The Viewspaper - My Published Work 3

A collection of articles and
short stories published with

‘The Viewspaper’
Written by: Lena O’ Connell
Traveller around the Sun
Recently I watched an animated film called ‘Spirited Away’ by Hayao Miyazaki. I really
gravitated to the theme of spirits in the film and the seen and unseen world. I am no
stranger to this theme in my art work. Last January I performed in a play which I wrote
and designed for the stage. It was my first play called ‘Traveller around the Sun’. I had
the support of my faithful friends Cahil Shirran, Amy Hill and my sister Emma O’Connell.
These people were my spiritual refuges. We went everywhere together; the forest, the
sea and the mountains. They agreed to be part of my art projects that had little sense of
rhyme or reason. All I know is my spirit and I trust it.
So why did I write a play about a homeless man and a ghost? Everything I was doing and
making at the time built up to it. The characters I portrayed in my drawings and photos
lived in my thoughts and surroundings and became a form which would appear in my
mind. I would write down the idea, the title and a sketch of what it looked like on paper. I
always felt excitement at this stage because now all I had to do was execute my dreams.
This execution varied according to how elaborate it could be, sometimes taking a few
hours or days.
My play took me into the territory of weeks and months. Cahil played a homeless man
called Ali and I played a ghost called Harmony. Cahil was a natural choice for me to play
Ali because he had gladly agreed to dress up as George Carl and Allen Ginsberg in my
other art projects.
The story follows Ali as he sleeps in the park. Harmony is a ghost that is part of a tree.
She appears to Ali when he rings a bell that he finds beside him. She has a book that
records everyday he has lived. It has seventeen thousand, five hundred and thirty two
pages. The book is called ‘Traveller around the Sun’. Harmony tells Ali she has his gold
notebook which he thought he threw away. So Harmony reads the pages from Ali’s gold
notebook and he starts to become alive, remembering memories he buried a long time
ago.
The extract from the play I’d like to share with you is from one of Ali’s pages in his gold
notebook. I based the description on a person I always thought was a wonderful mystery.
‘I looked up from my book ‘George’s Secret Key to the Universe’ and there he was. The
man I wondered about not long ago. I used to see him walking outside when I sat on a
bench at lunch time. He had long spindly legs, glasses and long grey hair and walked
with a stick. I thought he looked like a daddy long legs. I hadn’t seen him since then
which was four years ago. He was walking in the same hurried way as I remembered him
but didn’t have his stick. Today I got this brief glimpse from the bench before he turned
the corner.’
With the help of our drama tutor and friend Amy, we rehearsed the play and set the date
and venue for our performance. Our stage was in O’ Keeffe’s, Bar 4, Clonmel, Co.
Tipperary, Ireland. We performed for two nights in January. On the last night, when the
show was over I was backstage, diligently trying to get the layers of white make-up off my
face.
It was taking me a while but as the time went by I was more and more puzzled by the
rising volume of the audience outside. No one seemed to be leaving. Later I emerged
and people were still sitting and talking about the play. It was all I could have hoped for. I
gathered around my friends and family in a state of joy. I was spirited away.
Published August 31 2011

My Invention of Sally
In a universe far away, I am seven. It is an unearthly hour of the morning. All humans are
asleep. It’s just me and the sky. It’s cold and foggy. I can see my breath. I am talking to
myself and pushing a pram with my dolls outside my house. There is no other world
except this place so I talk to it. At the back of our garden there is a tree where I sit for
hours buried in the green foliage. I write in my notebook and sing to birds and tell them I
love them.
Now I am twenty seven. I still talk to a world, just like the one I made when I was seven
but my surroundings have changed. In my artwork I imagine the characters I invent in the
environment I’m in. They surround me, talk to me and look after me wherever I go. They
are entities that are close to me. I can see clearer with them. Without them my history
would be bleak, as so much of life can be recalled. In my first exhibition, I was literally
surrounded by my characters in frames. I put my world in their hands and no one else’s.
I invented my friend Sally before I met her. When I was nine I wrote a story I’d like to
share with you. I called it ‘My Invention of Sally’.
Hi! My name is Sally. I am nineteen. When I was fifteen strange things began to happen
to me. Would you like to hear my amazing story? I’m sure you would. Now let’s begin.
It all began on Tuesday. I went downstairs and had my breakfast of golden crispy flakes,
splashed with ice cold milk. I then bid farewell to my mum and dad and off I went to
school. It was a boring day. All that the teacher did was blab on and on about doing our
school play.
When I got home I did my homework. Finally when I was finished I had my dinner. Yes!
Today mum had potato mash with sausages, cheese and apricot sauce. Then I went out
to my shed in our back garden and fiddled with my pencil. I had nothing to do so I
decided to go for a nap in my hammock. I dreamed that I was eating a chocolate bun and
when I was about to eat it, I put out my tongue and bit it. And oh! It was sore. I couldn’t
go back to sleep, so I thought and thought and just about as I had an idea I had to go to
bed.
I went upstairs and put my nightie on and read for ten minutes. I then put my light out and
went to sleep. At midnight I woke up to find noises in the shed. I went down stairs with
my oil lamp and went to the shed. With each step a tiny bubble of sweat ran down my
face. I opened the door and there before me was another me. I thought I may be
dreaming, but no, I wasn’t. She took me by the hand and we flew into the sky. It began to
snow. Small icy flakes of snow fell on our cold faces. Sally took me places that were
magical and made of crystal. We played and laughed and shared each other’s laughter.
Then she took me home. She gave me a flake of ice that would never melt and an icy
kiss. She then disappeared. I then went back to sleep. That morning the flake of ice was
still lying at my bedside.
My friend Sally Fennessy came into my real world when I was sixteen. She was the
reason my characters in my pictures became real in my first exhibition which I had with
her in our local library in Clonmel. I like to think however, she had been in my real world
all along.
Published September 14 2011

The Secret Garden
To be loved is to recognise what is close to you. Maybe we spend our lifetime just
learning about this. I remember Spike Milligan talking about depression, said one day it
just left him. It makes me wonder what occupies the mind. I want ‘The Secret Garden’ in
mine.
‘The Secret Garden’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett has found its way into my psyche
many times. I can recall two stories from my life, which remind me of ‘The Secret
Garden’. The first is a day I recorded in my diary from the 18th of November 2010.
I had one last thing to get at the supermarket; washing- up liquid. I made my way down
the aisle and as I got half way down I recognised a girl that was in the cloak making
workshop with me. Her brother was beamy eyed and pointing at something. I didn’t take
much notice and reached down for the green liquid. Then I thought he said, “A bird!”
Other adults started to look where he was pointing and acquired the same look of
fascination on their faces. I thought to myself, “Hmmm, must be on the ceiling or
something”. I looked across at a woman but her eyes were just above my head and to
the left. I looked up with the green liquid in my hand and there perched on a blue sign
with white writing that read ‘Washing-up liquid’, was a robin.
My mouth dropped and I looked at the petrified bird whose eyes were moving. After a
while of looking with the other shoppers I informed a worker and brought him to the spot.
He first looked at the shelves and then I pointed at the sign. He stared for a while and I
suggested a ladder. Then he told me he would get someone. Later on I thought about
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s ‘Secret Garden’.
In ‘The Secret Garden’ there is a robin that befriends the main character Mary Lennox
and shows her the way to the secret garden. Who is to say paradise can’t be found in a
Tesco aisle next to the washing up liquid?
My second story recalls a friend’s neighbour. We used to pass his house a lot and it was
hard not to notice how neglected and forgotten his garden was. When I asked my friend if
anyone lived there she said an old man did. I couldn’t believe it. From the outside, it
looked really run down. She said there was a sad story behind the state of the garden.
The old man was a gardener by profession. He and his wife used to keep a beautiful
garden, which won prizes in the town. After his wife died, he let the garden die too.
At the side of his garden there were big pink flowers growing by the railing. I remember I
took a photo of them. I remember feeling like she hadn’t died. A few years later I passed
the house in a car and I saw the old man working in the garden. I was so happy to see
this. Maybe one day, his sorrow just left him.
In ‘The Secret Garden’, Mary’s uncle is a widower. She is in his care after her parents
die. After his wife dies, he shuts her garden away until Mary finds a key to the garden
and starts to grow things in it again. It makes me wonder what is our mind and spirit.
What is close to us and what will leave us forever?
Published October 5 2011

The Light of the Moon
As I stand on this stairway of my grandfather’s house, it feels like he came from the
moon. I stare out of the window at the cold, white, winter light. I wonder where he is now
as my breath makes fog on the cold glass. It seems my memory is in tune with the
footsteps he made as I walked beside him as a child.
On these stairs, I wrote my first play. In this house, as a kid I drew from pictures in the
sitting room when spending time with my grandparents. My grandfather liked my
drawings. He gave me a Christmas card which read, ‘Merry Christmas 1997. To Lena.
From guess who.’ On the back of the card it read, ‘Unknown artist’. I think my grandfather
was an artist in many ways.
He liked to write his signature everywhere. Any book he owned had his signature, his
address and the date. I treasure my bird book he wrote on. Valuable glass and cutlery
were not spared from my grandfather’s engraved writing. Every day he would write in a
diary of everything he did during the day. Unlike my diaries, they record everyday events.
My diaries always seem to be going to war; battling with strange emotions and thoughts.
Once, I remember sitting at our living room table, the one with the thick mustard
tablecloth. The same one I used to hide under when trying to stay up late and watch
television. I gasped as I saw a black figure from the corner of my eye outside the window
and sighed with relief when I saw my grandfather. He liked to take walks in our garden.
He always walked with his hands behind his back taking long strides. He dressed in his
usual attire. He wore large brown glasses, a peaked cap, long grey coat and black
brogues.
Excited to see him, I rushed outside. The funny thing is, he didn’t stop walking when he
saw me. I had to catch up and walk with him. We would walk in a circle around the back
of the garden and as far as the bin at in the front. Then we’d turn around and walk around
the garden again. I know if anyone was talking, it was me. I had a habit of asking a lot of
questions. My grandfather was quieter. These walks were always done in a hurried way. I
liked and thought it was funny that our destination was the bin.
That garden has changed and I’m not a child anymore. I can only walk with my
grandfather in my mind and now that feels like walking on the moon. Sometimes I have a
feeling that rushes through me. It is a burning wish to be in certain places with people I
love but nothing ever stands still. All I have is this precious mind. Strange as it seems, I
look around me and everything was as it should have been.
Dedicated to my grandfather; Frank O’ Connell. (Published October 15 2011)

The Wise Child
When I was ten and my younger sister was seven, we religiously watched a film called
‘Mama’s Going to Buy You a Mockingbird’. It is a story based on the novel of the same
name by Jean Little. The film is rare and was made for television.
It is a sad film and I’m not sure why it gripped the imagination of a ten and seven year
old. It tells the story of the Talbot family in the 1950s and how a teenage boy named
Jeremy copes when his father develops cancer. I think I liked the look and feel of the film
and the connection the characters had.
Birds are a unifying theme. Jeremy and his father keep birds in their garden. As his
father’s illness progresses, the family have their holiday in a summer cottage. One night
as Jeremy works on a picture puzzle, his parents go out for a walk.
They are not gone a long time, when Jeremy’s mother returns in a hurry from the rain
and ushers Jeremy to go with her. Jeremy puts on a raincoat and brings a flashlight. He
goes to the spot where his father is waiting. In haste, Jeremy points his flashlight at the
dark, in the direction his father shows him. There, in the trees is an owl. His father tells
him there were two of them until his mother went to get him.
Suddenly, the owl swoops very low towards them and flies away to their great
excitement. Jeremy’s mother exclaims they are soaking wet and rushes ahead of them to
get back to the house. Jeremy’s father asks him to promise that he will remember this
moment always. Jeremy nods.
Jeremy’s father gives him an ornament of an owl as a gift. Jeremy decides to call the owl
‘Hoot’. When Jeremy’s father dies, the family have to move from their house to an
apartment. Jeremy brings the bird feeder from the house and hangs it from the balcony of
the apartment.
On Christmas Eve, Jeremy wakes in the middle of the night. He brings ‘Hoot’ with him
into the living room. He finds his mother’s Christmas stocking and places ‘Hoot’ at the
bottom. Then he fills the rest of the stocking with sweets and oranges.
He goes to the balcony to feed the birds. It is a cold winter’s night and it has snowed.
Jeremy finds a bird on the bird feeder that has died from the cold. He picks it up and
warms it with his breath and says “Don’t die”. His mother wakes to find the owl and sees
Jeremy at the window. It has been months since his father died. For the first time, he
cries and his mother is there to comfort him. The birds in this film serve as a reminder of
the beautiful and precarious nature of life.
In Akihabara, Tokyo I found a book called ‘The Last Year of Childhood’. It is a book of
colour photographs by Ute Behrend. The girl on the cover and the title of the book are
suggestions of beautiful worlds made but lost at the same time. As I flicked through the
book, an owl stared back at me. I think a wise child knows thoughts are birds and stands
by the window, letting them out of the mute world. I know these birds have never stopped
caring for me.

