'On Behalf of the Faculty and Staff of Entwhistle Primary' By Tarik Bacchus

 Allison’s herpetological passion is laudable. Please confine it to weekends.

'Leaf After Leaf' by Judy Darley

Root

You’re taking your Government-sanctioned daily exercise in the park when you see her. A woman with cropped, white hair strides towards a small leafed lime tree and halts.

Your brain hisses with shuffling unease about the shrunken job market, your precarious health, the worsening climate emergency, the future…

The woman tips back her head and opens wide. Her long, low cry surges from somewhere deep and guttural. Leaves shiver. Squirrels freeze. A knot of sparrows unravels, stitching surprise against clouds.

Her roar wriggles under your skin. Your anxiety quiets in that moment.

You keep your gaze on her as she lowers her chin, relaxes her shoulders and walks away.

Branch

You want that scream to make a difference. To spread across the city and beyond until everyone’s at it – walking onto park lawns, choosing a tree and allowing negative emotions to soar out.

You envision mental health helplines reporting dips in suicide attempts; police officers recording an all-time low in violent crime.

You picture doctors prescribing weekly ‘let it out’ sessions.

You smile as you stroll.

Arborists will report that the trees absorbing our shrieks are thriving, you decide, and your pace gains a jaunty bounce.

Tree

You emerge from the park onto the dusty roadside that leads home. 

You think of the oak shoot sprouting from an acorn buried by a squirrel. Recently, it put out its first loop-edged leaf. 

Later, when everyone else is asleep and the Milky Way prickles the sky, you kneel in the flowerbed beside the tiny oak. Drawing in a breath of cool, still night air, you lift your face to the stars and open your mouth. You let out every shred of angst until there’s space in your heart for something that feels like hope.

'And So It Begins' by Emma McEvoy

He makes his way across the park, uncertain at first, then gaining purpose once he becomes certain it is her.

A chill runs down her spine when her eyes register this ghost from her past. 

She takes a moment to steady her breathing, chokes back the tears, throws back her shoulders, readying herself for what is to come.

It’s time: for the unpeeling of lies; the unpicking of truths; the untangling of the webs of deceit.

She is mostly to blame.

These are the protective threads she has woven around their lives.

She wanted to save them.

From him.

She crafted a world of delicious oblivion for her daughter.

A universe which was perfect, while it lasted. 

'Taste the High Life' by Jennifer Lai

The weight of a thousand bricks presses against my chest as my lungs clamor for oxygen in the cool, thin air. Days-old deodorant reeks from my pits and forms hardened dark spots on my moisture-wicking shirt. A tattered white helmet smothers my oily obsidian hair loosely jumbled in a low bun by a stretched-out pink scrunchie. My feet, blistered and pruney, plod through calf-high patches of snowy earth in an enervated motion—stomp, stomp, break, stomp, stomp, break—the tempo of which reminds me of stoned karaoke singalongs in abandoned parking lots getting so baked the asphalt sparkled with diamonds. Snow-capped fortresses rise like apparitions towards the angel cake clouds. I am a peppercorn in a pile of salt, a period on a blank sheet of paper. At the summit, sunlight drops toward the horizon. Its backscatter crayons the mountains with swaths of terracotta and mango. The view rouses me like a quad shot latte, and I savor it with a long silence, interrupted only by the whispering wind telling me I am, once again, so very high. 

'The Pocket' by Patricia Akasaka

The pocket used to be on my old skirt. I was 6 and in Japan.

The red skirt Mum bought for my first day at school didn’t have a pocket. She stitched a thick tartan check fabric on it and made an impromptu pocket. I was happy. That made the skirt far classier I thought.

Over the next two decades, it stayed with me. When I grew out of the garment, Mum moved the pocket to a new skirt. It endured many such transfers. I taught myself to sew just so that I can unstitch and stitch the pocket. When the fabric wore thin and looked weak, I embroidered on it to strengthen it. I had a reason to do so. The pocket gave me “gifts”.

The first gift was a lipstick. I didn’t know how, but it was there. I took it out, wore it, looked into the bathroom mirror and then, put it back into my pocket. And then, it disappeared.

The gifts were small. Little pink shells, shiny blue glass beads, and little coins from foreign countries. As I grew older, the gifts changed. The pocket occasionally gave me a cigarette or two. And then there was that one night, when it provided me with a condom. The thing is, I was certain I didn’t put it there myself. Nevertheless, it was a lifesaver. Literally.

When I turned 30, I started hearing voices from the pocket. It talked in different voices. Sometimes a young woman and sometimes a little child and I started putting things into it. Things like—a condom.

