CreativityIssue three

Photo, Art and Words by Cardiff Students

Editor Megan KingSub editors Sarah Pritchard

Anna Grudeva

Photography and artwork Sarah Pritchard Graphic Design Anna GrudevaProof readers Morgan Applegarth Laura Amey Emma Feloy Sarah Powell

Cover by Nat Hills

'Couple 'by Tom Armstrong

'Roath Park' by Chris Griffiths

'Beautiful Rose'

by Nat Hills

A word from the editor

Welcome to the Autumn edition of Creativity. After being published in and involved with the magazine last year, I was delighted to take up the post of editor. It has been a pleasure to witness fi rst hand the immense talent of Cardiff Uni-versity students, and not just those studying the subjects you would expect. Alongside students of Journalism, English Literature and all the oth-er usual suspects have been Chemists, Lawyers and even a Zoologist. Creativity is not restricted to those you would think would put pen to pa-per or pick up a camera. Anyone and everyone can create and it is a delight to see people taking time out from their usual studies to act on their creative impulses. The range and quality of work made it near impossible to narrow down the en-tries to those you will see in the magazine. So it seems fi tting to take a moment to say thank you to all those who made the effort to submit. It is never an easy thing for a writer, artist or photog-rapher to expose their work to criticism and I am grateful that so many took the plunge.

I hope you enjoy this third issue of Creativity. If anything printed over the next 30 pages stays with you, affects you or even inspires you, we’ve done our job properly.

Megan King N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 0

'St Fagan's' by Poti Chao

Photograph ‘Brighton’ by Ian Smith

He h

ad th

is m

ap, a

hug

e map

, cur

led

at t

he e

dges

. It

smel

t lik

e th

e se

a an

d le

ft m

y ha

nds

dry

whe

n I

ran

them

acr

oss

its b

read

th. M

erm

aids

co

mbi

ng o

ut th

eir h

air l

ooke

d pa

st

me,

drea

min

g, a

nd g

iant

fi sh

, hal

f an

inc

h lo

ng,

curv

ed o

ut o

f th

e in

ky w

aves

. He

told

me

he w

as a

n ex

plor

er. H

e to

ld m

e th

at m

y ha

ir w

as g

old

as d

eser

t sa

nd d

unes

in

the

sun,

that

my

eyes

wer

e br

ight

er

than

the

pom

egra

nate

see

ds,

that

m

y lip

s wer

e re

dder

than

the

rubi

es

of th

e ric

hest

sul

tans

and

my

skin

, as

sof

t as

Chi

nese

silk

. I

begg

ed

him

to ta

ke m

e w

ith h

im s

oon,

to

take

me

away

to se

e th

e w

orld

. And

he

pro

mise

d.

His

hand

s w

ere

roug

h, c

atch

ing

on m

y cl

othe

s an

d sk

in a

s he

un-

dres

sed

me,

a sa

il in

the

win

d.H

e w

as in

a h

urry

to b

e on

his

way

, ru

shin

g ou

t the

bac

k do

or, h

ands

in

pock

ets a

nd a

whi

stle

on

his b

row

n lip

s, st

ill h

ot. A

s I sa

t at t

he d

ress

er,

brus

hing

out

the

knot

s he

’d le

ft in

th

e w

aves

of

my

hair,

I s

aw h

e’d

left

his m

ap to

o.

And

his

wal

let;

so m

uch

for

the

high

seas

, tur

ns o

ut h

e w

as a

bui

ld-

er fr

om B

rack

nell.

Wife

, thr

ee k

ids.

I du

g ou

t th

e A

-Z f

or s

ome

real

di

rect

ions

and

soo

n fo

und

mys

elf

knoc

king

at h

is do

or.

My

hand

s w

ere

wrin

kled

whe

n I

left,

leav

ing

him

fac

e do

wn

in h

is ba

th.

All

that

spl

ashi

ng h

ad r

e-m

inde

d m

e I g

et se

a-sic

k an

yway

.

Han

nah

Cad

dick

Sailo

r

Whispers at the bedroom door, scratching of a latch being undressed. Sanguine eyes

flinch as intense white pricks my blindness. Shifting silhouettes eclipse hostile light, merge

into the blackness of my prison. I sit up - feeble, breathless, aching. Fat drops

of sweat creep across my face, and linger on my nose and cheeks, wrapping my head in

wet ribbons. A man with a thin moustache sits on my bed, disturbs precious silence

with unfamiliar man-tones. Impenetrable mur-murs. Who is this? My distress is cooled by the

silver radiance of Mum’s soft voice: It’s his chest, doctor.