Over the Sea
Sometimes dreams are over the sea but I believe in them. As I flew over the Sea of
Japan, a Japanese girl dressed in purple and wearing glasses sat at the window seat in
front of me. I could tell by her expressions that she loved looking out the window at the
make believe world below. I was in a perfect place to take a picture but sometimes it’s
not always a good idea to take a picture of the moment. I knew this moment was hers
and I got to witness it and commit it to memory. I knew I felt just like her.
Earlier that year, I travelled alone for the first time from Ireland to South Korea. I stood in
the airport bookshop, looking for some book to keep me company. I found a shelf full of
Roald Dahl books. A few months before, I had bought and read many including Matilda,
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, George’s Marvellous Medicine and Danny, The
Champion of the World. My eye found the title ‘Going Solo’. I thought that title sounded
like my situation. When I opened it, there were tales of flight involved but Dahl’s
adventures were as a fighter pilot during World War II. I read the book from Dublin to
Germany, Germany to China and China to South Korea. It was a gripping read. I had no
one to tell me what my facial expressions looked like but I remember being involved in a
variety of them.
I think it is interesting why one makes the decision to travel. If I told you my reasons,
maybe you might not believe me. The truth is I don’t think I’d have had the courage to go
solo without the art I made to inspire it. On a cold Sunday in Ireland, March 2009; I stood
on a chair beside my friend Seiko, wrapped in a costume and covered with yellow face
paint. I couldn’t have imagined that day of make believe would lead me over the sea to
Seiko and her home in Tokyo.
My next journey is in the making. It came from a gold frame in an antique shop. Inside
the frame, there was an embroidered cloth. I kept it in a purse I carried. In a hostel in
Cork, I met a girl called Zoe from China. I showed her the cloth and asked her what the
writing meant. She said it was the name of a silk weaving factory called Du Jin Sheng in
Hangzhou. She opened her bag and showed me many scarves wrapped in plastic which
she had bought in Hangzhou. She brought them with her to give as gifts. She gave me a
white scarf with yellow and green leaves. On the tag there is a symbol ‘HZ-DJS’.
Hangzhou means ‘Heaven on earth’. When I go to China to meet Zoe, it is with these
leaves that I will travel over the sea.
Published November 21 2011

‘The Birds’: A journey with a book
My friend told me once that reading on the bus gave her headaches and made her ill. I
tended to agree with her when it came to books that demanded a lot of concentration and
trying to compete with the bumps on the road, the scenery and the other passengers. All
these distractions at once could make for unpleasant reading, maybe not so much
though when it comes to short stories.
I had over a two hour journey ahead of me on the bus and anxiety crept up on me as I
realised I had forgotten to bring a book. I found my way into a second hand book shop
and went to the English Literature section where I always picked up some unusual gems.
I wasn’t disappointed. Tucked in on one of the shelves I saw ‘The Birds’ by Daphne du
Maurier. I recognised the cover from Hitchcock’s adaption of the story. I bought it and
‘The Old Man and the Sea’ by Ernest Hemingway.
On my bus journey, I began reading, ‘The Birds’. It was an overcast day and I read each
paragraph in between travelling through the long winding roads, towns and countryside
and looking out at the world outside my window. Like some sort of magic, the world of my
book and the world outside the window seemed to merge and I found myself looking out
at the birds thinking, “Could you really be capable of the horror described in this book?”
It made me wonder if the world in the book was not a million miles away from my window.
What frightening current possesses animals and humans alike to attack? I had some
reminders that this horror story had only invaded these pages as an old man near me
sucked casually on a sweet, innocently oblivious of the melodrama I was deeply involved
with.
I closed the last page of the book before the end of my journey, unscathed. It was the
journey I had hoped for when I lifted the book from the shelf. It was a journey like no
other. It was full of questions and sensations that a journey without a book could not
offer.
Published June 18 2012

Wisdom Tooth
A week ago, my last wisdom tooth began to sprout from my gum. I had little tingles here
and there from other wisdom teeth but they emerged gradually. The arrival of this tooth
was painful. I could not ignore it. Perhaps the full power of wisdom is undoubtedly painful.
Life seems to be a strange arrival and a strange departure. Some define it as a journey
or a place or use an elaborate complicated equation. There are no definite answers
unless you’re crazy and maybe I am!
I nursed my tooth during a writing class with author Derbhile Dromey. It felt great to be
there. All the thoughts that were spinning around in my head suddenly had a focus. I
became a great traveller and explorer as my pen moved across the paper. Words and
images could be channelled out of everyday life, plucked out of routine and made
strange. Here is the story I crafted during the classes called, ‘The Gold Moth’.
Finn called to his sister from the dark corner of the attic, “Orla, Orla. Come here now.”
Orla stopped playing her silver trumpet, suddenly. Finn ran to her and could make out her
white silhouette in the dust filled echo chamber. “What is it?” she said as she slowly
turned to meet Finn in his panic. “It’s S-s-Sam”, Finn stuttered. Orla suddenly felt
frightened. “What are you talking about Finn?”
He grabbed her hand and they both flitted into the dark corner of the room. Finn pointed
to the floor at the little traces of dust. Orla peered closely. “What?” she exclaimed. “What
is it?” Finn pointed closer, bending down. “Look”, he said. “Look at what’s written there.”
Speckled in the dust there was a faint outline. Orla could make out the letters S-A-M.
Sam was a familiar name in this household. He was Finn and Orla’s deceased
grandfather.
“Is this some kind of joke Finn?” Orla said unnervingly. She could see the panic in Finn
was real and was confused and frightened by what all of this meant. Finn stood up and
looked at Orla in great earnest. “I was looking for the clarinet in the back as I always do
when I found granddad’s hat. There was a gold moth on it. I let it crawl around my fingers
for a while. Then it slipped onto the floor. I watched it crawl around and it made out these
letters.”
Orla tried to reconcile this information in her head but like the math problems she hated
so much in school, she could not understand or make anything fit. “What are you saying
Finn?” Orla blurted out strongly. “I don’t know”, he said quietly and slumped back into
himself. They both stood in silence and stared at the floor. Finally Orla piped up, “Where
is the moth?”
Finn reached into his back pocket where he produced a beaker that he used for his
braces. Orla beckoned him to the centre of the room with the white dust flying around the
two large skylights. She took the beaker from Finn and laid it down on the floor. They
both circled it and watched nervously as the gold speckled insect lay motionless inside
the beaker.
Finn opened the beaker without consultation. Dust scattered around them as Finn rolled
over to watch the gold moth fly high into the skylight. They both stood in the rising dust to
watch the spectre disappear into a crack in the corner of the skylight. “What’s that?” said
Finn in sudden recognition. He leapt and clambered at the spot in the corner. In a cloud
of dust something jingled and fell to the floor. Finn picked up a gold key. It felt light in
Finn’s hand. He examined it for clues.
He looked up at Orla breathlessly. “It says, ‘The World’.” They looked at each other and
turned towards the globe in its wooden frame at the far end of the room. “I’m scared
Finn.” Slowly they were drawn to walk together till their feet carried them to the place.
Finn and Orla knew what to do with the key. They had felt the grooves of a lock so many
times when their fingers slid across the globe to stop and start at a country that chose
them. It felt like this lock had chosen them too.
It fit with a little persuasion as Finn nudged the gold key. It became heavy like it was
sprung inside a music box. He twisted the key a couple of times and could feel the spring
become heavier against the key. He let go. A presence had arrived. A black shadow
stood at the top of the stairs and heard the whisper of a piano coming from the globe.
Aunt Ziggy quietly stepped into the light. Concern lined the creases on her face. “How did
you find it?” she said with light breath. Finn and Orla moved closer to her in trust and
spilled out the details of these strange encounters. She stared at them so hard her eyes
began to water. She recognised it was her father Sam. The gold moth had often been her
friend when she was in trouble. Her stare was fearful and tried to penetrate what kind of
situation Finn and Orla were in and why the gold moth had come to help them.
That is my story! I have just finished reading ‘The Pink Cage’ by Derbhile Dromey. I
cared about the story to read and absorb the thoughts and feelings of the narrator.
Somehow I have a good feeling about the arrivals and departures inside me. Having their
words and images is a great way to be in this world. Perhaps the arrival of my last
wisdom tooth gave me this wisdom. The pain has now departed.
Published July 24 2012

Isobel
Isobel lived by herself in a skeleton like so many creatures of this earth. These creatures
cowered in this knowledge and searched for a safe haven that would protect them. Their
bones haunted them and quaked in their insides. They shivered and rattled in their teeth.
Their bodies were too big for their homes and their windows were too small for their eyes.
Everything they touched felt like it had been trampled on.
Isobel had black spots for eyes whose pools were older than the earth and like the
darkest night terrors that shook the mountains and the forests. She fitted in her universe
perfectly with eyes like hers to guide her.
She lived in an old house. It wrapped itself around her and she felt as quiet as the world
inside it. She loved its presence for no one knew she was there. No one could see her
because she lived in the walls, the curtains, the corners and cracks that sheltered her.
She was not a ghost. She was a gold moth and a twelve year old human.
Life roared outside her window. It crashed and bellowed like thunderous waves on the
sea. The house was vast with its precious objects that time left behind. As a moth she
scaled its minute detail. One evening she gazed at her reflection in the window as her
eyes squinted into their human form but there was no time to meet herself as she stood
face to face with her friend Chen. He took her hand. “Will you go with me?” he whispered.
Isobel nodded.
Their hearts almost stopped as they heard a growl from behind the long wooden door at
the bottom of the stairs. Isobel stood in suspended silence and watched Chen slowly
dissolve before her eyes and fly above her head. He bounced and caught the air with his
long stick legs until he landed as a dragonfly on the silver embossed wallpaper. She
knew too well who was at the door and dissolved like dust and hid in her beloved brown
curtain.
The door heaved open. The battering ram had arrived. This was Isobel’s death sentence.
He shook his head violently and raindrops scattered in all directions as the water dripped
from his coat and made a trail after him. His angry footsteps vibrated against the
furniture. Isobel could feel the tremor against her tiny legs and gold wings. Her uncle and
guardian Tobias tumbled from room to room roaring her name and sweeping in and out
of every door. It seemed like he was taking the house apart in his search. Isobel did not
emerge. She had promised Chen.
Isobel clung to the curtain as Tobias brushed past and disappeared into the darkness
until the front door clanged shut. Isobel appeared at the window. She watched Chen glide
towards her and tip her nose. Then he appeared. It was strange that after the presence
of such a storm in the house, they both smiled.
Chen pointed at his eye and out the window at the stone wall. Isobel looked at the light of
the moon. It was an airless night, still and flickering. He caught her hand and they moved
through the black to the eye on the wall that waited for their arrival. His fingers moved
along the strips of moss that grew and made the eye that stared back at them.
He showed her the cracks in the wall within the eye. “You will travel through here, ok?”
he said. She was afraid and watched Chen’s blinking eyes as her gold wings fluttered
into the stones. She cried and cried. Her uncle had made her feel so weak she did not
know if she could be strong. In his presence she wondered why she was alive at all.
She crawled through the wall and made a wish to the moon. She could see the face of an
owl carved into the stone ahead of her. She gazed at the long black tunnels the owl had
for eyes. There was nowhere else for her to go and she moved forward into the left eye.
The wall began to shake violently. It was cracking and falling all around her. The owl’s
strength surged through her and lifted its wings through the rocks that crashed and the
wall that crumbled. She looked out through the windows of the owl’s eyes as they flew
towards the moon and knew that her uncle would never find her again. She finally slept in
the towering warmth of the owl’s feathers.
Isobel woke on the forest floor and met the eyes of Chen. He had been with her during
the night and studied her face as she slept. He could see there were monsters that lived
in her breath and he spent the night catching them with his hand and throwing them into
a book. He held invisible air but he knew the monsters were there. Isobel felt leaves
crunching beneath her hand and the deep grooves of something harder. She brushed the
leaves aside and sat up against the tree in the cold morning. She felt the grooves with
her fingers. The letters emerged as her name, ‘Isobel’. She picked up the red leather
bound book.
Chen handed Isobel some bread and water. “Listen well, Isobel. You have breath in your
lungs and food in your stomach”, he said. “You rise and sleep with the star that gives you
life but your mind is black.” Isobel understood.
Living with her uncle Tobias had made her sullen and she never spoke. She chewed on
her bread and water filled her eyes. Her throat tightened. The book flickered open and
they watched black veils of smoke dance in the air. Isobel held Chen’s hand and they
crouched down with their heads together. The black air pressed against them and roared
through their bodies until it gradually loosened and then suddenly disappeared. They
were wrapped around each other until they felt certain the monsters had left. Chen
crawled to the book among the leaves. There was a message scrawled in black ink on
the first page. It read ‘Flight path’.
He held up the book to her and underneath the words there were black and white
drawings of many gold moths and dragonflies. They blinked before her eyes and she
moved in closer to examine them. She turned the pages carefully and discovered
thousands of tiny lines dotted across them. They all glowed like golden rivers. These
were places and each page of the book was filled with maps. Isobel looked to Chen and
found him smiling. His fingers stroked little dents that marked the pages. They were the
markings of two distinct bodies; a gold moth and a silver dragonfly. At that moment she
knew she had chosen the arms she was wrapped in and their will felt like it was made of
iron. Suddenly the book fell through the earth. “Jump Isobel”, he shouted. There was no
time to think. Isobel jumped with Chen. Their feet found the pages in the dark; the feet of
the gold moth and the dragonfly.
Streams of water brushed under their human bodies. They woke from what felt like a
deep sleep. They stood up and took in a vast coastline. The sea was lapping gently.
Isobel had never known peace like this. The shore was completely deserted. The blue
sky was mirrored in the shallow water that lay on the sand. They turned towards the town
that sprawled around the cliffs. The most prominent feature was the pointing steeple of a
church but nothing echoed with life. It was soundless except for the constant waves that
moved towards them. Chen and Isobel followed in the direction of the steeple, pushed on
by the hunger they felt in their stomachs.
They reached some stone steps at the far end of the beach. They scaled the hill that lay
ahead. All they could hear were the sounds of their feet and breathing. They stopped
walking when the first signs of life signalled from a window, covered with ornaments on
dusty glass shelves. A light shone from a lone light bulb in the middle of the shop. It
seemed like a resting place. Isobel went to the shop window and started to push in the
door. Chen pulled at her sleeve and pointed to the display in the window. She knew what
it was just by looking at him. It was the book they had jumped into. There it was again;
untouched on the glass, dust filled shelf. She beckoned him towards the door and they
gently pushed it in. The tinkle of a bell sounded as they entered.
They waited a few moments in the centre of the square yellow room. The shop was
packed with ornaments and toys but looked untouched. A quiet sound came from a door
opening. A plump lady with black greasy hair shuffled forward to meet them. “Your uncle
won’t find you here, Isobel”, she smiled. “I’m Maggie”. She held out her hand and Isobel
shook it in relief. “You have my book”, said Isobel and gestured towards the window. “Ah,
yes, the book of rivers, where your tears fell as streams”, she replied in recognition.
“Come inside. You must meet Bet and bring your book”. She disappeared behind the
frosted glass of the wooden door. Isobel reached inside the glass shelves and brought
the book with her as she followed behind Chen into the great unknown.
Isobel and Chen stepped down into a cosy living room. A thin woman with short black
hair sat in an armchair by a red glowing lamp. Bet raised her eyes and looked under
them. “Come and sit by me”, she called. They moved closer to her. “I see you have your
book, Isobel”, she noted. “Lay it down on the table, won’t you?” Isobel slid the book
across the table. There was a pause.
“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” Maggie asked from behind them. Isobel dutifully
opened the cover and met with the golden threads that flowed like rivers in a series of
maps. “Where am I?” asked Isobel. “Home”, said Maggie and Bet in unison. “You will
always find your way back here”, said Chen.
Bet stood up from her chair and all four of them gathered around the book on the table.
“This is your flight path”, said Chen. “You will be company for when boys and girls above
the earth need to talk to you just as I had been. Isobel could only imagine who she would
visit and how happy they would feel when she showed them how to become a gold moth
or dragonfly. “For now you and Chen shall eat and rest”, said Bet.
Isobel hugged Maggie, Bet and Chen. She smiled when she remembered herself looking
at the dragonfly she talked to in her uncle’s yard. She always wondered where it went
when it flew away.

