Windsor's Local

A rather unstructured Observational Poem.

Windsor’s Local

There this man I’ve known for years,

I can’t remember his name but I know him,

I know every gritty wrinkle on his bearded face.

Sometimes I leave some fags,

Others I give smile, and I always get one back,

I’ve seen him muttering through cold dreams,

curled against the doorstep of a long abandoned bank,

wrapped in a blanket that’s more holes than wool,

Tightly gripping his most favored possession.

A cheap bottle of whiskey from the off licence –

The label picked and pealed,

Something he does to keep his unclean hands warm,

Something to keep his mind from wandering too far.

I’ve seen him wake in the morning, to the same stone floor,

Wearing the same battered coat and toothless smile.

Chortling a joke as I pass -

The same joke that he’s been telling for years,

followed by the same wheezy and smoke infused laugh that has echoed off the doorway,

For more years then my mother can remember.

He’s always laughing –

Even when it snowed so hard his fingers turned blue -

He only has seven now –

And even when some brute had battered him for everything he owned

(£5.70 and an old ring he’d worn on his left hand)

Only once I saw seen him sad -

He used to have this dog, a beautiful black dog,

With a sleek shimmering coat and

Eyes so soft and gentle there was no way they could ever be human.

His name was something like Borris or Bruce,

Something manly if I remember.

One day the man been lucky –

Had managed to score more whiskey than usual,

He slept for the whole day in warm bliss,

Only to wake up and find that Borris/Bruce had

Seen a cat near the off licence and dashed across the road,

He never did get to the other side –

I had never seen a man look so alone,

As the day that dog died.

Though the next day though he was up, smiling and laughing again,

His water sodden shoes kicked off in the May sun,

Telling this to anyone who would listen;

‘God said unto John, John! Come forth and thou shall achieve eternal life,

But John came fifth and won a toaster.’

Chelsie Glover

Once Bright Eyes

A juxtaposition of memories written as a kind of letter or stream of consciousness.

Once Bright Eyes

Takeaway menus always remind me of you. I picked loads up today, they were strewn all over the porch floor, matted with rain and mould and crumpled after being walked over by people too stubborn to pick them up. You wouldn’t have left them there though, no, and maybe that’s part of the reason why I eventually moved them. For some reason, when it came to menus you were miserly. You stashed them deep away in a draw or in your cupboard, regardless of how many duplicates you had or how out of date they were, you convinced yourself you needed them, cramming the coloured cards tight on top of each other, until eventually the drawer would jam and you were forced to move them to somewhere else. On nights when you refused to cook you used to flick through them all, saying things like, ‘Oh I might get that,’ or ‘Mmm that sounds nice,’ even though we knew in the end, after the eons it took for you to decide, you would always pick the same place and the same thing. You’d ring up for delivery, that was always your job, everyone’s orders written in a corner of that’s days copy of the metro. For some reason you’d develop a painful stutter every time you spoke over the phone, something Jonny and I would joke about and Mum would roll her eyes over with that hidden look of disappointment that wasn’t really hidden at all.

 By the time the food arrived you wouldn’t want it anymore, and while the rest of us would sit downstairs and eat together you would stay in bed. The food would go straight into the fridge where it would be left for a week without being touched until Nan found it. She’d pull it out while pulling her faces, you know the ones I mean, she’d make her usual comments about you and chuck the food away, to which you would come stomping down the stairs claiming you were just about to eat it and then sulk off back to bed. You loathed things being thrown away; you were a hoarder through and through. You used to keep this stack of weird comics in the corner of your room. I remember the yellow pages, torn, worn, the covers sun stained from the passing summers, a tower of musk that shook every time a window was open or someone shut the door to hard. There was nowhere sensible to put them and no matter how hard mum tried the eye sore could not be tamed. She used to look at those comics like she looked at you.

 Eventually though she finally got you out long enough to decorate, even if you made it hard for her. I went in there the other day; I was both pleased and heartbroken to see there was nothing of you there anymore.  There’s no more mark on the wall paper above the bed, the faded scar which you left there from hours of constantly resting your head in the exact same spot. There are no more bottles that jangle from under the bed every time someone steps on that one ridiculously creaky floorboard by the chest of drawers, even though, despite everything, I expect one or two will be back soon. There’s always been a clinking of bottles, not just in your room but darted about the house, in cracks and holes that you thought no one knew about, on top of the kitchen cupboards, in the back of the wardrobes, hidden amongst the board games and dolls in our Toy box, or sometimes just left in plain sight, chucked into the corner of the room or still grasped in your hand as you slept on in the sofa in an unmoving slumber. We got them all out once, me and mum, we picked up every sticky and sickly bottle we could find until in the end we had enough to build our own glass castle. We decorated the outside with the cans that we found behind the shoe rack and left it for you to admire when you got home. You weren’t impressed though, you didn’t even notice. You just walked pass and went straight to bed. You weren’t always in bed - though I find it hard to remember now. There were times you would take us out, take us to normal places like normal families did on Sunday afternoons.

