Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Nexus magazines Spring/Summer 2010 edition.
Citation preview
NEXUSSpring / Summer 2010
NEXUSSpring / Summer 2010
Welcome to the second installment of Nexus, the magazine
showcasing creative writing from the Department of Humanities,
UWIC.
Since our inaugural edition last October we've had a busy year.
And a successful one too. Liam Johnson, First Year, BA (Hons)
English and Creative Writing was runner up (and won the
audience prize) in the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry.
And Julie Owen-Moylan, MA English and Creative Writing, has
had a short story included in the anthology 'The Voice of
Women in Wales', published by the Wales Women's National
Coalition.
Not only is one of Julie's stories including here, but a wide
sample of work, both poetry and prose, from across the
Department. I hope you'll find each as enjoyable to read as I
have.
Dr Spencer Jordan
01
“Tell all the truth, but tell it slant”:
distress from all our lies.
The light, to my fullest ecstasy,
brings superb surprise!
Allow lightening: Nothing is eased
with shaded words unkind;
our truths may shine completely
as we’re already blind.
The Truth (To Emily)
By David Kelly(BA (Hons) Educational Studies and English, Year One)
03
The Witch and The Wolf (excerpt)
By Andrew Henderson(BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing, Year One )
The boy ran through the graveyard, naked skin shining under the half-
obscured moon. He dared a look behind him, almost fell, turned back to
face the front and ran faster. Ducking behind a mausoleum, he leant his
back to the stone, gasping for breath. His head darted forward to look
around the side of the small building, back the way he had come.
Nothing.
With a sigh, he heaved himself up, turned to go deeper into the warren
of tombs and stopped short. He stood before him, a small smile on his
lips. The boy threw back his head and wailed.
“You’re too wild-looking,” the boy said to the Wolf. The Wolf replied with
a snort. They had been together for long enough that the boy knew this
to mean “You’re one to talk”.
“I know, I know,” agreed the Witch, rising from his crouch, brushing the
fur on the Wolf’s head one last time. “But I’m not trying to pass for a
dog.” It was true, they’d been on the road for many months now, and
the boy was almost constantly covered in a thin rime of dust and grave-
yard dirt. His thick, dark hair was tangled and snarled, and his �ngernails
were black with grime.
The Wolf’s dusky fur was equally matted, and whereas most people
assumed he was a dog, they still gave them a wild berth.
The Witch caught a glimmer of mischievous light in the Wolf’s amber-
gold eyes before his four-legged friend trotted over to an alleyway
across the broken street. The boy sighed and dropped to the curb,
resting his arm on his leather rucksack. After a few moments of
squinting up at the blue-grey sky, he took out a tobacco pouch and
rolled himself a cigarette. Exhaling wisps of silvery smoke, he glanced
once more towards the mouth of the alley, only to see a raven-haired
boy striding con�dently across the cracked tarmac to stand at rest
before him.
From his seat, the Witch’s eyes traced the contours of the newcomer’s
naked body, from strong calves and thighs to torso and arms, �nally
coming to rest on the boy’s green and gold eyes.
“I could walk around like this,” the Wolf said. “But I’m sure a boy bereft of
clothes would be slightly more conspicuous than a travel-worn dog.”
The Witch smiled up at him, still squinting into the sun, which now
framed the Wolf’s head like a corona, and took a drag of his cigarette.
“Here,” he said, holding out the rucksack by its straps. “Put some clothes
on.”
The cemetery of Pere Lachaise stretched into the night, a city of death
melding into the still black dark of midnight past, moonlight barely
�ltering through the shadow-web of trees that guarded the cemetery.
High walls encircled the graveyard, acting as a bu�er to the outside
world; no sound came from the streets outside, and the only sound that
came from within was the gentle rustle of leaves in a sporadic breeze.
The Wolf crept between two rows of towering mausoleums towards the
guard’s hut, just to the left of the main entrance. The place had been
closed for hours now, but the night watchman would still be at large.
