Vortex UoW 2016

2016 Edition

Preface At the fag-end of the 1990s Andy led the MA Writing for Children at Winchester; it was the first programme of its kind, in an age before University Vice Chancellors had figured out JUST how lucrative running Creative Writing programmes could be. From these early shoots we grew slowly at first, increasing the menu of writing modules within the longstanding English programme until we got to the point that CW was straining at the leash far too hard for us to restrain her/ him/it any longer. That was when we put together the first rumblings of a CW programme, with only a small gathering of students we could call our own, before I wrote our first Single Honours version, which ran from 2005.

The success story of the u/g CW programme at Winchester has been remarkable. From small handfuls of students we soon grew to 50 60 70, then 100 new students coming every year, and has become intermittently the best CW programme in the UK (at least as far as the fickle finger of student satisfaction is concerned).

There have not been many constants throughout this last 10 years. Andy, for sure, me too, but also VORTEX – Vortex which began as a student production eagerly and hastily thrown together using no more than enthusiasm and a photocopier, as a not-very-new way of spreading the student talent around a little wider. Then to the full-colour, beautifullydesigned incarnation, which has taken us up to now – and has, along the way, featured some extraordinary pieces of work.

From 2017 Vortex is to evolve again – back towards its roots to become a fully student directed, shaped, edited, proofed and published hard-copy literary magazine, to be brought to life by the students themselves. We look forward to its coming in new clothes.

But for now, it leaves me to say, on behalf of myself and Andy, that we have loved almost every minute of reading all those student submissions over the years; we have at times been blown away by the talent we have witnessed and become childishly excited at the prospect of getting our selections into print. It is gratifying to think that it is almost a certainty that some of the students whose work we have featured now spend their own lives nurturing and fostering the writing talent of others, who they find in their charge. And so it goes on, hopefully, and on, and on...

For her invaluable editing and proofing assistance in producing the 2016 edition of Vortex and many of the others in the years preceding it, we place on record profound thanks to Judith Heneghan.

Neil McCaw & Andy Melrose Co-editors, Vortex 2004-2016

Contents Elle Sang du Nez – A Flores......................................................................... 02 Eden – Florence Hafter-Smith ........................................................................ 04 The Cartoon Dog at the Beach – Millie Bull .............................................. 08 Daisy Petal Love – Kathryn Lacey ................................................................ 09 The Phylactery – Tom Shuttleworth .............................................................. 10 On Giving My Mother Her Deep Green Sea – Bethan Thomas ................. 14 The Giant’s Bones – Emma Rimmell ............................................................. 15 Two-faced Fox – Amelie Karevoll .................................................................. 16 Inkblot – Holly Morrow ................................................................................. 20 A Secret in Hiding – Mara Patraiko ............................................................. 22 Cretan Love – Sam Munday ......................................................................... 25 Rendez-Vous – Stephanie Buchler ................................................................. 26

Elle Sang du Nez A Flores She came to the party a little bit drunk.

Not so drunk that she could not see but just so much that she could not feel.

She could not be hurt and was, therefore, impregnable.

She played with this in her mind going

rotating

what she visualized to be like a plate or maybe a record player that she could attach to herself as she bled.

She would make a fair butterfly of an incision at the base of her thumb and tie it somehow to this proverbial spindle that she would unwind

and unwind

with its turn

and unfurl from her skin like a bun of yarn.

Like pretty strips of rashed and thirsty ribbon she could curl and adorn all the charming material

things of life

beneath the scissor blade’s stroke.

And oh! She would see her bones.

And the whole of her anatomy beneath her chin.

She would be so amused she would be famous and would never have to explain a goddam thing.

But this was only as she fantasized: she hated knives, really.

02

The young man Geoff answered the door.

She longed for his face in some special way that reminded her of her loneliness.

He was not so handsome but he possessed in his character a sincerity, an unnameable sort of beauty in his stupid, somehow admirable plainness of being that provoked in her an aching longing to be one with him.

To be quiet and still.

And to be held.

But she had not the patience nor the desperation to pursue such an endeavour – as there would be complications such there is so often with matters concerning the heart.

And she had not the stomach nor the immediate will to look him in the eye.

She apologized for both her tardiness and lack of spirit but there was no concern in his response his mood grand and flavourless as he became quickly distracted, and lured away by some vivacious attraction.

She was stupid to admire him, his fellows jolly and his sunlight oblivious but she allowed herself the kindness.

Uninterested in his bed company, she could never justify her reasoning or anguish.

And so – sparing herself further discomfort – she was sure to tread beyond the circles of conversation in the living room and remained in the kitchen away from music and in the strange comfort of carpeted corridors.

Feeling feverish, she collected ants with the tips of her fingers.

Pressing down upon the little mountaineers as they trailed from plate to plate in the vastness all the vastness of the linoleum countertop.

A plummeting shame soon followed as she flicked each body from beneath her nails and wished so

wished so

that she was one herself.

04

Eden Florence Hafter-Smith

M

ei doesn’t need an alarm to wake her up. The sunlight does it every time. Even with her eyes shut, mid-dream, her unconscious mind can tell that the room is brightening; that’s all it takes to nudge her towards wakefulness. Some mornings, it’s as if the sunlight is physically prising her eyelids apart.

Her bed is a nest of pure white sheets. The mattress is longer and wider than it needs to be. Mei stretches, feeling the blankets slipping off, and she pauses, allowing one little moment of nothingness for herself. Then she gets outs of bed, because lie-ins will not accomplish anything. If she sleeps more, her body will need to sleep more. Mei is seventy-three. Some would argue that it’s a good age to slow down.

But her body hasn’t given up on her yet, so why should she give up on her body?

She tugs on a silk robe (lily-patterned, soft purple), heading into the ensuite bathroom to get a glass of water. Eight glasses a day and no less, she reminds herself. She drinks two in quick succession and brushes her teeth straight after. Then she returns to her room and opens the wardrobe, pulling out a vest top and some three-quarter-length jogging bottoms. Mei doesn’t wear a bra. Even in the prime of her life her breasts were miniscule, and as a result, they never really sagged in the same way that she knows they do on other women. She tugs the vest over her bare torso and pulls on the trousers, tying a sturdy knot at the waist to stop them from slipping down over her narrow hips. Finally, she picks up the utility belt that lies on her bedside table, and straps it on. Then, she heads for the stairs.

The framed pictures along the wall of the staircase offer an abridged version of her life. One step down: a photo of Mei as a child in Tokyo, chubby cheeked, cradled in the arms of her mother. In the background is a cherry blossom tree, bursting with delicate pink blooms that the black and white photograph can’t capture. Two steps down is their last day in Japan, Mei and her father holding hands outside their empty house. Three steps down: her first day at school in England, brand new uniform hanging off her thin frame. She didn’t speak a word of English back then. Steps four and five are group photos – Mei and her friends on their last day at school, and then a Christmas party at the office she once worked at.

Then step six: a picture from her first date with James, an English boy through and through, the son of a local butcher in the suburban town her parents had settled in. Step seven, lucky number seven: the small church from that same town, and a whole host of people gathered on the steps. James wears an immaculate suit, with a pink cherry blossom poking out of the top pocket. Mei is in white, with matching blossoms pinned into her hair. Eight steps down: Mei standing in the snow outside their cottage, one hand resting on her swollen belly, and the other on the handle of a pram, in which a small pink face peers out from the blankets. Nine: James looking dashing in his naval uniform, the day he shipped off. Ten: the women in Mei’s old book club, gathered out in the garden, all wearing sunglasses and holding cocktails.

