White With Fear

She cradles the baby close to her as she walks past the stores that line each side of the mall. I watch her stroll by in her own world, occasionally cooing to the infant she carries. Content. At peace. Happy. Things I wish to be. I’ve always dreamt of being a mother but unfortunately it’s not happened, yet. Fingers crossed. The mother has gone now. I go back to my book, stirring my coffee absentmindedly with my spare hand. It’s a Saturday afternoon in the middle of December, seemingly the whole town is here. In a rush to finish the dreaded Christmas shopping. My plan was to push through and finish my own Christmas shopping, but two blisters and four very heavy bags later, I needed a break. Besides, people watching is one of my favourite pastimes. It’s just fascinating.

One last mouthful of way-too-frothy coffee down and I scoot out of my chair, gathering my bags before I go. I start heading to another store, trying to recall the mental list I made before I left the house this morning;

Toys for the nieces and nephews, check. 

Biscuits and mugs for my parents, check. 

My mental checklist is interrupted suddenly by a commotion, down by the entrance to the mall. There appears to be something coming through the door. It looks like its big. I’m on my tip-toes now, straining for a glimpse of whatever is happening down there. It looks like a crowd of people, a swarm of them even, but they seem to be heading in the opposite direction to the doors. It’s as if they know something I don’t. That’s when I see what’s really coming through those doors. 

It’s a small army of men, in black uniforms kitted with guns, knives and shields. 

“Run, woman, run. They’ll kill you if they get you.” The same woman I saw with her baby earlier is now shaking my shoulder, tears streaming down her face as she shouts in my face. She must know something I don’t so I start moving forward with her, not quite commiting to running yet.

“I’m so confused, who are they? Why will they kill me?” I ask her, gasping for enough breath to utter a few words. She quickly glances behind us, before pulling me into a cafe and pulling me to crouch behind a counter. She checks the area is clear and is satisfied when the guards jog past the shop. 

“They’re part of the movement. You’ve seen the news haven’t you? They want a return to tradition or so they say. They kill women who don’t fulfill their purpose or don’t do it right.” She’s speaking in a whisper so close to my face that I feel her breath with every syllable. That’s when I see it, in her eyes. Fear, for me, herself and for the baby still in her arms.

“What do you mean ‘purpose’?” 

“Oh you know, have babies, worship men, be good housewives who don’t say boo” 

She’s rolling her eyes in clear contempt, but her voice is shaky and she’s holding the infant tighter to her chest and wiping her tears with her other hand.

I put my hand on hers, holding it and I shove my shopping bags away from us now. No need for them now, it’ll be a miracle if I make it out of here alive, never mind making it till christmas. 

She squeezes my hand and lets it go, so that she can hold the infant in both arms as she gently rocks it back to sleep. I take the hair tie off of my wrist and tie my hair back in an attempt to clear my mind. God what do I do? We could make a break for the doors, but they have guns. We could block up the shop and stay here. It’s a cafe, it has food. They might hear us blocking it up and investigate though. Not to mention, an organisation of this kind is bound to have guards on all the back entrances, so there goes that option. They won’t want any escapees, just a clean sweep. I shudder at the horrifying thought. This baby doesn’t deserve this. The young mother doesn’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this. Hell, nobody trapped in this building deserves this.

A sudden crash in the hallway snaps me out of my own mind. I peek around the counter to see what it is. One of the guards is wrestling with another man, who seems to be reaching for something or someone. Three gunshots are suddenly fired and I hear the man wrestling the guard, wail. He slumps to the floor in defeat, grasping something. It’s a body. A tiny body. Oh, dear God. it’s horrifying, I don’t want to watch this. Fear keeps me compelled. Another shot is fired and the man stops crying. I realise there are tears cascading down my cheeks. I don’t have the will to wipe them away. It’s too much. Suddenly, I’m aware of the mother and child behind me and turn to reach for them, to shield them from the horror. As I turn I knock a plate off a shelf, with a large crash it splinters and smashes before I can reach for it. Oh fuck. 

Panic, puts life in slow motion. 

I barely have time to warn mother and child before the guards are upon us. 