The Wolf kept his weight on the backs of his pads, making sure his claws
didn’t sound against the concrete and give his position away. When he
reached the end of the row, two tombs up from the guardhouse, he
lifted his muzzle and scented the air. His Wolf mind reeled at the
unfamiliar scents, but the human part picked them out and analysed
them. Stale deodorant, sweat, cigarette smoke, old co�ee. Under that
the smell of the grave: earth, �owers and decay. He edged farther out,
peering around the side of the dark stone grave to where the guard’s
station was.
It was empty.
05
Single Beds
By Ashleigh Davies(BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing, Year One )
For sixteen years
We’ve slept alone;
Festering in single beds,
With only raw desire
For muted company.
Our cold, virginal desire.
The shattered visage
Of great expectations,
Lies with us now,
A living thing;
Startled and desperately fevered.
Frenzied, innocent hands
Explore each others bodies;
Exciting foreign climates,
As smooth as a promise
Ushered from the lips of lovers.
We have never been so alive;
So blissfully naive.
07
SATURDAY, JANUARY 11TH 2010
Every time I walk into a toy shop, I’m reminded of the huge gender
divide in the way toys are marketed. The huge variety of toys, available
in a huge variety of colours, and targeted at all kids – except girls. Girls
have pink. But that’s ok because girls like pink, right? They like dressing
up as fairies and princesses, they like playing with Barbies and babies,
they like pretending to cook and clean and have little houses, and all
pink pink pink. I’ve heard all the usual defences – they like pink, they’re
sold because they sell, what’s wrong with being feminine – but none of
them really address the issue. Surely it’s unhealthy to expect one half of
the world’s population to relate to this colour? And, far worse,
everything that this colour has come to represent?
It wasn’t always this way. Until the 1930s pink was considered a strong,
masculine colour, and blue a gentler, feminine one. Nobody really
knows when or why the change happened, but it did, and now it’s un-
thinkable that a baby boy would be given pink clothes to wear. Well, I
was a little girl once, and I wanted to play and get dirty and climb trees
and go exploring – all of which is very hard to do in a dress! And you
should try playing hide and seek in vivid pink, it’s not easy.
You don’t have to look too hard at a science kit or a toy aimed at
‘adventurous’ kids to see that girls are hugely underrepresented.
The lego.com shop, for example, has �fteen categories, one of which is
‘girls’ – what does that tell you? That girls are some kind of subcategory
BOYS GET ALL THE GOOD TOYS
By Anna Fruen(BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing, Year Two)
of human. You have people, who like lego; and girls, who like animals.
Seriously, check out the recommended items for girls: animals, �owers
and hearts all feature heavily.
Anyway, what’s the point in complaining if you’re not willing to change
anything? So, I’ve decided to make a change. Perhaps those who think
that the Pink obsession is no big deal just need to see it from the other
side.
POSTED BY CHARLIE AT 11:37 PM
LABELS: TOYS, SEXISM, PINK, GIRLS
...........................................................................................................
COMMENTS:
ALAN SAID...
All this stu� about toyshops being sexist is a load of nonsense. I have a
daughter aged 5 and a little boy of 3, and whenever I take them to a
toyshop he always runs STRAIGHT for the blue area of the shop. He
loves blue! He has blue bedsheets, blue toys, and loves playing with
cars more than anything. So all this stu� about boys not being given a
choice is ridiculous.
JANUARY 12, 2010 12:05 AM
JAMES SAID...
I’ve always hated blue, to be honest. When I was growing up it seemed
like I didn’t have a choice, relatives would buy me blue clothes for my
birthday, and I hated it. I don’t hate it so much now that I’ve grown up
a bit, but I still don’t like how it’s forced on boys.
09
JANUARY 12, 2010 12:33 AM
STEVEN SAID...
I love blue!! I don’t mind being called a boy, in fact I like it, and I like
doing boy things like playing football and driving fast cars, so do bear
in mind that not every boy is like you Charlie.