Mei takes the last few stairs down, skipping the rest of the photos. In twelve steps, she has travelled seventy years. At the bottom of the staircase she pauses, one bare foot hovering a few inches off the floor.

The hallway is softly lit, light filtering in from the entrance hall. Then, she steps down, sinking into grass and springy moss.

* It all started with a peace lily.

The plant was tiny back then, with waxy leaves and white spathes. Her eldest son, Taro, had plunked it down in the dining room the day he came to help Mei move in. This house was bigger than the cottage had been, and far more modern. Every room had large glass windows and white walls, giving the place a sense of lightness and airiness. Most impressive was the enormous conservatory, looking out across sloping lawns and a bubbling river. Mei had stood there, face against the glass, and listened to her grown-up children bickering like they always did.

‘When has Mum ever shown the slightest interest in plants?’ said Hana, clearly trying to keep her voice down.

‘Maybe now is a good time for a new hobby,’ Taro had replied. ‘You know. Something to do with herself.

Stop her from becoming – I don’t know, a shell.’

‘Isn’t that a little patronising? She’s still a person, for God’s sake. She can figure out a hobby for herself.’

A deep sigh. ‘Maybe. It’s a nice plant, though.’

‘Yup. And it will be dead in a week.’

* The peace lily is now three-and-a-half feet tall, and is always the first stop in Mei’s daily tour of the house.

It still sits on the dining room table, overlooking the rest of the room. Surrounding it are several smaller lilies, off-cuts from the original plant.

Mei reaches under the table and retrieves a long-stemmed metal watering can. She waters each lily in turn, watching the liquid trickle down into the soil with a strange tenderness.

The doorbell rings. Mei sets down the watering can and heads to the front end of the house. The grass feels nice between her toes, but as she steps across the threshold into the bright entrance hall, the flooring changes abruptly to hard wooden panelling. Mei crosses to the door, snatching up a small Ziploc bag from a side table as she goes. She moves briskly for a woman of seventy-three. She could probably pass for fifty, to those that don’t know her (and that is most people).

The bell rings again just as Mei reaches the door and wrenches it open. A boy of about seventeen stands there, a bag of compost under one arm and a stack of pots under the other. ‘Good morning, Mrs Kikuchi,’ he says, holding out the pots. Mei takes them, setting them down just inside the front door.

‘Thank you, Shane,’ she says. There is no trace of an accent in her voice anymore. The boy tilts his head, and Mei knows he is trying to look past her into the house. She distracts him by holding out the Ziploc, full to the top with scrunched green buds. Shane’s eyes widen and he takes the bag from her, stuffing it inside his jacket.

‘Would you like to come in?’ says Mei, because she knows the boy will say no. He always does. Perhaps it’s because Mei never makes him pay for the cannabis. Maybe he thinks there are darker things going on in her house, things he’s safer not knowing about.

‘Not today, Mrs Kikuchi,’ Shane says politely. ‘But I’ve got your compost.’ He hands over the heavy bag. ‘What will you need next time?’

‘More orange juice,’ says Mei, stowing the compost bag alongside the plastic flowerpots. ‘But that’s all.’

‘Great,’ says Shane. ‘Well – I’m going to school, then.’ And he heads back down the driveway.

‘Have a good day,’ Mei calls after him, before pulling the door shut.

* The next stop is what Mei has nicknamed the Mint Farm, which takes up one corner of the spacious kitchen.

This was the first of the transformations. Four years ago, on the anniversary of James’s passing, Taro had visited. His son Sebastian had come too (and isn’t that a funny thing – grandchildren? They’re Mei’s, her flesh and blood, but they don’t look like her, not in the slightest. Japanese had mixed with English until none of the resulting features seemed particularly anything).

Sebastian works in one of those posh cocktail bars. He’s a handsome boy, and perfectly nice, but Mei has never had a conversation with him that didn’t feel forced. She doesn’t really know him. On that agonising day, he’d brought his cocktail kit with him, promising to make mojitos with fresh mint – the first drink James had ever bought for Mei. Sebastian even had a packet of mint sprigs with him, and upon arrival, he’d put them in a glass of water on the window, to ‘keep them fresh’. The cocktails were excellent, and the three of them got rather tipsy as they reminisced about James – husband, father, grandfather, gone.

‘Peace lily’s looking good,’ Taro had remarked, as he and Sebastian put on their coats at the end of the evening. ‘Nice to have some – some company, even if it is just a plant.’

Mei had nodded tightly, and as soon as they were gone, hurried up to her room, hot tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. After that, she hadn’t got out of bed properly for two days, aching memories of James and his round face and gentle hands keeping her hidden under the sheets. When Mei finally did make it down to the kitchen, it took her a while to notice that Sebastian’s mint sprigs were still in a glass on the windowsill, little white roots poking out into the water.

* These days, at the Mint Farm, thirty little pots sit in rows beneath the window. The plants wind upwards around wooden skewers, leaves reaching towards the sunlight. On the kitchen counter sit numerous test tubes, holding a variety of different coloured liquids. Mei has been experimenting with watering combinations for the last month; some of these tubes contain only a few drops of thinned-out fruit juice, whereas some are mixed with shop-bought plant food. The furthest on the left has a few drops of Mei’s own blood diluted in the water. She wonders, sometimes, which has more of her blood running through it: the mint plants, or Sebastian.

Each mint pot rests in a little ceramic holder, and it’s into these dishes that Mei pours the contents of the tubes. Before her eyes, the liquid is pulled up through the drainage holes at the base of each pot. She likes watching her plants drink. It’s confirmation that they’re alive and responsive.

Once all the test tubes are empty, Mei goes along the rows, turning each plant to face her instead of the window. ‘Can’t let you get stuck in one shape,’ she tells them sternly.

One of the plants has grown too tall for its splint. Mei reaches for the utility belt at her waist, unhooking a roll of Scotch tape and some scissors. She crosses to one of the kitchen drawers and pulls out some fresh cocktail skewers. Kneeling by the mint in question, Mei tapes the bottom of the new skewer to the top of the original one. Then she cuts another piece of tape and fixes the cowed stem of the mint against the new splint. ‘You’ll be able to do it on your own someday,’ Mei tells the plant.

Later, Mei enters the conservatory, holding a mug of tea. It’s warmer than the rest of the house. All around, on every available surface and piece of floor, plants twist up towards the sunlight. Vines cling to trellises and snake along the ceiling. There are tomato plants and avocado trees and aoniums, bonsais on little tables and spider plants in hanging baskets. The floor here is grassy too, and a rich earthiness pervades the air. This room is the centrepiece, her magnum opus. Outside, the lawns have become a wild meadow, with unkempt grass (several feet high in places) and little flowers dotted amongst the waving blades. Butterflies flit here and there, indistinguishable at a distance from the blooms themselves. Mei thinks it’s beautiful, far more so than when she moved in.

On a coffee table in the middle of the conservatory are her two latest acquisitions. The first is a maple sapling, which she hopes to plant outside. The second is a tall, leafy plant with a speckled stem like a giraffe’s neck: the dracunculus vulgaris.

* She’d opened the door a couple of weeks ago to find Shane on the step, looking more excited than usual.

‘I’ve got one for you, Mrs Kikuchi.’ The pot in his arms contained a speckled sprout about a foot high. ‘I just took the one that looked the most interesting,’ he said. ‘Like you asked for.’

‘Well, it’s definitely interesting,’ she’d replied, digging in her pocket for Shane’s payment, taking the odd plant with one hand and handing over the baggie with the other. ‘You have no idea what it is?’

