Winter writing competition

As she walked through the trees her trainers crushed the leaves underfoot, the crisp disintegration of life making the only sound louder than the leaf-rustling wind. An occasional drifter joined the numerous free-fallers gathered on the forest floor, waiting to be ground into the dirt either by foot or by time – it was all the same in the end.

She turned to the empty space beside her and answered an unspoken question. Her voice was as dull as the blonde of her hair, the look in her eyes, the edges of her broken mind.

‘Just walking.’

She kicked out at a leaf but missed. The lethargy in her limbs weighed heavy on everything she did. She just walked on; another would come.

‘No,’ she answered. ‘I’m kicking golden autumn leaves.’

She lowered her head in something close to shame and listened beyond the silence of the world.

‘It’s important,’ she muttered. ‘Only the golden ones deserve kicking. All the rest are just trying to make their way home.’

Another golden leaf showed its ugly head along her path and she absently kicked out at it. It floated up into the air a little, but as she passed, it settled back among its family unperturbed by the disturbance.

‘I know.’

She pushed her hands deeper into the pockets of her jacket, a coldly familiar object pressing into her right fist.

‘I don’t care.’ The barest hint of anger was the only emotion to cross her features as she looked over to the side again. ‘I said I don’t care. I’m not even supposed to talk to you.’

She looked back down at leaves that did their best not to judge her.

‘You know why,’ she told the emptiness one last time. ‘The doctors said not to.’ She dragged her feet and this time when she spoke, the words were for herself. ‘They promised you would go away if I didn’t talk to you.’ Her shoulders hunched a little more but her voice gained strength in desperation. ‘Why won’t you go away? Why don’t you just leave me alone?’

Her situation was always the same, and she was unable to even hope for anything different this time. She cast a sidelong glance and wilted further to a place she knew all to well. However, today there was growing darkness to her thoughts. It had always been there, but now it was palatable, it was something she could wrap her fingers around. And she did.

‘Enough is enough,’ she said with a grim, determined look on her face. She stopped and stared ahead for a long while before sitting with her back against the nearest tree, a thick Aspen with few golden leaves left. She withdrew her hands from their warm hiding places, and looked uncaring at the blade.

She pulled it slowly, not feeling any pain at all, across her left wrist and then her right.

Her head hung limp, but she smiled as all the golden leaves around her turned red.

(500 words excluding the title - hope that's okay.)

The other teachers sulked when they had to cover old Combover's after-school detentions. Mr Keogh and Miss Cross muttered in stage whispers about how the 'elderly mother' card was played too often, how they nearly all had dependents, how this was very sad though...

As if Jonno, rocking on his chair along with the rest of the gobshites, were not only invisible but had all gone deaf and all.

He doodled a leaf on the corner of his foolscap.

Some saddo supply had been telling them about adding jectives, pointing in desperation ( thinly disguised as enthusiasm ) at the sorry mess of dead leaves mulching the muddy playing field...it's Autumn ! she declared...the leaves are Golden! and Brown!... and the sky is Gay!... words can be dry, she'd said... and did they know the song ?

They'd been doing Geography for fuckssake....colouring-in some map about flood-plains, but she didn't care about that and neither did they. She had been quite young but Jonno and his mates still thought she was a sad old cow...she'd been pulled in after the watery-eyed secretary had come and asked Mr Comb to 'pop into the Head's office for a minute'...

Jonno was scarfing a bag of salt n vinegar he'd snatched from a year 7, reverting back to some kind of natural order at break around the vending machine. They agreed that Combover's sudden absence probably had something to do with perving...he'd been spotted by a few kids who'd been having a fag by the car-park, fumbling with the keys at the lock of his shitty old Fiat before taking off as fast as it would go...he didn't even have his battered leather bag with him so he must have been in a dead hurry...

