I Found a Pound: First Story

Have you ever thought about money, and the amount of hands it passes through, the different reasons it is spent?
A while ago I had an idea about a collection of stories all connected by a pound coin. The characters would all range in age, background, personality and motives, highlighting the way we are all so diverse yet ultimately connected.
Here is the first story.

Brian Brown

‘…and don’t spend it all at once!’

All at once? Would it be possible to spend it otherwise? To cut the coin in half would take great effort; a helping hand from the world’s strongest man, a miniature circular saw. Brian, little bonny Brian, held the pound and squeezed it. It felt solid, as if it always was and always will be.  Much as he wished he could break it in bits to spend over time, he liked the feel of it, there was a finality to it. I either have this pound or I don’t, thought Brian.

Brian Brown turned eight today. At quarter to seven this morning, the stars aligned in a familiar sequence, Brian’s cosmic cradle bore yet again. He was fast asleep, dreaming of motion and shape shifting, the moment he turned eight. It wasn’t until nine o’clock that his mother, Frances Brown, rat-a-tatted on his door and cooed ‘Briiiiian, wakey waaaaaakey’, a sing song see saw that gently lifted him from his sleep.

Every birthday was the same, keeping with traditions and habits to create stability, to comfort against change. On the mornings of her birthdays, Frances Brown would think, ‘one year closer to death’. On her son’s, today, she thought ‘one year closer to life’. He was at the age where getting older was a celebration, each year a victory of height, strength, times tables and teeth.

As Brian stretched and yawned his mother set down the breakfast tray on his bed, cautiously popping her bottom beside it, careful not to disturb. On the tray there lay an array of treats. Instead of toast there was two halves of an English muffin, buttered and steaming. There were strips of streaky bacon, cooked to a crisp, and beside them three long chipolata sausages. In an ornate dish there was a pile of freshly washed berries. The star of the show was the tall glass full of frothy strawberry milkshake, a straw tempting its way out of it.

‘Go on, eat up’, Mrs. Brown said with a smile. She smoothed the covers around Brian as he shuffled upright and rubbed his eyes. He had never been the sort of child who gets the birthday jitters and jumps around at the crack of dawn. He was a reserved boy, sandy haired and meek, with a milky quality that caused him to blend into situations and cause little fuss. A handy trait in a child, you say. Mrs. Brown certainly agreed.

Many a summer’s evening she would drag Brian along to barbecues and dinner parties, dressing him in a miniature suit, with a shy smile to boot. He would follow her like a tail, feeling glad for the exclusive nature of adult conversations. He could just look down, stare at his feet, travel far into his head and mingle with thoughts and imaginings, a comfortable world. A world which was not filled with so many boring suits and the clip clops of heels. The times when he was ignored were the best times. The worst was when his mother’s friends would try and introduce him to their kids. Snotty, stinky, big kids who all knew each other and had new toys on every occasion. Why did adults think just because you were the same height you would get along? Brian had once gone to a petting zoo. Staring into the eyes of a goat had not sparked any mutual interest or communication, why should it be any different with a human child? Every time he was herded into the ‘play room’ or the sandpit so he could be with ‘people his own age’, he would get a shiver of electricity, a spark of panic, seeing his mother so far away and so engrossed in her own life. I’m scared, what do I say? Do I say anything at all? These kids seem mean…

The turmoil of youth and its social politics can go greatly ignored. When Brian returned home from school with bruises on his arms Mrs. Brown turned a blind eye and let the century old excuse, ‘boys will be boys’, ring loud and clear in her head. She always asked, ‘How was school?’, but never asked, ‘How are you?’

Brian is not the kind of boy who presents information to the world. He is the kind who sucks everything up, is open like a wound, and lets everything come and go. He is a watcher. In life, how do we explain these attributes? Are they ingrained or changeable? For Brian, there was a point, a pinnacle before this way or that way, which provided him with his introversion.  It was when his father, Benjie Brown, died in a car crash two years ago, when Brian was six. Brian remembers when he was told one morning at school. He and the other pupils were all sat in a half circle, facing Miss Jones, as she told them a story about a dragon who couldn’t breathe fire. Nanny Price the receptionist creaked the classroom door open and excused herself with a quivering lip. She beckoned Brian over, he almost felt proud for being selected. He was not usually picked out from the crowd.

And then, the words, the words that sounded like a story. How could Nanny Price’s lilting hushed tone possibly encapsulate the horror of the words? Poor little Brian was only a boy, is only a boy. But he understood. He experienced a loss, profound and mystical, and all colour drained from the corridor and even from outside the window. Did he cry? Not physically. He was too shocked and incredulous to express any emotion. He was dumfounded. People underestimate the lengths a child’s mind can travel; we seem to think that we adults have the coherent thoughts, the capacity to rationalise and to predict what’s next. But that morning, six year old Brian’s mind travelled forward to years in the future. He imagined his mother without his father. He imagined a house with only two. He imagined the silence, the tidiness, the stifling cleanliness. His father, Benjie Brown, was a mechanic, a burly, manly sort. He epitomised his work, returning home at five o’clock with a dirty face that made him look tanned, and a jumpsuit that bore the marks of his day. He was like a surgeon with the blood and guts of engines splattered all over him. To Brian he meant mess- wild, playful, energetic mess. His mother would always be faffing around him, cleaning up the dirty footprints that he trailed behind him everywhere like breadcrumbs.

