Elision on hold...

Right now I'm esconced in the OU course and writing its backstory in 'Levi's story' I haven't had much time for Elision. Seeing as I've already got a first draft of it (in its entirety) I'm going to leave it for the time being to concentrate on the others.

Mirissa Beach

This is Mirissa Beach on the South Coast of Sri Lanka. It is one of the places that Ethan visits on his trip away from England.

This picture was taken before the 2005 Tsunami.

Assessment One: 'Indulgence'

The assessed part of my course is three 500 word stories. This is the first; a 'character summary.'

Mr Studer was a pale, imposing man of fifty six. He was as broad as a telephone box and nearly as tall. He stood in his gloomy study admiring a picture of his second wife. Behind him the shutters kept out the streaming Puertabanus light and the room retained some semblance of cool in the middle of the day. People said that he must be north facing, because he never caught the sun.

Maria, his old maid of eighteen years knocked at the door and brought him in a tea set that clinked on the tray as she moved. She laid it on the desk next to a hard backed volume on oenology.

“Thank you” he said without smiling.

He looked back at the photo ‘She was the best looking’ he thought ‘of all of them’. Mr Studer was obsessed with women and their fine elegant features, their necks and fingers; a constant obsession that skipped from one woman to the next so much so that he was found to be most inconstant by both his previous wives. Like the women, the divorces had been very different; the first had been happy to get the money, but the second he had hurt very badly. He gripped the top of his padded chair; its leather was stiff and cracked, ‘but by and large they did not impact upon me too much’.

Still with Anna, the delightful third, he had been faithful. She reminded him of the second; blonde, sylph-like, thirty four and so full of newness and joy that he could almost cry when he saw her. It felt different this time; there was something about her, and there was also something starting to be different in him.

He poured himself a cup of tea. The liquid was dark and its smell bitter. He wrinkled his nose; it was stewed. Maria never got the tea right, and he always tipped it away so as she wouldn’t know that he hadn’t liked it.

Behind him was a large framed picture of a horse situated in a Gainsborough country scene. It had an unusual amount of relief even for an oil painting. He had loved horse racing and sponsored many events a long time ago. He adored the thrill of the day, the beautiful animals and the girls in all their finery. The horse in the picture was ‘Promised Land’; the very first indulgence he had bought for himself when he sold the company. He loved that horse; back then for a time he had wanted to set up with a colleague and start a stables. But when ‘Land’ fell and had to be put down he had lost interest in the idea for good.

Most of the time he looked at the painting without experiencing any of the sadness he once bore, and today was no different, he looked at the glossy flanks and remembered that moment of painted perfection, and nothing else.

Levi's Story 1

With a jolt eighteen year old Levi woke at a thunderous roar right by his head. He lifted his aching temples in shock and saw that the noise was coming from a convoy of juggernauts that were crashing along the carriageway beneath him. Relieved, he shut his eyes again: they were fifty yards away from where he lay dishevelled on the grubby slope of the autopista embankment.

Now conscious, but still confused, he touched his hair and his pale face. There was dirt in the wet corners of his mouth and an acute throbbing in the left side of his head. He lay still for a moment longer before pushing himself up onto his knees and falling back gingerly onto his dusty jeans. The sun was dazzling; he had to shade his ice blue eyes from the flashes of the glittering Mediterranean that stretched from the far side of the road on to the horizon.

‘Another night’; the familiarity of the situation steadied him. But even as it did he panicked again and felt his wrist anxiously for his watch. It was still there; his granddad’s old
Oyster. He took a deep, unpleasant breath of fumes and finally after a flying start, his heart rate had a chance to lessen.

He looked back down at the passing traffic, his shivers subsiding in the warm air. He could not recall the previous night as distinct from the others but he knew what it would have been like; he smiled knowingly.

There was certainly a girl involved, there always was: Levi fell in love, and out of love every second day. He considered Lucy, his old girl back in England, and shook his head. It hurt, and a flicker of malice momentarily dislodged the smile.

He brushed the grassy debris from his black shirt, casually noticing that it was ripped and ruined. Then he looked to his left knowing already what he would see. At a distance of two hundred yards along the scrubby noisy verge was the nightclub where he had spent most of the last week.

“So...” he said quietly to himself; his clear, correct accent was immediately drowned by the passing tyre roar. He looked at his watch, its face comforting him ‘… it’s ten thirty on Sunday February the 18th…’ and with a mental clunk he suddenly placed himself “…fuck I’m late for school.”

School started that evening than 1000 miles away in south east England, it was the end of half term.

Levi's Story

So a fortnight into the Open University course and I'm having some misgivings about the depth and clarity of some of my character development in Elision.

A lot of our work at the moment is helping make our character development as clear and as dramatically dynamic as possible. With this in mind I have decided to take some time off from Elision while I finish the course and work on a backstory for Levi.

The plotting of the story should not be affected but I would feel more comfortable with a little more definition about the characters. The time, and the course will hopefully help with this.

I am looking forward to writing Levi's Story soon, maybe one day it will prove to be the first part of a two part book... maybe!

Picked Up

Just a shout to Iqubed for putting my Machinima piece on their blog:

http://www.iqubed.biz/blog/category/creativecoffee-club/

(Interviews by Leean Pindar)

Creative Coffee Club in Machinima

After dissecting the interviews from the first Creative Coffee Club meeting at Foyle's Cafe and resaving them as .wav files I could import some of them into a short Machinima sketch, again using Moviestorm.