Every lesson that streak of piss would bump softly into the classroom with that bag and rummage out piles of papers, his bibles of AQA and OCR... he'd read them out sections of exam board 'requirements' and then scrawl a 'keyword' on the whiteboard with his own blue marker (always kept in his shiny 'newsreader' jacket pocket)... this morning it had been 'Evidence',...his pen never even squeaked on the shiny plastic, he was that shite...then he sat down behind the front desk with a smaller red pen, and made busy little scribbles on the sheaves of paper, ignoring the class...then the secretary had bustled in and breathlessly called him away. He'd gathered all the loose white leaves back into his bag, put his pens back in his pocket and scarpered without a word , bumping back through the door then closing it softly behind him.

Jonno glanced up as the snickering etched its way through the hall...

And there he was...

Combover... heading towards the gate, kicking golden autumn leaves from his path and swinging his bag around in big circles like a sling-shotter or an overgrown toddler...he let it go on the fourth swing and stood staring at Keogh through the glass as it thudded into the pane, white paper flying up and fluttering down onto the muddy ruts and divots...

As he broke into his stride again he glanced over his shoulder and raised his scarecrow arm...

The chairs scraped and clattered as they all thundered over, bellowing and laughing and flicking V's , giving him the two-fingered salute back...

Keogh was trying to draw the torn curtains on the long streak, who was fishing his car keys out of his pocket as he flung through the gate, leaving it open...

They spent the next twenty minutes picking the litter off the field... Jonno saw that a photocopy he held in his hand had 'Mexico' printed on top of a dry looking column of numbers. Some had been circled sketchily in red...and he wondered despondently if that was going to be their next coursework assignment, even as he crumpled it into a ball and sent it flying into the skip with the rest of the rubbish.

The little procession picked their way along the slippery path. Simon, the baby of the group at nineteen years old, kicked at the golden autumn leaves as he lead the way.

It wasn’t a good day for it, there was a cold chill in the air. No sun could pierce the clouds that were threatening to rain on the parade.

As they reached the end of the path, a squirrel darted out from where it had been collecting acorns. The dog, startled, gave chase. Bushy tail flowing, it scurried up a tree. The old Collie dog barked after it, her feet planted firmly at the foot of the offending tree as she looked up, up, trying to see where it had gone.

The young men stepped into the clearing, they walked slowly, in single file towards the edge of the pond. A breeze made waves across its surface; echoes of childrens’ voices travelled through the reeds.

Solemnly the five young faces watched, as the wreath that Simon had placed onto the waves, drifted out towards the centre of the pond. It came to rest against a wooden sign, flaking red painted letters could still be seen; “Danger, deep water, cold currents” That was Toby’s legacy; a warning to all, to keep their feet upon the ground, do not swim in this tempting pool.

It had been a very hot summer, the drought made the leaves fall early. All summer, the boys played in the woods, dipping nets into the pond, paddling in the stream. They made dens and promised to be friends forever, blood brothers, they scratched their skin and mixed the blood. Finally a dare, they would all jump into the pond and swim to the other side.

With a gleeful cry, they jumped in and started to swim. No one could have known that the water would be so cold. Toby’s body reacted immediately. A sharp intake of breath triggered an Asthma attack. He waved his arms, gasping, desperately trying to call out to his friends as they swam, racing away from him.

By the time the five boys climbed out onto the far bank, Toby had disappeared, they thought that he hadn’t jumped in and was hiding in the den. They ran through the trees, calling his name, before returning to the waters edge, to that spot, exactly where they all stood now, remembering.

This was the tenth anniversary of Toby’s death. It would be the last time that they would all come together, to this place. The pact made by five small boys fulfilled. An annual pilgrimage. One visit for each year of his age, a lifetime in the eyes of a ten year old.

The dog ceased her barking and came to stand beside the men, she stared across the pond; the wreath loosened from its resting place, it bobbed along a little way, until suddenly it was caught in the current, and disappeared with a final swirl, under the dark water.

