Blackstar, star star.

He was our Pierrot. So that we could be brave, and look into the sky at night and be in love with its immensity. We could love the moon and be in ourselves artists of any sort, and be free to be made fun of, and not to be scared to show ourselves as we are inside, full of yearning and colour and sadness and love.

To be close to something beautiful that we can’t explain. To have a place in the world, or the universe, or the fabric of things from the muck as much to the air.

To have grown up listening for the intake of breath on the track as the needle hits the vinyl.

To have had that.

The knowledge that there are others, that it might be possible.

The bravery of the maker of miniatures, who ‘understood that he had travelled a long way from the early days, that he still had far to go, and that, from now on, his life would be difficult and without forgiveness’ and who still carried on because creation what he wanted to do and it was worth it.

To leave with dignity and to leave us with the invitation that he’d given us from the start, you must create (if you want).

February: Rocking out with my big sister

Dancing to Hole’s album with the sea coming to our feet, I became friends with my sister again. With the night stars pinning the sky up above us, we danced off the sharp tequila that had shaken us. We shared headphones and one cassette tape in a cheap walkman. We were still kids then, sort of. We were old enough to drink tequila, but young enough that we didn’t have anyone counting on us. It makes you selfish, being young. It makes you be inside yourself as the centre of your world. It makes looking back from an older age have this filter of wonder, of the strangeness of yourself, of your younger self.

Continue reading

January: Two people

Two people, at not quite their first meeting but coming together out of boredom and as a result of the deliberate steeping of their own hearts in salt, in a squat-style nightclub in East London at the beginning of Spring, will medicate each other’s wounds only partially successfully and, kiss.

Continue reading

September: Remember (guest post)

I’m still working on my dissertation and creative project story fans (as of writing only 2000 words and lots of edits to go). Next month normal service resumes but until then please enjoy this guest post by the very talented Sue Oke. She blogs over at susanmayoke.com. Pop over and say hello!

North to South

It’s the voice I hear first, a baritone with the unmistakable soft edges of a Yoruba accent. We turn at the same time, tentative smiles of recognition blossoming as our eyes meet. And then he’s grinning, wrapping me in bear hug, his enthusiasm temporarily infectious.

‘How are you? How are the children?’

I grab a breath, the rote , ‘We’re fine,’ slips out of my mouth.

He barrels on, ‘And what of Oga?’

Oga… chief… boss… master… he’s using a title to refer to the man who, twenty years ago, used to be my husband.

Continue reading

August: Renew

In July, August and September I have to write a lot to finish my course. Instead of writing new things for my blog I’m going to tart up some old things. An early version of this story appeared in Words With Jam magazine in 2011. Let me know what you think.

We’re Chained

The ice cubes in Ali’s glass made tiny twitches as the vodka melted them. ‘This means something,’ she said, her voice hoarse.

‘I’m sorry?’ I said. My chest ached with the sadness that bore down on my ribs. I wanted to drink, and talk, and not think about the way each second, or gesture or even thought, was a second, gesture and thought further from where you and I had been.

Continue reading

June: EZY7410

I can’t remember much of the flight – its innards if you like. I was told that in Spanish the word migas is for the soft part of bread. The middle part surrounded by the crust. Do we have a word for that? It’s what I need now to describe the missing part of the flight in my mind, or if not missing then out of focus, getting out of the way when I try and look at it. Not that anything happened on the flight. I think. The outsides of the experience I recall. At the boarding gate, waiting for the plane to taxi up to the window. Wondering if the plane would be in a hurry – it was already an hour delayed – and would taxi too quickly, bashing into the window, killing us all or maiming at least/ at worst.

Continue reading

February: The Grand Tour

In this story a young man, older than a boy but not so mature that he would be expected to have as many regrets as he in fact carries around with him, leaves his home town, Hull, for an odyssey he himself cannot see the end of but in which the reader or listener of the story thinks they can predict where his story will take him.

Continue reading

July: Arrival

Schiele, Mother and Child 1908

For weeks her belly as wide as an ocean. It ripples. Time spent checking the packed bag, cleaning the prepared room, folding clothes.

Cooking then eating a curry. Its golden flavour rich rolls around her tongue, and the spiciness brings beads to crown her head, but the ocean is calm. Boiled eggs with crumbling sunlight yolks.

Even the clock ticks slow. Count these moments

before

the clenching. Sea-sickness, a tempest.

Her chair is on its side. There is blood on the towels cleaned just this morning. Thrown to the floor in the room cleaned just this morning. The packed bag stays shut. There is ringing. She screams.

Emerging from the eye of the storm, he arrives squalling.

June: Park Story

Up above, the sky is open blue. Down beneath, the grass is living green. Kelly watches as the smoke from his mouth curls out into the blue. Near to him, in a group to his left, a girl plays bongos. She is wearing a tan fringed jacket. She has feathers in her hair. This morning she gave Kelly a flower. Someone else is playing an acoustic guitar. Maybe it’s Dan, muting the chords with his fat fingers. Reedy voices that have been up all night and into today attempt to keep pace with the stumbling guitar.

Somewhere off to Kelly’s right, away from his people, he can hear the thunk pause thunk of a cricket bat. Spattered clapping. There are families over there. He saw them arrive, before his come-down made him lie-down. The June sun sinks – into Kelly’s face, exposed arms, feet in sandals.

A shadow touches his right leg, nearabout the ankle. Kelly looks.

Continue reading

May: Voyeur

They’ve always been a good-looking couple.

I said, ‘you’ve scrubbed up well,’ to Charlotte when I found her after the ceremony, in the still centre of an eddy of well-wishers.

She smiled. I felt a wash of everything run off her when she smiled, happiness, exhaustion, nervous energy. She smiled with her teeth shut together.

disco

Continue reading