Christmas Letter

‘Twas a dark and stormy afternoon (I jest not) as the scribe sat down, mug of tea beside her, to write a letter to her fairy godmother. Sleet and hail lashed alternately at the window, filling the room with a soggy drum-roll in place of light. Atmospheric, she thought. A bloody nuisance, because writing in the gloom can, as every writer knows, give you a stonking headache, but atmospheric all the same.

Dearest Fairy Godmother,

she began.

I hope that this yuletide greeting finds you in good health and spirits.

She paused, sucking on the end of her pen, pondering a decent beginning, because Fairy Godmothers are the sort to notice these things. The standard launch into the mundane trivia of life just wouldn’t do. She wondered whether the Fairy Godmother would appreciate sensationalised tales of Washing-up Mountains, of Essays Worse than Death, of Extra-curricular Quests which suck the very life from you until you wonder, as 100 school-kids pounce upon you, screeching wildly, why, exactly, you put your name forward. No, she decided, perhaps not. Although it would be rather closer to the truth than might be imagined. And yet, she couldn’t tell of buses which never arrived on time, or relaxing evenings in the student union with new-found friends; it would not make for a thrilling read. It would, in fact, be almost as heinous as ’all going swimmingly, here’ or some such tosh. But that was the thing. Apart from essays of doom, and organisational headaches, it was going swimmingly. Even the Attack of the Minors had been fun. They’d been terrified by her spectre-voice.

The writer sighed. It wasn’t easy, living up to creative expectations.

Outside, the sky had darkened further, tendrils of moist, black cloud reaching towards the warm, candle-light glow of the city’s buildings. Pressing her nose against the pane, she peered across the rooftops at the barely visible wind-bowed trees on the skyline, and shuddered; anyone out there was in for a rough ride. The phrase ‘weather here gloomy as ever’ flashed across her mind for an instant. She banished it to the cerebral recycle bin.

Back at her desk, she contemplated sketching out the characters in her new life – from the dumpy lecturer who’d trail off into a critique of fantasy novels and star-trek incidents at every opportunity, to the technophobic tutor who had, at the start of term, blown the projector instead of switching on the lights. But there were libel issues. Her friends might have fewer objections, perhaps, but the writer was sure she couldn’t do them justice.

She stared into ethereal space, awaiting that crashing block of inspiration. None came. She thought upon Christmassy things, the joy of which she hoped to bundle into her message. She thought of mince pies, and mistletoe and laughter, and enough snow to merit the season, without delivering hazard to the community. She thought of fireside tales and warmest wishes.

Warmest Wishes,

She wrote, hoping that the rest of her Christmas tableau would ooze wordlessly from the page. Fairy Godmothers got that sort of thing, right?

She scrutinised the page. Pretty standard stuff, and not nearly as informative as she’d hoped. Still, it’s the intent that counts. She read it again, and wasn’t satisfied. But the post would be collected any minute, and she still had to find her scarf, and the stamps, and...

She signed.

Your Fairy Goddaughter

And, in a flash of revelation, quickly but carefully inserted one last line above ‘warmest wishes’:

All going swimmingly here.

Write A Summer Memory/The Newspaper

“Sleep at all?” Tess queried, as Becki swung herself into a chair, clutching a thick black coffee in one hand, and the group’s newspaper in the other.

“Nah. You?”

Nobody had; the tremors from the Qiryat Shmona hits had rippled beneath them incessantly.

“No fire after cake tonight guys, Hadas reckons they could see it from the border.”

“But-”

“I know. At least they’ve not closed the moar-don though. And I’ll open the pub a bit earlier.”

A few of them nodded. Nobody had the heart to complain.

“May I?” Jorge, biting into a hard-boiled egg, reached for the paper.

“Go ahead.”

Becki’s eyes fixed on the dense black letters as he unfolded the pages. “33 Dead” the ink announced, “in latest hits”, and below that, in angry lettering “Troops Retrieve Comrades After Surprise Attack.”

The pair exchanged looks. Some of their friends had crossed the border in uniform.

It went on. “Lebanese Make Death Threats Towards Minister”, “Tel Aviv Swamped As People Flee”. Page two discussed the economic effect upon kibbutzim of the north, forced by fire or fear to shift south, abandoning their crops and livelihood.

There was talk here, too, of the risk being too great. Several families were staying in the city with their friends, and the roads were empty of the usual camaraderie.