You took us to a farm once, it was cold, late November, and no one else was there. You were wearing denim on denim, your usual fashion disaster choice, holding Jonny under one arm, laughing at him while he screamed after getting chased around a muddy puddle by a giant gnarly chicken. I was so young the memories aren’t even memories anymore, more like frozen pictures in my brain, moments snapped and fossilised in the derelict corners of my mind. I don’t look at them often, but when I do it shocks me as to how much has changed. You’re no longer chubby. My Daddy was always chubby, maybe even a little more than just chubby. The buttons on your favourite denim shirt would struggle and heave under your ever expanding belly, a beer belly Mum called it. It was jolly looking and shook when you laughed just like Father Christmas. You used to keep your hair shaved, so that it didn’t look so ridiculous when the sides grew in and the top stayed bare, it suited your whole hoop earring look that you had going on. Proper hard nut weren’t you.

That’s not you anymore, it hasn’t been for years. The beer belly is long gone; instead your stomach is round with swelling, almost pregnant like. You look kind of like those poor kids on the sponsor adverts. You hoop earring is gone, I can’t remember the last time you had that in, you’ve grown a beard out too, me and Jonny have dubbed you the balding Jesus.

 Sometimes you’d take us on these walks, ones that I loved. We’d start at Nana’s house, we’d leave the car and go to the park then onwards to the canal and over the old train bridge. Sometimes you’d put me on your shoulders and I’d wobble over the metal grating that boarded the bridge, waving and screaming frantically at the tracks underneath. Some days the train drivers would beep and we would cheer and on days they didn’t you would jeer at them with your fair share of bad language. On the way back you would stop by at this shop that sold ‘nearly everything you could ever need’. We’d get armfuls of sweets and lucky bags and pick up fish and chips from the chippy next door then all sit down on the old carpeted sofa at Nana’s and watch old folks tele while you sat napping in the armchair in the corner.

I remember this one time, it had grown dark outside. The lampposts had flickered on and you had still not woken up. We never stayed this late at Nana’s, we were always home to see Mum get in from work. I tried to shake your shoulder, gently whispering to you to please wake up. The whispering turned to pleading but you wouldn’t wake, instead you stayed limp and heavy, breathing deep and loud. Nana told me to let you sleep; apparently you had been working hard and needed to rest. I told her she was wrong. I don’t know what lies you fed her, or how she didn’t see you for what you were, but that day you left me there, alone, with no one but a three year old and a senile old woman for company. I wish I could say that was the only time it happened. I rang mum in tears, despite Nana telling me I wasn’t allowed to bother her, she came over and got us straight away, leaving you behind in the armchair. You never even noticed we’d gone.

Do you remember Watership Down? Of course you would, we watched it every Sunday for years. We were never allowed to pick what we wanted to watch, and you would always pick the same, that bloody copy of Watership Down recorded onto a battered old video tape from the tele. Every week we’d watch those same old adverts, you’d never fast forward them for us, like the one with the people eating skips and magically melting the lampposts and the one with the baby in the high chair with the adult hands, doing actions to Take That’s ‘Back for Good.’ We’d put it on after Mum and Nan went to Bingo in the evenings, after Mum would make you promise the things she knew you wouldn’t keep, after I’d sat at the window for an hour crying for her to come back. You’d tuck us up into bed and sit down with us. You knew every word off by heart, we all did, even Jonny. For the first ten minutes you’d stay, but after the creation of the hare and Frith’s promise you would leave us and stroll down to the shop. Not that we minded back then, not when we knew that your return held the promise of sweets and fizzy drinks. You weren’t ever gone for very long, you didn’t need to be, you were always back in time to sing Bright Eyes to us even though your own eyes would be starting to glaze. Mum always shouted at you when she got in. I begged her not to.  She would look at me with those eyes, eyes the same as mine, she’d sigh but stop and give up and go to bed.  For a while I hated how she spoke to you, there were so many nights when we would all go to bed with ringing in our ears. It wasn’t her fault though, I know that now. A few times you went to stay at Nana’s for a few days, you’d sleep in that tiny box room upstairs, the one with the bills and old papers that covered the threadbare carpet, the one where the bed sheets hadn’t been changed since you’d slept in them as a teenager. At least I bet they hadn’t, Nana couldn’t change them with her broken hip and God knows you wouldn’t do it.

