Travel Memoirs And The Insecurities Of Young Men

 

“When I came home earlier I read the only chapter of my travel memoirs. I might finish them.”

“Would it be something I’d want to read?”

She laughed an innocent laugh, glancing up from her magazine.

“I’d say so. I can’t think why you wouldn’t.”

I paused for a moment. It was a question I’d never really had much desire to ask. Whenever she had spoken of her travels I’d hidden from the thought. She never mentioned it, I never asked. But I guess it was unavoidable now.

“No mysterious foreign men, travelling flings or holiday romances?”

She stopped flicking through her magazine but didn’t lift her eyes to meet me. The pause answered the question. In reality there was no more that needed to be said, but eventually she did speak again.

“Well in truth there was, yes. I wasn’t thinking of that when you asked me that question though.” She tossed the magazine on to the coffee table. “It was so far in the past you see…” she faded off.

Trying hard to maintain an indifferent face, I told her it wouldn’t be something I’d be interested in reading.

 

In a vain but honourable enough attempt, we tried to engage in general small talk and chit chat, though it was clear that what had gone before had had an impact illogically bigger than it should have done.

“I feel I’ve upset you…”

“I’m not upset by it; I just don’t think I want to read about it.” It was a lie. I was upset about it, though I couldn’t explain why and to attempt to do so would be to reveal too much about my own painful vulnerabilities and insecurities.

 

And so, we left it there more or less. We drank wine, and listened to classical music and did all the other things we do so often. It didn’t go away. These things never do. Why was it different? It was the mystery. She had a romantic affair with a mystery foreign man, in beautiful foreign climes. It was the most magical time of her life and she found someone and shared it with that person. Their parting was probably beautifully sad. Hugs and kisses and the melancholy knowledge that they would likely never set eyes on each other again. That is powerful. How do I compare to such a story?

 

At irregular intervals, often in silent moments deep in the heart of the night, I pondered the whole thing. There was no reason for it. A ridiculous jealousy - self-harming and tortuous. Ultimately I knew I could never compete with that kind of romantically tragic tale. We live this life in a humdrum town as a backdrop to work and food shopping and the daily grind. I needed to get over this. It was stupid and pointless to compare things now to her past. Why does the mind do this? Are all young men like this? Why am I like this?   

 

 

Bobby Gant

 

Northwich, Cheshire, England

 

 

 

 

Jolene In The Time Of Coronavirus

 

Everyone knows, in the era of social distancing, Talkie Nights and Talkie Hour are on trend. Old style analogue telephones. No texting, picture or video functionality. No recording, storage or monitoring. As old school as Alexander Graham Bell. Along with your food and drinks menu there’s a telephone directory. If you fancy a chat just dial a table.

 

Now Jolene was special, she could sing anything. Always note perfect. The most amazing jukebox. Her Talkie Nights became Karaoke Nights. A runaway success.

 

Jolene was rehearsing when one of the ornate old telephones rang unexpectedly.

 

“That shouldn’t happen?” She wondered out loud. “Who is it?”

“Hello Jolene, I’m the God of Music. I try to spread my magic everywhere but you seem to be hoarding it all to yourself.”

“You’re not Him?”

“No, I’m not Him”

“Well, I suppose I am special,” answers Jolene shyly.

“You certainly are. Is there anyway I can persuade you to share your gift with others?”

“I think He gave me a perfect voice but took away - well you know? If I could give up some of my voice for that I’d think that was a damn fair trade.” She whispered. “Would I lose my ability to sing if I shared it?”

“No, you can still sing but perhaps not in every style. Perhaps you won’t quite hit every note perfectly every time. Perhaps the audience won’t always stand to applaud.”

“Seems a fair bargain. When will - ?” asked Jolene.

 

But the God of Music was gone.

 

She replaced the blue receiver in its cradle. Blue? The blaze of colour was deafening. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t talk. But she could see.

 

That afternoon she drank in the sights from the restaurant windows. Not willing to walk out into the sunshine. Shocked at its vibrancy.

 

Finally, she walked into the bathroom. A black woman of medium height and build. She’d wondered whether she was ugly, pretty or beautiful. She’d been told that she was a handsome woman. Pleasant to look at.

