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1Contents

2. Sylvia, Heptonstall, S. Fraser

4. BDS, J.M. Vaughan

6. The Thought Collector, H.J. Beal

13. Experiments in Static, C. Johnson

19. Painless, S. Faulkner

24. Them, H. Robbins

28. Goodbye from Ink (for now)

Inks Illustrator: Phil Hall

To contact Phil about his art, e-mail him at

philhall@live.com

w // www.philhalldoesthis.co.uk

b // www.philhalldoesthis.blogspot.com

2Where the mist-faded day

whitens over frosted ground

And air sharp with cold

cuts with each breath,

She lies beneath crystal winter,

her suffering locked in

So cold I could believe it

frozen there forever.

Thus chilled by her we are

ice and cold enclosing all three;

Her brilliant pain, the most alive of all.

Shelagh Fraser

Sylvia,Heptonstall

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4BDS** Body Dysmorphic Syndrome

The bathroom mirrorGives me manga eyes and childlike nose and chin.In truth, I have a giants nose and chinWith piggy eyes.

I love that mirror.

My padded braGives the illusion of firm and rounded breastsReleased, they reveal themselves as two, thinRabbits lop ears.

I love that bra.

My hair straightenersConvert my hair to sleek and shining chicWithout, my hair is lifeless, lank and dullDead rats tails.

I love my GHDs.

My evening shadow Lengthens my body; gives me long, slim legs Changes my dumpy short-legged frameFrom frumpy pear.

I love the sun.

5My control pantsFlatten my stomach and bum, define my waistI cannot breathe but what the heckIm not a whale.

I love those pants.

My high-heeled bootsAdd poise and inches to my walkI cannot run but how I swayOn micro-stilts.

I love my heels.

My make-up bagContains the creams and ungents, bits and bobsTo smooth my skin, hide spots and scarsA magic mask

I love Clinique.

The men in the barTurn to watch when I walk byTheir eyes lust-filled and slurred with drinkFools deceived.

I love those men.

J.M. Vaughan

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6I am tense. I am bent over. I am contemplating the human condition. My elbow is on its opposite knee, my chin rests on the back of my hand. I am always that way. I have a large family. I have twenty-two twins scattered across four continents. I have hundreds of other siblings but no mother.

My father, Auguste Rodin, was French and born in 1840. He died at seventy-seven; a ripe old age at the time. He wore a beret, of course, and pince-nez glasses. His long beard looked as if it were pulled from the fleece of a Mongolian sheep; thick, long and crimped. His forehead bore a profound frown and his nose was prominent, hooked. We all loved him without condition. He was our father, a dreamer and a creator. I share his knitted brow. I am made in his image. I was born from Dantes Inferno. I sat at the gates of Hell.

Right now, I dont know where I am. Nobody but him, my thief, knows where I am.

Its ten years today since Laura touched me, on her first day at work on a reception desk in the World Trade Centre in New York City. As her finger caressed the curve of my shoulder she thought about beauty mine and that of the view she saw from the window on floor 101, out across Manhattan. She was overwhelmed by it,

The Thought Collector

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7Helen J. Beal

thrilled to have landed this job fresh out of college. Laura was really happy in that moment. She was also just a few weeks pregnant, and was worrying about how her new employers would take it when it was time to share the news with them.

I have no eyes or ears myself, no sense of smell or ability to taste, but when a human touches me, I collect their thoughts.

I was then considered the property of a company called Cantor Fitzgerald. I may still be. But I was more than just another piece in their collection; I was their symbol. Despite this I was mostly unseen, certainly rarely touched, even though I had a position of prominence in their lobby. The bankers in the sky were often too busy to stop and think.

On Lauras second day she stood once again marvelling at the view and her good fortune, rubbing a taut tendon in my shoulder. Abruptly, her mood changed and thoughts tumbled out of her so fast I had to grab them quickly before they were lost. She had felt the building shake as she heard an enormous explosion, she smelled smoke and gasoline, people were running around her full of fright. She thought about her lover, the father of her unborn child, and recalled a row theyd had the night before. She had casually suggested that since they were having a baby together, perhaps he might want to rethink his job as a fire fighter. She was concerned it was too dangerous, was scared that she might lose him. She did not want to be a single mother. He had been upset. Fire fighting was his life. He did not want to give it up. He was offended. He had suggested that maybe he wasnt good enough for her now, now that she was living in the world of high finance. His pager had bleeped and hed left, to go do his job. She was asleep when hed returned. Hed been asleep when shed left their apartment less than an hour earlier to come to work. She disappeared and my world went black.

Seconds later she was back and terrified, gripping my knee for support. She was willing him to pick up the phone, railing at him for failing to do so. She was listening to the rings and the voices shouting that there was no way out. She was watching the colleagues she barely knew jump from the windows. She thought, without any uncertainty, that she and her baby were about to die and that she had failed to speak

8The Thought Collector

to him, to Joe, to tell him she loved him, tell him shed always love him, tell him goodbye. I was at the gates of Hell, in an inferno.

