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Childhood -
by Jessica Howell
Spinning, turning,
head thrown back, wildly laughing, consumed by the moment, consumed by the freedom of
being me.
Tiny feet pattering
on a moss covered floor. I dance with the
wind to the song of the day. I stretch out my
arms and fly and my daisy chain floats to
a rest.
I am a child.
Time holds no part
to my deep yet simple mind, it has not succeeded in entertaining me with its paper-thin
concepts. Reality is my own to mould and
adapt. Energy is never wasted and enthusiasm
for the colour of the world bubbles.
I am free.
My eyes grow
marble-wide as thoughts mingle with desires. Red-staining
fingers licked by my likewise mouth. Dirty
toes wriggle in anticipation for the next game. As
I skip in the sun-bathed pathways, I live for nothing but the “nowness” around
me.
I am full.
In amongst the toys
scattered, I reside as queen. Their glazed
eyes stare up at me adoringly and I rule. Lawfully
now I sit and eat cookies through supper. My
powers increase. Teddy bears serve me and my princesses and I throw a ball.
I am thrilled.
The sea of duvets
engulf me as the world turns dark around. Yet
my Noddy lamp glows as he smiles. My eyes
flutter like the wings of the butterfly I chased. My
arms encircle a dear friend. My stomach
content, my skin caressed … a gentle kiss ends the day. The beating of my little yet bursting heart slows.
I am at peace.
The harsh
kiss of light begins the following, this time though, not the same following as the
previous. Today … the circle dents. Stiffness brushes my body, white socks hold my
feet. The smell of newness fills my body. A suitcase placed on my back.
I am led.
The hum of the
engine, the world flashing past … an unknown emotion creeps in (excitement maybe),
but the seatbelt holds me captive with a reassuring smile.
I am afraid.
A desk next to a
stranger is my place. A woman in front talks. I busy myself till I’m told to stop. Apparently a bell has rung. I am hungry.
When do we get to play?
I am told that:
I am growing …
I am growing up |
Those eyes… by Lauren
Hartman
I watched them for
about a year – together I mean. The boy
I had watched for longer. Ahmed, I think or
his name was, or Mustapha. It didn’t
matter then. He could’ve been nameless,
faceless. He could have been anonymous, but
for those eyes …
Big, brown eyes. They didn’t look – they flashed. A lifetime of pain and secrets I could never touch
was hidden in their murky depths. His face
could not hold them, even then.
One day, I stood,
on the dusty road. I watched people file
past. I watched the scrap of a boy,
struggling to pull on his white dress top, over those musty jeans. That Superman T-shirt hidden from view. He stumbled, fell deliberately? I didn’t think so, not then. “Salaam,” he spat, and
“Sorry!” We were enemies then, he
and I with no cause for talk.
He walked on,
slowly. His world, colliding with mine, had
put him at least 20 steps from his father. I
never understood, then, why he didn’t break into a run. Watching I saw him stop. Stoop. Pick
something up. It must have been small, I
thought, to fit into that tiny hand. There was no time to speculate – mosque was
calling, hoarsely in the distance. His world
was gathering speed, spinning away from mine.
A day later, he
returned. Thos eyes again – searching. They lit upon a garbage heap. A young boy’s prize, I knew. Some things were not bound by culture. I shifted my uncomfortable, portable garbage heap
(with trigger and bullets). He had grabbed
something. Greedily, I thought at first. Later
I saw the little-boy tenderness.
He sat, legs
sprawled, and pulled something out of a jeans pocket.
It glinted, like his eyes – hard and metallic. With work-hardened little hands he pressed the
nail deep, painfully into hi prize. A coffee
tin. The irony that “American Pure
Blend” held, he could not see. Into this
punctured tin, he lowered something. His hand
fiercely guarding it, his black hair falling like a shroud over his small, wizened face.
We called him Coffee-Tin-Boy
after that. He came often, to beg us, or
those around. Not for money – for food. Bread mostly.
I didn’t see it as begging. I knew he paid dearly. I felt a little affection for him – my boy
with tiger’s pride and blue striped arms to match.
I knew his deepest
secret lay beneath that white-dust robe he wore most often now. To hide the bulge the Superman top could not. I tried once, I think, to talk to him.
“Your Abba
(No! They do not call him that!). Your father
– he does this to you?” I pointed at the tiger stripes.
“No. Sahib. It
is not your business. I must go now. To
pray.”
“But you will
come tomorrow? I have bread,” (a
desperate plea)
He smiled and
turned. His floppy sandals making tiny
dust-storms in the noon-day sun. I never knew
what he prayed for. Urgent, it seemed. We were still enemies, he and I, with no cause for
talk.
It was morning,
early. The scene is carved with in my mind,
hard as stone. I heard voice – Arab,
young, angry. I saw men, pitchforks, burning
flags. I saw red, war, all at once I knew. The fire burning “Abdul’s All-Night”
was burning wildly throughout the West Bank. Arab
voices faded, women peered from doors.