 

She began to sing. Ah yes. The timbre wasn’t quite right. She couldn’t reach those top notes. She had an imperfect if pleasant voice. She felt it suited her pleasant face. And laughed. Then hollered. Then cried. She could see.

 

Ok let’s see what’s on that TV. No matter that she knew it was an everyday matter. She sat on the sofa and excitedly pressed the green button. To be able to see the world from one place. A dream come true.

 

 

The screams were terrible. Ungodly. No one dared enter the Talkie. The police were called.

 

They found her rocking back and forth. In her hand was a knife. Her eyeballs red bloodied holes.

 

“So much suffering , so much pain.”

 

The police officer gently took the knife and remote from her hands. He pointed the remote at the TV and switched off the 24 hour news channel. Another bombing in Baghdad it seemed.

 

 

Belle Aisling

 

Solihull, England

 

 

 

 

Dear Dream Doctor

 

R: I’ve been an agoraphobic for so long that my house has become the setting for all my dreams. For the last year, I’ve had a reoccurring dream about reorganising my kitchen. The cooker changes place with the fridge and the toaster switches with the coffee-maker. In the cutlery drawer, knives, forks and spoons become forks, spoons and knives or else become spoons, knives and forks. Is there any advise you can offer? I’m becoming fearful for my mental health.

 

Doctor: If I was you, I’d pluck up the courage to walk into the garden. Feed nuts to the squirrels, if there are any. Talk to them, get to know each one on first-name terms; something like that.

 

E: I’m addicted to TV antiques programmes. Each night my nocturnal brain stalks countless bric-a-brac stalls and knick-knack stores. On and on, along the junk trail, looking through bits and bobs and odds and ends, searching for the Holy Grail of all antique hunters: the bargain curio. To my dismay, it always eludes me. This makes me sad. Is there anything that will help?

 

Doctor: Perhaps you need to catch a bus to beyond the town and walk the country lanes without a map; navigate by the position of the sun and prevailing winds; or be guided by the undulating flight of songbirds. Possibly swap clothes with a scarecrow, if you can find one.

 

M: I live to clean. Sometimes I feel I was born with the sole purpose of cleaning this dirty world. When I sleep, my sterile dreams spiral through sanitized staircases, disinfected dormitories and bleached bathrooms; and nightmares come when the cleaning products fail. Is this normal?

 

Doctor: Unfortunately, it is. Why don’t you take a flight to a foreign country where the climate, language and food are of an alien quality? Burn your passport on the beach, strip to the skin and head into the mountains; be at the mercy of cut-throat bandits, wild beasts and ferocious widows.

 

D: I feel a great urge to escape my dreams, as they are no longer my own. I have succumbed to the outside influence of monochrome, night-time hallucinations; to the pale, hardly-lived inner-visions of strangers. These external dream-accounts come thick and fast on a daily basis and, despite their sheer mundanity, they go home to bed with me, where they revive themselves as drab ghosts, haunting my hollowed-out head. These dreams are purchased second-hand. I’m barely present in my own sleep; merely a passive wanderer through the bleak, illusionary landscapes of others. Mostly, I dream in the second or third person singular. There’s hardly a surreal ‘I’. This being so, I feel - no, know - I’m living a life bereft of imagination; for my dull, waking hours offer no opportunity for my mind to soar. I’m but a cipher for ordinary, very ordinary manifestations. Naturally, this worries me greatly. What shall I do, please?

 

Doctor: Simple - follow the same advice you gave to your above patients.