I crouch in shaded silence watching, waiting for the right moment. She saunters towards me on the narrow, dappled forest path, carelessly kicking golden autumn leaves. When the sun penetrates the leaf canopy sufficiently to reach, her loose blonde hair gleams angelically.

When she is almost level with my hiding place, she stops and looks upwards, neck arched, relaxed, probably listening to the song of a bird whose name I will never know. It’s cool, but I’m sweaty, and I pant as I stare at her, my mouth open. I brace myself.

Her head straightens quickly. She scans around carefully and her gaze passes right over my head. I stop breathing and remain utterly immobile. She strides on and past me, so closely that I can smell her. I stalk. This is the second-best part, when they don’t know I’m pursuing. I can feel my sheath strapped tightly against my calf, it’s merciless treasure awaiting my firm, skilful grip.

A hint of wind flutters her little hippy skirt. It’s just like the one tiny Sophie had when I started. Maybe that’s why I’m after this one. I remember Sophie in bed, flu, a golden halo of hair round her pillow, my hand on her brow. So flushed and helpless, I can’t help myself. Something primeval, primitive, drives me against my will. I know it’s wrong but I just have do it. I throw the covers back and my hands are on her.

Her mouth opens to scream and I clamp it shut. She kicks madly and something crashes to the floor. There’s a roaring in my ears, my body full of adrenaline and desperation. The door flies open. Her daddy's peasant face is shouting but I hear no sound. I shove him, hard. A red pool grows under his head, a yellow one between his legs. I know he’s dead. He’s nobody. I turn back to Sophie.

Now this one in the woods is humming. That should cover my approach nicely. The bitches. If they just did what they were told this wouldn’t happen to them. They made me like this. Them and nature. Grow your hair long to attract the men like flies to shit. You’ve attracted me, girlie, so you get me.

A hand in the hair, a hard tug and she’d be down, just like the last one went down, with me kneeling on her wrists, stiletto in hand. The first one after Sophie I tried to scare with the knife but she screamed. I had to kill her first. Spoilt my fun. Ether's no good. I need them to see their master while they’re enslaved. The stupid law makes me kill them afterwards. Prison isn’t for the godlike ones like me, the doctors. We control life and death every day.

Close enough now. She’s singing and running her raised hands through the leaves as she ambles.

It’s time.

(482 words)

Oh brilliant. BRILLIANT!

Remember, after spending morning fannying around being hungover, that left car round mate’s last night and am therefore going to have to bus round there to pick it up before driving off for Important Meeting. Meaning I will be late for Important Meeting, unless leave flat NOW.

Look at portfolio needed to impress potential clients in Important Meeting. Realise is hideously out of date. Hastily ram in new material. Presentation looks awful.

Pull on stale work clothes from yesterday, grab bulging portfolio and stumble out of door. Realise, as totter towards bus stop in heels drastically unsuitable for requisite speed-walking, that have forgotten phone.

Engage in internal debate as to whether or not to go back for phone. Don’t have time. But chances of needing it to call client to inform of likely lateness are inevitably multiplied tenfold by the law of sod if don’t have phone on me. Stand in confusion wasting yet more time.

Decide to go back for phone. Turn around and take two steps back towards flat. Decide against it. Turn around again, in time to see bus race past. Curse loudly, in time to offend old lady shuffling past. Return glare delivered by said old lady. Realise said old lady is neighbour. Belated attempt to transform un-neighbourly glare into weak smile fails miserably and fools nobody.

Trudge to bus stop. Stop. Wait. Wonder when next bus is due. Whilst wondering, hear sound of papers falling all over the ground. Look down. Papers have fallen all over the ground. Bulging portfolio has exploded.

Papers have fallen into pile of golden autumn leaves. Contemplate kicking golden autumn leaves. Poxy things.

Pick up now-sodden, leaf-encrusted papers and plod back to flat. Call client and invent story of car breaking down. Realise story might be sounding more plausible without the stammering, frequent hesitations and complete lack of detail. “What’s wrong with the car?” “Oh, it won’t… erm… go.”