The Sun and Moon
George picked up his pen. “Something to write with, something to talk with”, he thought
and moved around the inside of the shed, pacing up and down.
His breathing felt easier as he held the pen. He sipped on his tea and switched on the
candle light. A cuckoo cooed in the evening. He could often hear it when he was in
between waking and sleeping. It was soothing and lulled him into a deep state of rest. His
hand moved and it was pleasing to him as his writing made a path in his mind.
“Where will we go today?” he would hum to himself. “We’ll go over the sea and far away,
for I am tired, weak and dark”.
George stepped outside to stand in the sun that warmed the stones and his bones.
“Where have I been?” he thought.
“It seems hell has taught me the nature of heaven.” He climbed over the wall of his back
garden and followed the lane down to the sea. He looked upon the pale blue stretch of
sky. The birds and butterflies were celebrating a new day where the minutes were not
minutes, the hours were not hours and the years were not years.
George took off his black shoes that matched his suit. He walked on his bare feet in the
soft sand and felt the rosary beads in his pocket. He whispered his prayers along each
bead. “What are eyes for?” he wondered. These flicking light beams that open with the
sun and close with the moon.
As he sat, something wet licked his hand. A little brown and white terrier with rough fur
darted all around him and then wandered off. George watched his tail wagging happily
until he was out of sight. He lay down. Before he closed his eyes he thought of a title for
his new story. “I’ll call it ‘The Sun and Moon’ ”, he thought. Satisfied, he gave his breath
up to sleep.
A cold wind woke him. He wiped the saliva from his chin. The dusk had begun to settle
with little bits of white seeping through the black clouds. “Everything has character”, he
thought as he looked at his steps. He watched two butterflies fly in the back door of his
neighbour’s house. The cool breeze brushed off the sleep in him and was fresh on his
face. His neighbour’s head peeped over the wall. “Your only crime is the depth of your
isolation”, he said slowly. George stopped. “I read that in the newspaper today”, he
grinned showing the teeth under his moustache. “Is there any cure?” George asserted.
His neighbour laughed, “Maybe your dog can give you one”. George turned around to
find the terrier he had encountered nudging his leg. George rubbed him and waved
goodbye to his neighbour.
As he walked, he saw the dog was chewing on something. From the corners of his mouth
it looked like toast. “Hello Toast”, George said. “From now on you’ll be called Toast”. He
left Toast by the back door of his house. A curious thing happened. George peered out of
his bedroom window and looked at Toast waiting outside. George resolved that he would
lose interest and go back to his owner and settled into his bed for the night. Toast did not
go away. Night after night he stayed by George’s window. It was comforting and George
always looked with delight when he unrolled the curtains in the morning and found Toast
was still there and so excited to see him.
Every time George felt anxious his neighbour’s words entered his mind. “I have to die
alone because no one else is going to do it for me but how often have I heard someone
say they don’t want to die alone”, he thought.
Toast looked up at him innocently from inside the kitchen. “What do you think Toast?”
Are we all petrified of our isolation?” Toast yawned. “Good answer”, he said and leaned
in to hug his fur. He heard a plop come from the front door. “The paper”, he thought. He
shuffled to the spot and quickly scanned the pages to the writing section. The title of ‘The
Sun and Moon’ was there in big black print by George C. What a thrill it was to see his
story in print. “Come on Toast”, said George and beckoned him out the front door. “Let’s
celebrate”.

The Girl with the Red Hair
The door of the post office burst open. Elle looked up from browsing through envelopes.
A girl stared at her like she was going to eat her up. She had flaming red hair. She
walked to the counter and bought a stamp and turned to stare at Elle as she left.
“Weirdo”, thought Elle. She picked up the brown packet of envelopes and looked out at
the grey day. It was drizzling and the raindrops started to mark the window.
The girl with the red hair was still staring at her from outside. Elle felt distracted and
distinctly uneasy. “Looks like she’s getting the bus”, Elle realised as she gathered her
things and waited by the bus stop. She kept a safe distance from the girl with the red hair
until she watched with horror at her approach. It was one of those moments when she felt
like she was ready to topple over into some other space.
“Hi”, the girl said brightly. “Hi”, Elle smiled. “I’m M”, she said. “Is that short for Emma?”
Elle enquired. “No, it’s just the letter”. “Oh, right”, Elle paused. “You look heart-broken”, M
said. “Who’s the guy you’re in love with?” Elle was shocked. “Love? What do you mean?”
replied Elle. “Nothing”, said M. There was a long silence until Elle finally spoke.
“As for guys, a coconut cream and a mug of tea can satisfy me any day. It’s
uncomplicated and I feel I can relax.” “Where’s the excitement in that?” M insisted.
“Sugar and I have a very good relationship”, Elle confirmed. “But you can’t die in the
arms of a coconut cream”, M said with mocking dreaminess. “Look, I understand humans
have to mate but Hollywood makes sure they do”, Elle asserted. M did not look defeated.
“What about eternal love?” M piped up.
Elle stopped fidgeting with her bags and looked at M. “Maybe, I don’t know. Who are
you? Do you always ask these kinds of questions?” “Only if they make people
uncomfortable”, M smirked. “Well, that’s reassuring. This is the weirdest conversation I’ve
ever had at a bus stop”, Elle observed. “Here’s the bus now”, M said with delight. Elle
readjusted her mind to the normality of the arrival of the bus but that too seemed to have
been jolted out of everyday existence. Elle got in the line a little behind M and they waited
to get on the bus.
Elle looked for M but she had gone to the very back and looked uninterested as she
looked out the window. Elle sat at the front feeling stranger than ever. She could only
think about eternal love and who M was, if indeed her name was M. The rain started to
fall heavily as the bus weaved around the country roads. Elle started to think that maybe
she wasn’t just a shell of a human being on a tin can bus, that maybe she was some form
of eternal love. The bus jerked to a sudden stop.
Elle listened to the pronounced sound of heels coming from behind her. Elle looked
around to see M at her shoulder. “Think about it”, she said and proceeded to clank off the
bus. Elle watched M walk down a lane way that led to a castle. She didn’t look back. “She
lives in a castle?” questioned Elle to herself. “Well that makes sense”, she thought as she
watched the glow of her red hair fade into the distance.
* This story is influenced by ‘Blue Notebook No. 10 or The Red- Haired Man’ by Daniil
Kharms. *

Life is Sweet
The old man looked to the sun. “It has granted me another season and don’t you know,
the seasons of heaven and hell are hard to tell apart”, he wrote in his diary.
Little absurdities are little routines. Little corners in a land called forever. I love to watch
them spin in a circle turning around to completely change character. I came home one
night and I couldn’t breathe. I felt so ill that I prayed for the morning.
The morning came and I started to peer through forever, visiting every corner I had seen.
I watched a giant spider waiting in its elaborate network of webs in a corner of the kitchen
window. It was perfectly still. I watched a smaller spider crawl on the sill near the web
and I did what I had been doing of late. I got a stick and denied the spider its dinner by
tearing the web.
I had interfered with nature a few nights previously. A moth had flown into a spider’s web
and it was struggling. I got my stick and tore the web. There are disruptions in nature,
right? I was just helping them along. Knowing I have a pen and paper, my mind sighs
with relief. The relief is that I never have to talk to certain voices again because I can give
them their sound, their colour and their shape. There are some people in this world that I
will never talk to again even if I talk to them.
The old man stopped writing and looked around his room. There were little changes
there. Some new items of clothing were scattered on the bed. His books and shoes were
in a different arrangement on the floor. He was happy to exist there and he watched the
world from his window. It was a world that never seemed to resist clambering to be
anywhere than where it was. The world stared back at him with nothing to say and
nowhere to be.
He could not understand the way people spoke on the television or in newspapers and
magazines. At best he thought most people looked like plastic, alien robots that would
eventually self-destruct from their exclusive monotony. A visitor at the window distracted
his thoughts from images of burnt out batteries and melted wires that were in six feet high
flames. A robin flew in the open window and landed on his notebook. The old man sat
breathless and held out his finger. The robin hopped on.
It flew onto the dressing table across the room. The old man watched with curiosity as
the bird picked up a piece of paper with its beak and let it drop on the floor. Then it flew
out the window. He went to pick up the paper. It was a quote that he had torn out from a
book. It said ‘ There must be something dreadful in life going on when you feel with your
tongue the shell of your teeth that are like a cave in your mouth and there must be some
beautiful God that allows you to breathe in and out of it ’. “God must be here”, he thought.
He continued moving through the remaining routines of the day. He went to the shop to
buy bread and milk. He came home and sat in his old chair with his rug over his knees.
He sipped on his tea and chewed buttered white crusty bread. Sooky, his black cat lay by
his feet. He closed his eyes and felt happy to perform all the routines that tomorrow might
bring. The house was dark and still with his breathing and the breathing of the cat. The
old man and Sooky fell asleep.

The Forest Floor
My sister and I fell asleep in the sun. Our bodies stretched out in the shelter of the grassy
field. Voices made constant circles in my mind. I lay on them like the roots of the forest
floor, wondering which I was following. Today, I was not making any decisions. I let
everything exist and did not grasp at transformation. Anxiety fought its daily battle in the
bizarre world of information exchange.
Catherine had died. I realised I am still in the world walking along the forest floor and I
must welcome everything I meet there. I know Catherine welcomed everything she met
and the forest is a difficult place to negotiate. Heaven has a strange way of organising
itself, and today I felt Catherine was there. I did not argue with my feeling. This is the
bounty of life and maybe one day, you won’t be able to meet yourself at three in the
morning in front of the bathroom mirror. I met Catherine in 2009. She was even in my art
portfolio. This is what I wrote.
In the piece ‘All the colours of Catherine’, I photographed my sister in our garden.
Catherine is based on a real person who I met at the bus stop a couple of times. She had
a really eccentric way of dressing. I was always excited to meet her, just to see what she
was wearing. The first time I met her, she was wearing a purple hat, black shades, a long
black coat and she had a pink glossy bag. I tried to capture in the photos with my sister
aspects of meeting her, even though I have re-imagined a different character in another
removed setting.
I am happy to have made contact with her. What kind of observable distance is there to
make contact? It can only be one where you never lose faith and like Catherine, I’m not
bound to this earth nor are you. Everything is utterly unfamiliar and wonderful on the
forest floor. Why shouldn’t it be?
In memory of Catherine O’ Shea

George in the Garden
“The sky is still a place to consider”, George remembered. “Please help me”, she
whispered to herself over and over again. She had absorbed the atmosphere into her
skin and felt the tears fall onto her cheeks. She turned to face herself in the mirror and
rubbed the water from her face with her hand. Hell was private. Everyone in public knew
that. She stepped back from the mirror and moved out into the garden under the umbrella
of the sky.
“I’m not going to let you make me feel like crap anymore. That’s it”, she told the universe
as if settling some score. “I’m not alright and yes, I have a problem. You never thought I’d
confront it, did you? You never thought I could face the ten foot demon in the room.” She
dusted off the power that feeling held over her and imagined its atoms disperse into the
night sky.
She turned the patio light on and it cast its shadows among the trees. She decided to do
some planting. It was a cold night but it felt like it cleansed her insides. She reached for
the bucket and brought the trowel and mat with her. She had put the heathers she had
ready to plant on the flower beds and kneeled down to make a hole in the earth. The
smell of the soil filled her senses and she kept digging until she could dig no further. Her
trowel hit something hard and she tapped at it. It seemed like metal. She brushed off
some of the soil and could see some glass. She pulled at a corner and started to dig
around it. She gradually pulled out half of what was appearing.
She could make out a title, ‘High Waving Heather’ by Emily Bronte. George scanned the
page in its glass wooden frame. She looked around her wondering where this had come
from. It looked like it had been buried for a long time as the earth had stained the glass,
and the paper was old and faded. George instantly liked the poem. It was like the poet
knew that life’s pace is treacherous and fast and that these were only words for the
offering.
“What a strange place to find this, considering the title”, she mused. She looked for more
clues at the back of the frame and inside it but to no avail. She dug deeper to see if she
could find anything else but there were just rocks and earth. “That’s it”, she felt. “All I
have is this night and these images this poet has given me flowing through the
bloodstreams of my body.”
The night enveloped her and just like the poem took her away.