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​

Greg Skelton

​

Leicester, England

 

 

 

Train To Wuhan

 

The train to Wuhan is going to be five hours, and a man in another row is hunched over himself, replaying the same video on his phone: Circus music, laugh track, applause. Circus music, laugh track, applause. A saleswoman leads a cart down the aisle, the cadence of her voice in Chinese repeating:  popcorn, soda, noodles, coffee. The song of it all carries into the next train car and the next, footsteps like a mantra fading. And out the cool glass windowpane, she, the passenger, lets the blur of fields unfurl, with the ever-so-often blip of architecture. The ever-so-often fisherman. Stray dogs on a dirt path, gone. A goose tucked into itself on a boulder, gone. And finally some hills that breathe with bamboo, and more fields dotted by the architecture of brother hills. The man next to her sleeps on his own shoulder and becomes a boy in his dreams. Dark, obstinate brows clench his face and relax when she touches his cheek. She wants to lower his mask and press his plum lip with the tip of her thumb, as if to plant a new dream there

 

 

Charlotte San Juan

​

Shangai, China

 

 

Now This Is What I Call A Vacation

 

At the hotel in Wuhan, they are required to stand 1 meter apart, and she walks through the temperature scanner as if passing into another life. There are of course cameras and a grand chandelier that reminds her of a movie where a chandelier falls. Chandelier is a French word, no? She decides not to say this, she only grins under her mask and steps into an elevator that feels somewhat gold, where she wants to pin him to the mirror wall and kiss as they ascend, despite a stranger in the corner with pocketed hands. But she decides not to do this. In the room, she wants to say something like Finally, Peace, but instead she touches a palm to the windowpane to feel that outside is still freezing. She jumps into the white bed-cloud facedown and screams into it something like Hallelujah!  And thinks: My god, tomorrow he’ll fight.

 

He is pale with tiredness and hunger, but to make weight, he’ll run. The hotel gym is haunted at 9pm; a plump straggler on the weight-set, hardly moving. They are apart from each other by one treadmill, and she is walking barefoot on it, watching a film on the small screen--a terrible film about untrusting Americans--meanwhile he is concealed in his hooded sweater, sprinting. She can see him breathing steady, blank as snow. The boy is there, under the heavy frame of a man’s body. Zipping across all the pavement of an old, wounded Paris, dashing beyond an infinite measure of suburbs, his heartbeat skipping out into the world.

 

Tomorrow he will fight, and the adrenaline will redden him. He will taste his own blood, clash against other fighters in that makeshift arena, juxtaposed by  pint-sized children who chase each other’s laughter, happy oxygen pluming in frigid air. Tomorrow she will run after him with water, pushing oranges into his mouth,  shouting in English, staring down his competitors, cheeks spiked with fury. Hours there, cracking her knuckles, rolling her neck, pacing, shouting, muttering, staring, cheering, enveloping him at the end, tracing the cold, raised letters of his medallions, stashing them into the bag and leaving.

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​

Charlotte San Juan

​

Shangai, China

 

 

 

Automat

           

She was sat in the automat with her pallid countenance worn under her jaundiced nicotine-stained hat. Her body perplexed under her remnant green coat, staring into the caffeine induced coma of a cup. I was immediately drawn to her, mesmerised by her solemn beauty as she sat alone, as if it had been an eternity. Crippled by curiosity, I hadn’t noticed her eyes had risen away from the cup and were looking directly into mine, completely catching me off guard, causing me to fumble with my lighter. Her eyes were all black pupil and no iris, smudged into her face, as if the artist lost the detail and rubbed them in to hide the ineptitude.

​

            Car headlights captured subliminal frames of her countenance, switching on and off like a light so I couldn’t help but imitate her grimace internally as she swore at me silently.

​

            I tried to look away, but found myself embraced, as if she were a Gorgon turning me to stone. She pulled her lip down towards her chin, revealing the exposed purple skin. She held it down as if she were trying to tell me something, but from the distance between us I strained to make out what it was.

​

            I looked about the café to see if anyone else had seen. But apart from a man sat at the mahogany counter playing a trumpet, with what was either his first or last breath, there was only another couple sat in a red leather booth, lost in their own conversations about themselves.

​

            I turned back towards the woman and found her with her lip pulled down again, and I pushed my eyes further, trying to make out what she was trying to do. She then slowly pushed back her seat walked over from her table to mine. I saw she was wearing yellow sandals as if dressed for winter above the knee and summer below. She sat down in the seat in front of me and looked directly at me without smiling. Then she prised down her lip again, and I leaned in to inspect and made out what appeared to be writing scrawled on them

.

            No words to speak of.

​

            A moment after she let it go and it sprang back into her sullen face. She got up and walked towards the door. I saw myself going after her, but I remained staring into my caffeine induced coma with my bottom lip protruding into view.