Re-arrange Important Meeting for next week. Fling sodden, leafy, broken portfolio onto floor and collapse in similarly bedraggled, hassled heap.

(Then turn on laptop and blog about it.)

WARNING! Contains a few swearwords at the end...

Walking along Church Street on a freezing cold late-October afternoon, hands tucked deep into the pockets of my stinky afghan coat, I was thinking about nothing at all when a beautiful blond hippy chick stepped out of a doorway, stood bang in front of me and said: "Children of God?"

I must admit, it was a novel approach and caught my attention straight away.

"Children of God," she said again but more urgently. "Have you ever heard of us?"

"Never," I replied. "What do you want?"

She had leaflets. She handed me one. "Tired of the ratrace?" it asked. "Seeking meaning to your life?"

"Oh, Jehovah's Witnesses", I sighed. "No ta, I've already given."

"No, no, we're nothing like that." She smiled at me in a funny way.

"I really like you, what's your name," she asked. As she did so she reached out and held my hand.

We got talking. She really was strikingly attractive. She said we should meet up later as she'd like to tell me more about the rapture of finding Jesus.

I thought she was a nutter. But I really fancied her so we agreed to go for a drink in the Moonstone at seven.

I dashed home, did me hair, caught a few minutes of Starsky and Hutch, and dived back out. Sitting at the bar, I'd convinced myself she'd be a no-show. I finished my pint and was about to leave when I felt a hand softly stroke my hair. It was hair, er, her.

We talked and talked of many things for hours. She'd been with the God cult about a year. She said I was a natural for spiritual fulfillment.

I said I wanted to kiss her. She just laughed and told me I'd soon forget about physical love once I'd discovered the spiritual variety and we talked some more about God and shit.

I might have hinted that yes, I would be interested in joining the "church".

She said that was excellent news. She said if I did, I would have to change my "straight" name to one given me by the cult and as she was my mentor, she reckoned I suited the name "Autumn" as it was, well, that time of year and my manner was distinctly misty and filled with mellow fruitfulness.

I blinked and agreed that, yes, this would be my new name from now on! I shall find Jesus and be his slave, er, disciple. I will BE Autumn.

Just as I thought I was getting somewhere, another hippy turned up. His name was Amberlight and he was a "senior minister". My beautiful guru explained she would have to leave.

Like, straight away.

I took her phone number, or a phone number anyway and, as I watched them disappear up the stairs and out the door, I reflected on my good fortune.

After a couple of minutes I downed the last dregs and staggered out.

Walking through the darkened city streets, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a knee-trembler going full throttle in a doorway ahead.

I walked quickly past not wanting to spoil the fun. But as I did, I heard my mentor's voice from within: "Oh yeah, fuck me, fuck me!"

Fuck me! It was HER. With HIM.

"Oi! What the hell's going on," I spluttered. "You said physical love was beneath your spiritual plane. You said spiritual love was the future" I wailed.

"Well bollocks to this," I shouted, angry and humiliated.

"I'm off and I NEVER want to see you again.

"By the way, hippy, I never got to know your name...?"

"I'm Golden," she breathed, laughing at me with her crusty mate.

Kicking Golden, Autumn leaves.

THE END (or is it?)

The headlines were big and bold …”Look at that boys, we made the front page”…. Ben passed around copies of the Sunday Mail they looked at the headlines. They looked quite impressive and the report was nothing but complementary praising each of them in turn. It had been an amazing journey but this was just the beginning.

Jaz looked out of the window and reflected back over the past year. Only a year ago they were an unknown group playing for pennies in and around the club circuit, they were good but no one seemed to listen to them, they always played to half full venues all four of them had sat down to discuss their future, Rob had kicked it off

So it’s agreed, if we bomb out at the X factor auditions then we call it a day!, our gap year comes to an end soon so it will be back to Uni and the real world of careers and work. Everyone nodded jaz leaned forward; one thing though I think half our problems have been the name of the group. Everyone keeps saying what a naff name it is, who the hell can take seriously a group called..”Nutmeg Unload”..