It was days before I collected another thought. The thought was:What the hell is this? A glove was touching my hand. It was

brushing the ashes off me with relief that I wasnt another human body part, wondering what I was, how I had survived in one piece a fall of around quarter of a mile. I was hot apparently, but he lifted me and placed me upright. Then he remembered something. Something that Laura had told him, when she described her new workplace to him as shed sipped on a glass of iced tea hed brought her, before theyd started to row. Shed told him about me, about how when she looked at me she felt she could solve any problem, work anything out. Shed said shed loved everything about her new workplace but that I was her absolute favourite thing there. Hed made a joke about his only rival being made of metal.

He recognised me, through her. He knelt and hugged me until the heat from the smouldering debris was burning his knees and in one heft he lifted me up and doggedly began to carry me, a twenty-eight inch high lump of crafted bronze.

He remembered how, the first night he and Laura had slept together, he had heaved her up and carried her to his bedroom. Laura wasnt one of those half-starved things that populated Manhattan. She had proper curves. Joe liked that. He had a few himself. Shed liked his show of strength, said she found it really sexy. She called him Bear. Her big, cuddly, brutally strong Bear. He was surprised to find himself crying, the tears streaking the dirt caked onto his face. They had been slow to come, but through me he felt her again.

He greeted his friend and colleague, Chuck, and when he was asked what he had there, he hesitated. He had part of Laura. Hed wanted to keep it to himself. Chuck thought I looked important. Joe thought Chuck meant valuable. Chuck was always after money. Chuck took a photo of me and Joe together, Joe uncomfortable, wanting to hide me away. Thinking he wanted to find my rightful owner perhaps, definitely that he wanted to keep Chuck away from me. They left me in a shed. They had work to do.

9Helen J. Beal

Later, I was in Joes arms again. He was finding it difficult to see in the dark, dropped the keys to his van in the dust, balanced me heavy on his knee as he carefully wrapped me in a blanket.

Then we were here. He spent the first month polishing me. Almost every thought he had was about Laura and their baby. How they had met, all the things they had planned to do together. Would it have been a boy or a girl? What would they have been when they grew up? Would they have had their own children? He cried as he touched me.

He went out to work, clearing Ground Zero. One day he was even shown the picture Chuck had taken of the two of us together. He was told that I had disappeared and asked if he knew anything about it. He had said no, art wasnt really his thing. Everyone knew how little Joe cared for money, so Chuck became the main suspect. Chuck told him he hadnt taken me, but he had wished he had. Hed found out how much I was worth. But he confessed he wouldnt have known how to sell me. Further investigations were barely pursued. Cantor Fitzgerald had lost two thirds of their workforce and their business was on the verge of collapse. Everyone had bigger things to worry about than where Id got to, Joe concluded, as he sat buffing me with an old t-shirt one night.

Ten years have passed since Laura first touched me. Since she left, theres only been me and Joe. He takes my little hand, big for my body but me scaled down, and he talks to me, even though I can hear his thoughts anyway, I savour and save every one. There have been many times when he hasnt wanted to carry on, when hes failed to see the point. But he hasnt wanted to abandon his mother, who needs him more and more. He has been told over and over to get out there, meet someone else, but he doesnt want to and when hes tried to, hes found he only wants Laura. Every anniversary he has sat with me and wept for what he has lost. He has never told anyone about me. I am not lonely, but Joe is. I will be around for hundreds, maybe thousands or more years, but Joe only has one short lifetime here. But I can only collect thoughts, I cannot project them, even though he is sensitive enough to feel that I have some of Lauras, some of Laura, held within me. I despair for him, but I cannot help him. All I can do is listen and be his link to his lost love.

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The Thought Collector

On this though, the tenth anniversary, a hand is resting on my head, thoughts dripping into me, this receptacle for ideas, emotions, arguments, theories.

Will he mind? Or will he think Im snooping? This is amazing! Whats it doing here its completely out of place. Sat on the coffee table in the middle of this tiny room, only big enough for one chair. Its beautiful though. I like it when they think about me. They usually do a lot to begin with, but then I fade into their backgrounds. Not with Joe though. Joe always finds something new in me. In ten years youd think hed have found every part of me, but no, there are conjunctions and symmetries that Auguste designed into me that still surprise him.

Shes cold, and she wraps Joes shirt tighter round her body, breathing in his scent. My big hands remind her of his, how they felt on her small breasts as they had drunkenly made love last night after burritos and tequila. Shes ecstatic, buzzing, still drunk she thinks. Shes been waiting, hoping for this for weeks. Was convinced in fact that he wasnt attracted to her in that way, that they were just going to be friends. She thinks of how warm it must be, next to him in bed upstairs and she slips away.

