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Sunday 26 January 2014
Sunday 12 January 2014
NONSENSE
Deadline: 9 FEBRUARY 2014
Mad Hatter: “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.
We want
to start 2014 a little feverishly, like a carnival ride, with our hats on
sideways and a wink on our grins, paying tribute to one of our favourite writers
and illustrators: Lewis Carroll.
We’re
inviting you all to put your top hats on, dine with candelabras, sing with mice
and grin at Cheshire cats. Maybe even indulge in a pen name. Perhaps invest in
a feather pen and tip the clock hands back, stand on your head with your hands
in your shoes – tell us something silly.
But, remember
– there’s logic in nonsense, you just have to know where to look.
Lewis Carroll
Yes, we’re
paying tribute to Alice in Wonderland's creator, but we’re also remembering
the nonsensical wonderers who came before and after – Edward Lear, Roald Dahl, Dr
Seuss, Edward Gorey, Ivor Cutler. Take the eccentricity from each of these
writers and artists, and through thick, blurry specs, you’ll see the logic and
the dots the lines, the clever craft of painstakingly intelligent and illogical penmanship.
Sometimes though, you won’t see it. Sometimes it’s just nonsense. But it’s always fun – it’s
illogical logic. Are we making sense? No? Good.
Rhymes & riddles
Lewis
Carroll is the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, but you all knew that.
Make your own pen name. Dodgson was a tremendous mathematician, professor and
photographer, there was always more than meets the eye.
Carroll also had
a habit of making up words and making them stick, making them memorable and fun
to roll around in our mouths – uffish, mimsy, galumphing – even more than 100
years later. He was a neologistic wizard. Try it yourself – see if it sticks.
Become a portmanteau connoisseur.
Or give us
riddles, puzzles, acrostics, rhymes that we can remember and say over and over
again, just because it sounds nice, beats like a drum and has a steady,
galloping rhythm.
Fairy tales
Of course we want fairy tales – à la Alice
in Wonderland - but we don’t want the sickly, happy ever after, cupcake sort of
stuff. No Once Upon a Time. Nor do we want Brothers Grimm (we’ll save that for a different theme),
we want weird worlds full of characters that fizz, hiccup and chortle - the Mad
Hatter, the Mock Turtle, the Dodo, the rabbit.
Become a
child again. Carroll, Dahl and Lear were writers that seemed to understand how
to talk to children. If you've forgotten, you might need to look through the looking glass again.
Taboo
Don’t be
afraid to go a little outside the box, here – we welcome this with wide,
Cheshire grins. Carroll was never afraid of taking Wordsworth’s words, sticking
them on the wall and playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey with them. Bend the
rules, we’ll let you.
Better yet, have a nosey on Carroll's lesson on how to apologise to someone for standing them up. It's brilliant.
Better yet, have a nosey on Carroll's lesson on how to apologise to someone for standing them up. It's brilliant.
Read our submission guidelines for full details on where, what and how to submit. Read a list of our favourite things to see the sort of things we love. Even better, unlock our archive and get a taste for our style - it'll only help you in the long run. After all, we might not be your cup of tea, and we'd like to be. Like a tea tray in the sky...
We're looking for the very best illustrators, photographers, designers and artists to work with. If you think you've got what it takes, get in touch with us at synaesthesiamagazine@gmail.com.
We're looking for the very best illustrators, photographers, designers and artists to work with. If you think you've got what it takes, get in touch with us at synaesthesiamagazine@gmail.com.
The madder,
the better. And please don’t be late, we simply can’t accept your submission
otherwise. Plus, you’ll upset the rabbit.
Source: Vintage Winnie |
Labels:
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art,
cartoon,
flash fiction,
illustration,
Lewis Carroll,
music,
Nonsense,
photography,
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Submission guidelines,
submissions,
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Saturday 30 November 2013
Editors' Note - SCIENCE & NUMBERS
Like language, science and numbers bind us together. They’re the reason we're able to open our mouths and say hello and tell each other stories. They’re the reason we're able to open our eyes in the morning, to listen to jumbled scores of the world daily, and close our eyes again at night. They’re the light behind our computer screens and the way our muscles arch and expand after a good stretch.
From changing gear in your car, to the mechanics behind the wheel, to the glossy interior and leather seats and the winding country lanes, science and numbers work in harmony and are an integral part of what makes our globe so fascinatingly beautiful. Science and numbers are everywhere, no matter how much you try to avoid them.
