Tag Archives: writing

The Ex in Existential

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With a casual air I pulled the book from my bag and held it open in front of my face, pretending to be engrossed as I picked at my lunch.

She usually came in about now.

Peering over the top of the pages I had a perfect view across the canteen; she couldn’t pick up her food without passing my table.

Mentally I rehearsed.

Oh hi… yeah, good thanks… oh this ?… it’s Camus actually… you too ? I know… I feel like he really understands the human condition.

This would definitely work.

I remembered her room at University back when we’d been a thing, she had that artsy French cat poster and the giant Michael Stipe.

Le Chat Noir: that was probably it.

And then she was here, stopping, staring curiously at me, presumably not realising that not only do I speak French now but that I’m also an existentialist; that this kind of cosmopolitan intellectual elan can’t be carried off just by sticking a picture of a scrawny moggy up on your wall and smoking roll ups under the sensitive gaze of REM’s lead singer.

She spoke: “Did you know you’re holding your book upside down ?”

 

……

This is the 24th story in my series of 42 short stories to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. If you liked it and wanted to donate or find out more then please visit my fundraising page here: www.justgiving.com/42shorts

This one was just a bit of fun. An exercise in a recent writing group class to do something in just ten sentences. I may have cheated a bit with the semi-colons, colons and ellipses…

The Betrayal At Burford

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Some of the men looked up at the sound of hooves outside but most, scattered across the pews in the church, kept their heads bowed. Not in prayer but in defeat. It was four days since they’d marched out for Salisbury and three since they’d been surprised in the night, routed by White and a division of horse. They were four hundred strong when they’d rallied to Captain Thompson to find alliance with their Leveller brothers. Now Thompson was gone, fifty men were dead, and the rest were holed up, captive, in the church in Burford.

A key scraped in the lock and the church door was pushed open. A burly figure stood silhouetted in the frame, the early Spring light spilling into the gloom around him. He raised a hand to his face, briefly covering his nose against the fetid stench: three hundred men’s fear, sweat, shit and piss hung in the room. It stank of despair, of death. He lowered his hand and called out into the church.

“Who speaks for you ?”

More heads lifted now. Two of the men closer to the door got to their feet.

“We are free men Major. We all speak for ourselves,” answered one of them.

The Major spat on the floor. “Men ? You’ve barely started using a blade on your face boy. And last I heard you were only as free as Cromwell’s coin gave you leave to be. You all know me. Major White. I answer only to Fairfax and Cromwell. You all answer to me.”

“I will speak for these men,” said a voice from the back of the church. “And as for coin…,” he paused. “Sir, we’ve scarce seen any of that for weeks.” A tall, slim man stood and made his way through the huddles of men. He bore the same red overcoat as the others, his hung open over a once white shirt, now stained with blood and filth. Thick stubble covered his face. For all his unkempt appearance he stood straight and met White’s gaze.

“And who might you be ?” asked White.

“Thompson… James Thompson. My rank was Cornet. Insomuch as anyone commands these men then I do.”

“Was ?”

“We bear no rank now. Know this Major, we will not march further a single step without discussion of our demands and without pay of the monies we are already owed.”

“I knew your brother, Thompson. You have his look. You have his taste for treacherous anarchy as well. At least you had the courage to stay with your men and not flee like he did.”

“Having your kin named coward by a man that attacks infantrymen – his own infantrymen – on horseback and under the cover of night is no insult. Look to your own courage Sir and I fear you’ll find it absent. And what you decry as treachery and anarchy we call simply the just settlement of England’s revolution.”

“We killed the King. Reckon that’s enough revolution for any man,” said White.

“Any gentleman perhaps. For Cromwell perhaps.” Thompson gestured at the soldiers around him. “There’s been no revolution here Major. Naught that changes things for us. Do you expect us to go back to tend fields we don’t own, watch Cromwell be King in all but name, and have no say in how this land ought be governed ?”

“I expect you to go to Ireland as you’re ordered.”

“We’ll not go to Ireland. There’s nothing there but more war. We’ve turned this world – this country – upside down and when it’s righted we don’t want to find ourselves back at the bottom.”

“This is your last chance Thompson. This is a direct order from Cromwell. Re-join the Army, nay say your demands, and march for Ireland to help put down the Catholic heretics. Your men will be pardoned and they will be paid.”

Thompson shook his head and said, softly “Not me Major, not me. A Lord’s purse is not reason enough for me to fight anymore.” He then raised his voice, projected across the church to the weary, beaten men that he’d fought alongside. “Do not follow me blindly into death, friends. There is no honour in that and no shame in wanting to live. Our cause, our common cause, does not end here today. Carry it with you in your hearts and tell it to all that will hear, all that would live as free men. Be led no longer by nothing more than the belief that this land belongs to each of us.”

White grimaced, nodded and turned and left the church. The door remained ajar but a phalanx of men, armoured and armed, were visible outside. White addressed them, loud enough for the prisoners to hear.

“Take them up the tower and spread them out on the roof. They’ll be secure enough up there and I want them all to see what happens to traitors. When that’s done bring me Thompson, whoever’s next in command, and two privates. Bring them out here and make ready a firing squad.”

……

“Let me die with my helmet on Major. A simple soldier’s request to another soldier.”

“I can understand that,” said White. He beckoned one of his guards. “Fetch Cornet Thompson his helmet. He fought with us as a soldier and I’ll let him die as a soldier.”