Chapter Four (Part Three)

After they had said goodbye and Jen had taken the short walk back to Levi’s flat; the four rooms above his shop. She sat down on a sofa in the small cream walled lounge and, while listening to the occasional car rumble past, she thought first about how the windows needed double glazing. Then as she settled down with her peppermint tea that was too hot to drink she thought about Lucy. She considered her life in relation to Lucy’s. It was strange for her to put someone on a pedestal like that she thought, forgetting, in her usual degree of self reflection, how she had lionised Levi for such a very long time.

That was exactly what she was doing. ‘As if Lucy was my older sister, my comparator’ she smiled ‘I anchor myself on her even try to emulate her’. As this thought lingered satisfyingly she did not consider that how she regarded Ethan; that just as she looked up her older sibling, she disparaged her younger for mistakes she had made. He was little different at all to the way she was a few years ago.

Instead of becoming aware of this Jen felt a sudden discomfort in her thoughts about Lucy; the reason for which she could not arrive at so she picked up the TV remote. Thirty seconds flicking persuaded her to turn it back off again.

As she finished the tea in the quiet of that room she looked around at the flat. It used to be owned by Levi’s mum and dad. He had never changed it in the time she had known him, the same pictures, the same books on the shelf, the same furniture all in the same places. Everything was tidy. The only extravagance in Levi’s life right now was the cleaner he had come twice a week to dust and vacuum the rooms. Four rooms that needed dusting just to look as if they were inhabited.

She brushed her teeth climbed into bed next to Levi, turning off the light as she did so. His breathing was even and slow. And she lay next to him peering at his outline in the orange glow afforded by nearby streetlamps she thought about him in ways that she nearly never did. In many ways he was the perfect man, strong willed and handsome he was like the ideal of a man from some bygone age; there was something patriarchal about him. He was ambitious, self controlled but not reliable, no, she had to stop herself there: reliable with work, yes, but not reliable to her. He didn’t love her she was sure of that, he didn’t seem capable of it. He had never said it, and she had thought several times before that she didn’t love him, not really.

He was a practical guy, and she a practical girl. Together things just worked. So what if she didn’t really believe that he had been faithful to her for the whole time she was away. Had she been faithful to him? She thought it with a tinge of sadness, but no regret. She turned onto her back and sank back into the pillow deflated; they were not so different, her and Levi.

The last thing she thought of as she slipped off to sleep was the look in her brother’s eyes that evening. They had looked so warm and then so cold, like two different people. As she slept she dreamt of life in London, the money, the freedom, the dream she had for herself. Next to her that night Levi dreamt the same dream for her.

Open University First Exercises

So pretty much the first thing I've been asked to do in the OU course is describe in a few words the room I'm sitting in, and then think 'what if'...

So I described:

There are cut white roses in a glass vase on the table. The room is top lit giving them and each of the four walls the appearance of opaque glass.

And then indulged myself!

The blood red roses were clamped tightly to her cheek. When she looked up the colour so suffused her eyes that it was impossible to read her intentions.

Machinima Attempt no.2 and Elision Backstory

Moviestorm Take Two

Here is the second attempt at putting together Leean's Jenson Button interview with some Moviestorm animation. Showing some improvement I think, though its still very experimental! I'm hoping to cut some Creative Coffee Club interviews with Moviestorm next, as practice.

Elision Backstory

As my OU course has just begun. I thought it was worth mentioning I am planning on testing out some of my ideas for a prequel to Elision by exploring (Jen's boyfriend) Levi's life prior to moving back to England from Spain. I have had some fun thoughts about it so we shall see what happens!

Moviestorm 1st attempt

Apologies for the last gap in transmission. Here is my first attempt at making a video clip to go with some sound recorded in an interview with Jenson Button. This is just a short one.

Writing Short Course and Machinima 07

The Open University
Evening! It seems likely that my posting on this blog will change over the next twelve weeks; I am about to enrol on an Open University short course in Creative Writing. Since I shall be writing pieces for assessment during this time I hope to be able to publish them online instead of the usual chapters of Elision (obviously I will be back doing new chapters after the course finishes.)

Machinima
This weekend I spent some time at the European Machinima Festival in Leicester. Whilst much of what I saw and heard was completely mystifying, mindblowing and impressive, some aspects were very interesting to me personally, especially the idea of making short computer animated movies using some very clever technology called Moviestorm.

I am hoping to try and use this ('user friendly' I have been assured!) program to dramatize some projects in the near future. We shall see what happens!

Chapter Four (Part Two)

It was only a little later that Jen made her excuses, hugged and left Ethan and her dad at home deciding on pudding. She took her coat and, as soon as the door snicked shut on the latch behind her, she rang Lucy. They decided on a place from them to meet.

Jen quickly forgot about the awkwardness of dinner as she clacked along main road in her stubby black heels that needed fixing. Under the amber glow of the streetlamps the cold, draughts of air passed uncomfortably beside her neck. She pulled her coat a little closer, hunching her shoulders and as and she did Jen thought about her old flatmate.