Ben looked hurt; “I thought of that”, well to be fair my Nan did.
Yeah! Now that was a strange way to pick the name eh!.” It was a sign” said Ben, “it was the last thing she wrote before she died, it was written on the newspaper she was reading when she passed. I carry it everywhere in my wallet to bring us luck”!

“Lets see it” said Jaz, Ben carefully took the newspaper page out of his wallet and unfolded it passing it to jaz. It was the first time he had seen it, he thought Ben had made it up. But no there in shaky writing was the words “nutmeg unload”, he smiled he wondered why she wrote it.
He stared a bit longer and noticed that it was the crossword page and one of the clues was, “Kicking nutmeg unload leaves in a childish way” 12 letters. He stared at it, he had always been good at crosswords and loved the cryptic clues, he stared harder. A smile spread across his face …

”you Burk Ben” she was doing the crossword” he showed everyone the page. Ben looked at it I don’t get it. Jaz pointed out the clue they all scratched there heads, “why write nutmeg unload then, bit of a stupid clue” said terry? …”You wasters, Nutmeg unload is an anagram of Golden Autumn which is the answer to the puzzle, get it “Kicking golden autumn leaves in a childish way, ..OH! They all went, and started giggling ….Golden Autumn who would have thought!…. they all looked at each other, Jaz spoke first, why not boys, maybe this is a sign, they nodded Agreed then from this moment on we will be known as “Golden Autumn”….the rest as they say is history

I could feel the sun blistering my skin through the blue cotton shirt.

If I was a betting man, I'd say this was the hottest day of the Summer so far. By a distance.

It's late July and I'm in Chester for the annual Roman Day horse-racing meeting, enjoying the atmosphere outside Watergates, sitting under a dark blue monogrammed parasol with the first of many discarded champagne bottles warming beside us as the glare of the afternoon sun breaks past the shade and lasers my neck. Men with jackets casually slung over their shoulders pass down the cobbled street as the women cat-walk beside them, thighs silhouetted as the light shines through semi-transparent fabrics.

A Cohort of centurions in full battle gear stride through the walled gates in front of us, only their fags and pints of lager giving away 2,000 years of evolution. Their haste suggests its time for us to drag ourselves from our comfort and seek out fresh champagne at the course itself. We buy our Enclosure tickets from the enterprising ticket-touts at the perimeter fence and after a brief sweaty funnel through the main gates, we're inside.

With only 20 minutes to the first race, theres no time to study form or look over the shoulder of someone who's yellowed fingers and shiny suit suggests they know what they're doing. Instead, as we queue at the Tote, the young lady in front of us swishes her hair back to clear some rogue strands stuck to her gently perspiring face as the Dapple Grey mare in the parade-ring beside us does exactly the same.

The young lady flashes a toothfully equine smile at her companion and I know I have my horse.

"Thirty pounds on the Grey to win"

"What number"

"No idea mate. It's the one over there"

"OK. So thats thirty pounds win on Number 8. Golden Autumn. Thanks fella. Good luck"

I grab my curly print-out and watch as my companions foolishly follow my lead and before long we are all riding the Grey, divine intervention easily outweighing evidence and common sense.

Down on the course, the crowds are too deep at the rails so we head straight off to the champagne tent to watch the race on the big screen.

At first the omens are poor and my thirty pounds seems to be fluttering away on the gentle breeze. However, the jockey gets more animated at five furlongs as he clearly feels, as we do, that the horse has something more to give.

Another furlong of indifference passes but then, when she finally responds to the wee-man's furious whipping and kicking, Golden Autumn leaves the rest of the field for dead at the two furlong marker and before she has passed the winning post we are already hammering on the Tote window waving our betting slips in triumph.

At eleven-to-one we collect our freakish windfalls and with my Fantasy Guest beaming beside me I know it's already a day to remember.

