...’ she lowers her voice to a whisper ‘but I didn’t want him. Not at first. I really didn’t.

It’s not fair. How was I supposed to know I would love him so much?’

‘Him?’ I ask, ‘the baby?’

‘Elijah.’

‘You named him?’

‘I named him,’ her face starts to crumble, breaking into tears. I want to pull her close, cradle her in my arms like a child, absorb the fragrant scent of her hair. Instead, I keep a safe distance and I feel like it’s the best decision for both of us.

‘Does your husband know about the name?’

Between sobs, ‘No.’ ‘Have you ever considered telling him?’

‘I can’t,’ she’s becoming distressed ‘I just can’t.’

‘What’s stopping you?’

She looks me dead in the eye.

‘There’s too much going on in my head. It’s too loud. I can’t hear anything. But it’s just so loud.’

I remain silent. I get up, walk over, place a comforting hand on her shoulder. Time is up for this session.

Once more I am at the studio watching her dance and the whole room has an almost eerie coolness to it yet there are beads of sweat illuminating her skin under the harsh bold glow of the lights. They are the kind of lights that you might find in a night club toilet; the type that makes pale skin appear translucent; the type that highlights a person’s every flaw – a smudge of mascara, a tiny red pimple – the aspects of being human that encourage insecure, intoxicated women to scuttle out onto the dance floor with haste to find a suitable mate before daylight comes and they are forced to face the reality of who they are. On her, though, it somehow works. I have never seen her looking so happy and unburdened. She is content without me. I’m not sure how to feel about that. I want to ask her if we should stop the sessions but I don’t think she knows I’m here. There are some days where she cannot see me. This seems like a day where she cannot see me. It is only then that I notice I cannot see my own reflection.

Session Three.

She’s in a pink silken night gown which smells like a mix of baby powder, body odour and Indian takeaway. I suspect it has not been in the wash for a while. Her hair is lank and greasy and stuck to her face. Occasionally, she pulls at clumps of it whilst patrolling the room, pacing up and down like a caged animal, agitated and restless in its claustrophobic surroundings.

I tell her I’ll always come when she needs me. I tell her I’ll never leave her.

Her eyes are bloodshot, red-rimmed. She’s crying.

‘It just hurts so much.’

‘I know. I’ll help you. Let me help you.’

‘Just make it stop! Please make it stop!’ she is desperate, begging. I am longing, yearning. I just want to mend her affliction.

‘We’ll make it stop.’

‘The voices never stop.’

‘They will. You have to trust me.’

‘How?’ She says this and it is high pitched and needy and I know she feels hopeless and I’d like more than anything to offer her liberation.

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I remain silent. Then I tell her how. Time is up for this session.

Final Session She’s sat at the table. Her kitchen is dirty and cluttered. There is a colossal stack of dishes and plates in the sink, leftover food congealed to their outskirts. There are black flies circling the soiled porcelain, landing gingerly on each rim, almost as if to indicate even their own reluctance to occupying a surface so filthy. She’s in the pink dressing gown. It is still unwashed. Her elbows are on the table-top, her forehead is pressed into her palms. She is weeping miserably, making loud, convulsive gasps. There is a half empty bottle of vodka beside her.

‘Go away. Just go away!’ she screams at me but I told her I’d never leave and I need to keep to my word.

‘Now.’ ‘No. No. NO! Leave me alone!’ She is shrieking between tears. She is tugging at the hair around her temples and I notice there are a couple of naked patches on her scalp that I’m sure weren’t there mere weeks ago.

‘Do you still have them?’

She pushes the packet toward me in silence which confirms that she does. Good.

‘I was so pleased when I met you,’ I say softly.

She looks at me as if this repulses her. I think she will vomit.

‘Genuinely,’ I smile, and push the packet and the vodka back towards her. ‘Go on, make it stop.’

She grabs the packet with a hopeless kind of fury, rips it apart, tilts her chin and empties all the sleeping tablets into her mouth, followed by the rest of the vodka.

‘I’m so glad you’re joining us,’ I smile, ‘Elijah will be so happy to see you.’

I remain silent. She remains silent. Time is up.

The Demon Builder Lucy Wright

Alan Higgin seemed to be the perfect neighbour. He was a tall skinny 40 something year old builder, who was helpful and useful in a crisis. If you found rain water pouring through your roof in the middle of the night, he would be there with a bucket and a mop to help clean it up. If you wanted to watch a football match but didn’t have Sky TV, he would invite you over and offer you the poshest Italian coffee that he could find. However, if you looked really closely, the signs told that not everything was quite as it should be - an avid Daily Mail reader who believed that anyone who wasn’t white and English should be shot. But even worse still, the man didn’t eat biscuits and there was not one packet to be found in his house. You learnt over the years not to offer him one in case he turned - for Alan Higgin had a deep dark secret. His tales of being an apprentice builder all those years ago were lies. Alan had never wielded a saw or plastered a wall, until a couple of years ago, after the pact he made with Builasar. Builasar was the demon of cowboy builders, one of your common garden demons. He could give you the power to become a semi-adequate builder and con vulnerable people out of thousands, in return for the odd human sacrifice and a packet of biscuits. Alan liked to target pensioners in the local area; in fact, his advert in the local gazette offered an outstanding OAP discount. He could do some semi adequate building work for them, con them out of a few thousand and then feed them to Builasar to make him happy. As an added bonus, the pensioners of this town always had a cupboard stocked full of biscuits; he couldn’t lose, or so he thought.