“We were on the same side but fighting for different things,” replied Thompson. He waited, squinting slightly in the early morning sun, until a helmet was found for him. He raised it in salute to the prisoners strewn out across the leaded church roof-top above him before placing it on his head and stepping back to stand against the wall. The sun reflected back and up off the helmet such that those directly above had to look away, shielding their eyes. The first they knew he was dead was when they heard the musket’s discharge. A pair of crows, dislodged from their nest, angrily took flight, squabbling and squawking. The men smelt the cordite on the air and, when they looked down, Thompson was slumped against the wall, knees seeming to have buckled beneath him.

Corporal Perkins was next. Second in command and second to be made example of. He refused the offered blindfold and faced  down the squad as implacably as Thompson before him. He fell amidst a hail of shot, shrapnel lodging in the church wall behind him.

The men on the roof were quiet. Three days without food, sardined together in close quarters, and the loss of their command had sucked the spirit from them. White sensed the rebellion ebbing away. One final blow and it would be quelled.

“Hear me,” he shouted up to the subdued watchers above. “Here stand two of your comrades. Privates like you. Honest men led astray by anarchists and dreamers.” He signalled to his own men who dragged two captive soldiers up to the wall, stood them up next to where Thompson and Perkins had fallen. One of the men was pulled to one side to some pre-arranged design. “This is what happens when good men stray,” called White suddenly pointing at the man left in front of the firing squad.

Shots rang out again and he fell. Private John Church scarcely had time to compose himself, to offer up a prayer, or to make his peace before he was executed. White gestured at the other man, held firm in the grip of his captors.

“And this is what can happen when good men find the right path again.” The man was released. He stood, uncertainly, and waited for White to speak. “You have a full pardon. It is forgotten. You understand the terms ?” The man nodded quickly. White addressed them all again. “I think you all understand the terms. Welcome back to the New Model Army.”

……

This is a true account. Least wise it’s as true as I can give for the events of that day hang heavy in my heart. I’ll tell it as all that hold England dear should know what happened. All that hold dear the idea of what England might be should know what happened and weep.

I am a soldier in the New Model Army. Anthony Sedley. Private. I fought for Cromwell and for Parliament against a King that had strayed from God. We cut the head from the snake but I fear it has just grown anew. We are betrayed. The rebellion is done.

Cornet James Thompson, Corporal Perkins, and Private John Church were executed on this day, 17th May 1649, at the church in Burford. Examples to the rest of us. Like frightened children we set aside our dreams of suffrage and vows to take our rightful stake in this England. We knelt, re-pledged allegiance and now march for Ireland under a Lord’s banner. Be it a Lord or be it a King, it seems the outcome is much the same for us.

I repeat the words that Sir Thomas Rainsborough spoke at Putney:

For really I think that the poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest hee; and therefore truly, Sr, I think itt clear, that every Man that is to live under a Government ought first by his own Consent to put himself under that Government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that Government that he hath not had a voice to put Himself under

I carry the shame of surrender. Not just to the Army but that we surrendered the idea that our lives were as equal to those that birth has put above us. This is a true account. Let history not forget us. It shall be our judge.

 

……

This is the twenty third story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. My fundraising page is here and all donations, however small, are appreciated: https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/

This story is a true one although obviously there’s no way of knowing exactly how the events at Burford that broadly ended England’s brief flirtation with full revolution played out. It’s a story that’s (in my view) shamefully neglected in the teaching of Britain’s history, almost as if we want to brush it under the carpet. What might have been…

Gravity

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I listened to the dial tone until it flat-lined into a single note. Please hang up and try again. The receiver was heavy in my hand. Please hang up and try again. I pressed the red button to reset the phone, vaguely remembering the days when hanging up was more literal. The world was more physical then. We were more physical then.

Perhaps I should have seen it at the time but I always thought I was content in the moment. Now I think I was slow. What was it you used to say ? The appearance of things depends on how quickly you’re moving: that was it. That was typical of you. Making a joke about relativity when I was telling you how much I loved you. Still love you. You were always moving faster than me. I guess love must have looked different to you.

I knew what had prompted it. The reason I was holding the phone. The urge to make contact. On the radio this morning they’d babbled excitedly about gravitational waves, about detecting the ripples from broken stars across the furthest reaches of space. We can even hear it. God’s pulse. The universe’s heartbeat. But I needed to hear you, laughing at my ignorant wonder and explaining it all; rational, precise, sure. God’s pulse ? I could almost see you shaking your head, that mocking half smile. Signals converted to sound waves and frequencies pitched for human ears. You might as well let a child press random notes on a synthesiser. People will still claim they hear God. That’s what you would say, that or something like it. You were never cold though. Just different. I knew you’d hear the beauty in the sound of dying, ancient black holes, even if it was us that had given them artificial voice. You marveled at the ineffable but saw no guiding hand, no designer. Love had been the great unknown for you once. Something you felt but could not explain. The only thing I could ever express better than you.

There was something else I’d heard listening to that gravitational surge, something magical amid the traffic news and weather and stories of strikes and crime and footballers and missiles and award shows. I also heard hope. Or more accurately I remembered hope. I remembered us. To me it was like a distress beacon from the past; my distant collapsing heart, folding in on itself all that time ago, still yearning, still beating, only for its absent twin.

I dialled the number again, each digit echoing down the line and back across the years. You pick up.

