The Looking Glass: Volume Two, Page 2

Foreword

  David Zendle

  In late 2009, there was a stitch missing in the creative fabric of the University of York. Dozens of students were avidly writing plays, short stories and poems, but there was no single place in which these pieces could be published: the community had an active mind, but no voice. Frustrated by this, a small group of students from the university's English department set out to collate the best pieces of creative writing that the university had to offer and publish it in a yearly anthology. Thanks to the support of the department itself and the FR Leavis Fund, our task was a success, and the first edition of The Looking Glass sold out almost instantly.

  This year, we've returned as a YUSU society, officially ratified, and our editors (and authors) come from departments of the University as diverse as Physics and History. This was all made possible by the dedication of a small but hard-working group of individuals. I'd also like to thank David Attwell – without his support and encouragement there would never have been a first issue of The Looking Glass, let alone a second one. Thanks are also due to the York Annual Fund, who provided a significant chunk of our funding. Finally (and most importantly), I'd like to thank our editors and, especially, our authors. Having the bravery to submit a piece of fiction to public scrutiny takes incredible determination, and I'd like to thank you all for the courage you've shown by allowing yourself to become so intensely vulnerable.

  With that said, I hope you enjoy our second issue!

  David Zendle, Editor-in-Chief

  On The Art of Empty Poetry

  Libby Brown

  I can write for you

  Rippled notes,

  Of future exploitations,

  Love,

  Retching, and purging

  Of anatomy and intoxicated

  Meta-poise.

  Inked limbs and trepid clawing of

  Knives on ice as we

  Fall and cling and vaunt a maudlin prayer,

  For rippled notes,

  Of future exploitations,

  Love,

  And tepidity,

  Lacking in a

  Loquacious letter, or loot.

  Deepening the trip,

  Loosening the grip,

  As we dip and scratch rippled notes,

  Of future elegies,

  And odes to felony.

  I can't do everything.

  East of Barcelona

  Libby Brown

  The lights are hungry. There are seraphim, and salt and a sense of having bones, and being bones. I can move, and my mind is wet ink. The uncarpeted sea swills past my sinews and my skin, inhaling me. I don't have to think. I am part of the sea, East of Barcelona, and the moment seeps from me like an offering. I have something more than language; the silk simplicity of being. Hot and ambiguous words trickle over my retinas, optical language-making as thoughts race to finish themselves before clarity washes over them like the tide. And when your lips touch water it is like kissing the perimeter of a secret – or, perhaps, the scarlet sheen surfacing the King of Spades. Loose and lucid cultural references penetrate and re-penetrate you. I think of East Barcelona, and I think of the water's boneless dancing and of glass, and my frost-blonde hair is clasped by a watery branch and becomes uncoloured by water, until it blends like soft tar with the black body of moisture. It vanishes me. I extinguish myself. I was a drop of gold on a landscape of rippled black. Now I am washed under and washed away to decompose, laughing literature and melting torn pages of my mind which hold nothing but fear, memories and scenes from Macbeth.

  That night I felt that I had bled the sea from my heart, and that the waves dripping up my collarbone were spilt from me. I was there, legs falling into nowhere, before pools of my blood and myself.

  Grandfather

  Christian Foley

  My Grandad exists in his own time capsule

  Which takes the shape of semi-detached house

  With windows peering out like wise but drowsy eyes

  On the steep and sloping street that Time

  Has time and time again chosen to keep the same.

  The same can be said of my Grandad.

  The misty crystal glass glows golden yellow on the front door,

  Thawing the cold corridor, following the slight touch

  Of a wrinkled, wintry index finger to a dull white light switch.

  The door opens slowly, pushing against a heavy carpet

  To reveal someone I expect to be older and more fragile

  Than a snowflake on cold skin melting in the heat

  Of the beaming sun.

  Though when the door opens, I see a man

  Wearing a gleaming grin, unbowed by the weight of the world

  Carried for almost an entire century.

  A shock of white wiry hair continues to work its way outwards

  While thick and bushy eyebrows snake their way inwards

  Above the searching eyes observing the circle of life,

  The birth of a child, the hearse of a wife,

  Hard work and happiness immersed in turbulent strife.

  The same jacket of faded blue zipped to the collar

  Clings to his body, the polished shoes still reflect movements

  In the boss black leather.

  A leathery gnarled hand

  With veins that stand up like ancient tree roots on uneven ground

  Reaches out to bridge our generation gap with a handshake,

  That is not strong, but not nearly as weak as I anticipate.

  Painted pictures of dreamy streams

  And cleanest green landscapes decorate walls.

  The hallway hasn't altered in the fourteen years I remember walking in,

  The first door you see is almost closed, if opened it would bring

  A moment of pain that flashes past the heart in a rapid pulse of memory.

  Momentarily I'm four years old kneeling in front of the telly

  Leaning forwards like the sounds and colours could save me

  From the raw reality that in the next door room, Grandma Lillian

  Had just succumbed to lung cancer.

  I remember so vividly; the program we watched was Watership Down.

  Pacing, racing hares, facing stares from a boy whose heartbeat

  Matched theirs in speed.

  Everything is copper toned, auburn chairs and thick carpet

  Colours of autumn. Kit Kat wrappers glisten silver shining out from

  The bin in the corner of the kitchen, tins of food form in ranks

  On the shelf. Health, my Grandad says, comes from sleep.

  Deep slumber, the frail chest rising and falling like tragic heroes.

  Books and plays scattered haphazardly like a shattered mosaic

  Prosaic letters echo the sentiment if something has to be said

  Go say it, my Grandad tells it like it is.

  He's my shallow breathing reminder that nothing lasts forever.

  Summer won't spring into winter but May March slowly

  Into seasons where breezes freeze features or gusts of cold air

  Mean weakness, he greets us and sits down in the same chair.

  For an evening, everything is preserved like museums.

  I can pretend like a child that nothing in my own life has changed.

  When I leave I return to the running river of comings and goings,

  The humming and sewing of Grandma may have gone but

  The house is a memory, our safe haven of the past. I seek asylum there.

  We all know that one day Time will take its toll, but for now...

  My Grandad exists in his own time capsule

  Which takes the shape of semi-detached house

  With windows peering out like wise but drowsy eyes

  On the steep and sloping street that Time

  Has time and time again chosen to keep the same.

  Mathematics

  Catherine Bennett

  It's like mathematics,
the way

  we become opposite and equal

  sides of the equation. You push your

  hands through me; they clot in my hair

  and we lay there,

  nose to nose,

  occasionally misting up each other's faces

  with our breath.

  I tell you we're parentheses

  surrounding a nothing, or

  the nothing is a something and the something

  is that dream we each have

  of our past lovers. I pretend you're

  thinking of your last fuck, while we fuck,

  because it makes me jealous and I always

  fuck better when I'm seething.

  You know this,

  know these symmetry-games I play, matching

  the holes in your body to the parts of her that

  must have been placed there; I am like a child

  learning shapes and numbers.

  Circle. Square. Take away

  and you have the proportional nth amount,

  or the negative number that fills us.

  You are you, +1, and minus all your old loves.

  But mathematics does not show the trail they leave,

  the ghost-fuck always between us, the droplets of

  him still salting my stomach.

  You can taste him,

  the unknown amount – let's call

  him z – but by working backwards you can

  discover his mass,

  the bulk of him that you replace, the number

  recurring.

  We are the probability of it,

  the sheer unlikelihood that humans

  can fit each other like a mechanism,

  whirring and spitting,

  the statistical blunder of negative number.

  A clock which turns backwards, a bed left

  yellowing in dirty light.

  The sum of it all is n, where n

  is the aggregate of memories

  palpable.

  It Looked Like Scarborough, But It Felt Like Florida

  Christopher Fraser

  You were standing out in the ocean when I arrived, just at the point where the top of each wave brushed against your neck. It was one in the morning. The light came from the arcades behind me, and the moon, and that was about it. There was that strange aural dynamic - far-off chaos, but immediate stillness. The atmosphere of the loner hanging around in the garden at every house party you've ever been to. Everyone else was inside, their £5 notes drawn to change machines like moths to a flame.

  "Come on in," you said. I almost expected you to say "the water’s lovely". That's what people say, right? I shook my head. It's not exactly a fear, but I have a problem with the sea. I think it's one of hassle – the hassle of getting sand in your toes, of the awkwardness of drying off in public.

  This was our first meeting; you in the water, me on the shore. Not to get too steeped in metaphor, but that was a pretty accurate description of every girl I'd ever met. There I always was, drawn to those enveloped in complexity, mystery, a whole bundle of paradoxes and details and connections to every part of life, with me sheepishly hanging around the periphery. Not scared to join in, but too content with my own life to want to risk it.

  You blinked, and stared with a new intensity. You reminded me of someone. Scratch that - a few people. Resigned, I tugged off my T-shirt, lost the sandals, and stepped into the sea. A smile. The memories glowed a little brighter. Strange. This wasn't déjà vu - I hadn't been here before, hadn't seen you before, hadn't - for that matter - ever been into the sea, if you forget the six-year-old me being led, hand in hand, by my mother, in one of the quieter resorts of Majorca. This was new, definitely; but at the same time familiar.

  Your hair was cropped short. Your face: ordinary-looking, besides that smile, a smile that was burning through me. I tried walking up to meet you until most of my body was submerged, then swam the rest of the distance. We were a long way from land. I didn't have my contact lenses in, and the details of the seafront were blurred and confusing, a streak of light giving way to blackness. I couldn't even see the stars like this.

  I turned to face you, and all the details came back into focus. Every time I placed who you reminded me of, my mind shifted somewhere else. I'd notice your piercing eyes, think of a childhood sweetheart, and then immediately be reminded of my best friend by the way you reached up and scratched your ear. And, looking down, I could see that you had my mother's shoulders, the skull structure of my grandmother, and - judging by the way you suddenly laughed without provocation - the sense of humour of my father. He was always laughing for no reason, and he'd never say why.