Oscar – Part One
Oscar looked up at the church steeple. It seemed to be trying to cut the sky but he knew
it would never reach it. He turned into the bookshop. “There’s a confidence in your step
today”, noticed Greg. “It’s my call”, said Oscar cryptically. He fumbled through the titles
and stopped at ‘Wild Flowers’. “How much?” he said, holding up the volume. Greg looked
up and quickly cast his eyes down. “Eight”, he sighed.
“People tell you what they really think of you, don’t they?” Oscar interjected. Greg looked
up with interest and peered at him. “Yes, they do”, he said soberly. “No words can fix it
really, can they?” Oscar continued. “Only your own Oscar, only your own”, Greg
answered slowly. There was silence. “How are your own these days?” Greg’s voice
seemed to dance around the room and get lost somewhere. Oscar wondered what words
reached people. He watched so many sink into the floor. “They are afloat on the sea”, he
said finally.
He turned on his side as if to face the future and brought his new found book. “I’ll take it”.
Oscar walked home and looked in at the gardens as he passed by. “The flowers exist
perfectly by themselves”, he thought. “No one needs to call them a flower.” The universe
was like the air he breathed. It expanded and contracted. He loved their trails and they
glittered before his eyes in the evening sun. He reached the forest which was a short
distance from the back of his house. Tonight he would light a glorious crackling fire. He
collected the wood in quiet contemplation.
Nature held him. The eyes of the forest knew who he was. He went to the post box
looking for the love letter that would never come. It had been too long. Later that night, he
sat by the fire and scrawled in his notebook. ‘My name is Oscar Wilde you see. Don’t
look for doubt or regret in me. I am wild and I am free’.

Oscar - Part Two - The Crooked Rain
“The rain is crooked”, said Oscar and followed his fingers down the lines they made on
the glass window. “It never falls straight, just winds its way out of existence.” Oscar sat at
the window, talking to himself. The church steeple looked like some innocent pinprick
against the sky of the universe.
“What a lame attempt it is making to crucify the sky!” he shouted at the top of his voice.
The door rattled. Oscar heard the rapid scraping behind it. He jolted himself out of the
gloom and twisted the door handle to meet the embrace of his wolfhound, Bran. He had
this morning’s letters tucked into his mouth.
“What news, Bran? Is there some way out of the crooked rain in my blood?”
Bran barked with a sparkle in his eyes that suggested to Oscar that there were beautiful
jewels at work to make him smile, despite the poisons that swam in the air like hungry
crocodiles ready to devour their prey.
It had come; the letter that would ask him to give up on everything. Too many of those
had been sent to him. He tore up the letter and got the lead from the dining room table.
He would go for a walk with Bran into the deep woods where there was nothing written
on the trees and he wouldn’t have to read anymore paper. What a strange thing for a
writer to think. He decided Bran and the woods would not deliver any crooked messages.
He walked out onto the gravel. Bran jumped and bounded ready for the adventure that
Oscar needed for his sanity. Bran took him away, leaping into the fresh air where there
were still things to look at and see, dream of and be.
The further he walked into the woods, the clearer it seemed. His eyes adjusted
themselves to the dark and he knew what he would meet.
He was excited to see his soul in front of him.

Oscar – Part Three - Asia on my Side
Oscar looked at the leaves blinking in the wind and the spiders clinging to their webs
outside the window. Little highlights punctuated his day. The neighbour’s dog was at the
gate today. Yesterday, he was facing the house. Oscar liked to think he was waiting for
him. These observations made the freedom he knew. Oscar was as important as them.
He was an insect surrounded by the crushing feet of strangers.
He looked at the park which seasons had blown through. His friend Joe, had waited for
him there a long time ago and they met there. Now the wind had taken him away, he
wondered where he had been. He committed the scenes in his mind to memory and
walked on at a quickened pace. He walked past the tapping sticks and spider legs of the
gentlemen that crossed his path and eagerly anticipated bursting through the door of the
bookshop, where he’d find the right word. A word that he imagined insects had made for
him with their movements in a large forest of trees. He could peer and gaze at the
craftsmanship.
Oscar rushed into the shop to hear the clamour of bells announce his presence. The
magic hour had dawned and Oscar took his precarious steps through the wilderness.
Greg had mysteriously disappeared. This was quite typical in his forest of books. His
daughter Victoria, had seen him from the street. Oscar approached the counter.
“My father left this for you”, she said quietly. “He also left a note”. She pointed. Oscar
scanned the yellow paper. ‘Oscar, Joe sent me this from perhaps the moon. I really don’t
know where he got it from. Japan is a strange place.’ Oscar glanced at the book to see it
was an illustrated encyclopaedia of butterflies and moths. The hours fell and he found
himself looking back. He tried to remember things Joe had told him, but all he held in his
mind was the colour of his eyes.

Oscar – Part Four - The Morning
Oscar had cut ties with dull forever. He breathed in the delicious air that graced his lungs.
One day, he would have to let go of the breath he had held onto all of his life. It seemed
like he spent his whole existence trying to understand about when that day would come.
He looked to the sky and it seemed to have the knowledge of all that was buried beneath
it. History had always been brutal towards its subject. This hung in the air and carried its
burden. The sky wept for it. There was nothing more wretched in the world than the
murmuring of cold hearts. He felt and stored this wisdom in his gut.
He wrote by owl light. He wanted to know what cared for him. It was a question worth
asking but a painful one to examine. So many people don’t come out alive by asking
themselves this but he needed to know. He needed to understand. Joe’s book sat
perched under his owl lamp. He reached across his bony hand for it under the warm
covers of his bed and re-read the message on the cover. ‘Oscar, love always, Joe’. With
that he gave himself up to the angel that looked after him when he slept and by morning
he woke to find his owl light was still on.
His feet spilled out over his bed and into the morning. Bran was under his bed scratching
intently at the floorboards. Oscar looked for him and found he had rubbed away
something on the surface of the wood. Bran edged his way out from his spot and Oscar
began to move the bed to one side. He could see a door. A frown creased his brows as
he looked at Bran chewing on a piece of rope, guilelessly.
He moved slowly towards him and then Bran spat out a set of keys. Puzzled, Oscar bent
down and took the wet keys. He tried the lock but only one was big enough to fit. It
clicked into place. Oscar looked around to see Bran’s bright eyes flickering and his
panting tongue. Seeing Bran’s demeanour, he trusted himself to open it.
He tugged at the door and it began to creak. It was heavy and he pried with it to release
it, until finally he looked down some cold stone steps and into a pool of black. He did not
want to go down there but he had the strange feeling that he would, and that Bran and
his book from Joe would be his only company.

Oscar – Part Five - The Wild Garden
Oscar had seen his soul with delight in the dark wood. It was other souls he feared, the
ones that were dead and empty. He knew they had the potential to scare him right out of
his wits. He had names for them and this was his only protection. They could not hide
once he named them. All Oscar could hope for was a way in and he had it under the
floorboards of his bedroom. A way to what did not matter, it was a way and it was
important. After all, he carried his way as a writer.
His book from Joe was small enough to fit in his back pocket. He felt for it and began to
walk down the cold stone steps. Bran tiptoed cautiously past him. They stood together for
a while, half in the room and half out. Bran disappeared into the dark and Oscar followed
him down, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the black. When he was half way down, he
cast his eyes up to the fading light. Bran ran back to meet him. He still looked bright and
unbothered, wagging his tail.
With a sudden turn, the door above them fell shut. The latch clicked into place and there
were sounds of heavy movements above their heads. Bran barked and Oscar clung to
him. Oscar stood motionless, waiting and listening. He was listening for the sounds of
voices or feet. Something that would provide him with clues but everything fell eerily
quiet.
Whenever Oscar was in trouble, he prayed. It was the kind of trouble that would make
water fall out of one’s eyes uncontrollably. He had known this many times and many
times when he had asked for help, something out of nowhere appeared. This time was
no exception. A butterfly flew in front of his eyes and landed on his coat pocket where he
had stored his book. He and Bran stood together watching the butterfly flexing its wings
and were mesmerised into an instant state of calm.
He took the book from his pocket. The outside of the book had the red imprint of a
butterfly. The butterfly flew from Oscar’s coat and onto the red imprint. It stayed there for
many minutes and then flew into the dark. Oscar opened the pages to find that they had
all turned a shimmering gold colour that was so bright it lit up the tunnel. Oscar kept the
book open and followed in the direction of the butterfly. He and Bran had stopped being
afraid.
They walked a few feet and came upon a red brick wall. The butterfly had landed near
the top of the wall. They stopped and looked at the impasse. Oscar looked down at the
book and there were gold lines streaked across the pictures of the butterflies. There
seemed to be something written there. ‘Don’t measure the hour, the day or the week.
Turn this page and turn the wall on the bleak.’ Oscar turned the page and the wall started
to grind towards him and stopped until there was a big enough gap for Oscar and Bran to
fit through.
The tunnel filled with light and air from the other side. Oscar reached for the butterfly and
it landed on his finger. He placed it on his shoulder. Bran ran ahead of him into the open
air. Oscar could see ahead of him was a garden with butterflies flying in the distance.

Oscar – Part Six - Brain Waves
Oscar looked down at the book and on the page he turned, he saw some new writing.
‘Don’t look for love. I am right beside you in your brain waves’. Oscar looked down at the
butterfly on his shoulder and he loved it. His sadness inside seemed to vanish. He knew
what he could see. The butterfly stayed on his shoulder. Bran could be seen beyond the
garden in a large meadow. Oscar was glad to be there.
In the distance he could see a figure walking slowly and methodically. Oscar knew that
the figure knew him somehow. He could tell by the way he walked with certainty. He
glared down at his book to see another message appear. ‘Be consoled! Your eyes are
your own. In some eyes, you will surely die alone!’ As the man approached, he could tell
that he instantly liked him. The old man shuffled in grey robes towards him. He was bald
with sallow skin and had a long thin grey beard.
Oscar looked into his eyes and could see they were milky white. He was blind. He held
out his hand to reach Oscar. Oscar accepted it. A broad smile creased the cracks in his
face. “Os-car”, he said slowly in broken syllables. “Yes”, Oscar replied tentatively. The old
man shook his hand. “I am Hyun Su. We have a long journey, so we go now.” Oscar
could only begin to wonder where he was going with this blind man, and the significance
of what the book told him.
He turned around and Bran meekly rubbed against his coat. “Where am I going?” Oscar
asked. Hyun Su pointed in the direction of the woods. “Night come soon. Let’s go”, he
said. From a satchel on his back he produced two slices of bread and a piece of liver.
“Meat for Bran”, he said, and held it out into the air. The scent reached Bran’s nostrils
and he sprang to life, taking the meat from the stranger’s hands. Oscar thanked him.
“Bread for us”, he laughed. Oscar graciously accepted and bowed towards him.
With food in their mouths, Oscar and Bran could remember their hunger. Each bite they
took felt richly deserved. “We must walk”. Hyun Su gestured towards the direction of the
woods. They walked so slowly, Oscar wondered if they would ever reach their
destination. The dark wood spread out before them. Leaves swirled around the dry
ground. The air was crisp and the scent and sound of the wood enveloped them.
The dusk began to creep in, and Oscar thought about the rapidly diminishing light, and
how much distance was left before his eyes. No sooner did the thought leave his mind,
when some strange light filtered through the branches of the trees. Oscar could hardly
believe how bright it was. The path weaved its way around it and on top of a hill, a train
emerged. Published November 10 2012
Oscar – Part Seven - The Grey Monk
‘Death in the right circumstances could be a wonderful conclusion’.
Oscar watched the page light up with these words. It was a frightening appearance but
with Hyun- Su, Bran and the butterfly on his shoulder, his eyes glittered at the thought. It
was the dancing hour in this dark tunnel of delight. Oscar felt like he was running to meet
it but this was just the sound of his heart beating faster as they drew closer to the open
carriage of the train.
The butterfly flew from its perch on Oscar’s shoulder and towards the bright glow of the
carriage. Oscar asked Hyun-Su, “Are we taking the train?” “Yes, we go by train”, he
motioned. Oscar followed the butterfly into the carriage and linked the arm of Hyun-Su,
and Bran remained by his side. As soon as they stepped aboard, the train began to
move. The carriages were like dark chests of drawers. It was dimly lit by box lanterns that
hung from the ceiling and had a sweet floral fragrance in the air. The drawer of the
carriage slid shut behind them. The butterfly had landed on one of the polished wooden
tables and was flexing its wings.
“I see you meet my grey monk”, Hyun Su said. Oscar’s head spun around on hearing this
and was caught off balance with the moving train. Surely Hyun Su was the grey monk.
Hyun Su sat down next to the grey butterfly and Oscar looked at the butterfly’s wings,
camouflaging against the grey robes of Hyun Su. “Is it your messenger?” Oscar asked.
“Ah yes, mess-en-ga”, Hyun Su nodded and laughed. Then he stopped and his whole
demeanour became serious as he leaned towards Oscar with a deep frown marking his
brow. “You look for ansa but ansa is many form”. He continued, “Spir-it everywhere”.
Oscar stared gravely at the table but there was a strange comfort in the monk’s words.
When Oscar looked up the man had disappeared. He could not have moved. The grey
monk butterfly flew into the air and fluttered in front of Oscar’s face, and then rested on
his shoulder. The book flashed with another message.
‘The most perfect instrument is in your head. Beware of those who call it dead’.
Then the lights of the train went out and the train stopped. Oscar and Bran were once
again plunged into the dark terrors of their skulls.
The door of the train slid open. The train was not the place to stay. Oscar and Bran made
their way to the white foggy exit. Before Oscar had the courage to look outside, he
searched the book. “You cannot stay. You must go your way”. It was the most comforting
eviction notice, unlike the one he tore up that day Bran had come in with the day’s letters
in his mouth. How far had they travelled? Oscar looked out onto the forest covered
mountain and stepped off the train with Bran and the grey monk on his shoulder.