Croup

The man with the moustache nods then reaches

into a special bag – he says - to make me better. He unearths a dangly,

three-legged creature and inserts its narrow limbs in his

ears. I feel the wet chill

of metal on my chest as he listens

to my laboured wheeze.

His hairy palm, placed on my forehead, recoilsscalded. The man turns to Mum and makes noises I can’t decipher. I can seeother shadows gathered around my bed,spectators in this clammy amphitheatre.My tongue is hard, unmoving. When I speak words sound distant, clanging like a coin dropped down an empty staircase. Mum is given a small box and told three times a day.

Then, a kiss on my cheek: delicate, sooth-ing. My mind unbuttons, slips casually into dreams of dark, faceless shapes. I feel a shift of weightAs the blurry spectres move from the bedside and drift out, hauntingly, into unreal moon-light.

Richard Gills

Hand by Rhyn Williams

Photograph ‘Uganda’ by Megan Cumberlidge

Mem

ory

Whi

le I

was

hed

my

face

toda

yI f

elt y

our c

heek

bone

s ben

eath

my

skin

-T

he F

ox h

eirlo

om,

still

clo

aked

in so

ftnes

s

In m

y sis

ter’s

ele

ganc

e I s

eeyo

u da

ncin

g in

sepi

a sh

ades

,Sp

inni

ng u

s you

r sto

ries

In m

agno

lia so

apsu

ds

Yet w

hen

the

fog

rises

up

and

the

fi lm

shift

s in

the

reel

sYo

u ar

e on

ly a

girl

And

the

war

is d

istan

t

Ffi o

n Li

ndsa

y

Tiger BayFather was always proud that we were known to handle more coal through the Bay than New York or Boston. He’d take me down to the docks in the day to see the steamships and show me the ship-ping line marks on their funnels; The Peninsular Steam Navigation Company, The Great Western Steamship Company, The White Star Line. Stand-ing on Mermaid Quay tonight the only boats I can see are piddling dinghies anchored in the mudfl ats. Childish little names; ‘Aquaholic’, ‘Lucky Sperm’, ‘Vitamin Sea’. Sailed by wealthy businessmen of course; on Sundays, once or twice around the Bay, or they bring their wives for ‘drinks on the yacht’ where they sit huddled together in mackintoshes while the rain drips into their drinks and eventually retreat to the coffee shops to dry off. The Bay is full now, even at night. Stepping from the Quay I pass couples walking to and from the restaurants and bowling alleys, laughing together hand in hand. The men huddle into hoods while the women’s chattering voices jar my ears. They wear tiny skirts that show off ample thighs and are growing be-draggled in the rain – none had thought to bring a coat to warm themselves. People never used to dare to walk here.Tiger Bay, was what it was always called. Father said it was because of the fi erce currents in the Bristol channel; ‘raging’ he’d say after a night in the Cap-tain’s Table, a real peril to ships hauling coal out to sea. But Mother said wryly that it had more to do with the Bay itself; drunken sailors rolling through the docks with money burning holes in their pock-ets – just paid off – and by the end of the night would have lost it all to some whore’s apron, or a cunning little slit in a thief ’s jacket. They never even stayed long enough to see justice done for the crimes. A child in the crowd that had been quiet till now; walking along with its chubby fi st clasped in its mother’s hand looks up and sees me. It stares frown-ing, then takes a long look up at its parent, wonder-ing why she looks at me so blankly, as though I am not there. The dockers didn’t notice me either in this spot, just another child, boots clattering as she ran down Bute West Dock to bring lunch to her fa-

ther. The place was great hulking warehouses then. When I peer up now at the buildings – squinting through dark fl ames all I see are bizarre shapes, to me a steel tube, a hulking insect, a tall hat. Only the Norwegian Church seems the same – built for the sailors of the Norwegian Merchant Fleet – though it has moved too – right across the Bay. It was my world then; all the little nooks and cran-nies that only a child can fi nd that made dens for me and my playmates. This is not my world now. I cannot remember when it stopped being mine – though I remained after the ships cast away; the likes of the Fair Rita and the Heart of Salford never to return. Those dockers left or aged and died. As did my husband – crushed under that load in the hold of the Pride of Kent in 1887 - my children, both married and long gone. Sometimes I wonder if it was time I left it too – let the fl ames that are always at the edge of my vision consume me and bear me away to somewhere quite different. Wait here; the meanest spirit barely clinging to its haunt-ing ground for another hundred and twenty years; see how bizarre everything will be by that time. But then again, perhaps not.

