The Postman

Lucy started this piece by writing the sentence "I like kitties when they are drowning" on my paper when my back was turned.... I feel I should say that first by way of explanation.

I like kitties when they are drowning. That's when they fight the hardest, gasping for air, trying to hold on to life by their tiny claws. They struggle when they are in the bag and I am trying to carry it to the edge of the water. Sometimes they squirm so much in the bag I nearly lose my grip. So I always swing the bag into the air before I throw it. That confuses them and also adds momentum when I eventually let go. Then I usually wait there for a bit afterwards, watching the waves gently shifting the pebbles and dampening the leather of my shoes, thinking about those kitties sinking deeper and deeper into the water. Sometimes I think about these precious moments from my past when I am delivering the post. I imagine throwing the bag of mail far out to sea, like I did with those kittens, then going home and spending the rest of the afternoon sitting on the front step in the sun doing a crossword. I didn't imagine being a postman when I left college. I always thought I'd do something literary, something worthy and academic. I tried for a bit - wrote a novel, sent it off, got a wave of rejections and then gradually, like the water when it filled the bag with those kittens in, like swallowed me. Rent to find, bills to pay and I found myself delivering post. 

Hi Creative Folks,

I'm putting the finishing touches on our anthology before I send it for printing.... So far the poems put forward to be included are:

Becky Davies - World of Make-believe
Becca Feeley - I Fell Again, I Remember the Day I Adopted a Book, Playing God, Words
Josie French - The Conventional Fear of Glass, Don't Worry Be Happy
Mich Leecy - Shiny Red Boots, What is it?
Fakra Jabeen - Kites
Lucy Roach - I was Told I'd be a Hero, Revenant

Does anyone want to add any more poems or does anyone else want to contribute? Even if you haven't been able to come to creative writing because of revision and things, please email me some poems and we can still put them in the anthology...

My email address to send them to is m.sharples@stmarysblackburn.ac.uk

It's going to be great - I'm so much looking forward to getting it printed.

Mary

The Collectors - VI

Chris carried on on his search for some groceries, but found that all the shops were shut. The colourful buildings were now all polluted by silver shutters covered in graffiti. Auburn leaves fell all around from the promenade trees, littering the floor. Chris tried to look for at least one open shop. It had only been a week since he had visited Pattersby, it couldn't have all shut down in that time.

He followed the promenade as far as the town went, and then spotted something. A figure sat on a small brick wall in front of an abandoned-looking pub. Chris decided maybe he should ask if there were any shops open.

As he approached, he saw that the man's eyes were sunken and red, and that his skin had become stretched and yellowy. His clothes were old and tattered. He looked homeless.

"What... What happened to all the shops?" Asked Chris, gently.

The man coughed. A great, painful chest-heaving cough. When he stopped he looked up at Chris with his watery, red eyes, and said "I don't remember."

Solar Thinking!

I had a go at a free verse poem this time - as I'm usually so structured. Though; I'm still obsessed with stanzas and not fat chunks of text - that much, at least, I'll stick by. Anyway; it's pretty long - but don't feel like you have to read all of it. Also; I was listening to music when I got the inspiration for this, it's also where I got the term 'perfect sense dreamer' from. ^^

- - - - -

Am I a convinced criminal?
Or an intellectual criminal?
I'm always a stopgap type of person,
That has no creativity or uniqueness,
With which opinion and theory are laced.

So how is it?
Unexpected, isn't it?
You must be confused; hesitated.
And now you want to retreat?
Then you're going to evacuate?

This is my "perfect sense dreamer-like" delusion.
I don't care who's gonna bring me down.
Cause there're a lot more brick walls
And deep darkness in front of my eyes:
So I'll break them from now on!

Does this mean I'm a perfect sense dreamer?
There are already several ways to answer that question;
Just derive it according to principles and theories.
But that's such a mediocre answer.

It's like; we're here for only a second,
Causing confusion and hesitation every day.
And the different between existing or not existing,
In the end, doesn't really matter so much?
Is there really an option?

Imaginary imitation and reflection,
Always, is meaningless and empty -
But unlimited and endless,
Crashing towards the finish line with infinite spirit.

I cannot remember; it was so long ago
In heavy words and yet very peacefully,
When it was all explained to me.
I forgot the name of the person who proved it all.
But I'm not interested in doing something that is difficult,
Not interested any more.

For now I just need the others to do it.
No matter how stupid, idiotic or foolish you are,
See, you are breathing, so keep living and dying.
Dreams are huge, wide and shallow,
From the point of view of someone looking from above.

Anyway, I do not think so - and I do not want to think:

Nobody else is going to live like you do -
And nobody wants to live one more time,
If you are born: you can change!
No one knows our destiny; but we do not understand it,
Being born in this moment, we cannot understand it at all.

The Collectors - V

Isoline and Evander stepped out of the dressmakers shop and into the cool night air.

            “We’ll find her.” Whispered Isoline, her arm around her friend. “We’ll find her.”

            The streets of Pattersby were deserted. All residents were now sunken deep in their extravagantly cushioned beds. Only the cries of the wind could disturb them now.

Isoline had invited Evander over as soon as he informed her of Mandy’s disappearance. His pale countenance at her door had tugged fiercely at something inside her. She had to help him.

No children had ever gone missing in Pattersby before. This was a shock to everyone. The police were over at Evander’s house now, questioning his family and preparing their own search.

            Evander couldn’t wait for that.