Lucy Trean was two years older than Jen and had been in the year above her at university. She was the friend of a friend and sometime flatmate of Jen; they had become close in Lucy's final year and remained in touch while Jen finished her degree and Lucy was on her training contract.
Lucy was in Morford visiting her parents. It was a happy coincidence that they had both come from here; and it was also a fillip for Jen, who was rather missing her old friends now she had moved back. It had almost been the whole summer since she had seen anyone and she didn’t plan on missing the opportunity to see her.

They arranged by text to meet in a nice wine bar on a cobbled turning just off the high street. It was fairly busy when Jen arrived. Some of the patrons turned to size her up casually; it was the usual crowd thought Jen; slick hair and cheap suits or pressed shirts, jeans and work shoes. Jen ignored them as she peered round the room; she was there first. Seeing that it was already a quarter to ten, she brought a bottle of white wine and two glasses to the only table she could find. As she was sitting down, Lucy appeared.

Jen almost bounced back off the sofa as she got up again to say hello. Lucy looked almost exactly the same as she had done when Jen had last seen her. She had long white blonde hair that hung in loose curls down to the top of her neck. Her face was small and everything else about her was quite petite, despite the fact she stood nearly as tall as Jen.

“It’s so nice to see you” Jen felt suddenly elated as she sat back into the chair, “you look great. Oh I love your shoes” said Jen looking down and seeing a pair of cream leather Jimmy Choo’s.
“Thanks, well you look lovely too” said Lucy, as if she had been prompted to say it, but Jen didn’t notice.
“Sit down, sit down” she said excitedly “I got some wine? Are you well?” and then remembering herself she sat back down.
Lucy poured herself and Jen a glass of wine and sat back with a sigh, “yes, thanks; you got away from your parents then?”
Jen wondered momentarily if she should mention her mother, and decided against it, “yes finally” she said “did you ever meet them?”
“I don’t think so” Lucy obviously wasn’t interested; she had a mischievous look on her face, “I’ve done my duty too” looking positively feline as she pawed the rim of her glass. Jen watched her admiringly.
“Well I was so happy to hear you were coming down, you wouldn’t believe how long it has been since I saw anyone, since, like, just after graduation.”
“That happens” replied Lucy “you find that most of them are just friends of convenience... in the nicest possible way. You’re just in the same place at the same time, and then you’re not. Same thing happened to me.”
“I suppose,” Jen thought out loud, not really believing what Lucy had just said. “But, yes, about you, your new life. You have to tell me all about your new life in London. Is it amazing?”
“Yes, it’s amazing... busy, crazy, frantic” Lucy took a sip of her wine “It’s good to come back here sometimes, catch your breath!”
Jen carried on with her enquiries.
“So where are you living now?”
“Pimlico.”
“Pimlico” repeated Jen wistfully, “wow.”
“Yeah, it’s a nice little two bed flat.”
“...in a great place too” enthused Jen “and how’s work?”
“It’s good, going well, but it’s fucking hard!”
Jen started imperceptibly, she didn’t think she had ever heard Lucy swear before, “...but it’s exciting, new place, new job, new start.”
“Yes, but let’s just say they know how to take their pound of flesh.”
Again Jen was deaf to the complaint, “...but it must be amazing to be there, living on your own doing what you want.”
Lucy looked at her friend with a cocked head; ‘she really does think the grass is greener’ she thought. Lucy didn’t mind playing along, it felt good to be esteemed, if only a little bit.
“It is, yeah it is. Did I tell you I’ve got a boyfriend?”
“No!”

They talked for a while about Lucy’s boyfriend Tim, and then Levi and Jen tried to make him out as a man of wax too. As she did so, the disparity between how happy she supposed herself with the relationship and the reality of the matter became more manifest to her. After this she stopped talking about herself and continued to ask questions of Lucy about her life in London, the life that she knew she wanted. The conversation continued until the lights came on in the bar and they left with a hug and assurances they would do ‘it’ more often.

Revisions; 'Time of Year'

Rereading some of the earlier chapters has made me realise that I had set the start of the story too early, ie in the summer. The earliest it can take place is late september so that has needed some revision. If I have forgotten to change any other parts please let me know!

Chapter Four (Part One)

Dusk was creeping over head as Jen pushed past the low wooden gate of her parents’ house. As her foot touched the first stone of the short path that led to their front door she stopped; for the first time she felt the light reticence of a guest. She was a visitor to the house she had grown up in. For a novel realisation it felt oddly familiar and rather comforting. She looked up at the vicarage which still dominated the street from its receded position and at that angle the house seemed larger still. Its wide, brick front climbed to four floors, each of which was burnt through by glass boxes of light. It was an imposing sight.

Jen rustled around in her bag, not knowing what she had done with her house key. She was irritable; she could have been meeting some friends from university. She would rather have been doing that.

‘I shall try and get away early’ she thought as she gave up on the keys and rang the doorbell. She wasn’t waiting long before dad opened the door.

David James Field was a slight man of fifty three. He wore his thin shoulders and nascent gut with the same ease that was apparent in all his movements. Consequently his uncomfortable manner of speaking and frequent embarrassment at doing so was all the more obvious.

The peaks of his cheeks were always a ruddy crimson but he looked more flushed than usual as he mopped his brow with his trailing sleeve.

“Hello darling” he said with a breathless twinkle, and instantly she felt more at home.