  Funny, but I didn't feel uncomfortable just looking into your eyes. Call it a fear of connecting, but generally it was my one big flaw - talking to people, I'd always look at the table, my fingernails - anything but make eye contact for more than a couple of seconds. You, though - I felt comfortable with you. We'd just met, but the way you looked at me made me feel safe.

  I closed my eyes, just to listen to the sound of the waves, and the mariachi-influenced jazz music piped through loudspeakers along the bay, and the far-off chatter. Peaceful sounds. No pressure. I'd come here to escape the stress, and it was working so far. I hadn't spoken to anyone from home in weeks. And I'd switched everything off - no-one from home could speak to me.

  My eyes opened when I felt your hand on my waist. I looked over at you, and you'd moved forward. You gazed at me again, the smile gone, looking as if you were about to tell me something deadly serious, and then pulled me close. I thought to resist, then didn't. This was strange, but at the same time... it felt too natural to object to it.

  Our arms wrapped around each other, the waves slowly flowing across our shoulders and breaking hundreds of yards off. I could have stayed there forever.

  Lesson Plan

  Laurence Cook

  The following is an instruction on how to create an exact reproduction of an autumn morning in 2007; the text is copied verbatim from a teacher. Please pay close attention to the following stage directions before using this lesson plan.

  Epigraph

  ‘bird’s egg blue and until that and nothing else there is the permanence of something I’ve forgotten’

  Setting

  A large blue modern classroom on the top floor of a building, the back wall is completely glass and looks out onto a busy roundabout beyond a patch of grass below. The noise of this should be constant throughout and half-open blinds periodically sway to reveal more, and then less, pale light. It is cold; at least ten Students should still be wearing coats or huddling into the desks for lack of them.

  Cast

  Teacher: a man, 32. Tall. Glasses.

  Students

  …

  Teacher: (The passing round of handouts may serve as punctuation. Copies should be bad to awful - though legible, they should look as if they had been scanned from an old edition and then copied again if not actually produced in this way.) I’ve copied this, because I think it’s something you should be aware of. If you don’t understand or - getting it doesn’t matter, what is important is that you see things like this and that you… It’s not on the syllabus and, again, this is not something you need to worry about… in fact I forbid you to worry about this. (Instructive) This poem is not something anybody needs to worry about.

  (Teacher then returns to the front.)

  …

  Epilogue

  ‘At this point Miss Baker said:

  ‘Absolutely!’

  with such a suddenness that

  I started – it was the first word

  she had said since I

  came into the room.

  Don’t worry it doesn’t mean much really’

  Notes

  Something should be mentioned about the feelings that should be evoked, though I can give no specific guidance on how these are achieved: An unspoken and as yet unrealised understanding between Students and Teac
her, a feeling of the rest of the world passing by behind you (though this is somewhat achieved through the use of the window and roundabout behind the Students, it can probably be taken further), the feeling of one complete moment.

  Sometimes I’m Glad

  Laurence Cook

  Sometimes I’m glad this isn’t forever.

  the raingrey days of

  early summer –

  the black shining slates on roofs

  are important because they won’t

  always sit slap slap on top of each other.

  some solace

  in the ability to shut

  everything out once and for all

  as a thick window to an autumn storm

  Or

  to let hot, balmy day in

  completely,

  just until the cool of night.

  A Young Toad’s Travels

  Micky Nolan

  Johnny thought, with his fluorescent imagination,

  of the things he could do if only he had the patience.

  So, once upon a toad, he wished to walk the road,

  to find the spices of his life, that which he loathed.

  And so Johnny went on his way, peeling his eyes as he goes,

  until he came across a woman, covered in herbs from head to toe.

  'How do you do?' said Johnny, 'What may it be?

  I'm sorry to say this, love, but you're looking like a tree!'

  'Business as usual.' she said, 'That's the reason for the load.

  There's a lot of stuff back there - but there's nothing for a toad!'

  Disappointed as he was, Johnny searched through night and day,

  It was a long and dreary road, not that he minded anyway.

  Then alas, after years of searching, the time finally came,

  A quite exuberant fellow he was, he didn't even have a name.

  So with a great sigh, Johnny explained, his words cold and flat, but bold and plain,

  But the man understood what he had to proclaim.

  So the trees blew, and the grass grew,

  And in that moment his wish came true.

  He could walk again, with power and might,

  With not a hop in his step, just a smile of delight.

  And so when Johnny looks back, he can look on back in pride,

  And know that life can be even greener on the other side.

  The Molecular Body

  Catherine Bennett

  The body is the place of love -

  it happens right there, on

  the skin or on the tongue, little pin-pricks

  of knowing, bursting

  into a carefully articulated

  question, or a phrase that lightens

  near the end. Why do you let me

  continue in this way?

  It always goes like this, she said,

  soft in the middle and then blood

  near the end, everywhere. Lymphs

  pooling in the centre of the bed.

  She used to steal the sheets. Stole

  them for want of you, for love of

  your body, you labourer. I am also

  converted to thoughts of you, obsessed.

  This city has a thousand tongues,

  and they all speak apart. I see

  you through the window, the sliver

  of the outside world. Why challenge

  me, why think me into life? The iron

  in my blood, haemoglobin, platelets,

  hormones and oxytocin and oestradiol,

  spittle and oil, the salt that goes

  into making me exist; all exist

  separate. I am the miniature city,

  my tongue the giant muscle that rolls

  like the river through it.

  You are remains, the compound that bleaches

  bones in the sunlight. Why do you

  let me speak without making a sound?

  Why speaking? You. Speak.

  Positions

  Alexander Humerliss

  Soil. Grass and flowers. Sighing trees, yellow autumn, and the weeping, wordless wind. These were the philosopher’s woods.

  Running through the centre, moving at a playful pace, drifted the river. A girl skipped up its shallows, bare feet cold in the flowing current. Mother told her not to play in the philosopher’s woods, but why shouldn’t she? They were hers as much as his. And the river! The water felt so good against her skin, and she laughed as she waded upstream. The waterfall was only a little distance ahead. Only a few more turns. Yes already she could hear it:

  ‘The waterfall’s laughing!’ she cried. Oh - how it always seemed to be laughing! What was so funny? While she was kicking the water, spraying her hair and clothes, a fish moved out from the bank, woken from its slumber. It had such heavy, heavy eyelids, and such red, red eyes! Poor fish. He’d obviously been crying, she thought, as he swam in a fixed, straight line, striking fast through the water’s depths. She thought she would cheer him up, and tried to stroke him as he swam by. Eugh! He felt horrible. So cold. Scaly fish. Cold fish.

  Cutting into the back of the cliff, behind the waterfall, tunnelled a cave. The scene was beautifully carved, like mother’s pots, but the cave was so terribly dark. And inside that cave lived an old man: mother called him a... a... philosopher? He was in love with something. He loved ‘Knowledge’: but who was Knowledge? She had never seen her. She preferred to play by herself. It was all very confusing. Hum! As she skimmed the stones, dancing their toes upon the surface of the water, she thought that every now and then, in between the joyful chattering of the slip-splashing waterfall, she could hear someone weeping. Weeping, weeping behind its torrents. Why, it must have been the philosopher. Oh! She tried to ignore it, but it really wouldn’t do, on such a sunny day, to have anyone upset. Not even the old philosopher. And besides, it was spoiling her play.

  She waded under the waterfall, shivering as the cold water writhed like sliding forest snakes slithering down the small of her back. The echo of the water bounded off the walls, boom, boom, and the light was darker here, and there were many shadows, and the cave really was very deep, and she was cold, and shivering... Oh! But that sobbing! This philosopher really must have been very upset. Sob-sob-sob like a baby.

  She crept through the cave, dry now, feet scratched with nails upon the cold earth. Candles lit the way: deep, dark underground. No wonder he was crying: how dark and lonely this cave must be! No flowers, no light, no warmth: all the things she loved. But really! She decided she must drag him up to the river, and cheer him up, like Father would do when she was upset, and alone, and lonely. Then he would feel better! If she could make him laugh…

  She came to a large, open space, with bookshelves pushed against the cool earthen wall. There were many books lining the shelves, nestling close in the cold dark of the cave, papers rustling like leaves in the cool cavern’s draft. A fire burned in the middle, hugging its embers, and on a stool sat the philosopher. She sat watching him, head in hands, back turned to the fire. He faced the cold earthen wall, watching the shadows dance and flicker, dance and flicker.

  And she watched him. And she watched. And watched. He? He sat, and wept, and sat. What a strange man. Was he always like this? But what a life to lead! She was nervous, and her breath caught in her throat, tight. But she would have to ask him, would have to…

  ‘Who are you in love with?’ she asked the philosopher. ‘Why are you crying?’

  As a pebble drops from a great height, slicing clean through the silent air, making hardly a swish or a sigh, before thumping into the water with a great ‘plop’, so the silence broke, and her voice echoed off those ancient tunnelled walls, breaking the delicate surface tension he had so long kept company with. The air trembled, tremored: Spring meltwater sliding into stream. The fish awoke. He stirred, blinking, moving slowly to face her, and he set his eyes upon her, laid his staff across his feet, and after much time, composed himself.