So often, we see this division between those who are ‘artsy’ and those who are ‘scientifically minded’ - this month’s theme aims to unite the two. We wanted 9 and nine to meet, shake hands, maybe throw an arm around each other. We wanted to pit words and numbers together and watch as they come together through osmosis.
We were extremely lucky to interview award-winning short story writer Adam Marek, to find out his thoughts on synaesthesia, science and technology, and how he integrates these in his short stories.
This issue sees the futuristic lust in short story, 'David', collide with the overwhelming explosion of numbers at a social function in Xavier Wright's account. It marries fractals with honey bees, and all the while, the clock keeps ticking in John Rutter's 'Two Twenty-Two.'
'Science and Numbers' has been incredible to design, read, explore and inhale, and thanks to everyone who submitted. We'll leave you to immerse yourself in a fraction of what the world is made of.
Annabelle and Carlotta
x
From changing gear in your car, to the mechanics behind the wheel, to the glossy interior and leather seats and the winding country lanes, science and numbers work in harmony and are an integral part of what makes our globe so fascinatingly beautiful. Science and numbers are everywhere, no matter how much you try to avoid them.
So often, we see this division between those who are ‘artsy’ and those who are ‘scientifically minded’ - this month’s theme aims to unite the two. We wanted 9 and nine to meet, shake hands, maybe throw an arm around each other. We wanted to pit words and numbers together and watch as they come together through osmosis.
We were extremely lucky to interview award-winning short story writer Adam Marek, to find out his thoughts on synaesthesia, science and technology, and how he integrates these in his short stories.
This issue sees the futuristic lust in short story, 'David', collide with the overwhelming explosion of numbers at a social function in Xavier Wright's account. It marries fractals with honey bees, and all the while, the clock keeps ticking in John Rutter's 'Two Twenty-Two.'
'Science and Numbers' has been incredible to design, read, explore and inhale, and thanks to everyone who submitted. We'll leave you to immerse yourself in a fraction of what the world is made of.
Annabelle and Carlotta
x
Saturday 16 November 2013
Volare
I
sit on the edge of the canal, touch the little mirror and flash a beam of
sunshine onto the closed shutters of the old palace on the other side. Lapping water liquefying the crumbling stone,
the slime-line of weed, the howl of decay and pirouette of mortality – Venice,
a forest of gilded stone supported by dreams. I study the picture of the Virgin
Mary on the back of the mirror. A white veil, a faded, red heart on her blue
shift, she’s holding up a finger. A warning perhaps.
It’s a peaceful alley, dark except for this
shaft of sunshine. I glimpse, in the distance through the ravine of old
buildings, Isola di San Michele, the cemetery island. I flash the mirror into
the gap but it dissolves into the glare of the sun. And then, blood orange
accordion music bounces between the buildings and a cavalcade of gondolas
sweeps past, bumper to bumper, laden with American tourists. The musician
squeezes his accordion while the last gondolier sings ‘Volare’. I kiss the red
heart.
--
I
met Lilia in Giardini. She was sitting on a rock, smoking in the shade of a
plane tree outside the British pavilion. Her skinny, curved back turned as if
she knew she was being watched and her nipples showed like pinpoints through
the thin grey t-shirt. A rim of a girl, a ragged edge of a lettuce leaf. I was
handing out pamphlets for the show, sending people clockwise round the
exhibition. When a man in a leather hat sat on the steps of the French
pavilion, she slung an old canvas bag over her shoulder, climbed our steps and
threw her fag on the ground.
“Welcome to the British pavilion. Would you
like an information sheet?” It’s the spiel.
“They say you have tea.” Her accent was
strong but probably better than my Italian and she had small, crooked teeth, top
and bottom.
“Tea? At the back.” I gestured the clockwise
direction.
“You want to show me?” Her eyes shifted from
side to side, over my shoulder, out the door so I wondered if she meant me and
looked behind. But she didn’t move.
“Delighted,” I said.
She
glared at me and pushed past.
“No
I mean it. Could do with a cuppa. This heat.”
She
sat by the window and I fetched the teas and biscuits.
“I’m
Tom,” I said. “What’s your name?”
She
put all the biscuits on her saucer and hunched over like she hadn’t eaten in
ages. She flicked her cigarette lighter on and off, just like her eyes. Her
hair was a brown stew of curls, a bit greasy, jeans, dirty plimsolls, trodden
down at the backs, too small and her fingernails were bitten back to the skin.