Becki’s stomach clenched, forcing acid coffee to her throat as Jorge turned to page three. His face greyed as they scanned the Fallen Soldiers page for familiar grins. The print was bad, hardly a tribute to those it remembered, and they had to look hard at each face, just to be sure. Becki’s eyes flicked across the final faces, trembling in horrified relief.

---

This is the first, shortest, of 6 random war-experience things that my flatmate prompted last night. The others, when I have the emotional stamina to complete them, may appear.

I don't recommend vivid emotion flashbacks.

Fragments

Mannu crashed against the wall, grateful for its solidarity. They were shouting, again; voices spasmed through his brain, sharp, gashing at his thoughts, but fuzzy, so that when he tried to focus on them, it hurt his eyes.

On the field, the others shrieked as they chased one another around the swings. He tried to focus on them, instead, but they moved so fast that their bright shapes formed a web across his eyes. He looked away, tried to wipe his vision clean, but his hands were ineffectual.

Still, the voices ran rampant, louder and louder as he fought to shut them out. They were strong, and they could see the scars they’d made upon his mind. Sometimes, he would trap them, build blockages they could not pass but they were too quick, this time. The voices coursed through a weak point in his mind. They spread like flame dropped onto oil, their harsh pulsing tones scratching at his limbs ‘til he was forced to move with them to lessen the force.

“Bloody kid’s doing it again!”

“Well, stop him, you heard what She said this morning, it’s bad for him to get into the cycle”.

“Mannu! Mannu, Challoo; let’s go! Uppa; get up!”

Somewhere above him, a voice, all alone, formed abstract words. He knew that voice. Perhaps it could save him, but it was too far away, and the other voices had hold of him now; they’d never let him reach up there and grasp at help. Silently, he cried, convulsing with the voices as they tightened their grip.

A rough hand grasped at his arm and pulled. The one-voice was reaching down to him! For a second, the voices paused, and he could hear the world tick by, but their talons still clutched at him, stifling his voicebox, stiffening muscles; it was all he could do to drag his eyes towards the hand for half a moment. The voices dragged his focus to the ground and resisted the pull of the distant one-voice and its solid form.

He felt his body being pulled up and across the floor. His heel snagged against the path and bled; he couldn’t pick it up, couldn’t straighten and pull away, couldn’t acquiesce. The voices screamed a siren of war. It encompassed him. He barely noticed as the hand let go and he, a dead weight, fell back against the wall, almost foetal. And the voices trilled their victory.

The one-voice stumped away and Mannu lay there, breathing in short, desperate bursts. The coloured web changed shape and hue before his eyes, into an organised lattice of cream on porous reds, stacked one line after another. He felt its grain beneath his fingers, craters so big the could swallow him whole. Would they? The voices buzzed excitedly as his fingertips explored, pushing deeper into the crevices as they tested the limits, out of his control. Nothing, so his hands worked on, creeping slowly across the web of lines and then slap, seeing if they could be caught out. His palms itched from the force, but they wouldn’t be stopped. He had to know if he’d be pulled through. Slap. He had to know.

“Mannu.”

Something touched the back of his hand as it reached the wall once more. The voices crashed to a halt in frozen rage.

Her eyes hovered at a spot above his shoulder, their grey sheen catching his attention.

“Teek-hai – you ok?”

The voices stared at the unwavering grey, waiting to rebel. No commands, but the grey lingered, indifferent, inescapable.

Her palm extended towards his as she watched the others play – did she notice? And his fingers found their strength. After a moment she stood, and he stood with her. Together, haltingly, they walked away

On the night train to nowhere

Abhaya stared hard at the underside of the bunk, where the abrasive snoring of her grandmother filled the carriage. It irritated her, though she felt remorse immediately she realised this. Her Grandparents, and their parents before them, were everything that she was, they had built her world from nothing.

That was the trouble. Something of her unseen self prickled just below the surface, trying to communicate with her voice, her limbs. But she couldn’t allow it to get out; they wouldn’t understand.

How could a good, honest family understand that she wanted to leave? There was a future for her, in the business, as there had been for her father and her brothers, as there would be for her children. Hadn’t it, hadn’t they, provided her with everything she’d ever wanted? she tried to squash the little voice inside her, but she heard it all the same – No, not everything - and she’d throw it all away over some notion of importance and brain? A mere dream that she could barely hope to attain? Even of the men, it was rare to find an educated Narayanan.

A tall, lank-haired young man thrust open the carriage door and shuffled through, canister and plastic cups clattering against his side as he intoned his gentle mantra

“Chai, chai, kopi, chai, kopi madame? Chai?”

