"?"

Oh, my, gosh! Suffocating, almost, ever since it started. It dashes against the window panes, streaking in sheets, and laps, now and then, in the wind. This rain is hardly going to let up soon. One illuminating flash of white light, but we don’t mind, we listen to the clap of the thunder, the sound of this storm, and maybe, just maybe we can block everything out. Meandering in this drawing room, we pass the time, we wait it out, we can’t go outside just yet, even with our coats we’d catch fever, surely. ‘Twenty miles!’ you say. ‘Twenty?’ I take to biting my nails, central heating pipes rattle inside the walls, the clock on the wall and the clock on the mantle and the watch on your wrist, sideways – can’t it pass already? The window panes go black, sleek, so we can see our distorted reflections, we can see this room like another in another world, then fall through, to some exotic underwater sanctuary where seahorses shall form my bracelets. Seraphim? Sparkles in her hair, living inside of a giant bubble, because it’s no secret that you can’t breathe in air.

(A.N. Is this a prose poem?)

And notice this light as it catches the water,

Glittering, from the other side of the glass.

Pale and clear patterns, the air much quieter.  

Mugs of tea, eggs, bacon, bread-and-butter.

Window closed against the rain that won’t pass.

And notice this light as it catches the water.  

Listen, as we do nothing in our early dream-world, 

But sit like when we were children in class.

Pale and clear patterns, the air, quieter.  

I want to talk to you but, maybe later. 

Then from above the newspaper, a glance.

Notice this light as it catches the water.

Through the half-drawn curtains, please enter.

And I think you’ve managed to crack your mask.

Pale and clear patterns, the air lighter.

After the rain things fall into their natural order,

A slow smile, which forms a grin, at last.

And notice this light as it catches the water.

Pale and clear patterns, the air, quieter.               

~

And One Wall Shall Be Orange

The cakes glittered on the other side of the glass, a display of trays brimming with sprinkles and swirls, whipped cream and meringue, the dregs of the day pushed forward for the end-of-the-day buyers. There were gingerbread, lemon, cappuccino cupcakes, cupcakes with no obvious flavour, violent green ones, and the classic chocolate. There were even a few decorated to resemble kittens, although the overall effect was nothing to go by, it could have been a bear. Those were half-price.

   Erin saw Kyo with his nose pressed almost flat against the glass, and Michael had to pull him back by the hem of his jacket.

   ‘Have you decided yet?’ asked Erin.

   ‘Yes, I’d like that one,’ Kyo pointed, contemplated, and then pointed again. ‘And that one, and that one. And—’

   ‘—I have an idea,’ said Michael from within the hood of his Eskimo-like coat. ‘Shall we just get a box?’

   ‘Sounds good,’ said Erin, as they moved up in the queue.

   Kyo and Michael had been her best friends since she could remember; they had grown up next door to each other, gone to the same reception, the same school, the same college. She liked to remember when, almost every day, they would walk home and it would be their time, they’d do anything. It was their last year now and the Christmas holidays were coming to an end.

   Sometimes when it was a rainy weekend they would take pick-and-mix and go to see three films in a row.

   ‘Hello, good evening,’ said the waitress, politely. ‘What can I get you?’

   Erin ordered for the boys while they stood a few paces beside her, languid. Kyo was looking around at the walls, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets while Michael was in the middle of an impressive yawn.

   ‘Would you like any drinks with that?’

   ‘We’ll have three of those.’ Erin indicated to the board. ‘Please.’

   A smile. ‘Would you like whipped cream on them?’

   One time when it had been a particularly wet day they had seen four films in a row. That had been exhausting.

   Michael waited for the drinks while Kyo carried the cakes in a large white box, to a table. Erin chose the seat in the corner, next to the window so that she could watch out onto the darkening street. It turned out that their table was underneath a heater, and she enjoyed the warm air playing with the flyaway strands of her hair, the flecks of snow melted on her red coat over the back of the chair.

   Now Michael had a girlfriend, her name was Julie. Kyo was a budding artist and sometimes Erin wondered if all he truly cared about were paintbrushes and sketchpads. Kyo was going all the way up to Scotland to study. And Michael was going to Surrey. She, on the other hand, had no idea what she wanted.

   Well, she did have an idea. But that wasn’t the point.

   Kyo plopped sideways into the seat opposite her, one elbow on the table and the other on the back of the chair. She watched as he closed his eyes and, somehow, an air of relaxation seemed to radiate from him. The café was quite busy. Each wall was painted a different colour and a pathway wound through the maze of tables, leading to the toilets and the far end where there were some people with laptops. There were lights hanging on long wires with orange round lampshades that gave off a soft glow over individual tables, and the ceiling was patterned with criss-cross wooden beams, a large hole in the centre forming a balcony from which a few children were peering down from the floor above.