 

……
This is the twenty second story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. My fundraising page is here and all donations, however small, are appreciated: https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/
Apologies to any real scientists reading. My knowledge of quantum mechanics is more akin to the narrator’s than that of his absent partner. I guess this is a companion piece to an earlier story in the 42: https://42at42.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/polaris/ 

Connection (epilogue)

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Kate propped herself up one elbow and watched Jack slowly ease the bathroom door shut behind himself. “It’s alright, I’m awake.” Even through the half light of the early dawn she could see him smile. “You weren’t planning on making a quiet exit on me were you ?”

“God, no” replied Jack. “For a start I can’t remember where I left my trousers…”

“I think we were over there when…” Kate stopped and gestured vaguely at the hotel room door. She caught his gaze and then looked away, grinning shyly at the memory. He came back and lay down on top of the bed next to her, matching her head-on-elbow pose.

“Course I wasn’t planning on making a quiet exit.” He leaned in and kissed her lightly, lips brushing hers. As he was about to move away she whispered “good” and kissed him back, more forcefully, before playfully catching his bottom lip between her teeth. She stopped as she tasted the cool mint of fresh toothpaste on his breath, suddenly regretting last night’s coffee. The one they’d had afterwards as they’d joked about neither of them smoking. Stale coffee against that clean tang. She tasted bitter and that wasn’t how she wanted him to think of her; she’d surprised herself in the last few weeks that it wasn’t how she felt.

“You alright ?” asked Jack.

“Yeah, I’m fine” she said, running a finger across his chest. “Just thinking.”

“Always thinking. Thought I’d cured you of that ?”

“Oh, believe me I dissolve to a head spinning mess every time you walk into the room” sighed Kate batting her eyelids in exaggeration.

“Come on, not even a little weak at the knees ?”

“Maybe a slight tremble” acknowledged Kate with a smile. “That first time we kissed, maybe then. You remember that ?”

“A taxi rank in Huntingdon in the rain. Who’d forget that ? You took that cab from me as well…”

“Such a gentleman. Yeah, that kiss. I don’t know Jack, I don’t normally jump off trains with strange men….

“Less of the strange…”

“…with strange men and end up talking into the night before kissing them goodbye long after the last train home’s left.”

Jack leant forwards and pulled at a loose strand of her hair, easing it back behind her ear. “It was quite an unusual day, I’ll give you that. An unusual and wonderful day.”

“Thank you” she mouthed.

“So you had a slight tremble ?”

Kate groaned. “Stop fishing Jack. It was a nice kiss.” She caught the look of mock sadness on his face. “A fantastic kiss. In the Renaissance I’m sure they would have captured it in perpetuity in some grand sculpture or delicate painting.”

“Psyche revived by Cupid’s kiss” said Jack. Kate sat up in bed, laughing.

“How do you know that ?”

“I’ve been secretly researching stuff – art – to try and impress you.”

“I am impressed. I love that piece. I used to allow extra time for it on all of my tours even though most of the visitors were just shuffling their feet wanting to see the Mona Lisa or Venus De Milo”

“The one without the arms ?”

“Goodness you really have been researching.”

“I kinda knew that one anyway” said Jack sheepishly.

“I kinda hoped that you would” said Kate. “But Psyche and Cupid. I’m…” she paused. “I’m touched Jack, really, that you’d find out about that stuff.”

“Seemed important to you…”

Kate looked at him intently. “You know that story, right ? Cupid waking Psyche from her eternal sleep after she’s been tortured by Worry and Sadness and forced to endure a series of terrible trials.”

“Well that train was delayed for a long time…”

Kate rolled her eyes. “So you’ve cast yourself as Cupid – the god of desire ?”

“Seemed a decent likeness,” smirked Jack.

“I think Canova might have needed a little more stone dear,” said Kate reaching over and patting his stomach gently. “If I’d known you were going to be this cocky once we slept together I’d have kept you waiting a bit longer.”

“How long do you think it might be until next time ?”

“I don’t know,” said Kate arching an eyebrow. “Kiss me again and let’s see.”

 

……
This is the twenty first (half way !) story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. My fundraising page is here and all donations, however small, are appreciated: https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/
This, as its title suggests, is a brief epilogue to a story I had published as part of an anthology of short stories called Delayed Reaction. The anthology combines stories from a group of talented writers whom I’m privileged to call friends. It’s available here: http://www.delayedreaction.org.uk – or contact me direct if you’d like to read more.

Ghosts of Hiroshima

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Katsu muttered the words of the poem under his breath as he stared at the reflection in the pooling water beneath the steps. The ghost of a woman, her body overboard laid, in the waters around. It had rained heavily last night and the city now glistened, the sun radiating back from hundreds of puddles that dotted the streets each time it found room between the clouds. He disturbed the surface of the water with his foot, just a light tap to send ripples racing towards the edges, and the reflected figure slipped from focus, breaking apart and reforming, undulating, until finally he could see only black.

He looked up at the steps themselves, at the source of the reflection. He knew that it wasn’t her. It wasn’t anyone anymore. The bomb frozen shadow etched forever into the concrete wasn’t his mother. There were no features to discern in that dark silhouette beyond a leaned-on walking stick but that wasn’t how he knew that it wasn’t her. He had no memories of his mother that weren’t borrowed from photographs but he knew she hadn’t been here because she’d been on the river. Just as she was every day after he’d been taken away.

She’d been on the Motoyasu river right before it boiled.

