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from the lighthouse2016 competition winners

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This academic year has been a big one for From the Lighthouse. Our secondannual competition invited writers of flash fiction, short fiction and poetry tosend in their work to be judged by Debbie Taylor and Helen Mort. The Fromthe Lighthouse inbox was inundated with entries, but the top three (and onecommendee for the poetry) were chosen as winners.

First, we'd like to thank all the local businesses who have donated prizes.Claypath Deli, Be Tempted, Lounge café and the Jumping Bean café havebeen extremely generous in this respect. We'd also like to thank KPMG forbeing the sponsors of DUES, who have helped facilitate cash prizes.

We'd like to thank the judges, Debbie Taylor and Helen Mort, whose bios canbe found below.

And, of course, we want to thank the entrants for making this possible ­ andyou for taking the time to read this. We really hope you enjoy these pieces asmuch as Debbie and Helen did.

THANK YOU

MEET THE JUDGESDebbie Taylor judged the short fiction and flashfiction entries. Debbie founded the women’s writingmagazine Mslexia in 1999 and is now its EditorialDirector. She was trained originally as apsychologist, but has earned her living as a writer forthe last 30 years. Her nonfiction books include MyChildren My Gold, a travelogue about single mothersin seven countries, and Women: A World Report. Shehas also researched and written documentary filmsabout women in the Third World. Her fiction isequally widely travelled, and she has published fournovels set in locations as varied as Zimbabwe, 18thcentury Morocco, Crete (where she does most of hercreative work these days) and – much closer to home– North Shields.

Helen Mort judged the poetry section. Helen wasborn in Sheffield. Her first collection Division Streetwas shortlisted for the Costa Prize and the T.S. EliotPrize and, in 2014, won the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize.She is the Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow at TheUniversity of Leeds and has a PhD from TheUniversity of Sheffield.

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CONTENTSpoetry

Sweetness by Sofya GrebenkinaGarlic by Megan PattieSchool by Jasmine SimmsHave you heard the tongues of thewaves by Cheryl Julia Lee

flash fictionLazarus by Phoebe LundyLittle Yellow Walls by Natalie WallThe Mousetrap by Phoebe Lundy

short fictionThe Chickens by Dominic BerryNothing to be done by Helen MerrellSpaldingThe Great Bartholomew by LaurieAtkinson

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SWEETNESSby Sofya Grebenkina- first prize in poetry -

Sitting with Death at the corner tableof a diner, I order apple pie. Shehas cherry and offers me a bite.The flies buzz bitterly about.She passes her hand over the rusty fork,picking at the crust with her fingersinstead. It crumbles onto the plate,like a midsummer sandstorm,and I can’t take my eyes off of her.She says she has been waiting here for along time, sipping on the cold black coffee,leaving the milk to curdle. I don’tbelieve her, of course. She says thisis the first time she has wanted something sweet.I grimace, as how the dustsettles on the furniture, troublingly,and then,too still.It is hard to feel satisfied,when at the promised apex of it all,all we get is a stained checker tablecloth,and gum wedged under the rim of the chair.However this too is a kind of settling;after wholeness has shatteredto a disaffection, only Deathremains,picking the cherry pip from her teeth.

Sofya Grebenkina is an undergraduate,second­ year English Literature studentfrom Moscow and the Politics Editor ofPalatinate. Writing consumes all of her time,and she can always be found reviewingstudent plays, scouting the next topicaltheme for her section, and keeping up withcreative writing. Since winning her primaryschool’s poetry competition, it is this form ofliterature which has continued to be apassion and a means for privateamusement.

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GARLICby Megan Pattie

- second prize in poetry -

I hold this paper weight,bell­like scroll tolling smell,

soft in my hand as an acolyteholds the candle. It is

a curtained room—a study,housing philosophers

joined by the head. I flinchat the violence of breaking

in with a fingernail tearingthrough the walls, and a thumb

prizing the pages of this bookwhich has never been opened,

so I may become seasoned,and breathe its lessons in.

Megan Pattie lives on the North Eastcoast, where she co­hosts popularpoetry night The Stanza and iscompleting a Masters in Poetry atDurham University. She is currentlyworking on her dissertation ontwentieth­century women poets'poetic responses to the myth ofOrpheus and in her spare timeenjoys singing at local buskers'nights. Megan was a Foyle YoungPoet of the Year in 2009 and herwork has appeared in Paper andInk, Parallel Magazine, Myths of theNear Future and more.

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SCHOOLby Jasmine Simms

- third prize in poetry -

I wanted Boyfriends who were good at Science.In Physics I drew love hearts, or bent and unbentpaper clips into the shape of love hearts. Whoeverdoesn’t know what love is hasn’t been to a Physicslesson and dragged a toy car across a desk to testthe forces on us. I tilted my hips and said “Gravityis the best man, Girls, he never leaves”, and rolledmyself across the carpet. First Kiss was a boy who failedhis Science GCSE and it was like being dropped intoa conical flask. Outside, life went on. Inside, I startedto believe in particles for the first time, crawled my wayback into the library, under a duvet. Physics Boy said:“if you split an atom you find the world tremblinglike a newborn”. And then I stopped holding it together.

This poem first appeared in Issue 60 of Magma.

Jasmine is a second yearEducation student at Trevs, and aVice Chancellor's Scholar for theArts. A graduate of The WritingSquad, she has twice been awinner in the Northern WritersAwards, and was a commendedFoyle Young Poet in 2012. In 2013she won second prize in theTrinity College, Cambridge, GouldPrize for essays in EnglishLiterature. Her poems haverecently appeared in Magma, theBloodaxe anthology 'Hallelujah for50 ft Women', and the TowerPoetry anthology, 'Something ToBe Said'. She is currently Writer inResidence for the Deeply Morbidproject in Newcastle.