But all that means nothing here. With artists you can’t tell success by
appearance. I went back to work and didn’t see her leave but when we closed at
six, there she was by the gate, arms folded, curved like a reed. She stood up
when she saw me.
“I
thought maybe I’d come with you,” she said.
In
Venice, it’s different to London. You can turn a lettuce into party, masks and
all, anything can happen, a puff of smoke becomes a palace. So I didn’t run a
mile. I just smiled and carried on walking at my pace.
“You
like that I come with you, I think.”
I
shrugged. “I don’t have plans.”
She
threaded her arm into mine. “I like you,” she said. “You’re a calm sea, far
out, deep like the Atlantic not the lagoon. Deep is safe, you know that?”
“Thanks.”
I sniggered, nerves, a bloody weir more like but it was probably meant as a
compliment.
“And
I’m the canal.”
Sour
water gleaming, always shifting, causing havoc.
“Volare,
oh oh,” I sang. “What would Venice be without the canals?”
“Cantare,
uh,uh oh oh,” She sang back. “Now you are the gondolier earning big money.”
We laughed. “Penso che un sogno così non ritorni mai più.”
“I painted my hands and my face blue, then
suddenly I was ravished by the wind and started to fly in the infinite sky.”
She
bared her crooked teeth at me and handed me a peach from her bag and bit into
another so juice dribbled down her chin and I saw more than lettuce - clouds on
a mattress, a feast of seashells, pan-fried diamond forget-me-nots. She wiped
the juice with the shoulder of her t-shirt.
We
walked along the broad stone promenade. Launches were moored at the quayside, a
few tourists ambled lethargically, a man tugged his dog. Across the other side
of the water, in the distance, you could see the Campanile and Basilica San
Marco with its vast hoards of people cramming the square, barely space to
breathe.
“Too
busy,” I said. “I don’t ever go there.”
She
spat her peach stone so it hit the launch and tumbled like lottery numbers into
the gutter. A crewmember yelled. She spouted an aerosol of sparks and the guy
wafted his hand at us.
“In
Piazza San Marco, I’m a cat in a fire,” she said.
“Like
I said, too busy.”
“Yeah,
maybe.”
I
led us my usual route home, crossing the bridge at Arsenale, winding through
the narrow streets until we arrived at the square with the bar where I usually
stop off.
We
sat in the shade in front of a group of tourists who asked me to take their
picture with a fancy Nikon SLR, and when the beers came she drank straight from
the bottle draining half.
A
funeral boat drew up; modern, grey with a remote control trolley. Three guys in
baseball caps wheeled the coffin across the cobbles. Lilia lit a cigarette and
curled her lip as she watched. I took a photo with my phone as the coffin
swivelled with a hum of electronics and sank into the bowels of the boat.
“Death
in Venice,” I laughed.
“Now
we are even allowed to spread our ashes on the lagoon or keep them on our
mantelpieces.” She shook her head. “Since Napoleon, the dead must leave Venice.
They create an unhealthy atmosphere.” She blew a stream of smoke and laughed.
“But we see the gates of cimitero across the lagoon. Reminding us Death is
waiting, eh? But no rest, we exhume our bones after twelve years and line the
ossiary. I come from doges and cardinals. All my family is in San Michele. My
family ruled Venice and we walked the bridge of sighs with our heads held
high.”
“I
heard Byron invented that.”
“You
English.” She spat a strand of tobacco from her lip. “You think you know
everything.”
“And
now?”
“Now?
What’s the matter with you? I tell you this so you know you are meeting a real
Venetian. Now is not important. Is history.” She lit a cigarette. Eyes binking.
I’ve never seen anyone more alone than Lilia.
When
I was paying the waiter, I saw her hold up the little mirror and examine her
face.
“I
won’t be a moment.” She picked up her bag.
I
guessed she’d left, but minutes later there was a kerfuffle as she knocked into
the tourist’s table and spilt their drinks.
The
vaporetto was crammed; rush hour. Lilia’s nipples pressed against me, she
smelled of salt and cigarettes. I thought of touching the dark hairs on her arm
but her face was a fumble of frowns and then I glimpsed Leather Hat halfway
down the stairs.
At
Fondamenta Nuove I barged through the passengers going on to the islands. I
found Lilia looking in the window of a flower shop selling funerary wreaths.