Catriona Camacho

'Old Leigh' by Ian Smith

A sy

naps

e sp

iral s

tairc

ase,

imag

es te

ase

Unt

il I t

urn

- eac

h on

e a

self-

defe

atin

g ha

bit

I str

uggl

e to

unl

earn

.A

nd ju

st a

s I k

now

that

eac

h th

ough

t, ea

ch im

age

that

I fi n

dIs

not

hing

but

a fo

rm fo

r all

the

form

less

in m

y m

ind-

I kno

w e

xact

ly w

hat I

fear

.

Dav

e Sp

ittle

One

Tho

ught

A

nd A

noth

er

Photograph ‘Red Riding’ by Tom Armstrong

Keep away, that’s what they told me. There’s certain people (if we can call them that, they said) that are to be kept at arm’s reach, as if red fl ashing lights of sense and reason fl are up instantaneously when you meet one of those sorts. The lights warn you, stop you in your tracks, keeping you safe and warm in a land of cosy familiarity. But, if it were ever safe at all, that cosiness for certain doesn’t feel warm any more. It feels heartless, cold, brutal.‘I’ve never met anyone like you before.’ It’s not ex-actly a chat-up line, though he and I are at the bar, shoulders touching. I don’t say it. What kind of a thing is that to say? He’s young-faced, early twen-ties perhaps, with clear brown eyes of the sort that look like they’ve never closed to the world: alert, but affectionate, patient. His hair falls in ruffl ed dark waves around the crown of his head; its the look of a gypsy, a musician; a Romantic.What I did say, at fi rst, was ‘You look sad, mate’, hoping that my Northern tones were sounding more kind than threatening. That wasn’t exactly a textbook chat-up line either, not that I was aiming to fl irt. In case he hasn’t heard, over the heavy bass all around us, I pull down the corners of my mouth to indicate sadness, like a child’s parody of a clown in tears. He’s silent. I feel totally ridiculous. How could I think he’d want to talk to me? Why would a complete stranger be interesting to him? He’s in-teresting to me, though. A moment’s hesitancy, and then he looks at me, searching as if for some hid-den clue. I feel that he looks irrationally nervous, while he’s looking at my face, my eyes, my arms,

elbows, veins... As if my eyes hold some secret, he catches my gaze for an instant, perhaps more, and then pulls up his sleeve, half roughly, half with caution, as though dealing with a wild animal that’s just beginning to be tamed. As his sleeve pushes past his elbow, I can’t help but register my surprise at what I see. A bandage-like structure is holding a jutting chemical feeder into his veins, the whole thing fl ashing traffi c-light red, an ominous, obvi-ous glow in the hazy blue-lasered hall. Methadone, or buprenorphine perhaps, is being fed into you, a faint shadow of what came before. Blankly, or with anxious numbness- I can’t tell which- the recover-ing heroin addict looks at me again. I don’t want to think of you like that, though. Not primarily anyway. Primarily, could you please just be another person? I reach out to touch you and feel that you’re trem-bling, only next morning realising its because of the damage to your central nervous system, and not out of fear. In fact, you don’t seem afraid any more. Now that I’m examining your needle wounds with almost scientifi c curiosity, you seem to realise that I’m not out to judge you. I’m fascinated by you, but not just as a different specimen. There’s fascina-tion too for what makes us similar, what makes us human, and I fi nd myself stroking your arm gen-tly like a mother nursing her child’s grazed knee. I’m in awe of you somehow, for what you’ve been through, and how you are now; the difference per-haps like living in a cave and then suddenly discov-ering sunlight, coming out groggily, all bleary-eyed,

Red Flashing Lights

heart unfi nished. I wonder what dark days you’ve had...Already, at twenty-three, twenty-four perhaps, re-covering from addictions I couldn’t imagine in my wildest nightmares? Who were you? What was your life like before then? I can imagine your girlfriend, long gone now. She fell in love with the dreamer, the risk-taker, the liberated one. All good things, all beautiful qualities, like luscious tree-lined avenues that could lead to the highest heights or the low-est lows. The highs came, undoubtedly. There’s no denying... but the lows...? I wonder if, numb, affec-tionless, you tried, you really tried with her, but you were like a clawed hand, that when it tried to em-brace, to draw close, just maimed, wounded, and in turn, in frustration, was abandoned. And like that did she leave? With no note, saddened at the man who had long gone, missing him even while she lay for the last time cold in his arms.So strange to think that Humanity can be backed against the wall, beaten bloody, by a mere chemical, a substance. The power they have to reach inside, and, after feeling expansive, unifying, promoting the best in all we feel, all we are, they wither and give way to a darker power. Humanity is rendered small, useless, as it’s kicked about under the mas-tery of the come-down. Imaginations smeared, personalities wasted. Weeks and months spent in bleak half-light. Was that what it was like for you?