Joe is conflicted. He cannot imagine his life without me in it. But he thinks he has to let me go. His last tie to Laura. He is at last heeding the advice he has been given. Her name is Nathalie. She has two children and an ex-husband. She could have more children though, maybe one or two of Joes. Thats what shes said anyway. He picks me up and takes me down to the garage, wrapped in a blanket. He doesnt know where hes taking me. Hes just going to drive.

Hes struggling down the steps. Its quiet though, like hed hoped. The lightings bright in here but hes pretty sure nobody saw him take me out of the back of his van. Hes standing on the platform. Theres a homeless guy flopped against a wall, an empty whiskey bottle by his limp hand. He resolves to leave him the blanket Im wrapped in when hes done.

This is where he first met Laura. She was stood right there. The platform was busy, mid-afternoon. He was on his way to his mothers house to clean her gutters. Laura was on her way to college, clutching

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12

The Thought Collector

a pile of papers. It was early spring and she was wearing a lemon-yellow dress, her bare legs always brown, her dark, tumbling curls obscuring her face. A fight broke out a little further down the platform and after a short tussle, Joe on the precipice of intervention, a teenage boy shot past, weaving, heading for the exit, knocking into Laura as the train pulled in. Her papers, loose, flew up in the air, then scattered around her as Joe watched in slow motion, further disturbed by the slipstreams.

In a couple of lopes he was crouching next to her, grabbing papers as people stepped off and on the train which then pulled out. Joe rescued the last sheet from where it threatened to land on the tracks. The writing on it was neat and curved like her. The few words he caught referred to revenues and forecasts; business language.

Shit, Laura sat and then gave him a lopsided smile in apology. Im already late. But thanks, thanks so much for helping me. She put her hand on his arm and he felt a shock run up his spine. She gazed up at him, her dark brown eyes friendly and full of gratitude. For a moment he couldnt find the words, he wasnt practiced in the art of pick up. But he asked her for her number, if shed like to go for a drink sometime. She wrote it on his hand and said shed like to see him that night. And that was it. That easy, that certain, that start to a life together where neither of them had imagined for a moment they wouldnt grow old together.

Joes last thought as he left me on the station platform to be admired by the commuters on their way to work on the anniversary of Lauras, and five thousand others, death the next morning was;

Goodbye, Laura. Ill always miss you.

13

Experiments In Static

Day One

I stand twitching, in a netherworld between sleep and consciousness. My eyelids conspire against me and impose their will; I must resist, I must. An elbow gently nudges my side, which fortunately makes me fully awake once more; with effort I sway and snap to attention, to the amusement of Claire, who laughs coquettishly at this sleepy rent-a-cop. In my boredom I glance absently along the display counter of health and beauty. There is a worrying absence of several high-value aftershave gift packs, which is a little unsettling as I am supposed to be a visual deterrent to theft, albeit a sleepy one.

I wonder, perhaps unfairly, if anyone in Bognor actually buys anything anymore and whether or not there could in fact be a conspiracy against me. This feeling is compounded by the appearance of Mr Andrews, an 85-year-old shoplifter; always well turned out, his appearance epitomises the height of respectability, belying his thieving nature.

In tired fascination I watch him make his way down the aisle he always uses, making straight for the Locket throat lozenges in the pharmacy. That frail man looks at me casually as he shuffles slowly, guessing correctly that I will not try and arrest a doddery 85-year-old respectable man in the streets, who just happens to have forgotten to pay at the checkout. Mr Andrews is pushed to the back of my

Phil Hall

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Experiments in Static

mind as I am sure the Lockets will not be missed, and the Earth will continue its turning long after they have gone.

My radio to the other security personnel remains silent, which could mean two things; firstly, they are unable to spot the blatant criminals in their midst; or secondly, they too are asleep while standing. I turn around lazily; I am unsure why but sense something interesting may be about to happen, which will improve my robot-like existence.

I dont recall it being the clowns convention in Bognor this week, yet one has entered the store; I can just make him out at the entrance. I hear the familiar static, faint at first, growing louder as its shambling shape turns into my aisle. How can anyone be so like a clown without trying, how? I chuckle at the thought, struggling to maintain my composure as here he comes, yet again. He moves with no grace, plodding heavily, his body ponderously lists as he walks. These random meanderings of his lace across my town in a way reminiscent of the trails of slugs and snails. The questions I am always left with, which always taunt my relatively feeble mind, and have occupied me for hours as I walk the aisles are these: What are his intentions? What is the point of these inexplicable and mindless visits, and just what the hell was God thinking of anyway?