495 words

Came across these and couldn't resist it...

Come on, people - write!

If I close my eyes and still my awareness of life as it is now, I can still see the room and smell the rosy scent of a child’s body, my coloured pencils and fluffy toys.

There is no key in the door, and I cannot lock the world out; sometimes I hold the door knob with both hands until my knuckles are white with rage and fear, but I am too light and small to stop it, and too hopeful that it will.

When the silence in the rest of the house whispers soothingly, I shall let go of the door. Reassured, I climb on top of the window sill to look down, through the dirty glass, at the children in the playground beyond the church.

I rarely join life outside, skipping across the cemetery with its mould-encrusted graves and sepia photos of stern-looking people. Now that the school has started again, my mother will ease me into the light blue woollen coat with the itchy collar before I can be poured into the grassy paths between the gravestones, kicking golden autumn leaves with shoes too big for me.

Father will come home early, sometimes, and offer to walk me over to the park. There is no door knob in the cemetery but plenty of places to hide. He knows them all. There are no escape routes, the inescapable reality of us eclipsing from view, from the house, from mother.

I shrink and shiver, I shake my head. No, no. My mother helps me into my coat, and blindly gives me a kiss. I feel dirty already.

Later, when he has explored the untouchable and felt the unspeakable, he will tuck clothes and secrets in, and brush the autumn leaves off my blue coat. The yews moan in the wind, the bushes are his friends. Children laugh in the distance about childish things he has made me too old to share.

That Christmas, I prayed for a door key, and I got a dolly. I keep it in the loft, with broken door knobs, a blue woollen coat, and a dislike for cemeteries.

353 words

She’d never seen a dead person before.  She’d been staring at the body for some time, allowing herself to absorb the situation entirely.

The grey sky hung morbidly overhead, it’s heavy light falling through the branches of the horse-chestnuts.  The wind swirled around her ankles making spirals of the leaves, pulling like a lover on the bronzed cloak that covered the body at her feet.  He had curled up and died during the night.  The bitter cold meant the usual vagrants that patrolled these parks had not rummaged his pockets, but stayed under shelter.  Deep lines etched the contours of his face, merry crow’s feet sawn onto the side of his head by years of exposure to the elements.  Frozen shut, his jaw remained clenched and his white stubble glistened with frost.  This is what it looks like to die alone.

Kneeling beside him the woman gazed at the details of the corpse attentively.  Thin fingers ran lightly over the thick holed jumper that had protected the body, running down his arm until something cold and hard was sensed wrapped around his wrist.  Amongst the ragged clothing this wathc was an anomaly.  It was robust and heavy; the screw that winded it up had worn to a smooth wheel betraying its value.  It was gold.  Gently, the woman undid the mechanism and slid it over the gnarled hand, revealing a white strip of skin and matted hair.  She imagined the struggle the man must have endured to keep this watch on his wrist.  Maybe this was evidence of a more affluent past, or a previous lover whom the tramp had never forgot.  The italic script on the back read clearly:“Dear Father, with love from your daughter Belle 1979”. 
The bleakness of the scene erupted from within her and she let out a sob that hurt her throat from trying to hold it back.She exhaled a shuddering sigh and sniffed back the tears.  This lonely man had lost his daughter, his whole family.  But he had loved them, she knew this.  This sacred time-piece had remained, counting the days of their separation. 

After years of fragile estrangement, she felt reunited. At age seven, when her father died, her childhood had imploded into an orb of pain and anguish as her mother slowly sunk into solitary psychosis.  Not a day had passed since his death when she had not wished more than anything to see him one last time.  She had clasped desperately onto her last fading memory of her father before his disappearance; feeding the ducks, kissing her mother as she ran down the path, kicking golden Autumn leaves through this very park.  Through her tear stained vision, this man could be her father; the blurred image matched that of her memories.  As the tramp’s knuckles thawed in her hand she felt years of unfinished mourning come finally to an end.“Goodbye Dad,” she wept, clutching the watch as paramedics held her shoulders and coaxed her to stand.

