Day 4: Gah

Having bored myself rigid with the scene in the railway station and feeling like I was pulling teeth - even with the return to the cliche part where our main character gets dressed and I revel in the boy/girl clash (the original story of my own that I'm ripping off is named oh-so-originally Boy to Girl in case it wasn't obvious) - I decided I would skip ahead. I've been watching some video essays and Harry Potter kept being referenced and so, with that in mind and with my main character on a train, I thought I might use the journey to try and get some other characters in the narrative. Still no real plot here but at least I have a conversation. It's clearly first draft territory though - you'll see that for yourself - but at least I have a name for my main character now. The other character is the only name I remember from the original (not the surname, not sure she had a surname back then), as is her character design but description of her here is deliberately sparse because my MC isn't analysing her looks as they analysed their own back in their room and I wanted that to be a Thing. Mind you, maybe being sparse is a bad choice.

First draft. Just keep repeating that mantra and maybe I won't hate it as much! Here's the noodling from tonight:

       “Are you going to Leeds too?”

       I was a bit startled, having been enjoying the view across the rugged landscape and chalking up yet another cliché by making the observation deliberately in my head just to do so. “Huh?”

       “Leeds. Is that where you’re going?” repeated the girl sat opposite me. She looked unnervingly similar to the girls at my school in the face, which just added the feeling that things were off when I took in her clothes. “I’m going to Leeds. Union camp, you know, learning about the value of friendship or something annoying like that. They’ll probably say something about what jobs to do. I want to do Maths.”

       “Maths?” She spoke quickly, too quickly for me to really take everything in all at once. “I mean, yeah, yeah, I’m going to Leeds.” Also, there was a bit of a culture shock to be spoken to by a girl without opening conversation. Not to boast but people tended not to open conversation with me for any reason. If this were a film would it pass Bechdel’s test?

       She looked harder at me, cocking her head like a small dog. “Are you a Colonial?”

       “Pardon?” I don’t usually use that word but the situation seemed to demand the kind of archaic confusion my grandparents were fond of, I just removed the undercurrent of irritation that usually accompanied their pronunciation.

       “You said ‘yeah’ rather than ‘yes’. Makes you sound like a cowboy.”

       “Cowgirl.” I corrected impulsively, feeling stupid before the last syllable left my mouth. “On account-”

       She was laughing anyway, the kind of light polite laughter that came from genuine amusement and not being threatened by the situation. I’d heard it often enough, but never evoked it. “Well, then, what’s your name?”

       For the briefest moment I consider telling her my actual name, the one I grew up with, but luckily the confusion of seeing her laugh gave me pause for just long enough to realise that this was not the time nor the place. At least, not yet. “Suzanne. Suzanne Charlton. You?”

       “You talk funny. Are you sure you’re not a Colonial?” she caught my look of utter incomprehension. “Well, I’m Harriet. Most people call me Hattie though and Harriet sounds a bit posh if you ask me.”

       “Hattie,” I repeat, anxious to catch hold of one thread of the conversation at least. She seems nice enough.

       Smiling at my repetition. “Hattie Watson. You’re not from Carlisle are you?” Perceptive too.

       Without thinking I started talking: “Lived there seven years,” it came out almost as a defensive boast, which was not what I was intending. “Moved from Lancashire.” I was flustered, recognising that this was a chance at gaining a friendly ear in whatever the heck was happening, and grabbing it with both hands. “I live in Stanwix.” Luckily this was true for Suzanne as well as me, so I could bring things back on track. If I’d learned nothing else by watching Quantum Leap it was that Sam had to leave those he leaped into the way he found them so they could carry on living. I had no intention of leaving Suzanne with a web of confusion when I left. And I felt like I could leave at any time. Unless this was like Quantum Leap and I had to put right what once went wrong. Hattie was talking again.

       “…that’s why I ended up going to Trinity School rather than working down in Denton Holme. My Dad reckons it’s better for me anyway so…” she tailed off. “School or Co-op?”

       For a moment I thought I’d misheard. Also, I had no idea what she was talking about. Nor did I know. What on Earth was a Co-op anyway? Oh well, in case of emergency: be honest. “School.”

       “How fabulous! So you’re an academic as well?”

       “I mean, I guess.”

       “Don’t you know?” she looked moderately confused.

       This wasn’t an easy conversation. But then, I reflected, most conversations were filled with landmines and mistakes to make so this was unfamiliar but no different to normal. “Oh, yeah, I do. Just… it’s a figure of speech.”

       “Lancastrian?”

       In for a penny… “Yeah. I mean, yes.” Also I had no idea what a Union camp was and that was, apparently, where I was going. And Hattie had been nice enough to strike up a conversation. I decided to take a risk and ask some questions of my own. “You been to one of these before?”

       “No, first one. I suppose it’s the same for you.”

       “Absolutely.”

       “Oh, good. So, what’s your favourite subject? Mine’s Maths, and the sciences obviously.”

       “Oh, History. I like the First World War. Well, like is probably the wrong word, but it’s my favourite thing to learn about.”

       “What’s that?”

       “What’s what?”

       “First World War? Is that like a Roman or Saxon thing? Most of my History is all about modern stuff and nonsense.”

       I was taken aback. Well, I did think this was all a bit close to Victorian times. Either that or she was very into Maths and not a fan of History, which would make sense, most of the History I’d done in class was medieval and industrial era anyway so we hadn’t actually studied the First World War, it was just what my Dad was into. “No, 1914-1918, I guess it’s a bit-”

       “Oh, the Great War you mean? I’ve never heard it called the First World War before, you make it sound like there was another one! Or more! Gosh! Can you imagine? Oh! I bet you like reading those science fiction books! I’m not a fan, my Mum made me read H. G. Wells once, she really liked it, and it wasn’t as good as Anderson or the Brontës. Have you read Wells?”

       Something told me to drop the subject and take the opportunity to talk books instead. “Read the Landships once, prefer short stories.” I’m not completely dense, but I ignored the ‘something’. “You’ve never heard of the Second World War? Hitler and the Germans, that sort of thing.” In the moment, despite my huge confidence in my own abilities, I found myself floundering and relying on half-baked memories of Commando comics and bad TV shows. “Like Dad’s Army or ‘Allo ‘Allo?”

       Hattie looked utterly confused, but clearly decided that I wasn’t a raving lunatic and, instead, jumped to what must have been the only logical conclusion for her to draw. “I’ve not heard of those books, who wrote them? I’ve heard of Hitler though,” she looked thoughtful for a moment, “Angry gadgey with a silly moustache, did something in Germany or something?”

       I didn’t think Hattie was this ill-informed, nothing about her so far suggested it, apart from the fact that she had blonde hair and films had long since told me that blonde girls in films were a bit- no, that seemed unlikely. Basically, I got the distinct impression that she really didn’t know about Hitler and that, therefore, this strange place in which I found myself didn’t find him as noteworthy as perhaps I thought he ought to be. “Leader of Germany, of the Nazis?”

       “Yes, he went on a bit of a radge from what I know, then he was done in. Capitalist and all that.”

       I wasn’t expecting that. I’d heard that term once or twice but honestly had no idea what it meant. “A what?”

       “Oh, you know, a radge – bit angry… a radge.”

       “No, no, I know that,” I did, heard it before: Carlisle slang. “Capitalist?”