Losing a member of your family like losing a limb. For him, Mandy’s disappearance was just the same as his leg vanishing or his arm falling off its joint. He felt punctured, wounded. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t cry. The fear, the tears, they built up inside him an insurgent tornado, moving further and further up his throat. He forced it down.

Now they searched the streets. The cold mattered to neither of them, their aching hunger mattered even less. Isoline held Evander’s hand as they searched, calling out the little girl’s name. Sometimes they ran, petrified that she had come into danger. Sometimes they walked. Sometimes the fear was too much. Sometimes Evander just let the cold numb him.

Neither could remember why they decided to check The Trout’s Tail. Neither could remember why they had gone to seek warmth from a newly opened, greasy pub. Neither could remember why they had walked right in, despite the “CLOSED” sign above the door.

But they did.

They were greeted in there by a woman. A stout little woman, with a very round, flat face. She had grinned at them, before suggesting they follow her.

She took them through a door, into the restaurant room, currently dark and emptied of all beings and cutlery. Through there, they met another door.

Behind this door was an enormous play-area. So large, it must have been impossible for it to fit in that building, never mind the room. It was like a whole world in there. It couldn’t be possible for it to exist at all.

The woman led them inside the play-area. She took them to the left.

There stood a dark curtain, and from behind it there arose the sound of silent bubbling.

Neither Isoline nor Evander questioned the woman when she held the curtain aside for them, revealing the tiny, dark space containing a pool of some gurgling green substance.

Neither of them protested when she pushed them in. 

Letter From Che Guevara's mother to a friend

While helping out at open evening I found this book with a load of ideas of stories and things to write.   One of them was to write about Argentina in 1932 involving a tea cup... I sort of managed it apart from its more like 1940 and mentioned tea rather than a tea cup but I tried right?

I feel I should say Ernesto is Che Guevara's real first name Che was a used as a common reference to Argentinians that just sort of stuck when he was older.  

Oh also I have made a blog for my writing and stuff if anyone is interested in reading anything on it, so far it is mostly what I have also put on here.  Anyway here http://josiedoodlesandscribbles.tumblr.com/

I knew he would struggle drinking it but he did insist on drinking tea. His asthma is improving and I think he might be well enough to go back to school in a few days. I have got him reading Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre dame in the oringal French. He loves the book, the idea of such social inequality seems to speak to him. Though I don't like to admit it he has been well looked after by me and my husband and I think the book inspired him to do rather annoying things like giving his clothes away, he always has the best of intentions but it is hard to keep him sometimes under control.

This may sound weird and it's not that all my children aren't brilliant it's just that I suppose I spend more time looking after him and there's a bit of a spark in him.   Maybe it's because he is the oldest, seen more of the world so I see more from him.  I have never seen such keen emphasis on equality from someone so young.

It's been hotter here than its been for a while its probably why he has been off so much. I am considering taking him away from his book to go through some maths with him. Sometimes I think I push him more than he would be if he was at school but it is good for him.

I think some of his friends who work in at the sugar plantation are coming today. I think think I might make something a bit extravagant for them. I wish I felt I could do something to make a difference. I look around and despite being of a Spanish background rather than Indian I still see the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I don't think the divide can continue much longer. I know it is dangerous to speak of such things but I feel we need change.  I don't want my children growing up with so many people with so little. I know they will do well and they don't seem to me the type to get warped by propaganda but they are only children.

Do tell me what it is like in Chilli, I really want to travel but I feel it's a little late to start thinking of such things especially with how we keep jumping around to keep Ernesto's asthma at bay.

I hope your letter comes sooner next time, either you took months to write it or they have been searching through our post. I don't trust the government if I am honest particularly yours and if this is enough for them to come after me so well be it.   

Just herd a knock at the door so I think I better finish the letter.  Hope to hear from you soon

Lots of love,

Celia

The Collectors - IV

Through the door of The Trout’s Tail, there stood a bar. A greasy-looking man with a pie of a face stood and wiped at a glass. The bar was made of thick oak, alike the beams hovering above. The walls were covered in nonsensical paintings; women passed eggs to each other in a circle, men rode upturned bicycles, children danced through nettle bushes.

     There was nobody at the bar that evening, though through the door on the left, a cacophony wafted in.

     Tables and chairs were set out evenly across a red-carpeted room. A fire sat at the far end, warming up two plump-looking armchairs in front of it. The tables were filled with families. Snorting, laughing, chattering. But if you looked close enough, you would see that these tables were absent of children.

     Moving along through the restaurant, there were signs all pointing to a door at the bottom of the room, near the fire. All of these signs read ‘PLAY AREA, THIS WAY!’

     Through that door, there stood a child’s dream.

     A plastic-covered, cotton-padded palace. Reds, blues greens and yellows hit the eyes with a regal gleam. It towered above every child that ran through it, dancing on every level in each of their imaginary games.

     Through the entrance, you could choose which way you wished to venture. The right took you to the stairs to the next level. If you went straight ahead you would find yourself in a ball pit. If you turned left…

     Tim Peters stepped from behind a black curtain at the end of the left passage. A strange, gooey substance covered his arms up to his elbows. His nose was snotty, and his eyes still held the hint of tears.

     He walked away from the curtain, out of the entrance, and back into the restaurant.

     He passed the tables of adults, who slowly stopped their babbling to get a glimpse of him, and stood before the table where his parents sat.

     Quietly and calmly, he said “Annie’s gone.”