We used to love playing upstairs in Nana’s house. Probably because we weren’t allowed up there very often.  I remember Mum’s wedding dress in the wardrobe and the smell of long forgotten moth balls and a doll whose face had been attacked by a cheap biro pen. There was this cabinet that belonged to Nana, filled with fancy plates and figurines, a window into another little world, where little white china girls danced with fancy umbrellas and boys in rags would hold cheat cards under the table, their bone china faces showing nothing but false innocence. They were meant for me you know, Nana always said they were. Not that I got them. I didn’t get anything. You seemed to forget about the promises, or maybe you just didn’t care. Just like Nana’s ring, I wonder if it’s still there all these years after, sitting in an office safe in a care home somewhere, deep in an envelope with your name on it.  There are many things you should have done, which you haven’t, like looking after Uncle Karl after his accident, he doesn’t know you anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I really do either.

 You only remember the things you want to, like the fact Nana left you the house, which you sold as soon as you could. No more running up and down the spiral staircase, or playing in the over grown garden, and that little cabinet of magic ended up in some dank skip along with everything Nana ever owned. You promised you would use the money to buy another house, one that we could live in, a place our family could finally call our own, no more living in Nan and Granddad’s little house, no more sharing a room with Jonny, so small there wasn’t even enough room for two beds. No more of Mum being ashamed that she still lived with her parents, that her husband had yet to provide for her.  Seems like that was another promise you forgot all about.

Do you remember when you put ketchup on my toothbrush? You always deny that you did it, but I could never forget. I must have been about six; you put it on my Barbie toothbrush, telling me it was special toothpaste. You waited and watched until I put it in my mouth and sniggered when I spat it out and burst into tears. You were like an evil child, not a father. You had a sick sense of humour and laughed at everything inappropriate. You laughed at us when we had chicken pox, and when Jonny got angry and pulled a clump of hair right out of my scalp. I had a bald patch for months after, you thought it was hysterical. You walked out onto the landing to where I was screaming, clutching my head on the top of the stairs. You walked up to Jonny and saw the tangled mess knotted about his fingers and you laughed. Jonny laughed too and I sat alone, humiliated. Eventually you picked me up and calmed me down, but not before you took the tattered lock of hair from Jonny and put it in that little blue wooden jewellery box. You know the one. The one that had the remains of our baby teeth and Granddad Ted’s strapless watch.  I don’t know why you kept it, it was there for years, right up until Mum chucked it out with all the other shit you had been collecting.

It’s a shame that now when I think back it’s hard to find the good things, sometimes I even wonder if there are any. Deep down though I know, there must have been something about you, something that you did that made you my favourite. For years we only ever shouted at each other but I hope you know now it was only because I was trying to save you, trying to make you understand. I never loved you any less and now, even though I can’t think of any other thing I could have done to help, I still blame myself. I know with every part of me that you deserve to be where you are now, it was a long time coming, but I would still do anything to swap places with you. I’m scared that I’ll only be able to remember you like this, a pile of yellowed skin and brittle bones, I’m scared that you won’t know that I forgive you, for everything, the ripped up paintings, the name calling, the smashed up toys and for every time I was embarrassed because of you. I’m scared that you won’t forgive me for all the times I put you down, told you to leave or that you were better off dead. I know you were less than what we deserved, that after everything, you would still go back and do it all again. But that’s life isn’t it. It’s not about receiving what we deserve it’s about accepting what we get. It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way, and one I wish you had before it was too late.  

Quick Note

FYI -

I also just want to clarify something. This Blog is not intended to be negative. It's to vent. To put all of my silly little thoughts somewhere else other then my head. I am fighting depression, and I am determined to help myself. I am in no way shape or form supporting negative thoughts, however, what I am supporting is their release. The longer you keep them bottled in the more they fester and the worse it gets. Believe me I've been there, I know how bad it gets. Imagine not taking the bin out for a few months. Imagine the big horrid, putrid pile of rubbish you would have sitting in your house. Ick right? So this is what I am doing, I'm taking the rubbish out.

Deal with it and follow my lead.

One day I'll write something happy... I promise.....

A Moody Little Snippet of my moody little life.

The Twenty- Something Pessimist 

Like rain running down the frosted window

It gets harder, scarier, colder with less places to go

Because the further I go the more dangerous it gets

And I can feel myself freezing slowly from regret.