The only problem with targeting pensioners was that Alan Higgin couldn’t stand them. In fact, he wasn’t a fan of people in general. He had a stereotypical view of older people surrounded by cats, eating Werther’s Originals nonstop. If he had been honest with himself, he might even admit that he was afraid of them. However, none of that would stop him taking their money, killing them and stealing their biscuits. Perhaps he was right to be afraid. After obtaining his powers from Builasar with a simple demonic ritual, an altar piece, a few spices, a human sacrifice and a lot of goat’s blood, he set off to target Mrs Wilson. Mrs Wilson was a widow, in her early 80s, who needed some odd jobs done. She saw the advert for Alan Higgin in the local paper that advertised his gigantic discount for pensioners and service with a smile.

Alan Higgin popped round to see Mrs Wilson the very same day she rang him up. She explained that she wanted three shelves put up to display her collection of figurines, her pride and joy. Whilst slurping down his tea and helping himself to a fourth piece of cake, Alan Higgin started to lecture Mrs Wilson about the difficulties and the art that is involved in putting up shelves. He explained that to make sure that the shelves were straight and not to damage her precious figurines, he would have to take the radiator off the wall, remove the plaster and then re plaster the wall to ensure the safety of the marvellous figurines that she had. After a lot of tutting, sighing and making an imaginary quote on a piece of paper, Alan Higgin explained that it would normally cost £12,000 and take two days to carry out. However, because he loved Mrs Wilson’s figurines so much, and of course the OAP discount which she didn’t look old enough to claim, he reduced his price to the one day special of only £8000. Alan Higgin had worked his magic; Mrs Wilson was under his spell and agreed on the price and for the work to start. At 8am on the dot the very next day Alan Higgin arrived, tools in hand, ready to procrastinate. To sit around eating bacon butties, help himself to Mrs Wilson’s kettle and deposit teabags wherever he felt fit. He warned Mrs Wilson of the dangers of dust removing the plaster, so advised her not to enter the kitchen. He sat eating his pie and chips, drill in one hand, occasionally pulling the trigger to make it sound like he was doing something. 2.30pm on the dot and it was home time. He explained to Mrs Wilson how he had taken the radiator off, removed the old plaster and re plastered the wall. But not only that, he had gone above and beyond his duty and repainted the wall exactly the same colour that it was before. Now it was clock off time, but he would be back tomorrow to finish off. The next day, he returned again at 8am. He had his bacon butty, eight cups of tea and a couple of slices of Mrs Wilson’s cake.

At 2pm, he jumped into action as much as a person could after consuming that amount of calories. He put up the three shelves he was actually being paid to do and went to find Mrs Wilson at 2.10pm. He showed off his handy work to her and said that it had been a tricky job to put right, so some of the shelves might be at a slight angle, but it adds to the artistic effect. Also, because of the problems, he would have to add an extra three hundred pounds to the bill for the specialist equipment that he had hired. Mrs Wilson wrote him a cheque and set about placing her

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marvellous figurines. Alan Higgin stood watching, as he knew what was about to happen next. As Mrs Wilson stood admiring her prized possessions, gravity took effect. The slant of the shelf did its job as twenty two figurines came crashing down on Mrs Wilsons head and killed her. Alan had the tarpaulin ready laid out to catch her. A quick pull on one end and Mrs Wilson was wrapped up as tight as a sausage roll. Now for the bit that he didn’t like, he had to go find her biscuit supply. What would be her biscuit of choice? Garibaldis as it happened. He put on his work gloves and placed all the biscuits into an empty tool box, closing the lid with a loud bang, as he couldn’t stand to look at them. For the first time in two days, Alan Higgin actually did something that could be called manual labour. He managed to lift the wrapped up Mrs Wilson onto his builder’s trolley and made his way towards the van. An abrupt stop near the opened back doors and Mrs Wilson’s body sped off the trolley and into the van like a very large blue speeding bullet. Alan Higgin just smiled; after all, he did promise service with a smile plus if he had time, he might go and have a KFC bargain bucket before the ritual sacrifice.

After eating a dangerous amount of chicken, Alan Higgin drove home and opened the coal shoot at the rear of the property. Some bad reversing later, with the van doors open and Mrs Wilson’s body was flung down the coal shoot and into the cellar.