Shane shrugged. ‘I thought the name was cool.’ He pointed at the label on the side of the plant pot.

‘Dracunculus vulgaris. The “dragon arum”.’

* Since then, the plant has doubled in size. Mei is good at what she does, but not that good, so she’d shuffled over to the barely-used study, where the expensive computer Hana picked out had been gathering dust for months.

According to the internet, the dragon arum could grow up to six feet tall. It was also poisonous, and should one day produce an enormous, deep-purple flower that would give off a smell like rotting meat in order to attract pollinating insects.

Mei could work with that. She likes a challenge. Nothing about this plant could be more difficult than what she’s already accomplished. It took time, effort and patience to get grass to grow indoors. But luckily for her, Mei is an elderly woman in the twenty-first century. She’s always had more time than she knows what to do with.

Outside the conservatory, a breeze picks up, cutting swathes through the long grass. Mei sets down her mug, pondering. The truth is, not even her family has seen what she’s been working on. They talk to her on the phone, and drop by sometimes to take her out for lunch; but when that happens, all they see of her house is the perfectly normal entrance hall. Mei doesn’t want to tell them about her projects until she is sure they will work. Her family might think she is losing it and try to put her in a home, ‘for her safety’.

Mei plucks a fresh, ripe tomato from one of the plants and sinks down onto the grassy floor, crossing her legs. Perhaps, once the dragon arum is past pollination, she’ll invite them over. Can’t risk the rotting meat smell, or they might think something’s died. Mei bites into the tomato, thinking privately that if anybody is going to die here in this room, it will be her.

A cloudless sky looms above the glass roof. Maybe today she’ll go out into the garden. For a while, Mei has been thinking about acquiring another tree, to accompany her maple. Prunus serrulata, she thinks. A cherry blossom.

It was You and Me and the kite surfer’s dog.

A great smelly thing waist high with a lollop.

Interested but not enough to care bones heavy, brain dead from the sea air.

Breathe it in, don’t be afraid deep in your lungs, let it take you away like the toke of a cigarette, clogging your brain; revelling from the nicotine-carcinogen hit.

The Cartoon Dog at the Beach Wind sending chills down our spines, a tremble through both our hands.

You spill cream cheese on your trousers and I try to laugh, an empty cackle clattering from my mouth showering pastry flakes, adding to the injury.

You seem out of place here, Ralph Lauren linen to my Rip Curl knock-offs.

It wasn’t a warm day. Coastal winds always exceeding the heat.

You seemed nervous, tremors humming on your exhalation. A slight grind to your teeth, still pearly white, perfection.

It was only our second time in meeting, the first time just a distant blur.

Silence slipping into our conversation, an unwelcome guest to our rendezvous.

I look down, the sand turning brown, a dog-end slipping through the toe of my sandal.

You look down, the sand no longer white a mucky yellow.

There’s a needle by your shoe, but we’re beyond caring, bones heavy, brain dead.

I stumble over my words,

I look at the dog, his eyes wide like saucepans

over-chewing the cloying pastry,

mocking my fear, cartoon-like in his dopiness

cementing my mouth shut.

but he’s not a dog at all.

You pick at your salmon, a slight shake to your fingers, both conscious of the time and the bystanders.

Bottoms numbing on great trunks of drift wood (we pondered how it was possible) our shoes sinking in the white sand.

The air began to wear off, our bodies adjusting to our intake.

Millie Bull

Daisy Petal Love

Kicking heels through the corridor of hawthorn under the blanket of spring and scented blossom.

Crunching on an empty snail shell shattering into a mosaic of brown shards.

Tennyson’s blackbird singing to impress I was.

Absentmindedly plucking the untainted white petals of a daisy singing ‘loves me – loves me not’ until only the sun domed head was left so apparently not.

They parted

Kathryn Lacey

09

creating an unwilling anarchist.

When I was a grown up how could they guide me through the blizzard with my torch steamed up and confused with a zigzag for a beam?

Oh beautiful Mother, led to the garden to consider the apple so ripe.

The circle got bent the wheel distorted and all for a little death.

10 The Phylactery Tom Shuttleworth

11 T

his place belonged to the Lighthouse Keeper. Twenty metres of barren rock stuck up amid the sea; there was little else for miles. The slim, white tower stood with metal roots plunging deep into the rock. It was a solid place. Strong. Yet for all its presence on Earth, it might as well have been its own little plane of existence.

A heavy door lay at the tower’s foot. It opened wearily at the same time every morning, and out would step the Lighthouse Keeper. He was as you imagine: perfect in his cliché, down to the last white hair of his face, and wrapped all in yellow. He walked with a pained gait toward a rowing boat wedged between two large boulders. The cracked leather of his hands reached down to the rope, and with a speed taught by memory he detached the cord. Before he could turn back, something caught his silver eye: there was a crate in the water.

The Lighthouse Keeper extracted an oar from the boat, and rolled up his sleeves. There were marks upon his wrists – great bands of missing flesh – yet they did not seem to detract from his strength. He used the oar to pull in the wooden box that was drifting a few feet from the shore.

As he bent down to retrieve his prize, he noticed that a hand clung to the metal handle.

Attached was the body of a man. The Keeper grimaced. He raised the oar above his head before bringing it down sharply upon the corpse’s wrist. He struck, and struck again, until the corpse’s tendons snapped and the bloated flesh oozed apart, allowing him to pull the box ashore. With a grunt he levered it open, and found there was nothing inside.

The Lighthouse Keeper threw the box back into the sea to join the dead man, whose dark, mournful face stared back at him from the shallows with empty eyes. And as the Keeper watched, a slither of blue light appeared to fall from the man’s pocket, sinking down onto a rock several metres beneath the waves. There are many things that inspire action – grief, love, anger, greed, curiosity; each can make a man move.

The Keeper lent forward, his silvery eyes peering down into the water. He removed his large, woollen jumper to reveal a pale, freckled body. It was that of a powerful man diminished by age – overly meaty in places, and sparsely covered by wisps of hair. Yet as he removed his trousers and stood straight, he looked somehow more alive. With surprising grace, the Lighthouse Keeper dived into the ocean. He rose to the surface, and for a few moments he bobbed there like a bearded cork. He sucked in a vast chest-full of air and dived down below the surface.

He had no trouble opening his eyes beneath the waves, though he could scarce see clearly.

The blue light guided him on his path downward. From the surface it had seemed shallow, but it took him a long time to claw his way down through the water to the rocky shelf where the light had fallen. And there, at last, it was. A large glass phylactery, stoppered and corked. The Lighthouse Keeper snatched it from its perch.

In a few moments he erupted back at the surface. And in the time it had taken him to dive, the sky had become overcast, broody. It churned menacingly above his head, the morning devoured by the storm. He clambered out onto the rocks as the rain began to spatter and retrieved his clothes. Swaddling the glass, he climbed back up to the door.

Once inside his tower, the Lighthouse Keeper set the ornate phylactery down on the middle of the dining table, and cast his clothes upon a chair. He pondered for a second, before moving across the room to the kettle. Outside the storm was beginning to rage; the sun had retreated to the point it might as well have been evening. Yet the Lighthouse Keeper did not move to ignite the lamp at the top of the tower, and outside the bodies of more men crashed against the waves and the rocks.

At long last, the Keeper wondered if he had been foolish. But then again, bottles set adrift so often find themselves in places such as these. The Keeper had waited years for this moment.