Oscar – Part Eight - First Lesson
In the distance Oscar could hear a dog wincing in pain and the echo of laughter. The
laughter was clear but the sounds of the dog were muffled, yet he feared for the creature.
Oscar had learned when his mind was cold, naked and shivering with doubt, that he
should completely trust it. He suddenly felt a great sweep of anonymity over him and
Bran, from whatever was out there. They found themselves clinging to the train with
wings on their backs, with the grey monk among them.
The dead and empty souls had come, the ones that saw and heard the same things over
and over. They stood directly in front of the train. Oscar knew they could see him. There
was a constant stream of black liquid coming from their mouths that resembled
sewerage. They were invisible apart from the constant stream and a long tongue held
alack that reached down to the ground. Oscar could feel a kind of electricity at the tips of
his thin butterfly legs and could feel the vibrations from the feet of Bran and the grey
monk. The train lit up into an incredible force field of light for what must have been a
couple of seconds.
Whatever was out there disappeared. Oscar, Bran and Hyun Su were gathered in a circle
around the train and had returned to their bodies. “First lesson” Hyun Su said. “You think
I leave but always here. Never be afraid”. Oscar looked at Bran and he looked completely
undisturbed. The grey monk landed on his shoulder and Hyun Su was nowhere to be
seen. Oscar had to rely on himself in this place he knew nothing of, yet knew he would
choose. His mind was filled with questions but then answers had many forms. He looked
at the train in the dark, cold night and sought its shelter. As they approached, the door
opened. When they stepped on, the train began to move once again.
It had been a while since Oscar looked in his book and he was curious to see what he
would witness.
‘Obsessions cling to your unhappy chest. None of them are important as they suggest.
Now let them go. It’s for the best’.
A whole day had passed since the morning. Oscar and Bran felt exhausted from the
onslaughts they had faced and were limp versions of themselves. An orange table lamp
glowed by one of the windows. Oscar and Bran sank into the warmth of the train and
gave themselves up to sleep. The grey monk did not leave Oscar’s shoulder.
He woke with the morning to find the train still moving. The steam from a large wooden
bowl of porridge wafted through the air. Hyun Su was sitting by the window waiting for
him. “Breakfast ready”, he said. Oscar cast his eyes upon him as he turned over in his
lying position. He could see he was sitting up straight and very still. He felt a deep sense
of connection inside him. The sorrow of his strange old world had been the loss of it. The
grey monk flew above his head and he blinked with its wings. Another day had arrived.

Oscar – Part Nine - The Bookshop
They rode through the towering mountains and skyscrapers, reaching to the moon. There
was a little crack in forever and they crawled through it, leaving the world spinning and
losing its pages inscribed with no way in, no way out and no return.
Oscar sat opposite Hyun Su and sipped at the porridge. “Where are we going?” Oscar
asked gently. There was fog on the window and Hyun Su traced with his finger the lines
of an X. They sat in silence as they passed the giant tower blocks of a deserted city. Bran
chewed on the bone of his steak as the train entered a dark tunnel and jerked to a halt.
Hyun Su rose from his seat and whispered, “Come”.
The doors of the train parted. There were butterflies everywhere. It was mild and warm.
Oscar decided to wait for Hyun Su to explain the presence of the butterflies. They all
began to descend from the air and cling onto the train. There were so many that they
almost completely obscured it. The train began to light up, just as it had before, and
moved through the tunnel and soon it was out of sight. It left a faint glow behind.
Hyun Su stood in front of two wooden door panels, engraved with plant like swirls. He
pressed a button and said, “Let’s go”, as the doors opened. Oscar looked down and the
grey monk was still on his shoulder. The lift ascended with its quiet and careful
passengers. When they reached the top, they were hit with a bitter wind and rain that
shook the rows and rows of lit lanterns along the deserted streets. The cold was so
unpleasant; Oscar felt certain one would perish if left in it for long.
Hyun Su walked at a hurried pace, tapping his white cane in front of him. Oscar
remembered the photos of the streets of Tokyo Joe had sent. They looked just as wide
as these.
The buildings were buried in the black oily night. The wind blew the lights into yellow
shadows like those of a ship on a choppy sea. They crossed a bridge and across from it,
a sign lit up against the freezing darkness. It was written in some kind of characters.
“Book shop”, Hyun Su intonated and began to feel for the handle of the door. It opened.
Inside it was silent, apart from the ticking clocks on the wall. Hyun Su disappeared into
one of the hovels of the room. Oscar saw his book light up with the words:
‘This is the way in, the way out and the return’.
Above ground, Greg had decided to pay Oscar a visit when he hadn’t collected his
books the previous day at the bookshop. The house was pitch dark from the outside and
no life stirred from within it. Greg rang the bell and knocked on the door many times. He
turned the handle of the door and it opened. He walked inside calling out to Oscar but
there was no movement, except for the fluttering of a grey butterfly shining in the
moonlight of the hall.
Greg felt compelled to walk towards it. He opened one of the doors that lay ajar and
turned on the light. He gasped as he saw Oscar inside his bed, pure white and frozen.
Bran looked up from his slump in the corner but did not move from it. Oscar had
the ‘Encyclopaedia of Moths and Butterflies’ in his hands.
A tear fell from Greg’s cold cheek as he saw the bottle marked ‘poison’ by the bedside
and realised that Oscar had drank it. The grey butterfly flew in through the open door and
Greg watched it land on his shoulder, and asked “Why on earth did you drink it?”
The End

Cedes – Part One
Cedes peered down at the upturned moth on the windowsill. She could feel the sense of
desertion of this tiny lifeless creature in the universe. It was like the symbol of how every
being on earth perished endlessly trying to articulate themselves. She couldn’t
understand why people didn’t act the way she wanted or fit in with her version of
perfection. Writing was the only way she could confirm to herself that she was as
deserted as that moth on her windowsill and not to expect her dream version of what
stared at her square in the face.
She was going to meet her brother Alistair. She always looked forward to seeing him.
She knew he would be busy in his laboratory. He was a lepidopterist. Cedes stuck her
head into the atmosphere of the New York streets and was greeted with all the attendant
problems it grated on her nerves. She looked for a kind face, just one look that acted like
medicine on her tangled brain waves. She caught glimpses like the butterflies in Alistair’s
nets that he always let go, of course.
The moon filtered through the glass roof of Alistair’s apartment. Nothing stirred among
the giant plants except for a moon moth dancing in the dust particles. Cedes cast a
glance down at her watch. It was midnight. She frowned. “Alistair, come down from
there!” she called to the moon moth. Like magic, Alistair shimmered into the light of his
being. “Alistair, when can I become a moon moth?” Cedes asked, as he appeared before
her. “Soon Cedes. Soon”, he said.

Cedes – Part Two - Mad Moon
“The moon is big”, noticed Cedes. Alistair cast his eyes up. “I don’t think I’ve seen it
fatter. Let me consult the book”. He laid his finger onto the print of a red butterfly on the
book’s cover. The book flicked open. Cedes and Alistair looked down at the page marked
with words all beginning with ‘M’. “That’s what we’re looking for”, he pointed. The words
written in bold black text were ‘Mad Moon’ and beside them a description.
‘Bring to the boil a pinch of liquorice, cinnamon, ginger, blackberry leaves, apple pomace,
aniseed, nutmeg, clove buds, pepper, orange peel and cardamon. Drink a cup in delight
and look at the moon while bright. A moon moth you shall be. To return blink both eyes
together times three.’
“Your time has come”, Alistair recognised. “You mean…?” Cedes smiled. Alistair nodded.
Alistair and Cedes had met a homeless man as children, who had given them a ‘New
Dictionary of Thoughts’. This was the book they had consulted. He had met them in the
park and they were the only people who talked to him and weren’t afraid of him.
“Always stay in here. There are no blocks,” he said and pointed to his head. “It’s the best
travel”, he said, handing Alistair the book.
Cedes admired how he stayed alive. He never believed he was the scum of the earth.
What did he believe?
It was a book that made new thoughts, if you can believe there is such a thing. The first
time Alistair used it was a shock. He lay under the covers of his bed with a hot water
bottle. The wind, darkness and rain tapped at his window. He ran his fingers along the
red lines of the butterfly on the cover of the ‘Dictionary of New Thoughts’, when all at
once it flicked open. His initial fright turned to curiosity as he caught a glimpse of two
words he had just been thinking about, ‘Moon Moth’. There was a strange prescription
written next to it.
‘Bring to the boil a pinch of liquorice, cinnamon, ginger, blackberry leaves, apple pomace,
aniseed, nutmeg, clove buds, pepper, orange peel and cardamon. Drink a cup in delight
and look at the moon while bright. A moon moth you shall be. To return blink both eyes
times three.’
He quickly reached for the packet of oriental spice tea on his bedside locker to check for
the ingredients. The book was a mirror image of them. He went to the window and
cautiously moved the curtain to one side. The bright moon glared back at him. His throat
became dry as he looked across the room at the book on the bed, wondering. He went to
the kitchen and brought one of the teabags with him. He was filled with nervous
anticipation running through his fingers. He watched the steam fill the cup and soaked
the tea bag. What would happen?
He could not drink it. With the cup in hand, he moved down the hallway and into his
room. The room was dark, except for his owl lamp on his locker and the moon filtering
through the narrow gap he had opened through the curtains. He shuffled towards the
window, placing the cup on the windowsill. He could see the white of the moon reflect
into the black pupils of his eyes from the glass on the window.
He picked up the cup and held the steam to his face, looking at the moon and waiting for
the time he would feel ready. He drew the cup to his lips and waited there until finally the
liquid spilled into his mouth and broke his reticence. He shivered as the last drop emptied
from the cup. He was losing himself and his reluctance to let go made him panic. The
change swept over him like a thick blanket until he no longer existed.
He had lost so much mass and now he was thin and paper like. His panic made him
change back almost immediately as he blinked his eyes three times together at once.
When he returned to himself he was filled with the most peculiar joy. Alistair looked up at
Cedes, against the light of the moon. Now, that the book called upon Cedes, he tried to
imagine the destiny it had in store for the both of them.
Published December 5 2012

Cedes – Part Three - The Longest Winter
It had been the longest winter; the kind that when emerged from deserves nothing less
than an adventure. Cedes and Alistair stepped out onto the streets of New York with two
steaming paper mugs of oriental spice tea that said ‘Merry Christmas’.
New York was probably the loneliest place on earth at Christmas. They drank steadily,
concentrating hard on the moon until all that was left were their two rolling mugs on the
sidewalk. They disappeared into the trees watching the street lights cast giant shadows
on the leaves below.
Cedes and Alistair flew higher, shimmering in the moonlight and letting go of every state
of being that had once occupied their body. Below them, they could clearly see liquid
white trails on the path along the street; not all too unlike the trail a snail would make.
They were glowing and together they followed them for miles, until they reached a dark
alleyway. The trail climbed up a wall where it ended at a window that flashed with white
light like that of a television screen. Walter lay in his bed, crying into the covers. The
movie playing in the background was a spaghetti western, the volume barely audible.
Cedes and Alistair landed on the window. Why were they here?
Across the street, a stray black Scottish terrier barked below them. They looked down
and the dog seemed to be emitting the same colour as the white trail they had followed.
The dog leaped up the fire escape to the window that Cedes and Alistair were stuck to at
the top. He began a relentless and vigorous scratching at the window. Walter was
suddenly distracted from his grief and watched in puzzlement at the dog that had come
out of nowhere. He walked slowly towards the window and took in the friendly features of
this alien creature that wanted to come inside his dark apartment.
He lifted the lid of the window and the dog scrambled in. Cedes and Alistair watched from
the window. Walter had gotten out of bed, turned on the light and was playing with the
dog. What a strange switch had occurred and it happened just like that, just like magic.
The clock inside struck midnight and Cedes and Alistair could feel the tiredness in their
eyes. They looked for the trail that had brought them there, to guide them home, but it
was no longer there. They flew out of the alley and blinked three times together,
appearing on the empty sidewalk. It was too empty and smelled of trouble.
Fear crept up their spines as they watched bottles being smashed in the shadows. In a
low voice they heard a whisper from behind them. It was Ralph, the homeless man. “This
way,” he said catching them both by the elbow. He led them down the street and past all
the screams. He led them to a yellow taxi on the corner. Cedes tried to ask him if he
knew anything about the book, but he looked blankly at her and said he just found it on a
bench one day. That seemed to be his only history of it. Cedes and Alistair sat in the taxi
and the whole time Cedes could think of nothing except how Ralph had saved them from
certain death and why they had been led there in the first place. What had they saved
Walter from?
The taxi rolled over two paper mugs in front of Alistair’s apartment. It was two o’ clock in
the morning.
“What just happened?” Cedes asked as the taxi pulled away. It was something Alistair
could not answer.