Alan Higgins house can only be described as beige. Beige walls and beige furniture in a bland house, for those who knew no better a bland person. However, those people had never been in the cellar. It’s the site of the dead goat’s rotting corpse that you first spy; but, at least it isn’t beige. There is a crude altar made out of MDF, on top of which, a skull perched with ancient runes inscribed on it. Next to that are shredded snake skins, a bowl of blood and a kettle, plus a box of PG Tips for emergencies as these rituals could go on for some time. He started some chanting in ancient Latin, or at least what he thought was ancient Latin. He didn’t have to understand what he was saying as long as he just said it. With a quick stroke of a knife, he cut the blue tarpaulin off Mrs Wilson’s body and stared for a second at the legs of a Victorian figurine that appeared to be coming out of Mrs Wilsons head. It’s a good job Builsar isn’t fussy. Now for the really disgusting bit, he carefully removed the biscuits from his tool box and covered them in the blood from the altar and chanted a bit more. Builsar appeared a giant snake with piercing eyes, fanged teeth and I mustn’t forget the yellow builder’s hard hat. He was technically a basilisk, but Alan Higgin had no idea what that meant, so we will stick with a giant snake. He swallowed Mrs Wilson in one gulp then spat the figurine that had gotten caught in his teeth. He turned to the biscuits that had been dunked in blood and swiped them all in one lash with his tongue. With a simple nod to Alan Higgin in appreciation and to suggest that he wasn’t going to kill him, he vanished. Alan Higgin went back to his beige life after washing the blood off; of course, he didn’t want it landing on the beige furnishings. A week later he had another client, Mr Smithson.

Mr Smithson, like Mrs Wilson, was also a widow. He was into his 85th year, with failing eyesight; but for some reason, he wanted an outdoor barbeque built so that he could set fire to meat only to find it raw in the middle. The first meeting went well. Alan Higgin explained the generous OAP discount and would only charge £9,624. The work was agreed that it would take two days. He started work the very next day. Day one consisted of the normal routine of eating takeaways and drinking tea. If anyone had noticed the amount that he ate, they would have found it remarkable that he wasn’t 25 stone. But then again, I don’t think that they would believe that he had done a deal with a demon to become a semi adequate skinny builder. On the second day, after a four fried egg sandwich, he set about building the barbeque. Now most people would create a barbecue out of brick, or if they are hippies and arty maybe they’d make it from clay. Alan Higgin chose wood; Mr Smithson, with his failing eyesight was none the wiser. Alan proudly showed off his work, as he pocketed the cheque, suggesting that Mr Smithson give the barbeque a test run. The combination of wooden barbeque and gas cylinder didn’t give Mr Smithson a chance, as he lit up the sky like a firework before crashing back to earth on a blanket of blue tarpaulin. Alan prepared himself for the gruesome task of finding the biscuits. Custard Creams. He retched as his gloved hand touched them and filled the tool box. Mr Smithson was tipped in the back of the van and Alan Higgin went in search of the biggest Hawaiian pizza that he could find. Back home, after some chanting and a giant snake, Mr Smithson had been eaten and the biscuits were taken care of. He went to sit in his beige chair and stared at his cheque, recalling a job well done and looking forward to his next client.

Mrs McDonald was to be the unfortunate victim. You can probably see a pattern emerging. She was also a widow of 92 and had to shuffle about with the aid of a zimmer frame. Alan Higgin went to meet with her and you could see the greed in his eyes as Mrs McDonald explained that she wanted a new kitchen, fitted from scratch. The whole

thing from removing the old kitchen, to fitting and decorating the new thing. With the OAP discount, Mrs McDonald was offered the very reasonable price of £128,016 and quickly signed up on the spot. Now Alan Higgin wasn’t the brightest tool in the toolbox, but even he should have got suspicious that Mrs McDonald was prepared to pay that much money so easily. Normally he had to do a bit of subtle persuasion (or emotional blackmail) to get the client to commit. He just saw her as a little old woman who he could make money off and feed to his demonic snake pet, so he started the very next day.

Mrs Wilson’s home was anything but beige. It was full of colour, photographs, trophies and medals. Perhaps if Alan Higgin had taken notice of these, he might not have met a certain fate. Mrs McDonald was an Olympic shot putter and proud hiker. Even now she regularly took part in both activities. Her zimmer frame had a button that, when pressed, would convert the anti-slip rubber stoppers into spikes so that they could grip the side of the mountain when she was hiking. She spent days watching Alan Higgin sat eating food, throwing teabags around and doing nothing then it was time. He looked like he was actually about to do something as he stood looking at a wall.

Mrs McDonald took him by surprise and he only heard the words for Mavis and Ken before a zimmer frame was hurtled at him at lightning speed. The decades of practice and Mrs McDonald never missed a target. Alan Higgin was impaled on her kitchen wall by her spiked zimmer frame. As she watched the blood drip down the wall, thinking that it was going to be a bugger to get off, Alan Higgin got fatter and fatter and then exploded. His remains littered the kitchen, and this time Mrs McDonald did say bugger. Then, after a few seconds the body, the blood and the foot that had been hanging off the oven extractor hood, all vanished and it was as if he had never been there.

Mrs McDonald put the kettle on and made a brew. She lifted up the cup and gave a toast to her late friend’s Mavis Wilson and Ken Smithson.

Meanwhile, Alan Higgin was trapped in hell, forced to eat biscuits by all of his victims and made to put right all the faults he had caused in his building work for eternity.

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The Noted Team would like to thank all those who contributed towards the production of this magazine. We believe that it reflects the talent and merit of students, staff and alumni within the UCLan English Literature and Creative Writing departments.

Thank you, reader, for joining us.

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