       “Well, that’s what the Soviets say about Germany. It’s a capitalist country. Like the Colonies. My Dad reads all the news, says I need to as well, he quizzes me on it. Says Maths is a pointless subject with no real applications in the real world.” Her voice took on a posher tone when she said that, I guessed she was quoting her father. “Sorry, I’m going on a bit.”

       “No, it’s cool.”

       Again that look of confusion flashed over Hattie’s face. “What?”

       “It’s cool, I don’t mind.”

       “Is it? I thought it was pretty decent, actually.”

       “Huh?” This was far harder work than normal conversations. I decided that the best course of action was to play this more carefully, say less and pay more attention. It was beginning to dawn on me that being in the body of a girl might be the least disorienting thing happening and, arguably, the least confusing. “Why Maths?” I grasped at anything to keep the conversation moving. I had at least found out that it wasn’t Victorian times: Hattie knew about the First World War, or the Great War, which meant that had happened. Didn’t people between the wars call the First World War the Great War?

       “It’s easy. You line the numbers up, apply the stuff and they do what they’re supposed to do. Then, if you’re not certain, you can work backwards. Everything has a correct answer, no opinions or guessing. You know, like in Literature Appreciation where you’ve got to say why the author used that word or this phrase. Or Computers, where the programming can have mistakes and you don’t realise until the end and even then you don’t know where it is.”

       I spotted the ‘Literature Appreciation’ rather than English, the use of ‘Computers’ rather than ‘Information Technology’. However, more importantly, I totally got what she was saying about Maths. “Yeah!” My enthusiasm wasn’t put on. “Same with languages. Like, in Latin, when you know the verb endings it’s easier to translate and, if there’s a problem, you can work backwards.”

       “Latin?”

       “Oh, yeah, I got to take it in…” I paused, I took it in Year 8 because my school offered it but this place might not have that. I took another stab: “Language of the Romans. I learned a bit because I want to learn French and Spanish and Portuguese but, well, haven’t got the time. Not yet. Latin’ll make it easier ‘cos they’re Romance languages, based on Latin, and Portuguese is practically Latin anyway.”

       “I’m not as much of a fan of languages. Had to learn a bit of Russian, obviously, and my Dad wants me to learn some Zulu and Xhosa.” Hattie had that look again. “Trinity doesn’t have African languages, Dad was talking about going to Union House. God, I hope the camp doesn’t make us do languages.”

       Zulu I knew, I’ve seen the film, but the other one I wasn’t even going to try and pronounce even having heard her say it. “I know a bit of German,” I said, a little lamely. I’d always considered myself a bit of a linguist but I had never even wrapped my head around the fact that Russian had a different alphabet, let alone learned any words.

Experimentation

One of the aims for this project was to try writing a section in second person. I had this mad idea that I should be able to write something that allowed the reader to play a role, better than Complicity, where the reader wouldn't find the character written in second person reacting too differently to them. I was really disappointed with Complicity because the character was so far removed from me that I really couldn't make a connection. Mind you, since then, I have seen stuff like Twilight so there's a limit. Anyway, turns out it's really hard and I found that I hadn't got enough of a plot to keep it going, so I defaulted back to my MC, whose name I still don't know.

Anyway, that's my way of introduction. Here's the extract below:

       One thing occurred to me as I loaded the wooden trunk onto the wheeled carrier: I hadn’t seen any plug sockets in the house, nothing plastic either. I hadn’t seen anything obviously electrical, apart from light fittings, but it all seemed… well, not what I was used to. And, as I stepped out onto the street outside, I was struck immediately by the fact that the centre of the road was grassy and not tarmac. There were two tracks of cobbled surface, but no pavement. Small paths led from each front door of the terraced houses running down each side of the street but ended at those cobbles. No yard walls or yards, the whole rest of the surface was just grass. Unkempt grass at that, none of it looked like the neat and tidy lawns I was used to seeing, but nor was it completely out of control and untidy. Wildflowers bloomed, grasses grew to seed and there was a lot of green.

       I dragged the chest up the slight hill to a main road, I still didn’t quite know where I was but some things were looking vaguely familiar on some level. Perhaps this girl lived somewhere close to where I did. Then I was at what appeared to be a main road, at least there was a tarmac surface here, but once again I didn’t see any cars using it and none were parked either side. Down one side of the road there was a large building with flags hanging from the side, I didn’t recognise any of them and they didn’t look like national flags or anything. Lots of them had words on, but with a lack of breeze I struggled to make out much more than that. To my left I could see some longer buildings, taller too, standing about six storeys high. On the far side of the tarmac there were poles with lights atop, and wires strung between them. I knew what these were: they looked like the tram lines I’d seen when I visited Blackpool to see the Illuminations, but this didn’t look like Blackpool. Beyond that, at the bottom of the slope, there was a taller building, looking for all the world like one of those concrete tower blocks I’d seen in a big city.

       A tram clattered by, barely making a motor noise, heading down the slope and I watched it go. Double-decked with rows of windows, open back with a pole and a man standing with some kind of machine looking out. It seemed reasonably full. There were pavements here, well, paths of some sort on each side of the main tarmac section, and people were walking. I was struck immediately by just how old fashioned everything looked. There were men wearing flat caps and overalls walking in small groups; women in overalls too, but also long coats and long skirts, much like what I was wearing in style, and their hair tied back with scarves or under hats of their own. Other men walked in long coats and also wore different styles of hats but there were fewer of those. A gaggle of boys in what looked suspiciously like Scout uniforms, but wrong somehow, were dawdling by a shop window. At least, it looked like a shop.

       Another tram passed and I was aware of something else, I whipped my head around and saw an actual truck cresting the top of a rise to my right: it looked very different to any truck I’d seen before. A large cab but strangely streamlined rather than flat fronted, a high exhaust pipe, and pulling two long trailers behind. Like a train, almost. These were flatbeds and had tarpaulin stretched across, tied down with sturdy ropes, revealing little of their load beyond the fact that it looked like boxes had been stacked rather than containers. It thundered by and I realised that the reason it seemed so loud was because there wasn’t the sound of traffic that I was expecting – the whole place seemed unnaturally quiet. I could even hear birdsong as the truck rumbled into the distance.

 

SOMEWHERE ELSE

       The man nobody knew as Fabius Denning entered the office and turned to hang up his coat. “Good morning,” he said without looking at you. You, of course, did know him as Fabius Denning because it was your business to know such things. “Anything interesting?”

       You took a moment before responding, it never hurt to let him think about what you might say before you spoke and, besides, you’d been busy when he walked in and you didn’t want to leave the task incomplete. It was only a couple of strokes on the keyboard, watching the figures line up on the screen, so it wasn’t like you were being rude. That would never do. “Potentially.” You take a moment to adjust an aspect of your clothing, aware that Fabius was watching. He preferred to be called by his surname but it wasn’t something you felt the need to adhere to. “There’s a new case been handed down anyway.”

       Pouring himself a glass of water, Fabius turned back to face you and walked over to his own desk. “Oh?” It was hard to tell if he was genuinely interested or feigning it in order to be sarcastic.

       “Information theft,” you stated baldly, “low level local civil servant, we think. Ah…” You called up the file on the screen once again and quickly scanned the details. “Doesn’t look like it was targeted, maybe disgruntled, but it was something big. Big enough they haven’t told us what it is.”