Abhaya’s stomach snarled. She was hungry, but the roti were packed in Grandmother Kelasai’s case. It would be impertinent to wake her. She reached inside the folds of her salwaar, for a few paise to exchange for a goblet of the harsh, sweet chai, always bitter with overbrewing, beneath the sugar, by the time it reached the cheaper carriages.

The chai-boy shuffled on, and Abhaya settled back onto her bunk, sipping at the scalding liquid. Night was approaching, and with it, came a harsh wind. Where she’d been glad of the gaping windows in the sticky heat of afternoon, she cursed them now.

The train pulled into a station with a scream of brakes, drowning out Grandmother Kelasai’s snarls and blocking, for a moment the hubbub of the platform. Then the doors opened and the fight onto the train began. The sound of four hundred feet deafened. Men barked instructions at each other and their families; instructions to push on, to move aside, or not to let go of the baby’s hand. Alongside the people came the spiced scent of hot, oily pakora and peanuts, the street hawkers’ cries crisp and inviting ‘hot, hot pakora, two rupee. Get it hot!’ The rickshaws honked a dozen different tunes, firing up their engines every now and then as they attracted customers heading into town.

Abhaya peered through the unclosable window at theplatform. Sharp frost bit at her brow. Outside, white breath-trails lightened the black night air. Food vendors and travellers alike huddled together against the cold, or his themselves beneath heavy woollen cloaks and rugs. An outstretched figure shifted beneath a pile of empty rice-sacks. Abhaya retreated, pulling her shawl tight around her shoulders.

Her brothers would be out there, in another town. Every night battling the cold in the hopes of selling the best pakora in town for pittance. Most nights were good, a healthy profit and a hot-air vent for comfort. But some nights, well, you couldn’t have everything.

In the bunk opposite, a family had gathered. Mother and baby dozed, but in the grey light, three youngsters craned over a dog-eared book, tracing the eldest’s finger as it moved across the page.

Abhaya closed her eyes, as much to block out the jealousy as due to exhaustion.

And the train rattled on towards her future.

Beginnings

In a spur of inspiration and good intention, I have decided to use a book which I was given a while ago, to actually complete a piece of writing every single day, because, lets face it, I'm crap at ending things. It won't always be good. It won't always be long, but it will have a definite conclusion.

That's the plan. Let's see how long it lasts. Here's yesterday's:

Write about a rendezvous.

Old Sam’s fingers delicately brushed the top of the pocked, weathered stone, just once, before he half knelt, half fell – for his knees weren’t what they used to be and they just wouldn’t bend - to the mound before it.

He stared, a moment of distrust clouding his eyes in a blur of velvet hair and petal scented skin and laughter. But in an instant, the memories were pushed back to the corners of his mind by the present, which contained, right now, rather more mud and a lot less laughter.

She’d be disgusted by the smoke, caught in the weave of his coat where there had once been the scent of a scalding iron. He’d taken to wearing the same grey-green trousers for every visit, too, because the drop to the ground was heavy, and he didn’t possess half her skill when it came to stains. He could hear her nagging voice every time he pulled the cloth up from round his knees and fastened the belt. ‘You’re a disgrace, Samuel. Will you look at that! For the love of Jesus, put on something respectable!’ And inside, he’d grimace even whilst he smiled.

But he wouldn’t let it stop him turning up; they’d never let a harsh word stay between them, and he wasn’t about to succumb to intolerant misgivings now.

Slowly, righting his balance, Old Sam pulled up the foolish dandelion which had poked its head up at the base of the stone. She’d always liked them, she said. They reminded her of balmy days upon the pier, filled with exotic heat and joy. Nevertheless, they were weeds. They looked untidy, and he’d not have anyone think she were unwanted. Besides, as soon as the weeds grew, the louts with aerosols would make their move, just like they’d done to Edie’s grave the other week. Old Tom had been distraught for days; who could do such a thing? He scuffed the leathery patches of lichen away. There. then, edging closer to the stone, as much to have something to catch his balance on as for their privacy, he sat back on his haunches, gazing deep into the space between earth and headstone.

This was awkward. She’d always been the talkative one, and to be honest, he was at a bit of a loss. He crouched there for a while, steadying himself with one arm against her pillar. It was always like this. She’d want to talk, but there was sport to watch, or roses to tend to, and what business was it of theirs what number thirty two were up to, anyway? Still, he’d listen, with half an ear, and grunt accordingly, and he’d always been there. He was now.