“Run, Run, Don’t let them catch you” 

I’m screaming out of desperation now. Next thing I know, I’m grabbed by the arm, spun and thumped to the floor.

It all goes black. 

Live News Bulletin at 19:00, 21/12/19;

NEWCASTLE SHOPPING CENTRE UNDER ATTACK

On the 21st of December a Newcastle shopping centre was targeted and taken control of by Christian Extremists. There is an estimated 5100 civilians being held captive. It is being rumored that there have been around 200 deaths already since this morning, with the youngest of the suspected dead being a two month old baby. Authorities are yet to confirm anything or make a comment.

There’s a dim flickering light. Everything’s blurry. I blink a few times to try to clear the fog. There’s a few shadows in the room that I can’t quite make out. Where the hell am I?

I prop myself up against a wall behind me. I’m pushing myself up using the palms of my hands, with every movement I discover a new source of pain. Ouch. I’m finally upright, I can get a better view of where I am now. I’m still in the cafe where I was before, it’s dimly lit now. I can see the chairs and tables which have been shoved into the far corner, the counter which I hid behind before, with the mother and child. Oh God, where are they? I move my eyes away from the tables and chairs and begin scanning the room for them. There’s a whimper and sniffle from someone in the room. I recognise the shadows as other people, now. Curled about an arms reach away in the fetal position, is the mother, she’s crying. No sign of the baby. I feel my heart fall into the pit of my stomach. I shuffle closer to her, wincing with every movement. I tap her shoulder.

“Hey, hey, what happened?” 

The question fills the silence and finally she raises her head to look at me. She sits up, roughly brushing her brown, straggly, curls out of her face and wiping her tears away. She doesn’t say anything, she just glares.

“What happened? I don’t remember anything. Where’s your son? Please, tell me he’s ok.”

I’m pleading with her now, my hand on her shoulder, an attempt at comfort. She shrugs it off, still glaring, before finally speaking;

“How dare you ask me what happened! You were the one who knocked the plate off, so of course the guards came and knocked you out. Poor you.”

She’s practically spitting on me out of anger, and I don’t blame her.

“They took my baby away from me. My baby. You bitch.”

That’s when she lunges for me, I’m so shocked I don’t even have time to react. She beats at me with her fists, sobbing and yelling “bitch,bitch,bitch” over and over again. I regain control of my arms and push her off.  

“Please, I’m sorry. Just stop. Let me help you.”

She releases a gut wrenching scream and launches herself back at me, ripping at me with her nails. Thundering footsteps approaching us at speed and suddenly she’s off of me and being dragged backwards by two guards. A third one pulls me upright by my arm and shoves me back against the wall. He pulls out a nightstick and I shield my face in anticipation, but he turns and starts walking towards the young woman. I realise he means to hit her with it, to punish her.

“No stop. Don’t hit her please. No.” I scream in protest, but it’s no use. I’m shoved against the wall, again. Hard. I thump against it with enough force, that my body collapses and crumples on the floor in a heap. I raise my head in time to see the stick make contact with her frail frame, again, again, again and again. It seems to go on forever, this endless torture of a poor bereaved, young mother. 

Finally it stops, the three guards walk away, self satisfied smiles decorating their faces. My stomach turns in disgust. 

There she lays, sobbing, bleeding, broken and bruised unable to move, and I’m unable to help her. 

For the first time since the guards walked in, I cry. I sob out of empathy, for the baby, for the woman and for myself. It’s all I can do. We’re trapped in this damnation.

Hours must have passed, with me sitting here, feeling sorry for myself. The whole mall appears dark now, haunted by the guards that patrol the halls, two by two. Like the animals on Noah’s Ark, if that were real. They’d be the lions. The predators. Separating the weak from the herd and eating us alive.

All this crying must have made me delusional, rambling on about Noah’s Ark. I lean my head back against the wall and stare at the ceiling. I can’t face the floor. 

The horror that greets me when my eyes lay upon the dark, oak wood panels. I can’t look again, I stare at the ceiling in avoidance, but I remember it clearly.