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HAVE YOU HEARD THETONGUES OF THE WAVES

by Cheryl Julia Lee- highly commended in poetry -

Have you heard the tongues of the waves before? my old captain asks ofme. Yes, I reply, in the belly of my mother’s washing machine, which shestuffs nightly with sweat­stained clothes, and socks, and underthings. Ihear them echo like a prayer call I am not yet ready to answer. Do youever wish you could quiet the waves? Young thing, he says, you don’tknow. Few things there are in this world more terrifying than a silent sea.

Cheryl Julia Lee’s first poetrycollection, We Were AlwaysEating Expired Things, waspublished in 2014. Her othercreative work can be found inQLRS, Icarus, and Prick of theSpindle, among others. She iscurrently a PhD candidate atDurham University.

This poem first appeared in'Icarus Issue LXVI, Volume I'.

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LAZARUSby Phoebe Lundy

- first prize in flash fiction -Although it had been said that Mary was told by Ruth, who heard from

Peter that Mark and Luke had seen him come back home at 4am, Mary(when questioned) said that she had heard nothing of the sort.Overhearing this, John reported that he had been speaking with Paul,whose wife Hannah apparently had seen him stumbling by the church atsome ungodly hour of 5:30am or so. The preacher, approaching theconversation, denied seeing or hearing the distinctive groans of the dearman on his morning rounds (which he conducted around that time). Beingthere nothing but contradiction and denial to discuss, the trinity of voicescould not decide what had actually happened for none of them had anyevidence to prove that their elaborate version of events was any morelikely or true than any other.

It was later discovered that the man in question had, in fact, never lefthome and had watched the debate escalate from his bedroom windowacross the road.

Phoebe is a first year English and Philosophy student in St.Chad's College. She has always enjoyed creative writing asway of reflecting her varying moods, so has a lot of poemsor pieces that act as snapshots for particular times in herlife. Equally, she enjoys the challenge of writing comical,light­hearted pieces as relief from writing academic essaysand articles. She thinks the most important aspect ofwriting is confidently developing various tones that arevital for different subject matters or genres.

THE MOUSETRAPby Phoebe Lundy

- third prize in flash fiction -And before any of us know it, we are being wheeled down the hallway.

Unfortunately, Guppy is immersed in the delicious, creamy loot at thebottom of the barrel. With glee, he produces a characteristic squealingnoise. The barrel is thrown down. We are spewed onto the floor along withall the contents. Our unsuspecting driver shrieks.

Figures in white coats respond to her call, scrambling towards us asthe shrieks continue and our claws begin to scrabble across the starkwhite floor. We try to escape towards some crevice or nookbeneath a side table. Avoiding the sprawling fingers of ourcaptors, some of us find the darkness. A metal bar snapsdown.

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LITTLE YELLOW WALLSby Natalie Wall

- second prize in flash fiction -

Your feet were up on your table, your face was turned away and youhad socks on that your grandmother might have knitted for your birthday.I could see you were reading a book, maybe whilst waiting for that kettleto boil. Or perhaps that pot on your stove held a thick soup, slowlyblipping away, waiting for you to cradle it in a bowl and bring it to yourlips. Would you eat it at the table? Or would you take it to your sofa, curlup with your woolly socks and a blanket pulled up to your chin, dreadingthe thought of any knocks on your door that would bring you from thewarmth and into the frigid hallway? Or maybe that's just me.

The warm yellow from your lightbulb echoed off your buttery walls andit seemed as if you were resting inside a shiny egg yolk, perfect and still,until someone or something would come along and burst the membranewhich encases you. I hope it will not be me. I want you to stay in withinyour little yellow walls, your safe warm haven, content with your book andyour socks and your soup. And I hope you have a nice rest of your lifebetween those walls, or any other walls in fact, and I guess it’s funnybecause if you hadn’t had your kitchen light on at dusk, I never wouldhave even known you existed.

Natalie is a second year English Literaturestudent originally hailing from the North East,and is exceedingly passionate about reading,writing, drawing and peanut butter. Whilst shehas been writing things for a little while, shehas only just began showing people. Canusually be found with her nose firmly wedgedin a book or in a jar of the aforementionedpeanut butter.

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THE CHICKENSby Dominic Berry

- first prize in short fiction -

It wasn’t damp exactly; it was something different. More of a mustysmell than damp but even that wasn’t really right. They carried it withthem, like a dust among their feathers or dried onto their legs, it remindedhim of how his dad’s shed had smelt to him as a kid. He’d hoped that hecould ignore them during the journey. That once he’d made the decisionhe wouldn’t have to think about them again until it was done but betweenthe hushed clucking and smell coming from behind the back seat thechickens had imposed themselves on his mind since he’d gotten into thecar.

He’d been worried that someone would see him leaving the village, itwas late, past eleven, and the shops in town were all shut by now.Someone might’ve commented had they seen his car but they hadn’t, hewas sure.

She could have talked to him before he left, it wouldn’t have been toohard for her to come out of the office for a minute or two as he wasleaving. He’d made enough noise, banging around in the kitchen directlybelow her, looking in the drawers for some pliers to cut the chicken wire,she could’ve just come down. Instead he’d had to shout “bye” up at theceiling and leave alone. It wasn’t his fault but that’s just the way that it’sbeen.