[499 exactly]

“Oh yes, this is just perfect Willand… I thought you said this thing was four-wheel drive. We need to get to Tretsa before noon…”

“Hey, the guy who sold me it said it could take…”

“You believed the word of a used-cart salesman? A used-cart salesman called Honest Uther?!”

Grutzal the Hairy, Barbarian for Hire, smacked the vehicle’s side panel as the Wizard revved the horse for the ninth time. The wheels churned in the track, kicking golden autumn leaves into the air and providing forward motion at a speed rivalling the fastest of continental drifts.

“Look, it’s the fashionable thing to do,” explained Willand, shaking the reins so hard more of the bedraggled mystical symbols from his robe flew in all directions. “Arrive late, make an entrance…”

“Yes, fair point... However, I think they normally mean harvest dances rather than heroic battles to the death with a gang of demonic centaurs…” explained Grutzal in his calmest voice.

Willand gulped and tried the horse again, he’d been with the barbarian long enough to know his calm voice meant that he’d transcended annoyed to a point where all his vexations were queuing up and slipping on the knuckledusters.

Showing a disregard for personal safety only seen before in the Plummeting Platypii of Piyn, the wizard attempted the placatory approach.

“Now Grutzal, have I steered you wrong before? Didn’t I help you acquire a magical sword of renown?”

Both heads turned to take in the well wrapped parcel buried under their luggage, even a bag of Grutzal’s used jockstraps failed to muffle the high pitched voice proclaiming its love for young female goatherders skipping through the mountains.

“Yeee-ess,” pondered Grutzal. “I’m sure one day I’ll come to my senses regarding magical yodelling swords and their plus points over, say, a quiet ‘not giving my position away’ type of weapon…”

“OK, how about the oft fabled Tam O’Shanter of Tom O’Shanter?”

“Oh yes, I don’t mind looking like a pillock… after all, the reward of being able to speak to oysters is invaluable…”

As the explosion of pithy sarcasm threatened to reach Defcon three the two were interrupted by a reedy, off-tune version of Pantalentio’s ‘Concerto no 34 for Armpit Flute and Unsociable Bodily Functions’ coming from Grutzal’s loincloth pocket.

Pulling out his ivory iBone the barbarian flipped it open and waited for the BlueToe imp to collect his messages.

“Oh brilliant, it’s from Tretsa, looks like we’re not needed anyway.”

“But the Centaurs said if we didn’t defeat them the village would be subject to their alcoholism, orgiastic sexual perversions and relentless pillaging?”

“Exactly, all the plus points of normal politicians and honest too, they got voted into parliament uncontested… Dammit, we needed the gold.”

“Is this a good time to talk about endorsements? Bob’s Beard Delouser is after a face for their adverts?”

“Willand… do you want your lower intestine to ring to the sound of yodelling?”

ALL over again she feels the wrench of her belly, the low pull of her loins, a cradling slew of ice hot pain, acute, high, incisively sharp and so ruthlessly, accurately, exquisitely deep, it becomes almost a pleasure, though not even at all; followed by a sudden, muscle-tearing ejection, a final inner roar to threaten the inner ear; blessed, bursting release, a barreling swollen emptiness now, pain set aside, pleasure beating pain, pleasure thwarting enormous, cloaking fatigue; pleasure, pleasure, pleasure…

AS they bickered around her, she smiled without moving, blinked while her eyes stayed still. She felt the tear without the moisture.

FROM the left and from the right, noises and lights, smells and tastes, all switching and swapping places with ease, senses like relay runners, ribbons in the wind. Water balloons bursting, carousels rising, carriages racketing around their aching, bolted tracks. The caramel apple gleams and smells of burnt; its case is brittle, collapsing against her teeth; sticking to her lips as the soft pulp below yields to pressure. There is a flash of a camera, and the image is on the film, and the film is at the store, and then the print is in the frame, for a while, then in the album, later, then lost, some place, in storage, somewhere. But the smells are still there, now.