So, Dad was gone. Where did that leave Mum? Brian thought less about his reaction, and more about his mothers’. Her purpose was her ‘lads’, the two B’s, Benjamin and Brian. Blonde hair, blue eyes, blood bound. Brian was confused. Images of coffins and gravestones popped into his head. He had seen things like that on TV, and knew that it was sad.

Brian was whisked away from school in the receptionist’s car, and was driven to his home three miles away in a leafy suburb. All the while he was blank as a sheet, staring in front, eyes open, vision closed. Nanny Price was out of her depth, she alternated between chirpy words of false hope and long periods of solemn silence. She escorted him to his front door, and this was the moment, that defining droplet in Brian’s ocean, that made him shy away from the world. His mother’s wails seeped through the walls like a poisonous gas and shocked his core. Entering the stale living room sent a white-hot pain through him. Frances Brown was curled up on the floor, her clenched fists banging the carpet, her back heaving with sobs. Brian ran over to her and squeezed and squeezed.

‘Don’t cry, Mum. Don’t cry.’

He knew, from that moment, that it was just him and her now. He needed her because she was all he had, she needed him because he was all she had. It was a double act now, not a team. They would have to try extra hard to be a family. Brian thought, who would she clean up after now?

As it was on every birthday, Brian got dressed in his Sunday best and combed his hair into a sleek side parting. Mrs. Brown straightened his bow tie and brushed his shoulders, to rid of the dust that had accumulated since last year. She would chatter on meaninglessly, exhausting Brian with her incessant ‘Well isn’t it a lovely day! Well aren’t you looking bonny! Well could you ever wish for a better suit than this!’ He kept quiet and nodded. He saw his father in her watery blue eyes, he saw her loss and felt it too. Looking in the mirror, he tried to find some of his father’s traits. His square jaw, maybe? Certainly the hair, the wispy golden mop. But there was no laughter, no mischievous glint in the eye, only Brian’s reflection, a reminder of a life forgotten.  

At about half past eleven, Brian and his mother left the house looking like dolls. Mrs. Brown made doubly sure that she had locked the front door, and peered into the window to make sure all the lights were off. Nothing worse than waste. Nothing worse than forgotten light switches. She held Brian’s hand and guided him through the front gate, which she slammed close with a screech. Turning left towards the main road, the journey began, as it did every year, to Gran’s.

Gran was Mrs. Brown’s mother. Her name was Cynthia Wills and she stank of lavender and self-importance. Brian saw her as a large bony bird, a vulture. She had a nose that dipped into her teacup and a hunched posture that conjured images of witches and gargoyles. She was not a hag by any means, but Brian, in his eight-year-old innocence, could see right through her fancy frills. Her smile was not warm, it was grotesque. Her high head of curls was not tastefully styled, it was frightful. She wore Christmas tree jewellery and bright floral two piece suits that made Brian dizzy. She lived by herself on the posh side of town, with Waitrose round the corner and no kebab shops to be seen. Brian dreaded these visits. Perhaps this is why he was never particularly excited for his birthday. It meant stiff suits and fuss that grated on him, nails on a blackboard, that sort of feeling.

‘Oh, hello Frances, hello Brian! Don’t you look wonderful, the pair of you! Oh, what a sight for a dithering old biddy like me! Come in, come in, I have tea ready and Marcella’s just left so the house is nice and clean. Oh, Brian, won’t you smile for your grandmother? Cat still got your tongue? Frances, what do you feed this boy? Stinging nettles? Hurt to talk, does it Brian? Come on boy!’

With each rasping syllable Brian’s stomach tightened. It made him want to implode on himself and disappear. He looked down, and further down, until his neck hurt. His lips tightened until locked. Gran turned to go inside so they followed. Brian noticed that his mother became considerably quieter around Gran. She was the one that did all the talking at home, but here, at 42 Glenroy Street, she did a lot more nodding and mmming.

The house was shiny with polish and smelt of synthetic freshness. Cotton Delight, Lavender Dreams, Lemony Zest. Brian hated it all. Everything looked like a photograph. They walked through into the lounge, where there was a tea set arranged on the glass topped coffee table. The teapot and cups and saucers all matched (naturally) and were decorated with flowers. Gran and Mrs. Brown sat next to each other on the sofa, Brian on the large armchair opposite. Everyone went through the birthday motions, handing him his cards and his presents. From his mother, socks and a new shirt, blue and crisp. He also got a few story books and a large tin of boiled sweets. From his Gran, it was always the same. A card with a pound stuck inside it with sellotape. She was still stuck in the era where a singular coin meant a lot, so gave it to Brian with an air of pride. He thanked them politely.