Many years. Possibly more than you could fathom. If I am pessimistic, dear readers, it is only because I have dabbled in geology, where millennia pass like men’s breath.

This place was here at Alexandria’s height, before Sphinx and sand. Here before the beautiful Sophia, and long after her rape. And he, the Lighthouse Keeper had gone east, beyond the boundaries of the known world to the palaces of the Ming, with histories set in jade. He had sailed west with the turn of great empires, to new lands and new men, to a continent bereft and civilizations set low, only to see them rebuilt by new men and new ideas. And he had seen Europe fall time and again at its own throat, where great men and great deeds were marred by the barbarous acts of others.

And that is what he, the Lighthouse Keeper, had taken from his observations. A people, a species marred by its own nature, he thought, rubbing his eyes with his large, wrinkled thumbs.

How could things, so capable of great compassion, of love set apart from nature and certainly from God, be content to live barbarous lives?

The Lighthouse Keeper’s attention was caught by the whistling of the kettle, and by the hammering of rain upon the thick glass windows. It brought him out of his thoughts. It was time. He retrieved a small measure of tea. In it, the leaves of history spun and told a tale of oppression, enterprise, and a curious path to the betterment of a nation far to the east. Returning to his chair, he reached over and un-stoppered the cork.

A tendril, composed of faint gas, or light – it was hard to say – reached tenderly into the world. It explored the air like a small creature. With a smile, he reached over to it, and allowed it to emerge softly, out onto his skin. There it bound itself in place of the missing flesh of his wrists – the blue light, as if melting, turned to golden manacles. The Djinn was whole again.

I shifted in my chair, as if testing the weight of the change. And it was vast. I am myself again, I thought. How weary a thing it was to be a man: to be flesh and blood and pounding things. I smiled a smile that stretched my teeth. Santiago, I thought, recalling a name I thought was lost to me. It was no Tom, Dick or Aladdin that had made me mortal for a time. No. To be so kind as to bestow a single wish upon a poor spirit such as myself, was not the mark of good. Not when two others could bring you all the wealth and power in the world. No. Santiago was a man apart.

A thousand years before, when I the Djinn had emerged from my bottle, I had asked what it was the man desired, and Santiago did not answer.

‘I have not earned you,’ he replied after long thought beneath an apple tree. ‘What I want is of no matter.’

‘And yet I can give it to you,’ I replied.

‘I would ask you what you want, spirit. In all your years, you must have considered such a thing? But that would do you no good. Nor as it would do me to indulge my own desires. I would ask you a question instead. What is it you need?’

I was silent.

‘I will tell you,’ said Santiago. ‘To see the world with my eyes, for so long as you need. A wish for yourself. And?’ ‘To return to my own self when I am done,’ I replied. And it was done, the bargain struck, and Santiago died. For Djinns are naught but burning spirit. So I wore Santiago’s skin, not maliciously, but as a point of pride. He had been a thoughtful and generous man. And to be clad in him was a great honour. I resolved to do good in his name. But to be a man was a weary thing indeed.

What good can I do? I had thought. So I partook of man, and saw his markets and his streets and the homes of families. I took a wife, bore a dozen children with her, and watched as she, and they too grew old and died. If Djinn have hearts of fire then mine was diminished. And so I partook of war, and did great harm to men in my grief. I found them only flesh. They sorrowed me. For even a spirit is nothing to man in wickedness.

I attempted good wherever I went, but even where I succeeded, time and people eroded my work. In the end, I retired to this peaceful place and built myself a tower in which to dwell. I knew that my phylactery had been cast into the sea. Consider it serendipity I thought, but the universe has a sense of humour. I knew it would be a matter of time until it came back to me.

So there I sat, naked and bold, with a single wish bestowed upon me to do with what I could.

And what good could I do for this world? I pondered. This question has tortured me for far too long. I will be rid of it. The storm shall not go on.

I could wish peace – the disarmament of all men the world over. But what good would that do? Were I to take all knowledge of destruction from them, they would bludgeon one another with rocks. What ironic equilibrium they have found, that has done more for them than the fools realise. And those slow minds that speak for peace undoing that which ensures their safety. I shall not wish for that.

Though powerful, I am not a god, I acknowledge it. I cannot change the base nature of man, nor would I consider it if I could. How insipid, how dull a world it would be with no conflict: the mother of art. Perhaps then I should wish for a drought, or some other cataclysmic event. To create chaos that someday it might provide a bastion of literature, or a towering symphony. But what monster would I be then? Moreover, these men will create such things themselves. What good is a tear in an already swollen river?

You know, I think if it were in my power I would wish them less self-righteous. I have lived through self-proclaimed kings, and grand reformers, through two-faced emancipators and humble men who rape and kill in the name of their perfect world. There is nothing more insufferable than those who are, without a single splinter of a doubt, so certain they are good: you guilty saints who walk with choral voices and leave tar in your wake for those with clever eyes to see.

I recoiled in my chair. For at last I understood. As the wind whipped outside, threatening to tear the glass from its panes and bring the whole tower tumbling into the sea, I understood.

In the body of the good man I sipped my tea, aware of the irony that a good man’s wish had destroyed him, as the good are so often destroyed by their dreams.

I had found my purpose. I wished away my wish, consigning it to the void where all should cast such terrible hopes. For wishes are naught but desires, and desires are nothing but words cast freely into the air without cost or consequence to the singer. And guilty saints sing ever so well. Good: was there ever so costly a thing? I wondered, draining the last of my tea. No. I exist to punish those who wish.

And for the first time in a thousand years, the Djinn became air. He drifted from the eyes of the good man, a stream of blue and silver tears that fell in an arc into the phylactery. And there, beside good Santiago, he waited.

On Giving r My Mothe Her Deep Green Sea I’ve taken the sharks out and pickled all their teeth.

The water will be colder if

Bethan Thomas

you swim there at night.

But some people think it’s better you don’t try at all.

14

e h T nt’s a s i e G Bon I live on a Giant’s skull, His jaw clamps and cramps and shuts,

Emma Rimmell

But it gives no breath.

Tight and green, skin on rib, Worm in eye disturb the earth.

My shack touches the bone, And sometimes I forget the dead.

16 Two-faced Fox

I

Amelie Karevoll

t is a place of barbed wire, of pills and padded walls. There, within a darkened room of leather straps and drowsy eyes, a white-coat’s touch lingers. And there in the corner, tomato soup trickles down Mr Herold’s chin, salty red drops splattering against the white table.

And there is us. We, Mr Elliot Fox, spit flying from our mouth as if we were a rabid dog.

Two white-coats drags us down the corridor, past the closed doors and the creatures that lurk by the walls, feet shuffling and eyes downcast as if the very depths of their depravity could be gleaned from a single look. At the end of the corridor, a windowless door awaits; there they dispose of us, hurling our body across the room and taking a stand of crossed arms and narrowed eyes. Our scandalous, indecently crimson hair sticks up every which way and dances before our glint-eyed gaze. We laugh; a shrill, piercing howl that is muffled by the walls, and over the white padded walls are signs of struggle, of claws and fists and bodily fluids.

Dr Gains appears in the open doorway, and I slide back into a dark corner of our mind to give Elliot some space, content to watch for now. The laughter dies down, and Elliot rises to his feet in one swift motion.

‘Creating trouble again, I hear,’ Dr Gains says – the white in his protruding eyes so prominent the intensity of his stare could rival that of an owl. Elliot smooths down his blood-splattered t-shirt.