   ‘What are you doing?’ asked Kyo, amused.

   She sat forward a little too quickly, all four legs landing back to the floor.

   ‘Nothing. This place is so nice. We should come back here next week.’

   ‘Oh, wow, look there’s an upstairs,’ said Michael, setting the drinks down.

   A while or so later found all drinks had been drunk, cupcakes devoured – Kyo had eaten two – and the conversation turned to DeviantArt, a website about art. Erin was listening intently. She had looked at Kyo’s webpage this morning. If he wasn’t careful he was going to end up famous one of these days. He drew art comics that were about a school girl who spent most of her time in cafés much like this one. He insisted they weren’t based on anyone he knew. They were sunnier, enigmatic, beautiful. Eventually Michael got out a medical textbook and began flicking through it, pouring over paragraphs, speaking in a language that, apparently, only he could understand, and it was at this point that the conversation turned to cutting people open. If he wasn’t careful he was going to complete his degree in one year and be the youngest doctor in the hospital. That’s what Erin thought anyway. They were all quiet for a while. Michael was looking things up in the index, by which point Kyo had begun to scribble furiously on the reverse of a napkin and Erin had taken to snapping discreet photographs of the surroundings with her phone.

   Michael had always been of a higher intellectual race than the general population. Erin had always indulged in spacing out, and Kyo had always liked to watch the details of people’s faces and movements.

   ‘You guys,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to promise you’ll stay in contact! If you don’t I swear I’ll — I’ll—’

   She ran out of steam. What would she do?

   Kyo and Michael were both looking at her now.

   She wanted to sit there all night long. The waitress was passing, a round tray clutched against her apron, and she asked them if they knew the place was closing.

   Erin let out a sigh she didn’t know she had been holding in.

   ‘Of course we will,’ said Kyo. ‘You’re a real idiot, you know that right?’

   ‘Yeah, you idiot. We’ve still got one term left,’ said Michael. ‘Remember?’

   Through the window outside there were faceless pedestrians stalking the pavement, some people with their heads down, some with their collars up. One person had an umbrella that was catching the snow, and one person had a long red scarf that stood out in the crowd even in the half-darkness.

   She nodded.

   The way they were both looking at her like that, she suddenly felt the urge to pull her two friends by the neck and take a group photo.

   Which is exactly what she did.

   ‘Say cheese!’

   She got one ‘Cheese!’ and one ‘Bite me.’

   The photo was one for the wall. On her face was the easiest ear-to-ear grin she had produced in a long time, a reserved smile from Modest Michael, and Kyo had his eyes creased shut and tongue poking out, no space between their heads whatsoever. And the café was blurred in the background.

   ‘What was all that about?’ muttered Kyo as he leant back with the door in his hand, using his weight to heave it open. Now Michael had the cupcake box cradled under his arm, his furry Eskimo hood eating his face.

   The air was cool against her cheeks, and she immediately felt better. She craned her head back, this time seeing an endless sky of dark blue, spots of white electric light bobbing around the edges of her vision.

   ‘You know what?’ she said to the sky.

   Michael looked over his shoulder and Kyo asked her, curiously, what.

   ‘One day I’m going to open a café just like that one. When I’m older.’

   There was a pause. She looked at her two friends.

   ‘Really?’ asked Kyo.

   ‘Yeah.’

   ‘I have a better idea,’ said Kyo, falling into step with her. ‘One day, when we’re older, we can open a café together.’

ENDSKIS

~

(c) Hayley Ellis 2009

Scrappedy, scrappedy, scrappity

SCRAPS

                                                                                    XXD

                                     This

                                    journal

                                    is

                                     like

                                      a             

                                    dustbin

                                where

                            I

                          put

                      all

                 of

             my

                random

                   pieces

                        of

                             writing.

                             (But I never throw the bin out.)

                                   Actually it’s not a bin.

                                          It’s a place.

                                     A nice, safe place on the internet.

                             Because the internet is safe.

                 When you’re in your bedroom, yes …

            Not when you’re in the

                 internet, like when you get sucked

                        through the screen after spending

                         too much time on kitten-chan’s

                      deviantart page or hamlet’s tegaki page

           (to those of you who don’t

           know what I’m referencing,

           I poke my tongue out to you )

               and then you have to memorise

                  your passwords otherwise you

                    can’t cross over to the

                       other side again, enlightened.

  … continue reading this entry.