Like the wind - blows the leaves off of the tree

It is as though pieces are being pulled away from me

That drift off into the distance until they hit the hard concrete floor

And trampled by a million feet, until they exist no more.

Chelsie Glover

A Drab that I mangled together when i was feeling sorry for myself one day. Very miserable teenager. Genre? Very-Miserable-Teenager.

The False Ones

The world puts on a brave face,

Because we all know if you cry,

That you must admit defeat,

So instead you say your fine

And many can tell the false expressions

Because they too understand

But they’re too nice to mention,

So instead will hold your hand

While to the world you keep on smiling

Trying to keep the light bright in your eyes

Or else they look like their dying,

So you keep up your disguise

Because the pain is just to vast

You can’t find a new way through

It hurts to look at the past

But you've got nothing else to look to.

When the only feel of love,

Comes from shouting and from hurt

You learn how to be tough

But don’t learn how to forget.

Yehhhh this needs fixing.......

Word Venting

The following is a story I wrote to help deal with my depression. It doesn't really make sense, but I like to believe in the idea that we can help to fix ourselves, perhaps with a little bit of inspiration. It includes notes on why I write some of the things that I did and some random thoughts and beliefs. It was originally submitted as a piece of coursework for my degree which is why some of the notes may reference a class. Like I said, it was really just a way of me trying to work out what was going on with me at the time. Thanks. 

I don’t know what time it was when I woke up. I didn’t care. I cringed when I saw the laptop sitting at the end of my bed still. Without really thinking I kicked it off. Did it break? Don’t know - don’t care. The only thing I really knew was that I didn’t want to see the world today. I ducked my head under the duvet and took deep breaths. Soon the air was hot and clammy but I ignored it and drifted off back to a heavy sleep.(1)

***

I found the note at the edge of one of the million seas. It washed up on the golden beach inches away from my feet. I picked it up. It was an old Pepsi bottle, worn by the salt water, a tiny paper note shut inside. I fished it out and unfolded it.

Help.

The writing was big, messy, childish, and above all very human. The humans were some of the most complicated to fix – too fragile – too insecure. Still, out of all the entities and species I had come across they were one of the most fascinating. I have many names - a millennia’s worth of symbols and sounds that have been used to try and define me. I don't go by anything often but in the rare occasion I do interact, I go by Dromon. I know everything - I'd say it was my job to bit it's more than that - it's my very existence - my purpose. I was born of the information - right at the beginning when there but a few mega strands across the dimensions. But I fed them - I looked after them - rearranged and conquered them. Though not all alone. I cannot create. The one thing I cannot do is invent. That's what the minds are for. The minds of the countless amounts of beings spread out across everything - they create. I help to look after them too – I know the things they know, but are not aware that they know. I help them see what they need to see what their hearts and minds need to face. Sometimes they see me, though they’re never aware that they do. I am just a face - a misted passing presence – most of the time. There were occasions like this one, ones where I was compelled to intervene. It would hurt me not to - for what was a cosmos that did not grow – did not change. The thought was unfathomable. I arrived instantly.                                                                    

Everyone’s minds are different. They manifest in an infinite amount of ways and are always changing. A mind is not static; it bends into whatever its master wants it to be. This mind however looked like a house. It was tall, red brick with a garden and would have been pretty had it not looked so run down and derelict. The front gate, tall black and made of iron was rusted and screamed at me as I pushed it open. There was no light in this place, just an odd grey hue. I could still see everything – the whole place just lacked imagination, just lacked any sort of, life.

The door swung on its hinges. Never a good sign. Any signs that the mind had been broken into were bad – it could mean damage or leakage neither of which were desirable. I stepped in silently – not wanting to awaken what may still be dwelling in the dark – at least not until I knew what I was dealing with.  Behind the door was a long corridor, with six more doors lining the walls. l knew I had to be careful.

I knew I had to step into each one. In my opinion the outer layers were always the worst. These were where the big Fears lived. Sometimes you came across the Hopes first, if a mind was prominently optimistic the Hopes would be on the surface, the Fears hidden deep somewhere they could be forgotten about or ignored. It wasn’t necessarily bad that the Fears where first, but there was a certain chill to the air that told me something was wrong, and it had been for a while now.  Now, I don’t have any fear for myself, I don’t need to, but the fears of others are projected onto me, so I have complete understanding. This was the part I hated most. I had to search the rooms. More often than not mind cogs would become stuck in them, unable to escape their nightmares. The cogs were the living components of the mind, each representing and controlling their own element of the consciousness. One for love, one for dedication, one for loyalty etc - all adding up and recreating the ultimate personality. When these cogs become stuck or damaged the mind begins to fall apart. I couldn't let that happen.