“Shoot to
kill!”
Some orders should
not be obeyed. I was blind. The air rang and I could taste blood, fear –
mine. It was over fast. I had fired one bullet, but tears coursed down my
cheeks.
My first thought
– Coffee-Tin-Boy. Too young to
fight, but not too young to die. I saw him in
a dusty corner. My world and his were
colliding again. This time I was the cause. I ran. I
knelt. He lay. I reached to his robes and
pulled them away.
Bread crumbs
trickled across my fingers. A bullet. Embedded. In the tin.
Ashjk! The boy was safe.
Safe from me, for the moment. I
smiled, I actually smiled. Then I looked.
“Open
it,” he said. I did. In the tin, with a
little bread, a bird. Tiny, downy, dead. Dead. His
deepest secret.
I looked up. I knew. The
bullet had pierced his heart. Beneath
the mop of tousled hair. Those eyes …
deeper than any curse, any any, any hate. Dark
pools of blood. And there. Right there
something inside me died. |
Untitled by Leanne
Johansson
On the screen of my
mind, I see a film unfold. On the screen of
my mind, I feel it beating – one with my own pulse, and I watch, and I see – and
I know how it feels to view what I view. Untitled,
it remains, for it is my own and mine alone. Only
I know the touch of the whispering colours as they dance across the parade of the thoughts
within; the touch which is unimaginable when absent, unbelievable when present.
With uplifted eyes
I see a child. Her floral dress of innocence
swirls like a snake in the whipped-cream wind. High
on Elsies Peak she stands, larger than life. A
two-dimensional thought world of shadow and silhouette melts into sculptures of being as
the sun is painted on the canvas of the sky. Again,
as always, I look at you, Mr Sky. Your hand
sheltering my eye from the sun bleached force; a range which no man can mark, conquer or
destroy. You ignite the oblivion in which we
are the rainbow slides, piercing strikes and passionate rain.
Behind her physical
body of childish dreams nature’s pond runs rich.
Green sunlit water dapples in between dry, sodden leaves and dancing
reflections shivering. I see an image –
my face … and hers – deeply submerged, fragmented, barely recognisable and yet
it is art – a visual import. Looking at
it now, I do not understand what it is I see.
Although the sun
has risen – risen to conquer, the darkness of Shadow on the Peak trickles, through
cracks, to the valley below and there it seems to remain – to haunt. Sun, when will you rise again, to overcome this
darkness for all time? Your battle is
inevitably already won. The darkness below
knows that this is not his domain.
The child, standing
on her stable rock takes on that of a higher status.
She lifts her arms in worship to exalt the rising sun and lift it further. Her outstretched hands are lost in the eternity
beyond and at this moment in time, infinity is as abundant as the ripples in the crinkled
ocean below. Time, itself, is inexistent. It dare not intrude on her moment, as he knows it
is not his to hold.
Wings outstretched,
scanning the darkness below and worshipping the light above, she is a solitary figure. I can hear the whisper of thoughts not yet fully
formed into words and the rhythm of expectation, not yet the music.
“I can
fly”, she whispers to the feathery wind. “I
will fly,” she tells the expanse beyond, “to you, my sun”. She breathes in deep, her mountain-moving faith
and closing her eyes, she exalts her arms higher. I
am reminded of a similar figure – the one of that on cavalry, and as her head falls
back to allow her worshipped sun to kiss her cheek, I see, superimposed, my cross.
The moon-man grins
as I struggle to reach the light bulb inside me. The
man of might sneers mockingly, as I stretch within my mind to touch the off button, the
pause button, the stop-life-halt-life-time button. He
waits to catch her fall. Can he not see that
I know his glow is illusionary – yet so enticing.
I watch, in
helpless despair, as the slow motion life-film is paraded mockingly before the eyes of my
mind and I see, in agony, as a butterfly kiss of a smile dances ignorantly on her lips
– a picture which exceeds my capacity of vocabulary knowledge and written expression. “I’ll fly to you,” the words are
lost in the wind.
In a step of faith,
her foot leaves the rock, the film pauses, freeze-framed, and then zooms in on her flight. She flies and she soars, and she could reach the
sun, if it was not for the growing of the darkness below.
She falls – downwards.
I see her fall, but
superimposed, a ghost of an image, I see my own fall.
Chains bind my body, but no chains bind my soul. It is free – free to fly – free to move
towards the Son, my God, and yet gravity needs no physical attachment. It transcends the obvious and darkness is its
ally. So, help me God, if where I long to
soar is not my ultimate destination. Help me,
Christ, if I might fall towards the deceptive might.
I long to feel your warmth of sunlight kisses and glittering glory.
The curtain is
drawn. The film remains untitled just as it
began, for it is mine, and only mine. It
needs no name. |
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