JANUARY 12, 2010 12:57 AM
PETER SAID...
What upsets me is that we’re not taken seriously in business.
At my last job we were never explicitly told to dress sexy, but we were
encouraged to dress ‘masculinely’.
You only had to look around the o�ce and see all the women managers
to realise that we ‘boys’ aren’t respected as much.
JANUARY 12, 2010 1:41 AM
ALEX SAID...
The problem isn’t with the colour blue, it’s in the way boys are encour-
aged to identify with the colour. Every time a new phone or laptop or
mp3 player is released, there’s always a gap of a few months before the
“now available in BLUE!” ads start cropping up on Facebook. They have
literally no reason to assume that I like blue other than that little ticked
‘gender’ box... I’m not overreacting, or reading stu� into it that isn’t
there. There’s literally never an advert for a new orange version of a
phone, or for a green or yellow one. Always blue. Because I am a boy.
And therefore like blue.
JANUARY 12, 2010 6:29 AM
ESTHER SAID...
Charlie if there were no demand for them they wouldn’t sell them.
JANUARY 12, 2010 8:14 AM
ANDREW SAID...
My daughter Sharron asked for a toy truck instead of a doll for
Christmas, so I got her one! And I actually had my wife’s mother take
me aside and ask if I wanted her to grow up gay. That kind of
attitude just ba�es me. She says she doesn’t have a problem with
Shaz liking blue stu�, but I know she’s mentally discounted the poss-
ibility of having great-grandkids.
JANUARY 12, 2010 11:12 AM
CARLOS SAID...
Charlie: Boys have it better. If you just dress up a little bit and the
worlds you’re oyster, lol I think you’re just bitter because you’re ugly.
Lol and prolly a homo too
JANUARY 12, 2010 3:50 PM
KATE SAID...
Wow. Thanks, Carlos, for that startling insight.
Charlie, I think you’ve missed the point somewhat. Yes, it’s odd that
the lego website has a category just for boys, but they’re not
excluded from the other categories in any way. All this means is that
they have more options available to them than girls, not fewer. If
boys don’t like blue, or football, or cars, they still have a range of
gender-neutral toys to pick from!
JANUARY 12, 2010 8:52 PM
CHARLIE SAID...
Kate, thanks for your comment. I agree that boys do have choice, in
theory, but the fact that the ‘football, cars and blue’ stereotype exists
at all is a worry, let alone that every major retailer caters to it...
11
Anyway. I guess this experiment has been a failure; it’s going to be a long
time before people stop forcing gender roles on children.
JANUARY 15, 2010 8:22 PM
IZZIE SAID...
LaY oFf PiNk!! I lOvE pInK!!! pInK iS mY fAvOuRiTe CoLoUr!!!!! lol
JUNE 22, 2010 11:05 AM
CHARLIE SAID...
*facepalm*
JUNE 22, 2010 2:44 PM
Broken Lighter
By Kayleigh Read(BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing, Year One )
A mixture of plastic and metal,
translucent, icy blue.
Scratched, treasured possession,
overused,
familiar but still better than new.
I remember it –
an object that creates a �ame,
glowing orange, a rush of heat.
It felt like it would last forever
and always stay lit,
old – it’s become incomplete.
I remember the night
it was given to me on a bus.
Used to feed an addiction –
with pleasure at �rst,
but pain in the long run.
It’s a darker lighter
now compared to then
The addiction I can’t abandon
even when the �ame is dead.
13
Candy’s Room
By Julia Owen-MoylanMA English and Creative Writing
Candy had a black poodle on a silver chain. When I was ten I thought
Candy was the best name in the world for a girl. It rolled o� the tongue
like the real thing.
She had a frizz of mousy hair but everyday Candy tied it into tiny thick
rolls and carefully wrapped a band of blue velvet ribbon around it.