I opened the first door.

A young woman sat at a vanity table. Her long blonde hair in perfected curls down her back. I knocked on the open door.

Hello ?

She turned on the chair to face me. Her big bright blue eyes made up perfectly, with great long eyelashes that framed them like a picture. Her lips were a scarlet red, a red that dripped down her chin and stained the top of a sweetheart white gown. She smiled and more red dripped. In her hands she held several little pearl like objects. Teeth.

Hello, I’m Belle, who are you?

She continued to smile at me, picking up a molar and ramming it into her mouth repeatedly until finally it dangled crookedly and backwards at the front.

Dromon. What are you doing ?

She paused and looked at me – her bleeding and gummy mouth open in a state of shock at my apparently stupid question.

Making myself beautiful.

And when will you be beautiful?

She turned back to the mirror and stared at herself.

When I am perfect.

I nodded.

And that will be when?

She sighed and looked back at me again.

Never.

I found myself back outside in the corridor. I’d come across many rooms like this before and they were honestly the hardest to fix, though in this case I didn't think this room was very important. Girls will always be self-conscious.

The next door was tall, old and wooden. There was a big old key in the lock and a handle that was stiff to turn. The door creaked as it slowly swung open.

It was night. The air was thick with sweat. I was in a car park, encased by tall metal chain fences. I was alone. My footsteps echoed, the sound bouncing off of ancient cars, most of them rusted and burnt out. I heard her at first. A scream from what sounded like a few streets away, I didn't go towards it though, I knew she would find me on her own.

She ran towards me, unsteady on her feet I caught her. Her body shook – electrified by fear, it had blinded her, encased her. This one could be tricky.

What is your name?

Maud.

What do you need to do Maud?

What do you mean? Please, help me, they’re coming. We have to go.

Who’s coming?

The dead! I run – But they don’t stop,

Have you faced them?

No. No I can’t – they’ll rip me apart – please we have to go.

Face your fears Maud.

I’m not strong enough.

But you are strong Maud. You’ve just forgotten. No one is born weak. They can’t hurt you - Not if you don’t let them.

But I don’t know how!

 She pleaded with me, the panic rising in her throat. She turned and I could see behind her what she had been running from. This would not be fun.

If I can do it so can you.

 I stood firm, fear making we want to run but my determination compelled me to stay. I could feel Maud’s fear and it was strong, but not as strong as I knew she was. I waited until they found me. She tried to drag me away but before they got too close she ran off to temporary safety. The slow shuffle of their footsteps made them seem somehow more sinister. I could smell the fierce rotting flesh and hear the hungry groans and ignored every instinct that ran through my body. I wouldn’t let her be beaten. I had to show Maud. These weren’t new creatures to me. They were common which by no means made them less terrifying. They represented passiveness, loneliness, a world of darkness and death. And they were completely petrifying. Undead hands grabbed at my clothes, I wriggled and writhed but found that I had no place to go. The gnashing teeth surrounded me, broken and blood stained, flecked with picked and peeled skin. I screamed in mortal agony – something I had experienced a thousand times before but somehow stayed still foreign and inexorable. I didn’t know how I was still screaming – my throat had been ripped from my neck but still the sound rang out. I don’t know when I realised I was back in the corridor. The second door was shut and Maud stood over me.

Maud? What happened.

I stood up – all pain left behind the door.

I, I pulled you out. I couldn’t leave you like that.

She looked back behind her at lay a hand against the wood.

I got us through the door.

See, you are strong Maud.

No, no I’m not. Anyone would have done it.

She began ushering me to the door on the far left.

Wait, I have to help the others.

She shook her head.

There are no others. Not anymore. Some are hiding, but the rest… gone.

I’m sorry. Should we try and get Belle?

She scoffed.

No – you don’t need Belle.

Maud opened the door at the far end and held it open for me.

It’s been a while since I’ve been out here.

It was a grand entrance hall. The room itself was massive, with a ceiling so high that I could barely see the door at the top of the giant set of spiral stairs that let up to it.

The walls around me were decorated with thousands of paintings and words in a million different languages. There where dust over all of the glass frames and the wall paper had started to drop from the walls.  A song played on some kind of intercom – though it was stuck and kept playing the same line over and over again. The voice was muffled and I could not hear what it said, but it sounded classical and possibly French. It was beautiful, it truly was a masterpiece. I turned back to see Maud paused at the doorway.

You coming?

She shook her head and pointed across the lobby.