All these thoughts, these imaginings, in just a few seconds, and I’m shocked to fi nd you still here, a real person right in front of my eyes. I don’t know what I want to say to you, so it’s all ‘good luck, mate’ and ‘all the best, like’. Crazy thoughts fl ash through my head at all the possible things I could say to put across how much I want to help you.

People used to tell me that God could fi x anyone. Not the same people that told me to keep away from ‘those sorts’. Anyone?

What I do know for certain is that I want to give you more than I could ever be capable of giving: a new beginning, a mind that’s not been thrashed about, or a mind that’s been healed up at least. Could your mind be again a blank canvas, graffi ti-less, clean of the abuse that you, and others, perhaps, have dealt it over the years?

You’re looking at me again. Am I as interesting to you as you are to me? - Not only because I’m ‘clean’, I’m relatively unscathed, but because I’m simply another human being? Are you drawn to our similarities, as much as our differences, as much as I am in you? Some would say you’re not human any more, and maybe there are times when you were like the living dead, but that makes me feel sorrow, compassion, in far greater amounts than any sort of moral disgust. The idea of a mutated humanity, crawling backwards to survive like some anti-evo-lutionary phenomenon, decapitating ourselves with a non-stop onslaught of feeling, sensation, experi-ence, is ugly, yes, but tragic, tragic.

Claire Finnegan

'Autumn Lights' by Nat Hills

'Love' by Rebecca Condon Hogg

Can

I in

tere

st y

ou in

hap

pine

ss, M

adam

? T

hat p

ause

s he

r. St

raig

htw

ay I

follo

ws

thro

ugh

with

a g

rin o

f ge

nuin

e go

od

hum

our,

just

so

she

know

s I’m

no

Hol

y Jo

e. If

she

mov

es

to sh

ut th

e do

or, I

’ll sa

y so

met

hing

like

‘Did

you

kno

w b

lue

lens

es w

ere

used

to tr

eat i

nsan

ity a

nd y

ello

w o

nes,

syph

ilis?

’ If

she’s

surp

rised

into

mak

ing

eye

cont

act,

I’m in

.Lo

nely

ladi

es a

re e

asie

st. U

nder

activ

e ho

usew

ives

bur

ied

in

subu

rban

sar

coph

agi –

they

’re d

ying

for

it. W

e ar

e pl

ease

d to

obl

ige,

mes

am

is.O

ver a

cup

pa, I

do

a bi

t of

a de

mo.

A s

tripe

of

fron

t win

-do

w, m

aybe

, lo

okin

g ou

t on

to t

he s

hade

s-of

-gre

y st

reet

. M

adam

is

alw

ays

amaz

ed :

“E

very

thin

g se

ems

so d

iffer

-en

t….m

uch

brig

hter

….su

ch a

pre

tty p

ictu

re.”

In th

e Tr

ade,

we

call

this

a ‘fo

rcib

le s

hift

in p

ersp

ectiv

e.’ “

Your

s w

ill b

e th

e pr

ivile

ge o

f se

eing

all

thin

gs th

roug

h ro

se-ti

nted

gla

ss,”

I pro

mise

.T

he T

hink

ers,

like

Hel

en, h

esita

te. T

hey

sens

e se

ntim

enta

l-ity

, naiv

ety,

even

stu

pidi

ty in

a c

andy

-fl os

s co

lour

ed b

ack

gard

en. “

No,

no,

no,

my

love

.” I

am

all

reas

sura

nce.

“Thi

s is

just

a te

chni

que

for s

eein

g th

ings

diff

eren

tly. B

ette

rly. A

n op

port

unity

to tr

ansf

orm

your

wor

ld a

nd m

ake

it as

vib

rant

as

you

r de

sires

.” T

hey

all s

ign

up, e

ven

Hel

en. T

hey

wan

t th

e w

onde

r. T

hey

crav

e th

e jo

y of

redi

scov

ery.

Hel

en, h

ere,

wen

t the

who

le h

og, a

s you

can

see.

Win

dow

s. C

onse

rvat

ory.

Car

win

dscr

een,

eve

n th

e ca

rava

n –

fore

ver-

mor

e w

as h

er h

olid

ays r

emem

bere

d w

ith a

love

ly, ro

sy g

low.