‘I am terribly sorry, Dr Gains,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

So dreadfully polite, Elliot is. And here I am, prowling the border; ready to pounce forth when his persistence wanes or slink beneath the fence and past his snares to bring bits of suggestions between my jagged teeth. He believes me the nefarious one, dipping my fingers into the delicious flavours of sin and depravity and dark things. But he is not so innocent.

What I embrace, he suppresses. He is the deceiver, after all; the one that steps forth with false niceties and decorum.

17 I force my way forward now, wading through the thick, murky sap that is the result of the pills forced down his throat, and like a madman he clings to rational thought as I nudge at him. A muscle in his eye twitches. Dr Gains stares more intently.

‘You seem calm now, at least, but poor old Rupert hasn’t stopped screaming yet, and his mouth is still bleeding. What did you with – ah, there you are.’ A white-coat appears in the doorway. His brown hair is as bland as his wishy-washy face, and I suspect I will forget about him the moment he is gone.

‘Mr Ammon here is new. You will see a lot of him in the evenings, but for now you will spend the night here, until I am certain you have regained your wits.’ Dr Gains’ nonexistent neck twists toward the door, and his body soon follows, the two white-coats trailing behind him.

Mr Ammon lingers, gaze travelling from Elliot’s bare feet to the puckered scar at his temple. His fingers dig into the pocket of his slacks, his eyes taking on a strange, yellowish sheen. And then his face cracks. Tiny, spider web-like fissures spread across his face. A second later, the cracks are gone, but Elliot and I both startle at the sight, and for a brief moment, we wonder if we are truly mad, the both of us.

But oh, it vexes me that this newcomer, with his insipid features and empty eyes, cracks open his skin in my presence. I surge forward while Elliot is still striving to re-mantle his thoughts. I raise our hand, the one still coated in old Rupert’s blood, and take a good, long lick. Our lips curl up in a wicked smile, showing blood-stained teeth.

Now he sees me, this Mr Ammon, slinking and coiling in those moss-green eyes. He sees me – and he does not react as I expect. Instead he winks, as if we are a circus animal of sorts, performing tricks. In his hand he holds a coin, and he flicks it at us. It lands with a soft thud on the padded floor.

Elliot forces me back into my dark corner of observation as the door closes, and he hacks and spits and curses himself beneath his breath. But his curiosity is as great as mine, and soon he crouches down to study the coin. A three-headed lion stares back at him.

‘Pick it up,’ I whisper. ‘Pick it up, pick it up!’

He does, and the world crashes down around us. We spin and twist like a leaf in a cyclone, torn this way and that. Finally we crash down – or up or to the sides, it is hard to tell – and something in our side snaps. Elliot’s mind churns and I retreat, huddling in my dark corner.

Bile slides down his cheek, and something wet and sticky seeps through his clothes.

When he finally forces his eyes open, it is to see a hoof – that of a cow – sinking into the mud in front of his face. A horn beeps close by, and tyres hurtle past his ear. He stumbles to his feet, crimson hair – normally so gloriously dishevelled – now sticks to his face like some dying vermin. Women in colourful saris veer away, and the scents of spices and sizzling oil assault his senses. He staggers, clutching his head. ‘No,’ he whimpers, pleading for me to stop. But this is not my doing; not some trickery of mine. His carefully composed image lies in bits and pieces under his stumbling feet, obscured beneath the sticky sheet of mud and cow shit coating his drab slacks. From the corner of his eye, the flash of wary gazes peer out from strange faces. He sees them, these faces that become distorted from beneath rain-soaked lashes, and contorted leers follow him as he lurches down the street, shouldering his way through a hissing crowd.

He careens into an alley, and when his back smacks into a wall, he finally stills. His body goes rigid like a day old corpse. His spine arches and the veins in his neck bulge as if ready to burst and release a spray of red. For a moment, I flounder like a fish on land, groping for something; anything to anchor me.

His mind caves, and there is a loud pop that reverberates through his skull. Another follows, then another.

And then the fence comes down.

I swell. I am weightless, afloat on elation and glee. Elliot falls to his knees, but I am there to pick him up.

‘Get up, get up, get up!’ I whoop, but I am the one that straightens our legs. I am the one that draws our shoulders back, and for the first time in years, I can breathe. Gone are the hideous shackles, the dreadful restraints. Our thoughts and wants and desires twine and coil together like a den of serpents, separate but intermingled.

We exhale loudly as we straighten our spine and draw our shoulders back.

We are Mr Elliot Fox, and we are free.

We hum as we feel the mud between our toes, the drops of rain on our face and the warm air as it fills our lungs. And clutched in our palm is the coin. The three-headed lion stares at us expectantly.

‘No time for dallying,’ it seems to say, and we agree. We fist our hand – suddenly terrified of losing it, what will happen if we do? – and stroll out of the alley, our feet making a squish squish sound in the mud. A dark shape in the corner of our eye draws our attention, but when we look, we see only vibrant colours and tacky jewellery glinting in the soft light sneaking past dark clouds. The streets are teeming with life, with lazy cows and rickshaws bumping along the uneven ground. High-rises and shabby shacks stand side by side, pinstriped suits and shoddy linen shirts merging into a thick crowd. Old men with great white beards and clad in orange sheets sit cross-legged along a wall, and, as we pass by, one of them grabs our attention with a hoarse ‘milk man.’ We stop and watch as a grubby-looking joint is passed down the line, and soon the old man holds it out to us between leathery fingers. The smell is sweet and delicious, and somewhere in the back of our head comes a jab of worry.

Heh, why not. We accept the joint and inhale deeply before handing it back, and with toothless grins they touch the orange cloth on top of their heads and point at our hair. We sketch a bow because our hair is glorious and ought to be worshipped, and then we smack a woman’s voluminous backside as she passes.

‘Don’t mind me,’ we say, somewhat apologetic as she squeals angrily. We give the old men a wink before sauntering off.

The rain is still falling, but the world is engulfed in a dazzling light and we hum happily as we make our way toward a row of outside water faucets. A gaggle of children converge on us, and they nip at our heels and the sleeves of our shirt like small, pestering birds.

‘Chocolate,’ their greedy little mouths say in heavily accented English. We narrow our eyes at them and hiss, and they scatter like the cowardly rats they are.

The water is cold, but soon our hair has regained its previous glory of gleaming crimson, and our clothes and skin are free of mud. We munch on an apple snatched from a stall as we continue on our way, only to falter as we spy a small shop of worn planks and plastic cover.

Our eyes go to our feet, toes pressed into the mud.

Soon, we appraise ourselves in a full-length mirror in the corner of a narrow shop crammed with plastic-covered suits and traditional wear. We tuck our new dress shirt into grey slacks, our lips curling with disdain and amusement.

‘Quite poor quality, but it will do,’ we tell our reflection, and our reflection sticks its tongue out in response. We grab the matching jacket and step over the body of the shop-keeper, hesitate, then crouch down.

‘I apologise for...’ We gesture to the scissor sticking out of her bleeding throat. And such a nice throat it was. Such a waste. ‘Terribly rude of me, I know. You see, sometimes I can simply not control myself. It is nothing personal.’ We exhale as if in regret, and the woman’s eyes widen as our exhale quickly turns into a chuckle. Oh, how those eyes annoy us, how they remind us of Dr Gains and his owlish stare. Seeing, watching. We should poke her eyes, poke her eyes and pluck them out and place them in a jar and send them to Dr Gains and – the woman makes a wet gurgle and flinches. We pause, then push to our feet, don our jacket and straighten the cuffs of the sleeves.