She turned to face San Michele a couple of hundred metres away.
“Spooky
place,” I laughed.
“Home.”
Her eyes spat a spark at me.
“Your
family?”
“I
sleep there. In the foreigners’ cimitero. Is more private.”
I
couldn’t tell if she was lying.
We
walked down the narrow alley into the seclusion of Campo dei Gesuiti. She
splashed her face and arms at the pump and gathered a few figs that had dropped
onto the street from a garden tree.
A
cat sidled along the wall and turned along the canal. Water slapped against
stone, tongues teasing the sun and an elderly woman tied her topo, with a dark
red sail and gleaming varnish, to the steps that led from the canal to her
house.
“That’s
my place.” I pointed to the shuttered palace. An arched cargo door gaped like a scream.
“The top window.” A gull landed on the terracotta roof tiles.
“Bloody
gulls,” she said and pointed her finger and shot it.
We
crossed the narrow bridge, into the labyrinth, turned into a passage barely
broad enough for two people to pass. She leant into the shadows until I’d
unlocked the door, heaved it open and pressed the light.
“You
coming in?”
With
a glance over her shoulder she darted inside.
“Smells
like a convent,” she said, checking out the wrought iron staircase, the marble
floor, a kid’s scooter propped against the wall. Before locking up, I glimpsed
the brim of a leather hat in the shadows of the corner to the next passageway.
My
place was at the top, above the palace, a 1950s add-on.
We
climbed the four flights, the stairs narrowed at the top. I unlocked the next
door. “Come
in.”
I
heard footsteps on the stairs like the snap of spaghetti but Lilia was peering
into the bedroom, bathroom, the tiny kitchen.
On
the terrace, she opened the door to the workshop and stepped in. I never let
people in there, but with Lilia it didn’t matter. She walked amongst the
draping muslin fluttering in the breeze pressing against the features of the
plaster heads suspended from the rafters.
“I’ve
been working with shrouds.”
“You
heard of the shroud-eater? They found her on Lazzaretto Nuovo, with a brick
jammed in her mouth so she would starve to death. You don’t know?”
I
smiled.
“The
shroud-eater eats its way through the shroud then its own flesh.” She shivered.
“It’s an old story.”
That
night we cooked the figs with tomatoes and pasta and Lila squashed peaches in a
bowl of sugar and mixed it with half a bottle of Prosecco I had in the fridge.
“Bellini?
You like? You taste the marble of Istria like in cimitero.”
“A
real Venetian cocktail.”
She
looked in the little mirror, rubbing her teeth with her finger, turned it and
kissed it before slipping it in the
back pocket of her jeans.
She
dressed in one of my shrouds when we went to bed and scratched my legs with her
toenails and all I could hear in my head was the blood orange accordion, the
snap of dry spaghetti and then the sound of the peach stone tumbling in the
gutter like lottery balls where she’d spat.
It
was around two am that flashing blue lights turned the room into a massacre of
discord. Her bones tensed in my arms. Without a glance at me, she slipped from
the bed onto the balcony and the last I saw of her were her feet as she dived.
I waited for the smash, the scream, the splash, but nothing, white space.
Inside
the bag I found the Nikon from the bar, a passport, a couple of wallets and
three other cameras. The little mirror was on the table in the kitchen.
I
took the hoard to the police, just said I’d found it lying around. They asked
if I knew anything about a stolen topo.
--
I flash a sunbeam with the little mirror, wait
for a response from cimitero and flash again. The vaporetti leave the
Fondamenta Nuove pontoon as I scan San Michele, with its thin brick walls
tipped with marble and cypress trees. Seafood risotto drifts on the breeze.
I’ll wrap her in deep waters if I can. Someone hums ‘Volare’.
*
Amanda
Oosthuizen is from Hampshire, UK, and loves to travel, especially to cities. Her
work has won prizes and been shortlisted in various contests, and is published
in all kinds of places, including King’s Cross Station. Take a look at
www.amandaoosthuizen.com.
Friday 15 November 2013
Synaesthesia Magazine Short Story Competition 2014
The Synaesthesia Magazine team are proud to announce our first short story competition!
We have had a fantastic first year at Synaesthesia Magazine. It makes us so proud to see our readership growing and our contributions increasing, so what better way to end the year than to give you all the opportunity to take part in our very first competition?