       You could see his eyes change as he realised the implications. Yes, he was genuinely interested now, and he leaned across his desk without taking a sip from his glass. “Resources?”

       “Plod. Don’t want to draw attention if it was an accident nor tip off whoever organised it if not.”

       “Sensible.” He nodded, more to himself than for your benefit. “How long ago?”

       “Last night.” You picked up the address you’d written out on paper before Fabius had arrived and waved it at him, turning your attention back to your work. Fabius always preferred a bit of field work to making sure the office ran smoothly anyway, and sometimes it didn’t hurt to let him have his little bit of fun. “Trevor Billingham. At least, that’s the account. Worked at the office in Leeds. His building is out by Seacroft, the brutalist estates.”

       “Makes sense.” Fabius had moved from his desk and took the paper you offered. He raised an eyebrow, you couldn’t see it but you knew he had, something in the way he held himself in your peripheral vision. He was much more of an open book than he thought and that suited you just fine. No need to ever tell him, the fact you knew was good enough. “Ugh. I’ll go and put in the call to the Plod now. Wait. Do they know about this?”

       A moment for you to glance at his face, he was still looking at the paper, and then back to your screen as you typed in the query and checked the logs. “They got details of the theft first, actually, but the address was handed over by circular about two hours ago. Oh. Looks like they sent a team out already. Someone’s marked it as urgent.” You sighed, it was probably some desk warmer somewhere with an over-inflated sense of importance or too-developed sense of duty. “If you hurry you might be able to get there before they do.”

       Fabius was already getting his coat on as you spoke. He put on his hat and paused a moment with his hand on the doorknob, “Better than a day spent making small talk with Mr Security downstairs, I suppose, let’s hope they haven’t buggered it all up already. Have a good day.”

       Before you can control it you smile and glance over at him again. “You too, don’t forget to call.” Sarcasm went where truth feared to tread.

       “I won’t.” And he was gone.

 

       The small triangular common area I could have sworn was a carpark, I was beginning to get my bearings now and was fairly certain I stood in Stanwix, Carlisle, but it was very different to what I remember. In Primary School I had been shown Victorian photographs of the area, with all the cobbled streets and empty spaces and few people. The houses, the terraced houses, look like colour versions of the black and white images and the car park… well, it wasn’t a car-park. Paved, yes, but no low walls or cars, instead there were four bus shelters and a dot-matrix display showing times and destinations. On the main road section there is a raised platform for the tramlines and, behind, on both other sides there are more normal looking pavements with what I would have guessed were bus stops.

       “Remember,” says the girl’s father looking at me, “When you get to the railway station you want the Leeds service. I remember that line myself, beautiful, and you’ll enjoy it. It’ll be the one leaving from…” he tails off and smiles in the sort of embarrassed style my own Dad uses when being, well, a Dad. “Sorry, I know you know, I still want to look out for you. Forgive a silly Father for being a bit sentimental, eh, girlie?” He reaches out and rubs the top of my head.

       I seriously consider telling him, telling him that I’m not his daughter actually and that I’ve Quantum Leaped my way here or something but I get the distinct feeling that this would be a bad plan. Besides, he made me bacon butties and I’m not complaining. “Leeds,” I confirm with that alien voice and a nod that I hope exudes confidence. Apparently I’m going to Leeds then with this ridiculous chest and a sun-hat.

       “Oh!” the girl’s father looks suddenly distracted and starts fishing in his pockets before he pulls out a battered looking wallet – the first thing I’ve seen that doesn’t look new or well-cared for – and opens the coin section. “Here, you’ll need the fares.” He takes out a large copper coin, like a penny that ate a two pound coin, and a couple of smaller silver ones. He looks back at me, then pulls out a note, and closes the wallet. “Don’t spent it all at once, will you?” He smiles as though this is funny – fathers don’t ever change.

       The coins feel really heavy in my hand and I worry that maybe this girl is just comically weak before realising that the coins are just heavier than I’m used to. Inspecting them I find that the big copper one proclaims itself as a penny, putting me in mind of those lessons on Victorians again, and the two silver ones say ‘one shilling’ on them, like old ten pences my Dad showed me once. “Thanks,” I say, more to hide the fact that I’m looking at these coins like it’s the first time I’ve seen anything like them. Even though it is the first time I’ve seen anything like them. The note is similarly alien, being a sort of browned white colour of paper rather than the shiny plastic I’m used to. It informs me that I can claim five pounds on demand from the Bank of England but there’s no old person’s head on it anywhere. Honestly, it looks like play-money for some old game.

       “Thanks? Goodness, you talk like someone from the colonies. You’re welcome, of course.” The girl’s father looks a little confused for a moment, but it passes mercifully quickly and before I try to fix it and inevitably put my foot in it. “Looks like that’s your bus!”

       Following his gaze I see a red painted bus coming from the direction of Eden Bridges over the river Eden. One of the bits of trivia is that when the bridge was made wider the builders just joined a second bridge to the first, so it got named in the plural and it stuck even though it sounds stupid. Mind you, this is lucky, because apparently saying ‘thanks’ is suspicious or something.

       “Come here,” says the girl’s father as he throws an arm around my shoulders and leans down more to my level, “Have a lovely time, telephone if you get chance and don’t forget to write. Love you, little girlie.” I feel him place a kiss on the top of my head and get an irrational urge to squirm away. It all feels wrong. Not least the idea of phoning, I haven’t seen a single mobile since we left the house and even in this crowd of people not one has checked notifications or a map or anything. I am seriously beginning to doubt that anyone even has such a thing. Maybe it is Victorian times.

Attempting a Rewrite

When I was 12 there was an after-school writing club that got to use these laptops with a display that showed a whole two lines at the top of a keyboard. Enamoured, I wrote a story that I enjoyed, printed it off and decided that it was a bit... private. So I never showed anyone and hid it in my wardrobe. At some point between then and going to University the story was lost. Naturally, this year, I resurrected it and am attempting to rewrite it.

Here's the first foray.

       Something was definitely not right: in fact I would go so far as to suggest that the feeling suggests something was, in fact, very wrong. Much as a logical inconsistency throws me out of a dream no matter how asleep so it is that I was aware enough of something having changed that I wake and take a quick stock. Before my eyes are open I know this is unfamiliar, I can feel my heartrate quickening, my breathing is shallower, faster, standard feelings of fight or flight are swinging into motion – but that’s the rub. It feels off, wrong, false, unfamiliar. The air sucking in through my open mouth is moving differently, the sound of it is higher; my heart beats differently, maybe faster and harder but dulled somehow, as though from far away. Before my hands are moving I know they are wrong.

       Eyes open, take in the light from the wrong direction: right time of day, morning, but it comes from my right rather than my left. The sound of my nails against the bedclothes different, sensations implying… what? Hair on my face, over my forehead, catches my eyelash – alarm bells ringing in the distance in my mind – and my legs feel… “What?” Not as loud as I want, groggy, and that’s not my voice, it’s not what I sound like.

       “Honey?” There’s a knock on a door nearby, the voice is muffled and male. Older, concerned but hurried. “It’s time to get up, we’ve got a long journey, I know I heard your alarm.”