Today he wears the familiar sheepskin jacket, 70s style, but surely without any retro intent; baggy purple cords and plastic sandals complete the clothing spectacle. I yell out in panic and alarm, Quick, quick, someone call the fashion police, but then realise it was just in my mind and now I am close to losing it. My body buckles, my face spasms somewhere between hysteria and severity; he gets closer still, and with considerable effort I regain some degree of self-control.

I see his face up close now; those ginger sideburns are so long and appear to have been meticulously combed outwards, which makes his head appear abnormally wide from a distance; in fact as he walks towards me their width is so astounding I wonder if there will be room for him to pass me, or whether I will be required to turn round and walk to the end of the aisle, allowing him to pass. His face is chubby and beetroot red, with a large extremely well-suited clowns nose prominently where a nose should be; I feel those spasms threatening again, as my overactive imagination has just compared his nose to the mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

15

Carl Johnson

We are almost level and his attention turns towards me; I am examined by two piggy alert blue eyes. Static; all I hear is static from his radio, which prevents any other sounds reaching us; it creates an illusory effect of being cut off from all things real. In this state we face each other, just for mere seconds these two men, at least one of whom has questionable sanity. He looks about to speak, and I wonder what unusual language or request he will come out with; something in Swahili perhaps?

Then, with an alarming nasal whine, Good afternoon. Cotton buds, I need cotton buds.

With haste I help him on his way, fascinated by his sideburns, but I also feel somehow disappointed at his ordinary request, and perhaps cheated from an insane or profound statement. I watch in a clandestine way that only security personnel can, as the radio man selects the cotton buds and ambles jerkily to the checkout. First time he has come in and bought anything, if I remember correctly.

Day TwoAs I walk around the store, perhaps close to keeling over and dying from boredom, my mind tells me I know these aisles inside out, and its true. This shop is my little island; the only land mass there is, surrounded by a raging ocean of shoplifters. When I rush to prevent theft in one area, I turn around to find the area I stood on strangely missing. It is the fastest land erosion known to man; the constant thrashing of the sea on a rocky shore can take thousands of years to wear it down, while my land mass disappears in hours. This usually causes me to jump up and down in anger, drink copious quantities of coffee, all the while wishing fervently I was armed like a proper security guard in the United States.

Focus, I am doing a job here, so focus. I rub my eyes and hope for the radio man. This makes me pause and reflect whether I am as crazy as he; I chuckle and snort at this thought, causing an attractive young woman in a beige sweater to drop a BLT sandwich pack in alarm. She picks up the fallen pack and eyes me derisively. I feel my face reddening and hurry on towards the store front.

As if he had been waiting for me, he ambles through the automatic doors in a burst of static; thank God, my salvation from boredom has arrived. He

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Experiments in Static

pauses for a moment, and I watch in amusement as he delicately alters the radios tuning; there, thats it, just a fraction and a slightly differing tone of static is achieved, amazing! I grin widely at him as he approaches and my mouth speaks without permission,

Good morning, I nod in greeting, Poor signal today.Damn, there goes my mouth again. I cringe, waiting for a torrent of

abuse; after all, I have just blasphemed against the sacred radio. Fortunately, he smiles sweetly then replies in an irritating nasal whine,

The cue ball is behind the freezer in the garage, and with that blunders on past me towards the baby food.

Wow. Now that sure beats I need cotton buds. Ok, its not profound, but certainly more than a little off the rails, and makes the day a hell of a lot more interesting than it was five minutes ago. Can it mean anything? The cue ball is behind the freezer in the garage. I dont own a pool or snooker table. Is there some sort of hidden meaning? No, I think I better leave that one alone, life has enough craziness in it already, thank you very much.

I watch him casually as he walks round the store; he constantly fiddles with the tuner as he goes and I watch with amusement the puzzled faces of other shoppers as he passes by. My own curiosity has been aroused by his words, thats for sure, and although I try hard not to think of them, my mind wanders back there again. Why is it the mind never does as you tell it?

I only know one person with a snooker table; an old friend since school, Steve Richardson. My footfalls echo off the aisles and as I walk I consider giving him a call. Not that I have any real interest in the game, particularly as we are both bloody awful players; no, my real interest, increasingly as the minutes crawl by, is the location of that cue ball. I decide to call him as soon as I get home. I shake my head and chuckle to myself at this foolishness, causing worried glances from two young identical twins at the pick and mix. It is nearly five oclock, and I see the radio man, having wasted half an hour in here, leave the store empty-handed. In all that time he has done nothing but meander, paying no attention to anyone or thing around him. Completely exasperated, my mind shouts, What in the hell was that for?

My shift has finished. All is quiet; this is of great relief to me, as I have another blinding headache to take home; I consider it a regular unwelcome

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Carl Johnson

bonus. I grab my coat from upstairs and make my way through the fire escape and out into the car park.