Cedes – Part Four - By Owl Light
Cedes carried a silver pen and notebook with her which she kept in the inside pocket of
her coat. If she didn’t put thoughts on paper, they would just be space rock floating
around the atmosphere. There would be no way to solve anything in her mind; no breath
to rest upon. She scrawled in the front of her notebook ‘My Moon Moth Diary’. It pleased
her to think of a moth’s wing as a page and its nerves as the life blood of the tremors
from her pen. She fell asleep by the owl light in Alistair’s room. Alistair arrived shortly
after, to find her sprawled across the bed with the silver pen and notebook by her side.
He tucked her in. It had been a long night.
Cedes woke up at dawn with a start to a loud scratching noise on the desk in front of her
bed. She sat up to meet with a white tawny owl, looking at her. She remained motionless.
The book of new thoughts was open on the desk. Suddenly, the bird swooped over to her
bed. Cedes reached out her hand and began to stroke its soft face. “Where did you come
from?” she asked it. She picked it up and felt its warmth. Its claws dug into her dress.
She placed the bird on her shoulder and went to look at the book of new thoughts.
Alistair held the door open in disbelief. “Where did the…?” he pointed. Alistair looked
over at the owl light on the bedside. “I don’t know. Can we keep it?” Cedes replied. “What
happened?” he asked. “I don’t know anything anymore. I’m just beginning to accept
things for how crazy they are. I woke up to this loud scratching on the desk and this was
what I found.”
“What about the book?” Alistair looked at the book open behind her. “I think…” she said.
The phone rang. They both stared at it emitting its siren sound. It rang out twice. “What
will we call him?” Cedes piped up. She was very absorbed with her new friend. Alistair
was decidedly more distracted. “Where is this book taking us? It all feels out of control”,
he said, denting the silence and pacing nervously around the room. “Somehow I don’t
feel worried. I think I’ll call him Frost. He looks like frost.” Alistair paused and relaxed into
the stillness that moved his erratic heartbeat. “I need more sleep”, he said and left the
room. Cedes did not want to sleep. This day was made for looking after her beautiful
friend, Frost.

Cedes – Part Five - Sands of the Hourglass
As Cedes walked down the hallway, the meaning of magic became clear through the
plains of lonely space. She felt integrated and part of the objects that surrounded her; like
her very presence gave them life. Perhaps she was not as dead and lifeless as she
thought she was. She thought of people as chairs. What are they filled with? What
animates the dead, still and lonely chair? Frost flew from her shoulder and flapped his
wings amid the light of the dark corridor. The bird flew into the kitchen and onto the
counter. Cedes stopped dead at the door as Frost began to talk.
“The sands of the hourglass are running out”, he said in a whisper. Cedes remained
motionless. “Come with me into the owl lamp”, he said. Cedes’ mind flashed across the
words and suddenly remembered the two moths that were engraved onto the trunk
where the owl was perched. “With Alistair?” she asked. “Of course”, he replied. “I come
from the kingdom of Noctuidae. Our king is looking for the book you possess and you
must return it.”
Alistair appeared at the doorway. He had heard everything. His curiosity could not give in
to sleep. The owl blinked at Alistair. “The truth is you’re not safe here and you must come
with me. Please come tonight, at the arrival of the full moon and carry the book with you.
Then, rest upon your engraved shadows in the tree trunk. When you appear in
Noctuidae, call for Frost and I will meet you.” The owl beat its wings three times and left
an enormous hourglass in the shape of a white feather in the wake of its presence.
Alistair and Cedes watched little trickles of sand slowly filtering through the glass. “What
does this mean?” Cedes asked her brother. “We need the book”, Alistair said finally.
They rushed to the room where the book lay open. It lay open at the letter ‘N’. They both
feverishly scanned the page to find ‘Noctuidae-kingdom-go!’
“Does that sand belong to us? Frost said it’s running out”, remarked Cedes. They ran
back to the kitchen to the hour glass. They watched the sand drip through. It seemed
nothing could protect them from what would come. Alistair looked out at the streets. It
was snowing. “Come on, grab your coat”, he said to Cedes. The snow began to settle on
the ground. Alistair had a few dollars in his pocket. The cold pierced through them and
they both dove into the warmth of a café on the corner called, ‘Oriental Spice Tea’. “I’m
treating”, Alistair said.
Cedes – Part Six - A pinch of Salt
Alistair’s jaw dropped as a group of elephants casually strolled past the coffee shop
window; real life elephants. They were part of some circus. The cups vibrated on the
plinth where they sat. All Cedes could think about was the time her art lecturer had used
the phrase ‘pregnant with meaning’. Somehow she could never forget it. This situation
certainly was heavy enough. The other onlookers in the shop gasped. Everyone
gradually began to settle back into their seats. Alistair kept thinking about the dark of the
house they would return to. They stayed in the coffee shop for hours, until the moon fell
upon them. They made conversation with the Chinese boy working there, not wanting to
leave. He was polite to them. There was such a peculiar loneliness between them, as he
could see in their countenance they wanted to stay. They left the shop, leaving the bell
dangling behind them. The Chinese boy waved to them from the window.
They walked together in the amplified stillness of the snow, watching their breath form
trails in front of them. They could see their pitch black house in the distance. It was
freezing. Alistair looked at the twinkling lights of the coffee shop. He sometimes had
moments when he would look at complete strangers on the street and wish they would
invite him to their home and strike up a sudden familiar friendship. He imagined the
Chinese boy lived in the flat above the coffee shop and would have dumpling soup
prepared for them. There would be a red ironed bar heater in the corner. They would be
warm, comfortable and safe and sink into the beds prepared for them by their host. Now
they faced uncertainty in every way imaginable.
As soon as he had thought about this, they were confronted with disarming sweetness.
The Chinese boy ran after them across the street to give them a bag of hot dumplings.
They had been talking about them. Alistair shook his hand and the boy waved goodbye
again; he felt for them. The dumplings were a delicious source of warmth. The gesture
acted as a form of reassurance, somehow. They got into the kitchen of their house and
put on the kettle. Cedes got two plates for the dumplings and they divided them between
them. Soon they would be leaving. Would they come back? Who would miss two
orphaned adults in a place like New York? They were too reclusive to ever maintain
friends but they felt the Chinese boy would remember them, and in a bizarre way keep
them in his heart.
Cedes turned on the owl light. Alistair checked the book one more time. He
read ‘Noctuidae is a pinch of salt’, and shrugged. He kept the book on the inside of his
coat. They felt for the marks along the lamp. They sipped at their tea and looked upon
the moon. Their eyes began to feel as big and round and white as it was. The light of the
lamp crackled upon the last drop they drank. They left themselves behind, landing upon
their shadows. They began sinking into a sea of white grains and emerged surrounded
by a vast desert. They were surrounded by multiple giant, cone shaped mountains of
white sparkling particles. The air was dry and the black night was lit by the moon. Alistair
reached out his hand and picked up some of the grains. He held them to his face and
smelled them. Then he licked a bit with his finger. “Salt”, he said.

Cedes – Part Seven - In the Gold Room
The salt mines seemed to climb to the moon with their pyramid peaks. Cedes and Alistair
felt like ants amongst giant grains lost in an industrial soundless landscape. As they
walked, their steps made crunching noises under their feet. After a few minutes, Alistair
began to call out, “Hello!” He gradually got louder when he met nothing but silence. Quite
suddenly, a loud tremor shook the earth with violence. Something had answered them.
The salt mines began to erupt like some angry God, promising terror. Huge claws
unfurled above them. They felt their steel clutch against their backs as their feet dangled
in the air above the collapsing mountains of salt. Cedes looked up at the wingspan of the
creature that had grasped their lives from certain death. She looked for the scales of
some kind of dinosaur she imagined but found the markings on the fur were those of
Frost.
The valley swirled below them in all directions like they were being churned in a blender
until eventually it began to slow down to a stop, where Frost landed. They looked up to
see a shaft of light but they could not see the sky above it. They seemed to be in a deep
dark hole. Above their heads there were muffled murmurs. Alistair noticed as he wiped
his brow a strange secretion that glittered like gold.
“We are in Angel’s pocket”, Frost whispered. “Let’s go”.
Cedes and Alistair followed Frost as he clawed his way along the top of the black lining.
They held on to loose strings that dangled from the top. Frost towered above them and
blocked out some of the light. He had reached the top and sunk his claws into dips in the
fabric. Cedes and Alistair were close behind. They clambered to see what Frost was
looking at until six blinking eyes peered over the top.
A clear voice came into focus. “So what did you get for the third angle if all three angles
add up to one hundred and eighty degrees?” There was a long pause until the voice
came again. “Angel?” The voice which answered rung like thunder and made Cedes,
Alistair and Frost cling tighter to the pocket they rested in. “Forty degrees”, the voice
bellowed. “Correct”, was the reply. Long rows of legs and desks spread out before them
and a green blackboard could be seen in the distance.
Angel’s long blonde hair was cast over her shoulder. There were great, big tapping
noises coming from the green blackboard and feverish scribbling among the buried
heads on desks. Without warning, Frost shot into the air and landed upon Angel’s desk.
Cedes and Alistair reached out for his lost presence and were precariously perched on
the black pocket in frightened uncertainty. They watched for signs that anyone had
noticed him but everyone seemed lost in their labour. He was small enough to be cupped
by Angel’s hands.
Angel’s head turned towards her pocket where she cast her eyes upon them. Could she
see these imperceptible specks? With stealth, she carefully replaced Frost between her
fingers into the black pocket and tipped over Cedes and Alistair with one flick of her
finger. They all met this gruff rough and tumble with the soft lining of the inside pocket.
Angel raised her hand. “May I go to the bathroom?” she asked. The teacher nodded. The
earthquake like movements of her walk erupted again inside the pocket till they were
inside the cubicle of the bathroom.
She reached for Frost inside the pocket and allowed him perch on her finger. She bent in
closely towards him and whispered in breathless urgency, “What are you doing here?”
Published March 3 2013

Cedes – Part Eight - Angel
Angel picked the three creatures out of her pocket and held them in her palm and stared
intently at the two figures she did not recognise. Frost flickered into his own being and
landed on Angel’s shoulder. He began to talk in her ear.
“They have the book”, he motioned.
The book began to rise in the air like a hovering spaceship. Angel reached for it and
Cedes and Alistair fell out of her hand. The sound of two plops followed them as their tiny
bodies splashed into the toilet bowel.
Frost swooped down onto the lid. Angel lunged forward and pulled down on the toilet
handle. The last picture they saw was the luminous amber round windows of Frost’s eyes
and the face of an angel waving them goodbye. They got sucked into a whirlwind of
current. It churned them out of existence. With a cough and a splutter they were thrust
onto another familiar bathroom floor. They sat there sopping wet and cast their eyes
towards each other. Alistair pulled the door towards him which revealed what he
expected. They both sat in shock as Alistair’s bedroom lay before them.
Meanwhile Angel tucked Frost and the book into her pocket and returned to class. She
propped her head upon her hand amid the drone and waited for the world to make its
move. It was as if nothing had happened. It was inevitable that she would meet Ryuichi
now. She would be able to get into the balcony of the opera house now that the book
would turn her into an Olceclostera Angelica or Angel Moth. It would be a matter of hours
before he would play and she would walk under great orange pools of light that marked
the lonely by passes of this earth.
Night came. Her sneakers had taken her past gusts of wind that blew through the college
corridor and past all the people hiding in the shelter of the streets. She slipped her hand
under the rug and thumbed her key into the lock. Frost burst out of her pocket and landed
on her shoulder. She stroked the bird and turned on the lights.
“I did not think I would see him again”, she said and walked up the stairs to her bedroom.
She gasped as Ryuichi looked up from under his glasses and smiled at her at the top of
the stairs. He had been waiting for her.
Published May 28 2013

Cedes – Part Nine - Love on the Sea
Ryuichi held out both his hands and the book began to float to meet them. He clasped
the book and held it against his chest. He stood up and announced “May I never forget
those tiny glimmers of light as they appear in the back of my mind. May I follow them to
the place they call heaven.”
As the last word left his lips, he disappeared. Angel and Frost stood on the dark stairway
which was illuminated by orbs of floating light.
The orbs were gathered in a large swarm like midges in heat. They started to fly together
and Angel and Frost followed them as they entered Angel’s bedroom. At the door, they
watched the orbs swim around the room until they began to lurk for a long time at the
windowsill. All together and at once they dissolved through the glass window. Angel and
Frost went to the window and watched the orbs scatter and light up the large tree outside
in the garden.
Angel and Frost felt themselves being pushed towards it. Their bodies were changed
irrevocably as they were caught up like magnets by the orbs and they joined the dancing
sea of light.
Meanwhile in a New York City apartment, Cedes and Alistair could only wonder where
they had been as the book had taken them so far but no further.
The End
Dedicated to Seiko Ono and Zhang-Yu
Published June 22 2012

Dear India #1
Ikue scrawled the words ‘Dear India’ across the clean page of her new diary. She
decided to address her life, to her beloved cat India. She loved her cat, and so it made
sense to her that they could at least converse on some level. She was always interested
in her cat’s life. She knew for a fact that she visited her neighbour George from the
occasions she got stuck in his tree in the backyard. Secretly, Ikue was so glad when this
happened because she loved the universe of George’s house.
George was a strange quantum physicist. He had stacks of books by Stephen Hawking
piled in his living room. His house had a quality of perfect stillness and Ikue never wanted
to leave. He made her road so much more interesting. She looked upon his cypress trees
which towered over his back garden when she would return home from shopping, and felt
like something wonderful was happening as the breeze lightly stirred into quiet
nothingness.
India was her key to meeting George. She knew that as she rustled her key into the lock
with her plastic bag. This was as clear to her as the beautiful light switch people call day
and night.
So George was not far from her mind and he was among her recollections that found
their way into her diary. She sat in her living room and put on her glasses. The words
‘Dear India’ stared back at her. ‘I bought you cat food!’ she wrote and smiled. Then she
laughed and rolled around the couch. “Have you seen George today? I wonder. I am
envious of your cat like status.”
Just then she heard a plop coming from the backyard. India must have been back from
her travels. She went to the kitchen to push out the back door and gasped as George
was sitting on the top of her wall. “Hello”, she smiled and laughed. George waved and
sipped on his tea. “Nice night”, he murmured. “Yes”, she said and moved out into the
yard.
The dusk was closing in and she could see the reflection of the moon in George’s
glasses. George suddenly laid his back along the wall and let his legs dangle along either
side. “I am going to marry you”, he said as straight as day. There was silence. He
tumbled over the wall at his side and walked towards his house. “Good night”, he
announced.
Ikue stood motionless for a while and felt warmth tingle at her veins. She smiled at him
as he waved at her. She was gripped by a kind of fever and walked aimlessly around her
house in a daze imagining her life with George. She lay flat out on her living room floor
and watched the circles of light shining on the ceiling. Tomorrow something would
happen. Her soul would be wrapped around George and all she had to do was watch as
the machinery of the planets above her head sent logic spinning on its axis. She would
have a lot to write about she thought, as she glanced at her diary on the couch and then
fell asleep.