       A hem? On my thighs? Worse, I feel a dull ache, my stomach roils over itself, and an unusually urgent sense that I need to be a bathroom now asserts itself. “Uh…” Not my voice, but definitely my syllable. I said that, I thought it and I said it. It is imbues with my confusion, my hesitation. So not a dream, not a nightmare. At least, not like that.

       “Just- Bathroom’s free, get yourself dressed and I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast. Okay?”

       Not my bed. Not my sheets. Not my room. Not my hair falls across not my face as I sit up on not my mattress and look around. Small box room, light pink colour motif, thin curtains, a white desk by a chimney breast, a white painted wooden door behind which the voice’s owner clearly waits. “Breakfast, yeah.” Not my voice carries my words: repetition working. I hear someone walk away from the door. I’m dressed in a light coloured fabr- no. My eyes take in the body I see. So, bear with me, this is a cliché that even I know is a tawdry one and I like a good cliché. This is not a good cliché.

       I stand, there’s a mirror on the back of the door obscured by a hanging white dressing gown. White is a bad colour for a dressing gown, I can practically hear my mother saying in my mind, it picks up all the dirt and grime. “It would need washing far too often,” she said, and I had to yield to that logic. I didn’t want to be cold between washes. But this one is clean and almost shining in the morning sun. I take it from the hook, push my arms through the relevant holes and tie it at the waist, which is too high, to face the mirror properly.

       Looking back is a girl. She’s shorter than I am expecting against the door and I am remarkably bad at estimation of measurements. I guess five foot tall. She has brown hair, mostly straight with evidence of having been tied back I suppose, that falls past her shoulders. Beneath the white dressing gown, a little too big for her frame, she’s wearing a nightgown in green with small pink printed flowers in little clusters in a repeating pattern. She’s got a fringe over her forehead and her hands are playing nervously with one another at her waist. Barefoot, I can see some slippers by the bed behind her, and with a pained expression. Maybe she feels the same warning cramp I do.

       She moves her head when I look around, her brown eyes matching where I’m looking as they dart. She raises her hand to her face when I do and, yes, that’s what I mean about it being a bad cliché. It is clear that she is me and I am her. And that cramping. For the avoidance of doubt this is not what I expected to see in the mirror because it’s not what I look like in a mirror. I mean, okay, it is now but it’s not… whatever. I have a choice: dwell on all the myriad sensations (I have a decent vocabulary, I’ve read a lot of books) or deal with the immediacies. I choose the latter.

       Stepping back, the girl dons the slippers; one hand holds her stomach as it cramps again, the other reaches for the door. She seems the same age as me, maybe younger? It’s hard to tell and there are no context clues leaping out from the wall and no time to look more closely. The carpet is soft and thick pile, easily better quality than the one at home, and the slippers feel barely used. Certainly they don’t have the worn moulding to the girl’s feet that comes from extended wear. And, okay, I’m describing my thoughts so I’ll stop pussy-footing around: I really need the toilet. As she walks out onto the landing it occurs that I have no idea where that is. But the landing is small. A room off to the right, a second door almost immediately afterward and, then, almost immediately opposite and with the stairs to the left, a final door. This is white, like all the rest (the walls are a soft yellow), but looks older and less detailed – a bathroom door if ever I saw one.

       Pushing through, it is the bathroom and I feel immense relief, I spin round and pull the dressing gown out of the way to sit as I lift the seat cover with my other hand. Oh, the night gown isn’t trousers, I can’t pull it down. I hitch it out of the way, it’s not thought-through, I’m in a hurry, and I let the bladder do its thing. I don’t quite know what I am expecting, but the feeling is not it. I mean, sure, it feels good to let a full bladder empty, but there’s something else there as well. Now, I paid attention in my sex education lessons in Science back in Year 7, so I have some inkling that certain things happen as well as a list of possible symptoms. Not that I ever expected to feel them, in this case quite literally, in the flesh but here I am and so, huh. I get it. It hurts. And the feeling, well, down there, is like nothing I have ever known. I simply don’t know how to put it into words, because I have no point of reference. Oh, I think, great.

       So, to recap: I appear to have woken up in not my body in not my house living not my life and that body is having a period. Great, just peachy. Again, I paid attention. I’m not that kind of 13 year old and I like to think of myself as practical: pads or the other one. The one that goes in. My mother uses the latter and she stores them in her bedroom, I know because she’s had me go fetch them for her once or twice in the past. Little plastic wrapped bullet things, impossibly small, with the same sort of opening that her cigarette packets have where you grab the red bit and pull. Behind me is the boiler, there’s a bath by the wall to my left, opposite the door, and a frosted window there. A shower and some tiling fills the bit where the boiler cupboard is by the side of the bath, and there’s a sink opposite me with a medicine cabinet above it, small mirrored door, standard issue.

       My business completes, but that other feeling remains and there’s another cramp. The hissing noise I make through the teeth and mouth is louder than I intend and sounds almost self-pitying. Maybe this girl is the same? I don’t know, I don’t recall ever noticing girls being self-pitying. Hey, I do my best to pay attention and I’m hard pushed to recall a time any girl I know has been obviously on a period. Like, I assume they talk to one another about it, but no one talks to me.

       I check, it feels really odd, but a quick wipe (again, I pay attention, I know which way you go to avoid infection) seems to work for now. The noise of the toilet flush mercifully covers me rifling through the cabinet over the sink, that girl’s face is flushed now and I’m certain I can detect an air of panic from the redness in her cheeks and the ways her eyes are moving. I don’t find any plastic wrapped white bullets, for which I’m grateful in one sense, and I retreat back to the room I started off in. Under the window there’s some shelves, mainly books and a couple of teddies; by the desk there’s a wardrobe in pink and white wood, above the bed there’s some shelves with doors on them like cupboards but clearly a DIY job.

       Where would a girl keep things? She seems to have a room that is far too tidy for my tastes, it’s not right that the floor is clear, that the desk seems unused, that the tape racks are tidy or the books look neatly placed. On the plus side, she’s not a barbarian, none of the spines have been abused but I think she’s maybe taken refinement too far. The wardrobe seems curiously uncluttered, very few clothes on the left side with the coat rack and the shelves on the right seem strangely empty. Midway down, in a small drawer, I find what I’m looking for. I think. Cardboard box, already opened, white folded things inside. There’s a bit with backing paper and a bit without. I can work it out, and I already found underwear. It’s over mercifully quickly. It does nothing to deal with that very odd feeling but it does seem to deal with the immediate problem of making sure this body isn’t leaking fluids everywhere. A sudden thought and I check beneath the duvet – there’s a pair of knickers there with a pad inside, scrunched up and near the wall. Ah, I think I see now, well, at least there’s no laundry just… clearing this up. And I am going to describe that in no further detail. In fact, forgive me, but I’m going to skip ahead to breakfast!

Internally Observing

This was an experiment in writing without the usual recourses to visual effects or using language that I deemed too 'telling'. It was an attempt to relay only an experience, but my wont is always to write in third person so... huh. That said, the plan was to use as few pronounsd as possible - it's surprisingly hard to avoid them! Well, anyway, it's some words. See what you make of them!