Inside Jen opened the bottle of wine she had brought and poured out three glasses as she sat down next to her dad. The kitchen looked the same, stone floored and smart with hardwood cabinets, but it felt different without the fuss and efficiency of her mother and she felt vaguely uncomfortable facing the un-laid place where her mother always sat. Ethan smiled at her as he fetched the dishes steaming with leeks, potatoes and the carrots which smelled faintly of sugared aniseed.

“Remind me, I’ve got something to tell you” he said.

Dad wasn’t listening; instead, waving the carving knife, he looked intent upon the big pink ham, which sat before of him.

“Well isn’t it nice to have you both here,” he said to himself as he began to cut, “all together and we mustn’t forget your mother.”

Ethan sat down and they fell silent.

“Cheers” said Jen.

“Cheers” Ethan raised his glass, “to mum.”

“To mum.”

She watched as her dad cut the gammon and handed the first plate to her.

“They say all being well, she should be out next week” continued Ethan.

“That’s good news...” her dad agreed, looking in her direction. Jen felt faintly that they were doing this for her benefit “...isn’t it Jen?”

“I hope so” was all she could manage as she helped herself to some of the vegetables. She wasn’t feeling so confident about it all.

“She’s a strong one.”

‘No, Ethan, she’s not’ she thought with some irritation, ‘she’s human, and right now she’s very frail.’

“She’s certainly that” dad again acquiesced with his son.

Jen looked down and was trying to eat her way through this discussion. The irresponsibly upbeat tone in their voices was already irking her.

They continued eating.

Ethan began again, “before you know it, she’ll...”

“How have things improved, did they tell you?”

“Well no, but...”

“Then let’s face it,” she knew they knew “-it’s not the first time they’ve said that...”

Her dad stopped chewing momentarily.

“...is it?” Jen looked down again feeling that she shouldn’t have spoken.

Ethan stopped drinking. He put his glass down more heavily than he intended; the noise exploded through the quiet of the hard surfaced room.

“She’s going to be fine. It might just take a while longer.”

They all paused.

‘Blind’ she pressed the nail of her thumb into her forefinger to stop her saying anything, ‘blind, blind, bloody hope.’ She couldn’t help herself. “Will she?” said Jen again wishing she hadn’t.

“Jen,” her dad’s voice was so smooth and so directing that she fell dumb, “I know that you are worried. We’ll all be glad to have mummy home.”

There was something odd in his voice and she couldn’t ignore it.

“Of course we will, but...”

She looked over at her brother and her words slowed.

“...I’m...” she thought better of it “....I’m just, I’m mean...” she stopped, “I just hate this.”

She looked down then over at her brother, who was wiping the corner of his mouth with his napkin.

He wore a beatific smile which, in her eyes like light through a prism split into its constituent parts; there was both love and sorrow, but mainly shining back was a stream of pity. Despite herself she felt riled and could not help returning him a look of dull resentment. She was the eldest of the two, by three years. He had it so easy; she had to make her own way in the world. Work hard to get to university, then to be saddled with expectations and debt which she had little clue how to extricate herself from.

He had taken the easy option, dropping out of college, working for dad, and they were still so close, he and dad in a way that made her yearn jealously for childhood and the family.

“Come on Jen, ‘worry is just interest paid on trouble before it is due,’” he meant it to comfort, but realised immediately that it had only irritated his sister.
She looked about her, bridling at being patronised she just about managed to bite her tongue, ‘he is just a child, and his life is still so uncluttered’. “What?”
He heard the tone in that word, he saw it rising in her eyes. It was coming. By now Jen was off.
“I only meant that...” He didn’t get time to finish before Jen started again. It felt like she had been waiting all the meal for this.
“You don’t know that, you don’t get to just say that, you’re not sure.”
“But there’s no point in worrying...”
“How can you say that?”
“Well what’ll it do? What can we possibly do?” He repeated, exasperated.
“We just need to be... there for her.”
“Well what if something does happen? She’s in hospital.”

She was the first person in her family to go to university; she always had something to prove, to show him what should be done.

“Why think about that now? Nothing might happen...”
She needed to calm down.
“There’s nothing we can do...”
She looked at her dad “what about... him?” Her voice strained again.
“Come on you two,” David reached out and took both their hands. Jen reluctantly let him take hers, “you shouldn’t be arguing over this, we all care.”
Silence fell around the table again. Jen started eating, followed by her brother.
“Well, I don’t feel like a guest anymore,” she said thinking that many a true word is spoken in jest. Ethan smirked back at her.
They continued eating in silence.
“So how’s life in the family business?” Jen phrased the question to dad implying pointedly the lack of independence in her brother’s life.
“Well” he began.
Ethan looked at his father while he spoke and avoided Jen’s eye, knowing exactly what she meant by going down this conversation. He felt the distance between himself and his sister was growing and although he didn’t realise it, at that moment he was just like she was only a few short years ago.

Comments

After a dismal weekend's sport, I need to get back to this. Leean has pointed out that only registered users can comment at the moment.

This is not to protect my fragile ego! Please do leave any comments or feedback underneath the given article: I have now set the page to accept comments from anyone.

Chapter Three (Part Two)

Ethan stared. His mind whirred. He had never wanted a dog.

They were the people; traipsing after their dogs first thing in the morning. It was they who were bouncing around inside his head at that moment. They were the ones on the news. The dog would run off chasing some scent and not come back. Then they would find it, and something else.

‘It was always a dog walker.’ His hand went for his phone; holding it like some sort of amulet.