‘Excuse me,’ we say, and stroll out of the tiny shop. We glide through the city, soaring like a drunkard from the lack of padded walls and pills and barbed wire. The world is ours and lies at our feet, willing and eager, and saliva gathers in our mouth. We are ravenous, ready to slice and cut and devour. We are Mr Elliot Fox, and we are madmen or adventurers. The coin burns our skin, and we look down at it where it lies in our palm.

‘What now, little lion?’ We stare at it until our surroundings become a blur of colours and white noise, and through the blur we hear a distant voice. Huh. We look up – and someone bumps into our shoulder. The coin topples out of our open palm and spins through the air before lodging in the mud. As if in slow motion, caught in a horrible nightmare, we lunge forward, stretching... and something strong and unyielding and terrible grabs hold of us, and our body lurches backwards.

We lie in vomit, in a white-padded room with signs of struggle. Our thoughts swirl and dance at the edges of our reach, and a voice nudges at us.

‘Elliot.’ A dark silhouette hovers above us, and, slowly, a bland-faced bastard comes into focus.

‘Time to wake up, Elliot.’

‘Time to wake up,’ we repeat. Mr Ammon has moved over to the door, and we look up at him, at his face, with his cracking skin and yellowish sheen in his empty eyes.

We smile.

19

inkblot Holly Morrow

21 Dust hairs on loose limbs Stand like tree roots or fork lightning.

Black peppermint body You inkblot, moving.

Pincers glitch Twitch You curious tooth, scuttling Smooth, like dried glue or acrylic gloss That clean car sheen Oil from a machine Reflection on a dead screen Like a magazine cover You are loose train tracks You are the delves of my fingertips The alcoves of red brick A shot of petrol on jagged legs Beetle, you inkblot moving.

A Secret in Hiding Mara Patraiko

‘I

t’s disgusting,’ Seema’s husband used to tell her. ‘A woman with hands of slime – it’s not human.

My food is prepared by an eel! Hai Ram! I am to go to bed with an eel.’

But sweaty palms suit stowaways nicely. They mean that tissues stick and fingerprints are avoided.

Mani and Layla, the inhabitants of her new home, bought tissues with three layers, which meant that two would last Seema’s hands six days and in the five months that she had been living in Layla’s closet she had used fifty and two thirds. Seema was not worried about getting found out on account of the tissues because Layla used them frequently for blotting her lipstick. Seema smiled down at the pink lip stains on today’s tissue in the bin. She loved Layla best in pink. It was soft and warm and reminded Seema of the orchids that grew by the North Indian Mishmi Hills in the springtime. With her paper-pulp covered palms, she opened the vanity cabinet in front of her and withdrew the nail clippers from their leather pouch. She worked quickly and carefully and snipped off the top of an empty toothpaste tube that had been discarded over the weekend, before making a full-length slit down its side. Bhaagy! Luck! Seema was pleased with the contents; with her perfectly practised frugality it would last her fifteen to twenty small brushes. Happily, neither Mani nor Layla were stubborn squeezers. Using Layla’s electric toothbrush (minus the electricity), Seema gently cleaned her teeth. Positioning her mouth as close to the plughole as possible, she released the minty foam from behind her lips.

Seema found her eyes drawn up to the bright blue mouthwash that stood on the shelf below the nail clippers. One day she would really love to know what just a little bit of a washed mouth tasted like. Maybe fresh air, she thought, or maybe salty like the sea. She rinsed the sink and dried it with the floral bedsheet she had brought with her from the closet. When she was finished, she removed the hairdryer from its holdall and aimed the warm air at the wet bristles of Layla’s toothbrush, just in case it wasn’t dry by five o’clock. ‘Just in case’ was one hundred times a day for Seema now, and in all actuality, she’d grown to not really minding it very much at all. She returned the toothbrush and the nail clippers and used her hands’ damp tissues to wrap up the toothpaste tube to take back to the closet later.

Seema laid the bedsheet along the length of the bath, tucking the now damp fabric over itself in a seam to ensure complete coverage of the heated tile floor, before stepping into the tub. Of course, she would have liked to be met by steamy water which would soothe her stiff body bit by bit until total immersion.

Although, Seema thought, she was feeling less stiff these days. She’d learned to negotiate her elbows and her knees and her neck into positions that caused minimal strain. She’d also learned that having a very, very small space was quite wonderful when it was solely her own. Her naked body met the empty drum and she reached for the taps. The cold she turned in a full clockwise circle, the hot in an anti-clockwise quarter circle. The Butalias didn’t receive itemised water bills and Seema knew that, but in all honesty, she didn’t need hot baths with deep water. As a child, a wife, she had never had that before; she could see little good reason to start now. The water didn’t need to run long before it had covered Seema’s slight body. Methodically, she raised both arms and both legs out of the water, checking them for signs of weight loss. Even though she wasn’t eating much, she decided that she hadn’t lost anything.

Ever since childhood she had found it hard to gain or lose weight. Her father used to tell her that she was a woman of nothingness. He had warned her that she needed to gain mass or no man would take her.

The more Seema ate, the more disappointed her parents grew.

‘A disobedient body to match a disobedient mind,’ her father would grumble, until one day, ‘stuti ho!

Praise be!’ He had found her a husband. He was older than her parents would have perhaps liked, and with less money, but her father was elated and they were married within the month. On the eve of the wedding – Seema’s last night under her parents’ roof – she had overheard a conversation in which her mother had said to her father, ‘Are we doing wrong, my jaan? You know he wants her because of the way she looks, not despite it.’

‘We have no choice now. Krpaya, may the Gods forgive us.’

But childlike looks meant a childlike stomach and childlike hips. It meant four miscarriages, a broken nose, purple breasts and a fractured tibia.

Remembering the splintering pain, she reached for the lump on the right leg which had never entirely healed. She ran her palms up and down, feeling the hair growth that she had been allowed since she left her husband. It was protective, she thought, and there’s comfort in that. Layla’s razor rested between the soaps on the sea-shell dish by the taps. Would Layla like to not shave? If Mani wasn’t around, if maybe someone like Seema was in his place, would she still? If Layla didn’t want to, that would be completely fine with someone like Seema. Completely.

Thoughts of Layla’s freedom, its nothingness, brought a wave of nausea down and over Seema. If it wasn’t for necessity, she would have really liked to have had a break from the ensuite bathroom for a few days. On Sunday, she had been grateful that it was a Sunday and therefore she was unable to wash because Mani and Layla were home. On Monday, she waited until two o’clock which was far too dangerous considering that Layla returned from her job in New Delhi at five-thirty. All morning she had told herself, today, today I’ll let her find me. Discovery had to be better than helplessness.

On Saturday night Mani and Layla had come home from dinner. Mani must have forced Layla to drink because Layla was laughing more than usual. No, not laughing, giggling, so high pitched, so girly and Seema couldn’t bear it. That wasn’t the real Layla. It was whilst Layla was brushing her teeth in the ensuite that Mani came up behind her. From the closet, Seema heard a shriek – and that’s when she went to see because she couldn’t stand to just listen. This was Layla in trouble; she needed to know what he was doing to her. She was ready to get caught, she was entirely ready to be noticed, to be beaten and physically thrown out of the house. She positioned herself behind the crack in the open bathroom door.