Pa

ssin

g ne

ighb

ours

beg

an t

o w

ave

back

, pl

easa

ntly

sur

-pr

ised

by th

e w

arm

th o

f H

elen

’s liv

ing-

room

spie

d th

roug

h th

e blu

shed

bay

-win

dow.

Mor

e ofte

n th

an n

ot, t

hey s

topp

ed

in fo

r a

coff

ee…

inev

itabl

y be

com

ing

links

in o

ur ‘R

ecom

-m

end

a Fr

iend

’ cha

in.

Like

I sa

id, H

elen

was

a T

hink

er. S

he so

on re

alise

d th

e po

s-sib

ilitie

s of

a lif

etim

e’s su

pply

of

our S

olut

ion.

One

look

at

hers

elf

in a

tre

ated

mirr

or c

onvi

nced

her

how

won

derf

ul

she

was

, how

muc

h po

tent

ial s

he h

ad. “

Nic

k, m

ake

it la

st

fore

ver.

I wan

t it e

very

whe

re.”

Tha

t, m

y fi n

e fe

llow

s, is

the

Poin

t of

Sale.

Wai

t for

it. W

atch

for

it. B

e re

ady

with

the

Con

tract

.N

ow, t

urni

ng to

the

last

cha

pter

in th

e m

anua

l : C

lient

Cau

-tio

ns. ‘

It is

our

eth

ical

obl

igat

ion

to in

form

you

, Mad

am, o

f th

e fo

llow

ing:

1.W

hen

in lo

ve o

r w

antin

g to

be

in lo

ve, w

hilst

wea

ring

rose

-col

oure

d le

nses

, red

fl ag

s can

not b

e se

en.

2.A

yres

Roc

k w

ill b

e in

visib

le, a

s too

the

Nor

ther

n Li

ghts.

3.Su

nbur

n ca

n ea

sily

occu

r with

out y

ou re

alisi

ng it

and

4.Sn

ow w

ill a

ppea

r blo

odsh

ot.’

Gen

tlem

en,

you’

ll re

ceiv

e fu

ll tra

inin

g in

disp

ensin

g th

e sp

ecta

cles

, whi

ch is

the

fi rst

leve

l of

perm

anen

t Tra

nsfi g

u-ra

tion.

The

Mar

k is

allo

wed

a f

ortn

ight

’s tri

al p

erio

d. I

t’s

only

fair.

Tw

o w

eeks

of

bein

g tic

kled

pin

k w

ithou

t obl

iga-

tion,

and

a la

st c

hanc

e to

ret

urn

to t

he m

onoc

hrom

e of

re

ality

. How

ever

, in

my

expe

rienc

e, it’

s too

late

. By

then

, she

is

hook

ed o

n ha

ppin

ess a

nd y

our c

omm

issio

n is

in th

e ba

g.O

ur E

xper

ts a

pply

the

Fina

l Sol

utio

n di

rect

ly to

the

lens

in

her e

yeba

lls. A

t the

sam

e tim

e, th

ey e

xtra

ct th

e ag

reed

pric

e, th

e qu

id p

ro q

uo -

stra

ight

out

thro

ugh

the

pupi

ls or

, as w

e ca

ll th

em in

the

Trad

e, ‘T

he W

indo

ws t

o th

e So

ul’.

In c

oncl

usio

n, I

wou

ld li

ke y

ou t

o se

e H

elen

, bef

ore

and

afte

r. Yo

u w

ill n

otic

e th

at in

this

pict

ure,

she

is sm

iling

.

Lind

a V

icke

rs

Col

our B

linds

Photograph ‘Wow at the waterfront’ by Joel Meredith

Pamper by Richard Jones

Love BitesBite my lip and close my eyes.It was- it was-Interesting… I guess…Kind of funny looking back but now… nowIt hurts and I hurt and I can’t- I can’tkid myself any more. I can’t have you and I never had you and I’ll never have you and-You’ll never know-That when I went I closed my eyes and bit my lip and thought of you-And prayed you’d never know. No. No more- puckered skin and painful kisses- Teeth gnashing at sumptuous fl esh-Sweet - sanguine - saccharine.Pinned down and torn apart-This slick sinewy corpus-This pretty mess of blood and bone and - Tear out my hair and scratch and scram and scream!For acrid air - Rid this crimson mouth Of bitter metallic silence-Release me from me. Please? Abrasive hands tattoo white skin-Violet spots- the stain of sin-But I’ll never belong to him. I was always yours.The “nicest girl you’ve ever met”.Bite me.