Candy wore navy blue mascara, the kind you spat in and rubbed on
with a tiny brush. She would swing on her front gate while her black
poodle yapped at passersby. Smiling her tiny white smile at boys. Some
evenings Candy would put on her red suede heels and walk up and
down our street pretending to walk her dog.
‘There goes Candy, ‘they would mutter or ‘Here she comes like Lady
Muck’ as they stirred their tea and dunked their Marie biscuits. My mum
used to call her the Queen of Sheba. I don’t think people liked Candy.
Sometimes young men would stop and talk to her and pretend to fuss
her dog but then they would move on. Out would come the red suede
shoes and here comes Candy click clacking down the street in the
summer sun bursting like berries in June.
One grey November afternoon I was kicking a tiny stone along hop-
scotch squares when my mother sent me down the street with a letter
that had landed on our doormat by mistake. A smooth lilac envelope
with Candy written on it in big black letters.
I banged the big old door knocker a couple of times and a woman
opened the door dripping cigarette ash down her front and straining
to hear me over the loud music. I held out the smooth lilac envelope
with big black writing but the woman shrugged and hooked her thumb
towards the stairs turning her back and drifting away. I thought about
propping the letter up on the small hall table which really doesn’t serve
any other function except for dropping and propping stu� but I knew
my mother would insist I personally delivered the
letter. She was fastidious about stu� like that ever since a birthday
postal order for �ve pounds had gone missing once and broke her
heart. So I climbed the stairs following the sound of reggae music and
the sweet smell of something in the air. The house was the same layout
as ours. Standard council fare, small and draughty. Our hallway was
scratched cream but this one was kind of mouldy green colour with
bare �oors and not in a good way.
CANDY’S ROOM - KEEP OUT - PAIN OF DEATH
drawn with a big heart round it, was nailed onto a door at the end of
the landing. I trundled towards it still holding tight to the smooth lilac
envelope and knocked as loud as I could.
I heard a mu�ed voice and then the bedroom door swung open and
there stood Candy in a peacock covered Chinese robe staring at me.
She leaned so close to my face I could smell chocolate on her breath. I
like chocolate but not the milky stu�.
“What?”
My mouth dropped open and I forgot the letter. My eyes were �xed on
the bedroom walls behind her which were red with bits of billowy
chi�on nailed to the picture rail. The bed was messy, tiny pink cushions
strewn over it and clouds of sweet smelling smoke �lled the air. I
swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say. My brain
suddenly registered the lilac envelope in my hand and I shoved it
towards her. Candy laughed hard and low.
“What’s this kid - a Valentine?”
She took the envelope and looked at the big black Candy on the front
of it. Her face got soft just for a second. She turned away from me and
drifted back to the bed to drag on her sweet cigarette and open her
15
letter. The door wide open now but no invitation to proceed.
I shu�ed from foot to foot trying to look casual and leant against the
doorway the way girls did in Saturday morning movies. Candy lay on
her �at white belly trailing peacock blue robe over her legs and
dangling her feet in the air. She kicked o� her red suede heels.
One small white foot �icking the shoes o�. I watched them clatter to
the �oor wanting to pick them up and slip my skinny kid feet into them
just one time. Candy read the letter and then read it again. She sat up
in bed. The peacock blue robe fell from her shoulders. She read the
letter a third time. Candy sucked a drag of her cigarette and sat back
on her bed.
“You know something kid?”
I didn’t know anything at that moment but I was sure I needed to know
anything Candy might tell me. I nodded angling my foot slightly so my
toes almost touched the red suede shoe. She �xed me with a long
stare and got to her feet.
“All men are sh*** liars.”
Candy crumpled up the lilac envelope and threw it at me. Her eyes
glassy and hard now.
With a quick swipe she �icked the door shut leaving me on the wrong
side of it. The music notched up even louder and mu�ed sounds I
couldn’t understand.
I turned and ran away from the sweet smells of Candy’s room.
I never saw Candy and her black poodle after that. My friend Laura told
me Candy had a job on the beauty counter in town but I don’t know
about that. She doesn’t look like she sells beauty to me.