He began to move forward, freeing his limbs from the crush of indecision. His eyes were fixed on it, his legs moving stiffly, automatically. His innards slid and coiled involuntarily, tossing him weakly towards nausea. He did not even hear the hushed silence all about him; as if the trees and the sky had turned to watch the scene in wonderment.

He crouched unconsciously, his arms held out before him. By the time he was fifteen feet away he had slowed to a creep. His head lowered more, coaxing himself on, forcing his eyes to stay open. His mind was stuck in neutral, spinning round and round inside at breakneck speed but going nowhere, driving nothing.

He was closer now. He could see it from its shape that it was a girl. A tug of sadness, a young girl, a girl’s foot glazed with morning dew in a wet black shoe. Despite himself he jogged forward.

“Hello?” His thin voice vanished immediately with the mist of his breath.

He said it again; his voice firmer this time.

“Hello.”

Still there was nothing. He crouched down slowly and peered beneath the bush. The foot met an ankle and a delicate calf which itself ran into some dark trousers. The body itself was out of sight, lying beneath the matted twigs and leaves.

Ethan was a matter of inches from the leg. It looked so fragile as if held beneath glass. He wouldn’t touch the skin, the white snow skin. He couldn’t do that but he stilled himself and leant further pushing his hand out over the dark trouser.

He held it still, half outstretched, hovering a motion above it.

With a gulp he put it down. He couldn’t feel anything but chill. The fabric was that kind of cold which is indistinguishable from damp. He pulled his hand away with a jolt and as his fingers left the fabric he felt sure, powerfully certain that he felt the ebb of warmth from the cloth. As he did so he noticed his thumb was moving unconsciously to the buttons on his phone. He lowered his palm more deliberately this time, promising himself that he would call 999 if there was only cold, inanimate fabric.

‘Ambulance or police?’ He looked away as he pressed the leg once more, pushing the cold muscles of the thigh across the bone.

He stopped, ‘wait! It, it did! Did it move?’ He was sure it had moved, slightly but definitely.

He pressed once more. ‘There again! Moving sluggishly, weakly, kicking out like someone asleep.’

His reticence fled. He rubbed the leg harder now.

“Hey… hello, hey are you OK?”

After a pause a reed thin “what?” crept out. Her voice sounded like tracing paper.

“Thank God” he said spontaneously, “you’re alright?”

The legs began to move gingerly back and forth, shuffling forward. Slowly as though the ground was giving her up, they became a torso and then shoulders and finally a head of chestnut brown hair, darker where it was damp. He took her thin trembling hand and guided her out.

She was shielding her eyes against the cold, clear light. Her skin had a porcelain brilliance. The only mark was a small moss stain across her cheekbone that looked a little like camouflage against her complexion.

He helped her up, and she, rapidly gathering her dignity, tried to do so on her own. Something stuck in Ethan’s throat. She was a vision, even then a vision of beauty and he felt shamed for noticing.

“You must be freezing.”

She still made no attempt so speak.

He took off his jacket and put it round her shoulders. She took it without a word, looking too confused to understand what was going on. Her shivering hands could barely hold the coat round her shoulders. He took her gently and rubbed her arms and back. She felt so pliant in his arms, and still she didn’t speak. After a moment he stepped back “I’m going to call an ambulance, ok?”

She looked up at him and shook her head gingerly.

“I have to.”

She opened her mouth.

“Don’t, It’s ok. Honest.”

He looked at her face closely, her hair wasn’t wet, and she was beginning to gain a little colour in her cheeks.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” her eyes softened “thank you.”

“You’re lucky not to have hypothermia.”

He grinned. She sneezed.

“Bless you!”

“I think I may yet,” she smiled more to herself than him. Her eyes sparkled and her little upturned nose flushed right to its pointed tip. As if replying Ethan blushed a little.

“Well, we’d better get you home, someone will be worried about you; I’m sure.”

“That’s a good idea.”

He walked her back across the park, up the hill and to a taxi rank. He waited with her until she got into the car, smiled as she waved at him and then turned back to work.

As he sat in the printers, still on his own at that hour, he wondered what her name might have been, and with a heavy heart he dwelt on the thought that he would most likely never see her again.

Chapter Three (Part One)

If Jen was the kind of person to talk about voting against the current local council for their poor litter collection; then Ethan was the kind to pick it up. Plus he liked to walk, and it wasn’t exactly taxing to do both. He had often considered how different he and his sister were, doing what we all do and seeing right through our similarities.

He was up early for work again. He could walk to work; it was the best time to walk, the best time of all the day, when the air was crisp and the park quiet. His customary, sfumato smile played across his lips. He stopped and looked at his watch, it was nearing six and the air was cool, so as to feel like mist.

He felt sure that she thought the same way as he; that they were different, but he also felt sure that she felt it in a more pejorative sense than he, in the way that people with lower self-confidence often do. She had a degree. Did that make her high minded? It certainly didn’t seem to be making her money, or even happy. She was trained to be an academic, but she had no love for academia. It was such a terrible pity to see her waving her conditioning around as if it was more than training.

He deliberately left the path near the entrance to the park and sauntered across the grass towards the stream, the cool dew colouring his trainers. He then turned onto the path which cut across and crept up the hill towards the church and town.

It was as he turned to his left he saw another supermarket trolley stuffed, half upturned into a bush.