‘No, no,’ said Delfine, waving her hand. ‘It’s okay Matt, we’re just finishing. Did you want to use the kitchen?’ she asked, getting up. ‘I made some cookies, they’re still warm if you’d like some.’

Matt noticed that she was wearing a pink frilly apron with a double-pocket in the front with hearts on. She smiled at him, picking up a plate of chocolate-chip treats.

‘Oh,’ he said, surprised. He went in. He was still wary of the stranger, but Vios and Delfine were completely at ease. In fact Vios had been holding a cookie in his drink all this time and suddenly managed to catch the soggy end of it with his mouth in a lightening-fast movement.

The stranger didn’t move. He had wrapped around his head a long strip of pristine-white bandage, which covered his eyes. If Matt didn’t know any better he would have said the person was blind. He had disorderly red hair that poked over the sides of the bandage and an unreadable expression on the revealed part of his young face. He held in his hands a mug of steaming tea and hanging over the back of his chair was a long old-looking coat.

Somehow Matt could tell that the stranger, while he was being as still as a rock, was listening attentively. It was his ears that were tracing Matt’s footsteps. He stood still himself, aware that as he did so the red-haired stranger smirked. Matt blinked and the expression disappeared. He thought he had imagined it.

‘Actually, I was looking for Manalo,’ said Matt. ‘Have you seen him?’

At that two pairs of eyes fixed on him.

‘I heard that he was back … ‘

‘How do you know that?’ asked Vios, a slight frown creasing his brow.

‘Yes,’ said Delfine suspiciously, ‘we’re not expecting to see him for another week yet.’

‘Oh, Manalo’s in the house,’ said the stranger. He had a low, rusty voice. He smirked and this time it lingered on his face. ‘That’s a sharp boy you’ve got there. And that man’s been on the grapevine for a few hours, isn’t that right?’ he asked. Matt was sure he didn’t require an answer but found himself nodding anyway. He stopped immediately.

‘Wait,’ said Delfine. ‘Manalo’s back? Since when? Where?’

‘I passed him on my way to the bathroom,’ said the stranger. ‘He was kind enough to point it out to me. Otherwise I would have walked straight past it. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be … remembering where everything is in this place.’

Matt’s eyes narrowed.

‘Anyway,’ said Vios casually, resting an arm over the back of his chair so that he could face Matt. ‘This is Lord Roke. Lord Roke, this is–’

‘–Matthew,’ said Lord Roke. ‘I know who he is.’

‘Oh, great,’ said Vios chirpily. ‘You know each other already.’

Matt had never seen Lord Roke before in his life.

© Hayley Ellis 2009

In Which There Is A Birthday Cupcake

There was no noise. There were sounds, like the soft breeze playing with the curtains, and an owl hooting from a nearby tree and the candle burning in its holder on the wall. But there were no creaking floorboards or footsteps or voices or doors opening and closing or anything to suggest he wasn’t alone.

He rolled over and observed his clock. 7:35. It was far too early for everyone to be asleep yet.

It was unusual for the house to be this quiet. Matt couldn’t help but get up from his bed, leaving the book facing down on page fifteen, and wandering out into the corridor. His corridor was always empty, and he hardly expected Manalo to be home, so that didn’t bother him. But on the floor below the lamps were dim and all the doors were closed. He passed along quietly, reaching the other set of stairs that took him further down. All the floors were the same. He could hear no one.

By the time he was halfway down the stairs of the Entrance Hall, his heart was pounding in his chest. Delfine Lagoons was deserted, but there was a light flickering from underneath the kitchen door.

It occurred to him that it may be a stupid thing to do to just walk in — what if someone was in there, a stranger, a murderer, a raving lunatic — he calmed down. He was letting his imagination run off with his paranoia.

Instead he wracked his brains for something he could have forgotten. Was today an anniversary of some kind? Had someone died and they were holding a memorial down here? Was that why everyone was silent, because they were mourning?

It still didn’t make sense to him because he had obviously forgotten.

Now his feet stopped so that he was facing the kitchen door. He raised a fist to knock against the wood, but stopped. His hand moved and he saw more than felt two fingers prod the door open. It swung to on it’s easy hinges and revealed to him a scene that was magnificently confusing.

Sitting in the centre of the table was a chocolate cupcake with pale green icing and it was crammed full with flickering candles. Matt tried to count them. Fifteen, perhaps. He noticed how the blue candles were dripping wax all over the yellow icing, and how the cake seemed to be melting, the icing slipping over the sides.