As the grownups chattered on, Brian planted his hands beneath his buttocks, and clenched. He tapped his shoes together, click clicking, and indulged in his imagination. Where was he now? Outer space, floating in a bubble, trapped but warm. Or the Wild West, on a horse, galloping and free, cowboy hat bouncing in the breeze. He was a mouse now, burrowing his way into a bed of leaves, knowing it was his bedtime because of the owl’s twit-twoo.

‘Brian! Brian! Will you answer your Gran please? He is an awful dreamer, he really is!’

Brian gazed up hesitantly.

‘Yes Brian, what I was saying was, wouldn’t it be lovely if all three of us could go on a trip away somewhere? How about Cornwall? There are some lovely beaches down there. Great tea rooms as well, very tasteful, very tasteful. Frances, you really ought to discipline this boy! All he’s doing is looking up at me like a simpleton! Have you had him tested? For disability, I mean. They can help you, you know, in schools now. I’ve never met someone so quiet! There’s a fine line between shyness and rudeness you know…’

Brian listened and stared. What was this feeling that was building up in him? It was bubbling and squeaking like an overheated stew. He fidgeted on his chair. Suddenly things were getting a bit much. The steam from the teapot was rising and the grandfather clock behind him was loud and oppressive. Everything sharpened and a rage seared through him, vital and real. He closed his eyes and in his head straight lines began to appear, pointing somewhere.

On an on, the women’s voices droned, rising and falling with put on emphasis, stirring Brian’s stomach into a sticky slush. Who were these people? He knew what family meant, he knew that you were born into one, and you had to stay there, but if they didn’t understand you, who could? He looked outside through the large bay windows that faced the street. It was quiet out there, a nothing day, the sky was an inoffensive pale yellow. A van drove past with ‘Mike’s Motor Rescue’ written on its side. Mrs. Brown looked up and her eyes flickered. She cleared her throat and reached over to her tea cup, which shivered in its saucer. There was a prolonged silence which rose and fell with each of their breaths.

‘Oh yes, Mike, I thought I recognised him! He was friends with your Benjamin wasn’t he? Bad apple though, that Mike’, Gran interjected. She looked about the room for an answer but even Mrs. Brown had frozen up. This was a sensitive subject which Gran seemed to be completely immune from. This was not the first time she had mentioned Brian’s father with nonchalance. She had never been fond of him, thinking him working class and brutish, even his death had not redeemed him.

‘Although Benjamin was always well behaved, which is all you can expect from that kind of family!’

Brian was determined not to cry. He welled up and it felt like there were oceans under there but he swallowed and managed to say with a teeny tiny voice, ‘I’m going to the toilet’. As he stood up from his chair he glanced at his mother and felt sorry for her. Gran was still talking, how did she have so much to say? There were too many words floating around the room, words like time machines. He had to go.

Brian never broke the rules. He was never late back from school, he had never stole a sweet in his life, his homework was done on time. It was curious then, that instead of turning left up the stairs to the bathroom, he carried on walking, past the picture frames and the sign that said ‘Welcome’ and through the front door which opened with a click. He stepped out into the world and thought, so this is what it feels like to be a bad boy. It felt good.

Without doubt or hesitation, he walked briskly past the hedgerows and sounds of lawnmowers, running his fingers along every wall he passed, taking note of every texture, liking the heat that the friction was causing. He looked down at his feet at the shiny shoes and stepped on every crack on the pavement. He saw a puddle of oil on the road and dipped his foot into it, with caution at first, and then with force. People passed but didn’t notice. He wondered if his mother had noticed he’d left yet. He liked the idea of her worrying, he could imagine her shock, Gran’s disapproval. He suddenly wanted them to disapprove, he wanted them to treat him like a little rascal not a little gentleman. He took off his bow tie and flung it into a bin. His mother would be so angry. How delightful!

Time had done that funny thing of going on without you, and before he knew, Brian had reached the Edge of Town. The Edge of Town was always mentioned by his Gran with a downturned mouth. It was where the rich suburbs ended and the outskirts of the city began. This was where you found your disillusioned delinquents, your dirty drug addicts, your dim witted doleys, according to Gran. Stay away, she would say. But she was at home, and Brian was feeling brave. He could tell it was the Edge of Town because of the people. There were more of them and they looked like they were in a hurry. He recognised this street; a memory was creeping back to him. His father had taken him here once, in his work van. Brian loved to sit next to him in the front seat, even though his mother said he was not allowed. Benjie Brown would always say, ‘What your mother doesn’t know won’t kill her.’ That day was a special treat because Brian was allowed to be with his father all day, it was a weekend. He didn’t remember doing much, only driving around; his father’s whistling a suitable soundtrack.

He was too young then. He felt older now, walking by himself, dodging the people and prams. He could smell something strange, delicious and meaty, coming from a take away. He felt his father all around, this was his territory. He heard his voice in the gruff tones around him, and saw his weather beaten face in the men that stood smoking outside the pubs. There was dirt and scum stuck to the pavement, chewing gum dotted around like pebbles on a beach. Even though he was a little scared, he was on a risky high, he hadn’t felt this kind of excitement for a long time. He did what he did best and watched. There were fathers and sons, girlfriends and boyfriends, mothers and babies, and they all looked like they didn’t care about afternoon tea and trips to Cornwall. They were getting on with everything, he wished he knew how to move that fast.

