Silent Scream

Author: Cathianne Hall

 

It was the bats who suffered first. No one had ever seen a bat crash before- yet they were piled up on Hampstead Heath. No one could have culled so many bats in one feel swoop and there wasn’t a mark on them. The bats had done it themselves.

Next to suffer were the joggers. Songs on their ipods that they’d downloaded to keep them uplifted, saw them crouched on kerbs in tears.

Those to suffer most were the people who were prone to despair. They piled up like the bats.

Why? There was something in the water. A whale. Stranded in the Thames. She was crying. Her silent screams were beyond our hearing but they resonated through the hollowness of London and made us all melancholy. The bats crashed, the ipods wept and desperate people jumped.

Dare to go to www.silentscream.co.uk and you’ll hear nothing, but you’ll feel everything. Someone has recorded her fear and posted it on the internet. Bats don’t google, the ipod joggers stick to uplifting songs, but the desperate people log on and continue to jump.

 

 

Pencil Suicide

Daniel Gent

 

Ten minutes and still nothing. Describe yourself (45 marks). A mark a minute. That’s all. Easy, right? My sweaty arse, she wants to write. But she won’t. Because Cal’s a good girl and because she’s a good girl she wants to get it right, A* perfect in fact.

            “Miss?” Miss approaches. “Do you mind if I take my jumper off? It’s ever so hot.”

            Miss shakes her head.

            “But the air conditioning isn’t on.”

            “It distracts!” Miss hisses.

            Cal tries not to look at the boffin on her left who’s on his second side. She stares at the desk. Two pencils. A blank answer booklet. Describe yourself, she writes. Looks at the clock. Adds brackets and 45 marks. Rubs this out. What kind of question is that? she thinks, though she wants to scream it, wants to shout “who thinks this shit up?”

            My name is Cal, she writes.

            Ten minutes pass. Nothing.

            Another five.

            I’m fifteen. I’m in an exam. I can’t think of anything to write. I think this question is unfair.

            She adds a semi-colon to the end of the last sentence. She can’t think of anything that would make it make sense.

            ; I have used this semi-colon because Sir says they get you A*s.

            Five minutes pass.

            Ten.

            And then, already, Miss starts to take the papers in.

            I didn’t mean for this to happen, she scrawls.

            And it’s done. Her paper gone, her future fucked.

            One her desk: two pencils.

 

 

Urban Myths Re-Told

Paul Hutchinson

 

Its all in the cracks.

Watch the kids.

Super-aware of the broken pavement.

Its all in the cracks.

You never stand on them.

When did this start and where?

 

 

1907.

Belfast.

 

Trouble on the streets.

The boy was not innocent.

He pounded hard on fifteen year old feet,

chased by half a dozen upstanding hard-breathing citizens looking to right a wrong in the wrong way:

to flay his skin.

 

But they didn’t know.

He was blessed beyond his worst sin:

The seventh son of a seventh son.

But even the blessed get bundled.

And he was captured by the six,

Who stripped him quickly at knife-point.

They sharpened their resolve on revenge

and moved to gut their struggling catch…

Six sharp knives…feet splashing in blood…

screams in the darkness…

and a final cry from the blessed boy:

Cursed are your children

who step on the place where my blood fell.

 

And the superstitious took no chances.

and searched with water and scrubbing brush

for the blood that had squirted and gushed.

And it looked clean in the darkness.

And it satisfied their fears.

 

And they walked away convinced

that justice had been done

and the jaw of the curse

had been broken by baptism.

 

But a single crack resisted their scrubs

and held the red in its dirty break.

An no-one needs to be told,

for the curse can never grow cold

 

And children watch their step

and skip the flaws in the floor of the city.

 

 

 

 

Bricks and Mortar 1983

L.M. North

 

hearts broken open

swifty was here

1983
swung by a rope

flung

over the bridge

where marie

lost her
virginity.

 

timmy comes

here with

ally, she whispers

‘who’s swifty?’

as timmy

sideswipes

her

knickers.

‘a nobody ...

some guy

who died’
‘that gives me the creeps!’
says ally,

timmy’s fingers

push harder,

he pants,

alison weeps.