  A tunnel opens, and
we move from light to darkness. Now enter darkness. Who was this child - so small and trembling - to make demands of him? He, who had looked upon the sun’s zenith, at her highest point in the sky, married to the heavens, finding only darkness and death wedded to the nadir, to the trails of her dresses. He who had lovingly traced the cosmos with the ink of his eye, drawing, exploring, as one possessed by the heat of the stars, burning with lovers’ heat, bound and wrapped within their spiralling, burning passion: yet when ink ran warmest, burnt brightest, clearest, so it had spilled and spilled over into a change, a play, a flux and fluid pattern. This ‘love’ dried now, dried long ago. Set, yet set in spillage. Long ago: philosopher. He would stretch out his hand; to grasp her, to hold her down; she so cold, changing, slipping as streams passing between rocks: truth slipped between his fingers… and ink ran free across damp parchment –

  ‘Take my hand’ she cried. He’d been sitting, eyes glazed, for a good while. Silly man. Why did he not respond? Old man. She grasped his hands: oh! They were cold, wizened hands. Eugh! She heaved him, bear-like, out of his seat. Before he had time to resist, to struggle, she dragged his frail body, stumbling, out of the cave, and out, out up the slope. They passed the candles, and several spiders, moving up for some time. She thought she’d taken a wrong turning in her hurry, but then they reached the end of the cave, the water rushing over its mouth. And it split them like a screen from the outer world. They stared beyond its shimmering wall. The light’s play through the water was beautiful. It split like an arrow thudding into bark, peeling layers of colour over their skin. She turned to grumpy, who was beginning to glaze over again…

  Oh! How this waterfall pounds eternally against the rock: the rock a prisoner chained to its music. I know this sound well. I tunnelled underground, into Earth’s cool, chthonic embrace, to silence her weeping – the river. Do you not hear her weep, child? She weeps even as she flows, with each successive change. Each part, in succession, weeping as she’s forced ceaselessly out towards the sea, pulled by a force, a flux she cannot fight. She’s pulled from the land, dragged under by her own current, her own violence, towards that sea, and she sings her elegy as her fate is forced. Her music saddens me, striking deep, writing her notes deep, cut into my heart.

  ‘I hear her laughing,’ spoke the girl. She heard the spray skip along the rocks, the bubbling of the still water, lapping, lapping against the cave wall. What a silly man, and what funny things to say! Nothing for it. Out she dragged him, through, through the waterfall’s singing wall. Now dark, now wet, now…light! And they were out.

  The philosopher shivered in the heat of the cool autumn sun. It stuck to his skin like honey, sweet and smothering. His eyes shivered too, stung by the waning sun, spreading its rays out through the trees, pollinating the reds and yellows of the woods with life. The air swarmed his lungs; he choked, and inhaled. Choke, choke. Bending over, he ran a finger over the earth, tracing its cool loam with a line, writing his existence back into the ground. As a child, losing its way in the darkness, stumbling, then leaps into the arms of its mother, so he embraced the warmth of her world. For this was ‘it’. This: these leaves sweeping across the breeze, joining hands with the girl, twirling in the fading light.

  The girl was happy. She had made him smile! He wasn’t quite so distant now, and the tears had dried from his cheeks. The river, running through the centre of the Philosopher’s woods, moved swiftly on. In the middle of the river, just beyond where they were standing, stood anchored two rocks. These rocks had sat here for a great many years, facing the cave, head in hands, solemnly. They had rested here, anchored against the river’s flow, even before the philosopher’s descent into the cave. And that was long, long ago. She had seen him go down, and the people who had come to play in her woods had heard his weeping, had called this place the ‘weeping woods’, the ‘philosopher’s woods’. These woods were far older than him. She had been here since the first sap in first spring, when it had sprouted fast from the ground. She had watered it, nurtured it, and watched these woods grow. She had seen the river carve its channel, and the cave chiselled out of the cliff. The birds build nests. She had watched as the wind, earth, fire and air dwelt between her leaves.

  The girl hopped onto the first rock, hopped onto the second, singing as she leapt. He followed her, jumping onto the first rock.

  Knowledge and play. A strange alchemical formula: the transfiguration of two such unlike elements in the calcinatory should hardly have produced such striking results. The stone would conceal itself, hidden for years. And then, when it so chose, it would reveal itself, humbly, through the play of a girl. He had found her, stepping between the stones, stepping between the flux of the river. He caught her, mid-air, caught between one rock and another, dancing through the air, stepping between the flux. Found her between the folds of the red, red leaves. The river. The sky. Autumn. This girl…

  ‘Follow,’ she sang, leaping onto the bank. And she sat upon the warm riverbank, hands wrapped around her knees, smiling. The sun was hot. He had begun to dance, she thought. She hummed, and he, oblivious, danced to her tune. And so she sang his metaphysics to sleep.

  He stirred from thought, glancing towards the next rock. A leap’s distance. But that girl’s smiling. Such a strange smile. That strange, enigmatic smile, which had gazed, gazed back at him as he had searched the nauseous expanse of darkness for his love. It was a smile that knew. Such strangeness. And a feeling rose upon him, gradually, gradually rising as the stream cuts through snow in winter, and it became greater, and it became great, sound, and roaring thunder. It tremored through his body, piercing his frameworks, his systems, tunnelling its music through the caverns of his mind. A great cloud moved across the sun. The sky greyed as if aged, and the girl was gone. A rumbling. A wall of water tumbling over the waterfall. He stood still, still upon the rock. And it rushed at him. Someone was coming. Someone approached, and he was helpless, yielding to her outstretched fingers, slipping between her hands.

  Water. Head pounding. No rock; no anchor. Feet? Flailing. Change and the river, roaring past him, accelerating; drowning thoughts. Drowning sight. Drowning. Yet within the water’s violent, wheeling pace, at its centre, he was still. And he heard a music. A beautiful, playing music. She was singing, as she thundered and roared. How strange to find that, of all the places, the heavens, the woods, the caves and the bookshelves, it was here, sung to sleep in the arms of a flowing river, in the eye of its torrents, the stillness he sought. A great calm. That peace. He closed his thoughts, and singing with her, singing as in love, passed away, far beyond the woods, and out, out into the sea. And so the children would laugh once again, skipping streams and skimming stones, in playing amid the Philosopher’s woods.

  Something Old, Something New

  Joanne Hardy

  Ruby was very proud of her house, everyone knew that. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” she would pronounce at least once a day, as she berated her husband Harry for leaving his wellies in the middle of the kitchen, or for leaving his newspaper in the downstairs loo. She often quoted her visitors’ remarks about what an exceptionally well-kept house she had, and wore their comments around her like a mink coat, her chest puffed out with pride.

  On this particular day, Ruby was up early and down the town by seven-thirty. Harry had given up trying to talk her out of such early morning excursions, especially now it was dark first thing, but Ruby had Standards. Harry knew when he was beaten, so he settled for having the kettle on for her when she returned, not only loaded down with the day’s bread, newspaper and ginger snaps, but also bearing news from giggling shop girls about the latest neighbourhood scandals, “... and him thirty-five and divorced twice!”

  Harry settled down with his tea, trying not to notice the date on his newspaper, while in the background Ruby got started on the oven. She’d had a man out to clean it just last week, but had not been convinced that the job was up to scratch. “How typical of today’s generat
ion,” she’d announced, as she peered accusingly into the oven while the cleaning man loaded his equipment back into his van. “No pride in their work, no pride in anything anymore.” Now she worked her fingernail over a non-existent blemish and tutted under her breath. “If a job’s worth doing….”

  “…it’s worth doing properly...” Harry parroted quietly, safely unheard behind the ramparts of his paper.

  Ruby, hands gloved like a surgeon, glared at the oven, as if by the sheer power of her gaze alone she could burn off the grease and dirt.

  “Right!” she announced, and began squirting foul substances into the defenceless cooker.

  “Have you got the window open, love?” said Harry, as noxious fumes began to drift through into the back room.

  “Yes!” came the snapped reply. Harry resumed his position behind the newspaper. He knew when his input was not required.

  As the morning progressed, the house began to gleam with an almost inhuman cleanliness. Carpets were shampooed, rugs beaten, skirting boards washed and grouting whitened; all the while, Ruby scolding, stitching one task to the next with the fine thread of her dissatisfaction. In the face of this constant verbal onslaught, Harry retreated further into the sanctuary of his newspaper, not even looking up when he heard the ominous sound of ladders being propped and loft hatches being lifted.

  “Are you sure you can manage, love?” he shouted half-heartedly, his eyes not leaving the headlines.

  He received a muffled “fine!” in reply and was content. He reached for the television remote and turned on the racing. He settled down further into the sofa and reached into a trouser pocket for his betting slips.

  “OH!”

  A sudden explosive syllable abruptly halted Ruby’s monologue. This sudden absence washed through the house like a tide. Harry reached for the remote and turned down the sound on the television, then put down his newspaper and walked to the bottom of the stairs. He peered up the stairs, ears straining for sounds in the unexpected lull. Not hearing any movement or sound, he climbed the stairs to the landing.

  “Everything alright up there?”

  Nothing.

  He moved to the bottom of the ladder and peered into the gloom. “Ruby love?”

  Placing his foot on the bottom rung, he took four quick steps up the ladder, and poked his head up through the hatch. The still air caught in his throat and he coughed. Blinking through watery eyes, he could not at first make her out in the gloom. Then, forming slowly, like a developing Polaroid, shapes became defined; shadows coalesced, forming a figure. As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, he saw her, frozen, arms outstretched, cradling a bundle in her upturned hands.

  He climbed through the loft hatch and into the cramped space, perching precariously on ancient rafters, not trusting the plywood he had laid down - when? Surely not ten years ago? He stood for a moment, disorientated by the darkness, while his eyes took in the scene: a roof space filled with sagging unlabelled boxes, keyless old suitcases and lacy bin bags, the contents poking their noses out like mice. All around him, the past piled up towards the ceiling, dusty and cobwebbed, insect corpses scattered like confetti on every surface. All around him hung the smell of damp decay. Unbidden, the word “mausoleum” formed in his mind as he surveyed the accumulated trappings of a family’s life, piled into mounds in a musty attic, reduced to shrouded dead things; out of sight, out of mind.