The ghost of a woman, her body overboard… he murmured again, turning away from the steps, and continuing on towards the bank.

……

Yuri Mori hurried down to the boat, jostling amid the throng of women making their way towards the river. It made no sense, she thought, to live in the city and take this trip every day down to the factories. Why didn’t they just move everybody down there, down towards the harbour ? Nothing made much sense to Yuri anymore.

A woman in front stumbled and fell to her knees as the crowd moved forwards. Other women pulled her to her feet. She looked down at her grey overalls now scuffed from the dust on the ground and raised her hands in mock dismay.

“My monpe. My beautiful monpe. However will I find a husband now ?”

“You are lucky Aiko,” shouted another. “Now you have an excuse to visit Fukuya Store.” There were some weary laughs from those close to the exchange and the steady procession towards the river renewed. Yuri didn’t laugh. A year ago perhaps she would have: defiant and proud bringing her son into the world and naming him for victory. She shook her head, refusing to think of him, and pushed her way towards the boat again. It must be eight o clock by now and she did not want to be punished for being late.

As the boat nosed out into the river Yuri stood at the stern, as she always did, and watched the city start to slip away. Diesel leaking in the boat’s wake refracted the light on the water into a rainbow as it caught the early morning sun.  She closed her eyes and gripped the rail, scarcely noticing as the boat sounded its horn to signal its departure; their world was full of sirens and horns and klaxons. She vaguely remembered the all clear sounding out just an hour ago as it did each morning but it scarcely registered these days; a cacophony of warning for a catastrophe that never came.

That was why they’d sent him away. They said he would be safer in the hills. It’s your duty. Japan must have men for the future and you must work for its present. It is the right thing – the honourable thing – to do. He had been barely a year old when the military police prised him from her arms, tears running freely down her face.

A distant burr pulled her back from her thoughts. She raised her head to locate the sound and picked out a lone plane in the sky. Just a speck in the distance but coming closer. As it approached the women on the boat gazed upwards at their distant visitor.

“Another one ? What do they want with us today ?” said one.

“Don’t worry Miyu. Look how far away it is. Those cowards don’t bomb us from up there anymore”. It was Aiko who spoke, her overalls still dusty at the knees from where she’d slipped over.

“Perhaps they are bringing you your new monpe Aiko” laughed another woman.

“They are taking photographs I expect” said Miyu.

“Yes” said Aiko. “Photographs of us beautiful Japanese women in our fine clothes ! Their American women are too ugly for them !” She looked up at the sky, leaning back to present her dirty monpe, and gave a broad smile. The other women laughed and joined in with Aiko’s clowning, posing for an imagined photographer’s flash.

Yuri looked up the boat, turning her eyes away from the receding city, and briefly allowed herself a smile at her fellow women. Temporary respite from thinking of her lost son, her little Katsu. She clung to the hope that the war would soon end and she could take back her child.

It was her last thought before the world turned white, the boat was thrown from the water, and she and the women were burned to ash.

……

“What’s your name child ?” asked the tall man in the long coat. He didn’t look like the others. He was American, Katsu was sure of that, but he didn’t wear a uniform like the ones he’d seen on the streets coming into the city or the ones in charge of the boat they’d taken him on.

“He can’t understand you. We only took him in today.”

“Another from the hills ?” said the tall man.

“Yes. Far as we can tell he’s been there for six or seven years. The farmer didn’t want to give him up – he told us we were taking a good worker.”

“You think he was mistreated ?”

“Perhaps. Life in the hills is hard Mr Cousins. Life in Japan is hard but we can support him here and educate him. When you go back you should tell them about Katsu – tell your friends about him and the ones like him. That is what we use the money for.”

Cousins bent down to look more closely at the boy. His face was dirty and he carried scratches and bruises; perhaps the kind of scratches and bruises any eight year old boy might wear. Perhaps. He gently pulled the boy’s face up, lifting his chin so that the Director of the orphanage might also see. He raised his eyebrows.

“The man who had him was no worse than many in the hills. Don’t judge him too harshly, he took him in, kept him even after the city was destroyed. It is difficult for outsiders to understand how it has been since the war. For some here the sense of shame in defeat has been too hard to bear and they take it out where they can.”

“Hiba…ku.. ?” started Cousins.

“Hibakusha” corrected the Director. “It means people affected by the explosion but that’s perhaps too literal. It has come to mean more than that here since the bomb. There were so many stories about radiation, so much fear. I’m afraid that survivors have faced terrible discrimination.”

“But the boy was outside of the city. Wasn’t he beyond the reach of the bomb ? Beyond the area affected by fallout ?”

“Yes but he is an orphan with no history. Or no known history at least. People are suspicious. I doubt that we will find a home for him here.”

“He has no family at all ?” asked Cousins.

“None that we can trace. The farmer says he was taken from his mother when he was very young. He was given him by the police. It happened a lot, to keep the children safe.”

“The mother ?”

“She was in the city” said the Director. “We don’t know where but she must be dead. What was it the farmer called her ?” He paused, thinking. “Yurei. Yes, that was it. Yurei.”

“Her name ?”

“No, Mr Cousins. Yurei. It is not exact but in your language it means ghost.”