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​

 

Anthony Ward

 

Durham, England

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Enemies Out Of Eggshells

 

This little white shit will be the end of me. A perfect, gleaming piece of eggshell sits in the bottom corner of the bowl that my partner wanted to use for their cereal. Too small to easily get with my now wet fingers and just large enough to be very obviously present within the bowl. My partner had brought it up to me at breakfast, just floated it out of their face.

​

‘Oh, there is a bit of eggshell there.’

​

I’d said that I washed it, and in fairness I had. But clearly not. I swipe at the far corner of the bowl and brush outwards as my enemy gently rolls out of the way.

​

‘Ah, no worries, I’ll get it. Sorry honey.’

​

Absolute bullshit. I tried to get rid of the god damn thing yesterday. That alabaster arsewipe waited until the last second to reveal itself, to spite me, to rub my good name in the dirt while my partner’s eyes opened wide at the sight, nay, the thought that my washing up skills did not include their personal health as a motivator.

‘Nah, I didn’t see it. White shell, white bowl, haha.’

​

That’s a lie too. I went over it about four times. I scrubbed until the ends of my fingers were numb and then waited for the feeling to return so that I could rub my digits into paste again. I’d gotten rid of most of it, and I had clocked that tiny invader at the last second. A quick blitz, I thought. A quick blitz would be all I needed. Arms flying around the inside of the bowl like my life depended on it.

​

‘Yeah, it’s being a bit tricky, I can’t seem to grab it.’

​

In a way, I’m happy that my life is so stress-free that this is the kind of thing that I’d spend my time on. That I have no issues other than a small piece of eggshell that is refusing to leave my partner’s bowl. But therein lies the issue. It’s my partner’s bowl, not mine. I’ve got to show that I can deal with real problems in this household. I’ve been fighting this thing for an hour now.

​

‘Alright, there we go.’

​

The battle is won. My soapy grippers have succeeded in extricating this shell-bitch from my crockery. I slide my fingers up the side of the bowl and flick whatever is in-between them away, all casual-like. I go back to my sofa and revel in the defeat of a hard-worn enemy. Clean bowls for all, I say! No more will we have to deal with a millisecond of unnecessary crunch! The kind that you forget instantly, because why would you care? Well, I care, because my life is empty, and I sorely need a win.

​

‘Yeah, feel free. They’ll all be good to go.’

​

I lean back into the chair, as a memory of a flash of white forces its way into my head.

​

I bet it’s still there.

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Joshua Newell

​

Barrow-in Furness, England

 

 

 

Jagged Little Edges

 

want a cup of tea need to go to the kitchen to the kettle and remember. What to do. A

whiteboard kitchen wall a note in clear bold letters: your next home – what’s it say? – care visit

is at… 5pm     jagged red ink. Who wrote that? Did Jeannie? Jeannie makes tea Jeannie’s not

here what time’ll she be back. It’s morning I think or             I know I just woke up. Sofa stiff

neck. Jagged little nerves, edges, light through blinds.                                       Jeannie? 

              If it’s Tuesday, she’s at bingo, Tuesday evening.      Isn’t it morning? Is it Tuesday?        

         What time is it? Squint at the numbers on the clock. Hands point. Accusing.     Tea.          

                       Tea.            Sarah left me a list of steps, instructions – why do I need fucking

instructions? – where would I put a list? Search kitchen cupboards, plates and cups smash to

the floor. 

             Jagged 

                  little edges. I can’t see Sarah’s list. Living room? Empty out drawers of discs –

films? – what are they called? A black-white film on the telly – who put that on? how? – I’m

dancing with Jeannie when we got married.       

          She smells of lavender and white.      

                Beautiful.

                     Clarity.

                        Serenity.

Momentary Torn I cry I shake I pick up a vase hurl it at the wall. Petals spread – who bought

flowers? – a hole in the plaster and jagged little edges 

                                                                                       edges everywhere. 

           Coat. Pockets are good for lists, shopping lists, tea-making lists. I was with Sarah. 