  He moved towards Ruby, suddenly concerned, unnerved by the strange atmosphere of the place, so different from the bright world on the other side of the hatch. He reached out a hand towards her, suddenly fearful that she too would prove a ghost, insubstantial as the memories that pressed in on all sides. His fingers touched her shoulder and he felt tension buzzing through her like a current.

  “Love?” he repeated, more gently.

  She turned to him, holding the bundle towards him like an offering. Harry glanced at her face, disturbed by the confused mixture of emotions fighting for dominance on those familiar features, then looked down at her hands. Swaddled in a young girl’s grey school jumper was a small doll, its face and body faded and broken, yet wrapped up with obvious care and affection. A miniature plastic hand, missing fingers, reached up towards Harry. The doll’s painted face, worn out not through neglect, but through the touch of love over many years, smiled up though a threadbare sleeve and with an electric jolt of memory, he remembered.

  “She never put this down, do you remember?” Ruby said, looking at Harry. “Everywhere we went, always clamped under her left arm like a handbag. Every birthday we thought she’d grow out of it and she never did. I remember us standing at the bottom of the stairs when she went to bed, listening to her sing “Away in a Manger” so the doll would get to sleep…” Her voice cracked and stilled, and her gaze returned to the faded face.

  “Molly the dolly, wasn’t it?” said Harry, not moving his eyes from the small plastic figure. “We once lost her in that lay-by in Scotland, do you remember?” His eyes filled for a second time. “We had to retrace our steps till we found her. Missed the last ferry because of that, had to sleep in the car...” He smiled. “The things she had us doing for that damn thing.”

  A crowded moment, heavy with emotion and memory, came and went. Harry withdrew his hand from Ruby’s shoulder and she exhaled heavily. As he watched, the years seemed to fall away from her like snow from tree branches at the first touch of spring sunshine.

  “Do you know, I forgot this, I forgot it all.” Ruby looked urgently at Harry, astonishment and anguish lighting her features. “She’s my daughter. Our daughter. Half of you and half of me. All those years of care and love, watching her grow, keeping her safe… how could I just forget?”

  She turned away, unseeing eyes darting from side to side as she replayed scenes in her mind: things being said that should not have been said, things left in disarray that should have been tidied up and mended but had instead been left unregarded, neglected. She took in a deep breath, then paused, suddenly unsure.

  “Do you think she would still want us there? After all those awful things I said….” Her voice, already quiet, tailed off as uncertainty traced lines across her face.

  Harry put his arm around her waist and she laid her head on his shoulder, feeling and then remembering the strength of him. They stood in that space for a few minutes, lost in thoughts and each other, and then both carefully climbed down the ladder.

  Harry went into the bathroom and washed his hands carefully in the immaculate sink, while Ruby walked dazedly into the bedroom, hand automatically reaching for a duster left on the dressing table. She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, fingers distractedly twisting the yellow material first one way, then the other, oblivious to its grimy state. Her eyes were drawn to the fancy pink and white feathers peeping from the top of a carrier bag that had been roughly stuffed behind the box of Christmas decorations on top of the wardrobe. That hat had taken her ages to choose. How could something so carefully selected be so quickly discarded?

  Straightening up to dry his hands, Harry caught a glimpse of his face in the shaving mirror, unsure for a moment who the old man was looking back at him. Then he walked into the bedroom and took down the morning suit from the hook on the back of the door. Ruby looked up at him, her face holding a question.

  “Don’t worry love, we’ve still got time to get there,” he said, and he hugged her as she wept into the yellow duster, tears washing away the dust and dirt of the years.

  Wade’s Causeway

  Joanne Hardy

  We did not mean to go there

  but our planned road was closed,

  so we walked instead on a Roman’s road,

  and we looked for him.

  Our planned road was closed,

  but the moor was open, infinite, beckoning.

  We looked for him,

  watching our feet and marking our path.

  The moor open, infinite, beckoning,r />
  but disclosing no hint, no glint of the previous.

  We watched our feet and marked our path,

  but came no closer to our foundation.

  No hint disclosed, no glint of the previous

  amongst the stones and moss and wind.

  No closer to a foundation;

  only echoes.

  Amongst the stones and moss and wind

  My daughter, yelling, stopped us, held us fast:

  “Echoes!”

  At the pointed stone by the bent fence post.

  Held fast,

  as voices roiled and rebounded through the landscape.

  By the pointed stone by the bent fence post

  we found a foundation at last.

  Voices rolling and rebounding through the landscape -

  how many had paused here, listening?

  We had our foundation at last,

  standing in the footsteps of ghosts,

  by the pointed stone by the bent fence post.

  In the Trench

  Sandra Garside-Neville

  In the trench, the cold earth

  in yielding to the pick, shovel and trowel,

  seems to sigh and slump,

  as we strain to find the past. 

  In yielding to the pick, shovel and trowel,

  the sharp tanged soil,

  as we strain to find the past,

  scatters under our heavy booted feet.

  The sharp tanged soil

  gifts us pottery, bone, tile and maybe more,

  scattering under our booted feet,

  like bright eyes sparkling in the light.

  These carriers of ancient truth lie

  in the trench, the cold earth.

  And past notions gather and

  seem to sigh and slump.

  Doubt

  Victoria Touzel

  Beneath the frail shell

  There lies a bloody promise

  Born of more than lust.

  It was unexpected.

  And the girl who lies within

  This cold bed seems condemned;

  Although it be laid double,

  He may never touch her again.

  Although ever bound by gold together

  She still sees his eyes stray from her by day.

  So now she suffers the contractions

  Of a scaled and silken scarf

  Slyly coiled about her neck.

  Insidious and pitiless.

  The Willy Pot

  Sandra Garside-Neville

  It’s a phally!

  He cried, dark curly hair

  Always red faced, excited

  He has a present

  Which he spreads before me

  Dirty pieces tumble

  Slender fragments,

  Pottery covered in ancient dirt

  Gently thud onto the surface

  He shuffles the pieces

  Swiftly making sense of chaos

  It’s what diggers do

  Yes, I see it now

  A small jar emerges

  My thoughts make it whole

  From the broken sherds

  With decoration icing the surface

  And a golden brown slip

  Cruel cockerel claws emerge

  Holding up rude, strutting members

  Complete with feathery wings too

  They parade around the vessel

  Proclaiming their proud mission

  Bringing the owner luck and life

  Only it broke,

  Dropped by some Roman from near or far

  The shards discarded, deposited

  It tells me the sad story

  Of that brief time in the light

  When they were all erect and laughing

  Keks Night Out

  Peter Speller

  My seam is aquiver

  as the door creaks ajar

  Will it be me?

  A hand on my hanger

  twists, lifts me free.

  Please choose me.

  Her skin warms my fibres

  and brings me to life.

  What will we do?

  Booted and belted

  we stride off outside.

  Where will we go?

  The pub would be fine

  a club would be better,

  I want to show off.

  To rhythm and blues,

  we’re flaunting our curves,

  with consummate flair.

  Some uncorking and clinking,

  much laughter and drinking,

  I’m under the table.

  It’s creasing me up,

  the belt’s getting tighter.

  Undo a notch.

  Now the tablecloth’s hiding

  a hand on my knee.

  That’s quite enough.

  Then it’s all over,

  discarded, dejected,

  I need a wash.

  With A Kiss

  Serena Rudge

  Confusion

  Runs around my head,

  Holds me hostage,

  Won't give up the

  Relentless stream of different dreams

  Like black and white

  Romantic films.

  Is it real,

  This fluttering feeling?

  Heart throbs, head pounds,

  Are these the signs,

  The sights,

  The sounds,

  Does my head spin from memories

  Or put a spin on the memories?

  I took the apple,

  Bit off more than I could chew,

  Screw the clichés,

  This is about you,

  I'm falling fast, hard,

  Waiting to hit the ground,

  Need to hit it,

  Not running but with a thud,

  Knock some sense back in.

  You stole mine with a kiss,

  Stomach flips,

  I need it back,

  Legs tremble

  When I remember

  What you said,

  Shouldn't have said.

  I should leave you be,

  But it's too late,

  You charmed me and won

  And I cannot let go.

  I'm knotted,

  Pulled tight,

  No way out,

  And my constant clawing for an answer

  Simply makes this harder

  And entangles me further.

  Too many things holding me back,

  Weighing us down,

  Her, unwanted, far away,

  But you won't act,

  Him, who'd feel betrayed.

  Your face, my thoughts,

  Cloud my conscience,

  I can't see,

  Tumbling,

  Still falling,

  Waiting to understand

  What to do

  About what I want

  But just can't have,

  How to unravel

  This puzzle

  Of you.

  Whirligig Beetle

  Peter Speller

  ^ ^

  ^ ^

  ^ ^

  ^ ^ ^ ^

  ^ ^ ^ ^

  ^ ^ ^ ^

  ^ Living ^

  ^ in a swirling ^

  ^ two-dimensional ^

  water world, twirling on

  unbroken surface tension,

  and with no apparent pattern,

  its rapid, random kinesis leads

  the casual eye to miss the guile

  of nature’s evolution; instinc
tive

  preservation aided by vision,

  bisected, to see up and down,

  simultaneously the threat

  of predator from the air

  or under water, my

  happy whirligig beetle

  twirls in circles, a

  jig to thwart the

  predatory wishes

  of malefic

  birds and

  fishes.

  Untitled

  Naomi Cartmell

  [Come up on Eve, sitting in a hospital bed in a private room. There is a jug of water and a glass on her bedside table, along with lots of papers. She has long, slightly wavy, dirty blonde hair, and a sheen of sweat is visible on her face. She has bags under her eyes, and has clearly been crying. She sighs, and does not talk for a long moment.]

  [Whispers] What was I thinking? What am I even doing here?