I'm not going to offer the usual analysis, not because I don't think it interesting, but because I appear to be posting daily and I suspect too much of that is off-putting! Also, this was experimental and designed purely to keep me writing so I'm not as interested. That said, I am posting it here in case anyone reads any of these posts (I can't believe that, after eight years since officially abandoning this place, anyone actually checks here at all!) and is interested.

We shall see. Maybe if I update enough I shall get visitors to the garden again, and wouldn't that be nice?

Seeing the End

Oh, well, here I am again. It's been a while. Today I was assaulted by my Prehistoric setting. You may recall, you may not, it was many years ago now, that I was unconvinced by the naming of the women characters in my story. Moon Dancer and Shadow of the Stag made sense to me, their names and the reasons for their names came easily. The coming of age for Moon Dancer natural and flowing as though it arrived in a dream and, very probably, it did. But the rest? The tribe were not real to me despite my best efforts, I brought them forth with effort as though passing something uncomfortable. I wanted to do right, I could manage the NSFW section - that came fully-formed one evening - but the important parts? No.

One of the aspects of this, it's always been there, is dissatisfaction with using English for the setting - it doesn't feel right. I am doing my best to restrict vocabulary, to carry that Prehistoric feeling and not diminish meaning, rather to force the reader to see the connections between things that the society I write about does in their language. I also very deliberately looked into Urdu for some of the words: mother, sister. Proto-Indo-European for blood. Variations for aunties (something missing in my first run through of attempting this side of things here).

Over the last few days I found myself dwelling on the coming of age for girls, the point at which everything shifts in perspective and the biology of that. And I thought about how our society forces fear and shame into proceedings, how that is reinforced in so many areas of the Patriarchy and also on the research that shows that the first calendars were created by and for women. The primacy of that power, for power it is, and the fear it evokes in the men. What if men were not in charge as they are not in my Prehistoric setting and, instead, a community of women devised ways of coming to terms with things?

My desire to turn this into more than a setting, to conjure forth a plot, remains however and so the scene is bent to the will of the direction. One thing is clear though, I have a better naming system, one that feels much more natural and realistic. One in which the fear of the Patriarchy may have sprung from, for men can destroy but only women can dabble in the forces of creation and death as easily as preparing food or hunting prey or gathering shelter.

Analysis once again provided by 750words.com that, if you haven't already, you should sign up for.

Rating: PG-13 (violence and sexual-content[?])

Feeling mostly upset, and concerned mostly about death - well, I'd quibble that, but I can see how it comes from the text, see what you think.

Mindset: Extrovert - Negative - Certain - Thinking

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Touch; Us and Them: You - interesting!

46 minutes at 40 words per minute

Christmas Post

It's been too long!

So, I have a beer review. Did I mention that I like drinking beers? I didn't!? Well, that must be rectified!

Here, have a beer review!


Yes, I am actually writing and posting a beer review on Christmas Day. I am that mental. But, it's been a bit of an odd one. No pressure, Him Indoors has done the duty regarding cooking, cleaning, dish-washing... basically all the crap stuff, and I've been on children watch. Which wasn't that hard. Not my forte, but not that hard (I'd've preferred cooking and cleaning if I'm honest, I love doing roasts).

Anyway, tonight I am reviewing Courage's Imperial Russian Stout. Which, if my reading serves me well, is a popular style of brew this year around where I am. I have never seen the like before and so I did ask for a selection of Christmas beer and I got it. Yay!

This comes in a tiny little bottle (275ml) and so straight away you know something about this beer is going to be different. It's also 10% ABV - apparently so it didn't freeze when exported from Britain to Murmansk back in the 1750s. Finally, it also conditions in the bottle for up to 13 years, presumably so that it could last once it arrived in Russia without having to make numerous resupply trips over wacky stormy seas (yes, thank you KLF).

I can claim no knowledge of the veracity of the historical story. However, on opening I can say that the pressure is high and so the head is vigorous and feisty. No whiff of CO2, implying that this was conditioned well and not with added gas in the bottle. The aroma is heavy and malty, with hints of chocolate and wet wood (no, really), and there is a smidge of citrus if you're looking for it, which I was. After the head has died down a little you can get close to the beer itself.

First sip is very chocolatey, reminds me of the Triple Chocolate Stout that I reviewed ages ago, but not so much that it overpowers things. Pleasant sparkle to the fizz with tones of citrus fruits, but these are mild like apples and pears rather than oranges or lemons, mostly one gets the malt and the weight of the beer. This is, I suppose, like Stout ought to be, heavy and malty and interesting. If you met this sip on the street you'd either strike up a conversation and take him home to meet the parents or else you'd quiver in fear and worry that you'd appear somehow less than human by mere comparison. Second sip is much the same, implying good staying power. You can feel the strength of that 10% ABV though, this is not a sessionable ale, but that's why it comes in dinky little bottles.

Overall, this is a heavy, winter warming beer. It's one you'd best enjoy on a cold evening, huddled round a crackling open fire keeping the frost at bay. Wrapped in winter furs, hunted yourself from the wild woods, telling tales and singing songs with good rough company. Don't shave. Don't shave anything for a few days. Don't wash except in water from beneath cracked ice. Then get that fire going, huddle, talk in low voices, laugh long and with feeling, and crack open one or two of these as you smile and joke with your companions. It will be worth it.

The Old Road

This is something that just sort of... popped out of my head. I was musing about post-apocalyptic fiction, as you do, when I thought about the fact that most of what I know about it has a male protagonist. Also, it focuses on the very male aspect of survival. One thing that I tried to write with some friends at University featured my own character, a man who was obsessed with the need to avoid relationships with others to allow him to commit the unspeakable acts that would have him starting a war in the climax. All a bit Boy's Own Adventure really.

So, with that setting firmly in mind, I though about exploring the world differently. Writing a different kind of story within what I still feel is a pretty well constructed and well-known world. Well, well-known to me at any rate.

As ever, I am the queen of self-analysis and so I thank the makers of 750words.com once more (if you write, this is like word porn):


Rating: PG (sexual content[? - I do hope not])

Feeling mostly Affectionate, and concerned mostly about Family - well, it is a mother and daughter

Mindset: Extrovert - Negative - Uncertain - Feeling

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Sight; Us and Them: Us

22 minutes at 49 words per minute

So NSFW it's untrue

I recommend that you don't read this at all if you are in a place that would track your internet usage. I haven't written for a while, work stuff, and I wanted to get back into the swing of things. I also wanted to get back to St Avril and, obviously, that didn't happen. Since when do I write what I actually set out to write? Instead I ended up thinking of the Prehistoric setting and trying again to get into the head of my female protagonist. I think I have Moon Dancer now and I think I know how he works and what I would like to do with his part of the story, at least insofar as I understand what the story is.

No, with the females I am less convinced. So... I wrote my very first sex scene. Well, no, not quite. I wrote one at the age of 16, when on exchange in Germany, and as angsty teen it was was unrealistic and ended in a murder. The woman kills the man, just because. I never did work out why, it was brutal and angsty and... well, I was a teen. Anyway, it turns out to be really difficult to write feelings in sex in actual words. I did my best.

Rating: R (sexual content, violence[?] and swearing[?]) The first I get, the rest I don't.