Eventually, because the wind had picked up quite a chill and he feared he’d never stand again if it got into his joints, he stood up - slowly, for it was all his old body would allow. He’d come to no conclusions and made no confessions, but there wasn’t any need.

And with one, long look across his shoulder, he bade her adieu, until their next encounter

Cue: Write about the Silent Treatment

I've been giving it the silent treatment,
my sorrow, but it does not let me be.
It sits there in the gloom,
watching.
Like the ill-invited party guest, it scowls,
from the corner,
waiting for the moment
where its awkward , stunted movements
can ruin everything.

Circles

Circles; an examination in verse.

People, move in them.
Like sneakers.
Comfortable, worn in;
The new kind scorned, uncomfortable.
Rarely shared, or mix-and-matched.

---

The polka-dot queen moves in,
Bouncing jolly, coloured bright,
No-one can resist her powers
They grin, they giggle, they rush out to buy
Her novelty tie, boxers,
but they cannot grasp her wiles,
in pastel or poster-paint hues.

--

A shape, bold and endless,
Symbolic of the human psyche,
Life.
Whether stone circle or maypole,
cursed roundabout on Monday mornings,
or a tendency to repeat ourselves,
Circles hold ritual more ancient than we know.

Once, with another woman...

Once, I had a different voice inside my head.

I guess it's the same for everyone, or most at least. Something, someone, in a second you cannot determine, or slowly and discreetly over time, takes hold of your mental vocal chords and twists.
Next time that voice appears inside you, its sound is unexpected, it jars, makes you stop and think, but whatever angle you examine it from, it's undeniably you, you just don't know how it's you, when you started to sound like that.

My own inner voice, once laid back and amenable has became harsher, more often. The steely notes have been there all along, but somewhere, the fight's become more permanent. I don't know if it's a good thing.

And there's this tinny resonance within which won't allow for natural thoughts of sadness, or frustration or loss. 'What right do you have?' it pipes,Sure, everyone should be reminded of the fact that there are people worse off, but on the hour, every hour? And what about when all the crap in your head is linked to the fact anyway? Oh, I can tell it to shut up, but it never does for long. It's actually rather annoying.

Cue: Close your eyes. Write what you see.

I close my eyes and I see her, dusty-haired and tear-stained; terrified, flinching, wincing at the thought of touch. And I see them, laughing, leering, in the background.
I see him, hyperactive, violent, shunned by everyone. They don't see the hurt in his eyes, but I do.
I close my eyes and I see him, peering at the world through a porthole none but him will ever view, shying away from the chaos; rebuked, forgotten, because he doesn't respond the way they think he should.
I see blood, and pain, and scarring so deep it will never heal. I see the beatings of old, the confusion and longing. I see misery.

But I also see her, squealing with joy at the touch of grass beneath her feet. I see him sitting at a desk, focussed. I see change, slow and methodical, but definitely there.
I see unbounded hope, I see smiles beneath the dirt. I see passion and acceptance; future.

It doesn't take a lot. It's why my eyes open again, every day.

Cue: This Is Not About...

"This is not about you!" she screeched.

Taliesin choked on her words, "not, not about me!? How could you- every bit of it is about me! It's me who works day in, day out; me, who brings in the money. Me, coming home to a cold, empty apartment. And you, you're nothing," he spat "nothing to this relationship. You're never here to make yourself a part of it!"

She stared at him, wide eyed in terrified disbelief. "never-" she slumped into a chair. "You cancel every appointment we have together. I tried ignoring it, I tried to busy myself. I even got a hobby, like you suggested. Several. I tried cooking, but you were never there to taste my tortellini. I tried writing, but romance comes hard when you're starved of it. I tried the gym, but you didn't notice; likewise a beautician's course...And now I've finally found something to keep myself occupied, and you want to snatch it from me. Thank you very much!"

"Yes, but, honestly... International LARPing? "

---
It probably gives away more about me than I should allow, to tell you that I actually think this would be rather cool.

Cue: Write what's under your house.

Under my house, are secrets. Brittle, they creak like cartilage-free joints in December, easily flaked and fractured once exposed. Secrets, rust; they gather a crust of lurid orange; picking is irresistible. It stains.

Under my house are secrets; thick, liquid secrets, slowly running down the crevices of souls, suffocating, until breath, and space and air are the only option.

Under my house, are secrets. When they escape, will walls fall down?