There was a shadow lurking in the corners. I could hear it snarl and growl and even though I knew it couldn’t hurt me it terrified me. It was everywhere. It oozed out of the cracks in the walls, through the gaps in the floor, under the doors and through the windows. There was no escaping it. I’m surprised the mind had lasted this long. I must admit I wasn’t thrilled to find out this was the problem. This was going to be harder then I hoped. The shadows were older then the minds. Some refer to them as the destroyers, and to some extent I suppose they are but I prefer to call them the idlers. It wasn’t so much they ransacked it was more like they paused – like a black hole sucking everything in, making time move slower and slower until everything stood still and eventually – began to crumble away. They were like rot – and once they set in they were hard to get rid of. They turned you against yourself, confusing you until you attacked. Like a confused snake that bites its own tail and begins to eat itself and by the time it realises it’s too late, its muscles have grab of its body and it can’t let go. With outside help they can be saved – sometimes.

I didn’t look back at Maud as I started my assent. The stairs were steeper than I first anticipated and although I could tell I was making progress, it was a lot slower than it should have been. It was like running up a going down escalator – you were moving but slowly and with a lot of effort. It seemed like a lifetime until I reached the door. I knocked but no one answered. I gave it a push but predictably it was locked on the inside.

I could hear voices, mumbling from behind. I pushed against the door but it did not budge.

 I turned to see Maud following me up the stairs. Her face was red with determination, her shaking subsiding but leaving her with an awkward twitch now and then.

What are you doing here Maud?

Trying to be strong

She looked over her shoulder frequently at the smoke and shadows, they seemed to sense her presence and shook and swelled with some kind of sick glee. She paused for a moment and then stuck up her middle finger to it. Oh the humans where amusing.

She knocked on the door.

It’s me.

***

I struggled out of bed and stood up in front of the mirror. My hair needed washing, in fact all of me did really. No matter how much I slept the dark circles under my eyes kept growing. It didn’t matter though – I didn’t intend on seeing anyone today. There were some messages on my phone and I did my best to reply to them – but found that I was incapable of forming worthwhile sentences. For a second I considered opening the curtains but pushed the thought away. In the end I just crawled back into bed and thought of nothing.

***

I could hear the bolts tug open on the door, there were more than I would have guessed. This mind was certainly doing her best to keep the shadows out. It was another room, it was dark and absent of any colour. There were heavy curtains draping which could have been windows but I couldn’t move them to be sure. The air was thick and dusty and the whole place smelled putrid. The room was round with no corners. Every now and then it seemed to warp smaller, becoming tighter, like the room itself was taking a deep breath in and forgetting to let go. A girl stood facing the wall. I placed a hand on her shoulder but she did not respond. Her hair was down to her waist but a stark white- limp and thin. I took her hand nothing more than skin or bone. I tried to talk to her but she couldn’t listen. She was an echo now. There was no getting through to her this way. I sighed. It was a shame. By putting up the walls and locking the doors the core had started to decay – too scared to do anything it went to waste, rotting away alone. It was sad but something I had seen many times. I turned to a tiny creature that rocked in the centre of the room. On close inspection I saw it was a child  - a small dirty rag wearing little girl that sobbed dryly her little shoulders heaving through exhausted misery. She shook with fear when she saw me and scrambled away like a feral animal, still I persevered and somehow I managed to pick her up and hold her. I was relieved to find that ever so slightly her cries began to ease, this one could be rescued.

I rocked and shushed her -

Tell me, what’s wrong?

Everything! Everything and nothing at the same time

She looked up at me with empty eyes. Eyes that were blind to the future now, eyes that were drowned with worry and sickening anxiety. I touched her face but it was ice cold.

What will fix this? What will make it better?

She carried on weeping, her hair gradually starting to turn white from the roots. Her eyes were sinking into her skull and her skin became paper thin to touch.  I was losing her.

Listen to me, what do you need that will make you feel better?

I could see her trying to register, trying to understand, but the lack of concentration mixed with the very stress of her being was making it nearly impossible for her.

TELL ME!

I pleaded with her. I took hold of her shoulders and shook her, begging her to help me help her. She could be saved and I would never forget it if I didn’t – I never forget anything.

I just want everything to be okay…

It will be okay! Tell yourself it will, come on now tell yourself.

But it won’t!

I wanted to tell her that I knew it would be, and promise that everything would be fine – but I couldn’t, it was a battle she had to fight herself. Only she could break the hold. It was a rare occasion that I was willing to break the rules to save a mind cog. There was something about her that was so desperate that if I had a heart it would have broken for her.