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Maybe a month after it happened, it was definitely in the spring, hecould still remember the day that he’d got them, they were going to collecttheir own eggs. He’d driven out one morning while she was at work andloaded everything into the back of the car. It was a bargain, he was sure,the coop was thirty pounds and the man had given him the four chickensfor free with it. When he got back home he’d spent the whole afternoonclearing the patch at the bottom of the drive, putting up the wire to keepthem in and setting it all up just right, ready for when she pulled up backfrom work. He was waiting out in the garden with his cup of tea when shegot back, smiling proudly, but it had been a bad day and she was tired.He’d forgotten to make the dinner.

It never really worked out the way he’d wanted it to. They didn’t lay asingle egg for the first week and he’d had to go out to buy some. By thetime they’d started laying it was already too late, looking back on it now.Their feed, in its big black bin had attracted rats but he couldn’t think ofanywhere else to store it. He’d imagined them eating eggs together overbreakfast during the weekends when she was off work. Just wanderingdown to the coop to pick them up, for the family. But it’s never how youpicture in the end, really.

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He should’ve been the one to do something about them but it was herthat finally made the decision. Coming in from work on Tuesday, he’d hadto help her with the gate, it stuck sometimes, she’d snapped at him,“when are you going to get rid of those bloody chickens, they’re a damnnuisance”. She was right, he knew that, they still had to buy eggs everynow and then and he was sure that they’d found somewhere else to laythat he couldn’t find but still, she could’ve waited for him to do something.After talking about it for most of that evening, she told him on her way outthe next morning that they’d better be gone by the time she was home.

He didn’t go down into the garden until after lunch, he’d spent themorning cleaning the kitchen and watching TV. Finally, around two he’dgone online to look up the best way to kill a chicken. But he knew hewouldn’t be able to snap something’s neck so he decided to try drowningthem instead.

It took a long time to fill the bucket, longer still to walk down with ittowards the coop, which was still shut from the night before. It washorrible, to hold that warm bird in his arms, it had sat there peacefully,trusting, allowing itself to be picked up and carried. The others hadwatched from the open roof of their coop. Then came the awful screaming,real screaming, and the splashing and flapping. Minutes, he was sure thatit had been longer than three minutes that he’d had to hold that thingdown in the water until it went still. But then, he must have let go toosoon because the next moment it was up, out of the water and his handsand running towards the fence.

So that was that, she’d come home and they’d ate their dinner insilence until he mentioned to her that he was going to take them out thatnight in the car and drop them off somewhere, he knew a place. She didn’tsay a thing, just lifted her eyes and carried on eating.

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And so he was here, nearly midnight, and driving out through thefields towards Louth. He was worried about dropping them anywhere toonear to home where he might have been seen. Or so close that aneighbour would see the chickens wandering along by the road the nextday. So he was driving far, to a place off on a quiet lane on the other sideof the town, near the coast. He’d leave them there.

It had been a long time since he’d been out this way and the roadslooked different at night, he’d only passed one car before reaching theoutskirts of town and turning off onto the even quieter B­roads. Windingdown these black, back roads he felt more comfortable. The sky wasobscured by the dense hedges and trees that lined the road, he was alone.It didn’t take long to find the place; he’d been thinking that he was lostwhen he finally came up on it but there it was. The house was set backfrom the road on his left, with sheds and farm buildings across from it,the verges were well kept and the hedges stood uniformly pruned againstthe road. He pulled carefully onto the grass and turned the engine off,waiting for his eyes to get accustomed to the darkness. It took a while butfinally he saw something, a darker shadow emerging from between thegatepost and the hedge, he held his breath, waiting to be sure but as it

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moved further out into the road the bobbing head of a chicken wasunmistakable. Good, it was the right place, he’d seen chickens shruggingaround on the verges the last time he was here. He slowly eased himselfout of the car, trying not to make a noise, already concerned that someoneinside the house might have noticed a car stopping in the road and wouldsoon be coming out to take a look.

He peered in through the back window at them, it was sad, four eyesreflecting at him through the darkness, they were probably scared heguessed. He opened the boot as carefully as he could manage with hisheart was pounding, “hey” he whispered to the birds, “it’s ok, don’tworry… come on, it’s ok, here we go girl…”, but his attempts to reassurethem and coax them out of the back didn’t work. Why wouldn’t they justhelp him out here? It wasn’t his fault, he just couldn’t look after themanymore. After trying again to ease them out he started to get annoyed. Itwas no use but he didn’t want to do it that way, it didn’t seem right. Theyshould’ve just accepted that they’d be better off but instead here they weremaking him stoop to this. He swore under his breath as he went round tothe passenger side door and took the feed bag out. “Ok then. Right. I’msorry… here you are, food… come on girls, out you get, food”, the fourhens began to cluck and jumped out almost instantly after the seeds he’dscattered in the grass. He told himself that it wasn’t their fault, that theywould be better off here, happier. Still, he couldn’t look back in the mirroras he pulled away, it hadn’t worked out the way he’d wanted.

He kept his lights off until he’d gone round the bend on the other sideof the house. What was he going to do now? Really he should have turnedaround in the lay­by that he’d just passed as this way was taking him inthe opposite direction from home, towards the coast. He began to getworried about where he was driving but the decision seemed to have beenmade for him. Then he saw the sign, like an airbag exploding, and hehated himself for believing in fate and will, it was childish that he hadn’tturned back. He remembered exactly where he was now.

He was stationary in the middle of the road, reading the sign again,‘Covenham Reservoir: sailing, kayaking, and water­sports’. That’s right, hethought, that was why he’d been up this way, that’s why he’d seen thehouse with the chickens roaming around outside of it, they’d been drivinghere. For a second he considered driving up the entry ramp to have a lookat the water under the moonlight but he drove on, he wouldn’t go up therenow.