The wood is stained by the blood, encircling the shape of a figure. A figure of a woman, a mother, a daughter. They took the body out a while ago, after she stopped sobbing and choked on her last breath. Her life ended in an undignified, brutal way that no person deserved, especially not her. Strange how I didn’t even know her name, but yet her death will remain with me forever, haunting my very soul.

The metallic smell of spilled blood lingers in the air like a suffocating promise of death. 

There are other people in this room, I remember noticing them properly for the first time when they were dragging her body out. They dragged it out carelessly, by the feet, no respect for the dead. Scratch that. No respect for women. They were respectful of the dead when it was one of their own, but a woman is dragged feet first into a dumpster pile of corpses in the hall.

That’s all we are worth. 

A News Bulletin, three days later;

MORE ON THE NEWCASTLE SHOPPING CENTRE UNDER ATTACK

It is confirmed by authorities that around 2000 bodies have been seen outside the Newcastle Shopping Centre, including an estimated 74 children as young as 2 months old. Police are yet to be able to enter the building to rescue any survivors.

It’s been three days now, since her death. I’ve counted the days going by using the sun rising and falling. There’s not been any more deaths in this cafe, only a few beatings. I say that like its ordinary, maybe it is now. The woman across from me, Mandy, is 68. She came across the room and comforted me after the poor woman had been beaten to death. She’d looked after me and the others since. There was also another young woman, a lot younger than me she looks about eighteen at most, her name’s Cara I think or Lara, something like that. I only spoke to her once, when we passed round stale bread that we found. She doesn’t talk a lot, just sits quietly. She’s probably just scared silent. I’ve passed the time talking to Mandy and the young man that was sat next to her originally, James. Turns out, he’s her son, he’s only a few years older than me. He’s thirty three to my thirty. He’s not much of a talker either, likes to keep to himself, he dotes on his mother though. Always doing what she asks and constantly checking she’s alright. Even on a night, when I can’t sleep I catch him sat upright awake, watching over all of us. It was on the second day that he actually spoke to me more than just a “yeah” or a “hmm”. Mandy was asleep, with the young woman who’d been awake crying most of the night, and it was just me and James keeping watch, mainly of the guards. 

I was bored and desperate for some distraction so I decided to try and get a conversation out of the only other awake person in the room. 

“So why were you in the mall then? Christmas shopping for your wife and kids?”

“Just for my daughter, I don’t have a wife, luckily”

He chuckles and I must of looked confused because he carried on.

“My daughter is three, I was engaged to her mother but it didn’t quite work out”

“Oh no I’m sorry, did you just grow apart or?”

“Or she was just into fucking my best friend when I worked away”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry”

I reach to put my hand on his, he gives me a sad smile and nods before turning away from me. 

We sat quietly for a little while, the awkwardness filled the room around us, before I felt a sharp nudge in my ribs. I look to James and he nods in the direction of the group of guards that are talking in front of the entrance to our cafe, before turning back to whisper to me.

“Look, there’s more of them. They keep talking and looking in our direction, I reckon something is going down and soon.”

“What? What do you think is going to happen?”

“Well, look see that guy over there with the purple cross on his arm, I reckon he’s in charge because none of the others have one. They keep looking at us and talking again, so either they’re going to move us, kill us or god knows what else”

He runs a hand through his hair and slumps back against the wall. 

“We should wake the others”

He looks back up at me then and with brisk nod, moved to wake the sleeping women.

Despite our worries, nothing happened that day. There’s been more gathering and talking and the ‘boss guy’ has stayed at the entrance. It’s as if they are waiting for something.

Today, has been pretty uneventful. There’s no more sirens outside that we can hear, just the steady thump of guards patrolling. It’s almost like the outside world has given up on us, or just sacrificed us. Then I remember, the outside world is probably busy celebrating Christmas. It’s the 25th after all. If I wasn’t trapped here, I’d be at my sisters, same as every year. My niece and nephew would be running riot with their new toys. They are my greatest joy at 5 and 7 they are full of life and I love spoiling them, especially with no kids of my own. After presents we’d sit around the dinner table and over stuff ourselves with a gorgeous dinner whilst my sister asked me the same questions every year; when am I going to get married and have kids. With my job though, it’s hard to find someone as I’m always on the go. That’s the curse of journalism.