……

Katsu Mori leaned on the railings and stared down into the depths of the Motoyasu, the first time he’d seen it since leaving Japan thirty years ago. What had he expected to find ? There were no answers here. He wasn’t even sure he knew what he was looking for anymore. He had spent his life dislocated since that bright August day that ended the war. Raised first in the hills surrounding the city, working farmland as soon as he was old enough to be of use, before being handed in to the orphanage on Ninoshima. It was supposed to be a temporary refuge but he’d stayed for three years, no family in his homeland willing to make him a part of them. Eventually Cousins had found him a place in America. In time his anger had faded and he’d come to be grateful. In time he’d built a new life out of the wreckage of his old one; pieced together a second family in the country that had torn his first one apart.

Light danced on the water rippling against the wall of the jetty as the sun broke cover. The river was choppy here, continually broken by passing boats. Katsu shielded his eyes, raising his hand to his forehead, as if to try to see past the shimmering surface. A cloud overhead rolled across the sun dimming the twinkling lights on the water. Katsu gazed down, his own reflection now visible, staring back at him. He thought it looked like a ghost. There was a black and white photograph of his mother in the inside pocket of his suit jacket but he didn’t need to get it out to imagine her face swimming in and out of focus on the surface of the waves. Yuri. Yurei. Ghosts were the souls of the dead that were unable to find peace. She would be glad that he lived, even as he lived with the nagging, restless displacement of those orphaned by the bomb.

A woman’s face appeared in the water next to his own, smiling up at him; a quizzical, worried smile.

“What do you see Katsu ?”

Katsu looked up from the water and turned to his wife.

“I guess I see my home Asuka. I see home.”

“We can come back. Like I’ve always said, if you want to come back here for good then that’s what we’ll do.”

Katsu smiled at his wife and shook his head. “You know how children grow up and, when it is time, when they are ready, they leave home ? I see my home here Asuka but I am ready to leave it now,” said Katsu before whispering “the ghost of a woman, her body overboard laid, in the waters around…”

“What’s that ?” asked Asuka, tilting her head to look at her husband, concern in her eyes.

“Just a poem they made me learn in school,” answered Katsu. “It always stayed with me. I wanted to see where she finally laid.” He looked out over the Motoyasu and tried to imagine his mother’s last moments. A woman he didn’t know, had never really known. Just one victim in thousands. Silently he vowed to take back what little he knew of her story, of all their stories, and keep them alive in the years to come. The ghosts should haunt us all, he thought.

Asuka placed a hand on his shoulder and, together, they looked back down at the river, back down at their own reflected, ghostly faces. A plane taking off from Hiroshima airport climbed above them and they watched its silhouette in the water before the sun reemerged and it disappeared in a dazzle of lights on the waves.

……

This is the twentieth story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. This one was also specifically written to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. If you’re interested in donating to a great cause then please visit my fundraising page. https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/

Hibakusha

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“I will not go there.” Miyoto folded her arms across her chest, pulled them tightly against herself. She turned her back on the doctor and stood gazing out over the hospital gardens. The room was silent save for the distant sound of the ferries shuttling up and down the river.

“We can do no more for you my child” said the doctor. “You have come so far but I can’t help you now.”

“I understand.”

“The Americans. Their hospitals, the equipment… There’s more that they can do…”

“I will not go there.” Miyoko turned and lifted the sleeve on her gown, up to her shoulder. Her arm, from elbow to neck, reaching onto her cheek, was an angry red, skin still raised. “If Japan can not take this from me then I will wear it.”

“And yet they call you…”

“They call me hibakusha” she spat. “Of course they do. They always will. My own people ashamed of us, frightened of us.”

“They project their own shame and fear on to you I fear.”

“I will bear these marks but I will not bear their shame for them” answered Miyoto. “Better to be called hibakusha than the other. What are they being called ?”

“The maidens” said the doctor softly.

“The maidens. Hiroshima maidens” hissed Miyoto. “The women too burned, too ruined to marry and yet somehow supposedly made whole. Made into maidens.” She turned back to the window. “I will never abandon my country the way she has abandoned me and I will never hide what the Americans did to us. How dare they offer to heal what they inflicted ?”

“I see that your mind is made up” conceded the doctor. Miyoto, without turning, nodded her head and listened as his footsteps receded. She waited until she heard the door click behind her before gripping her hands across herself, clutching at her burns. She let the tears run freely down her face.

“They will never touch me” she murmured. “I am Miyoko Matsubara, I am hibakusha, and they will never touch me.”

……

This is the nineteenth story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. More an excerpt than a full blown story – needs a little more colour but I thought I’d post it as is before I potentially revisit it. Miyoko Matsubara was a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and refused to go to the States for further medical treatment. My portrayal of her here is entirely fictional. If you’re interested in donating to a great cause then please visit my fundraising page. https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/

Saudade

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As her words sunk in the only thought Michael could cling to was: why here ? They’d spent the previous week in and out each other’s flats, out at dinner, caught some art house film she’d wanted to see at the Grand. A myriad of opportunities to break the news; the breaking news that she must have known would break him. Why here ? This was, in the heavily romanticized version of their relationship playing on a loop in his head, their place. He’d brought her here last summer, short sleeves and carefree, idly walking and talking about everything and nothing. They’d kept coming as summer lengthened to Autumn; the Fall marking his own inexorable fall. They’d kissed here for the first time when bare arms still smelled faintly of sun lotion and she’d still tasted of lemons; a bag of penny sweets she’d brought as a gift and they’d devoured like they were kids again. He’d confessed to her here for the first time too. I think I’m in love with you. Something like that. He’d practiced it for days, borrowing words from the long dead and the great wordsmiths, before it had just tumbled out breathlessly, hopefully. I think… No, I know, I’m in love with you. She’d smiled, put a finger to his lips, mouthed that she knew and kissed him fiercely. They’d only stopped as some leaves dislodged themselves from the tree above them and landed on their heads. Falling in the Fall. It had always been their place from then. Their tree. Their place. Their love.