  I was stupid. Stupid and young. It’s not all about the money, you know? I see that now. [Her voice cracks, like she may start crying] Now; but it’s too late.

  [She sighs and runs her hand through her tousled hair.]

  Urgh, this mattress is so uncomfortable. I thought private hospitals were supposed to be like frigging spas. Not this one. A sadist designed these beds, I swear. [Scathingly] ‘Hmm, what can we do to make sick and dying people even more uncomfortable?’ Ha. But I’m not dying. Well, so they tell me. Feels like I am...

  You know, I’d never been in hospital before. Never broken a bone, had a sprain, anything. I should have known my life was too good to be true back then, that God would throw a lifetime of pain all over me now, pain it feels like I’ll never escape - drugs and all. I remember the first time I lay on a bed like this, as the sadists slapped some gooey shit all over my stomach. It was freezing. Did they care? Did they hell. They showed me it on an expensive little TV screen. I couldn’t see it. Her. Just looked like a load of crap to me; I didn’t know how some freaks could get all soppy over it, it’s crazy, it’s not like Da Vinci created it, or anything - you can’t even see anything, barely. But I just smiled and nodded like they expected me to. Empty smiles, though. Ironic isn’t it? That I felt empty, vacant, when I was fuller than I’d ever been in my entire frigging life. Full with life. Someone else’s life. I can’t believe I ever felt empty. But then, I didn’t consider that deformed little sea-monkey as life, back then.

  [Eve lays her head back and closes her eyes. She does not move or speak for around 30 seconds. Then she suddenly sits upright, curling in pain, clutching her stomach.]

  OOOOW! OOOOH, SHIT!

  [Her body relaxes, and she closes her eyes again.]

  Bitches. Bitches didn’t tell me it hurts afterwards too. Grâce aux Dieu. Thanks, God.

  [Pause]

  But I suppose everybody else is distracted from the pain. They all have their little bundles of joy. Their gifts from above. Not me. Not me. [Whispers, barely audible] I am joyless.

  [A single tear runs down her cheek. She quickly brushes it away and shakes her head.]

  I remember the first time I knew I loved her. I remember it exactly, every detail etched into my very being. I was in the bath. I never used to take baths. I used to shower, every morning. Well, every mid-morning-slash-early-afternoon when I got up. Anyway, so I was I the bath, disgusted by my mutating body – they should pay you extra if you get stretch marks – and I felt the weirdest sensation, like someone was pushing on my belly, but from the inside, and then I realised that she was nudging me. [Eve smiles as she remembers.] A tiny little person giving me a tiny little nudge and saying ‘Hello, Momma’ ‘cause that was all she knew. I was all she knew. And I can’t even be that for her.

  [Pause]

  It was then that I realised I loved her. That I’d always loved her. Always and forever. Oh, yeah, and then Isabelle came round – She’s such a good friend, Isabelle; stuck by my every decision since prep school – and then we had a glass of wine to celebrate my little nudger. I’d been good, though, hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since I first peed on that little white stick – dignified, huh? I could go for some now though. Straight vodka, not fussy alcopops or shit. All I have is this water. Eugh.

  [She pours some water from the jug into a glass, and drinks the whole glass without pausing, then puts it back on the table.]

  Eugh! Tastes like hospital. How is that possible?! Even the shitting water tastes like hospital. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wash the microwave-food-and-fear smell entirely out of my hair. [She chuckles, half-heartedly, and blinks slowly.]

  I’m so tired. I haven’t slept for about [she pauses to count in her head] about thirty-two hours. Thirty-two! That’s ridiculous. Trust me to go into labour when I’m about to tuck in for the night. [Sarcastic] Thanks again, God, for that ray of proverbial sunshine. I can’t even sleep now. Every time I’m about to doze off my mind just replays the moment when they took her away. I’ll have nightmares, I know it. I wonder how long I can go without sleep...

  [Pause]

  I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I’m replaying it now. Stop. I’ve got to stop. [She clutches her head in her hands.] Stop it!

  [Eve slowly exhales, and inhales again.]

  Nine months that thing was in me. Nine months. And she became a part of me. With her inside me I became a sacred vessel. And they just took her away. How can they just expect me to live without her now? How am I supposed to live without her? Before I knew it, my whole existence revolved around her, and, and now... it’s like they have taken away my sun. That’s what I would have called her. Sunny. Would have. It’s perfect. Just like her.

  Just after I gave birth – must be about 2 hours ago now – some witless nurse clearly not aware of my situation asked me, ‘Does she have a name yet?’ I shook my head. ‘No,’ I whispered. She’s anonymous. Untitled. Some of the best works of art in the world are untitled. Some of the most beautiful. And so was she. [Her voice cracks and breaks.] She always will be, to me, no matter what ridiculous name they give her. My beautiful little untitled baby.

  [Her eyes shine with tears. Some well over and run down her cheek. This time she makes no effort to wipe them away.]

  [Through tears] That was when they took you... away. Stole you away. Away from me. ‘No! Where are you going?!’ My cries were useless. Nobody paid me any attention. You started crying, screaming, as they carried you away. I could hear you down the corridor.

  But you’re mine, I thought. How can they? But they could. And they did. I guess they were right. You’re not mine. You were never mine. From the very beginning, you were never mine. [Sobs] You never will be mine. Never.

  [Her fruitless tears run freely now.]

  But I’ll always be yours. They stole you. But not before you stole my heart.

  [Whispers] I’ll always be yours.

  [Eve curls up into a ball. She shakes, sobbing uncontrollably. In her hand is a small pink teddy bear, visibly embroidered with the words ‘I Love You’. Go to black.]

  Sonnet

  Nicky Kingsley

  You died. At once I saw you fly away,

  No longer citizen of now and here

  But four dimensional: each deed, each day

  That you had lived, a part of who you were.

  Your many faces, child and wife and crone,

  All notes that made a single melody

  Which hung in silence now it had been sung;

  And then I knew you wholly, finally.

  I fought then to stop time, to staunch the flow

  That took you from me, till at last I saw

  This was your parting gift, to let me know

  That all the past is safely held in store,

  And all I must let go, at such great cost,

  Is mine forever – nothing has been lost.

  Purgatory

  Nicky Kingsley

  Now we are in purgatory

  Going back over it all

  We are at last remembering the good times

  Ends of days safely gathered i
n

  Tucked up warm

  Warm milk and honey

  Music box singing

  Guten Abend Gute Nacht

  Warm lamplight

  Safe harbour

  Later the little boat lost its mooring

  The current too strong

  Pulled away

  Each of us shouting it was the other’s fault

  You ran along the shore

  I fumbled helplessly with heavy oars

  Both of us shouting

  The rest is history

  A long long journey

  Not so much over now as completed

  Look at it

  Look

  Look at that bit there

  Where you tucked me in each night

  Safe

  At bedtime

  That’s the best bit

  The best bit

  The bit we returned to

  That last night when I gave you a last drink

  Sang to you

  Tucked you in

  Held your hand

  Sat with you

  All night

  Until

  The end

  Mum’s Egg-cup, One of a Set

  Nicky Kingsley

  You had sets, I have odds and ends:

  This bourgeois egg-cup, pure white and gold-rimmed,

  A little piece of Germany – of Sehnsucht,

  Longing, for where I belong and don’t belong,

  Of Heimweh, homesickness, for the homeless.

  Oh Mummy, Mutti, did you ever think

  When you adventured forth across the world

  That it was my roots, too, that you tore up?

  Melody

  Mark Wiltshire

  Amidst a perfect clamour, and the din

  Of merry chimes more gaily rung than ever,

  A single child’s smile breaks, standing –

  Mind ripe, love pure, imagination clever;

  He feels these sounds be soaked into the air,

  For, open, flower-like will he reside;

  Not prostrate, nor clinging, hoping but to float –

  But tall and deep, within the golden tide.

  And, if our smiling child takes the chance

  To swim within the melody today,

  It is his hair caressed by choral waves, and

  For his eyes the wondrous sights will play.

  To know fine moments of great truth and beauty,

  To let our senses roam in things refined -

  Is opportunity. And this alone

  Can fetter-break the shackles that confine.

  Yes! Let it be known that truth comes opportunely,

  Not madly or in divine revelation;

  But in giving yours to other lives and tides,

  So we may love without dry hesitation.

  For, bells still toll and gaiety resounds;

  Our happy melody is full and bright;

  So cover not with sentiments our ears,

  But let us live life as a child might.

  Small Thought

  Chris Bennigsen

  I knew you would be leaving soon,

  But I never thought to question,

  Where you’d be, two years from here,

  After the wedding bells and celebration.

  Will I feel alone or cheated?

  As you drive the intimate night,

  Leaving all behind you here with me,

  Watching your small, fading headlights.

  Believe me, I’m pleased for you,

  It just hit me properly –

  I will miss you, brother.

  Uganda

  Susie Ricketts

  For the eight hundred and seventy three inhabitants of the Kabukwiri- Bushenyi district, Sunday meant two things: God and avocadoes. As unlikely a pair as they may seem to the outsider, to this community the latter constituted an integral part of their relationship with the former, and both made up a vital chunk of their seventh-day activity. Makline skipped ahead of her grandmother, now so worn by age and sun and motherhood that her whole body hung like draped, stained linen and her eyes were just a faint glimmer in a nest of wrinkles. Distant music hummed in her ears and avocadoes played on her mind. As she heaved her swollen ankles over ant mounds and fallen strips of bark from the trees, she caught the building crescendo of a hymn not so much floating on the humid air but exploding with the full life and vitality Agnes used to know in her bones and still felt in her mind. Descant hallelujahs leapt above the melody, interspersed by a strong, celebratory bass. Weaving harmonies danced and shimmied and shook with all the triumphant energy of the African Rumba and to Agnes it felt like the sound was coming from the very centre of the earth. Exploding from tree roots, oozing out from the coarse red ground beneath her feet and falling like shards of glistening rain from the sky. “God is Great!” It screamed at her. “God is Great!”