When I left home years later one summer’s night I saw a pair of red
suede shoes click clacking down the street.
Sure enough it was Candy walking away only stopping to talk to men
in cars.
Crimson leaves
By Daniel Kingman(BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing, Year One )
A midnight moon shoneon Roath Park lake.It made the water glistena murky green.Midnight wind was cold and bitter,it howled a familiar, seasonal song.The wind blew and blew,it made your letterboxclatter and bang.You nudged meand whispered,"Autumn is here.""Wake me in the morning," I replied."Let’s tread through those crimson leaves."
17
She was adamant that she would not “murder” our child. I said that I
would support her decision. The doctor informed us that the likelihood
of the child having this disability was due to her age. She’s only 34.
She is lying by my side. She is crying uncontrollably.
“So that’s the baby’s back, a nice line.”
The midwife moved the ultrasound over her stomach.
“Can you see it, Andy, can you see our baby?”
I said yes. But it just looked like the scan of my cancer ridden lungs.
The letter from the trust informed us that there was an 85% chance the
baby would be Down’s syndrome. I stared at it, looked at the digital
clock, and glanced at her.
“I don’t know if you’re going to be able to cope alone.”
I sat on our new leather egg chair. I had been spending freely since my
diagnosis.
“Can’t take it with you,” my Nan used to say, as she planted twenties
into the palm of my hand.
I sighed, looking out onto the opposite houses. A woman was cleaning
her windows, her partner holding the bottom of the ladder.
It has to come out someway
By John DaviesMA English and Creative Writing
An Indian man passed in his Mercedes, Bangra beats blasting from the
speakers. The fat taxi driver who lived next door was cleaning one of his
cars that took up all the parking spaces on our street. I had threatened
to smash the windscreens on every one of them. But I never did, or
would, and I ended up apologising.
She has run out of tears.
She has run out of tissues.
I went for my last blast of chemo. No hope, no point. It’s like taking a
sledgehammer to a mosquito. I am sick of the doctors not addressing
me anymore. It’s always the Cancer this and the Cancer has progressed.
And the bloggers who talk about “surviving”, and how they are thankful
for the cancer, because its changed their lives forever…
I went along just to get away from the house. The mother in law was
there, knitting baby boots, getting all excited about her �rst grandchild.
She had �nished the pink pair, and was working the needles with some
blue wool. We hadn’t told her that the scan had revealed it was a boy.
The mother in law keeps knitting, and crocheting, and visiting.
I spent the next weeks in my egg chair circling programme titles in the
TV Guides, ready for my wife to change the channels when I can’t.
She sits by the bedside, beginning to show. The kid is growing all
wrong inside of my wife. She comforts her stomach with a circular
motion as I cough and cough and cough. She is adamant. She screams
words at me then leaves. I read in a trash magazine that an upset
mother during pregnancy can cause an emotional e�ect on the unborn
child. The unborn child when born would be more likely to su�er from
mental health issues such as depression. She su�ers from depression. I
had never been depressed, but when I told her that she really should
reconsider having a termination she shouted that maybe my lack of
emotions had caused the cancer. Keeping all that stu� inside my head
had made me ill. “It has to come out someway,” was one of her favourite
quotes.
I am not concerned about my death. I can’t take this pain for much
longer. She has told me she has been having second thoughts about
having the child. She said that she didn’t know if she wanted to bring
up the child alone. She didn’t know if she could cope. She thought that
19
maybe if I was alive that we could do it together. I am alive, I remind
her.
I struggle to eat anything now.
I have stopped shouting at visitors and I just lie on the bed.
The chair became too uncomfortable.
I get cold.
There is a heat wave outside.
She has been talking to me for three days.
She has decided that she is going to terminate the baby.
The alarm clock changes from 05:32 to 05:33.
This poem is a masterpiece, I'll tell you how I know:
I've hardly even started, yet the words already glow
With genius, intelligence, and most of all, you see -
It's by me.