“I’m taking the job in Manaus.” Those six words had hung between them now for what felt like a full five minutes. Why here ?

……

A year on, when he came back, the same thought nagged and refused to let go: why here ? Their place, their tree. Why here ? After all those weeks in each other’s pockets, myriad opportunities to break the news. Why here for the breaking news that she knew would break him ?

He’d brought her here that summer, short sleeves, carefree, idly walking and talking about everything and nothing. They’d kissed for the first time, bare arms smelling faintly of sun lotion. She’d tasted of lemons, her lips still fizzing from the bag of sweets he’d brought as a gift. Or had she brought them ? They’d kept coming as summer lengthened to Autumn – the Fall marking his inexorable fall – and he’d confessed to his feelings for her for the first time. I think I love you. Practiced for days with borrowed words but blurted breathlessly, hopefully, words tumbling out and over each other. I think… No, I know, I love you. She’d smiled, placed a finger on his lips, mouthed that she knew and kissed him fiercely. They’d only stopped as leaves, seasonally dislodged, fell on top of their heads. Falling in the Fall.

“I’m taking the job in Manaus.” Why here ?

……

Five years and this place, their place, still held his memories captive: imprisoned by the bittersweet pull of nostalgia. Less sweet and more bitter with each passing year. Why here ? Why had she chosen here for the breaking news she’d known would break him ?

From their summer, short sleeves and carefree, through lengthening days of Autumn this had been their place. First kiss, the tang of lemons, bare arms smelling faintly of sun lotion, to that initial declaration of love, long practiced but words just tumbling breathlessly and hopefully from his mouth. I think. No, I know, I love you. She’d smiled and kissed him but hadn’t spoken. Leaves had rained down on their heads to signal the end of Summer and she’d told him about Manaus.

……

Just a foolish old man now, thirty long years past those days when the world was so vivid that it had tasted of lemons and smelled of sun lotion. She’d only said six words in the place he’d always hold as theirs – I’m taking the job in Manaus – and summer’s kiss through Autumn’s falling in love melted across the seasons, back through the years, and evaporated. Why had she told him here ?

……

This is the twelfth story in my series of 42 shorts that I’m writing to raise money and awareness for Mind, the mental health charity. Saudade is a rather brilliant Portuguese word with no direct equivalent in English: I have somewhat clunkily expressed its meaning in this story. Please share it if you liked it (or even if you didn’t…). If you’re interested in donating to a great cause then please visit my fundraising page. https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/

10 favourite books

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There’s a meme doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment to list out your 10 favourite books. At risk of turning this into Buzzfeed I thought I’d note my choices here, mainly in the spirit of trying to reflect on what, if anything, I could glean about my own writing from my selection of reading. Other than oh-my-god-I-could-never-write-as-well-as-that, of course…

Subject to change on a whim, with a break in the weather, or depending on what I’ve just had for breakfast here are the 10:

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey. This is my all time favourite and the book that fired my entire interest in 60s counter culture in the States. From here I went back to Kerouac and forwards to Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. Sadly I never drove across America in a brightly painted bus with flowers in my hair but perhaps there is still time. If you know the film then you’ll know that it is a brilliant thing but the book is far richer and more nuanced. It works as a straightforward story but also allegorically to describe the entire movement Kesey was associated with: a freeing of the mind from tradition and authority. It’s very funny, deeply sad, and, by the end, redemptive and hopeful.

The Lord Of The Rings – JRR Tolkien. Yes it’s somewhat predictable. And yes I have read many fantasy genre books since that I consider “better”. However, this is the one that opened an 11/12 year old me up to an entire genre that has given me significant pleasure and escape over the past 30 years. If there’s a fantasy closet then I’m coming out of it. Two books in and another that’s possibly now more famous for the film version which may say something about either my taste or the steady decline of Western Civilisation. Or both. Either way the films nail the scale and scope but the key to why I love this, which the books inevitably had long before Peter Jackson could speak, let alone speak Elvish, is imagination. All of that stuff. Out of one person’s head. Imagination was Tolkien’s great gift to me.

Unreliable Memoirs – Clive James. I’m not sure if the rules for this list specified works of fiction. I’m not particularly sure that Clive James took much notice of the fiction / non fiction distinction in his collection of memoirs anyway so it probably evens out. This is here simply because the man writes so beautifully; few craft a phrase as eloquently as James and few could guide you through their formative years with such humour, candour, and grace. His command of voice leaves me mildly awestruck – each page is perfectly and consistently him. This is the book that made me look at fifteen odd years’ worth of diary entries and want to chuck them all in the bin.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams. Eminently quotable, much cleverer than it’s given credit for, and extremely funny. I think, reflecting on it, that what I really like about Hitchhikers is the sheer number of ideas in it. Whilst it’s difficult to know how much ended up on the cutting room floor I like to imagine that Adams chucked everything in that was running through his head, inventing ever more complex problems for his narrative to solve. The slight cheat, of course, was that he was writing both SF and comedy so when things got too tough he could always fall back (with a knowing wink) on deus ex machina.