Rosie Gleeson

Woman by Ibifagha Cookey

They told him his mother had gone to the sea. Not that she had walked into the waves, with diamonds at her throat and stones in her pockets. All they told him was that his mother had gone to the sea: white lies for a plump face and a pair of guileless eyes. He had lived in dreams for many years after her death: gone down to the small inlet she had vanished from, thinking he could hear his mother’s voice within the crooning of the waves; or spied a loose coil of ocean weed like a mermaid’s tress, as dark as her hair had ever been. His child-self thought she lived in the sea like a fi sh. But that had only ever elicited silences and frowns, heavy words about things called counsellors and psychia-trists. And they had all said, he’ll go the same way as his mother yet. He had met with coolly-sympathetic men. Men that were back-dropped by diagrams of the human brain hung on cream walls. They asked questions, played these strange games, and his eyes had shuttered, uncaring of how they tutted when he told them their messy prints merely looked like ink splodges. He spent the sessions wonder-ing how his mother passed her time living in the sea: if she went about collecting pearls with mermaids or riding waves with the whales. There was no closure to her death. It hadn’t been death at all to his child-self. He hadn’t seen the parts of her pale, bloated body fi shed out of the water, named for the distinctive birthmark on her throat and the secrets her teeth seemed to tell them.Now, he understood. There was that frail, sun-bleached day when crimson had bloomed like roses from her wrists and as a child he had thought that one tear of her skin would let the petals all gush up from her insides. But at that time the bloom had stolen the colour from her and he had only cried before the men in white coats took her away. Rushed her to a room that he would visit every Saturday morning for a few weeks in February, when the sea was its coldest: iron-grey beyond the windows, bat-tling up against the cliffs and bays. She had dressed up in diamonds when she went to the sea and he had known those diamonds; often touched his fi ngers to the jewels as they lay haughtily upon her dresser, beside the slivered hairpins and trinkets, the little bottles that held the tablets she would force down before bedtime. All the women in his family had owned the diamonds, vestiges of some ostentatious ancestor who had wanted them to sit prettily about her throat when she went into the ground. But they had never adorned the stem of her decaying neck, the woman’s daughter taking them up instead when the old woman passed, to be left in the velvet-lined, lily-inlaid case and never worn. With him, the feminine ritual of acting as caretaker of the jewels had come to an end – small boy-child prom-ised useless diamonds to remember a mother by – and he often wondered what had possessed the authorities when

the diamonds were left to him. How they could take them from his mother’s neck, where they had gripped the fl esh like a decadent noose, and then easily place them into a mourning child’s hands. He kept them hidden nowadays, buried in a chest in the farthest reach of his attic, trapped in their velvet-lined, lily-inlaid case. Only once did they make an appearance, the day he abandoned the house by the sea for one fur-ther inland, to share with his new wife. She had found them among a clutter of things he would have preferred to keep forgotten and he hadn’t liked it when she said the diamonds were beautiful, or asked what woman had worn them. And even though she could have never known what the diamonds signifi ed, he had still punished her with a bruising silence for days. He emerged into a dusty twilight as he hauled himself through the mouth in the ceiling, to the attic, feeling the purpose beat beneath his breastbone almost as a second heart. The dark chest sat heavily in one corner, spider-webbed and old, and he moved towards it, lifting the lid to fi nd the scatter of a life before his mother had gone to the sea: tatty photographs and a collection of sea shells and the lily-inlaid case beneath an image of his mother, staring out over their garden towards the cliffs. There was a little madness in him as he pocketed the diamonds and left the house for his car and turning the machine towards the South. Towards the sea. The gulls led him away from where he parked his car, up the scraggy turf and chalk-strewn earth, to the lip of the cliff, where only a fall of four hundred feet and the sea a murky grey-green groped beyond. But he wanted to wait for darkness, for the silver eye of the moon to gaze down impassively, ice him right to the bone, so he only looked silently at the land about him. He looked down the reach of the cliff and wondered what it would be like to jump. Whether his body would glide down the coast like a fi sh afterwards or if the tide would idly lap at him down there until the chaplains came and found him. He found himself intrigued by the quality of death, the physicality of it. That all those obscene secrets inside himself could be on display for the south coast of Eng-land if he jumped. If he chose the sea, like his mother had. But he was not here to jump. He rested his hand upon the diamonds and brought them up out of his pocket, lifting them until they fl ashed in the light. Then, acting between one creep of the tide and the next, he drew a chilled breath deep into his lungs, curved his arm behind him and sent the diamonds hurtling from his hand, staring until distance and water swallowed them away. ‘My mother has gone to the sea, the sea, my mother has gone to the sea.’ He sang as he looked down into the gulf, like a rhyme he could fi nd no meaning in.