Dear India #2
Ikue woke up and tried to lift herself out of sleep. After a night of sleep she always woke
to the feeling of a kind of abandonment. It was as if everything had changed irrevocably.
She reached over for her diary and scribbled ‘What do you want me to see and who do
you want me to be?’
She switched her hand on the knob of the radio. “We tried to kill her but that stupid girl;
that fool refused to die”, said the voice filled with disdain. “You have been listening to
another dreadful story online and on air,” came the next announcement. Ikue looked at
the radio like it was a freak of nature. She moved into the kitchen and turned the red light
on the coffee pot. The smell of coffee began to waft through the air.
The sound of the doorbell pounded on her heart. She moved through the hallway and
could hear an engine running outside the door. She looked through the spy hole. It was
George. She quickly opened the lock. George gestured from his rolled down window.
“Are you coming?” he said. “Where?” Ikue shrugged. “You’ll see”, he said. Ikue looked
behind her as if trying to decide. “One minute”, she motioned. She ran to the kitchen to
turn off the coffee, then into the living room to turn off the radio. She grabbed her
shoulder bag and put in her diary. Then she went to the front door and locked it behind
her.
The car smelled like conkers. There were red throws covering the brown leather seats.
She did not know where she was going but she felt safe. It did not feel appropriate to ask
or even speak. “So have you any bad habits?” George said. Ikue thought for a moment. “I
look at the lives of celebrities on the internet”, she said finally. George nodded. “That’s
not that bad”, he laughed. “I feel so bad about it, I delete its history on my computer”, she
joked. “Mine is sleeping with the light on. I’m afraid of the dark.” Ikue nodded.
George parked the car overlooking the sea. “Here we are”. He pulled the key from the
engine. It was eight o’ clock on a Sunday morning. The tide on the beach was very far
out and the whole strand looked like desert. A figure here and there dotted the beach.
Ikue and George walked into the sea breeze. “I brought you here to say a prayer so if you
are ever afraid you will remember when we were together.” They walked a little hand in
hand and then he recited the words. Everything looked and felt better after he said them.
Ikue did not question why George had brought her there or why he said the prayer. They
walked along the waterfront looking for breakfast. They stepped into a white, cold, tiled
restaurant and sat into one of the wooden booths. They ate pancakes with maple syrup
and drank coffee and held onto this dimension of time like it mattered.

Dear India #3
Ikue began to write past all the full stops that short circuited her brain. She watched the
page and looked at all the stop and go signs changing. She watched India flit past the
skirting boards along the hallway. “India, India. Where have you been? Have you been to
London to visit the queen?” India did not take any notice of Ikue and ran up the stairs.
Ikue got up from her seat and walked out of the house. She knocked on George’s door, a
few steps further up the street.
“I’m trying to write a journal to my cat”, she said and held open the notebook to George.
“Come in”, he said. “I’ve written some journals myself but none are addressed to my cat.
You can take a look at them if you want”, he mused. “I am learning about the fatality of a
full stop”, Ikue said as she followed George’s shadow into the light of the kitchen.
George poured some tea from the silver pot and left the milk beside the cup, leaving the
room to run up the stairs. Ikue sat down at the invitation of a drink and poured the milk
into the cup and watched it rest on the top. She went to the sink to find a spoon and
began to stir the liquid. She could hear a lot of fumbling upstairs. Suddenly, George’s cat
announced its presence in the kitchen like it just appeared. Ikue imagined George could
have gone through some kind of metamorphosis.
Ikue could hear a tumbling coming down the stairs. George held up a black book in the
doorway. He left the book open on the table. “India”, he said. “A trip I made there. Read
here”, he pointed. Ikue began to read the text. “On Thursday I am leaving here for India.
The doctors say it is ok to leave. I will have to bring enough medication for the journey. If
it goes well, they will reassess my condition. I’ve everything packed and my guide will
take me where I want to go. I hope the place is as strange as the one I know from
Rudyard Kipling’s stories.”
Ikue looked up. “What was your illness?” she enquired. “I had bad spirits”, he said. There
was a long pause. “I did not belong with anyone or anything but I think that has changed
now”. George looked at Ikue.
Ikue nodded.
The End

Girls don’t Cry
Yoshimi left him at the station. Tears welled in his eyes and she stared at the emotion;
frozen and unable to return it. She wished him well and turned to leave. She put her
earphones into her ears and felt a sense of relief as the beats of ‘Yellow Magic
Orchestra’ pounded as she moved out of the station and down into the subway. Things
seemed in proportion again. She glanced at her watch. She would have to present
herself to her tutor at college to discuss the progress of her thesis. She wanted to present
herself as a dead body just so she didn’t have to be conscious on any level. There would
probably be a better dynamic that way she thought. Or she could just give her the slip.
Dead it is she said to herself. I’ll have to kick my repelling body the whole way there.
The glittering lights of the winter Tokyo street melted away some of the blackness of her
mood. Some of the steam lifted from a nearby food stand and at that moment Haruomi
Hosono looked in her direction. She smiled and in a moment of craziness or desperation
she pulled out the disk from her pocket. “I listen to this all the time”, she said and
approached him. Haruomi looked down at the disk and saw the words ‘YMO- Service’.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked instinctively. He nodded and paid the vendor. She reached
into her pocket. “Will you trade me this?” She pulled out a shiny plastic red heart. He
reached into his pocket and laughed. He produced another shiny plastic red heart.
Yoshimi was visibly in awe. She reached for a marker in her bag. “Please sign”, she said
giving him the pen. He scrawled his name across her heart and she signed ‘Yoshi’
dutifully onto his heart. “Where are you going?” he asked. “I have to go to a meeting but I
don’t want to go”, she admitted. “Take heart. Goodbye Yoshi”, he said and winked.
Yoshimi looked down at the heart in her hand with tears in her eyes and turned to go to
the meeting. Her tutor sat opposite her as cold as ice but then a strange thing happened.
She could feel her heart beating and she did not mind sitting opposite this lifeless corpse.
She walked out of the meeting and kept looking at the heart that was still in her pocket.
She began to play ‘Shadows on the Ground’ on her disc man. The words danced through
her bloodstream.
She kept checking for the heart in her pocket as she rode the subway home. She put it
on her chain around her neck. She could not stop the signature fading because she
never took it off. It did not matter though; she thought, as she was confident that evening
they had shared the same heart. She would often lie awake in the dark at night and
wonder where he had put the heart she had given him.

Atlas
I don’t have any bones to pick with this world. I’ve been around a while and enough time
has passed for me to get over the wounds that living on this planet provides. People hurt
one another through ignorance if you look at any situation long enough. My mother was
right when she told me no one escapes, but did God give me eyes to hide? I believed in
God because God seemed to believe in me. I watched my prime minister on the
television; a powerful man. I watched the news presenter on the television; a powerful
woman. My feelings changed. I saw their vulnerability. I probably wasn’t supposed to see
that. I walked out of the house and looked at tiny birds enjoying what could be their first
and last flight through the changing skies.
I sat in the wooden booth in the restaurant and examined my fingers. The morbid thought
settled in my mind that there was blood running through them and I would have to put
them to work before they were frozen in my coffin and I would no longer be able to see
them anymore.
A bag thrust into the opposite seat was my announcement that Kanta had arrived. I
would describe him as a deliciously quiet person, but then he was my boyfriend and
probably the only person who really loved me or cared what I thought or thought to ask.
Naturally for me he radiated like the sun. He looked at me to see how I was, an enquiry in
a glance. He pushed a little gold box towards me. “Happy Birthday”, he said.
I opened it cautiously and cushioned in a ball of cotton wool lay a white ceramic bird. I
picked it up to feel its glossy surface. I reached over and held Kanta’s hands in
thanks. He held the white bird up to the light bulb above us and brought its face into the
light. “This is you, Atlas”, he said. I looked upon the white light like it could eradicate any
darkness that had ever caught me.
I ordered a strawberry shake, fries and a cheese burger. Kanta ordered a coke and
noodles. I looked up at him and he said “So do you have any more thoughts about what
happens to you after you die?” I had been trying to think of a story since our last
conversation and knew what I wanted to say. “I gave it some thought”, I said. I had his full
attention.
“I remember once not too long ago I was in my apartment and I had an exam the next
day. My whole body was gripped by fear. I went into my kitchen and there was a tiny
house moth flying like crazy all around me. It landed on me and didn’t leave me till the
fear went away. That is the only way I can explain it. So I think this is connected in some
way to what happens when you die. You are filled with terrible fear but something in the
natural world happens. It’s a kind of magic because there is no rational explanation”.
Kanta nodded, slowly absorbing what I said. Our food came and we ate in silence. I didn’t
know how my story had been received. Finally I asked. “So what do you think?” Kanta
slurped at his noodles. “I believe you”, he said.

Wild Land
I listened to the interview carefully. The interviewer and the author both impressed their
ideas into the atmosphere of sounds. I couldn’t see the author’s face but I could hear in
her voice that she was trying to show it to the light. I did not know how but it was
somewhere within the vibration that her intent was opening a door I always wanted to
open. I could only hope that my mind would let me see it. Behind other doors smug
grotesques sustained the dark. They played a strange waiting game and watched their
victims struggle in unbearable silence. I did not wait for them. I screamed at them till I
was spent and shaking on the floor. I ran to meet what I could never anticipate.
The clock struck midnight. My younger sister Tiggy slept in the bed across from mine. I
looked across at her sleeping. My headphones were plugged in and the interview was
coming to a close. Tiggy held my heart in a broken universe. With her I had the power to
change the vernacular of whatever language stood in my way. I loved God and I loved
my sister and walked with her in dreams. I turned out the light and turned the tables.
Tomorrow I would call my sister’s name in the wild land.
I walked beside Tiggy into the evening of the next day. A monk walked ahead of us in the
distance at a quickened pace. Tiggy held my arm and we started to run down the street
and past all the square inches we had known where we had grown slowly and infinitely.
We spun in circles and out of control with laughter confusing our staring, blank audience
till we reached the library. We were the kinds of teenagers who knew books were the
only things that could save us from insanity.
I went to the fiction section and came to a title called “Gleam from Heaven”. Outside the
library walls, nature was my great silent witness to all the events that were being
christened as thought formations inside my head. The trees stood still and waited for me
with winged visitors and messengers appearing on its branches calling to one another
like sophisticated spies. I flicked through the pages and began to read the short story. It
was a Chinese folk tale which told of a couple that were separated by a God of thunder
and how they turned into birds to defeat him.
I finished reading the story in one sitting and walked home with Tiggy. She had to buy
some things in the shop so I went ahead and walked back to our house. When I got there
a feather hung from a cobweb on the door. I took it down and went inside. I rushed up the
stairs and put the feather in my diary. I called it ‘A Gleam from Heaven’.