Feeling mostly upset(?) in a dead heat with happy, and concerned mostly about religion

Mindset: Extrovert - Positive - Uncertain - Thinking

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Touch; Us and Them: Them

37 minutes at 44 words per minute

Group Dynamic

Well, despite having some big discussions with some friends in real life concerning the non-existence of left and right in aboriginal tribes; the harmonics of circular breathing when playing the saxophone and Turkish having two past tenses for events seen by oneself and events that were not, I ended up writing the next section of St Avril.

In my original story there was a single protagonist. However, one of the main issues that story always had was the boredom in the beginning despite the threat. For reasons that will become patently obvious, the threat could never be too close, and so a sense of urgency was lost. The mystery was not enough to carry the early scenes on its own either. Also, I once ran the story as a form of role playing game with some friends, who theoretically gave me more characters to play with. In the spirit of using my writing time to play with things a little more I decided to expand the character list for this piece and came up with this. It follows on from this post.

I have no idea if I have managed to maintain that post's strength of voice.

Analysis courtesy of 750words.com.

Rating: PG (sexual content) - well, probably yes.

Feeling mostly upset and concerned mostly about success - interesting.

Mindset: Extrovert - Negative - Uncertain - Thinking (but only just in each case, apart from thinking)

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Touch (no option for smell then); Us and Them: Them

41 minutes (39 actually typing) at 39 words per minute

First Draft: An Attack

I was feeling a bit dry tonight for my nightly attempt to write. So, I started up some Shamen and East 17 (yes, so sue me) and tried to write what came to me. The strange wolf-suited people came back and... well, let's just say that this is probably my worst writing yet on this project. I think I have a handle on the relationship between my female protagonist and her companion better now, but trying to avoid cliche and the modern trappings of gender roles was... more difficult than I thought.

Really struggling with names too. I don't want 'feminine' names per se but I also want to stress the differences in roles within the group. We know that my males have a coming of age where they choose a new name, what about females? I suspect that 'first blood' would be the coming of age... I think I need to write one of those and see what happens actually...

It's been relatively easy to write a more sensitive male character - I just go through ideals - but writing female characters that have agency in the midst of an attack is hard without making the female characters fit tropes for male characters. The little I've read of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has warned me off that as a means of writing 'real' females. Equally, in avoiding fighting and showing awe and fear at the command of fire in this scene, it seemed as though I was writing women that needed saving - which was not the point.

Why is this so hard?

Analysis courtesy of 750words.com - who probably deserve a bit of money from me by now...

Rating: PG - violence (check)

Feeling mostly upset, with anxious following, and concerned mostly about relationships

Mindset: Introvert - Negative - Uncertain - Thinking
I think if the last one had been Feeling I would have nailed this

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Hearing; Us and Them: Them

29 minutes at 37 words per minute.

Secrets that men keep

Tonight I fill in a section. I realised today that Moon Dancer doesn't eat or drink on his quest for about four days. Okay, that's fine, I guess, but there's no way he can't drink in that time. He'd be mad with thirst, something I haven't even mentioned. Okay, the lack of hunger is fine, I guess, but the lack of thirst? Unforgivable!

So, tonight I thought to simply edit that section a little and then move onto new stuff. Instead we have an additional discussion in which I learned more about how males operate in this society I am creating. Also, a little about how the sexes are viewed by men, I hope that came out right. Anyway, another conversation that I hope retains enough of the poetry of previous entries to stand with them.

Analysis from 750words.com as always:

Rating: PG (sexual content) - not sure where that is. I guess one of them is naked?

Feeling mostly self expressive and concerned mostly with religion

Mindset: Introvert - Positive - Uncertain - Thinking (very male?)

Time: the Future; Primary Sense: Sight (damn); Us and Them: You

22 minutes at 36 words per minute

Shadow of the Stag

So, apparently I am attacked once again by the Prehistoric thing. And tonight I was shown how a boy becomes a man. I was also shown a little bit of the nomenclature that I had been so missing. Up until tonight I had no concept of the naming of people. I now have some knowledge of naming and how it is going to go, some idea of how the society works and, apparently, two ways in which the males of this setting can be aligned. It follows on from this post.

There is a poetry in this section, I hope, certainly I felt it as I wrote. I was writing mainly to the tune of Victoria Lucas by Moby, and that may show through too. For at work today I had a moment alone with no one else around and I danced in a way that I haven't for a good few years. It felt good to dance. It felt good and probably looked terrible. But it felt good. That may have influenced what I wrote tonight.

Analysis, as ever, from 750words.com who are brilliant. If sometimes a little strange in their analysis.

Rating: PG-13 for swearing, sexual content and violence (I'm going to go ahead and say here that I see none of that in what I wrote).

Feeling mostly self expressive (with upset as a side-order) and concerned mostly with religion (with leisure as a side order)

Mindset: Extrovert - Positive - Certain - Thinking

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Hearing; Us and Them: You (with a side order of them)

36 minutes at 43 words per minute.

St Avril: A Sci Fi interlude?

Well, for one reason or another, the Prehistoric stuff isn't flowing and, instead, I was set upon by a rewriting of an introduction to a sci-fi story I once wrote. Back in 2001 I had a very vivid dream about a psychic who wakes up without knowledge of what is going on. Of course, I wrote it down and reworked it over the next six years into a finished novella-style piece about 45k words in length. And there it has lain ever since.

Tonight, the opening attacked me in first person. So I wrote it.

Analysis courtesy of 750words.com, please support what they do, because it is awesome.

Rating: PG-13 for sexual content (bu-wha?) and violence (again, bu-wha?)

Feeling mostly upset (apparently) and concerned mostly with money (huh?) or eating and drinking(?)

Mindset: Introvert - Positive - Certain - Thinking

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Hearing (hmm); Us and Them: Them (surprising, it's in first person)

27 minutes at 54 words per minute

Giving Birth

This is probably the closest I can ever come to articulating birth in a way that actually makes any sense and draws on the experience of a home birth with the Boy. It is not perfect, one of the greatest issues I had with this little exercise was just how much of birth is communicated through sound effects and feelings that have no words. It really showed the limitations of modern English in describing such an experience. Sadly I lack the knowledge to know if this is different in other linguistic traditions or if older languages were better at it, but it did bring home the problems that I am going to have with a Prehistoric setting.

Namely, the idea that I am trying to put across here is a society that is very alien to our own. There are aspects of that society that I confess I feel are superior to our own and there are aspects that I feel are not. I want it to be a balanced experience for the reader. It is not a preachy thing that I wish to create but something sufficiently different that it becomes curious.

In many ways it has commonalities with the work that I did creating Socialist Britain for Regarding Bakunin in that I want to present a generally positive alternative without it being so uselessly utopian that it can be dismissed. I want to create a realistic world where I am not blinded by my own bias and prejudices but, instead, am free to explore those differences and those positives that I feel are there in a way that other people can make their own mind up. I am fully prepared, for example, in good science fiction to take a positive and paint it negative or vice versa - as it should be - and I want readers to feel the same way with my work. I should not be telling them what to think, merely providing the scenes and the story so that they can decide for themselves.

Analysis courtesy of 750words.com - if you are a writer and not using this site then what are you doing?

Rating: PG-13 for sexual content (maybe) and violence (no, really not seeing this)

Feeling mostly happy (a first) and concerned mostly with eating and drinking (ah ha ha)

Mindset: Extrovert - Positive (75%+) - Certain - Feeling (50%+)

Time: Past (60%) and future (30%); Primary Sense: Touch; Us and Them: Them

36 minutes at 33 words per minute.