There was one person in the kitchen that Matt hadn’t notice until he moved right through the door. Their black hair was curtaining their pale face, their silver eyes devoid and blank.

‘Shalir?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing?’

Shalir blinked. He looked up slowly and fixed Matt with a strange stare, then he gave a breath through his nose that may have been a laugh.

‘Someone gave me a cake,’ he said lowly. ‘See?’

‘I didn’t know it was your birthday.’

‘I know. I told no one. But someone …’ He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. Someone had worked out Shalir’s age and date of birth, but did that mean that they knew who he was and where he was really from?

Matt pulled out a chair two chairs away from Shalir and sat on it backwards.

‘Where is everyone?’ For a moment he almost regretted asking that, as a troubled look passed over Shalir’s face. But then the black-haired boy gave a weak smile.

‘They’re in town, remember?’

‘Who do you think it is?’ asked Matt. Shalir looked at the cake again as if he had almost forgotten it was there.

‘Matt … what if it was my brother, Manalo?’

© Hayley Ellis 2009

i use this blog to post random creative writing, all of which is not edited further than spellcheck on microsoft word. i don’t re-write these, they are first drafts. that’s why it’s here, this is like a giant canvas where things i am pleased with can just sit. ^____^

if anyone is reading them then hopefully it is serving it’s purpose – to be enjoyed. liked. not particularly understood, though ^u^ after all there is no beginning, middle, or end here. it’s random in the way that I post it, but I can assure you that it’s all part of a collective world.

an influential picture, i thought it was inspiring. i think from now on all blogs i post about myself will contain a picture, just to mark the difference ^.^

In Which Matt Encounters Tenzu

Waiting outside the Infirmary double doors, Matt had peered through the keyhole, knocked, tried to pull and push the doors open, but it was no use. He would have to wait for Vios to arrive with a key.

Matt exhaled.

‘Are you trying to get in?’ a voice asked from behind him.

Matt spun around. ‘Tenzu?’ Tenzu was Sophie’s twin brother, but the only similarity between them was their chocolate-brown eyes and perhaps their long noses.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked the brown-haired boy calculatingly.

‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ sighed Matt. Having the doors locked defeated the object of waking up early in the first place.

‘It looks like you’re being an impatient idiot,’ stated Tenzu. ‘The Infirmary doesn’t open until nine-thirty as always, except on a Saturday when it opens later at ten-thirty or a Sunday at eleven. Didn’t you know that? Of course if someone is actually ill then there’s a nurse or doctor present overnight. However they won’t grant entrance to anyone without a Medical Pass outside of Visiting Hours, which are … ‘

Matt rested his head against the oaken door, which was pleasantly cool. It was hard to have patience with someone like Tenzu who was almost as bad as his sister. While she seemed to disregard all rules he followed them by the book.

‘Are you even listening to me?’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘You still have thirty-two minutes and eight seconds until the doors are supposed to open. I suggest you come back later.’

Matt heard the jingling of keys.

‘But aren’t you about to go in?’ he asked flatly.

‘I am, yes. Now if you don’t mind can you move out of the way of the keyhole?’

Matt turned to the side so that Tenzu could step forward. ‘I have something I’d like to put on Vios’ desk.’

‘You’ll have to wait outside until he comes back, then,’ retorted Tenzu, fitting the lock with a big, heavy-looking key.

‘I can always climb in through the window,’ said Matt evenly.

Tenzu went highly tense. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ he said quietly.

At that Matt had a sudden bout of energy and was overcome with the desire to leap into the Infirmary through a window. He spotted one over Tenzu’s shoulder, the net billowing outwards in the breeze. In a flash he was over the side of the stone bridge, running along the half-muddy half-grassy banks of the stream. When he was nearly at the window he saw from the corner of his eye Tenzu running alongside him. As he placed a hand and a foot on the ledge he was knocked sideways to the ground. Unable to stop himself from rolling, he tumbled down the banks and only stopped once he had splashed right into the water. For a moment he was fully submerged, thrown down by a body tangled with his own. He fought his way upwards, as did Tenzu, and soon they both broke the surface. The stream was deeper than he had expected. He shook his arms and legs and raked his hair from his eyes. He looked to his left to find Tenzu doing to same.

 ’Look what you’ve done to yourselves!‘

Leaning from the very window he had just failed at entering was Delfine. Her eyes were wild.

‘Get in here this instant!’ she demanded. ‘Before either of you cause any more chaos!’

Matt stepped slowly up the bank, weighted down by water-logged clothes.

When they reached the double doors of the Infirmary the left-hand one was already open. Matt stepped closer but Tenzu shoved him out of the way and entered first, Matt scowling on his heels.