  After the service the avocado bidding began. Frenzied as ever, fruit after fruit was presented to the congregation, its individual virtues considered and its final worth decided by an electrically fast, benevolent battle of wills. Agnes had a suspicion that many of the young, more free-minded men would not choose to be so pious in their worship if it wasn’t for this weekly excitement and the chance to compete over the various selling prices of their crop, but as the proceeds went towards the church, she couldn’t complain. Swirling rhythms still beating against her temples, she shut her eyes to the commotion and slept.

  ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉

  Miss Mercy Masani, proud teacher of Class P5, Kabukwiri Primary, had always been a walker. She had never had much time for the showy Bora Bora riders who roared up through the matoke sending red dust flying in stinging swirling swarms and upsetting the early morning calm. No, she had strong legs and as she wove up through the dry brittle spines of African plain grass she thought that this was a particularly fine day for walking. The proud Ugandan sun was just beginning its ascent; a light smatter of rays causing the leaves to shine and the well trodden path to emit a not uncomfortable warmth under her bare feet. It had not yet reached the stage where its blazing heat made the very earth seem to ooze a sticky haze, but that would come later, no doubt.

  As she walked she considered her life’s merits. These solitary occasions allowed her time to reflect and she enjoyed counting her blessings. Teacher of Kabukwiri’s oldest, and she believed finest, students, was indeed an achievement. Her student Makline was excelling in English and Maths – and from a family who, like much of the farming community, had no interest in education! To add to this she owned shoes (though not to be worn for walking of course!) and she wasn’t a mandazi lady, which by its very avoidance was a great success.

  As the track rose out of the maize and rounded the corner to school, she felt a thrill of satisfaction at the solid grey structures which served the most distinguished purpose. A few sweet yellow bananas already littered the step, facing which the polished tree trunk, rubbed smooth by countless bottoms, now held three more.

  “Agandi!” The long southern vowels sounded bright and crisp in their throats. She replied with a light cheeriness that showed that the brutal midday barrage had yet to take hold.

  Rainbow

  Faye Tyreman

  The beauty of the birdsong danced rioting rainbow violets

  And the moon shone under the sun in spotless hues of sapphire

  While hedgehogs in the foliage snuffled sparkling fairy magic

  Then tension in the air burst showering violent dewy droplets.

  Bounce, splash and plop in puddles form waves on an emerald surface

  Where ducklings, bottoms bobbing, dipping toy-like in the ripples

  Pass swans gliding serenely holding proud necks curved and graceful

  Compared to soggy rabbits running twitching whiskered noses

  Then tumbling down their burrows beneath the beds of flowers

  Where roses close their petals distasteful of the weather

  The trees all sigh together whispering
leaves start turning yellow

  Sunlight breaks through the mist to burst its many colours

  Casting all the creatures in a vibrant spectrum’s archway

  Framed the scene becomes a stage of magic, fun and child play.

  The White Dress

  Marc Smith

  Over the bridge

  fresh spring night

  lights from the fairground

  away to my right

  Looked to my left

  black night sky

  headlights in front

  from cars passing by.

  Woman in white

  crossing the street

  drunk, she faltered

  tripped over her feet

  The driver hadn't seen

  her fall to the ground

  a screech, a scream

  a crash - no sound.

  People rushed over

  my feet like lead

  fairground still moving

  blue green red

  Controlling my body

  walked to the scene

  a hole in her head

  where her brain should have been.

  Blood trickled down

  her pretty white dress

  dead eyes wide open

  'oh fuck, what a mess' -

  Stepping away

  I looked at her face

  wondered her name

  so young, a disgrace.

  White dress turned red

  like fair lights behind me

  screams from the fairground

  or was it her family?

  Eyes clean white

  like lights in the street

  the street where she laid

  her life incomplete.

  The image still haunts me

  some days and most nights

  silhouette of her body

  in front of headlights -

  White dress turned red

  clean white eyes

  hole in her head

  The first time I'd seen

  a body lay dead.

  Imagined

  Olivia Waring

  The lipstick left on your mug,

  The one with Wallace and Gromit on the front,

  That lipstick

  Could have been forged by watercolours

  Mixed pink and red smudged over the rim

  Left over a period of days.

  The deep twist of your voice, the sarcasm,

  And you sound like a 45-year-old man,

  But this makes it all the more sexy.

  The smile...

  I half remember it

  You were goofing around in the mud, little waves

  Of muddy puddle water darkening your shoes

  And you kicked it all over my black lace tights

  Laughing that deep laugh

  Like a boom threatening to burst the worn clouds above us.

  The cut of your jumper

  Or maybe it was a pullover, a sweater

  But it was definitely green, clean algae green

  And cut round your torso like armour

  The armour of a Cambridge hopeful.

  The forgotten feeling

  Whenever you were about

  Murmuring, humming your precious piano piece

  A feeling that I was on air

  Listening to you

  Even thinking I could hear the beat

  Of your large, simplistic heart.

  The way you never even touched me

  Not on the arm, not by accident,

  Not even, really, with your eyes.

  Walk of Shame

  James Faktor

  On this hot day my shadow is keen

  To the ground and prances ahead;

  It wavers like a ballerina.

  Like some child I’m led,

  Down past the river that does not sing,

  My smart shoes clip the bank in steady time and ring,

  And ring and ring in concrete claps and

  Like some blind man I’m led,

  Away from the river that does not sing,

  To a street where shadows play their

  Melodramatic games, and everywhere

  Applause cries out as they stir and swell and perform

  Their role as a perfect audience by the feet of the day,

  That trample down upon the gurgling crowd.

  A song does stir amidst the throbbing crowd,

  A song not from the heart of the deep river.

  Instead I close my mouth like a starless night,

  Sweeping over the desert sands,

  And the song comes from the closely pressed,

  And sweaty hands,

  Of a guitar playing street busker,

  Largely unwanted by the flowing crowds,

  But because I’m being watched I listen,

  To the notes that linger a little too long:

  A tired imitation of a well known song.

  The Circle

  Michael Walkden

  October 3rd, 9pm

  Watch House

  Iron gates creak in a wind somewhere close to a gale. Autumn’s newly withered leaves whisk helplessly into the air, their former verdure already forgotten. Occasional figures scurry by, heads down, collars up. From up here, one can stand and observe the city in all its sprawling majesty. In the distance, crooked spires pierce the skyline, reaching for a heaven that twinkles mockingly back at them. The city is everything, and everything is decaying.

  It turns my stomach. I stand here on the edge of this putrid corpse of a utopian dream, where the scar tissue is at its freshest, and all I see are parasites. They hide their faces, but I sense so much more beyond the hoods and hats, the coats and collars. People made this city, many of them the greatest minds this world has ever known – and it consumes them. It swallows all that was once innovative, feeds upon the rotting fruits of their labour, grows bloated and foul. These people are less than excrement. Why concern ourselves with their self-made plight? Those who think themselves kin to the Man all meet the same fate. This place consumes itself from the inside out.

  Already I have tarried too long. She is here, and she needs me. She thinks to change things. But why change when you can recreate? In the end, this city will burn. The ashes will cool, will be whisked away on the wind with autumn’s newly fallen leaves. One day, there will be nothing left. I will walk where the cold ashes of this city once lay, but I will feel no gladness. Seeing so much – so much – of one’s life, one’s love, brought low, can never be occasion for mirth. He loved these people and they failed Him.

  And so I prise open these century-old gates. The streets are empty now. The wind ruffles through my hair, through my clothes. I drink it in; the night air is a lake. It has been too long. I walk down West Street, turning at the canal. I cross a park that I don’t recognise. I pass beneath apartment blocks, beneath neon signs hawking every kind of poison. They have spawned here like maggots. It is worse than I was told, worse than I could ever have believed. A winking neon mermaid invites me to sample the decadent delights of Sami’s Seafood Grill. Three women, all smoking cigarettes, watch my progress with loose interest, no doubt wondering whether I comprise their fare for the evening. So strong is the urge to spit at their feet that I barely constrain myself.

  I am once again reminded of her. Her naivety, so unbelievable. Her betrayal – of me; of Him. The fate that awaits her when I deliver her to Him. I love her such that it burns white in my chest. But whatever my feelings for her, my work here transcends all. Duty is all. What we want now is irrelevant – if we succeed, want itself will be obsolete. If we can but close the circle, we may yet finish what our fathers began.

  Come The Revolution

  Caroline Moore

  He pulled his gnarled hand out from the dank abyss of the rubbish bin. Soggy chips wrapped in crumpled newspaper came out with it. They would be good with the dregs of flat Coke he had found discarded under a park bench earlier. He shivered and pulled his thin coat around hi
s emaciated body, trying to cover the gaping holes where the cold air was biting at his skin.

  The tree lined path through the park was deserted. No one who didn’t have to be was outside in the raging blizzards that were sweeping through the country. This was the type of place Billy preferred. One of the few bits of parkland left in the city. It looked ghostly this morning, the snow untouched by feet, the tree branches heavy with the fresh fall.

  He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, smelling the freshness of pine and early morning in the air. The smells evoked so many long-buried memories for him of a life he once lived, when he was respected and loved by many people. When people smiled and waved when they saw him, instead of ignoring him, or even mugging him for his few measly possessions, as they often did now.

  Back then, Billy had lived a charmed life, part of a very wealthy family, appreciating his position and everything he had. He always tried to help people however he could, but now realised that he had never really fully understood how others lived.

  As he slowly shuffled through the parkland, he recalled a day, long ago now, when he was being driven by chauffeur down this very lane. The radio had been announcing yet another strike, this time council workers. Strikes were becoming frequent and increasingly riotous.