For this exciting leap into 2014, we're lucky enough to have Adam Marek, award-winning short story writer of two fantastic collections, Instruction Manual for Swallowing and The Stone Thrower, as our guest judge.
Here are the delicious prizes we have lined up for our winner and runner-up:
Winner:
All submissions will be judged anonymously, with our top stories read and judged by Adam Marek!
The rules are simple, but please read them carefully:
As we run the magazine entirely on love and coppers from our piggy banks, for this competition there is a small entry fee (£4.00) which is available to pay via PayPal only.
If your entry fee has been successfully processed, each entry will be accepted, but unfortunately we cannot reply to each and every email (as much as we'd like to!). A shortlist will be published on our blog and sent to all entrants in January. The winner and runner-up will be notified by email, and asked for their address for the prizes to be sent to.
We have had a fantastic first year at Synaesthesia Magazine. It makes us so proud to see our readership growing and our contributions increasing, so what better way to end the year than to give you all the opportunity to take part in our very first competition?
Opens
15 November 2013
15 November 2013
Closes
7 January 2014
7 January 2014
Here are the delicious prizes we have lined up for our winner and runner-up:
Winner:
- £60 Amazon voucher
- 2 x books courtesy of Comma Press
- Publication in Synaesthesia Magazine's February 2014 issue
- Winner's interview in Synaesthesia Magazine's February 2014 issue
- 1 book courtesy of Comma Press
- Publication in Synaesthesia Magazine's April 2014 issue
All submissions will be judged anonymously, with our top stories read and judged by Adam Marek!
The rules are simple, but please read them carefully:
- Only one (1) submission per person
- Word limit up to 2,500 words maximum
- Entries must be in English
- Entries must be previously unpublished
- All short stories must be in .doc, .docx or .pdf format, with Name of Entrant, Story Title as the file name
- All entries must be sent via email (as an attachment) to synaesthesiamagazine@gmail.com
- Subject line of email to include: Name of Entrant, Story Title, Short Story Competition
- Body of email must include author's name, email address and PayPal address
- No corrections can be made after submission, nor fees refunded
- There is no set theme
- The competition is open to all; it is not restricted to UK residents only.
As we run the magazine entirely on love and coppers from our piggy banks, for this competition there is a small entry fee (£4.00) which is available to pay via PayPal only.
If your entry fee has been successfully processed, each entry will be accepted, but unfortunately we cannot reply to each and every email (as much as we'd like to!). A shortlist will be published on our blog and sent to all entrants in January. The winner and runner-up will be notified by email, and asked for their address for the prizes to be sent to.
Good luck!
About our guest judge:
Adam Marek won the 2011 Arts Foundation Short Story
Fellowship, and was shortlisted for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Short
Story Award. His first story collection Instruction Manual for Swallowing was nominated for the Frank O’Connor Prize. His stories have appeared in many magazines, including: Prospect and The Sunday Times Magazine, and in many anthologies including Lemistry, Litmus and The New Uncanny from Comma Press, The New Hero from Stoneskin Press, andThe Best British Short Stories 2011. His second story collection is entitled The Stone Thrower.
Cry Wolf
Illustration by Anto
Today's story is blue, frosted with sharp prose and a child's innocence. It was published in our very first WINTER issue in January 2013, and it's stuck with us ever since. Here it is, in honour of National Short Story Week.
*
The
cow blew up the morning after the storm. I guess the wind ripped the fence. I didn’t see the cow explode, but my brother Yan did. By the time we got to the field after
school, fresh snowfall had covered up most of the red, the pieces of flesh and
hide and bone. Old Marek strung up some
new barbed wire and re-painted the sign.
Minefield,
it said. Extreme Danger.
Yan
laughed because cows can’t read. He said it was time to carry out his
plan. He’d first mentioned it when the
soldiers left Old Marek’s farm. We’d
been standing in the tanks’ tire tracks, watching Old Marek hammering down the
posts for the barbed wire fence. Mother
said the land could never be tilled again.
‘Think
of it,’ said Yan, kicking at the churned up earth. ‘A field of death. I can lead unsuspecting enemies there.’ He looked at me sideways, his eyelids
drooping, like they always did before he tripped me up or pushed me into the
bushes.
I
jumped out of range. ‘What enemies?’
‘What
enemies? Baby brother. You’ll see.’