SOMEONE shouts at someone else while someone yet again insists everyone who is talking should be listening to them. No one, of course, is listening to the things she cannot say, but that’s okay, because she doesn’t really want to share them.

THEY’RE running through the familiar rising terrain, nipping over raised roots, darting down paths past leaning trees, whooping as they go; calf muscles strain up hillocks, bloat as the legs they’re sat in shudder into clefts, where they’re falling, rolling, laughing, kicking golden autumn leaves, throwing them too, then rising, shrieking, and running some more, laughter all around them, sunshine through the trees, branches against blue sky. Soon it is time to eat; but tomorrow will be the day to go home.

LIKE a croupier with his cards, she neatly stacks and restacks the memories, intertwining and folding them into no comprehensible order other than her own, alacrity imbued with calm. She is utterly aware as her legs lose their feeling and equally disinterested. Soon be there. The arms, for some reason, went ages ago.

FASTER now, yet each as easy. The soft dry host upon her tongue. Pineapple, her favourite fruit. The sting of a nettle. A drawn-out ferry horn. The touch of a hand inside her own. A crucifix sat high up above an altar. A sea, one summer, dark waves and bustling white crests. A disco ball. Napkins. Thick, meaty gravy. Promotion. A first day. A cold hand into a postbox. Signing her name. Tennis. The breath-like touch of hot summer air.

THEY bickered and ignored her, as she knew they should. They’ll need their snapshots, too, she thought. And so she stopped; forever.

I saw Jean in the park again this morning.

She's always in the park, what was she up to this time.

Kicking the golden autumn leaves.

Agh yes, that'll be her getting in touch with her inner child. She's been seeing a psychotherapist. Apparently she has attachment issues stemming from her childhood.

What's that supposed to mean.

I don't know her Dad was a total bastard. All I know is that I pay some bald, git sixty quid an hour to stop my wife acting like the last chimp at the zoo.

What's it all about this psychotherapy then.

Don't ask me, but if it works, then I shan't be complaining. She's been a nightmare to live with the last couple of years.

They just talk?

As far as I can gather yer, he talks alot of fancy shit and long words, but I think it's just a way of getting her to talk about her Dad, you know. The big words are all smoke and mirrors that's all.

Wha?

I mean look at the church right - O.K. - biggest lie in the world. I mean by the time you've figured out Father Christmas it's pretty apparent that religion is the same, or basically the same, so why do so many people persist in turning up?

I don't know - you'd better tell me.

Because of the institution.

The what?

The lie, it's backed up by the institution. The cathedrals and the ceremony. The Queen wants to get coronated where does she go - St Paul's and she kneels before God.

And she's a crock of shit too.

Yer, too right, they both work in the same way and they back each other up. You look important then you must be important. This guy's got all his letters and books, so what he says, well it's got weight hasn't it. She talks, he has a think and says something, and she thinks he's fixed her. The trick is it's the first bit that did the helping.

Her talking?

Yer.

Do you remember that guy that used to make those piles of leaves on the way to school.

Yer and we used to kick em all over the place.

He was a nutter wasn't he?

What?

I mean he didn't work for the council did he. He was from that big house on the corner with all the care in the community.

I suppose so, I don't really remember. All I know is that there was this bloke with a broom and he used to make great big piles of leaves, we'd kick em all over the place on the way to school and on the way back the piles would be back, so we'd kick em all over the place again. Yer, that doesn't sound like the council.

You didn't realise.

All I cared about was kicking leaves. I didn't really give a shit about who put them there. Anyway Mum never told us not to.

No - I suppose she figured he liked making the piles.

Leaves must be more therapeutic than we thought.

The changing of the season, life, death, renewal, it's all there.

You keep talking like that I'll have to give you sixty quid an all.

We'll it's your round so you can start there.