A feeling of kinship had developed. In many ways the life of the trolley was not too dissimilar to his. At times it could seem mundane and repetitive, but it was always faced with impervious sprite, good nature and a slight wobbly mischief; and sometimes they had a moment of exhilaration to savour.

It wasn’t the first one he had seen. Actually he saw one every now and again, either lying buckled beyond use at the bottom of the high street, refusing to slow them until the huge flint gate had intervened, lying around in the park after a Friday night or bathing in the stream.

He walked on and it was only as he turned his head back to look up the hill to the spire of the church that he caught the glimpse of something, right at the very edge of his vision. Next to the trolley cage and beneath the shadow of the bush, ghostly against the dark earth lay a slender white foot.

“Shi…t,” the word whistled out spontaneously as he was caught there motionless, struck still by the macabre sight.

It's a start...

Two chapter up and more to follow. I think one a week is about right.
I'm also thinking about putting some short stories and ideas up here as well, see which people like.

Chapter Two

Two buses and twenty minutes behind her younger brother, Jen stood up as they slowed in the school rush-hour traffic. She could see the florists, right before the registry office. The bus ground to a halt again.
Her shoulders slumped. It had been another disheartening day of filling in forms and waiting by the telephone. London life and the career she was desperate for both still seemed a million miles away; she felt like she was going nowhere fast.
“Oh, come on” she muttered as the Stopping sign illuminated with its customary green glow. She pushed up towards the closed door, waiting impatiently for it to open.

She stepped down and walked swiftly into the shop; immediately she was vexed further by the pungent aromas which clogged her nose and always clung to his clothes; this place always needed more air. Levi stood leaning forward onto the counter. His face was crinkled in thought as he scratched the pad with his nib. The door closed with its synthesised tinkle, and as it did he glanced up, and automatically slid the doodle he was scribbling under a sheaf of papers. He smiled a tired, slightly pained grin and looked back down.
“I’m going to grab some flowers for mum?”
He didn’t look up, “take what you want.”
Now wasn’t the time.
Jen looked around and picked up up one from a bucket marked Queen of Denmark. It was an intricate, scarlet and pink rose, ‘this'll be nice.’ She began to gather a few and tied them together.
When she was done he looked over.
"Do you want them wrapped?"
Jen nodded and handed them to him.
“Are you going to come, to the hospital?” She knew he wasn’t going to.
She stood waiting for the flowers not knowing how to break the silence.
"There you go."
“Thanks, I’ll see you later?”
He didn’t seem to think that was a question.

She stepped back outside to that anodyne chime, thinking of how much had changed in those last two years. It was that long ago she had stepped into the shop for the first time and met Levi. Mum had been alright then. It was almost their anniversary but nothing was the same, except that chime, and that sweet but sickly smell. She felt it with quiet embarrassment; how she had come back home full with the exhilaration of university, its possibilities, and met him.
It was even with a disdain that she remembered herself just that short time ago; how naïve, how immature she had been! How much she had been in his thrall.

The door had rung with the same cheery chime, as she was stunned for the first time by the funk of perfumed plant and mildew that permeated throughout the place.
It was then she first saw him. He was a crop of dark hair amidst the shadows and the dark walls towards the rear. A nervous pang had started playing inside her chest, from one side to the other. She didn’t get that anymore.

He stood leaning forward onto the counter like he still did. Seeing her he smiled his simple grin that then had seemed so guileless, his face open and his eyes beautiful and uncomplicated.
Instinctively she grinned back at him and as she did, her eyes instantly dropped to the ground. The pang became a small wave of contraction in her belly. He finished whatever he was working out, tapped the base of his pen on the surface and dropped it.
“Hi” he purred, “is there something I can help you with?”
“Oh, no thanks,” she kicked herself, ‘why did you say that?’

Undeterred, almost predatory, he had loped towards her whistling something inaudible on his breath and in an instant he was there, before her. She looked up, trying to ignore his broad shoulders, his eyes, his gorgeous face and overcome that part of her trying to sabotage everything by anaesthetising her jaw.

She caught his eyes as he gazed down at her, his enormous face and brilliant blue pupils filled her vision to bursting. She was completely overcome, and though she couldn’t have articulated any of that feeling just then; she had felt like a tigress bathing in those first warm rays of the savannah’s long, fierce day. Yes, then she had been his.
But not now; not anymore.

Twenty minutes late Jen entered the bright, bleached reception area of St. Edith’s General Infirmary. Ethan was waiting for her. She smiled with her flexing, slightly superior lips at him and he stretched his great awkward mouth from ear to ear in an enormous grin. He was still thinking about Dogg and the key.
“Hey, you” it felt like and age since he had seen her. They never had the chance since she had moved away to university and in with Levi.
“Hello,” she murmured as she was enveloped in his bear hug.
He put her down gently, holding her shoulder in her hand. He looked round at all the people sitting glassy-eyed in the room and dulled his smile.
“How has she been?” In everything she had forgotten how much she missed her mum. She began and then quickly stopped counting when she realised that it had been at least a two weeks since she last visited.
“Yup, OK.” It was the sort of ‘OK’ that means nothing more “they’ve moved her.”
“Oh,” she stood there waiting for him to show her where, feeling ashamed she didn’t know where to find her now.
He didn’t notice “So how are you?” He said breezily as he led her down the corridor.
“Fine” she lied as obviously as she could.
“Any luck with the job?”
‘What exactly was the fucking point of a degree?’ she thought as she turned to look at him, “no, not yet” she said quietly.
“Ok, well the nurse said we can go in her when we’re ready. We have ‘til five. ”
She nodded, and they began to walk softly down the white corridor. It was so quiet in there that it felt like the whole hospital was listening to his trainers squeak underfoot.
“Sorry, how are you anyway?” Her voice faltered and Jen found herself suppressing tears; she didn’t know why.
Ethan guessed it was about mum.
“It’s ok you know. She’s still ok,” he was trying to protect her.
They turned left at the top of the stairs, through the heavy fire doors and then immediately right into the ward. When the nurses smiled at Ethan, Jen felt even more like she was guilty of neglect.