Sinead Rooney

Stories from the Sea

'Pier'

by Jacqui Brooks

'Untitled' by Harry Sutton

Anc

hor

Your

blo

od is

salin

e, I’m

sure

.O

n th

at d

ull p

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at b

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outh

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Tham

es,

tast

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lls’ h

arsh

cal

ls.

You

mar

ried

Mum

, had

two

child

ren.

Post

ed to

a fr

ozen

isla

nd;

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alf

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year

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lean

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relis

hed

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spra

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bitte

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um c

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in th

e ki

tche

n.

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rese

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sea;

refu

sed

to sw

im.

Nam

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ter t

hat d

row

ned

hero

ine:

Rebe

cca.

Fate

ful;

at fi

ve y

ears

old

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ean

tried

to c

laim

me

for i

ts o

wn.

Wav

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king

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ine

in m

y no

se.

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evon

, you

bou

ght a

rick

ety

boat

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ree-

hour

driv

e to

the

moo

ring,

an

d I w

as y

our u

nwill

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crew

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ged

me

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wat

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grin

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ppoi

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you

.

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atch

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a.I h

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old

dept

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low

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feet

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er le

arnt

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im; t

oo a

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the

wat

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I thi

nk M

um’s

spite

at t

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eep

gloo

mse

eped

into

the

fl uid

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her

w

omb.

I’m

sorr

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ad. I

t’s n

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ou d

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I am

my

mot

her’s

dau

ghte

r.

Reb

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Per

t

Photograph ‘Bay’ by Chris Griffi ths

Newcastle by Tom Armstrong

It was one of those sleepy Sunday afternoons when nothing really happens and that, in itself, is wonderful. Alys and Daisy were both lying in the back garden, young faces turned towards the pink blossoms of the apple tree above them.“If you could be any day of the week, which would it be?”“Oh, I don’t know” sighed Daisy “Friday, I sup-pose.”“Yes?” Alys didn’t sound surprised. “And why is that?”“Hmm…because everyone loves Friday”“Would you like to be loved by everyone?”Daisy frowned. The conversation was suddenly getting too deep for such a languid summer’s day.“What sort of fruit would you most like to be?”“Grapes” Alys didn’t pause to think “Although they get turned into raisins and wine, don’t they? I don’t suppose I would very much fancy bring dried until shrivelled. Or squished, for that matter.”“I think I should rather enjoy being an avocado”Alys pushed herself up on her elbows to look down at her friend who was smiling dreamily up at the clouds.“Very few people know that avocados are fruit at all. I would like being so unusual and exotic.”“A shame” her companion said dryly “That you are neither”Daisy merely shrugged. It was far too hot to argue over the matter and Alys would only win, anyway, as she had a tendency to do. “If I was a tree, I do think I’d like to be an elm. They have such lovely fl owers this time of year”When Daisy fi nally ventured inside, Alys’ mother was sitting at the kitchen table with her own. This was not terribly unusual; their mother’s tended to enjoy a cup of tea together while their daughters spent hours outside, but today was different. It was as though something heavy hung in the room, mak-ing the warm summer’s day seem suddenly cold. “Mammy?” Daisy approached the table nervously.“Not now, darling. Why don’t you take Alys up to your room, hmm?”Her companion’s face screwed up. “But that’s so BORING! Can’t we go down to the shops?”“Alys!” With one word, the child was silenced. The power Mrs. Jenkins held over her daughter never ceased to amaze Daisy. Her best friend she may be, but Alys was insolent to just about everyone. Even teachers. But NEVER her mother.“Oh fi ne! Come on, Daisy!” stomping petulantly out of the room, Alys made it as far as the stair-case where she took a seat. “Sit down. You know, the only reason they want us out of the room is because they are talking about something interest-ing. Come on. SIT! Don’t you want to know what it is?!”Daisy sat down next to her best friend. Her dole-ful eyes were refl ected in her patent shoes as she hugged her knees to her chest. The conversation