Yan
never told me what he was plotting - he was twelve that year and I was only
nine. When his gang played soldiers, I
was the enemy who had to take cover in the forest. They hunted me through the firs, chanting my
name: Sash-a, Sash-a. Once they chased
me into the branches of a beech tree and danced around the trunk.
After
the dead cow reminded Yan about his plan, my stomach felt cold. If I was going to be the enemy again, how
could I hide in a minefield? Besides,
we’d have to get past Old Marek’s dog. Half-dog. The other half was
wolf.
Wolf
guarded Marek’s farm, growling and barking and scaring the children away. That summer, the dog had bitten Yan when he
tried to take a shortcut down to the river. The scar stood out like a crimson half-moon on his right thigh.
Then
Yan told me he’d stolen some shears.
‘I’m
going to make a hole in the barbed wire,’ he said. ‘Round the field of death.’
‘That’s
dangerous.’
‘That’s
dangerous. The wire’s not going to
explode, idiot.’ He cuffed the side of
my face, so my left ear throbbed. It was
no use talking to him when his eyelids were weird like that.
The
next morning Yan went out early, before breakfast. He hadn’t come back by the time we were
supposed to leave for school. Mother
twisted her apron in her fingers, frowning at his uneaten porridge.
‘Take
his books, Sasha,’ she said. ‘See if you
can find him on the way.’
I
took his red school bag and my blue satchel, one on each shoulder. I wanted to run, but the snow was coming down
hard. When I got to the farm I called
Yan’s name, but it disappeared into the white air.
Then
I heard a howling noise ahead. Something
big and grey was stuck halfway through a hole in the barbed wire fence around
old Marek’s field. Wolf. A pair of shears lay next to him on the
crusty snow.
I
crept up behind the squirming animal. Through the blizzard I could just see the shape of my brother, working
his way along the inside of the fence on the left edge of the field.
‘Yan!
Be careful!’ I thought of the chunks of
cow, burst scarlet under the ice.
Wolf
yanked at the fence and tried to turn his head towards me, but he was stuck
fast.
‘Sasha?’ My brother’s voice carried through the
snow. ‘That bloody hound came at me
before I could finish the hole.’
‘Wait
there – I’ll get help.’
‘No,
don’t fetch anyone! Push Wolf! Shove him through the fence!’ My brother
waved his arms. ‘When he runs across the
field he’ll blow into a million pieces!’
I
dropped the bags and approached the dog. He was barking, struggling in the barbed wire, his rough grey coat
stained with red. Under his fur, his
skin must be scratched like my arms had been when Yan shoved me into the
brambles.
I
put my hand carefully onto the dog’s back.
‘Wolf.’
He
stopped barking. I stroked the scruff of
his neck. He stiffened and made a low
noise, deep in his throat. I tried to
make the same sound as he was making.
‘Hurry
up, fool,’ called my brother.
Wolf
raised his head and snarled.
‘No,
Yan,’ I said. ‘You’re the foolish one.’
I
picked up the cutters and clipped the wire biting into Wolf’s flank, pulling
the barbs out of his skin. He yelped and
struggled against me.
‘Ram
him into the field,’ called Yan, stepping forward onto the mined ground.
‘Get
back!’ I shouted. ‘Hold onto the fence
and come to me – it’s the only way out.’ If my brother exploded, the blizzard would cover him up straight
away. He was so much smaller than a
cow.
Yan
lowered his head and started to make his way towards us, around the edge of the
field. I leaned across Wolf’s flank, put
my arms around his neck and eased him out of the fence backwards. He stood rigid, watching my brother climb
through the gap in the barbed wire.
As
soon as Yan got through the hole, he lunged at me, his fist raised. I stood my ground, bared my teeth and
growled. My brother dropped his hand to
his side. Wolf barked, but I held him
back. There’d been enough fighting in
this place. I picked up my bag and led
the dog away from the minefield, towards old Marek’s farm.
*
Jac
Cattaneo is an artist and writer who teaches Cultural Studies on the BA (Hons)
Fine Art course. Her award-winning short stories have been published in a wide
range of anthologies and journals, including Riptide, Litro and International
Flash magazine. Jac graduated from the MA in Creative Writing at Chichester
University with distinction and the Kate Betts Memorial Prize. She is currently
working on a novel as part of her PhD in Creative Writing.
Thursday 14 November 2013
Gooseberry
Today's story is delicate, ripe, as sweet as jam and gooseberry bitter. Here's another short story from our vaults, this time from our GREEN May issue, 2013, in honour of National Short Story Week.