You have to tell yourself, trust me. Trust in you.

Everything will be okay…

It was nothing more than a whisper, but I heard it. I shook her again, her head lolling exhausted. I wouldn’t let her stop – not now.

And again!

Everything will be okay…

Her pale face began to peak up a bit, she sat up and leaned against me, holding onto my cloak with her little fists. She repeated the words over and over to herself until her eyes began to focus again. She looked up at me, seeing me properly for the first time.

Who are you?

I’ve come to help.

To help?

She looked over to something and I had to focus to see what.

There was a pile of empty bottles clumsily stacked next to a wad of crumbled paper (What I later discovered to be colouring books), the pages ripped out bit by bit. There was a tiny hole in the wall and I could just make out the blue waves of the sea.

You sent the note.

She nodded.

I sent it a while ago, I’ve been trying to send more since but the shadow…

She looked over at the hole fearfully, I watched as a flicker of darkness hid the view of the sea.

He keeps grabbing them before they get free - I’m too scared to try now.

Why are you scared?

Because he freezes us. Or he locks us in the rooms downstairs. He doesn’t stop, he’s always there.

She looked towards the door where Maud stood, crying over the white haired frozen girl.

Did you help Maud get out?

Maud got out herself, I just showed her she could.

She nodded and stood up slowly. I hadn’t noticed in my panic before, but in the middle of the room was what I assumed was a trap door. The core of the mind is nearly always hidden away in a human’s consciousness. Why they are so bent on hiding their true selves from others has always been a mystery – even to me. I was nearly certain that this trap door was the secret entrance to the core. I pulled at it and pulled at it but it was locked. Apparently this mind was even more withholding than most. I studied it for a second – three little key holes lined the middle. I called the child.

What is your name?

Lieu.

How do I open this Lieu?

You don’t-

She held up her hand then, clutching something tightly between her tiny fingertips. It was a small gold key.

We do.

We? Who are the others.

She pointed to Maud and the white haired girl standing against the wall.

Me, Maud and Lavada.

Lavada? And what is she?

She writes and stuff, she paints pictures sometimes though not for a while.

Lieu turned to look at me,

Can you help her? You helped Maud?

I can’t help everyone. I couldn’t help Belle.

No one can help Belle. Could you try though please? We need Lavada. She makes the colours.

I looked back at the frozen girl. I noticed she clutched a paintbrush in her numb hands. So she was the muse - The creative spark. It was the saddest thing to come across a mind that could no longer create, a mind that lacked imagination. Some would say that the human minds main purpose was creation – the thing that takes them above the other creatures of their world.

She likes stories…

Maud had stopped crying at some point. She stepped away from Lavada and stared at me with pleading eyes.

You look like someone with a lot of stories.

I couldn’t not try. Not now. I walked over to her and spoke to her in a lowered tone.

I’ve heard you like stories?

She didn’t respond, though I knew she wouldn’t.

I can tell stories. Stories of weird and wonderful things that you have never seen. I have seen them all. Long long ago, so long ago that there is no term for the amount of eons that have past between now and then. At the beginning – no before the beginning – I was alone – all alone in an empty space. I had no purpose – no reason – just existed- alone in the mega strands of nothingness. But then came the first mind. It wasn’t human and its name is not something that I can say in your language. It was perplexing to me – this mind – this thing that was so intricate and broad. I studied it – became obsessed with it and found the reason of my being. Imagine a hole, a little hole in a tree. It’s empty. Just a space of nothing. Then a spider crawls in and starts to build its web. At first it is but a few wobbly little strands but soon, the whole space is filled with an intricate design of a beautiful woven picture. The web is a home, it is a trap, it is a mystery but most of all it is beautiful. Now imagine for me the strands extending as far as the eye can see, even the tiny ones, the ones that you can barely see. Imagine, even the smallest strands have billions of billions of smaller strands, everything connecting to everything, so complex that your eyes can’t follow or keep up. That is our world.  The minds are the spiders Lavada, they create the strands. Without you, she can’t do it anymore and she has so many parts to add.

I heard a tiny laugh.

She hates spiders.

I looked up into her face. She was still frozen, her hair still white, but she wasn’t facing the wall anymore, not completely anyway.  Her eyes were still open, but there was something behind them now, a spark of some sort, faint but there. She was waking up.

I can tell stories, weird and wonderful and full of colour and light. They never make sense, most of the time you can never understand. But you can tell them too Lavada, you have to try.

I watched as her hand twitched. The paintbrush she was holding jolting in her fingers.

Take it.