A News Bulletin, 26/12/19;

NEWCASTLE SHOPPING SURVIVORS RESCUED

Police have confirmed that they have managed to enter the shopping centre this morning after the explosion last night. It is thought that the explosion was from multiple suicide bombers from the terrorist organisation.

We’ve just received word from the authorities that there is expected only to be 150 survivors from this tragic event. 5000 civilians have been found dead or have been marked missing at this current time.

World leaders are sending their condolences to the British public. According to Downing Street; Donald Trump has already spoken to Boris Johnson on the phone and informed him he will help with whatever it takes to rebuild the building back to its former glory.

Vodka and Divorce

It all started one day in January, our first major fight.

We were both screaming at each other, not really hearing what was being said. It was over something trivial, all the fights were after that day. Always pointless, but still we fought, constantly.

We were man and wife, grown adults, and we acted no better than kids in the playground. We fought, we made up, we did it all over again pretty much every day.

The same shitty cycle.

But this was a marriage, ‘Til’ death do us part’, and all that bullshit. No matter how many arguments you have, you keep going, you keep making it work.

What happens when it’s not working anymore?

What happens when all you’ve got is a crappily patched up marriage, with cracks beginning to show and there’s no love left?

I look up from my book and see my husband cooking. If you can even call it that. He was making his signature dish of beans on toast and he was burning it.

Typical.

I watch him as he moves about the kitchen slowly whilst humming some annoyingly repetitive tune. I can’t bring myself to say anything though, it’d only result in another argument. I can’t face another one of those.

Not today.

It’s cold in this kitchen, I pull my cardigan tightly over my shoulders, but I don’t think extra layers of clothing is going to protect me from the cold that is between us, heightened by the silence within the room. This room was once the heart of the home, full of warmth, happiness and the smell of freshly baked bread. Now loss and sadness thickens the air, settling around us like a heavy cloth that can’t be lifted.

I remember the romance, the happiness, the first summer we spent together. We’d met in the quaint little bar near the beach. It began the same way your usual cheesy romance story does.

It was a summer of passion, and laughing.

Lots of uncontrollable laughter.

I remember how he’d brought me flowers. Roses. He thought they were my favourite, I didn’t have the heart to tell him they weren’t.

When he brought me them with a huge grin on his face I couldn’t but make them my new favourite thing, second only to his smile. I loved that obnoxiously happy smile. It made me feel safe, comforted and loved.

I miss that smile.

“I’m going up to bed, you coming?”

He asks interrupting my pretend reading and my sentimental thoughts. He stands in front of me, waiting for an answer, even though he already knows what I’m going to say.

“I’m going to finish my book, I’ll be up later”

He nods almost hesitantly and smiles sadly as he turns to leave the room.

I’ll spend the night in the spare room. The same way I have done for the past three months.

Still we continue this charade as if clinging on to our marriage with some kind of desperate hope. I almost want to reach out to him sometimes, but I don’t, I can’t. It’s too late for us.

It was our anniversary, that’s when it happened.

That’s when our marriage died and the love was completely extinguished.

We had made reservations at the local family run Italian restaurant that we both adored, but he was late home from work. When he eventually rolled in an hour late, he was tired. He’d forgotten. Five years of marriage and he’d forgotten.

We argued for hours.

I was fed up of being second best. He was fed up of my nagging. We screamed back and forth calling each other every obscenity we knew. Bitch, dick, arsehole, slut, shit…

You get the picture.

I’m still surprised the neighbours never complained.

That’s the night I realised. There was no love left in this marriage. All that remained was exhaustion and resentment. It was just a certificate now, a legal bond that only existed through signatures on paper.

It still hurts my heart to remember this.

Six months later, as I reflect on what our marriage has turned into, I sit in my lawyer’s office, preparing to finally close another chapter of my life. All I have to do is sign the papers, it sounds so simple.

But as I sit in that dreary office I cry. I cry for the love that once was and has now been well and truly lost. I cry for the marriage that turned toxic.I cry for the marriage vows which are now null and void.