I still have no idea how I'm going to name these people or what to do with the dialogue. You'll see what I mean if you read on!

Prehistoric: Stalked

Another night another dream but always this. He is stalked. Still no names, still no plot.

Analysis:

Feeling mostly affectionate and concerned mostly with eating and drinking

Mindset: Introvert - Negative - Uncertain - Thinking

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Touch; Us and Them: Them

29 minutes at 54 words per minute

Prehistoric: Coming of Age

It appears as though this particular vein is continuing. Tonight I write a scene in which something actually happens. My main character is coming of age.

No, I don't know how it relates to the previous two sections yet, only that I need to know how this all works. It's not finished, he's just about to start his quest but I don't want to force it. The style of this work and the way it's moving are completely, I think, different to my normal style. They may even be different to what I did for NaNo.

Anyway, again the analysis (thank you 750words.com):

Rating: PG-13 (sexual content and swearing[!]) - really not sure where there is swearing.

Feeling mostly affectionate and concerned mostly with religion

Mindset: Extrovert - Positive - Certain - Thinking

Time Orientation: the Past (with a dash of the future)
Primary Sense: Touch
Us and Them: Them (well, it is third person)

42 minutes (37 actually typing) at 38 words per minute

Prehistoric stuff part 2

I still don't have a title for any of this, much less an idea where it is going. I think that someone has to die and then we have a murder mystery style plot going on, but I really have no idea. Also, I don't really want him to be the main character if I can help it. Him going off and doing a murder mystery plot would be... well, a bit patriarchal, no?

Again some stats for you, courtesy of 750words.com:

Rating: PG-13 - sexual content and violence (still not seeing the violence)

Feeling mostly affectionate and concerned mostly about religion (but only just)

Mindset: Extrovert - Positive - Certain - Feeling

Time: Past; Primary Sense: Touch; Us and them: Them

Prehistoric Detective Novel?

I have long toyed with the idea of setting a story in Prehistory, but I am no Jean Auel and I have never even read the series. Equally, my knowledge of Prehistory is small and slim. That doesn't diminish my urge to do it, just make it harder as I lack the time to research and the inclination to really go for it. As I haven't touched my NaNo project since February (and then didn't really do much of use having left it since December) I figured I'd try something that had nothing attached to it.

What follows, then, is a quick exercise to try and get going. Before I share it I shall place the analysis (courtesy of 750words.com, where you should also be going) and then a line break so that it doesn't clutter up the blog any.

Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and violence (not sure about violence)

Feeling mostly affectionate and concerned mostly about religion

Mindset: Extrovert (75%) - Positive - Certain - Thinking

Time Orientation: the Past; Primary Sense: Touch; Us and Them: Them

Time: 28 minutes at 46 words per minute

Eyes Open

An explosion of noise followed by the shower of stones jerked eyes open that hadn’t even been aware they were shut. Somewhere beyond the ethereal white of the night’s fog a new morning threatened and was held at bay by the pitiful pile of sandbags making up their parapet. There was a coffee cup resting near the periscope somewhere but he couldn’t make his eyes focus clearly.

A flick, a spark, inhale, burn. It hadn’t been as long this time but splashes of mud and shocks of flame made no heroes of the sentries supposed to be out in strength but, in reality, cowering from the fury from above in fox-holes clawed into frosty earth. Shrapnel buzzed over his head and was acknowledged with a nonchalant nod of his unshaven face. He didn’t look over the lip to the scene beyond, it would be lost to the smoke and flame of a preparatory bombardment like the sounds of birds and rats had been lost to the express train roar. Soil bounced off his helmet from a nearby gout of force and his breath curled in tortured air. They had one more day left and that cold hope had been chilled further by the knowledge that they were coming this time rather than simply giving them something to think about.

Another close-call and he sighs, retreating to the Stygian gloom of his own officer’s foxhole surrounded by wooden planking and protected by another low beam of sandbags. All soldiers believed in luck, any that said different were lying, and he felt he was pushing his luck too far for the moment.

“Sorry about that, mate. Beans always give me gas.” Smiler greeted him with forced levity and an actual smile.

His nerves were too taut. “It wasn’t funny the first time,” clipped and angry for no reason, “And it’s not funny now!”

“Lay off, Sarge,” plaintively; not his actual rank but his nickname after the duties that he carried out for the section, “We’re all tired.” The complaint of the dead.

“Shut up. Just shut up, you bastards.” The real sergeant of the band sat alone and aloof in the corner. He was a veteran, a man who had seen everything before and the oldest irritable member of the section. He was at least twenty-two. “He’s coming.” Smoke billowed from his nostrils as he focussed his watery eyes on some ephemeral fixed point beyond the supported earth of the wall. The last time, two months previously, it had been a concrete wall, a safe haven in the maelstrom; now it was wood and chalk and mud. Before there had been a stove, electric lighting and even a heater; now there were rats, bad drainage, candles and winter wet. No one rightly knew what the sergeant saw in that steady gaze of his, just that it allowed him to act as oracle.

“Misty.” The returned sentry announced it as if it explained the constant dull rumble outside. It reminded them all uncomfortably of the first week all over again, conditions were similar, but it had only been a day so far. “Wet.” Despite being used to the noise it was still enough to reduce communication to the lowest common denominator.

“This sodden place is always misty. He’ll still come.” His stare never left that point beyond the wall, ignoring the rodent eyes peeking back. Did he see the end of all things in the mud and filth or else the firm compost from which all growth sprung? Hope or depression? Reality or illusion?

“It’ll be a week again. They always move slowly. One more day and the uplanders will be in, let them get it up their backsides for a change.” The latrines caved in at the first salvo, no one had bothered to replace them nor dig for the Captain. His hand made for an interesting centre piece on the planks of wood that stood for a table.

“Aw, just put a sock in it you whining piece of shit, he’s coming soon. He switched to shrapnel an hour ago, next it’ll be smoke or, if the wind picks up, gas.”

His instincts, never failed, the section trusted them before and would trust them again. Maybe he saw them in the layers of earth before him.

Glow, inhale, breathe out; ignore the dull noise echoing in ears, punching lungs and heating the back of the throat with dry dust. A decision no one makes and swearing on the inside. Despairing look at what remains of the cheap tobacco rolled in thin paper, discard it with barely disguised contempt and drag on the arid heat and the mist. Drill took forty seconds to set up the shrouded centrepiece of the section and be ready. “How long?” So much for university education.

“Half an hour.” Conviction. Not a good thing.

“Time for tea?”

“Supplies are late.”

Supplies are always late. Constant bombardment somewhere on the line, phone lines always cut, movement dangerous. Sappers routinely sent home. Food late, cooks aren’t heroes either.

“There’s a slab of Kelly on the plate, knock yourself out. Coffee in the usual.”

Shrug, remember the coffee outside, sit and stuff the slab half heartedly into the saliva. Silence. Alliteration, refuge of the ravenous. Hold out part of it to Smiler as he sits playing with the last six of his playing cards. Grunt, wordless now in anticipation, uniform scratching the skin at the neck, nothing to do but wait, try focussing beyond the latest shift of dust. It was smoke now. He declines.