A storm is coming. The air is charged with electricity, I can feel it. Thick, dark clouds push down on me and I feel threatened by their malice; rain lashes with violence and I am forced to wait in a nearby industrial unit for cover. With awe, I watch the rain become a deluge which turns the car park temporarily into a lake; thunder rumbles its malevolence in deep bass tones and forked lightning shows its power in the heavens. I smile in surprise; still I find childish fascination at a good storm.

I am still smiling when to my left a familiar figure enters the car park. To my shock, I realise it is the radio man. Incredibly, I hear the sound of static, which is loud and somehow urgent; he is completely unaware of my presence and appears a desperate figure, adjusting both volume and tuner on his clapped-out radio from the 70s, which shouldnt and couldnt possibly work in all this rain; yet it does. His clothes are plastered about him, red hair and ginger sideburns matted to his ripened face. Wind pulls at him mischievously and he reels around crazily in it; this man of no poise in the most inclement of weather struggles vigorously with his balance and his radio. With relief, I notice the wind lose interest in him as it looks for another victim; he now appears less like a ship about to sink, turning his attention back to the radio.

He appears satisfied with the frequency and furtively looks round the car park. Strangely I have the feeling he doesnt want to be seen, so I move slightly behind a nearby skip for concealment. I crouch with the guilt and red face of a voyeur, to observe his actions. He looks up into the rain, then, inexplicably he thrusts the radio high overhead, grasping it firmly with both hands. It squawks and squeals crazily for a moment, as he holds it at its apex. Thunder sounds with such power; I feel the vibration in my chest; ragged fingers of oppressive lightning illuminate the sky and make me shield my eyes from the glare, which to my horror completely consumes him.

I slowly open my eyes, expecting the worst, expecting to see him badly burned, probably dead, lying pathetically in a shallow puddle. What I see instead is far more disconcerting. He has gone. I come out from my hiding place, quickly surveying the car park, then incredulous,

18

Painless

I run out to where I last saw him standing. I survey the scene quickly; not a trace of the man, not even a pair of boots remain. I cackle madly at the thought and look in the only other place my mind tells me he shouldnt be. I look up into the rain which is rapidly diminishing, searching for something, anything. I dont see him, but the storm abates so swiftly; so completely do the clouds break up and the sun show its face, that I wonder if I had imagined the whole scene. To add to the surreal experience, a rainbow arcs majestically across the sky, natures art finer than any human design. I hold my breath at it.

EpilogueIt has been weeks since then. I keep on the lookout constantly for him, which I know is detrimental to my duties. I am the only one alive, I think, that knows of him; the only one that knows there is more to him; that knows, perhaps, that he is one of lifes great mysteries.

It has been an interesting experience as a tiny shard of this mans life. I have hardly featured in it at all, and now he is gone. I wish I could have known him and understood his actions, motivations; just what was it he did? Are we safer now at his absence or in greater danger? My gut says he is important to us; this might seem strange to you, after all, he looked like a walking jumble sale, but so many people do!

This is my final thought and most useful lesson I have learned from the radio man. I watch always at work; it is my job. I watch differently now, though the changes are subtle and hard to define; I take less for granted, less at face value; perhaps by this experience I am a better person; perhaps I would even be considered an altruist by some. This could well be his reason for being; he provided vitality and colour to the drabness of our days and I wonder how many other lives he has influenced. When I see those of us that are poorly dressed, those that in the past I passed off as unfortunates, I now wonder what secrets they conceal. Is there, too, something incredible about their lives?

Well, thats just about all I have to tell you, all I have to say. You may still be interested to know about that cue ball are you? The radio man posed a mystery of a missing cue ball. Well, I just couldnt ask my friend Steve about it; but I know where that cue ball is, and I smile when I think about it.

19

Phoebe helped to deliver a baby born feet first today. A birth of this type is the sign of a healer. The mother knows this and demands that the baby be wrapped in a blue blanket for protection instead of the traditional pink. Its a surprisingly sunny day; the warmth of summer is having a resurgence in the last days of October.

Blues lucky, the mother says, gazing at her daughter.Full labour in three hours, youre the lucky one,

Phoebe says.The mother smiles. Want to hold her, let her heal

your pain?I dont have any pain.Phoebe Phillips cant feel physical pain. It sounds

like a blessing but Phoebe curses it every time she cuts her finger along with the tomatoes shes slicing or falls and doesnt notice an injury until blood soaks through her jeans.

When other children fell and got kissed better or had sick days where their mothers wrapped them up in blankets and made them soup, Phoebe felt she was missing out. Phoebe wondered what pain was like but when her parents tried to explain it, they may as well have been trying to describe a colour shed never seen. Phoebe listened to the argument that pain was necessary to make the good things feel better and by the time she was twelve Phoebe was a sulky girl convinced that nothing she felt mattered.