between their mothers soon picked up again.“All I’m saying on the matter is that her life is ru-ined. What man would want her now? And what a reputation.”“Our Ffi on’s age,” tusked Betsan Jenkins. “And your Lily’s! Can you imagine?”“Don’t say such things,” Megan said wearily, as though the conversation itself exhausted her. “She’s just got herself a cracking little job as an ap-prentice to Mrs. Evans. You know, the old dear that runs the wedding shop?”“How lovely!” sighed Betsan. “Our Ffi on is so fl ighty…I think she still has her heart set on Uni-versity, you know.”“Well, Cardiff is very good.”“I suppose. And at least she’d still be in the coun-try. To isn’t happy about it all, as you can imagine. Keeps going on about how neither of us holds a degree and we’re both just fi ne”“I wonder what that silly chit will be doing with herself now?”“Keeping it I’ve heard. Her poor mother. Devout Catholic. In church three times a week. Sunday school teacher and all.”“You can’t imagine the shame though, can you? And him, a married man!”“Not just that, but her art teacher! It’s complete-ly misusing his position…Ooh, it makes my skin crawl just to think of it!”Alys looked at Daisy and raised an eyebrow. Daisy shrunk back into herself. She didn’t know what was going on, but disliked her mother’s tone. It was the same one she’d used when her big brother Dylan announced he was moving to London for a girl he’d met when they went over the border to watch the Rugby. Daisy still squirmed to think of the con-frontation.“Why can’t she come and live here?”“Because, Mam, all her family is over there!”“And yours, you dwp boy? What of your family, eh?” Her father’s gruff voice had accused.“Nothing EVER happens here! At least in London I feel alive!”“Ha! Give it six months and we’ll see” Daisy always felt they were a little too hard on him that night. The day he left, she couldn’t stop crying. Merthyr was their home and always had been. It was a little country in its own right where everything and everyone was familiar. Why anyone would ever want to leave was something she couldn’t under-stand at all. People didn’t DO these things unless they had been bad. Your family was your family, same as your neighbours were your neighbours. It was the way it was. It was the way it always would be.

Aimee Wigley

Daisy Chain

Laza

rus L

ove

Han

dleb

ars a

re m

onke

y ba

rsW

hen

nails

are

bitt

en a

nd si

ghs h

eave

d fi t

for

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antic

s and

dru

nks a

nd tr

avel

lers

and

liar

s.T

he ro

ad w

ants

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s not

soul

s, no

t tea

rs b

ut ty

res.

So h

ang

off

your

han

dleb

ars a

nd k

eep

star

ting

fi res

And

strip

the

plas

tic o

ff m

ilk v

ans a

nd b

uses

Like

indu

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cers

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icle

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ddin

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brui

sing.

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ac is

win

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rk b

ut it

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ot th

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a, it

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muc

h th

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ore,

The

Rub

icon

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it, b

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ther

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b, th

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ictio

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ashi

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late

tect

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s:A

clav

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and

a h

ip a

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nctio

ns o

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stru

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mat

eur,

amat

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amat

eur c

arto

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hy c

ombu

stio

nW

e sit

with

our

stee

ring

whe

els,

lives

full

of p

unct

ures

.Ba

llard

says

we

can

mar

ry te

chno

logy

,Bu

t I ju

st w

ant a

hom

e th

at’s

hom

ely.

Fran

kens

tein

has

raise

d tra

ditio

n fr

om th

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adA

Laz

arus

love

, plu

s ban

dage

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us b

agga

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arel

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ach

othe

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Bec

ca Ju

stic

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Photograph ‘Portraits’ by Chris Griffi ths

Great Grey Owl by Joel Meredith

OwlPinpoint presence

Balanced on a branchOf the dark vastness

Each vane of your plumageTense to the air

Ears attunedTo the resonances of night

And at the centreYour eyes your eyes

Bright planetsWhose gravity

Pulls the fields of galaxiesInwards

To the core

To this momentWhen you arc your wings

LiftRelease

And plumbThe windstream

Haunting the terrainSilent

ShadowlessHoming in

On the breathless beingWaiting

All yoursFor the taking

Robert Walton

Standing in the empty stadium,

my mother looks up at the open roof

and points at a feather falling

through the reds and greens. She tells me

a white feather signifies a message

from an angel. ‘Your grampy is smiling

at us,’ she says. Just as we propitiate

the dead by laying flowers on their graves,

I watch the feather land on cold concrete

and smile without belief, with certain hope

Darren Freebury-Jones

The feather

CRE

ATIVITY TEAM 2010

Sub

mit n

ow to

cre

ativi

ty@

gairr

ihyd

d.co

m

Meg

, Sar

ah &

Ann

a

XOX

Nex

t issu

e S

pring

2011

The

them

e wi

ll be Dre

ams

'Ricks

haw

Life

' by C

hris

Grif

fiths