© Hayley Ellis 2009

In Which Matt, Sophie and Lawrence are Trying to Study

Matt was lying in a narrow space on his bedroom floor surrounded by books and papers and biro pens. Lawrence was sitting up against the bed surrounded by just as many things. Sophie was lying on her stomach, not reading at all but doodling in the back of a maroon-coloured hardback.

There was a tall dark figure crouched in the window frame, the curtain billowing.

Matt had only just noticed.

He jumped out of his skin and stared for a long moment, Lawrence and Sophie staring too.

‘How long have you been there?!’

‘I wasn’t even trying to be stealthy …’ said Manalo musingly. ‘What are you reading?’ he asked, peering higher to see their books.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Matt. ‘What do you want?’

‘How callous,’ said Manalo, fixing his eyes on Matt as if he were seeing him for the first time.

‘We haven’t seen you in weeks, and then you just suddenly show up. Where have you been?’ asked Sophie, now on her knees. Matt turned around on the floor so that he was sat cross-legged facing the window, his hands behind him. Lawrence adjusted his reading glasses.

‘If you are waiting for an explanation, please, don’t hold your breath,’ said Manalo blandly. ‘I was going to say to you “Hope you’re all okay, blah blah, I just thought you would like to know that I was back.’

‘Was?’ asked Matt.

‘Yes. I am leaving again in about half an hour.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Is everything alright?’

Matt thought that maybe the man was generally concerned, but that was highly unlike Manalo to ask a question like that. He didn’t really care much about anything.

‘Look, you three, there’s nothing you can do about the fact that I am yet again leaving.’ He sighed. ‘However there is something that had been bugging me, which is also one-third of the reason why I have graced you with my company at this hour.’ At that Manalo took a look to his left then to his right as if he expected something to leap out at him.

‘That damned black cat–’

‘–Ginger,’ said Sophie.

‘Black. There are two. It’s been lurking in the fields and keeps coming into the Fungi House out the back. It’s been stealing things during the nighttime, please, if you do happen to come across it kindly escort it far, far away. Get it so lost that it doesn’t come back, the stupid cat.’

‘It’s not stupid,’ protested Sophie half-heartedly. ‘It’s only little.’

‘You don’t know the half of it. Black cats aren’t bad luck for just any reason. Anyway, I’ve got you all something.’

At that Sophie perked up, and Lawrence tilted his head in amusement, and Matt looked surprised. But he was dubious.

‘Since when did you bring us things?’ he asked, unable to help himself.

Manalo was riffling about in a black bag he had had around his back, from which he pulled three small boxes made of what was probably cardboard covered in what looked like red crepe-paper. He threw them individually and they landed as if with natural accuracy right into their hands.

‘Everyone has one, it’s just something to help you.’

Matt observed his own red box before opening it. It was slightly dog-eared and had the delicate and intricate appearance of being hand-made. A tag was attached to it which read:

Has anyone got you to rely on?

If not then how can you rely on them?

If not then how can they rely on you?

When he looked up to thank Manalo there was nothing but the billowing net in the window, and beyond that the blackness of the vast open sky with the odd twinkling star.

   ‘What do you think that was all about?’ mumbled Lawrence.

   Matt shrugged. ‘He does this every time.’

© Hayley Ellis 2009

In Which Matt Regains Consciousness

   When he came to he didn’t know anything except that the side of his head was pounding strangely and that having no immediate memory was bliss. Then he opened his eyes to see a lot of blurry light which soon formed into the floor and his own hand and, beyond that, a pair of feet. They were brown leather shoes brushed by the hems of pressed black trousers.

   ‘Uh … ‘ He tried to raise himself on his arms but they were shaking.

   ‘Get up, boy. You need a good day.’

   ‘What … what … ?’

   ‘You collapsed,’ said that voice, louder and clearer.

   Matt felt a pair of hands grasp both of his upper arms and help lift him to his feet. He was still a bit woozy and so stood there for a moment. Vios’ concerned face sided into his view.

   ‘This isn’t good … I’d like you to stay in the Infirmary overnight.’

   ‘No, I can’t, I’m alright,’ he protested. Vios must have let go of him then because he felt his knees shake and the room went lopsided before he was caught and held up again, this time a hand on his chest and on his back.

   ‘Okay, I’m not letting you decide on this,’ sighed Vios. ‘You’ll spend the night and we’ll find out exactly what’s going on with you.’

   Realising it was no good to argue otherwise, Matt resigned. ‘Thanks,’ he said, as he was escorted to the Infirmary.

© Hayley Ellis 2009