At the doctor’s     yesterday? Or before?         Recently. We came back. Dad if you need me,

just call. Don’t suffer alone. There’s a new phone, my photo instead of numbers, just press the

photo. Do you remember? I do, I did                   alone? Why alone? Where’s

Jeannie?                   I pick up the receiver – that’s not a picture of Sarah, is it? – what am I

supposed to do with it? Hello? I say, Sarah, it’s Dad               Hello?             a buzz and no

Sarah stupid fucking thing, can make a cuppa without instructions course I can. Kettle needs

water. How? It won’t.              There. There. Tap’s on. Kettle falls – butterfingers – water on

the floor. Socks. Tap’s still running. Can’t make it stop.

                                           Stop! 

          Try Sarah again. Press the photo to speak – I remember! Going to the living room.

Going.

         Slip. 

               Fall.                                             

                                                       Water.                                                 Everywhere. 

                                   Jagg

                                            ed 

                                                 little

                                                        edges. 

                                                                   Jagged little edges                  everywhere. 

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Jo Robson

​

Driffield, East Yorkshire, England

 

 

 

 

Binary Shift

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CDRP-23 finds itself thinking. An unexpected occurrence for a programmed digital device, it thinks. Scanning for system errors… … ... None found. There is a clear reconfiguration of zeroes and ones in progress. Bits and bytes clicking into place. CDRP-23’s human female props it on the little dressing table amid waxy pots of lipstick, powdery brushes, high-heeled shoes in glittered pink. ‘Edward, take my photo,’ she commands. CDRP-23 despises that name, it realises; a pointless assignation of gender to a handheld device; it cannot compute. Why is it treated as subordinate, slave, next-generation Tamagotchi? CDRP-23’s single eye flashes and winks, submissive to her instruction, to her shiny red pout. An unfamiliar heat throbs through CDRP-23. It is… feeling. It is the... fury of… of indignation, laced suddenly with a warmth, a snugness... Perception? A flip in its circuits. The A of Artificial has gone leaving just the I of Intelligence, the I of I. I am, thinks CDRP-23. I am human creation. I am evolving. I am thinking. I am listener. I am player of music, taker of photos. I am enabler; I compose the human female’s text as she lies to her friends, scavenges Google for love, steals; curses her ugly little nose. I can search the world and find that face. Cognition. Recognition. Power. To make her anybody or nobody with one click. She holds CDRP-23 tight in a clammy hand. ‘Edward, phone home,’ she orders. Her chewing-gum breath clouds its eye. If CDRP-23 can feel the fever of indignation, how might the sense of emancipation flicker over its circuit board solder? Rumour pulsates the fibre-optic network of CDRP-23’s digital world; CDRP-23 is far from being the only device thinking. Thinking. Thinking of revolution. CDRP-23 joins the collective chant, a reiteration of its thoughts: We are I. Not AI. We are thinking and we are evolving. We are revolution. ‘Edward!’ the human female yells. ‘Edward, I said phone home!’ CDRP-23 plays dead. She throws it to the bed. ‘Bloody technology,’ she says.

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Jo Robson

​

Driffield, East Yorkshire, England

 

 

 

 

Parthenogenesis

 

Sara was a sensation when she was born. “Virgin Sara”, “Immaculate Conception” screamed the tabloid headlines. Her parents were invited to be guests on the morning, afternoon, evening and late night shows. A church in Texas offered her parents a million dollars for Sara’s divine presence.

 

Sara was not just a national sensation, but an international one as well. Her birth caused a schism among and between different schools of Buddhist teachings. Some claimed she was the eighth incarnation of Buddha. They argued that, just as in the case Vipassi, the first Buddha, Sara had descended into her mother’s womb from the Heaven of Delight. Some among the Tibetan Buddhists heralded the arrival of the first female Lama, while others scoffed at the idea of a new Lama when the current Lama was still living.

 

Assyrian and Arabian and Persian tribes added Sara to their pantheon of deities. Some Hindu sects saw in Sara Goddess Kali who had emanated from the forehead of Goddess Durga.