Glancing to his left, a colourful sign drew his attention. ‘Toys for Boys’ was written in jaunty rainbow colours on the dirty window. It was hand painted and was starting to peel and crack. Brian looked in shyly, not wanting to appear nosy. The shop was empty, apart from a hunched figure at the desk. All the shelves were packed with bits and bobs, old train sets, wooden guns, big glass jars of marbles. The floor looked dusty, the floor boards were bare, and it seemed like a place forgotten. Because there were no customers Brian decided to go inside.

There was a bell attached to the door which rung with a trill when it was opened. The smell of dust and must came over him instantly, and he was reminded of the saloons of the Wild West he’d read about in books, he imagined they would smell like this. Like the inside of a vacuum cleaner.

‘Hello son!’

The hunched figure had turned around and was now facing Brian a few feet away at the counter. He was an old man, withered and wiry, with glasses perched on his nose and white hair that was fighting to stay on. He looked friendly, and was leaning against the wooden counter with a casual stance, a cloth hanging from his jean pocket.

‘Looking for anything in particular?’ asked the shopkeeper. Brian shook his head. His shyness slapped him in the face, reminding him that he was in an unfamiliar place, that this was a stranger, that he had run away. He looked down at his shoes, the oil was seeping on to the floorboards.

‘Just want a look around then do you? No harm in that. You can’t steal with your eyes can you!’

The shopkeeper turned around, whistling a tune that sounded like a lullaby. Brian didn’t know what to do. Adults made him uncomfortable, but there was something calm and unassuming about this one that gave him some confidence. He looked around and after a while he couldn’t help but move towards the shelves that lined the walls of the shop. It was a mosaic of tin and wood and cardboard containers. Everything looked washed out in colour but there was a brightness to it all, a magical antiquity that fascinated Brian. He walked up and down, catching glimpses of old boxes.

The Ultimate Adventure Kit

Jungle Jigsaw- A Thousand Pieces, A Thousand Creatures!

Biggest Yo-Yo in the World

What was this place? The strange, dusty treasures that lay here were new to him in their age. Never had he seen such adventure, it did not seem to matter that outside the window was a grey world of concrete and fumes, in here he was a little boy set free to be.

Then his eyes were drawn to the corner of the shop. He walked towards it and in front of him was a large blue truck, about the size of a cat. It looked in much better condition than all the other toys, but Brian could tell that it was old because of the style. It was a truck from the fifties, round-edged and classic looking, with big round headlights that looked like eyes. He crouched down and was compelled to touch it, to run his fingers over the cool metal and stroke the rubbery tyres. In a flash, he felt his father again, his love of cars and engines and messy machines.

‘You like that do you, son?’

Brian was startled, and quickly drew his hand away, standing upright.

‘Sorry sir, I…I didn’t mean to touch it.’

‘Don’t be silly! Touch it all you want! These toys are meant to be touched, not to sit here and rot. No one ever comes in these days. All boys want is computer games and bang bang shoot the zombies!’

‘It’s a nice truck. My dad liked trucks.’

‘Did he now…A real man. Do you want to buy it, son?’

Brian looked down at the truck and thought of the time, what time was it now, was his mother worried, had she called the police, would it be back to school, back to silence, back to crusts cut off and Sunday lunch and Gran who dribbled poison from her tongue. Brian nodded at the shopkeeper and reached into his pocket.

‘I only have this though…It’s not much.’

He handed over the pound that he had been given earlier that day. The shopkeeper took it from him and gave a light chuckle which echoed in the room.

‘Well, it is worth more than that, I have to tell you. But do you know what, you look like you’ve taken quite a fancy to it, I haven’t seen wide eyes like that since I myself was a kid! That’ll do just fine, son.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Brian walked back to where the truck was sitting and picked it up. He had to use both arms, wrapping them around it like a newborn. 

Dream Snatcher

Here are a few dream adaptations that I have been working on...
Dreams have always intrigued and mystified me so I thought it would be interesting to 'collect' dreams- write down my own and ask others to write down theirs-and re-write them as half stories/soliloquies.
(if you have any interesting dreams please share..!)


'I dream, and who is dreaming me?'

Vermin

I thought, so this is the new way of doing it then? Go through years of trying to sell your house and then be expected to clear it out yourself?

In fairness, I had volunteered. I like to feel useful. But walking around the bare rooms I realised I was not up for the job. Something in me couldn’t say goodbye.

What a dump, I thought. How did it get like this? The house showed its age, I wondered how I’d managed to live in a derelict building for so long. Sentiment, I suppose…

I walked to the bathroom, a big gaping room now, stark and ugly. The only thing left was a cast iron bath. I grappled at possibilities of trying to move it, and got frustrated. At closer inspection, it was in two halves. Even harder to move! Leaning against one half was a crumbling washing machine, the sort you see in skips. Inside it was hollow- a metal carcass- something had gotten to it. Termites? Metal termites?