 

here comes

davvo

blowing his

crack

with jane

the slag

on her back

‘who’s swifty?’

she asks.

 

see the flowers

drowned in the rain

a piece of heart

on a silver chain

a dog takes a piss
it’s owner so bitter,

consumed

by an anger

that spits

‘fucking swifty’.

now we have quiet

a night full of shadows

timmy with davvo

under the bridge

of bad boys

jane’s speeding

alison’s

bleeding

innocence

still weeping.

 

1983.
swifty

is nervous

his heart

threatens to leap

from his chest

for tonight

he’ll confess

his love

for marie

with a

silver chain

he sees

his love
as they planned

she a woman

he a man

‘swifty was here

with marie

1983.’

 

davvo chokes

on coke

timmy laughs

having

a smoke,

it’s all a

joke

ally waits

for jane,

she can’t stand the shame

under the bridge

with the smell

of dead flowers

drowned in the rain
half of a heart

on a silver

chain.

get the fuck off

says

the man with the dog

who leaves

his flowers

get the fuck off

he says

again

nobody moves

nobody leaves.

 

they

don’t

see

swifty

never left

without

marie.

1983.

 

 

Three Feet from Leroy

Peter Canning

 

He knew that in the city you are never more that three feet away from a rat. he moved there anyway, but fatefully for him it would be the same rat. Its name was Leroy and it trailed him everywhere- his bedroom, the loo, his office, parks parachute jumps, lifts, buses and even romantic dinners.

 

Leroy, despite being a magnificent rat with dark fur and bright eyes, didn’t impress neighbours, colleagues or girlfriends. Soon the office was a distant memory and the only dinners he ate were for one. He grew to hate the vermin and laid poison, but Leroy was too clever.

 

The years passed. Leroy continued to stalk him down the bust streets and lonely alleyways, screeching mockingly at him whenever they were alone. Eventually, his rat-inspired loneliness drove him away from the city. As he left for his home town he saw in his mirror Leroy loitering irritably at the city limits and thanked his lucky starts that he’d soon have a life again.

 

But he began to miss those quiet nights when, like soldiers at Christmas 1916, he and Leroy agreed a truce of sorts, watching TV together and sharing a burger.

 

But his pride was too great for him to return to the city, to be reunited with his rodent friend. Until one day the local council won their fight to reclassify the town as a city. And as if by magic, he heard a screeching from under the floorboards.

 

 

 

 

 

The Clubber

Hetty Malcolm-Smith

 

She was raised in the 80’s on thumping acid tunes and the beginnings of rave. Survived the 90’s on E, water and throwing her hands up in the air. And by the Noughties she was still getting down to the same old uppers. Inside she felt 18 but queuing for the toilets under the neon lights of a thousand clubs on a thousand nights she felt the wrinkles creasing harder into her face whilst all around was smooth, fresh and carefree. It was a casual pick-up. he was twenty-two and she did her usual romancing with old school tunes he’d never heard before and flyers from 1992. ‘Retro’ he sighed as she dragged him to bed. She stared at the skinny boy and his youth made her feel old and she was so jealous. She wanted to taste whatever pumped through his veins. She bit him- hard! Sucked in the blood. Christ! It was the best drug she’d ever done! He struggled but she held him tight and greedily drank him until he was still. And in the morning when she looked in the mirror there she was- glorious. Shiny hair, pert boobs, skin with more elasticity than chewing gum- she was 18- inside and out were as one again. Whether it lasts a day or a life-time- she doesn’t are. She knows she’s never had a high like this before. She’s finally found a drug for all her recreational purposes.

 

 

 

Jenny Greenteeth

 Steve Jackson

 

Jenny Greenteeth lives in the green and smelly pond near the old tyre factory, my Nam told me. She waits under the water for children to jump in and grabs their feet, pulls them under to be with her. When she lets them go, they are dead, and big and smelly, and green, just like her.