As a teen Phoebe thrived on emotional pain. The wonderful agony of heartbreak. Phoebe wore only

Painless

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Painless

black, making her ginger curls seem redder and her pale skin even paler, and layered on so much mascara that only four or five lashes were discernable. By sixteen shed had several brief relationships, usually with nerds or guys from the drama club. She liked their glasses and the sweet smiles that other girls overlooked. One day they would be the next computer millionaires or movie stars and she could say she knew them once, before they were big shots. Some of them turned out to be surprisingly good kissers.

When Cameron Casey, the Shooting Guard on the basketball team, asked Phoebe out she stammered. Excuse me? She blinked.

Cameron laughed. Do you want to see a movie Saturday night?She agreed even though she couldnt think of a single reason why hed

ask her out. Well have to keep it quiet though, my Dad doesnt like me dating during

basketball season.Like kissing is going to wreck your jump shot?I know, he said shaking his head, his dark blonde hair falling out of place.After a few dates and hours of making out in his dads car Phoebe began

to wonder if this was love, but Cameron started openly seeing a girl who was thirty pounds lighter and tanned.

Seasons over, he explained.Phoebe took the next day off school to wallow in her pain. The sensation

that she couldnt breathe was new to Phoebe, a taste of what she had been missing. As bad as it felt, once the pain had gone, she longed for it.

After Cameron, Phoebe hooked up with a string of bad boy types; guys who drove her wild with their defined abs, wicked smiles and smouldering eyes. For every guy that rejected her there was one willing to go goth for a night. If only Cameron Caseys shooting record was that good, she thought, then maybe their school might have won a trophy. But these boys never called or spoke to her when she ran into them in the hallways or as they ordered fries at Timmys, where Phoebe worked on the weekends. They blanked her as though every girl had flaming hair and skin the colour of white emulsion.

It was Larry Tanner who really broke Phoebes heart, she was crazy about him. He was as sweet as he was mean, as cold as he was hot. When they fought it was the end of her world and that sweet sorrow would creep in. Sometimes when they were kissing Larry bit Phoebes lip too hard, she didnt notice until she tasted blood.

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Stacey Faulkner

An accident, hed claim.Hed pinch her hard but all Phoebe would feel was his hand on the back

of her thigh. More often than not she never saw the large bruises his touch left on her skin.

Larry hit Phoebe one night. She was standing in his bedroom wearing his black t-shirt, the pile of the carpet soft beneath her bare feet. She knew that his hand had been on her face and that it had not been a loving touch. She could see it in the way his eyebrows lowered and his bottom lip stuck out.

Its not like it counts. You didnt even feel it, Larry said.Phoebe lent forward and spat a tooth into her hand, then glared at Larry.Oh baby, he said rushing forward to rub her shoulder. I love you so

much. More than you know. Ill do anything to make it up to you. Ill never do it again. I swear.

I know you wont.Phoebe picked up her jeans from the floor and walked out, not even

bothering to slam the door. She sat in her car padding her mouth with tissues trying to stop the bleeding.

After Phoebe and Larry broke up she dyed her hair midnight black. She slept all day and longed for her childhood, which she remembered in an insipid black and white haze. She told herself that at eighteen its easy to get taken in by wheat-coloured hair, a strong jaw and an attitude just the right side of arrogant. Its easy enough at any age, Phoebe will say, even now.

Phoebe is less reckless at twenty-seven; shes bored of heartache and no longer thinks that pain is romantic, she actually thinks shes blessed. She still sticks bobby pins too far into her hair until her scalp bleeds and shell nick her leg with a razor in the shower and only notice if she sees pinkish water dripping down the drain or a blood spot on her towel. Her hands are covered with burns, old scars and new cuts. A number of her nails no longer grow properly, having been shut in doors or nearly sliced off. But none of these things get in Phoebes way.

At work Phoebe will never give a baby a bottle because she cant tell how hot the milk is by placing a drop on the inside of her arm. She couldnt tell even if it burnt her own throat, but Phoebe will change as many nappies as she is asked without a single complaint. Mostly Phoebe encounters happiness at work, but when a baby is born with something wrong, or dies or the mother is in tears having been abandoned by the father, its the type of pain that Phoebe can at least start to understand.

22

Painless

Cuddling babies is Phoebes favourite job perk, that and the proximity to joy; all the smiles and the relieved laughter are rubbing off on her. Her hair is red again; she piles her curls up on her head, letting them fall gently around her face as though she has always been a nice girl. She wears an appropriate amount of mascara and doesnt smother her face in foundation to blot out her faint freckles, and her sulk has become a smile. In the mirror Phoebe sees a girl who would never have slept around or hopped into the back of a car with a boy who didnt acknowledge her at school.

Phoebe has stopped dating guys who are no good. She was single for two years until she met Davis Samuels six months ago. She helped him in a restaurant when a waiter slipped and cut his leg with a glass someone had broken at another table.