On account of the new owner’s renovation, the walls had been stripped to their foundations, showing the wooden boards that held them up. I was perplexed to see little white dots on the remains of the walls. It looked like someone had gone round squeezing tubes of decorating icing. An ancient way of plastering, perhaps? Don’t be silly, I thought. And yet there was no explanation.

What I saw next threw me sideways. A blue and purple lizard, huge and dazzling, crawled up the wall. I had never seen such a thing! I was taken aback. The colours were so vivid, deep amethyst and sapphire, it looked exquisite. I was almost scared, such a rare, special thing could not be dealt with lightly.

In shock, I looked down to find the floor crawling with these strange lizards. A chill came over me as I remembered the eaten washing machine. Did these lizards have a taste for metal? It could explain the bath in two pieces…

My first thought was to stamp on them, but then I became conflicted. Were they dangerous? Did they need to be destroyed? They slithered at my feet, a whole sea of them, and a part of me wanted to collect them, to protect them.

Those creatures, I wondered why they had appeared so suddenly. It didn’t fit with my logic but they existed all the same.

The White Cage/The Wave

We had been caught. I don’t know how. We hadn’t even planned on killing anyone, it wasn’t an outcome we had hoped for. I look at Margaret and a panicky wave sloshes through me, infecting me. A poisonous injection of Shit What Have We Done.

Oh shit, he’s dead!

I look at Margaret, she knows our fate just as well as I. How did it come to this? Murderers! I keep thinking, I don’t want to go to jail. It’s always been a fear of mine, the big unthinkable. Locked up in your own mind.

Next thing we’re on a train. It feels like we’re on our way to a concentration camp. We are on our way to be questioned and doom glows around us like some perverse halo.

We walk into the interrogation room which must have been borrowed from a film. Dingy, basic, spotlight on desk. Our mothers are there. I feel ashamed. There is a point of pure desperation where I try to get myself out of it, conjure up excuses like a magic trick. Too  late.

We are taken to a prison, Margaret and I. It is in Japan, a new state of the art, high-tech young person’s prison. Fairly pleasant as prisons go. Everything is white- the exterior is cubic with many different levels and pathways. It is maze-like. No matter how minimalist and modern it looks, I still can’t contemplate being stuck in here. We know it will be for seven years. I stab in the dark to find something hopeful about the situation.

It is visiting hours. I’m outside on the prison grounds, a big field like a football pitch. My family are there, the mood is forlorn. I look up and gasp- a huge wave, a tsunami, is opening its big wet mouth, ready to gulp us all. Everyone screams and runs. It’s terrifying, one of those do or die moments. The tsunami goes straight over the prison, straight over us. We get soaked.

I scan the devastation for my family, I find my father and sister. I am hysterical by this point. We look everywhere for my mother and brother and eventually, thank God, we find them. We are all together, all safe. The family is completed. Nothing better, is there?

Reality’s ugly penny drops. Not such a happy ending after all. I have to go back to prison, serve my time for a crime I didn’t even know how I’d committed. That bastard wave hadn’t even managed to destroy the prison. And you call yourself a tsunami? Tshhh…

As I am walked to my cell a determination comes over me, a steely survival instinct that convinces me I will get through this, that I should make a lemonade, however bitter, from all these lemons that life has suddenly thrown at me.

I vow to make friends- they can’t all be bad, can they? I have been branded a ‘criminal’ but I’m not a bad person…And what about all those books I hadn’t read? The greats, the classics? Maybe I could turn this to my advantage, these seven years in this white cage.

The Brown Line

The tube had changed since the last time I’d been on it. It was all over-ground, and London had become a rural, coastal stretch of wind and sleepy houses. I was on the brown line, Bakerloo, on the way to a new gallery that had just opened. I enjoyed this sort of time to myself, solitary travelling always gives me a welcome window of contemplation.

I was sitting there, in the quiet, when I noticed what was sitting in front of me.

He was the strangest looking man I had ever seen. He was enormous, about the size of two people, so he must have been taking up two seats. His head, especially, looked as if it might topple off it was so big. He reminded me of a sumo wrestler. He was certainly foreign (if not alien) and had a friendly, serene face, with dark hair tied up in one of those buns. I realised with some unease that he was not fully dressed. His sloppy belly was hanging over him, yet he didn’t seem embarrassed or apologetic. In fact he was talking amicably to the nervous Englishman sat next to him. That always made me angry, the cold arrogance of the English…He clearly didn’t want to be next to the sumo man- at first I deplored his reluctance to chat along.

Then, my eyes travelled downwards. The sumo man was wearing a nappy type contraption. I could see that his arse hole was on show, and a huge wedge of shit was stuck on the way out of it. It was rectangular in shape, and revolted me. I forgave the Englishman in one swift second, as I too would try and avert my eyes elsewhere to avoid conversation with the strange naked man, who had such rectal dysfunction. I was glad that my stop was near- I was getting off in ‘Bath’- which was in London now. I told you the tube had changed.

Four Moons

I understand now the vividness of paintings.