My work, it has a radiance. Oh, surely you can tell.
The people here won't buy it; well that's �ne, I wouldn't sell.
So somewhere in my bedroom, all my best creations lay
On display.
A novel (not quite �nished) and a poem pages long,
I'll cause grown men to weep with just the lyrics to my song.
Sonatas, paintings, limericks, a sonnet and heaps more,
On my �oor.
My little tabby nestles in my third Ode to Myself,
And pictures of my countenance abound upon my shelf.
My mirror on my ceiling, and another on the ground
Can be found.
I know I should be happy with what I've achieved, and yet,
It's di�cult to live up to the standards I have set.
I �nd my raw, wild talent still just doesn't seem enough.
Life's so tough.
So I walked into the city, where loads of people are,
I climbed a high-rise building there, to prove that I'm a star.
They said "What are you doing?", though I'm sure they really knew,
And I �ew.
17th Ode to Myself
By Anna Freun(BA (Hons) English & Creative Writing, Year Two)
21
The Ghost Of Winter
By Rosella Pollard(BA (Hons) English & Creative Writing, Year Two)
She woke mid afternoon.
The events of the night before had brought on an earthquake headache.
Tilly struggled to imagine that the problem would ever produce phlegm.
It was the thinnest of times and the fattest of times. Some dreaming
state became apparent and she quickly jotted down a description or
two, though the memory was dispensed in a matter of lines.
In the smudged eyeliner of desperation, I see them swishing past my
window on an old bicycle. Both impressively gaunt with appetites of
wolves, her red scarf cheering the fog. In the freedom of the wind they
are paired so eloquently and I am clouded with grateful relief. Next
comes the laughter, so sincere for a while. As the night wears thin, my
appetite surges and I feast upon mundane tasks to pass through a
nocturnal tunnel.
No charming man could �ll the hunger of sleep that panged regularly
through the awakening hours. It was not a macabre month, but grief
lay dormant waiting to pounce. The problem would know nothing of
chipped nails, Tilly felt that for certain. What peers she had, so brutally
honest and always ready with disinfectant to hand. They knew the best
ways to remove �ammable liquids from pristine desks.
Swimming for forty, the coloured �ags light my way and the
transparency of water puri�es all dread. I'll tell them all, never, after
telling too much. Though it was only to save face, all that remains is a
used toothbrush and some modern records. The memory of his jokes
have dwindled, whilst sightings of wheels and blonde hair become less
and less. Spring will steal another year of youth and all the pretty leaves
will soon disintegrate, but I shan’t cry.
It is only the way of the wise, clearing the air between two lungs,
stepping into sunshine.
The kitchen was musty and humid, cigarette smoke almost tangible,
snaking its way around the room, its silken coils closing slowly, clinging
to the air, fouling its taste. It hung onto the fading sunlight, like a
limpet to a rock. The choked light slinked miserably through the slats of
the shades, broken in crisp slices. You could barely see the setting sun,
bright outline winking between the plastic strips, its molten ruins
disappearing into the horizon, its shape chapped by the silhouettes
of spindled trees.
It was quiet but not silent.
Tap water dripped into a half-empty sink.
The dull hum of the extractor, set on low.
Warming pipes cracking and shuddering.
A pen tapping on a blank page.
His glass was barren apart from the huddled melting remains of
ephemeral ice cubes, a bottle neither empty, nor full, its closest
companion on a marble counter.
Next to the work-pad. Next to the pen, and the hand that tapped it to
an irregular and tone-deaf beat. He was sat precariously on a stool,
Writer’s Block
By Elisha-Mae Trevan(BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing, Year One )
23
crumpled shirt loose at the throat. His left hand held the fading scar of
a wedding band. He was slumped, head down at the island in the
centre of the room. On one side of the stool sat a gorged waste-paper
bin, on the other, a cat, almost lost within the smoke, a phantom in the
gloom. Her eyes aglow, staring at him. Her feeding bowl lay at her
paws, empty. She reached out a paw and caught hold of a trouser leg
with her claws, jerking it in her funny feline way.