~

They were going to learn to sail together. That’s why they’d come outhere, to have a look around and find out about lessons and prices. Butthen, that black square of water, even the spring sunlight couldn’t pierceits surface, it looked like it might go down forever, it had scared him. Theboy was still so excited though, he wanted to do it but the thought ofgoing out there onto that water…

So he had been at home when it happened, peeling potatoes by theback door, it was a sunny day, he could still see it. But then the phonehad gone and he’d picked it up and they’d told him, just like that. It still

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wasn’t real even now. He’d dropped the phone, God, everything had justbroken down and he couldn’t stop his face from trembling. Then he’dhad to tell his wife, Sarah, he’d said it so loud, shouted it. He’d donethat.

He couldn’t remember driving there, but he had, they got tothe hospital before the ambulance did. He felt bad about that now, theywere both in the car with him and he could’ve crashed, it was dangerous.

He’d waited for the ambulance to come in, leaning against the pillarby the A and E entrance, he couldn’t stand properly. He Just kepthearing his voice saying “it’s Nick… we’ve got to go, he hit his head…went under… we’ve got to go to the hospital…”.

Then the van came and he’d realised that he must have relaxed a bitbecause his body convulsed with panic at the sight of it. The paramedicjumped out of the front, looked at him, then walked around to the backdoors and opened them, and there was our boy. Propped up on a bed inthe back, his hair was still wet, with the other paramedic sat next to himwho didn’t look up when the doors were opened.

I don’t care what they say, those doors opened up and I saw my sonand he looked at me, I stood there and he looked at me. He saw his Dad,there for him, ready to take him home. But that didn’t happen, theyweren’t allowed to collect him for another four days and then, well…

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He didn’t turn back at the next junction he came to either, he carriedon driving. He wanted to see the sea, he’d decided. He turned the radioon, the night­time show suited him. He was just going to carry on drivinguntil he was done, the back roads kept winding around but he wascertain that he was still heading roughly towards the coast, he wantedspace, he wanted emptiness.

But that didn’t happen, he came out onto a road that was leading himinto the town. He still hadn’t got to the sea yet so it was alright, it didn’tcount. He realised where he needed to go now, the coast wouldn’t work,people lived here and it was loud, full. No, it wasn’t the right thing at all,he decided to head north, into the mouth of the river.

He passed along the seafront on the way, it was late but the place wasstill busy. The people disgusted him, rolling about in groups, thedrunken crowds making their way, as noisily as possible between pubsand chippies all down the road. The sound coming from the arcades andtheir strobing lights turned the whole thing into a horror­scape. Heturned the radio up and pulled off as soon as he could onto the backstreets, he didn’t want to see any more people.

It wasn’t long before he was out of it completely, it was the last townbefore emptiness and it was behind him now. He was out in the estuary,a dead space, flat fields of grey, dust covered grass, no trees, the skylinewas only broken by the black masses and burning lights of the refineries.This territory, cut across by empty service roads, this was the place, lifestopped here. He could feel the space, the horizon reached out and bledinto the dark, clouded sky. He began to get anxious the further out hewent; he was worried that he might be scared. But he’d put some

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distance between himself and the world now, and the horizon wasbeginning to clear completely, he was nearly at the river.

Then, after a few more minutes driving north the road simply ran out.He slowed the car, coming to a stop on a long, dust, patch that ranparallel with the river, his headlights lit up the glistening wet mud thatstretched out towards the water. He killed the lights and sat there indarkness, the refineries at his back and the bridge way out left on hisside, he rolled down the windows and felt the cold night air paw at hisskin. The water was black but the lights of the city across the river bledorange into its far bank, it was peaceful, finally. He was alone and he felthimself, this was going to be alright. He wasn’t afraid anymore.

The moon cut a line through the river and there was nothing in thesilence but the electronic chime of a car, indicating that a door had beenopened.

Dominic is a full­time English MA student hereat Durham. He has been writing for about fiveyears and mainly writes in prose. He reallyenjoys the focus that short fiction imposes onwork so uses this quite often. He also likes howseemingly small events can represent universalfeelings and major life moments in shortstories. He has not previously published anywork but continues to write when he can findtime.

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NOTHING TO BE DONEby Helen Merrell Spalding

- second prize in short fiction -

The attic, like the walls of all the rooms, of all the houses, of all thecities, was padded, covered, smothered in paintings, posters and poems.Constantly lit by a hundred screens and bulbs, they stained the walls incolour. Layer upon layer they bound the house together. After weeks ofpeeling, scraping, tearing at the walls around her, pale stone shonethrough layers of canvas and paper.

She saw quiet. It made her think of her grandfather. In theevenings, when his age made him restless, she sat at his feet like ananchor, and she would listen. His voice would fill the room. He wouldcome alive with memory. His eyes would fade her surroundings to sepia,and she would watch the Old World grow from nothing before her. “I usedto have the gift of the gab”, he would love to say, with a pride that only aman unheard and rusting can take in his own voice. “Your grandmotherwould tell me that. Her favourite refrain.” He would laugh an empty laughwhenever he mentioned her grandmother. “We met on a roof you know.She was sat out on the edge, alone. Formidable, your grandmother was. Iloved her instantly. I had to crawl through an open bathroom window, Iwas thinner back then, clinging to loose tiles of one of those Old houses. Itwas terrifying. I could barely get a word out. If it wasn’t the fear of heights,then it was her face. But somehow, once I’d found my grip, we spoke untildawn, with nothing but the open sky and far off street lights to entertainus.”

“Tell me a story, Grandpa,” she would whine, picking at the carpet,restless.