I was in a field, it was a late dusk, and we were camping. It was a high up field on the foothills of some mountains, and in front of us laid a great vista. It was similar to Barcelona because it was by the sea, and bore the same sandy orange coloured buildings.

I was astonished by the sight, humbled by it. The sky had never looked so real yet so far from reality. It was a rich midnight blue, a velvety texture, royal in its depth. Placed in a row towards the bottom of the horizon were four yellow moons- full and beaming. Thin, wavy clouds weaved in and out behind the moons, confusing night with day.

I rushed into our tent and exclaimed-

“Quick, come and look at the sky! It looks like a Dali painting!”

I was excited, it felt like a solar eclipse level of occasion.

As we came out to see, a huge zig-zagging lightning bolt cracked through the sky. It was godly, profound. It hit into a large satellite pole which then immediately caught alight- a big burning Christmas tree. In one swooping action, the fire spread to the whole left hand side of the city that I had so admired. It took a second.

Such destruction in a heartbeat. At first I was scared that we might be in danger, and then I realised we were on the right side, the safe side. All we could do was watch the four moons and the orange glow beneath.

Some Poems

Recognition

To turn off a light

Takes a courage unseen

To delve into darkness

And all shades between

Makes it hard to recognise

The form you took first

A vague sense instead

Prolonging the thirst

I looked in a mirror

I suspected it lied

A reflection, a stranger

My heart strings were tied

I frantically searched

All the corners that hide

For me, as I began

For the first time I cried

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Dreamland

Goodnight, ladybirds

It’s time to rest

Let all that sparkles

Fade

To sleepy sand

There comes a time

When even beauty dies

And all that’s left

Avoids the eyes

Tread carefully on your road

To dreams untold

Let your hair unfold

Undressed and bold

Messy with gold

Rolling in a decadence

Made wealthy by stars

_________________________________________________________________

That Feeling

Oh fuck!

There it goes!

I’ve been on my toes since the moment we froze

In time- one second

Is vast

All logic a mask

I don’t want to cry

For no reason why

I want to wake up

And fly fly fly

Out of the grey

And bastarding ways

Of making me heard-

Where’s the fun in excess?

Meaningless sex

No respect

I expect

Fortunate ways

Of getting a raise

Bask in the praise

My pretty young bird

I once heard a song

It set me free just that once

Play it again, let it run

Through my veins

Run over my curves

Vanish my pains

_________________________________________________________________

Silence

I heard that silence...

It came over you like a mask

Porous and seeping

Falling from the ceiling

White and exotic

A noise so still

At caterpillar pace

Exhausting

Forbidding- don't cross

_________________________________________________________________

The Haunting

Why are you still here?

You cackling reminder

Your nose as large as my fear

Your feet planted stubbornly

Pig-strength you remain

The star of my dreams

I fear you the most

I love you the least

Clawing at my mind

A ghost of a ghost

A shadow of an illusion

An optical illusion

A coronary illusion

All of it-

Illusion

But its just a word.

You still glow as bright as pain.

_________________________________________________________________

Provide me with evidence

From the last providence

Festering with guilt

This shoe doesn’t fit

Provide me with diaries

Left over from fairies

Reason left and right

Until the centre does fit

Plead and tilt

Wear me like silk

Forever and free

Effortlessly me

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Spanning

Languid lovers in a foreign light

Head lamps searching

Lost love in gutters

Pressing charges, funny umbrellas

Suitable windows, an angel’s delight

Sparkling nonsense, candied tounges

Purposefully licking

Twisting my words

Preoccupied with truth

Resisting feeling

The road forks twice

And I linger below

Any map that could show

Could not bend

As far away

As it goes

_________________________________________________________________

Sparkly new

Brush off the dust

Venture, discover

Personify lust

For a bigger meaning

To rid of the rust

Neither Here nor There: memoir

Neither Here nor There

I’ve always thought of my roots as hot and cold- red and blue. My body a mix of blood, a Petri dish of conflicting cells. My beginnings a union of different cultures, the clash of them. Much like a frog who hops in and out of a pond, I too have different homes. My birth place, Croesor, in the wild Welsh landscape, holds my physical memories, cups my childhood in its green hands. It is as familiar to me as my own face; the valley that bore me nineteen years ago is an old friend. My family place, however, where my Mama was born, where her roots first grew, is far away towards the East.

When I think of Serbia- my mothering country- I think of a place in the psyche, built of memories, vague notions, secret words. A place from the photos- exotic, chaotic. When I go there I almost feel a part of it, like I belong. It’s as if there’s a pull, a gravitational attraction towards the ancestral pool. And how easy it is to dive in. There is always a fiery warm welcome, family there means everything. We were forever to be greeted with open arms- even though we are “Engleski”- by our relatives and their surrounding orbit of friends and neighbours. How memory works in such a blending of the senses. Like watercolours, images, sounds and smells swim into each other creating a distinct flavour, the splutters of car engines, a haze of heat, husky voices, those deep booming vowels of the language, vibrating your heartstrings. Always the smoke, a constant blanket of hot smoke wherever you go.