Just round the corner lay their mother; one of seven ladies in the room. She was asleep, but she was so pale as to be imitating death. The thought occurred to both of them and they looked at each other, knowing with heavy hearts exactly what each had just thought. For a moment they simply stared.
“Looks like there’s nothing wrong” Jen said shaking her head.
“Mum” Ethan said trying to wake her gently. She didn't stir.
“Still" he paused, whispering playfully in her ear "she looks good for a woman in her fifties.”
The sleeping figure suddenly shook awake with a snort. She opened her eyes drowsily and as she recognised her only two children peering down, she sunk back into the pillow smiling weakly as though still wrapped in some delightful dream.

“Hello mum” said Jen, it was almost a maternal affection that was piqued at the sight of her mother lying there so slight and so helpless. She completely forgot about herself “it’s so nice to see you.”
“Hello darling” she slurred as she yawned, and pushed ineffectually at the sheets to move herself upright. Ethan helped and gave her a hug as Jen propped up the pillows.
“You smell, oh, like an ashtray” she chided gently, her nose wrinkled, “you were going to give that up?”
He mumbled an indifferent apology and slunk back, looking at the floor
“So how are you today?” Jen intervened, kissing her mother on the forehead and showing her roses she had brought.
“Oh, thank you, they’re lovely”
“I’ll just fill this up for you.”
Jen took the vase and walked off. Ethan looked down at his mother and filled her already filled glass to the brim from the plastic jug.
“Do you know when you’re coming back home?”
“No, but I wish I did” she whispered to him “it smells funny here.”
He smiled and looked round; no one was paying them any attention.
“It was nicer when you were on your own.”
She smiled, but said nothing.
“We miss you at home. Dad says he’ll be round later, when he can get away from work.”
He pulled up two chairs from the old lady asleep in the bed next to them, and sat on one at her side. He took her hand but his eyes avoided hers.
“How is Jenny?”
“She’s well, but I don’t see her that much.” He stopped, “she’s looking for work still. I don’t think she’s really that happy here. If it wasn’t for Levi she would be back in London, I think.”
“Oh, and you?”
“You know me, I’m always grand.”
She grinned, his smile was contagious, he made everyone feel a little better.
“Are you still going?”
“Can’t wait.”
“But you know how I feel?” she moved her hand along the sheet to him.
“Yes mum” he took it.
Jen returned with the pink roses arranged immaculately in their vase. She set them down next to the bed and sat down next to her brother. Annette talked for a while about the awful food and the nice nurse who comes and chats to her. Apparently she’s the youngest by far in the ward, and the second lady on the left has just become a great-grandmother to twins and the woman beside her used to work with your father’s mother in a typing pool. By the time they left an hour later she seemed ten years younger, a colour in cheeks and eyes.
It was only when they were leaving and Jen bent down to kiss her mother on the cheek that Annette hissed into her ear.
“Tell your brother I’m only 49! Oh he’s still winding me up.”
She beamed after them and as they turned the corner she sunk back into the bed with a short sigh. The effort made her fade visibly.

Chapter One

“Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum…
velut anteacto nil tempore semsimus aegri…”
“Therefore death is nothing to us, meaning not even a trifle…
Just as in time before our births we felt nothing of distress…”
Lucretius De Rerum Natura 3.830/910

The park didn’t seem to have ever had a name. In fact though everyone called it a park it was more like a heath. It tumbled down the slope from the church, stretching on and out around at the base of the hill, a huge puddle of greens and browns flowing out across the flatter ground. A tranquil, sporadically tended and often very muddy puddle; to whose age the clusters of immense oaks bore testament.

A slender key hung there. He almost walked past it, though it was hanging at head height. It was rusty and it had a small yellow fob dangling with it from the tree. Stopping, he left the path and took it in his hand admiring silently the artifice by which it had come there. The yellow fob sheathed a scrap of paper on which was drawn a fish in outline, like a keyhole on its side. He looped the ring from the new grown shoots and brought it down. He turned it over in his hand, wondering silently.
‘Should I take it?’ The question occurred to him.
After a moment he pushed it back carefully onto the branch, let it take the weight again and smiling at the world, he left it hanging.
‘I must remember that,’ he kept on walking, and in two strides it was forgotten.

The grassy expanse was cut through by lightly trodden and gravelled paths that met at its centre. A river also trickled across the subtle gradient. Its water was wide and shallow but its banks had always been inexplicably deep as if it once contained some raging spring water. Across the grass at the southern end it ran like a pebbled gorge beneath the High Street, which vaulted it with a wizened but sturdy stone bridge. Here it was, in the crisp air of a spring weekend morning, that one might find the upturned cage of a supermarket trolley protruding from the water, like the bars of a chrome-plated lobster pot.