He would tell her of the Transition. First, it was technological tools,for communication, for cleaning, for entertainment. It was what we couldadd to ourselves, to better ourselves, to function at higher and higherlevels. Too soon however, the technological surge warped into what wecould subtract. Cleaning tools became cleaning bots, and the order theyimposed was relentless. Phones became attached permanently to ourhands. Screens were erected everywhere, windows to life as it should be.Work became redundant. People relaxed into a population of permanentclients.

“Artificial intelligence was of course dabbled with, though in thoseearly times all that was achieved was input, process, output. A state ofexistence humans categorized as machine. Reductionist, thinkers of thetime said, simplistic. The soul is so much more than the sum of what wedo and why. Creation, originality, philosophy. That is what it is to behuman. Our ability to progress.” Grandfather’s face would smooth as hesaid this, and beneath the lines of his cheeks, she could glimpse thethinkers he spoke of. And he would look down at her, older, somehow,than before, and smile emptily.

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With all of this time and this technology came changes. Societyturned to art, to science, to academic pursuits. Free of responsibilities, atlast the era of progression, of the New, could begin. It was then a group ofdedicated volunteers changed the world. A database of every creation,discovery and thought was completed and stored on a robot. They namedit the Genomaton. Every work ever completed, every opinion everexpressed, every finding ever made, encapsulated, contained. History in ametal box. History owned.

The database changed everything. Suddenly, this cold machine hadevery human input history and culture has ever afforded us. It containedwithin it more knowledge than a lifetime of study could ever allow ahuman. The Genomaton could pick out patterns and trends of humaninnovation, mapping sweeping lines and curves thought to have beenethereal. It could merge inputs, characters, shapes, colours of existingworks and ideas in thousands of millions of combinations, creating aninfinity of variations of art, literature, and philosophy.”

He would sit forward, alight with a strange urgency, “The verynature of creation was called into question. That innovation could bemeasured in a way no human eye could see lead people to ask whether artwas solely a manipulation of what had gone before, conscious or not. Thenthe indignant would ask, but what came first, the original artists musthave been creators, at least? The robots had infinite knowledge of theworkings of societies, Old and New, of geography, of science, of the worldsurrounding them and the worlds of Before. They could manipulateinterminable facts and images and patterns into their ‘creations’.Everything humans had drawn upon to create, or had yet to draw upon,could be, and was. ”

“And the walls, Grandpa?” She loved to watch his wrinkled handsflutter over his knees like wings as he spoke.

“People would spend hours scrolling through the millions of piecesof art, films, books and poems. The world was seized with an urgent needto touch the eternity they could now flick through. Genomatons were setto create everything they designed, or attempt to. Genomatons multipliedin number, spewing thousands and thousands of “originals” each day.People snatched at them desperate to cover their walls. There was not anuncovered surface to be found.”

“Among the people of my age, those old enough to regret, a time ofbitterness began. Art had become a necessity. It had begun to be whatkept the roof over our heads. It paved our floors. It insulated our roomsand homes, layer upon layer of oil painted canvas. It lay over parks andlawns until the grass grew pale and died. It was a material, a material inabundance, and therefore valueless. We had lost the beauty of theuseless, of the rare, of the new, to the mass production of originality.”

His face would darken then. “I knew men who, desperate to recoverthat purpose, would resort to unimaginable ends. A man on my streetcorner would stand there every day, splashing a little stolen paint onto thepavement, only to watch the cleaner bots eradicate it minutes later. He didthis until paint became too scarce to steal. Then he took to running,repeatedly, head first, into walls.”

Delighted by this exoticism, she would ask, “What was his name,

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Grandfather?”“We never spoke. With everything already said in a million different

ways there was no point in conversation. Even the misunderstood hadbecome mundane. I always thought it was him leaving his mark on aworld built of masterpieces.” Glancing down, he would pat her head, “Butmaybe he was just insane.”

In the way that young children do, she grew up. It wasuncomfortable to curl up on the floor too long. I had heard allGrandfather’s stories before. she would visit less and less frequently, onlywhen her separation from her siblings became too isolating. She couldn’tspend too much time on her screen. It isolated her. She always becametoo distracted by the time in the corner of the screen, counting furtherand further into an everything that may as well have been nothing.Sometimes she would attempt to scroll to the far edge of the databases’listings. Once or twice she fancied she could see it grow, but she wasnever certain.

In the way that old men do, her Grandfather shrunk more andmore each time she saw him. He no longer tread the edges of his Old andNew realities with the ease of a storyteller. His voice, crackling and old,could no longer transport her with him on his wanderings. He would leaveher there alone. Once, she entered the room to hear him talkingcompletely silently, his mouth murmuring his old tales like a prayer.

On his more vocal days, he would repeat to her: “A man could beborn into the world, knowing everything there is to know, having seeneverything there is to see, having it complete, contained, downloaded inhis mind, and still, as he draws his first breath, all he can do is to striveto breathe longer. He knows everything, but breathing is how he feels. Hismind does not extend to where the feeling stops, the edge of the world, thedrop. The empty. With all our knowledge, our power, our technology, whatmakes us human, not machine, is this pathetic hold we take on life. Witheach breath we take, the weaker, the more desperate, we become.”

The vocal days became rare. The last time she saw him, he said,though I am sure it was not meant for me, “I used to have the gift of thegab”. His eyes were blank and unseeing. They seemed to see something inthe violently decorated wall behind her that she could not. His knuckleswould tighten on his armchair, and in the idealistic wisdom afforded byyoung adulthood, what she chose to hear from his cracking, wrinkled lipswas “I used to matter.” He died with his blank eyes fixed on some pointthrough the door way.