Generation X – Douglas Coupland. I’m instinctively wary of something that had the whole “defines a generation” tag foisted on it but this book caught me at exactly the right time. Reading it in my mid 20s it felt authentic to me at a time when I was wondering what else was. I haven’t read it since and suspect that it may not speak as loudly now as it did then albeit it’s interesting that the central premise of the book – that three disempowered friends tell each other stories as a means of expression – is one that I seem to have unconsciously processed and am vaguely channeling in this year’s writing project.

The Lions Of Al-Rassan – Guy Gavriel Kay. There are a number of fantasy books (other than LOTR) that I could have picked but Kay has steadily worked his way to the top of my pile in recent years. His early work was very Tolkien-esque (relatively unsurprising given that he worked on editing some of Tolkien’s unpublished writing) but he has subsequently mined a richer seam that weaves fantasy with historical fiction. Al-Rassan is set in a parallel mediaeval Spain and chronicles a regional power struggle between various political and religious factions. The central characters are brilliant, it’s tightly plotted, lyrically written, and a fabulous exercise in world building (or, I guess, world borrowing).

The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera. Another book I read in my mid to late 20s and which, I think, stuck with me precisely because it was so overtly philosophical. It was probably the first time I’d encountered a style that very consciously called out the themes that the book was seeking to explore in its narrative, often directly framed to the reader almost as non fiction. I like that authorial voice speaking from the page alongside the narrative voices and I like that this is a book that is unashamedly about the big stuff: existence, love, being, life.

Stoner – John Williams. The newest book on my list in terms of when it was read. This popped up last year to a fair degree of fanfare as a “lost classic” and I picked it up whilst taking a 6 month sabbatical from work. In that sense it’s probably another case of right book at the right time given that it deals almost exclusively in reflecting on the course of a relatively ordinary life and its significance. It’s quite slow, nothing much happens, but it’s breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly sad.

The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald. I read it for English Literature A level. I didn’t get it. See also Pride And Prejudice. I had one teacher, a man, who taught me Arthur Miller, dystopian visions of the future, and Shakespeare. I got all that. I had another, a woman, who taught me Gatsby, Austen, and the Romantic poets. For a long time I didn’t get it all. She persevered with my immaturity and wall of rationality until, between us, we knocked it down (or, at least, took a couple of bricks out). Gatsby is magical, poetic, heady, dizzying, and, in a common theme for me, also, at its core, very sad. I love it now, just as I also learned to love Austen, and Keats, and anyone else that understood how to make your heart beat a little faster through words.

Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl. This is the one I read and read and read as a child. Reading Dahl again now, to my daughter, is a great pleasure but this was the one that I loved as a kid and probably most obviously started me off into all of the other books listed above. I also loved those Enid Blyton books about all girls’ boarding schools as a kid: not really sure what that was all about and perhaps best we let that one lie…

Tomorrow I will remember with a groan something really obvious that I’ve missed out. Let me know in the comments what your favourites are and what I’m missing out on.

Beginnings ?

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There should be a beginning, a middle, and an end, right ? That’s how stories work. So you’re probably wondering what this is ? The beginning ? The end ? Somewhere in the middle ? 

Let’s give ourselves something to work with. I’m clinging to the hand rail on the Severn Bridge, wind blowing in my face, cars rushing past behind me. Does that make this the end ? I haven’t told you on which side of that hand rail I am standing. What did you suppose ? Is this just an innocent walk from England to Wales or the prelude to a plummet into the tidal depths of the water below ?

I’m clinging to the hand rail, retching across the side of the bridge, watching flecks of my own vomit disappear, whipped in the wind, down towards the river. There’s a stationary car behind me at an angle across the carriageway, driver’s door open, headlights on. So perhaps this is the middle ? The reaction to what happened in the beginning but with somewhere still to go.

A hand on my shoulder startles me into pulling tighter on the hand rail. I look round to see a woman, her face furrowed with concern, her car pulled to an abrupt halt behind us, headlights left on to illuminate her route to me. She asks if I’m alright and I note the sadness in her eyes even as the wind wraps her long, dark hair across her face. A beginning then ? Two strangers meeting at the mercy of circumstance.

I want to tell her what happened and why I come back. Why it always leaves me like this; physically sick, violently forcing the memories back out of my body. I imagine that you want to know too. That’s how stories work, isn’t it ? If this was the end you’d already know, if it’s the middle then you’d be finding out, but if this is the beginning then you only know what I want to tell you. Perhaps I will tell her and you can listen.

I tell her that I’m okay. She frowns and I don’t blame her. I’m throwing up over the side of a bridge in the middle of the night. I’m clearly not okay. She asks me again, this time assuring me that she just wants to help. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and let go my grip on the rail with the other. Really, I tell her, I’m really okay. Just a sudden wave of nausea. Maybe vertigo. Now she starts to look annoyed. I don’t know why I bothered lying or at least I don’t know why I didn’t come up with something even half way believable.

She starts to turn away to return to her car. The bridge isn’t busy at this time but I guess she’s suddenly aware that she’s blocking up the inside lane, was in such a rush that she didn’t flick on her hazards. I take a step after her and start to speak. She looks over her shoulder and says that she’ll be back in just a minute. I watch her clamber back up to the road and walk back to her car, a featureless black silhouette in the headlights.