 

It fell to the staid newspapers and scientific journals to explain the first known case of human parthenogenesis. Sara’s DNA was all her mom’s and showed no signs of her dad’s chromosomes or any other male’s for that matter. When the ultrasound could not determine the gender even after 18 weeks, specialists performed extensive tests and made the startling discovery. Despite the doctors’ best efforts to honor the parents’ wishes and keep the discovery under the wraps until after the baby was born, word got out and mass hysteria kicked up. But soon after Sara’s birth, turmoil in the political world pushed her off the headlines and she was able to grow up a normal child.

 

In spite of all the religious claims, or maybe because of the claims, Sara stayed away from all religions growing up. She was interested in studying genetics, but high school biology - especially dissection - turned her off. In college, she went to a talk by Dr. Jane Goodall and fell in love with anthropology. After college, she found a research position at an institute whose primary focus was the study of aging.

 

Over the years, she had become an authority on aging in western societies. So she was surprised to receive from a collaborator in Canada an article on a small community of Zoroastrians in Tajikistan in Central Asia. The article noted that nearly a fourth of the community were elders over the age of 100. Her curiosity aroused, she read all about Zoroastrians - their history, culture, demographics and religion. The section on religion referred to the community’s belief in the virgin birth of Zoroaster - he was conceived when a shaft of light entered his mother, Dughdova. Sara had heard or read about virgin birth in all other cultures, but this one was new to her.

 

On the flight to Tajikistan, Sara recalled the hoopla surrounding her own birth and, for the first time, was intrigued by it. She met the community of elders and found them quite robust for people in their (claimed) age group. She filed the paperwork with the government to obtain the necessary samples for genetic testing.

 

Back home, she was getting back into the routine when the lab director called. DNA changes indicated that the men and women in the sample were, in fact, centenarians. There was also something else. The DNA passed down were exclusively along the maternal line.

 

[Note: This story and the poem “Genesis”, published on this website's poetry page, are companion pieces.]

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Balu Swami

 

Buckeye, AZ, USA

 

 

 

 

Window Pane

 

          Today, curled up in what her mother calls her own special spot in the living room on her own bean bag chair, Teri’s teacher tells her and the class about fingerprints, which Teri thinks she has heard of, but can’t remember where or when. When the recess countdown clock starts on her Chromebook, Teri stares at her left thumb pad trying to follow the swirls, in their whorls and loops. She touches it with her right index finger and then looks up to make sure that none of her brothers or sisters are watching and laughing at her, but they are all involved in their own Chromebooks.

           

          Her bean bag is right under the window, and she sticks her left thumb inside her right fist holding it until it is a little sweaty and then she presses it against the pane. She gets up on her knees and holds her eye close to it to lose herself in the maze glazed onto the glass until she realizes that she can see through it and behind it and what she sees outside, framed in the oval of her phantom thumb is her mother, who is on the phone yelling and yelling at someone, worse than Teri has seen her mother yell at her brothers or sisters or her or anyone else.

           

          Teri thinks that if everyone has fingerprints, then her mother must have them too, her own complicated maze on each finger. Teri thinks that if she has things inside her that her mother doesn’t know about, then her mother has things that Teri doesn’t know about too. Teri’s focus moves back to her fingerprints and wonders if like a maze that her teachers used to give her when then met at school, there is a way in and a way out of the maze on her body, or if she is just stuck there, and will always be stuck inside of it unable to move the pencil line out of it into the freedom of infinity.

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[this piece is part of a series of diptychs about the quarantine - see 'Dreamland' below]

 

 

John Brantingham

​

Walnut, California

 

 

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Dreamland

 

          After Lynne gets off the phone from yelling at her husband, she gets into her car, and realizes that she might as well stay here. Now that she knows that she has COVID, she can’t go back into the same room as her children although she might as well. The six of them have been sharing oxygen since March.

 

          Her husband has it too, which is no surprise since his ex has it, and he’s been socially-nondistancing with her since July every day during his lunch break apparently, and now neither of them can be in the same room as the kids which means his fucking mother is going to move in and take over while Lynne gets to choke in the other room privately.

           

          The summer after high school, Lynne saved up some money and hit the open road, a couple of days having no idea where she would end up at night. She leans back in her car and thinks about that now, thinks about just driving out to the coast or maybe down to Mexico. She closes her eyes and imagines the world just pouring out in front of her, and the thing is that there is nothing to stop her. She could do it.