Several days after he passed, she stumbled into his old room tofind her younger brother Gabriel alone, his hands by his side. There wasan air of quiet she had never seen in his face before. Something about itwas approachable. Something about it was still enough to touch. Herfinger tips brushed his and he started, but didn’t break his silence.

They stood side by side a long while, until at last she asked in atentative voice, “Do you ever think, about, after?”

“After?”“The after? Grandpa’s after?”But as her voice wavered, his eyes flicked to the left, to the string of

brightly smiling figures shouting from a brightly coloured wall. Her eyes,

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trained on his face, saw his become vacant with the saturation of a worldshe was barred from. She felt that barrier as though she had run straightinto a brick wall.

It was around this time that she started to sneak away to the attic.She loved the anonymity, the quiet, the routine repetition of her pickingaway at the layers. It was an escape to revel in the valueless, thepurposeless, the destructive. While Genomatons plaster every possibleexpression of the human thought over every surface, beauty becomes therare and the hidden blank spaces. She was looking for complete and utterforgetfulness. The void of originality, the absence of new, the privation ofart.

Blank walls.Upon clearing a space in the attic, she was seized by a need to go

back to her Grandfather’s room, to sit on the carpet once more. She creptthrough her house, down the stairs, safe in the loud hum of distractionpermeating each room. Every corner was lit and filled with the evidence ofeverything’s existence, of the New, of the loud, of the future. She was safein the excess of it all.

She found Gabriel sitting crossed legged on the floor. Like the lasttime she had found him here, in this room, his eyes were not scrutinizingthe screen in his hand. He was still. Quiet. An island in the sea of noiseand colour. She sat beside him and looked up at the space where theirgrandfather’s chair had once sat.

“You too?” she asked, signaling her presence. He tilted his head toher, his eyes not moving. For the first time, she noticed a change in theway he looked, in the set of his face. He had grown into the nervous energyhe once was plagued by, it no longer upset the way he held himself.

“I have already started to forget what he was like, you know. Wenever even really talked.”

She nodded, still a little stricken by his appearance. He opened hismouth as if to say something else, but his face was lost to a sudden andintense darkness. There was a moment of silence. Every screen, everyspeaker was muted at exactly the same time. It pressed in with the weightof the empty sky on the skin. And then the screaming began. A raw,guttural, primal chorus of yells smashed the wall of quiet to rubble. Shecould hear the neighbours, her parents, her siblings desperately emptyingtheir lungs. Thoughtless, mindless panic attacked the still air with all ofthe energy, all of the weight of the human body, calling to the emptinessfor just a few more moments of light. It was a desperation that is purelyfelt. It burns in your veins like every molecule of your blood is at once aliveand engulfed in flame.

All the voices, all the dead voices, merged into a writhing mass ofnoise that, in the pitch black, faded to the surreal, to the imaginary realmsleft so long unused. She couldn’t be sure anymore of anything, of anyone,just the sound of her own voice, the feel of it, projecting out into thatunbroken and sudden night. Hoarse and empty, she collapsed to the floor,and she felt Gabriel shaking next to her. And they were quiet once more.And everyone went quiet. A hush descended as we all gazed in open­eyeddisbelief ­ at nothing.

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Minutes or hours or days past. In whispers, Gabriel and shetalked. They talked to keep their screaming at bay, to keep the darknessfrom filling their lungs, to keep their reality, so fragile now, alive. Minutesor hours or days past. They did not know.

“Why don’t you watch anymore? Why don’t you scroll?” he askedfinally. She couldn’t even make out his face.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes I think I have reasons not to,but right now…”

There was a quiet and then she asked, “Why do you scroll?”He opened his mouth and felt the dark reach in and steal the

words from his tongue.“Is there an answer?,” he choked.“I suppose we have lost the hope we are ever going to find the

answers. They are out there. They are readily accessible. But they arenumerous. People flick past answers every morning, over breakfast, andforget them by the time they flick past more answers before they sleep.Answers together are pointless. Moot. Their allure is gone.”

Then she was silent. Her eyes were trained on the darkened shapeson the wall opposite. They were formless.

He said, hesitantly taking her hand in his, “Our purpose couldnever have been to find. We exist here only to distract ourselves.”

Despite herself, despite her efforts to transport herself back to thatunderground room, across town, she was bursting, a child cross leggedon a rug again, “But why? What next?”

Smiling a watery smile, he patted her head and echoed, “But why?What next?”

The power surged back on, and for a moment, her eyes were asblank and unseeing as Grandpa’s had been.

Helen is a second year English Literaturestudent at Durham university. She grew up inSwitzerland. She would self­describe as rower,feminist, fishing documentary enthusiast. Shespends most of her time reading. Having writtencreatively at school, she regrets how hard it is tofind the time to write at university. She wrote‘Nothing to be done’ around her scintillatingfiling job this summer. Writing and literature areareas she is greatly passionate about and hopewill continue to be a part of her life in thefuture.

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THE GREATBARTHOLOMEW

by Laurie Atkinson- third prize in short fiction -

There are many fine things to be seen in the forest, but the finest ofall are its creatures. When sowing the very first seed of the very oldest oakHe intended even then that this would be the home for His best creations.And so to each new being He formed He endowed great worth of their own,to allow them each to flourish and multiply yet remain so unique that inthe whole of this paradise there was not one quite like another. There werethose of great strength; the wild boar who could shatter trees with hishaunches, the swift hare with his long legs of thunder, the mighty lionwho shook the earth with his roar. There were those of great wisdom; thewily fox who schemed in the twilight, the watching owl with his eyes likefull moons, the patient spider and her deadly woven snares. There werethose too of great beauty; the regal lynx in her sumptuous furs, theserenading nightingale whose voice charmed the air, the changeablechameleon and his deceitful lures. But more fine and more beautiful thanthem all, the most prized jewel in this glittering bounty, was the greatsnake, the great Bartholomew. He, to whose fluttering hiss, the very treesgave shudder, whose eyes stood like pebbles of onyx beneath his chiselledbrows, but above all whose skin was the envy of each who beheld it. Likecold marble to the touch, but more in appearance like leaves of gold, itwould shine through the canopy as he moved about the forest and all thebirds and animals would flock around him to bask in its radiance.