It’s the hazards that do it. I notice them wink on and then off and it all comes back. Lights flashing on this bridge a year ago. Lights that I could see reflected off the thousands of pieces of broken glass, the fractured remains of a windscreen. Fractured as I’d been thrown through it and onto the tarmac on that still, cold night. I thought it was the end.

And so I come back. I come back because it wasn’t the end but it won’t leave me. I am stuck in some kind of middle.

She finds me again sitting and weeping, my head buried in my knees, wrapping myself up tightly against the echoes of the accident. This time she doesn’t ask if I’m okay, she just sits beside me and puts her arm across my shoulders. I tell her about my friends and our trip to Wales. I tell her about the minibus and how I’d taken to slipping off the seatbelt when I sat in the front so that I could turn around to speak to everyone. I tell her that I should have known he was tired, that we should have done more to share the drive home. We were so close to home though. I tell her that I was thrown out when we hit the central reservation before the bus span around in the road, turned up onto its side and was ploughed into by the lorry behind us. I tell her that I only survived because I wasn’t in the bus. That’s what the police said later. They called it a miracle.

Now that you’ve listened to me telling her I guess this is the end ? This is the first time since I’ve been back that anybody stopped, the first time I haven’t stood on the bridge alone. It’s the first time that I’ve told anyone what happened. It’s the first time I’ve cried. With so many firsts perhaps this is actually the beginning ?

She still has her arm across my shoulders, that worried furrow creasing her forehead, and those sad eyes watching me with concern. I wipe my eyes clear of tears and ask her for her name.

……….

This short story is the first in a series of 42 to try to raise awareness and money for Mind, the mental health charity. Please feel free to share it if you enjoyed it. More details here:  https://www.justgiving.com/42shorts/

And I could be anything if I just put my mind to it…

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42. Glory Days – Pulp / Glory Days – Bruce Springsteen

53,000 words, 11 months, 300 or so songs, a very loose interpretation of 42 records, and here we are at the end. So what was all that about then ?

On one level it was a set of posts about some records, from Abba to Zevon. Whilst the artists that I did write about were a pretty fair reflection of what I listen to there’s a long list of people and records that somehow didn’t find their way into the list that I could happily make the case for. The Cardigans’ glorious “Long Gone Before Daylight” album is the most glaring omission in terms of records that I love. Bowie never made it. The Manics never made it either: I could find good reasons for “Motown Junk” or “All Surface, No Feeling” or “Your Love Alone” or the entirety of “The Holy Bible”. No Cowboy Junkies. No Smiths. No PJ Harvey. No Kate Bush. Massive Attack. Portishead. Rilo Kiley. Prince. All sorts of people that I adore that never made it. Posts for another time perhaps.

So, if you read any of the posts and discovered some music because of it then I’m glad. To be honest if you read any of it all then I’m glad. Much as I tried not to get too obsessed with the WordPress stats page I really came to hate those double zero days: no visitors, no views. It was all mostly written for my own benefit but, hey, who am I kidding, having an audience makes it all the more gratifying.

As well as the records it was about me. Whilst you may be thinking that I could have wrapped this up in six words – sad man listens to sad music – I have always been a little verbose and chose to ramble on a bit more than that. There was always a risk that this ended up being an extended version of Springsteen’s “Glory Days” – someone past his best reflecting on former glories. That wasn’t the intent but it does give me an excuse to ensure that Bruce gets yet another mention in the 42 and to watch the none-more-80s video:

If it’s not just a collection of boring stories of glory days then what is it ? There’s another song that bears the name “Glory Days”, tucked away on Pulp’s “This Is Hardcore” album. It’s a song that I probably more readily identified with when I was slightly younger – the nods to single room apartments and wasting days in the café by the station are distinctly 20something references – but the spirit of it still rings true.

If it all amounts to nothing these are still our glory days. There it is again. That acknowledgement that there might not be a greater point to all of this but these moments are still what we have. I have bashed myself around the head repeatedly with this fairly simple conclusion, one day if I bash hard enough it may actually sink in. Not entirely seriously, writing the 42 was, in honour of that number, an attempt to work out what it’s all about. The big one. Life, the Universe, everything (rest in peace Douglas). And I think I did. It’s about moments and love and friendship and community.

For me it’s also about writing. If the slightly up-its-own-arse conceit behind writing these posts was about working out the meaning of life via 42 records of personal significance (slightly up-its-own-arse ? disappeared so far up it has emerged from the top of my own head) then actually the real purpose was to write again. Rather than sit and stare forlornly at a blank piece of paper waiting for my novel to disgorge itself this process gave me a route back to writing.

The key lines for me in “Glory Days” (the Pulp one) are the ones about the promise of potential:

Oh and I could be a genius if I just put my mind to it

And I could do anything if only I could get round to it

I hid behind those lines for a long time with respect to actually trying to write something and I won’t hide behind them anymore. I have started again and I won’t be stopping – otherwise it’s Springsteen’s “Glory Days” that becomes the end note to this project and that isn’t what I want. I’ve read all of the entries in the 42 back to myself. Some of it isn’t great and there’s quite a bit I would change but, you know what, some of it isn’t half bad and I’m proud to have seen it through. I’m sure there will be other posts to come about music and possibly some that are about me but I think I will be actively trying to write more fiction now. I may still end up telling my own story but I may use some other characters and other vehicles to do it.

Hope you enjoyed it and got something from it. So long, for now, and thanks for all the fish.