I remember the excitement of ‘going back home’, my home away from home, a borrowed home. Walking off the plane in Belgrade, I would feel a drunken giddiness, the excitement of airports that seems to get lost with age. The heat would always come over me like a lick of crimson paint, and as we collected our suitcases and scanned the crowd for familiar faces, I would get sticky with sweat, and I knew we had arrived. Someone would always meet us, usually an aunt or an uncle. It would be a jubilant reunion, a generous spatter of kisses, the European way. Walking out to the car, the enduring smell of the country would greet us, hugging our nostrils with pollution and cigarettes. If I paint an unsavoury picture, it is not my intention. The halcyon nature of childhood memories means everything becomes a patchwork of nostalgia and innocence. Perhaps had I visited Serbia only in my adult years, I would have wrinkled my nose at the foggy atmosphere, but my seven year old self thought it was a wonderful place, any smell a new smell, and therefore to be treasured. Instead of being dirty or stifling, the sometimes run-down surroundings were transformed by their unfamiliarity. Wow, look at those towers of flats! I’ve never seen anything like them in Wales! And everything here is covered in dust instead of grass!

Relativity was a curious factor in our visits. As part of our pentagonal family I felt privileged, rich, BRITISH. I would sometimes feel oddly ashamed of how Mama would always pay the bill, or how our clothes always seemed newer and trendier than the other kids’. Instead of being a cause of pride, our wealthiness there was a flashing light bulb, drawing attention to our Western advantages. Seeing the poverty there was a frightening education. Gypsy kids, street urchins of sorts, would drag their feet forlornly along the street, begging for money or asking the street vendors for food and water. They looked very foreign, like little Mowglis. Walking past I would feel incredibly white, not only in appearance but in culture, and I would get a wave of unease, embarrassed by my own luck.

There were sadder sights still. In Bosnia, especially, there were leftovers from the war. A confused aftertaste of destruction hung in the air. We would go there to visit my grandmother Baba Rosa, who lived there for a while working as a doctor. It was a small, rural village, almost a wasteland of bare brick buildings and rickety roads. I remember seeing a sign outside a school there, it read something like ‘Donated by the American Charitable Society’ and I thought, it must be poor here if other countries are helping them out. That really shocked me. Old women dressed in mourning black would beg in the streets, frail and wrinkly, they looked like chicken bones in headscarves. Mama would always give them money, saying her grandmother could have turned out like that. Grief and hardship seemed to seep from every crevice. But loyally, the art of childhood memory manages to gloss over these ugly scars, I still saw beauty in the cracks, if only because I had never seen them before. The family atmosphere still ran strong, many times we would visit the houses in the village, meeting the neighbours and eating big tropical smiles of watermelon, the sweet juice sticking like glue. Even though there were ruins, and a basic feel to everything that we were not used to back at home, I never felt superior. We left that British arrogance at customs. In fact I deplored being an outsider, I wanted in.

Back in North Wales, we were not especially privileged. That air of having it all faded with our tans. This accentuated how little some people had over there, and still, they lived in a culture where glamour and materialism ruled all. Brought up in a down to earth middle class family, I had never been exposed to flash displays of wealth. In Serbia people would wear clothes screaming misspelt designer names and show off their new phones. It was a curious swap of roles- we were usually seen as the rich British relatives and yet everyone made fun of our country bumpkin ways, lacking in gadgets and gizmos. The attitudes towards sex and sex appeal over there are also a much brasher, overt affair compared to what I was used to back home. The women all seemed beautifully made up- bright make up, curvaceous bodies with tight clothes to show them off- exuding glamour I had only seen in films. My aunties Sandra and Irena were like real life twin Barbie dolls. I would reach the height of luxury when they painted my nails or plucked my eyebrows. They were so different to Mama, who rarely shaved her legs or wore lipstick, my aunties were real women. I suppose, not that real, as both of them have gone on to have excessive plastic surgery. The ingrained female sexualisation there seemed almost aggressive.

My aunties would always say that I looked like them, that I was a proper Serb, my dark eyes given to me from Mama, my high cheekbones echoing a Slavic femininity. My skin also tanned well. I was proud of this, it seemed to show that I was more Serbian than my brother and sister, who glowed an Anglo-Saxon pink, and hid blue eyes behind their sunglasses. Our blood, on the other hand, would measure out equally, a perfect half of Serbian red, the rest a cold British blue. But appearances meant more to me, my competitive side strived to be the most exotic. I even had an advantage with the language as Mama had spoken Serbian to me as a child (which I eventually rejected as ‘weird’, ‘different’- how the tables turn!) so I could understand snippets of conversation.

“Aide bre!”- “Lets go!”

“Kako je lepa”- “Isn’t she pretty”

“Ja hocu pivo”- “I want beer”

I revelled in the deep notes and cutting consonants, yet all the while we remained in our bubble of English. The words sounded familiar, they would dance around my ears with their bobbing rhythms, never to be fully understood. I envied Mama talking fluidly, laughing to jokes I could never grasp, the punch line would always get lost in translation. Even though we were accepted because of our family ties, it would bug me that there was such a gauze of misunderstanding between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Yet that is the linguistic side of the coin, flip over and love transcends verbs and nouns- generosity reads the same in any language.