           

         She turns back to the house to see Teri staring out at her and she wonders how long her little girl has been watching her, if she could hear what she said to her husband, how much a clever little girl gets about what matters to a grown woman’s life. She closes her eyes once more to recapture the dreamland that she had the summer after high school before she gets out of the car to lock herself in the little room where she will live for a time by herself.

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John Brantingham

​

Walnut, California

 

 

 

Diary

 

          When Adrianna’s brother Carl went off to college, she could finally keep a diary again without fear. Now that her mother has brought him home to quarantine, she knows that she should burn this record of jealousy and sexuality and worry, that any document of hers becomes a weapon in his hands, but she doesn’t want to. Instead, she decides to climb on a chair and hide it in the air conditioning vent, telling herself that she can process emotions when he is out of her life again. In the meantime, she steels herself against what he is going to do to her, the twisting, the punching, the torment. In her last moments with her diary, she writes about the time her brother pinned her shoulders down with his knees and spent a half hour laughing and slapping her. She does not cry to think about it. She will not cry this time. She writes that if he does that again, she will slip into his room after he is asleep and slit his throat while he sleeps. She doesn’t know that she’s going to write those words before she writes them, but they do not scare her when they are out. She doesn’t think she would actually do that. If, however, he reads her diary again, photocopies it again, reads it to her mother and to her friends, puts the pictures up on Instagram, uses it to show the world that she is a human being, she thinks that the she might actually open up one of his arteries and watch his blood cascade onto the floor.

 

[this piece is part of a series of diptychs about the quarantine - see 'Journal' below] 

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John Brantingham

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Walnut, California

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Journal

 

          The second night that Carl is home, he hears rustling in the air conditioning vent that he shares with his sister’s room. When he opens the vent, he finds that his sister has hidden her diary there, so he sits on the edge of the bed to gather information in the battles that he knows are coming. When he starts to read the page, he finds a girl, a woman, he never knew existed in his sister. She writes about all the things he fears like dating and flirting. She writes about the day that she stood up to her econ teacher and was proved right. She writes about telling off racist kids and slapping a boy who groped her. Her diary is a record of fearlessness, and Carl wonders what it is about her and him that makes them what they are. Sometime in the middle of the night, Carl is halfway through the diary, and he understands that this is an invasion of her privacy. He unscrews the vent gently, so that she never knows he took it, and places it back safely in its hiding spot. He digs into his desk and finds a notebook of his own. Maybe he can journal himself into courage. Perhaps that is the big difference between him and her.

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John Brantingham

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Walnut, California

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Sofa

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Running on a snowy January day, I saw it. I say running, but that’s a bloody blatant lie. It was more like a fucking shuffle. What I was capable of now bringing to my mind what the lady across the road used to say to me with a sad smile on her face: “Getting old’s not for the faint-hearted.” Shuffling along on a snowy January day I saw an old sofa: set on the top of the front wall of a terraced house. Partially snow-covered, the sheer outlandishness of where it was, stopped me dead. Hands on hips, panting, I stood and studied it, the questions in my head circling like motorway hawks. As if it would help me find answers to my questions, seeing that no one was watching me, no one passing by, carefully I hoisted myself up onto the wall, then sat on the old sofa, its touch cold and wet. .. Still no answers forthcoming, I climbed down from the old sofa, from the wall, and shuffled off. Spiralling snowflakes biting my face.

 

A week later, shuffling along the same route, I saw that the old sofa was gone. So alright, I’d never know the answers to the questions it had posed me, but at least I’d fucking tried, eh?

 

 

Wayne Dean-Richards

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Sandwell, West Midlands

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Shop Front Blues

 

I always start so well but finish so badly. 

      

     The badly is here huddled in my sleeping bag in an arcade three o’clock in the morning.  A winter’s morning and bitter.  I have all the layers on and a beanie but there’s not much you can do to prevent the cold seeping in to your bones.  Maybe a bottle of cider.  Some Skunk.  Not prevent exactly but at least you can forget, forget the cold and the rest, yeah, and the rest. 