“How can you eat at a time like this, Sarge? We’ve only got a day and then it’s all someone else’s problem. Aren’t you the least bit excited?”

Pointless prattling. His section went on the first day, joined this one afterward to replace Badger, filling large shoes. No liked him then and no one does; faux happiness, uneducated, delusion and whines too much. Played with his cards too much. His face ripe for smashing in, fists clenching in readiness but they are fought back down. He’s easier than what lies beyond the mist and flame and smoke and shockwaves because he is within reach.

On that first day there had been nothing to see, feed the thirst of the muzzle, feel the bounce of metal from metal, a world reduced to the staccato bark of a mechanical master. A summer dawn, quiet of a morning with clear blue and birdsong, listening to the steel rain, sheets of death washing over and drum behind as the set up had been completed. They had walked, disbelief and ashen faced, they just walked but could not be seen. Spared that. Eight hours and the ammunition did not run out but the light did. “Half an hour you say?”

“Maybe sooner.”

“How can you talk like this? Come on! One more day! Surely they’ll give us one more day!”

“Shut up!”

Silence then, stretches across the foxhole like no-man’s-land after the shells have fallen, all sides drawing breath. Time to think, if it weren’t for the maddening rumble just loud enough to be grating but quiet enough to keep ears working. The slab of Kelly over, cards flipping once more. Always watching, waiting, listening to the tone and then the realisation that the rhythm has changed. Check inventory: postcard from home, the last; lucky coins; spare ammunition clips; grenade; bayonet; chocolate liberated from a farmhouse, only a small amount left; and nothing that was wanted would be left behind. Kipper stows his book, Mutch fingers his enemy pistol without bullets like a man possessed, Smiler runs the joker in and out of his palm softly.

“Who’s out there?” Meaning who was supposed to be out.

“Me.” Sarcastically deliver, no hint of humour, war breeds cowards.

A grunt. “Go check, let us know if you see anything.”

Two days after that slaughter they had changed their tactics to rushes and the Brass had adopted a policy of focussed withdrawals and ambush style counter-attacks to draw them in. Within a day we had been pulled out.

Spent time in a local village with local girls and local law, common enough for men pushed to the edge. Found one with flame red hair and a body that did not display too much of the ravages caused by her business. A tactical withdrawal from the inn, to the darkness of her room, with the darkness of her touch, in the darkness of the situation. Emotions over-ridden by suppressed instinct, proximity to death brings proximity to lust. Smell, lick, bite. Panting a secret language never heard by lovers, cut and thrust of the war beneath the sheets. Breakthrough and reserves brought up to exploit the gap. Emotionless groping, mutual meaningless mental masturbation. Flesh on flesh and virginity liberated by the invaders from another land. Some of them were willing but were better when they resisted.

He was right, no shower of soil as a greeting, almost calm across the unearthly scene lit by the first rays of dawn. Bruised blue around the cloud nestled in shell craters and abandoned sapping lines, confident enough to maintain strength on watch above, frustrating attempts to peer through the gloom. Ringed by red and purple dimming to cold blue above. Nothing. A cock of the head, there really was nothing: no rumble, no gunfire, no noise but birdsong. Again. They are coming.

“Section make ready! Time to get up and at ‘em.” The last uttered in a bored undertone, another eight hours? See nothing, feed the monster. Binoculars fished from webbing, raised up and scanning the close horizon carefully. Flurry of activity close, metallic clinks and clanks as a reception is prepared for the visitors from beyond the veil drawn across the front.

“Gun up Sarge!” his complaining over, Smiler is overcome by business and drill precision. Kipper brought ammunition and Mutch the tripod. Forty-eight seconds, not really the very best but it would do for now. Our Sergeant remained out of sight, quietly ensconced with his own demons inside but no one said anything. They never did, our Sergeant was a dead man, a charm against the enemy, an innocent from the salient years before: ineffable. He pulled a knife in the village, devil of a time explaining him out of that.

Water brought closer, cold stabbing through cheap winter wool, fingers red raw and shaking with leaking shoes. Cursing, low and guttural. Anticipation and squinting to see further.

Squeaking, a spring-like release; chugging of a petrol driven engine and the first tell-tale rattle of gunfire – their machine guns; much slower and louder than our own dogs of war in response.

“Steady, wait for the targets.” Senselessly wasting ammunition is not an option. Supplies are late.

“Sarge.” Simple and immediate confirmation. To the drill.

Return to vigil, that noise getting closer, along with the rattling of metal, the chattering of fire; how were they getting their guns closer?

A black form emerges from the funeral shroud, rolls forward shouldering aside banks of roiling white as it waddles over cuts, gulleys and listening posts. A most ungainly beast seemingly balanced and alive. Spews black fumes from top and side as if all the fires of Hell burn brightly within. Without waiting a gun opens fire from the specially constructed sandbag nest. An odd response, metal ricocheting from metal, the zing and plink of bullets a swarm of hornets in an orchard. Yet the beast is unperturbed and spits its own flame lit retort from deathly black muzzles peeking from front and sides. Involuntary flinch, vision replaced with blackness then the wood of the duck board. Hissing through clenched jaw. The gun belches its answer once more to the glockenspiel medley of the mocking ignorance of the beast and war breeds no heroes.

A scramble, a fountain that erupts all over all at once then moves so that Kipper is screaming for his mother. Hands all over his jacket, spurting pulses from holes that let the light through, gurgling as he falls. Ammunition spills with blood across the trench and another recruit joins the army of Heaven. Smiler keeps firing, five minutes ago he refused to contemplate another day, now he keeps pulling the trigger long after there’s nothing left for the firing pin to strike home.

A new smell, that of fear, in nostrils made alive by acrid cordite, new warmth on thighs and crotch, a weight dribbling down the back of gooseflesh buttocks to dare to lift eyes above the parapet once more. The beast, undaunted, reaches the end of the wire with its awful mass, still it rolls onward, inhuman, fell and clanking like father’s suit of armour in childhood games.

A tread on the lip, a rotating foot pulls the bulk in, a snout into the trough to feed on the young men served as swill inside. The machine gun is still clicking as the metal form claws and grasps the far wall, lifting up and out of our home beyond, to the green fields miles behind? Why is the gun still clicking?

The answers arrive and shoot him cleanly with rifles, one in field grey tunic and winter coat readies a grenade before hurling into the hole we just left. No sign of the Sergeant. Wicked bayonet points flash with moisture in the cold sun. “I surrender!” He’s from number four section, our left flank, his hands raised in supplication to the intruders.

One of them cups his ear as if he doesn’t understand or can’t hear and it’s been done before. Tales that when the devils reached the lines after eight hours of butchery there were no prisoners taken, that they are lusting for blood and only death will satisfy. Inhuman animals, baying and cawing.

“I surrender!” He repeats his plea, clutching to last ember to light his day.

A sneer, a shot, a perfectly executed bayonet thrust, a laugh, they leave. I look at Smiler, his arm draped over the cooling gun barrel, his head blown open and leaking over the carefully arranged sandbags and his body slumped beneath. Empty eyes staring into the beyond, like the Sergeant. Nothing left in the dugout that will be missed, but there is, the Sergeant was a talisman, a guarantee now lost and all that can be done is wait, and wonder. I saw the elephant, a thick metal hide and dark eyes malevolent in the bright dawn.