The evenings there were the most magical of all. Those husky dusks, the sun setting with a long kiss goodnight. We would walk along the bustling streets, in Novi Sad or Belgrade, and I would invite the chatter and smell of popcorn gladly. Group outings with the whole family were common; we would sit at the outside tables of cafes that were sprawled across the city quarters. I would guzzle up fizzy drinks and ice cream, sponging the atmosphere until I was heavy and dazed with it.

One of my favourite places was our great aunt Tetka Mira’s balcony in Belgrade. She lived in an apartment block that was one of many on a long street following on to a shady leafed park. The main road was not far, we would climb up a row of steps, passing all the old women selling bric a brac, to the buses and cars and the roadside watermelon stalls. This balcony though, felt like a little square box of paradise. Whether it was a hazy morning with sleepy eyes and the smell of Turkish coffee (thick and syrupy, with the grains left at the bottom) or a midnight hour where the heat became bearable, sitting at the table, looking at the city’s vastness was transporting. We were transported! It was otherworldly. Coming from the sticks and stones of our little Welsh village, the contrast was mind boggling. Sand coloured apartments, high and repetitive, stood tall and proud instead of mountains. The sound of sheep and twittering birds was replaced by far off sirens, connoting mayhem and a constant flux of events. We would sit at the balcony and look down on the passing pedestrians, walking along the pathway towards the park. We felt so high up and to prove this we would spit watermelon pips off the edge to watch how long they would take to hit the ground, which seemed miles away. It was like those games of ‘pooh sticks’ we would play at the rivers around Croesor, throwing sticks into the water, just to watch them come out at the other side of the bridge. There was fun in throwing things into the oblivion.

In Serbia the climate is sticky and humid like a stewed peach. Dust and sand seem a part of everything, lending my mind’s eye a filter of yellowy brown. There are not many mountains or hills; everything seems to be on the same plane. Instead of beaches, the coastless country offers its wide, murky rivers as places to swim and sunbathe. The water is grey and uncertain, with a bed of waterweeds which can twist around your ankles as you swim.

Back in my birthplace I admire the levels of the countryside, there seems to be more clarity. From the peaks of the mountains to the earthy underground, I can sense the creatures high and low, living in their element much as we live in our four walls. I can scan the bumps and curves of the mountainside, finding surprises of purples and yellows in the textured quilt of grass and stone. My surroundings feel like a multi coloured canvas you can paint with your feet. Growing up in the V shaped valley, in our old farmhouse Croesor Fawr- Big Croesor, one notices the timeless quality of the untamed. If you were to watch a sped up video of the last fifty years, you would see a flurry of the seasons: white, green, grey, sunset pinks. No new roads built, no upheavals of architecture, no growing fog of pollution. The changes of nature remain unchanged.

Growing up in the open air was a free and happy affair. I was allowed to roam the fields as I pleased, finding spots to play in, an abandoned, crumbling barn where I encountered my first game of Truth or Dare, or at the river bed, sunbathing and paddling in beneath the canopy of trees. It was much easier to believe in fairies in a place like this. Croesor is a village placed beneath the mountain Cnicht, allegedly named after the English word ‘knight’. It has a protective quality, I always thought it looked like a gorilla. It has always attracted a variety of characters, people from all around the world, and once housed the ‘Orange People’ in the 60’s, a hippie commune who wore orange robes and must have stuck out amongst the Welsh farmers. I attended the primary school that used to run in the village, which only had two rooms and had thirty students at most, meaning we all knew each other as family.

Even though I was born in a tiny cottage at the foot of Cnicht, it was hard to place my finger on where exactly I had come from. Other children of the village were part of a long generation of Croesor inhabitants, with grandparents next door and a solid sense of national pride. Where were my aunties and uncles and cousins? Where did I grow out of? It didn’t seem to matter that I had gasped my first breath on Croesor soil, while my school mates had been born in the local city hospital, because they had family here, they had it in their blood. This feeling of one foot in, one foot out, carried through into my family life. My parents split up when I was a few months old, so I have always lived with Mama, my stepdad and my half brother and sister. I was always slightly out of focus at home, a full figure, yes, but blurred around the edges. Visiting my dad on the weekends meant an ongoing upheaval, not quite belonging with him either. Now he has his own family, I am even more of a floating cloud. It is the same when I question my identity, which part of me is British? My bones? My hands? Are my lungs of a Serbian origin? My lips? I suppose I should count myself lucky, not many people can claim such duality.

What contradictions, what opposite poles, these places I call home. I have always found a beauty in that, the differences, the feminine and masculine, the yin and yang blending of darkness and light. There is beauty in this mix of flavours- the sweet and savoury of family trees and childhood roots. I bask in this mixing bowl of memories and mismatched cultures, celebrating this distant place where I also belong. My blood has travelled far from the Adriatic Sea, which is neither here nor there, but remains in me.