I did as I was told and took the brush. Her grip on it was strong – I pulled as hard as I could and was disheartened when the brush snapped between my fingers and surprised when something small clattered to the floor. It was the smallest key I had ever seen and when I picked it up it grew into the same size as Lieu’s. What a creative way to hide it.

I went to hand the key to Maud and Lieu but they shook their heads. Instead they gave me theirs and ushered me in direction of the trap door.

No – you go

Tell her everything will be okay.

I locked the three keys into the grate and pulled. I couldn’t tell how far down the chamber went, but with trusting glances from the girls I jumped in.

I fell for a second and hit a cold floor. Inside the chamber was huge and empty apart from a tiny light right at the back but it was dim and fading.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Barley a whisper.

I have a message for you, from yourself.

***

I woke to a fierce buzzing on the floor next to me. I scrambled for my phone in a dazed stupor and answered it.

‘Hello?’

‘Oh, thank god! I’ve been trying to ring you for days and you haven’t been answering! I’ve been so worried!’

‘Sorry Mum.’ I said, standing up and opening the curtains a bit, letting in the first bit of sunlight that the room had seen in days. It looked so much bigger and friendly without all of the shadows in the corners.

‘You can’t do this to me again – you’ve been acting so weird lately. Do you want me to come and get you, bring you home for a bit?’

‘No Mum, don’t worry, it’s fine – I’m fine. Everything is going to be okay.’

***

(1)     Something that has been bugging me through this whole module was the idea that ‘the art of writing is detachment from the self.’ Well sorry, but in my opinion no. Firstly and most obviously, this piece was inspired by my own experience and reactions to the outer world and how I think it affected my inner self. So no – I’m very much attached to this piece, secondly, how can you ever detach yourself fully from something you write? Even if you type an apparently random amount of letters on a keyboard in an apparently random order, you can still not fully detach yourself from it. Something inside you told you to push those buttons at those times, even if you don’t believe it. It comes from you so you are involved, even if you don’t want to be. This is a subject I’m sure could easily be debated but as I’m sure you can see there is no real back up logic to anything I say – it’s just my beliefs, and I can’t get more real or honest than that.

(2)     I have always theorised that the inner world is just as broad as the outer and just as connected. My logic? Everything has an opposite, something that is of equal value. Why can’t the inner world exist and be just as amazing as the outer? Information isn’t a physical thing. It isn’t something that the physical world can process, it is the mind. If this is how I imagine the subconscious to be, does that in itself make it real? Is everything we imagine real for us, hidden away in the dark corners of subconscious storage? I think it is, waiting for us to access.

(3)     These are dreams that I have myself. I am very interested in these and thought that including them would add a little more insight into an actual subconscious. I included some research that I did in my journal regarding dream meanings.

(4)     I have included these separate sections flipping to and from the real world because I wanted to show their effect on each other. I wish I could have included more in this piece and showed a deeper and more involved transition and connection. I would have liked to include minuscule details and showed how they could through each other out of balance.

(5)     I didn't want to put the character’s dialogue in speech marks when in the subconscious because I wanted to give off the idea of a more silent connection. In the outer world we hear each other by molecules vibrating but in a world that is not physical I’m sure it would work differently. I tried to imply a more telepathic connection to make it more reasonable.

(6)     Compulsion for self-expression – I speak for myself when I say I write to transfer my inner thoughts into outer thoughts. To be honest, I think everyone must. I am compelled to express myself, even if sometimes I find it difficult.

(7)     I was really struck by the idea of inner conflict. I did study psychology for a few years and have always found it to be fascinating. Everyone has inner conflict. It makes you who you are, even if you don’t know. That’s what amazes me so much, one tiny little incident long ago that you might not even remember can set in motion the building blocks of change and reprogram parts or even your whole personality. I wanted to include different aspects of the mind. I personified them into humanoid characters . Originally they’re where many more, but I did this to show that there are different components to the mind, components which singularly change and are both separate and a part of each other.  I am aware I haven’t worded most of this as well as I could, I have just found it hard to try and articulate all the different ideas that subside in my own inner world.

(8)     I’d just like to add that writing this piece has not only been a joy to write, but very beneficial for my own inner serenity. Recently I have had a lot of my own inner battles, an ongoing journey that I hope will end soon. I would like to tie this whole piece also with writing for therapy. Everything I have included I this piece is very true and personal to my life recently. Having been suffering from depression for just over a year now that has progressively got worse I tried to put into words just how I feel inside in a way that could be relatable but also different. I wanted to go for a sort of post-modern twist because I thought it would tie in more with the whole theme and also found it easier to express myself with that extra bit of flexibility.