So when the floods come and the water from the little river joins with the pond and comes up our street, Jenny comes too, knocking at the doors with a gentle tap, looking for the children. She sets free the goldfish from the pond, reaches green hands into the car engines so we can’t escape, sneaks under the door to splash about downstairs, putting curious fingers into all the things we have- but what Jenny touches, even with just her watery dress, never works again.

The animals all know her and stay well away. the birds watch from the trees, the dogs bark to be let in to the house, the cat comes and settles on the bed with us, spitting at the water as it laps at the bottom stair, to say “Jenny Greenteeth is there, beware!”.

When the rain stops and the river goes back to dozing in its quite reedy bed, Jenny goes back to her pond to wait for a careless child or for the rains to fall so heavy again. But she doesn’t sleep, not her, so it is careful we are, to always be just out of reach.

 

 

 

 

Light

John Soanes

 

The fluorescent light tube was ready to be installed, but the workmen hadn’t shown up. The man- a friend of my sister, that’s how I heard this- knew that there were all sorts of insurance reasons why he shouldn’t change it, but he was fed up with the flickering light above him.

 

So, he waited until everyone had gone home, climbed on his desk, and replaced the old tube with the new one. The flickering stopped. Bliss. But what about the old one? He couldn’t leave it in the waste bin- it was far too large, and they’d know what he’d done.

 

A brainwave: he’d take it out of the building, and dump it in the first skip he saw. A good idea, and he left the building with a spring in his step…but there weren’t any skips, and all the litter bins he passed were too small.

 

He sighed as he go onto the crowded Metrolink carriage and headed home, holding the tube upright like a staff. He’d probably have to carry it home- he knew there was a skip on the road where he lived.

 

Other passengers boarded, and seeing there were no free seats, also took hold of the tube, thinking it was one of the upright poles in the carriage.

 

My sister’s friend reached his stop, and since there were several people still holding he tube, he let go of it, and left the carriage, smiling to himself.

 

 

 

 

Lucy

Francis Gappa

 

My job had formerly been Lucy’s and she thought it still was. She continued to sit in her/my chair and use my/her computer. Because although she’d been hit by a Volvo one lunchtime on her way to the sandwich shop and died, as she told me: “I can’t just lie there in a bloody expensive plywood coffin,” and besides she’d run up debts on six credit cards. The funeral had wiped her out financially. Hence our unusual job share. The company paid us both salaries, while management ignored us. I suppose no one knew what to do.

            “Idiots,” Lucy said. “It’s not your fault.”

            Lucy had a stitched seam up the back of her head. Her hair was light as a dandelion clock. A wicked smile, a chipped tooth. She’s a real person, I remember thinking. Unlike me in the office; without spirit, depleted. London had sucked me dry. One job after another, my vital years gone.

            Our computer began to rattle whenever I opened a new window, or she did. Eventually a young man from the IT department turned up and reinstalled some software. The rattle got worse. He shrugged and left

            Lucy Prised off the casing. “Look, that bit’s come loose.” She twiddled a screw; the rattling stopped.

            “It’s only a box, mate. That’s what you’ve got to keep in mind.”

 

 

 

 

 

Imelda Marcos to Mother Teresa

Penny Aldred

 

            My next door neighbour loved shoes. Lived and breather for shoes. She had so many she rented a storage unit to keep them in.

            She heard about a shoe tree in Newcastle and decided she wanted one for herself here in Manchester. Not a common-or-garden horse chestnut or sycamore. She had it made in copper and steel, with branches riveted to the trunk, and it was stood by the canal where she could see it from her balcony (and I could see it from mine). One the tree’s first day she threw half a dozen pairs of shoes at it. The branches glinted silver and bronze in the sun, and her shoes were like brilliant flowers.

            The shoes were taken, the tree was bare. She threw more and more. Summer it was sandals; winter meant boots. Anytime she threw shoes for dancing. They all disappeared. Word had got round amongst the bare-footed, and the stock in the storage unit dwindled.

            After a year she walked to the tree, took shoes from her feet, he last shoes, red stain slipper and threw them into the branches. Her feet bare, she couldn’t move. Slowly she turned to metal; a statue staring up at the shoe tree.

            When people heard what had happened they brought shoes for the tree and for the woman sitting beneath its branches.