Neon Literary Magazine #37

Issue #37

  www.neonmagazine.co.uk

  [email protected]

   

  This compilation copyright © Neon Literary Magazine (2014).

  Do not copy or redistribute without permission.

   

  All content copyright © respective authors (2014).

   

  Authors may be contacted through the publisher.

   

  Cover image copyright © Timur Cetintas.

   

  ISSN 1758-1419 [Print]

  ISSN 1758-1427 [Online]

   

  Edited by Krishan Coupland.

   

  Published winter 2014.

   

  Subscriptions and back issues available from the website.

   

  Contents

   

  Paul Bavister

  Assessment Day

  Larks

  A33 Ghost

   

  Shanalee Smith

  Postpartum

  Menses

  Playing With Guns

   

  Noel Williams

  Sanatorium

  1984 In 1968

  Under The Floor

   

  Christopher Owen

  I'm Dying, Egypt

  Facebook Friend

   

  Tracey S Rosenberg

  Clutch

  Marrying A Widower

  Roommate

   

  Erric Emerson

  Red Limbs

  A Suspicious Cigarette

  Aureole

   

  Meg Eden

  Bollystar

  Roulette Chat

  Twelve Little Indians

   

  Joe Evans

  An Instance Of The Scientific Method

  New Skin

  Black Ghost Knife Fish

   

  Contributors

   

  Paul Bavister

   

  Image by Jac Rye

   

  Assessment Day

   

  Sometimes I look from the classroom

  to the low grey building by the car park

  and remember I have photocopying

  to do so run down then run back

  before the class starts. Last week

  I got locked in the copier room.

   

  I rang security but no one answered.

  I could see the students gathering

  for the last class of the day in the room

  on the first floor. I banged the glass.

  They waited for half an hour then left.

  I couldn’t get an outside line on the phone.

   

  I slept on a couple of bin bags stuffed

  with shredded paper. In the morning

  I checked the door, still locked.

  One of my colleagues walked past

  carrying a clipboard. It was the day

  of my assessment. I banged the glass.

   

  I’m sure he heard me, his waxy lips

  trembled slightly. The students arrived.

  I could see him asking questions then

  tapping on his laptop. After half an hour

  the classroom was empty. The door

  had been silently unlocked.

   

  *

   

  Larks

   

  After three weeks at the chicken farm

  I was in with the owner’s sons –

  they invited me back to their caravan

  for a lunchtime smoke.

   

  I wiped the windows and looked across mounds of ash,

  the field covered with the burnt remains

  of the chickens that died of tumours.

   

  Gaz put on the first Black Sabbath album

  and nodded. He pinched my arm and told me

  not to suck up to their dad.

   

  He’d seen me being shown round the light room

  where the eggs were checked for freshness –

  he called me a creep and I felt like one.

   

  I wiped again and looked to the deserted downs –

  freezing rain blew horizontal. I saw a scatter of birds

  far away, jerking, struggling in a fine net.

   

  When I asked what was going on Gaz told me

  to keep my mouth shut, it was their dad’s set up

  a family tradition. He went to the fridge

   

  and brought out a pot and opened the lid.

  Inside were nine tiny birds lying in a line

  set in solid fat and gravy. The eldest brother

   

  lifted one out and the others followed.

  When it was my turn the record got stuck on

  Satan’s sitting there he’s smiling

   

  and we all got excited about a possible visitation

  and the dead eyes of the lark with my name on it

  watched me as the lid went on the pot

  and the pot went back in the fridge.

   

  *

   

  A33 Ghost

   

  I live in a seventies bungalow in the woods.

  Back in the nineties property developers

  thought they could profit from the place –

  estate agents piled leaflets on the mat.

   

  Back then it was worth the trip.

  Now the postman comes once a week

  with a bundle of leaflets. For ten years

  I’ve walked into town every Friday.

   

  It’s a long walk but the path is good.

  Sometimes I walk with my thumb out

  and very occasionally a car or van will stop

  and I’ll sit silently. I find it hard to make

   

  small talk after so many years in that

  tumble-down bungalow. Sometimes

  I can’t even answer their questions

  about where I want to go so they drop

   

  me off on the one-way system at the edge

  of town. Sometimes the social pressure

  of it all gets too much and I hop

  out suddenly at the traffic lights.

   

  If you look in the mirror as you drive off

  you won’t see me. I’ll have nipped down

  the footpath down behind the new estate.

  Don’t worry about me, I get by.

   

  Shanalee Smith

   

  Image by Eric Chegwin

   

  Postpartum

   

  I sit at the kitchen table,

  stare absently at my left forearm,

  watch the kitchen knife

  wedge its way in.

   

  In the middle, through the thickest

  section of meat. It’s like the first

  slice of honeydew, difficult

  to penetrate without pressure

  and a little back and forth.