Never had a creature been more richly favoured and many whereBartholomew's boasts of his handsomeness.

“There is not an animal in this forest”, he would declare, “nor bird,nor insect, nor lizard, nor any creation beneath these trees who couldcontest the beauty of my attire. You are blessed indeed to be granted eachday to look upon it. Certainly, I only regret there are none amongst yousuch as I so that I too could enjoy its full magnificence.”

And such was the case, for his skin truly was more beautiful thananything they had ever seen, so they would suffer his arrogance to remainand look upon him.

One day, as He was walking through the forest, He came across asmall clearing and found Bartholomew speaking to the wolves. The snakewas boasting intently while the wolves gazed in wonder at his beauty.None of them noticed Him leaning against a tree to join the captivatedaudience.

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“Yes, your call is intriguing”, said the ever rational Bartholomew,“but just look at the coarseness of your fur. Why, I feel unwell simplylooking at it. Surely you would far rather have skin like mine, golden,sleek, without a blemish? But perhaps you disagree, perhaps you thinkyourself more fine, come on, I challenge you, I challenge all in the forest,who believes they have skin finer than mine?”

The wolves sat in silence, they could not hear his words, but He wasmuch displeased by Bartholomew's arrogance and stepped forward andsaid,

“I will challenge you Bartholomew.”Quite taken aback, the snake looked upon Him in surprise,“You”, he hesitated for a moment, “You would challenge me?”“Yes”, He replied, “Step forward.”“But surely I must win”, exclaimed Bartholomew.“We will let our judge decide the winner.”And saying so, He tapped gently on the ground. The earth buckled

then broke beneath His finger and from its surface emerged a smallsnout, then feet, then body and a mole crawled into His hand.

“A mole, what good is he as a judge of beauty?”“As good as any other Bartholomew, now come forward so that he

may decide between us.”And so Bartholomew slithered forward, glancing back confidently at

the wolves still looking on. After a moment, He turned to the mole andsaid,

“Now mole, tell me, what is your name?”“I...I am Eli” replied the mole, still blinking in the light, “That is the

name I was given.”“That is correct. I named you Eli, he who can see as no other can.

Now, you must decide between us, I or Bartholomew, which of us has thefinest skin.”

“You must forgive me”, stammered the mole, “but I can see little inthis glorious sun. Perhaps if you would come closer I could better judge.”

By now all manner of animals had gathered to the spectacle.Amongst the mice could be heard worried whispering, whilst the birdsbabbled away happily and the monkeys hung chortling from the creepers.

As desired, He and Bartholomew drew closer, and the mole reachedout a tiny hand and passed it slowly over Bartholomew's golden scales.The forest fell silent.

“Oh”, exclaimed the mole, “your skin is so hard and dry, and so cold,like the blood in your veins is of ice.”

“Fool”, cried the snake, “Look again!”But the mole now turned to Him and passed his hand over His

outstretched arm.“Ah, but this is much better, your skin is rough but soft, and it

warms me so that my very heart bursts with delight. You are the winner,your skin is the finer.”

Poor Bartholomew was stricken by these words and his tears ranfreely, glittering like drops of silver upon his skin. All assembled called

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out in a raucous chorus of voices, proclaiming his defeat to the sun'sevening glow.

“No”, he cried out, “you cannot take the word of some dim­eyedwretch.”

But a voice was quick to silence him.“Bartholomew”, He called out , “You have lost. And for your vanity in

daring to challenge me you shall be punished. Never again shall you growso proud of that garment that hangs around you, for I now strip you of it!And each year, just as it has regained its magnificence it shall fall fromyou again. You will remain dull and ugly forever!”

“Oh but you cannot, I beg of you!” cried Bartholomew, rushing forwardto pray that He should reconsider. Yet even as he did so, his skin fell awaybeneath him. He looked down in horror at his once prized raiment, nowbut a streak of gold on the forest floor, and when his eyes returned towhere He had stood, He had gone.

The cruel creatures laughed and pointed, mocking his nakedness, andsad Bartholomew slunk away, still weeping for his loss. He travelled formany days, not wishing to look back at the many eyes that scorned him,deep into the forest, where one can go unseen beneath the foliage. Hetravelled until his back ached, and his stomach grew raw, until at last hecame to a deep cave where he could cry alone.