  “What is the bloody Government doing to stop all this?” he had commented to his driver. “There’s a new strike every week. I hear even the nurses are talking of walking out.”

  “I don’t know what they can do now,” his driver replied. “People are furious at the benefit cuts and tax rises when they see bankers and the like getting bonuses. It seems to have gone too far this time. There’s a bad feeling going around. A friend of mine says he has seen a whole family on the streets begging for money, homeless.”

  “Surely not!” exclaimed Billy. “That sounds more like Victorian times than now. We would never let that happen, would we?”

  Over the next few months, as he travelled around, Billy started to realise the depths of despair the country had reached; with the benefits system all but collapsed and unemployment at unprecedented levels.

  But that was 40 years ago now.

  He sighed regretfully, reluctant to remember the life-changing events that had later taken place. The trees watched over him as he reached the end of the deserted path. The park opened onto a wide, asphalted road, softened with the thick coating of snow. He recalled when this road had been an attractive, bustling approach to the area he once lived in. Trees that had lined the road had been long ago felled to make way for monotonous tramlines and ugly concreted pathways that networked the city.

  His mind drifted back, to when he was a young man living here. He felt such turmoil about that fateful day that changed his life forever. Could he have done anything differently? Did he deserve what had happened?

  An embittered movement had been gaining momentum, encouraging everyone to withdraw their finances from the system. This movement grew until the City’s infrastructure collapsed like a house of cards. But still people wanted more revenge. Mob rule was taking hold using the internet to spread the message quickly and expansively. The revolution began.

  Billy watched in despair as many of his privileged friends and families were hounded out of their homes, which were looted and vandalised or burnt to the ground. Some tried to recklessly defend their possessions and he heard through the grapevine that one family had been murdered in their beds. First blood had been tasted. After this, like baying hounds, the mobs began to take more lives.

  That fateful day Billy and his family were ushered into the cellars of their home with some urgency as news of many deaths spread quickly. They sat terrified, not knowing what was happening above their heads. Not understanding how they could be targeted like this. If they could have more time they would be able to hide in one of the secret locations they knew about. How had things broken down so quickly?

  They were betrayed by some of their long standing, previously loyal staff. He couldn’t blame them. They must have been equally scared for their own and their family’s lives. Within hours Billy and his family were found and marched up to one of their elegant drawing rooms. Here, his father and grandparents were shot in the head, perhaps a more merciful end than it might have been. Many were shouting for them to be thrown to the angry crowds outside. He believed the man who shot them still held onto some of his previous morality and had tried to make their end easier. During the panic and shouting as the shootings took place, somehow Billy managed to slip away through a little-known servants’ staircase.

  He ran into the countryside he knew well from the hunting parties he had enjoyed. He was shaking with fear and shock. For days he buried himself into the undergrowth, hiding and hardly breathing as he heard people passing by. When he dared to venture out he kept moving through fields and farmland, keeping hidden, living off the land where he could.

  Over the next few years Billy moved all the time, never wanting to stay in one place, and avoiding crowds and cities, terrified of being recognised. He let his hair and beard grow long and straggly. Encrusted dirt disguised his once soft blond hair. His muscular, lean young body became thin, his ribs protruding. He was getting more desperate as yet another winter approached, and began to venture into the towns again, to find much had changed.

  The new government had taken control. Things were under the rule of law again, and people were working at putting their lives and cities back together.

  He spent some nights in homeless shelters where men in similar situations to him huddled in corners talking about what they knew. It was in one such hostel he found an old acquaintance who knew of his brother’s fate.

  “A rebellious group of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan heard what was taking place at home. They set upon their leaders, including your brother,” the man told him.

  Billy was inconsolable when he heard the news. He had persuaded his brother to stay put at the time, convinced that he would be safer there until everything had blown over.

  Forty years later he now had more regret for that advice than anything else. If his brother had returned, perhaps they would have survived the last forty years together. His rheumy eyes pricked with tears thinking of his life-loving brother and the fun they used to have together. They had been close and he missed his laughter.

  Billy was now nearly 70. Over the years he had drifted from town to town, in homeless hostels or on the streets, staying mainly alone; scared his voice would betray the upper class accent he had tried hard to diminish over the years. It had often got him beaten up or ridiculed.

  It was the first time he had returned to his hometown since the revolution.

  Yesterday he had walked through the city’s alleyways, keeping away from the crowds. He had never heard what had happened to many members of his wider family. The thought that some may have survived had brought him back, hoping to perhaps find someone before his days on Earth were through.

  He had passed the new Presidential Offices; although perhaps not so new, he thought wryly, as they now must have stood here for thirty years or so. The Miliband Dynasty was ever present. Socialist Ed Miliband had taken power directly after the revolution, before his brother David won the first Presidential title, with his son now following in his footsteps. They were the new First Family of the country.

  Billy stood at the end of the road leading to his old home. He felt the urge to see if it was still there, but was scared at what he might find. He wearily shuffled his feet forward, ill-clad for the snow in old torn trainers with carrier bags tied over them to keep them dry. He trudged onwards down the long straight road, keeping his eyes to the ground to avoid eye contact with anyone he passed. He reached the end of the approach, the road opening up into a large junction. The monument that had once stood there proudly had been replaced by an uninspiring, grey brick roundabout.

  He looked around. The area was unrecognisable to him. Where his elaborate stately home used to be, there was an ugly, concrete built multi-st
orey block of flats, probably housing hundreds of families rather than just one now. Where the expansive gardens had been, there was a faceless supermarket and car park. He noted, with a wry smile to himself, the nameplate in front of the complex: “Buckingham Towers”.

  Dvořák

  Rebecca Hemsley

  bathed only in undisclosing water and the heavy darkroom glow of an orange wall heater

  melting lovingly, sympathetically, into the highlights of a raised leg,

  rusted liquid gold,

  sunset-candlelight

  and the captive distant journey of nineteenth-century cellos

  forcing a muffled passion-heartbeat beneath the still-pool tremors

  heady long-removed ache

  Tsunami

  Gavrielle Groves-Gidney

  Moving stone shocks wave

  dragon arcs foam as teeth snap

  the innocent land.

  The Jeremy Kole Show

  Tim James

  “Are you honestly saying, on national television, that you’d rather go on a night out than look after your two month old daughter?”

  Mattie looked up at Jeremy, obviously frightened. I almost felt sorry for him. Everyone in the audience knew the answer was 'yes'. Of course he’d rather spend time having fun with his friends. Who wouldn’t? If Jeremy had asked “is it the right thing to do?” the guy would have obviously said no, but Jeremy had asked what he wanted. We were well within our territory. We’d agreed to focus on desires and motives rather than actions. It was part of our mission statement.

  “No Jeremy, I’d rather look after my kid!”

  “Then why don’t you?” shouted Jeremy, practically in his face.

  Mattie didn’t look like a particularly bad father to me, or a negligent one. He just suffered from being eighteen. In all honesty, do any eighteen-year-olds enjoy waking up at three in the morning to change nappies? The poor kid was in a difficult position, but I don’t think he had the skill to put into words why.

  “We’re lingering too much on Jez,” Franz said, tapping my arm. Mattie looked like he was about to cry and that was gold dust. Couldn't be exploitative though, so I cut to an attractive girl in the fourth row. There were plenty of men I could have shown, but I wasn’t stupid. During the cutaway the boy started crying. I switched back and got him weeping in close up. Perfect.

  “Look, what d’you wamme to say? I love my daughter!”

  Cut back to a shot of Jeremy looking unsympathetic. Remind the audience at home not to feel sorry for the crying kid. He was huge, had very short hair and walked like an ape. He was obviously the villain.

  “I want you to admit that you’re a binge drinking toe-rag who cares more about his friends than his child!” Cheers from the audience, no need to show it.

  “I haven’t drunk anything in two months Jeremy.”

  “Smoked any cannabis?”

  “No! I’d never do that around my daughter.”

  “But you used to smoke it?”

  “No!”

  Jeremy paused for a second. “Are you paying for this child?”

  “Yes! Every penny I can spare.”

  Jeremy paused again, having run out of accusations.

  “Shit!” Franz shouted into his microphone – essentially Jeremy’s ear, “call Gillan out quickly.”

  “Gillan’s on the show, ladies and gentlemen.” He stepped aside and our after-care director moved forwards.

  Jeremy was aggressive, sometimes even unfair, but it wasn’t just bear-baiting. The show was there for people to see justice being done. You couldn't take someone to court for being unfaithful, but you could take them on Jeremy Kole. And weren’t people at home more familiar with that kind of thing? Not everyone's been the victim of insider trading, but everyone’s been cheated on.

  There was a famous review of us once, from way back before the merger. They’d described Jeremy as “a hypocritical, sanctimonious, malevolent despot.”

  Sounded like a thorough insult to most people, but that’s not how I heard it. It was just a string of insult-sounding weasel words. Still childish name calling, but because it used words of five syllables, it had become a sound bite, especially when all of this had been in court.

  Another problem I had with those insults was that they were inaccurate. Jeremy wasn’t hypocritical. He openly confessed to a shady past but he’d learnt from his experiences and actually yeah, that did give him the right to give others advice thank you very much.

  ‘Sanctimonious’ wasn’t fair either. It wasn’t like he was going out onto the street and preaching at people. All the guests had volunteered to come on the show.

  And ‘malevolent’ is just a grown up version of ‘nasty’. It's a purely subjective term, tagged on to make a list of three adjectives before the noun: despot. That was ridiculous too. A despot rules where people haven’t voted for him.

  Jeremy was simply a baptism of fire. It was Gillan who did the actual work. He was the reason we could justify the show to the United Nations. We could always point to him and say ‘Look see! We really do sort problems out!’