Mani didn’t seem to care that the door was open and that made Seema tremble with rage. He does whatever he wants, allowing her absolutely no decency. Men have no shame. He stripped her then and pushed her against the towel rack. She giggled more and wiggled her plump backside. That must be something he’s told her to do, a performance she’s to adhere to on threat of punishment. Mani kept his clothes on whilst he screwed her. Layla moaned and tears ran down Seema’s face. He was hurting her. He was a very horrible man standing there in his patent brown dinner shoes, breaking the body of his wife and the heart of the woman who loved her.

Even now the sting of cowardice tightened behind Seema’s eyes: a compression headache of selfloathing and guilt. The reality, for which she had punished herself by biting skin off her lips, was that if she were to step in she would be sentencing herself to the streets, and more than that, the risk of being found by her husband. There was something else, too. Something else that bore into Seema’s guilty conscience as she lay there in the water, worse even than not saving Layla from Mani’s hands. When she had first moved into the closet, she had stolen an entire bottle of fabric softener so that she could smell like the other clothes in the closet.

Reaching for the container now, she poured two thimbles full into its cap, swirled it with added bath water and tipped it onto her hair. Her nails helped to work it in to her dry scalp and even though it itched and itched, she kept on. Afterwards, she repeated the swirling process and applied the mixture under her arms and between her legs. Before, the smell had quite pleased Seema. It was cotton, clean and white and although she didn’t feel any softer, she could smell that she was. Now the smell made her sick. Now she knew Layla and how she was in charge of the shopping, and how Mani must have reacted when she had forgotten to purchase something as important as fabric softener. She never witnessed a punishment, yet she couldn’t stop herself imagining what it must have been, a beating maybe – but she hadn’t seen any marks on Layla’s body. Maybe denial of food or drink. It couldn’t be sex because that was happening before and men always think of ways to improve upon pain of the past. A feeling of dread made Seema’s body shiver in the tepid water. She closed her eyes but she couldn’t shake the thought: maybe Mani hadn’t punished Layla yet because it was a discipline in saving. Like money in a bank account that you spend all at once. Seema’s husband liked having those bank accounts. Sweaty hands, undercooked rice and a face for which the purchase of make-up was becoming a necessity. Foot-sized bruises are hard to ignore and require payment from both parties.

When Seema was satisfied that she smelled as sickly as the fabric softener, she allowed herself just a tiny bit more hot water. That wasn’t something that she did every day, hardly ever actually, but it made memories of blue on blue easier to comfort. That wasn’t who she was anymore. She takes warm baths now.

She uses fabric softener. When the water turned cold again she drained it, watching it abandon her thin brown body bit by bit before stepping out onto the warm floor and drying her feet and her calves. Not dripping and not splashing was something that Seema was good at. She was careful and proud. Using the bath’s shower head on its lowest setting, Seema washed away her evidence and dried it thoroughly with her sheet. The silver handles on the bath sparkled.

The sheet was damp but still warm and Seema wrapped it around herself in a quick sari. Once more she checked the bath, the toilet, the sink and the door handles before walking back through the bedroom and into Layla’s closet. Behind the back three rows of clothes she found her home, just as she had left it an hour ago. Yesterday’s sheet was now dry and she switched the two, pinning today’s up between three wooden coat-hangers. From the calculated position where her head settled she could see a small portion of the bed, Layla’s bit. She felt comforted knowing that when she dreamed of her husband she would wake up to see Layla. Seema closed her eyes and felt her body sink into the carpet. It was something she’d do now to help her relax, to find calm. It was about accepting her confines instead of fighting them; making them adapt to her. She visualized, as she often had practised, herself on the other side of the bed, the same view but from a different angle. That’s all it was, that’s all it had been, but Seema found peace in the knowledge that who she was to Layla for the time being wouldn’t be the same forever – because if there was one thing she knew how to do now, it was escape.

24

{

Cretan love is trousers-down

on the bonnet of a dust-red car.

It is a symphony by starlight conducted with tongues.

It is bronze freckles on salt-laden skin

and wondering hands beneath shimmering waves.

Cretan Love

Sam Munday

26

Rendez-Vous Stephanie Buchler

Rendez---Vous Rendez Vous

I

t happens the moment you step out of the door to light your cigarette. There she is – the person you were least expecting – standing next to the bus stop on the other side of the road. Her black headphones are plugged in her left ear only and her face is buried in a book. The unexpected sight of her, Éloïse – the first woman you loved – makes your heart flutter as though you’ve just missed a couple of steps while descending an interminably long staircase. You suddenly feel dizzy, but you know it’s not from drinking a full glass of wine on an empty stomach. What do you do? As if compelled by some uncontrollable, external force, you stay still and immobile. Something tells you this is a result of fate, even though you don’t usually believe in that kind of stuff. Then she looks up from her book and you realise it’s too late to run away. Your eyes meet, like you remember them meeting a thousand times before. How does it feel? You attempt to take control over your limbs again by taking a deep inhale from your distasteful Marlboro cigarette. You are slowly letting the heavy smoke penetrate your mouth and invade your lungs – yes, you’re allowing the toxic smoke back into your system again after all these months of lightness and self-control. And eventually, you let the corners of your mouth rise and produce a smile while allowing your feet to make their steps across the road.

*

One hour earlier, you have no idea your blind date is going to end with this surreal encounter. Standing in front of your mirror, nervous and clueless, you’re having a classic crisis about what to wear. The check shirt you’re already wearing is a bit too casual, and the tight black dress Danièle suggested is too daring and flirtatious for a first date, in your opinion. After all, you’re only meeting at Rendez-Vous, which isn’t exactly a fancy place. And while this shirt feels the most comfortable to you, it does makes you look a bit like a gamine, especially combined with those ripped jeans you’re about to take out of your closet.

You check your phone – eight more minutes until you definitely need to pop out of the house. So you opt for your favourite pair of black skinny jeans and the floral blouse you bought a while ago, but never wore because you decided to keep it for a special occasion. Isn’t today the perfect time to show it off?

Before you’re finally ready to leave, you stop in front of the mirror one last time and reassure yourself that yes, this is an acceptable outfit for your first date in what feels like ten years. Now, the only missing detail is the blood red lipstick, your favourite tool to fake confidence. Throughout the past, you’ve learned to manage the art of a perfectly bold and sharp red lip, which has now become your dearest signature to distract from your evident inner insecurities.

On the bus, you quietly chuckle to yourself. Yes, you still find it funny that you’re actually going on this date. You never had an opinion about online dating until Danièle made you a profile last week, convinced it was time for you to get out again.

‘How much longer do you want to dwell in your old memories? It’s time to leave your comfort zone, and it will be a good distraction,’ she told you while downloading a questionable app onto your phone.

Although you tried to convince her that you were happy without a new relationship, she had already started filling out your interests and was asking you which picture you wanted her to upload for your new account. Why did nobody understand that the only thing you wanted was for people to stop pushing you into a new relationship? After all, you had only just started to appreciate solitude again and plus, you weren’t even sure if you were willing to let go of the past.

Your watch says 17:42. Of course you’re early. Instead of waiting in the cold, you tell yourself it’s probably a good idea to make your way to the café already and get a drink to soothe your nerves while you wait. Although it’s generally one of the busiest hangout spots in town, the only customers keeping Rendez-Vous busy tonight are a group of four businessmen having their after-work beer and a few lycéens, who you guess have been sitting here all afternoon. You’re not complaining about this; after all, the fewer people around, the smaller the chance you will run into someone familiar. You spot a small free table at the back without much difficulty, but decide to make your way to the counter and go buy yourself a drink first.