For seven years he stayed there, and each year he grew a skin offantastic colour. But no sooner was it complete would it tear on a rock orbecome caught beneath him and fall away as He had commanded. Eachyear it seemed the skin he grew was more beautiful than the last, and soall the greater was his sorrow when they inevitably came to part. And everyyear, once it had fallen away, he would carefully pick up the skin andhang it with the others at the back of the cave, a reminder of how beautifulhe had once been. His collection could have rivalled the most covetedtreasure trove of the most wealthy king in all the world. He had one of fieryscarlet, richer than any garnet, like that a knight might have emblazonedupon the heraldic banner above him as he charged into battle. Anotherwas an exotic orange, a transportation to a blistering grove beneathMoorish domes, the very sight of which evoked a sweet, unfamiliar musicin the distance. The third was yellow, not golden or brass, or any suchsubstance native to earth, but a dazzling embodiment of the sun itself, andits glow lit even the deepest crevice of the cavern and cast long finger­likeshadows. Next to this was a skin of green, a flawless emerald crossed withstreaks of African jade, and to its side hung one of blue; a quilt work ofsapphire, turquoise and beryl. Yet another was a deep indigo, whose swirlsand patterns enchanted the mind and reminded one of a long forgottendream. The last, and the most wonderful of all, was the dainty violet skinthat hung apart from the others. Each was beautiful in its motionlessstasis but there was something somehow animate in the lavender folds. It'ssmell spoke of new life and young blooms after winter and it warmedBartholomew's sorrowful heart to remember when he would lie on a rockon the first day of spring and his skin would shimmer like some temperateocean. But even this, should he reach out and touch it, was no more alivethan the others. However he hung or viewed or arranged them, they were

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limp, cold and dead.

It was on the first day of the eighth year since Bartholomew had losthis skin that a fine­plumed bird happened to pass by his cave. Now thiswas a bird who himself was of quite remarkable appearance. Veiled inblack but for the blazing red tip of his tale and a citrus yellow neck andchest, his plumage alone was enough to provoke comment, but thiscombined with the huge curved bill he sported, almost half the length ofhis body again and blending from tones of blue to green to the scarlet ofits point made it almost impossible to tear one's eyes away from him.

Drawn by the snake's quiet sobbing the great bird, who by nature wasof a kindly disposition, perched down near its entrance to see who was soafflicted. At first he saw no one, but looking a little deeper he was able topick out the plain features of Bartholomew from the greyness of the cave.Much affected by the snake's evident distress the bird moved closer tospeak to him.

“Little snake”, he called out, “why do you cry?”“I cry for my skin is so ugly”, he wailed, “when once it was so fine.”“But that is no reason to cry”, replied the bird, “we all in time must

grow worn and old, but the burden of age is not too great to bear. Howelse could so many endure it?”

“Aye, but I am not old, nor am I worn, I have been stripped of mybeauty while I am still young.”

“I am very sorry”, said the bird and truly he was. He hated sufferingas he loved joy and felt it his duty to do something for the wretch. All atonce an idea sprung into his mind,

“Why not come with me? We will fly away together and I will showyou the world. You will forget your sorrows as you revel in its wonders.”

“No”, cried Bartholomew, “I cannot. For I am so foul, while you are sofine. I will not see the world and it will not see me.”

Troubled and saddened, the bird flew away, but he did not forget thelittle snake in the cave.

The next day, the fine­plumed bird returned to the cave and flewdown to Bartholomew still crying within. From his feathers he brushed adusting of snow and as he spoke frost fell from his wings.

“I have soared across oceans to the land of ice, seen the snow­kissedpeaks and the silent valleys, I have seen water captured in majesticstatues and rivers of souls that lit up the sky. There were creatures sowhite as to be pure of all wrongs that padded like spirits on clouds, and atnight I slept in a tree as tall as the moon while they nestled beneath me inhouses of snow. But little snake”, he asked, “why still do you cry?”

“Look at me!” came the protest, “what else is there to do? There is nomajesty to these dull scales, my skin is not white and revered. When Isleep at night it is in these hard walls with misery as my only companion.”

“But don't you see”, said the bird, “it need not be so. Fly away withme and I will be your companion. You will forget your sorrows in thebonds of friendship”.

“No”, cried Bartholomew, “I cannot. For I am so foul, while you are so

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fine. I will not be befriended and I shall live without friends.”Disappointed again, the bird flew away, but he did not forget the little

snake in the cave.

On the third day, the bird flew down again, but a great change hadcome over him. His plumage was ruffled and dirty and his beak wasscratched and dull. Bartholomew started in surprise when he saw himand wondered what strange journey could have taxed him so greatly.

“Where have you been”, gasped the snake in amazement “whatterrible fate has befallen you?”

The weary bird looked at him and smiled.“I have flown to the desert and I rolled in the sand. I climbed up to the

sun and it bleached my beak white. I found a starved vulture and hepecked at my feathers and now I have returned to stem your tears.”

“But what do you mean,” said the startled snake, “surely you did notbelieve I wished you to suffer?”

“No, it is only yourself you press suffering upon. You would not seethe world, for you dared not be seen, you refused to befriend me, for youfeared to have friends, but now I too have been stripped of my beauty so Iask you to come with me again.”

“Yes”, cried Bartholomew, “I will come, but I feel hardly worthy tohave forced you to such ends.”

“Bartholomew”, said the bird, “yes I have suffered, but what price isbeauty in exchange for a friend?”

And saying so, the bird beckoned Bartholomew to him, but the snakedashed away to the back of the cave. In a moment he returned, butflowing behind him were the seven fine skins he had worn and had shed.And now the great bird took the snake in his feet and beat his broadwings on the morning air. Up he took them, upwards and upwards untilthe forest was laid out, a green cloak below and the dew of the clouds wasmoist on their lips. And once the two had flown so high that it seemed thewhole world was spread beneath them, Bartholomew the snake cast offhis skins and down they tumbled like leaves in the autumn, the red andthe orange, the yellow and green, the blue and the purple and violet. Andas they fell, the sun glittered through them, lighting up a colourful arc inthe sky, and all of the creatures that lived in the forest, as their coats andtheir feathers were touched by its rays, looked around in amazement at allHis creations, more radiant and fine than had ever been seen.

Laurie is an English finalist at St Chads Collegehoping to progress to a masters next year. Hisinterests include Medieval Literature, Badmintonand Hill Walking, and he enjoys incorporating atleast two of these into his poetry and prose.

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