  “Here’s the genius,” said Jeremy as Gillan casually sat down on the stage. All the rules and regulations we had in place were down to him. Sure, Jeremy had a lot of power over what happened, as did Franz and myself, but Gillan was more responsible for the shape of present-day Britain than anyone else I could think of.

  “Hi Mattie.”

  “Y’alright.”

  “It sounds like the problems really started when your baby was born. You heard all these rumours that your girlfriend was sleeping with other men and you started arguing with her.”

  “Yeah.”

  Franz pointed to one of the six screens we had running. It was Mattie’s girlfriend Carla looking rather smug. “Go to that camera next time the word 'cheating' comes up.”

  “Won’t that make people hate her?” I checked.

  “I think Carla’s going to become the villain quite soon,” he replied.

  Franz was a brilliant director. When he got a hunch, he was always right. Sometimes I could have sworn he’d checked out the lie detector results before us. Very illegal, of course, but he was too good for it to have happened another way.

  “Now think about it,” continued Gillan in his wonderfully comforting voice. “If your girlfriend has been unfaithful, would you love this child any less?”

  “No.”

  “So whatever happens, you’re going to come away from this being a good father.”

  There was still a misconception that therapists were surgeons of the mind and that every social worker would give up their lives to help you give up the booze. Gillan and his team weren’t like this. But if people saw what we actually did in after-care, shit would hit fans all over the country. And the network was pushing for us to show it.

  It was no secret what we were doing, exactly, it’s just that nobody wanted the gory details. We'd been investigated so nobody could complain, but when we decided to broadcast the Henderson sequence, everything would change. People would get to see exactly how society was healed. How the loose threads were dealt with.

  What really scared me was what would happen if we broadcast Phase Three. Phase Two was going to be risky enough, but I don’t think they’d ever find a way to televise the final solution. At least, if they did, I wouldn’t have to get involved. Franz had asked me to be the chief vision mixer on all the new 'behind the scenes' sequences, so I'd have a permanent position there.

  We were still putting the first one together, editing the miles of footage which would turn Gillan from a behind the scenes mind-mechanic into one of the most televised (and therefore powerful) people in Britain. Nobody would back Jeremy on his own, but talk of a Jeremy-Gillan movement had been around since the first days of the merger. The Prime Minister knew this and although he loved our results, he feared our influence.

  “Coming up next we�
��ll do those all important lie detector results, so don’t go anywhere!” Jeremy insisted into Camera 5. I played the show’s logo, re-routed to the adverts and we were safe for five minutes.

  We never used to broadcast the show live but since the reformation it was one of the agreements. We could delay it by four seconds to remove swearing, but that was it. The public had to see things in real time for everything to be fair.

  I lined up the disclaimer sequence that played after the adverts and waited for my cue. I could see Jeremy and Gillan talking cheerfully to the crew and members of the audience. That surprised most people. The fact that Jeremy and Gillan were genuinely nice blokes.

  I started drinking a bottle of water while Franz talked to the cameramen, giving them new marks for the second half. I kept an eye on the monitors so I knew exactly where each one would be and by the time I’d finished my drink, the countdown reached zero. I played the show’s logo and everybody took positions. Thirty seconds till broadcast.

  Jeremy’s pre-recorded face – one of the few pre-recorded parts of the show – looked into the camera and spoke with his usual frankness.

  “Have you been cheated on recently and you want help getting things sorted? Maybe you’re the one being accused of cheating and you want to prove your innocence. Or perhaps there’s a divorce in progress and the courts have failed you. If you want our analysis and you’re old enough to vote in a general election, then please call my researchers. The number’s on your screen right now, and remember that calls to the Jeremy Kole Show are paid for by your local council. For politics you have the government, for social crimes you have the police, and for everything else, you’ve got me.”

  I switched to the cameras and Franz told Jeremy to continue.

  “Welcome back to the show. Now before the break we learnt that Mattie and his girlfriend Carla are at breaking point, arguing over their two-month-old daughter because they’ve both been accused of cheating. So let’s do those all important lie detector results.”

  “Ready?” Franz whispered.

  “Don’t worry, all prepped.”

  Cut to Jeremy receiving the envelope, then to a quick shot of Mattie in tears. He looked nervous. Then to his girlfriend Carla. She looked confident.

  The polygraph was still the strongest criticism that the UN had against us. 97% accuracy wasn’t quite good enough and so much of the show relied on it. Since I’d been on board we’d done about 15,000 lie detector sequences. That’s 450 innocent people sent down.

  The lie detector had been described by the New York Times as ‘the most horrifying and disturbing mandate in British politics.’ That was the Americans for you. Inventing something and then shunning it when we put it to good use. I mean what were they trying to say? That the lie detector was a slightly vague judicial process? No shit, Sherlock.

  No one was stupid. We all knew that occasionally we’d send the wrong guy down. But when the Kole Treaty had been voted for, the British public knew that too. They thought it was worth the risk. If you contacted the show, it was on your head if we sent you to Phase Two and Gillan’s after-care, or whether Jeremy just lost faith completely and sent you to Phase Three.

  Sure, it wasn’t an ideal system, but there’s no such thing. The Americans think democracy’s any better? That was a joke. A whole system built on the assumption that ‘the majority is correct’? The majority of people still believe water drains in different directions either side of the equator!

  “We asked Mattie have you slept with anyone since your child was born and he answered no… he was telling the truth.”

  The audience cheered and his father hugged him. So good, so far.

  “We then asked Carla have you had sex with anyone since the child was born and she answered no… well this says you were lying!”

  Oh good one. Men cheating was same old, same old. Women cheating was still a bit taboo.

  “Told you,” smirked Franz.

  “Can we have a round of applause for Mattie ladies and gentlemen!” Jeremy asked/ordered. Everyone cheered again. Everyone except Carla’s parents of course. Oh, and obviously Carla, who was screaming and protesting.

  They always said the same thing: “Why would I come on the show if I was lying?”

  I just bleeped it out. Same old arguments in the newspapers. Same old boring examples of people who’d famously beaten it, or famously declared innocence only to admit later that the polygraph had been right after all.

  “But you still got this girl pregnant, didn’t you,” said Jeremy, turning on Mattie once more.

  “Yeah I know. But I was drunk and I never meant it to happen.”

  “Well why didn’t you use something rubbery?!”

  The audience went wild as Jeremy dropped his catchphrase. It hadn’t actually been his idea to put those words on the condoms, it had been mine. Durex had laughed at us. Nobody wanted to buy condoms with a picture of a middle-aged man on it and the words “use something rubbery!” underneath. But now Jezza’s Johnnies outsold them three to one. Suck on that Durex!

  “OK now get a shot of Mattie’s grin,” said Franz.

  It was another good call. Usually Jeremy’s catchphrase was a serious allegation, but every now and then it could be taken in good spirits. Mattie knew he was off the hook.

  “And as for you, you little liar!” Jeremy turned on Carla.

  “I swear I wasn’t lying Jeremy! Mattie I would never do that to you! I’ll take the test again.”

  “Save it darling!” Jeremy yelled. The tears were gushing down her face. “You’ve come on here, gotten pregnant, cheated on your boyfriend and accused him! You even had me fooled but d’you know what? I’ve had enough! Get off my stage!”

  And that was it. Goodbye Carla.

  We had plenty of footage with her parents backstage as they said goodbye, but there was nothing we could use it for. If we ever did start broadcasting Phase Three somehow, then maybe we’d use all this stock footage. But right now it was too raw.

  The footage from Phase Two was going to be dark, but nowhere near that bad. The screaming from the druggies stopped me sleeping at night, but as per always, you couldn’t argue with the results. Not that I’d call Phase Three a result for a sixteen-year-old girl.

  “D’you really think he should've kicked her off the stage?” I asked Franz hesitantly.

  “It’s his call.”

  “I know, it’s just that she didn’t really seem bad enough to warrant it.”

  “Jeremy obviously took a dislike to her.”

  “That’s what I mean. It used to be the worst of the worst, people who weren’t reformed by Phase Two. People who genuinely couldn’t be integrated into society. Now I think he’s just using it as an excuse to get rid of people he finds unpleasant.”

  “Well that girl was really obnoxious.”

  “Yeah, but carting her off seems a little harsh.”

  “I’d be careful with talk like that,” he laughed. “You’ll end up getting Three’d yourself.”

  I paused for a minute as I considered his joke. I then asked the question that was on everybody’s lips: “D’you reckon it’ll ever come to that?”

  “What?”

  “Them taking Phase Two and Three out to people on the street?”

  “I doubt it, that’s what makes this all legit. Everyone who gets sent down is volunteering to be on the show. If we started Phasing the public it would remove the whole purpose of the merger.”

  “Justice for the people and by the people,” I mumbled, repeating the show’s slogan.

  “Speaking of which,” I added. “Have we heard back from the network yet on the Hendersons?”

  “They’re still pussyfooting. No one wants to be the person to approve it in case the whole plan backfires.”

  The Henderson sequence was probably the most cunning political weapon we had ever used. The point was to force the government to breach
the terms of the Kole Treaty. If they made us censor part of our broadcast, we could turn round to them and say we wouldn’t abide by the rules either. We would essentially be legally entitled to challenge them for power.

  “What does Gillan think?”

  “He thinks we should run it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. In the name of openness and honesty. Let the public see what Phase Two actually looks like.”

  “He could run for Prime Minister in twelve months.”

  “I don’t think he actually wants all that power.”

  “What about Jez?”

  “Same. They’re worried they’d become political puppets. Things are tense enough between Commons and the network. They don’t want to get involved.”

  “Almost feel sorry for the bastards.”

  “Shit have we been lingering on that crying girl for eight seconds?”

  I quickly mixed to another camera and hoped nobody thought it was exploitative (another of those stupid agreements we’d signed).