Is there a doctor? someone called.When no one answered Phoebe stood up reluctantly. Im a nurse, she

offered, raising her hand.She waited for the manager to give her permission with a wave before

approaching the injured diner. She knelt down, asking Davis to roll up the leg of his grey trousers. Phoebe pressed a clean napkin against the cut, holding both her hands around his calf, focusing on slowing the bleeding. She didnt look Davis in the face until the crowd started dispersing once the excitement was over.

Bet you see a lot of this, he said.Not really.But youre a nurse.Maternity nurse, Phoebe said, lifting her head. Id be more useful if you

were in labour.Davis smiled. She wasnt sure how a man with a gash in his leg could smile

so wide but she smiled back. She even offered him a lift to the hospital. His colleagues, who were sat around the table, said it wasnt necessary.

Davis shook his head. You know guys, I think Id feel safer with an expert. Shes less likely to faint than you.

Davis isnt the kind of man Phoebe ever imagined dating. Hes an inch shorter than her and shes learnt he feels uneasy when she wears heels. She avoids doing it, not because he has ever asked, but because she likes it when they are almost the same height. He isnt very good looking, especially compared to the guys she used to date. He has wavy brown hair that never sticks down, small blue eyes and a slight stubbly beard. Phoebe used to loathe

23

Stacey Faulkner

facial hair but on Davis she doesnt mind it. She even thinks it suits him. Its not as though she can feel the sting of stubble rash. Davis is a botanist working on a rose-daisy hybrid and he always smells of flowers and freshly laundered shirts. He has the longest eyelashes Phoebes ever seen, they tickle her skin when they kiss.

Everyone has some pain, the feet-first babys mother says with conviction. Everyone.

Not me, Phoebe says. But I never pass on a cuddle.She holds the baby looking at her serene face; her sparse brown hair looks

golden in the light.Shes gorgeous, Phoebe says for the fourth time that day. Every time she

had meant it, but this child is among the most beautiful she has seen. Phoebe puts a careful, battered finger against the babys cheek, smiling at her. She wonders if there really are healers in the world.

Phoebe is finished for the day. She changes out of her purple scrubs into jeans and a blue t-shirt and unpins her hair. Davis is waiting outside for her. She smiles when she sees him. Davis kisses Phoebe; he smells so good that it gives her a head rush.

Hi, she says. Good day?Its much better now. How was your day?Phoebe tells Davis about the feet-first baby as she laces her fingers through

his. Its so warm theyve decided to walk back to Daviss place, going out of their way to stop by the river where the swans have gathered. Davis loops his arm around Phoebes shoulders, their fingers still linked.

Phoebe thinks her life is risk free. The nice girl who smiles out from the mirror lets her believe it. But it isnt true. Dating a nice guy is a greater risk to a heart. Even Phoebes, which wouldnt complain even in the midst of a real heart attack. If things go wrong with Davis she cant lie to herself in a frustration of why didnt he call? or in complete repulsion of his behaviour, pretending shes better off without him. As they stop alongside the river, Davis takes a bag of bread from his satchel. He offers Phoebe the bag before feeding a swan from his hand. Phoebe wonders if this is love, the kind that could hurt a girl for the rest of her life. The girl she used to be feels the familiar thrill of risk but the woman she wants to become hopes that the feet-first baby can heal pain, even before it happens.

24

I sometimes wonder whether everyone knows they are mad and because they know about it they manage to hide it. Then I realise mostly people dont try to hide it. Instead they openly, almost proudly, display it for all to see. We all do it. Some take pills for insomnia and depression, take weeks off work for stress and exhaustion. Some wake up and hit their boyfriend for what he just said to them in their dream. Scream and yell and cry like a seven-year old because its not fair that she did all the washing up this week and he hasnt told her she doesnt look fat this morning. Fall in love. Fall out of love. Wonder whether life is meaningless. Cry.

I know Im mad. I know Im mad because I see things more specifically, I see Them. I see Them even though I know They dont exist. I cant think of anything more terrifying.

The first time I saw one I had really asked for it literally. Lying a rickety wooden bed, in a tiny, damp holiday cottage in Cornwall, I had looked out of the window into the night sky and whispered, with all the naive innocence of a seven-year-old, I wish the fairies would visit me tonight.

Seven hours later, I drifted into consciousness from a meaningless dream quickly slipping from memory, and tried to figure out why I was

THEM

Phil Hall

25

Heather Robbins

awake. Slowly, I opened my eyes. The room was dark, but I could just make out the blurry edges of furniture. I rolled onto my back and at that moment, if my life were a movie, violins would have screeched shuddering strings. At the foot of my bed a tall figure stood, glowing bright white. There was no sound. It was unclear, like the shapeless lights that roll across your sight after rubbing your eyes too hard. It had no face, no eyes, and I could see through it to the wardrobe behind it. Strangely, I then felt no fear, no emotion at all. In fact, feeling sleep wash over me again, I dismissed it as a trick of darkness and dreams, rolled back over and fell asleep again.