I eventually bring myself to sign the papers. The ink stains the paper with my signature, leaving a smudged scar. A permanent reminder of what had been.

God, I need a fucking drink.

I head to the closest bar and walk straight up to the counter.

“Vodka and Coke please, no actually make it a double”

I ask the bartender who is giving me a funny look with one eyebrow raised, almost judgemental. I am drinking at one in the afternoon. Before I know it, hours have passed, nine to be exact.

Now the bar is crowded, people are huddled around the bar talking loudly to hear each other over the music. A guy has taken the seat next to me, I’ve only just noticed him so he must of just arrived.

He’s not bad to look at either.

I smile at him, offering an unspoken invitation to join me. He wordlessly accepts and moves closer whilst also signalling to the barman for another round of drinks.

That could be a very bad idea.

It’s twelve am, we’ve been talking and laughing for the past few hours. Mostly laughing at his crappy attempts at pick up lines, and his cheesy jokes. Him being the gentleman that he is, he walks me home and leaves after only giving me a goodnight peck and his number.

I wake up the next morning alone.

Left with nothing but a sore head and the memories of last night. I reach for my phone and scroll through my contacts, searching for the guy’s number.

But it wasn’t there.

There was nothing but a missed call from my ex-husband. I quickly pop on some sweats and run to the bar to check for any more information on the mystery guy. When I approach the bar I realise why there had been no number in my phone.

It wasn’t the same bar I met my ex-husband in and there had been no new, charming guy.

There had just been lots of vodka, nostalgia and delusions.

From Behind The Phone

Tulips, daisies, roses and sunflowers.
Four blossoming cliches, that hold all the powers,
The promised seduction they entail, 
Life is no longer a simple fairy-tale,

You led me on a journey of wonderment and mystery,
A guided tour, promising to divulge the juicy secrets of history,
Yours, mine, hers, in fact the whole human race,
You flew through life but I couldn’t keep pace.

Social media has destroyed romance,
It’s all a bit of an inconvenient dance,
You now stalk the ones you love and hate,
The thin line between the two is disappearing at an alarming rate.

Effort is a two way thing, relationship gurus preach, 
But nowadays its non-existent unless you teach,
The kids of nowadays, no not how to seduce,
But rather just how to induce.

Teen pregnancy is at an all time high,
All because ignorance is on the rise,
Its all for a few likes,
Vanity strikes,

Filter this, filter that,
Honestly that dog filter makes you look a twat,
Happiness can’t be bought, liked or retweeted,
Capture the memories but don’t make it so they can be deleted.









The Seat on the Train

Days go by, I sit amongst others who are like me but not quite the same. Yes, we all have the same print, we are made of the same stuff, but experience is what really makes us.

I’ve witnessed the ‘sleepy working mum’ who rings her kids on her way home from work. She listens dutifully to their harmonious days whilst remembering her arduous one. She says “see you soon, I love you” and hangs up the phone. Then out comes her phone on which she pretends to read the news, whilst her eyes slowly drift to a close. Her first shift at work is done, now she must go home to another. I let her rest, god knows she needs it, all the way up to her stop at which she leaves groggy, but slightly better rested.

There’s also the ‘classic chav’ who wears a tracksuit and swears a lot. Keeping up his bravado is a must. He cusses out his ‘mate’ before rolling up another cigarette ready to light after leaving this train. But my favourite part of the ‘classic chav’ is when his bravado lays dormant. When he’s not telling someone he got out of prison last week or that he really needs a smoke. He sits there quietly, in amongst his own thoughts, who knows what’s going on in his head? Who knows what has happened to him, today, this week or even this year? When he’s not putting on a show he’s just as human as everyone else. He’s ordinary in his silence.

Next comes the ‘stress-head’ the one who’s all a fluster at the train running five minutes late. Her hair is windswept, yet her makeup is still intact. She taps her fingers on me in an increasing frenzy of nervous jitters. She stares out the window willing the train to go faster. Knowing all the same, it makes no difference. Her body doesn’t relax for the whole commute. She remains rigid and teetering on the edge. Where on earth could she be headed that’s so important? 