   

  I look at the knife block

  reassure myself that everything

  is where it should be.

  I have trouble distinguishing.

   

  You are making your lunch.

  Soon, you will leave me.

  Alone.

  With our son.

   

  I say – softly so that you

  will have to come closer –

  “I think
I need help.”

  You lean against the counter,

  ask me, why?

   

  I tell you: suspension.

  The scrape of raw cotton

  against my mind.

  Anaesthesia.

  The longing for wounds I can inflict,

  touch and milk.

  You ask just one more question:

  Do you ever want to hurt the baby?

   

  I say, “No,” and “never.”

  You make your lunch.

  You leave.

  Again I look at the black and

  silver handles protruding so

  expectantly from the block.

   

  I get up and wake the baby.

   

  *

   

  Menses

   

  My exquisite wound rushes

  viscous death

  renders me intouchable.

  The throbbing instinctual

  as violence, visceral

  as the foetal position.

  Rot is heavy in the air, heavy

  between my legs. Lover,

  lead the way.

   

  *

   

  Playing With Guns

   

  I could never remember

  what had riled us up

  like a nest of snakes

  shaking our rattles and

  sinking venom into tissue.

  Just the intense

  sensation of my own

  blood, jackhammering

  through my pulse points.

  We were born and bred

  for malice, tossed to

  the familial oubliette,

  taught to eagerly eradicate

  softness or axiom.

   

  Unexpectedly, you bolted

  abandoning our altercation

  in favour of the dark

  chambers offering shelter

  and sturdy doors.

  I was too incensed

  to permit your escape,

  gave chase to the usually locked

  recess of our mother’s room.

  You were lying in wait for me.

  Her room was cavernous –

  the only window blacked out

  decades ago.

  I couldn’t see

  the nine millimetre

  until you raised it, level with

  my brow. I stared at the

  small hole, blacker than

  the black gun or the dark

  room.

   

  Did Mom see this coming?

  When she put that gun

  in her nightstand,

  brought us here collectively,

  showed us where she’d stashed

  the full clip of two-toned

  bullets, did she know what

  it would lead to?

  I had no doubt

  about your next move.

  Daily, you dug knuckles

  into the plastron of my ribs

  and soft balloon solar plexus,

  drove your Nikes into my shins or

  spine. More than once, you

  had introduced me

  to the business end

  of a butcher knife.

  I was oddly resigned

  to this inevitable outcome.

   

  You hesitated. It was the only

  thing that had the power

  to shock me. I saw

  a shadow of humanity

  clutch at your face. I

  couldn’t make anything

  of it.

  There is a finite number

  of milliseconds that one

  can lock eyes with the muzzle

  of a gun before their sanity

  leaks out

  like so much water.

  “Pull the trigger or put

  it down.”

  I would not give you

  my back for target

  practice. I would not

  permit you the justification:

  it just went off.

  There would be

  no struggle but

  your own.

  The malignant snap

  of the trigger,

  resonant as the gunshot

  would have been

  had the safety

  not been on.

   

  Noel Williams

   

  Image by Sofia Henriques

   

  Sanatorium

   

  They say you get used to anything.

   

  I swill eighty-gallon bins

  with a garden hose in the yard behind the wards

  crawling into cabbage leaves, soup, the savour of sick,

  occasional needles. I lock

  the mortuary door, killing

  the careless lights beside a cabinet of strangers

  breathless in the hermetic dark.

  I’ve done it for months.

   

  Now they walk with me.

  Each corpse is sweet as melting wax.

  stinks of compost and gob,

  rust, unwatered dahlias, slurry.

  They speak with the fizz of machine tools,

  of flies busy under glass, tell me:

  you can get used to anything.

   

  Soon, they’re checking the gates,

  strolling ahead when my torch clogs in darkness.

  They stumble through the wheelchair park,

  okay locks and chains with amusing moans,

  goose the sleepwalkers, drool in breakfast trays.

  They’ve completed my crosswords, and badly –

  “aspiration” –  retribution,

  “raison d’etre” (5,4) – blood lust.

  Now they’re racing stretchers in the car-park,

  holding parties to welcome

  gangrened feet lopped for the fridge.

   

  I'm searching the Help Wanted ads.

   

  *

   

  1984 In 1968

   

  then Animal Farm all in one raw harvest,

  not sleeping. Reeling and weeping for a night

  over Boxer, the glue factory,

  sweeping toys under the bed.

   

  I understand the farm. I understand

  I can’t change anything: on the playing fields,

  in soft-carpeted corridors,

  in my mother’s bedroom, on any page

  but this.

   

  *

   

  Under The Floor

   

  Our house

  becomes the basement.

   

  At night we watch precise spiders

  join the joists of our sky

  above our candle-moon.

  Smoke wires through the coal-grate.

  We stuff cracks with rag.

   

  We hear

  in the stamping of bomb on bomb

  earth’s apprehending.