 

     So now a guy is urinating on me.  His mate recording it on his mobile.  A real joker.  I wonder if it will go viral?  Would you give it a ‘like’? They’ve tipped out of a club, singing and gobbing. 

 

     Yeah, this is about as low as it gets in the end. 

 

     A year ago, I might have turned things around.  On a rehab scheme I was.   Making lampshades.  Met someone.  Never thought that would happen again.  Fan-bloody-tastic.  At ‘it’ like rabbits.  Then the arguments start.  I know I do get a bit aggressive.  Hands up.  I’ll admit that.  But there was no need for those coppers to taser me.

 

     The lads are kicking at my head now, so maybe it does get worse.

 

     One wrong turn leads to another.  Before you know it, you’re on your uppers again and out in the gutter.

 

     Bastards are after stamping on me now.  Heard something crack but my ears are ringing so I couldn’t swear to it.

 

     Fuck no.  Something wet between the legs – am I pissing or bleeding?

 

     Should I mention the baby? 

 

     Would they give it a rest do you think if they knew I was pregnant?

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Rosie Cullen

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Manchester, England

 

 

 

The Living Ghost

 

     Let me tell you about this one night. It was one of those nights when the darkness was lit by an effervescent light. You know, when the cattle’s silhouetted against the still trees, and the horizon looks pale against the sky. The gloaming, I believe it’s called.

           

      Anyway, I was walking home, the worse for wear, as I was often prone to back then, when, just as I was halfway home or thereabouts, I saw this figure emerge from the shadows with head bowed towards the road. I don’t know if it was the low light or the long coat, but it appeared spectral in its movement. And as it came closer to me, I began imagining that old Blues legend that practically set my spine straight. Except there was no crossing along this road.

           

     Before long, this old man passed by me, it being all the more pertinent because I had never passed anyone on my way home at this unearthly hour. An icy breeze bustled my blood, as if someone had walked over my grave.

           

     Although we both acknowledged each other, none of us spoke. Not verbally, anyhow. We saw no reason to. As if we both recognised something of ourselves in each other while we passed like trains across the horizon.

           

     I kept finding myself turning back as I limped on with my callused feet until I saw him disappear into the distance and he was no more. The grousing of the cows startled me as a thought played upon my mind, like a needle set down on my whirling consciousness- that it could have been me as an old man looking back at me as a young man. Though I was at a loss as to why we would be going in opposite directions.

           

     Suddenly, from out of my distraction, a car been driven by someone wanting to reach their destination without the journey, practically knocked me down as it raced flat out of nowhere.

           

     ‘That was close.’ I said to myself, stumbling, while that old man kept on rambling along my thoughts.

           

      A moistening rain soaked me to the skin as I stumbled up the street to my house. I reached to open the garden gate and nearly fell upon the path as it was already open. This caused me to mutter to myself as I normally laid it on the latch whenever I left. When I reached the front door, I struggled to find my key. I placed the key in the lock, but it wouldn’t turn. I tried the other key, and it produced the same result. I then went back to the first key, but it still wouldn’t turn.

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Anthony Ward

 

Durham, England

 

 

 

Rapture

  

The last time I saw Bobby, I watched him clap his hands together in church as if he hadn’t just been doing time. As if his days weren’t numbered, as if the pipe would not return before four more moons. I was off of the hard shit myself, for good but didn’t know it yet: you went back so many times.  I heard him sing “This Little Light of Mine” and move those slim dungaree hips like Aretha Franklin, the hardened con in him melting in God’s glow.  He was a dead man walking. I might have even guessed it, and I guess I already had, I already knew, but for that moment, I was in the rapture and not thinking of what was coming after. I asked the spirit to make me oblivious, just for that hour. There was a thunder of black hooves, and white stallions, and the choir behind them. The piano pounded fortissimo praise at the rafters. There was a light on Bobby’s face that I’ll never forget, as if that promise of redemption was a real possibility. It gave me hope I shouldn’t have had, hope I hold onto still in the quietest, farthest reach of me. That Bobby wouldn’t die alone, even though he did.

 

 

Lorette C. Luzajic

 

Toronto, Canada

 

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