‘Un verre de rosé, s’il-vous-plaît,’ you say while fishing your wallet out of your bag. ‘Ça fait deux soixante,’ the young, blonde bartender responds while opening a new bottle and pouring the pink liquid into a glass. You look around the café to check if he hasn’t arrived – of course he hasn’t.

Would it be bad to cancel? It would be a nasty move, but the longer you sit on the wooden chair, the full wine glass on the black marble table in front of you, bizarre electronic jazz music blasting through the speakers just above your head, the more you wish to run away. Although you hate her in this moment, you feel tempted to grab your phone and ask Danièle for advice. Maybe she would understand if she heard the crippling anxiety in your voice that it’s too soon and you’re just not ready yet. But then again, you know her well enough to know she wouldn’t encourage this decision. So you take a few sips of the cheap Italian rosé and wait. After all, you’ve managed to teach yourself to be more independent over the past few months. Still, even though you look all fierce and confident with your outfit and your red lipstick, your inner voice is not easily tamed tonight.

*

27

17:57. You’re reminded of the fact that the nervous compulsion of looking at your watch every few seconds is something you haven’t been doing a lot anymore. Kind of self-explanatory, as you’ve been hiding in your room not doing much but writing. Then again, it takes you back to the many times you’ve been here, waiting for her, waiting for Éloïse. She had this annoying habit of always managing to be late, somehow – it annoyed the hell out of you, but you know, if you love someone, even their flaws become something you find adorable. Now that you’ve thought about Éloïse, you’re starting to feel even more uncomfortable about your blind date, and the fact that you’re meeting here, in this old environment that feels so familiar. After all, you don’t want a possible new relationship to start where another one died.

You feel a buzzing sensation in your body. No, it’s not an upcoming panic attack, just your phone vibrating. You check the screen and see his name. He’s going to cancel, you’re sure of it. Why else would he call you now, minutes before you’re supposed to meet? It’s always the same with guys. Maybe he’s just another douchebag who uses dating apps to see lots of girls and drop those who end up not being worth his time. Okay, no, you’re over-analysing. Pick up the damn phone.

‘Salut?’

‘Hey Claudia, it’s me, Jérôme. Listen, I’m terribly sorry, but my boss is making me stay until late…

Gotta take over writing the playlist for the morning show. Is there any chance we can reschedule?’

You’re not sure how to reply. Of course you’re strangely relieved that you don’t have to see him tonight – but do you even want to see him at all?

‘Hi, uhm, it’s alright,’ you reply, trying to sound understanding. ‘You know what, I’m quite busy later this week, so is it cool if I just call you next week to see when I have time?’ You’re actually quite proud of this line.

‘Yeah sure, just tell me when and if you’re still up for it. Again, I’m so, so sorry, really – I was genuinely looking forward… Anyway, I guess I’ll let you, just call me, okay?’

‘I will. Talk to you soon.’

Although you’re not sure if his excuse is actually legit, you’re starting to feel a lot more relaxed than before. You decide not to tell Danièle about this just yet and sit back in your chair and take a big gulp of your now almost empty glass of wine. Again, you wonder why everyone is always trying to make you find your other half, when you know perfectly well how to be happy with your own company. Instead of immediately getting up and rushing back home, you think about getting yourself another drink and enjoy the now much more casual atmosphere of the café for a little longer. So you reach for the left pocket of your coat where you remember placing the change from before, but instead of a few coins, the first object your fingers can grasp is a lighter. Huh? You’re a bit confused about why this lighter is in your coat; after all, you haven’t been smoking in almost a year. Then you remember it’s also been a while since you last wore this coat.

It’s a cheap, green plastic BIC lighter – a simple object, yet you still remember the story of how it found its way into your pocket. You were with her, Éloïse, sitting on a bench in the Old Town during a warm summer night, when two young men joined you and tried to ask you out. You remember getting annoyed and pretended you did not speak any French, as all you wanted was them to leave you alone and find someone else to hit on. When they had finally given up, you realised the taller one with the glasses had dropped his lighter, so you quickly picked it up and buried it in your bag before he could notice it was gone.

It was silly, yet the two of you laughed about this small victory for the rest of the evening. Even though after all these months you had forgotten about this encounter, the lighter was still there, in your pocket where you left it that night.

And now, almost as an ironic result of fate, you’re desperately craving a smoke again. Despite the fact that you quit, you don’t hesitate to ask one of the young women on the table next to you for a cigarette and put on your coat, ready to walk outside.

*

18:12. And so, you’re both sitting there, facing each other, drinks on the table. Same café, same time; a familiar scenario. But the good, old intimacy that once made it all so special – it is gone. Her hair is longer and darker than it was the day she told you she needed space and she now drinks cider instead of beer.

‘So you’re working at the theatre for the entire month?’ you ask, with the hope that she’ll spill some details about her current life situation.

‘Yeah,’ she replies, her eyes focusing on the label of the cider bottle she is holding in her right hand.

Of course she does not reveal too much. She’s still as reserved as she used to be, before you started dating.

Maybe she no longer sees you as someone trustworthy, or she simply does not want to share much about her life with you any more. What if she is seeing someone new? Of course she knows how jealous you can be, and would not want to cause a public scene by sharing this information with you right away. Hmm, maybe you should shift the focus of the conversation.

‘I’ve recently finished this book,’ you start, ‘Si par une nuit d’hiver un voyageur by Italo Calvino. I remember you recommending it to me, last year. I thought I’d give it a go when I saw it in the library a while ago. I admired its peculiar narrative structure. It’s actually inspired one of my latest stories.’

‘Really? I didn’t expect you to like his style,’ she replies, taking a sip of her drink. You try to ignore the judgemental attitude you suspect from her tone. ‘So how’s your writing going, anyway?’

You wonder why she is asking you this now. Does she want to find out if you’ve written anything about her, since? Probably.

‘Alright… I haven’t been feeling very creative recently. It’s mainly been the usual boring, self-reflective stuff. A few articles for magazines here and there. Got a lot of work going on with university in general though, so I haven’t had time for other stuff, really. How about you? Still got killer grades?’ This doesn’t seem like a too intrusive question to ask.

‘Yeah, the usual.’ Éloïse has always been modest about her intelligence, which is what made you fall in love with her in the first place. But now, it’s just another detail that adds to the lifelessness of your conversation. You start to think back to how you’d always feared your first encounter, since it happened, but you never expected it to feel this bleak. You dreamed about being filled with guilt and anger and energetically shouting at her, and feared you would realise that you still felt the desire to kiss her even after everything that happened. But the way you feel now is somehow surprising. There you are, both different people from when you last met, having forced small talk – the people around you could think she was your blind date. How do you feel? After the initial shock of being confronted with her existence, being reassured that she still does exist in flesh and skin, you don’t feel any different. Sure, there are some scars that have just been opened a little, but you’re startled you don’t have any stronger emotions about her anymore. Then, you think, maybe breakups are supposed to feel like this. Like the temporary but intense pain you had to endure as a child, when your mother would rapidly rip off a plaster off your knee before you were free to run off and start playing again.

So why stay in this awkward environment any longer? There isn’t a lot of rosé left in your glass any more, and after one final gulp, there isn’t anything left, binding you to this situation. Oh wait; actually there is one more thing to do before you can finally leave. You let your hand wander into your pocket and place the lighter on the table before producing one final smile.

‘Well, I guess it’s time for me to go. Good luck with your studies, and take care.’ A brief, concluding eye contact, then a nod from Éloïse.

And you know you don’t have to say or do any more. Like a child, you’re now free to run off.

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Copyright Š Vortex 2016 ISSN 1749-7191

vortex 2016 Edition