Nam June #1
Nam June traced two figures along the flower lined wallpaper with his finger. They pulled
him in till he saw himself and a young girl called Garima who began to speak to him.
“Through a clearing in the forest I met with the jet black eyes of an Indian boy. He placed
a white piece of paper into my hand and wordlessly disappeared back among the trees.
I unfurled the piece of paper which read, ‘Listen to your voice’. I stood in silence hearing
the forest breathing. I stared at the paper a long time. No one had told me I had a voice
before at least not one I could use.”
The picture began to fade and Nam June started to trace another figure from the flowers
on the wall. It was a tiger and it appeared suddenly in Garima’s path. Nam June held his
breath as the tiger stalked the girl. She held out the white piece of paper in defence. To
Nam June’s surprise the tiger lost interest in his dinner and no longer made an approach.
The picture began to fade and by now it had begun to captivate Nam June as he busily
traced his finger further along the wall and could see himself with Garima who spoke
again.
“I could think of nothing else in this world but to display the white piece of paper to the
snarling cat. It could have killed me. My paper was no match for its teeth. The Indian boy
appeared again. He told me I had passed the test of courage by using my voice and that
he was the tiger. I looked at him for a long time and wondered who this young boy was.
We walked further through the forest. A cry struck the heavens above us.”
Nam June could hear his sister Eunsuk calling him downstairs and left his dream on the
wall. “Let’s go”, she said. They both grabbed their bags in the hallway and skipped along
the brick path and into the city to catch the bus. He looked up at the sky and wondered
how long it would take to get to China. He sat on the bus and began to run his fingers
along the patterns of the seats. Eunsuk watched him and tried to understand his gross
involvement with an inanimate object. She couldn’t decide if he was in a perpetual state
of listless boredom or involved concentration. The lights on the bus jerked themselves
into being as the dusk closed in with the arrival of black night, sprinkled with neon lights
outside. Garima’s voice caught Nam June’s attention.
“We pushed our way through the leaves and bursts of coloured lights flooded our vision.
There were merry go rounds, big wheels and candy floss glittering in a wide open space
of the forest. The cries we followed had dissipated into the darkness and the desertion of
the forest loomed all around us. Suddenly, I turned to look for the young boy but I could
not see him anywhere. I felt an eerie sense of dizziness invade my sense of location.”
Nam June leaned in and smiled as his eyes flashed with new pictures rolling in like
waves upon the sea. He looked across at Eunsuk. She was fast asleep.

Nam June #2
His sister could sleep through an earthquake and didn’t flinch out of the sleep that curled
around her. Rings of fat crept between her fingers as she leaned against them. As he lay
back to rest he drifted into the forest he had been surveying on his wall and on the seat
of the bus.
Nam June approached Garima who was sitting on a step near the big wheel. Her head
was on her knees and she was sobbing. She looked up to see him. “I’m lost”, she said
looking into his eyes. “How do I get out of here?” Nam June sat on the step beside her.
Garima looked at him for a very long time like she knew he had created her. “Did you
write this?” she asked anxiously holding the piece of white paper. Nam June looked at
the scroll. “I answered you, didn’t I?” he said and stood up.
All at once, Garima stopped being afraid and morbid. She stood up and they both
climbed into the big wheel. It circled high above the forest where they could both see for
miles. “Who are you?” Garima asked. There was no reply.
Nam June was woken by the sun. He opened his eyes and the sun warmed him till he felt
like it would help him to dissolve. As he looked out the window of the bus and watched
the traffic he liked this idea very much.

Walter and the Trap
“Let’s get the hell out of here”, Walter said driving the car. “Is my map in the glove?”
Cigarette smoke filled the air. Chikara reached for the map. Walter hated the dentist.
“So what did you do last night?” Walter asked rolling down the window. “I was making tea
and I saw a daddy long legs hanging from the cooker. He flexed his legs. I was really
happy he was there.” Walter looked at me and took a long drag from his cigarette.
“You’ve got problems”, he said exhaling loudly from his Marlboro red and shaking his
head. When I looked at him he burst out laughing and I laughed at that instant.
We drove into the city. I looked out the window. It felt like every face held a trap and each
corner was an open wound. This was a hostile neighbourhood. I turned my eyes away,
afraid I might catch its disease. “Not him again”, Walter said in exasperation. Charles
Bukowski was reading a poem on the radio. Walter hit the button for the next channel.
“That’s the third time this week. The first was when on Facebook someone posted a clip
of him getting angry and hitting his wife or girlfriend or something. The second was when
I read this poem of his where he was whining about brushing his teeth and now, this
bluebird poem where he is suddenly all sensitive. His voice gives me the creeps. It
seems to me he’d bite the head off a bluebird. Yet he is celebrated. Don’t trust the world
Chikara. It’s full of crooks that talk trash.” I was worried. I could feel my spirit sinking and
wanting to sleep. “Walter, can we not go home?” “Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“Anywhere”, was my limp reply.
Walter turned the car around and we drove out of the neighbourhood. I felt a sense of
lightness as the gloom that clung to my chest lifted. I needed to hold onto something in
this world that could change my attitude before I died from being eaten up and spat out.
We parked the car by the river. I felt desperate and panicked and jumped out of the car. I
threw my head over the railing and tried to breathe. Walter came up behind me and held
onto my back. “Are you ok?” Tears ran in streams down my face as I turned to meet him.
He held me for a long time before we turned to go home.

A bird called Juniper
It was a different kind of brave, the kind of brave that would walk straight to its own
execution. He stood steadfast as the gunman approached and clicked the cartridges into
place. His breathing became rapid as his heart tried to outrun the anticipation of the bullet
that would be in it. The gunman squared up to take the shot. Juniper looked at the eye
which looked at him from the other side of the gun. “Put your head down”, the gunman
roared.
Juniper lowered his head till he could not see. The gun went off. Nothing happened.
Juniper could feel himself breathing and cast his head up. A dead bird lay a few inches
from his feet. The gunman cursed and muttered under his breath. “Head down”,
he screamed. Tears welled in Juniper’s eyes. The gun went off again. Another hit lay at
Juniper’s feet. He slowly looked up to see a second bird, dead on the ground. Where
were they coming from? The gunman kicked the air with his black boot. “Are you some
kind of joke?” he yelled.
The gunman and Juniper stood opposite each other in silence. The gunman picked up
the rifle and shot relentlessly one bullet after another. This time Juniper could see bird
after bird swopping in rapid succession in front of him. There was smoke and feathers
everywhere until the dust finally cleared and a pile of hundreds of bloody dead swallows
lay at Juniper’s feet. Juniper stood rooted to the spot and dumbfounded. The gunman
looked emotionally exhausted. Juniper stood frozen as the man clung to his chest and
suddenly dropped dead to the ground.
Another swallow flew into the courtyard on top of the wall. Juniper looked up and the bird
looked upon him. He felt he had defied his chances in life. Here he was but he should
have been dead. Why was there a pile of hundreds of dead birds instead of him?
He was shaking all over from what felt like his exposure to some faceless evil. The prison
guards rushed around to the aid of the dead gunman and looked at Juniper in wariness.
They spoke in hushed tones and began to approach him. The swallow on the wall flew
from its perch and circled around Juniper. The guards kept back after what they had
witnessed with the gunman. Juniper spun around in a cloud of dust and got lighter and
lighter and higher and higher until all that was left of him was a pile of clothes on the
ground. The guards watched as two swallows flew away into the sky leaving them to
contemplate a dead man, a pile of dead birds and a pile of clothes where there used to
be a body.
A wise man leaves things to mystery as they say and this storyteller will also leave you
with these images for your imagination. Published August 20 2013
Ryuichi’s Angel
Ryuichi pushed back the heavy thick curtains in the grey early hours of the morning. It
was snowing and nothing stirred. He looked along the roof that ran parallel to his house
next door and could see tiny bird tracks in the snow. The absolute screaming banal had
become a kind of wonderland. He remembered when his uncle told him about how the
Chinese said the value of boredom is that if you sat with it long enough it would turn to
fascination.
The grey morning had reminded him of being on the train with his uncle in China. They
passed a village in the early hours of the morning and he could see the burning charcoal
coming from the roofs of the houses. He passed their silent souls blowing into the sky
and never forgot them. He went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and the sounds of the
running water flowed through the pipes in the house. A strange sense of depression hung
in the air. Doors were being opened and firmly shut in the world and both held a sense of
futility.
He sat by the window drinking tea. He looked for escape routes. There was no place to
go. He looked up his sleeve.
His angel was there and took him into the shower and got him dressed. His angel took
him to the windows to open the curtains in the house. His angel took him out into the
street and into his car. His angel took him past all the road signs and roundabouts. His
angel took him to a restaurant in a hotel by the sea. His angel showed him a smiling baby
in a pram. His angel took him for a walk beside the beach and showed him a clearing in
the trees where there were three ravens perched. His angel brought him to scents on the
cliffs that had been stored in his memory since childhood. His angel showed him the light
from a lighthouse glowing in the mist.
His angel drove him home. His angel turned on the lights and closed the curtains. His
angel turned on the kettle and made him a hot water bottle. His angel tucked him into
bed. His angel brought him to sleep. His angel would bring him to a new day.

Angels of the Lost World
She cast a dark look and words rolled off her tongue like careless fish splashing into
oblivion. I switched off the voice from the television and moved into the kitchen to make
some tea. The world had messages written on the window above the kitchen sink. It
sharpened its tongue upon its blunt subjects until they were dull flames. They waited on
the floor for the day the wind would catch them and ignite them into the air in splendid
sparks. It took a lifetime on the floor to finally ask myself what I believed. Until then my
relationship with the world was debilitating. I scarcely had an ounce of energy for
anything. I couldn’t look at the world without remembering how it had let me fall. I more
than hoped I wouldn’t exist. Then I met Mia. I took her as a good sign.
It was a gentle October evening. The air was crisp and a little cold. I saw Mia’s raven
black hair between railings of clothes. Her skin was like ivory and her eyes glittered. She
looked at me as intently as a bird. We chatted and she showed me some of her
purchases. A title stared back at me. ‘Angels of the Lost World’. Mia said she’d read it
before but liked to collect different versions. She could see my interest by my close
examination of the blurb written on the back. “You can have it”, she said. “Thanks”, I
smiled. I grasped my new found treasure. We drifted onto the street and Mia began to
expound on the synopsis of the story I read.
“So it’s about this boy called Yakatsuma who lives in Tokyo which is the lost world and
how he collects objects that lead him to angels. He’s like that artist Kurt Schwitters who
made collages out of random objects and trash he found. So what we see is his diary and
how all of the objects interconnect and are all angels in a way that gave him a place in
the world.”
Mia could tell that I was thrilled by that description and brought me back to her attic
apartment to have some tea and show me her favourite passage of the book. We
climbed a long narrow spiral staircase. The room opened out onto a large window
flooded with light and views of the river and the city. Mia went to the bookshelf in the
centre of the room. I looked along the shelf to see that she had at least ten copies of the
book. She pulled out a soft paper back and found the marker she had left in it.
“It’s this page”, she pointed. “I’ll make the tea.” I sat on her couch and Mia disappeared
into the alcove of the kitchen at the far end of the room. I looked at the illustration on the
front of the book. It was a picture of a large forest with a boy who looked tiny against it
and appeared to be holding a feather. I noted the difference to the hardback Mia had
given me. It was a light blue colour with the dark blue print of a feather. There was a
place written on top of the page. It said “Akihabara Station”. I rushed to see what the last
line read at the end of the book before Mia returned with the tea. It simply read, ‘I want to
exist in your eyes’.
Dedicated to Hyun Su.

Three O’ Clock
I had been collecting daddy long legs on the wall in my memory. I could identify with
them spending their time at the back of the cooker to emerge for their late night visits in
the kitchen. My sister told me I should put them outside if I spotted them and so my
intervening hand of fate brought them on another journey. It reminded me of my friend
who liked to go to Tesco at three o’ clock in the morning which was from another lifetime
ago. All the places she took me to had a keen sense of desertion kind of like a forgotten
daddy long legs at the back of the cooker. The lights in this world are insects. I tried to
remember this when I felt myself getting obnoxious and important.
We often bought warm bread and drank rose tea in her kitchen where the steady ticking
of time in her house formed against the silence. “Something strange happened today”,
she said with discernment as her eyes crept into view from under her fringe. She flicked
through her photos on her camera and showed me a picture of a moth against the
pattern of her glass kitchen window and another of the moth on the kitchen wall clock.
The time read three o’ clock.
“I got a call today that my uncle died at three o’ clock and later on I noticed the moth had
died”. I looked at the clock on the wall that still read three o’ clock.” “Did the clock stop?” I
asked. “No, that was always at three. I have to replace the battery.”
I was surprised as I too had witnessed another event at the other side of three o’ clock. I
woke up to a flickering noise that was sprinkling itself along my wall from behind my bed.
I turned on the light and from the corner saw a skittish spider about the size of my palm. I
caught it between a mug and a piece of card and put its frightened creepiness into the
light of my backyard. I had this image in my mind as my friend stirred her tea and
watched the rose petals rising to the surface of her cup. Here we were at three o’ clock
and time was spinning in all directions. At this time she asked me.
“Are you scared of death?” I shook my head. I was telling her the truth. I really wasn’t.
© Lena O’ Connell 2011-2013.

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The Viewspaper - My Published Work 3

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A collection of articles and

short stories published with

Published August 31 2011

Published September 14 2011

Published October 5 2011

Dedicated to my grandfather; Frank O’ Connell. (Published October 15 2011)

Published October 27 2011

Published November 21 2011

Published June 18 2012

Published July 24 2012

Published August 27 2012

Published September 3 2012

Published September 4 2012

Published September 10 2012

In memory of Catherine O’ Shea

Published September 17 2012

Published September 24 2012

He was excited to see his soul in front of him.

Published October 11 2012

Published October 25 2012

Published November 2 2012

Published November 6 2012

‘Death in the right circumstances could be a wonderful conclusion’.

Published November 15 2012

Published November 21 2012

Published November 25 2012

Published November 29 2012

Published December 5 2012

Published December 7 2012

Published December 12 2012

Published December 19 2012

“We are in Angel’s pocket”, Frost whispered. “Let’s go”.

Published March 3 2013

“They have the book”, he motioned.

Published May 28 2013

Dedicated to Seiko Ono and Zhang-Yu

Published June 22 2012

Published July 22 2013

Published July 24 2013

Published July 26 2013

Published July 29 2013

Published August 1 2013

Published August 7 2013

Published August 10 2013

Published August 13 2013

Published August 16 2013

Published August 26 2013

Dedicated to Hyun Su.

Published September 16 2013

Published September 30 2013

© Lena O’ Connell 2011-2013.

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