I’m drinking coffee now in a tunic with an old tartan pocket. A little dandelion flower just dropped out of it. I smile. In return I put coins into the pocket for that girl age7.

'A decade of growing and learning together' by Kristina Thornton

 Nose to nipple, you focus on not falling asleep.

 

Covering hard edges and locking cupboards from wobbly legs.

 

You cut toast into QUARTERS and give him milk in the RED cup.

 

‘Share! There’s plenty of toys.’

 

Welling up at the little white shirt and emblem jumper.

 

‘What did you have for lunch?’

‘Don’t know,’ he shrugs.

 

You listen to his football, cycling and gaming monologues.

 

He tells you disgusting facts, ‘when mummifying, Ancient Egyptians pulled brains out through noses!’

 

At the gates, you reach out.

‘Bye, Mum.’

 

‘Is Santa real?’

You explain.

He cries, then asks about the tooth fairy

Catching the Ferry to Work by Suzanne Bajor

 

Artwork by Suzanne Bajor

The mooring creaks its aggravation. Groaning, its echo’s a strain on the piling as it rebels against the tide.
Illusion emerges:
The rope uncoils like a viper rising from its basket and ricochet’s skywards. Swirling uncontrollably, it spins off its crutch; we duck to avoid the strike of a perilous whip.
Fear develops:
The gangway releases – a clatter resonates as it hits the floor. With scarves around faces like cartoon robbers, we advance for a place of shelter. Wind lashes, spray blows, the footway heaves and sways with the pull of the swell.
Terror progresses:
Gangway slips from the side – crashing into the sea. We are scraps scraped off a chopping board, tumbling into the murky river that lurks in the unending black beneath.
Reality returns:
Lurching away from the landing stage the surf throws up a stench of engine oil to invading our lungs. With a gasp of sea air that stifles the throat, we make it safely on board. Gazing back at the skyline; angst wanes.

'What do you want to do that for?' by Lynda McMahon

 

I always wanted to be an artist. Paints, brushes, blank paper infused with possibility.

     “What do you want to do that for?”

     Such incredulity at my audacity.

     “People like us don’t do that.”

     I didn’t know what to do with the paints I collected. I was afraid to ‘spoil’ them.

     “Don’t waste them!” Another anthem to my days.

      “Don’t mix things up!”

     I collected paints and they collected dust. Until, one day, I began to look, really look at artists’ paint boxes. They were messy. They’d got paints overflowing into each other and their once pristine, white mixing pans were used, unwashed, experimental. A riot of ‘dont’s’. All I had to do was pick up a brush, dip it in water and fill it with paint.

     “You’ve always been artistic,” they said.

'Flash Walk' by Amanda Davies

Here is a picture of St Davids Cathedral in Pembrokeshire. St Davids is the smallest city in Wales, and indeed the U.K.  This was the city where I grew up. I still live in Pembrokeshire but 25 miles away in the more industrial part of the county.

There are only 3 clocks  on the tower as legend states the people who faced that part of the building refused to contribute to the cost of putting a click face there.

In the background, towards the left is the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace.

If you ever visit ask a local resident where the devils footprints are. Most will know, especially if they had an awesome childhood like I did.

'Recognising might on a plastic step' by R.J. Kinnarney

 

They all do it – unthinking, hand up, pat my knee and move on. Those tall boys. I’m not sure how they grow them so tall these days. Folk used to say that you needed to go into the street and stand in some horse manure if you wanted to grow. There’s no horse manure in the streets now – it’s all fast cars and exhaust fumes.

The staircase is filled with their noise, clattering, chatting, yelling – each one shouting over the next, their volume inversely proportional to their confidence. Insecurity hidden under a pile of sports caps and badges.

This one, though, he’s different. He has barely grown since the Lower Fourth. Always last to be picked for teams, always trailing behind. A tiny turtle of a boy, his rucksack of books providing shelter and home. We’ve sat in companionable silence for hours – sometimes he’d break it, whisper his concerns – and I’d listen, giving him room to speak, letting him fill the vast hallway.

Out of the rucksack shell, he pulls his yellow folding step – it goes everywhere with him, lifts him to the highest stack in the library, helps him drag his heavy winter coat from its peg, gives him a better view from the stands. He sets the step in front of me and climbs onto it. He touches my left knee, shiny and bright from the thousands of hands which have grazed it over the years. It’s become a piece of folklore. Patting the founder’s knee is supposed to bring them luck on their journey out of boyhood. This boy, though, holds my knee, all the while looking deep into my bronze eyes. This boy needs no luck, he needs no fake badges of confidence.

He towers above them all.