  We guess which streets unravel,

  webs in a candleflame.

   

  Our past burns away

  as we choose stories for our future.

  Blind glass. Fumbling brick.

  Spiders shrivel like matchheads.

   

  Christopher Owen

   

  Image by Camila Schnaibel

   

  I'm Dying, Egypt

   

  He was always making her laugh. He’d tell her a story. It didn’t matter how bad it was, the way he told it, the look on his face, it had her in stitches. They were in the kitchen. He put his arms about her shoulders and told her a joke, a useless joke, one about dying and which included the line from Anthony and Cleopatra “I’m dying Egypt”, which made her shake with laughter. “I�
��m dying,” he kept saying, and she laughed. “I’m dying,” he called out, and he began to slump down towards the floor, and she laughed, he was such a fool. “I’m dying,” he called as he reached the floor. And she laughed. “Okay, okay,” she said. “That’s enough. The Oscar winning performance is over,” she said to him as he lay there. “Pete,” she said. “Get up, get up, stop fooling around.” But he didn’t get up or respond. “Pete,” she said. “Pete,” she urged, as she knelt to him. “For Christ’s sake, Pete!” she cried out. But he did not reply. She shook him. But he did not reply.

   

  *

   

  Facebook Friend

   

  It’s Jennifer’s birthday. Everyone, all her Facebook friends send their greetings. Hiya. Happy Birthday Jennifer, Merry posts happy birthday, Jenny. Have a lovely day! xxxx, Lalla posts. Then all the others, or so it seems, wishing her well. Pop a bottle of champers, Jenny dear! Happy birthday. Lol. xxx. Happy birthday, Jenny. What are you doing to celebrate? Have fun today Jenny, xxxxxxxxxxxx. They are waiting for her to reply. Jenny who is always there, loves to post, crazy lovely Jenny. Hey! Where are you? Naomi posts.  Hope you had a fab birthday, Lalla posts. The enquiries are sent out, come in. All her Facebook friends, well, those who correspond regularly, where are you birthday girl? Where are you Jennifer? Each to each other, what’s happened to her? Has anyone heard from Jennifer? No. No. No one has. And it’s so unlike the chatty girl, the twice-daily poster. Now panic sets in. Steve doesn’t know where she’s got to. Merry’s very upset. Martin writes he’s as bemused as Steve. Who’s Martin? Merry wants to know. Martin? Does anyone know who Martin is? No one knows Martin. Well, someone must do. Is he new? A new Facebook friend? He’s a friend, Steve posts. Steve, Martin, they’re Facebook friends. Martin’s profile pic is a dog with his leg lifted up at a gatepost. Which Steve likes. Merry likes. Penelope thinks is crude but doesn’t say so, so says nothing, posts nothing. Ignores. Martin changes his profile pic to a bare behind, a man’s behind, which disgusts and brings remarks like: well, everyone to his own taste. Then a picture of Jennifer! Martin’s profile pic is of Jennifer! Consternation. Pretended forced hilarity. Mildred posts this is sick. This has got to stop Martin. But Martin doesn’t stop. And two days later he puts up another photo of Jennifer naked, full frontal naked. In memory of Jennifer, he posts. Who is this man? Steve. Steve. Who is this man? Steve doesn’t reply. Nothing. Steve, Steve. For God’s sake will you reply? No. Nothing. Martin posts: Steve has disappeared. Maybe he’s with Jennifer. I’m shocked, posts Penelope. I’m shocked, posts Mildred. Everyone is shocked. This is a very, very bad joke. This is an abuse of Facebook. It’s contrary to its whatever-the-word-is. I can’t think of the word, Jane posts. But whatever it is it’s contrary to it. To its intention, Mildred posts. That’s the word. It’s a bad joke, posts Penelope. I’m deleting Martin and Steve, posts Tammy. So am I. So am I. They do. Joshua wants to be Penelope’s Facebook friend. Who’s Joshua? Sounds nice. The more the merrier, posts Penelope. Joshua is everyone’s Facebook friend now. Well, welcome aboard. It’s good to have friends – Facebook friends. Joshua: Thanks all. Great to be friends I’ve changed my profile pic hope you like it. It’s of Jennifer with an ear missing. Where’s Steve, where’s Martin? Everyone is sending messages to Jennifer, for God’s sake Jennifer post something, just something.

   

  Tracey S Rosenberg

   

  Image by Nick Winchester

   

  Clutch

   

  Great-grandmother left spidery notes tucked

  into the compartments of her jewel box.  Her pearls

  were a gift from a young man

  who snapped the box open and babbled.

  In their sole photograph, white knobs curl

  down her throat, as though

  he sent her his polished spine

  when he drowned in blood at the Somme.

   

  Grandmother wore them with her Wrens uniform.

  She once whispered to me, tipsy on sherry,