*
Take
the gooseberry between your thumb and forefinger. Take the sour berry and
squeeze it until it bursts and the jellied placenta sticks to your skin.
There once was a garden full of
the prickly bulbs. Some are sweet and others bitter to taste. The ripe and
delicious are picked to boil and simmer with sugar for jam. The rest are left
to shrivel and harden under the sun. They are difficult to reach and those
tempted by the fruits are scathed whilst foraging. They draw blood. In time the
gooseberry bushes thrive and devour the garden until there is little space for
anything else. Their sharp spines twist and turn resulting in a tangled mess.
The garden is swallowed
whole.
I was there from the very
beginning, when there were four of us. I cherished the gooseberry bush,
spending many hours in the fruit garden planting new seedlings guided by the
Lunar calendar. My finger tips were like rusty nails. I had true gardeners’
hands with stained palms which often bled. I was nicknamed Lumberjack, and for
once, I felt a part of something big and great. We worked eight-hour days; woke
at sunrise and finished around lunchtime when the sun was at its highest point.
Most of us worked alone. We ate mostly from the land and for a while it seemed
we were living the bohemian simple life, totally self-sufficient and in love
with our project and each other.
Then word spread and our
community grew to fifteen members in just over six months. Some found us by
accident and decided to settle down. Others were strays, vagabonds and lost
folk who had left their loved ones behind or their loved ones had left them.
Our plot of land expanded and we started a workers’ cooperative and sold some
produce in the village nearby. It was around this time when Jasper arrived. He
entranced us all.
It began on a clear, dewy
morning. His shadow stretched across the grass and my body was sheltered by
his.
“I don’t mean to encroach,” he
said as he knelt beside me. I dropped the secateurs and removed the soiled
gloves to free my hands. He used his thumb to wipe away the dusty earth which
clung to my hairline. From his pocket he removed a small bundle of
purplish-looking baubles carefully wrapped up in a handkerchief.
“Open wide” he said.
I bit into the soft fleshy fruit;
it was the first fig of summer. Then he reached out and pinched my cheek.
“So much life ahead of you,
girl.”
I didn’t say a word. He stood up
and for the first time I noticed his club foot. The arch was barely visible and
as he walked away I saw how strange his figure was. His body was slightly
hunched as if his spine were an s-shape. Perhaps sensing my perpetual
stare he turned and said “I have a surprise for you when you finish up.” Then
he shuffled back towards the main house and the darkness of his shadow shrank
with the rising of the sun.
I arrived home and discovered a
package on the edge of my bed. It was wrapped in newspaper and buried beneath
the print was a note from Jasper. Scribbled in juvenile handwriting were the
words ‘not a sound, J’. There lay the undergarments that he had promised me.
The delicate lace and satin was as pale as my colour; it was an extension of
me. My woman-self unleashed and ready to feel the hands of another. I had
chosen to skip supper and instead sucked on liquorice root all afternoon. He
had asked me to be ready by eleven-thirty. It was eleven-fifteen and there I
stood in my matching underwear sucking on the liquorice and trying to keep
as still as a model.
I
wondered what Jasper would say to me. I wondered how many others had been
before. I wet my face and patted it dry with the flannel. Then I applied the
lipstick a little beyond the line for added effect. I scrubbed my hands wanting
so badly for the tough bits to soften and melt away. I wished for longer
painted nails instead of my chewed ones. I listened for his call, the beep of
the horn. I thought it would never come. Then it did.
He took me out in his pale yellow
MG and we parked on the cliff top. It could have belonged to us: the sea, the
horizon, the sky. All of it could have been ours. Few words passed between us
because we knew what was coming and didn’t wish to delay it any longer. I was
wearing a cream shirt with hazel buttons that match my irises. Underneath my
shirt and camisole I wore the matching bra and pant set.
The gooseberry pulsed. He was
lopsided; it was as if he had two legs of different length. My bones rubbed
against his and I lay there waiting for his first order. His weight was
overbearing. The gooseberry split and its contents bled an inky red. It
delivered a great gushing flood, and I almost drowned in it. His silky film
clung to my pants and spread itself thick on his faux leather car seat, stained
with his aged ripened juices.
Natalie Baker is a recent graduate from
Kingston University with a BA (Hons) degree in Creative Writing with Drama. She
currently works as product editor in children's entertainment publishing and
drifts between poetry and playwriting.
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