But he remained unmoved.
The counter was cold against his forehead, as cool as the drink, yet
lacking its potent burn and indiscriminate comfort.
The clock ticked, uncaring and monotonous.
She mewled.
It would not come.
He drew, scribbling violently onto the page, the biro biting into the
uno�ending paper.
Failure.
Floating in a sea of words, yet unable to drink.
Cries of broken glass,Filled your words,Slathering blood-soaked jowls,With your poems –TearsThat slowly drowned your soul,Flooding onto pageAfter page of despair.StarsPlucked from your temples,Or your sapphire eyes,Or whatever it wasThat �lled you with e�ervescent genius,That shocked me into recoil,Left my mind brandedWith the faintest imprintOf a birdlike soul –Itself a cage –Muttering in indecipherable Godspeak.Locked foreverIn a forti�ed templeAll of its own;A windowless cell,With only locked doorsMocking your delirium. I would spend whole days,That could have been decades,Searching for your freedom keys;Futility my company –Better companyThan your destructive poetry,
Keys
By Ashleigh Davies(BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing, Year One )
25
Still churning outBroken glass memories,That even when intactIn your labyrinth mindWere always destined for the Minotaur.When �ayed across a page –Lethal.A language wholly itself,Some kind of ancient hieroglyphic,A scattered code thatYour minds encryptionGlanced up over the headsOf mere mortalsAnd into the cobalt atmosphere. I merely played at brilliance,Alone, in my own personal nebula.Watching,Jealous, exposed,As you found all the words,And kept them to yourself,Sel�shly nursing themInto frenzies of sparked luminosity.You saw my hope,A perfect sheet of glass,A glacier,As you raised that hammering pen,Ready to break one paneInto a million crystalline memories;Stinging blood to my �ngertips,Your broken keys.
Eta Carinae
By Cat Hoyle(BA (Hons) English & Creative Writing, Year Two)
Julia had never been beautiful, even as a little girl. "Don't bother love, it won't do any good."
The words echoed from her mind and reverberated o� the old mirror in front of her, until they were all she could hear.The tears pricked at her eyes as she sucked in her cheeks and pulled her crow's feet taut.Her head made a thud as it hit the glass. She blinked, the world blurred.
"Julia?"
Young again ... The call is multiplied by empty corridors and bare walls.
"Jonathan is here to pick you up!"
Angrily wiping her face dry, she re-adjusts her corsage. That night had never gotten any better. The sherbet paracetamol spike still lingers on her palette, just reachable from the darkest corners of her mind. Zombie-like she staggers toward the origin of the call. Aunt Marilyn says that all little girls should be told they are beautiful. What happened?At the bottom of the stairs, the furniture is dust covered, the corridor empty. Nobody awaits her on the porch.Stepping outside she chirps, "Hello," and the garden listens. The hedges rustle and the stars �icker their response in the dawn-scarred sky.She murmurs melodically, beneath her breath, the words inaudible, �oating rapidly away on winter breath.Aunt Marilyn is dead.Is it over?
Julia does not believe.
27
Aftermath
By Elisha-Mae Trevan(BA (Hons) English & Creative Writing, Year One)
3 hours from now, I’ll lie, gasping parched air into painful lungs.3 hours from now, the haunting aftermath of tectonic rebellion will have moved the skyline, and the streets will run in dust and blood.3 hours from now, my shattered body will re�ect my shattered life.3 hours from now, broadcast live, the world will tune in, their TV dinners turning tasteless on their tongues as they watch the search.3 hours from now, broadcast live, the world watches the broken form of a child in my arms.He’ll sleep forever.3 hours from now, broadcast live, in the wake of Mother Nature’s protest, I’ll grieve.
NEXUSSpring / Summer 2010
Thankyou