The friendly old man is, the seat next to me’s, favourite type of passenger. He occasionally naps and that in itself gives a peaceful rest to those who need it most. The best part though, is when he’s awake and lively. He chats to everyone and anyone, even himself sometimes. He tells stories of the ‘good old days’ captivating every ear within reach of his booming voice. He laughs, he chuckles, he spreads uncontainable joy. He’s happy in his old age, not a care in the world. Why should he care, he’s done his bit?

My personal favourite is the emotional passengers. Maybe favourite isn’t the right word as such. You see, nearly every day there’s some poor soul that sits on me, embarking on a journey, who’s full of tears. Whether the tears haven’t sprung yet or whether they’re cascading like a waterfall, it’s beautiful to watch. Not beautiful to watch someone cry as such, but to see such a person in a despairing state, release their emotions in an honest way and then wipe away their sadness and put on a brave face. Pulling themselves together as some call it. It’s a beautiful transformation that I get to be an audience to. A private show of some kind.

Not only do people embark on a physical journey they also embark on an emotional one, as soon as their day begins and sometimes as it’s ending.

I just sit there and hold them as best I can.


Unfixable

The dull ache in my heart,
Is something else,
It's like trying to get a screw into,
A piece of build-it-yourself furniture,
It won't quite screw right,
Why won't it go in?
Why won't it stay fixed?
A soulless sob story.

Life never comes together,
No matter how many parts you add,
What instructions you follow,
It's not a table or chair,
Its messy,
Complicated,
A bout of chaos,
Love but a hurricane in the midst.

Love (A Creative Essay)

That’s the thing about me. I’m existent in everything. There’s a common misconception about how I manifest in people. Many believe that I love, only manifest through happiness and light. That love can only be a positive thing. To love, is to care for someone deeply and to be loved is to be cared for deeply. So surely that means love can only be a positive thing to feel and receive? But love is very similar to life in its nature. It gets messy. Even when you are miserable, and down in the dumps. I’m still here. Whether you find me in the food you eat, the people you surround yourself with or within yourself. Maybe you find me only in the memories now, in the past. But the memories live on inside of you which means I, love is always with you.  

I will be there throughout your entire life. I cannot be destroyed or lost. I was there when you are first born, I am there in your first breaths and I am in your eyes as you see your parents for the first time. I was there when you lost your first teeth, the excitement you felt when you waited for the tooth fairy to come, your love for magic began then. Followed shortly by Christmas when you were inundated with me. Family members came together to share my joyous glow and the arrival of Santa Claus helped your love of magic flourish. I comforted you through your first heartbreak and the countless others after. I helped you through all the pain you faced but I also tormented you. I can be painful, I can be dark, and I can be miserable. I was ultimately the cause of your heartbreak, I wouldn’t let you lose any person peacefully, I tormented you with nostalgia and constant thoughts about those you wished to forget. Mind over matter they say. But love conquers all.

I wait for your wedding day. A day on which I’ll thrive. A day dedicated to celebrating me. Your heart will be fit to burst with all of me filling it with a glowing pride, as you begin the rest of your life celebrating me. You will be surrounded by people who have so much of me, that is meant just for you. They will share their love and happiness with you. I’m nervous yet delighted at the prospect of the birth of your first child. I’m nervous at the thought of how strong I will become; how powerful I will be. The influence I will have is immense. Your entire perspective on life will change. Your protective instincts will be heightened beyond belief, your worry levels will soar and all because I will be so much more powerful. I am delighted at this idea for the most part. This is because I know you will experience my powerful reign over your heart and mind like no other, it’s an indescribable sensation of pure elation when you meet your child for the first time. From that point on, I won’t only exist within you. I will be the director of your life, of your choices and decisions. Love really does conquer all. It’s not to say that other significant events after this point won’t occur but simply to express how this momentous day will change your life forever and how love will be the deciding factor of your nature from then on.

They say love is to care for someone or to be cared for. But I love myself, disagree. Love is messy yet pure. I can be the reason for your pain or the cause of your happiness. I am love. I am in everything. I am you.