The next day, sitting on a bench watching the clouds go past, I remembered that moment, or perhaps was reminded of it, and directly as I thought of it, that silence fell again and my stomach tensed. I didnt turn around, I never saw it, but I knew it was there. It was like being in the house alone and knowing that there is someone else in there with you. I wasnt afraid. I was only certain and unquestioning in the fact that it was standing behind me in silence. I remembered once my mother telling me to throw salt over my left shoulder into the devils eyes, and I briefly worried that the devil was following me.

But thats what superstitious people believe. Even at the suggestible age of seven I was adamant that demons didnt exist, and to this day I know that these shapes and movements that follow me around are simply the effects of an overactive imagination, and possibly a detached retina.

Yet from that moment there were creatures everywhere I looked. My world became a hideous animist reality. I have never spoken to Them and never heard Them speak. After all, asking Them what They are is the same as admitting that They really exist and Im not prepared for that.

However, I have started to suspect that other people around me can see Them too. Once, taking a late night walk with a friend, ignoring the way my imagination was turning each shrub into a cluster of short, plump, green gnomes, I saw a tall dark hooded cloak floating past us on the right, and my stomach clutched up with panic. I was trying not to let my eyes follow it, trying to dismiss it from my head, when my friend screamed, grabbed my arm roughly and set off at a sprint. We

26

Them

had reached the safe warmth of my kitchen and bolted the door before I asked her, panting, what had frightened her. She shook her head, embarrassed. After a few minutes of coaxing, she eventually admitted that she had just been hit by an inexplicable wave of panic and knew that she had to get as far away as fast as she could. The same wave of panic the hooded cloak had struck me with, though she had seen nothing.

For a few days I believed that this shared moment of panic, although we had had different experiences of it, meant that the shapes were real creatures. I started buying books on fairies and angels, nature sprites and demons. To my alarm, the more I researched, trying to find a

P

hil

Hal

l

27

Heather Robbins

marvellous, supernatural miracle behind my silent stalkers, the clearer they became. And They changed to conform to what I had read.

I had to change my theory. If They were able to do only what I knew about Them, They must be entirely my own creation. It could be explained by my brain interpreting my feelings as visual forms. Yes, far better to accept that I was affected by some un-named syndrome, and probably needed to be kept in some kind of institute to be poked by bearded men with clip-boards, than to consider some parallel reality populated with fairies that only I could see.

One day I read that The Wee Folk pinched peoples belongings, and to get your items back you stand in the middle of the room and ask politely for them to be returned. Then you leave the room and when you return They will have returned it. Of course, later that afternoon I realised my keys had gone missing. Not pausing to consider the consequences, my mind skipped back to the article and I murmured whimsically Have They taken it?

The air dropped, my ears buzzed. They were here. I stood up slowly, feeling very stupid. I glanced into the hall, hoping my mother wasnt near enough to hear. Please can I have my keys back? I said under my breath. Never call Them the fairies, the article had said. Never thank them. I turned to leave, feeling that sceptical blankness of doing something you dont quite believe or understand, like an atheist saying Amen after someone elses grace.

I was stopped by a rustling noise, and turned back, my stomach twisted with fear. I was just in time to see my keys slow to a stop on the carpet a few inches from my slippered feet.

Could I still blame my own imagination? I couldnt think rationally anymore. A scream was trapped in my throat for the rest of the day. I slept over at a friends house, and she worried about why I was so twitchy and kept looking over my shoulders at every sound. I shook my head at her and said nothing.

So what do you think, dear reader? Is this a tale of one womans descent into madness or proof that this universe has more to it than we realise. Im still not sure but next time you lose your keys, try asking Them to give them back.

28

Life has got in the way again. Ink is now on hold until further notice. When the winter issue is expected to be at press, the husband and I are also expecting a tiny new baby. (It better be tiny. It can stay in there if its a bigun.) So I have decided to stop the magazine for a while.

But I love Ink a little bit too much to say it is the end. I loved receiving short stories in my Inbox; theyre like a present for me to open, and Im never sure what they are exactly until Ive read all the way to the end.

The Creative Writing group will continue at the William Hardwicke pub in Bognor, and you are quite welcome to join us at www.meetup.com/bognorbards. Its usually around six of us, sitting around with coffees or beers, reading out our latest work and giving each other feedback. The other members have given me enormous confidence with my writing as well as helping me see my weak spots to work on, and the little tasks we set ourselves at the end of each session are a great motivation. I really do recommend it to anyone who wants to keep progressing with their writing style.

Heather Robbins (and The Bump)Founder of the Writers of Arun group and Ink magazine.

The End of InkWriters of Arun

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