He walked on. It was a glorious late autumn day, a warm sun tempered by the touch of soft breeze. The wide lanes wound away from the park, the undulations of the ground and the light splashing through the canopy on his face. He walked downhill then up again towards town, here and there were hints of its past pressing against him. Down to his left a huge flint gateway presided over the traditional entrance to the town.

Ahead, full of smiles two young boys on bikes faced each other in the deserted park lane. One was raising dust behind him dramatically pawing at the ground like a bull, the other was twisting his handlebar making sounds like an engine.
“...eady? GO!”
Together they set off. He stopped to watch them as they began to cycle towards each other. Faster and faster they raced, their little legs pumping up and down, up and down.
They were playing chicken.
‘This is not going to end well,’ but he couldn’t look away.
“Chicken!”
Sure enough, as calamity seemed inevitable they shouted out together and, as if in slow motion, they both turned their handlebars to avoid each other. In a brief moment of indecision they turned exactly the same way and ran straight into each other, clattering wheel to wheel. There were several nasty scraping sounds as the metal frames conjoined.
He winced, then calling out “are you alright?” he jogged over to the wreckage.
There was a long pause.
“Yes... yup” the one on top was flinching at the stinging cuts on his knees. The other still looked a little unsure.
He lifted the bikes up, but there was no more damage than a couple of grazed knees and elbows, and a buckled front wheel.
“Both of you?”
“Yeah!” Of course.
“Good.”
He couldn’t help a smile and he stood their bikes up as they wiped the dusty mess from their sides. They both thanked him sullenly as they took their bikes and walked off, trying to disguise their limping.

The smile turned to an inward chuckle as they grew more distant, and he thought back to that key he had found just ten minutes earlier. Who could have left it there? It must have been there for a while, it was rusty after all. Just how long had it hung there, ready to open something, through seasons and storms and leaves growing, and shedding waiting for someone to show its purpose?

In the streets he now passed along he felt that he could almost turn a corner and run straight into the past. These were a haggard maze of lanes, back turns and dead ends, a brooding part of this ancient town. Much was signed, the old balneae, the public baths, a temple or an arch, but much was not; there was far, far more than the celebrated Roman remains. There were old churches, wells, the low walls of canal skimming inns and cemeteries in these backwater streets with their peculiar, capillary layout.

He slowed. He could feel it here, organic, haphazard; grown not planned. He loved it. It was everything in between the stories, between the lines, the tarmac boiling, bubbling into cobbles and the buildings sloping their black beams and white walls like a melted barcode. A community influencing and being influenced by its surroundings for more than two thousand years; arguments, reconciliations, cock ups, ecstasies, disappointments and ten thousand tragedies; these and more made up this beautiful mess. In these streets he learned what he was, what he wasn’t, and what he was a part of.

The flint walls were bound into shop frontage, streets took crooked and inexplicably awkward paths, bending to round a long defunct well or suddenly breathing in, becoming just too slim for cars’ progress. The town was like that.

Then there was the high street running plumb straight down the same gentle hill on which the town flowed; it was a shiny new zipper joining the twin breasts of antiquity on either side. He walked on, faster now. A glib gilding, not even gilding, a whitewashing of the place’s patina, witnessing its annual influx of tourists, travellers and schoolchildren with pocket money each summer drawn to the curios, the exactingly preserved Roman centre and its tiny, dry, drab museum. The same one he used to visit as a school child.

Tourists, ice cream vans, stalls selling badges, hats, lighters, coloured hairspray and knocked off ciggies as well as musicians, mime artists, amateur dramatists, stand up comedians and an astonishing number of vagrants all invaded and retreated with each summer like the welling of a tide. But for most of the seasons in the year and almost all the weekdays in the week it was as it was now, keeping itself to itself; quaint, misunderstood and something of an anachronism in 90’s England.

Beyond this was the newer part of town, just like any other and his bus stop. A neat, straight road led into it from London, passing the hospital. Here he stopped. He did not have a long wait.

In the breeze at the back of the bus, three kids were milling about him. The tremulous sounds of their chattering voices filled the space. As he waited to get off, he wondered how it was they got that accent.

The doors opened. One of the kids pushed past him onto the pavement and began to run off down the street. Ethan stepped off the bus after him. A moment later he heard one of his companions behind him as he shouted from the door.
“Oi! Mad Dog!”
‘Were they calling down the road at Mad Dog, or Mad Dogg? One ‘G’ or two?’
But Dog was running off, he hadn’t heard them.
“Mad Dogg, Oi!”
‘Definitely double ‘G’’ mused Ethan.
The boys called out again, together this time, but Mad Dogg kept just on kept running. He was nearly out of earshot.

There was silence, a delicious moment of quiet indecision, until one shouted
“Hey Ed!”
The kid stopped dead in his tracks and turned round. All the eleven year old machismo faded from him, his eyes widened inquisitively.
“Yeah?”
Ethan bit his lip and hid his smile as he walked past. It was then that the little yellow fob of the key popped into his mind again.

‘The things I see’ he thought as he turned into the hospital entrance, ‘and I forget all the time’ the thought reminded him that he had for some time wanted to buy himself a pocket notebook.