Prisoner, by Martin Needham

As I write this it is six days since I last saw the sun.

That accursed trickster and deceiver of the emperor dropped me through some poxy trapdoor as I cursed him for what he is. I lie in this deep foul cellar with just two deficient lightwells far above. I am glad that my handbills proclaimed that charlatan for the devil he is. When they find me, the emperor will have him beheaded and his guts fed to the cats for making his loyal and true adviser vanish into thin air and claim it as sorcery.

   I am hoarse and weak from five days of shouting with no food or water. All That son of a dog left me is this damned single slate and stylus to scratch at it. The slate is now almost full again. These few days make me believe it will be clean in the morning.

It is now the beginning of the sixth year of my incarceration.  I regret my lack of faith in the sorcerer. I should not have ridiculed his abilities so publicly and rudely without proper scrutiny of his acts. My position remains unchanged: I receive no food or water and yet miraculously I am renewed each day along with my beloved slate to reflect on my sins and refine my thoughts. I still hope that as I endure my daily penance of line writing, I will reach a point of true repentance and eliminate from my mind all malice towards the wizard. I pray that at that point he will release me from this place.

Over six long decades I have mastered the arts of brevity and of contemplation increasingly free from desire. Serenity lies in the perfection of truth. I praise the wisdom of the great one who granted me this perfect space of eternal peace for the telling and retelling of the one story with ever greater clarity. I feel only love and wonder at the magnificence of my master’s creation. I see with ever deepening respect, the justice and beauty of my existence. I wonder if further revelations are yet to come, and if my spirit has yet reached a point where I might be released to Nirvana?

After six centuries I am overwhelmed by a fresh revelation of my most magnificent miracle-maker’s power; for he had set my contemplative spirit in a most exquisitely carved ivory inro guarded by a lapis scorpion netsuke. When the merchant of this market opened the inro, I was released.  My spirit left its womb and I perceived the scorpion, protector of my peaceful place of contemplation, become wondrously real and strike down the merchant with a venomous sting. Free from the singularity of reflective purpose my mind is fast disappearing: lost in the richness of existence. I take these last moments of consciousness to marvel at the screaming face adorning my former repository, the re-petrified creature and my unfortunate liberator. They were still there when the collectors came. 

The Flute,by Graham Attenborough

As I write this page, it is six days since I saw the sun... I didn't think I'd miss it that much but I do. The consolation is the brightness of the stars against the pitch-black. It's indescribably beautiful but even that becomes familiar. The important thing is to keep busy. Apart from the task of collecting artifacts, my main concern is safety. The possibility of the pod malfunctioning here on the Dark Side is a frightening thought, given that I'd probably be dead before they found me. It's during down time that it gets to you - the aloneness. I'm not really supposed to but I do examine the artifacts. They're incredibly strange. Sometimes I wonder if some of them are simply natural phenomenon but then, others are obviously designed - for something. Take 'the flute' as I call it, it's clearly a metal object. Long and sleek to touch, with small indentations all along its length. It was the first artifact I found and straightaway it reminded me of a musical instrument. I couldn't resist playing with it and, sure enough, treating it like a flute seemed to work. It made sound in my head. Strange unearthly noise and I'm certain that it was vibrating, calibrating in some way. I have it with me now. I'm toying with the idea of keeping it. I know it's madness and that if I'm caught I'll be in the deepest shit imaginable. Still, it could be done. I feel as though I'm meant to have it, or, it's meant to have me.

I'm back in the sun. I've done my shift safely. It was great to regain contact and to hear a human voice again. It won't be long now and I'll be on the ship back to Earth and, if my plan works out, I'll have the flute with me. I've discovered more about how it works. It makes a music that's beyond our understanding, but, better than that, it shows me things, incredible things about where it came from and who, or what, made it. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do, I just know that I can't exist without it and that, whatever it's for, it wants me to be a part of its purpose. It wants to go to Earth.

I'm sitting in my seat. Waiting for take off. The flute is singing to me. I don't know how they missed it. It's as though it made itself invisible. It showed me how to arm the killer artifacts. They're ready and waiting in warehouse No. 5. It won't happen till after we've gone. I feel sorry for everyone here but it's what the artifacts knew would have to happen. They were waiting you see. They were waiting for me to take them to the warehouse, to bring them to the base. They have a plan. They were still there when the collectors came.

Put up your hands, by Catherine Redfern

Put up your hands

All you Old Girls of convent schools.

Put up your hands

If, in pastel-paged autograph books,

You have these lines.

            Be Lady-like, be Mary-like,

            Be Mary-like, be Lady-like.

Yes.  Hands down.

Here was the life training

Of a Child of Mary.

Be meek, be humble,

Be obedient, submissive, uncomplaining.

To demand is unseemly in a woman.

The Blessed Virgin is watching.

Be worthy of her, be pure,

Let her be your model.

But, what of…?  What of sex?

Ssh!  A brazen word, a sinful word.

Oh, let us pray.

Or, let us not.

Now I fantasize, of course,

You can all see that.

Let’s rip off these blue-ribboned  medals.

Let’s crowd round the boys from St Joseph’s

Here  for our Corpus Christi procession

Let us roar:

“What do we want?”   “We want sex.”

“When do we want it?”  “We want it now!”

Well, we hardly manage that,

But we hover and we look.

Bold Brigid O’Flynn even passes a note.

But who glides here, black-robed and beaded?

“Girls, hand back your medals.

You have defiled them

You have shamed Our Blessed Lady. 

Join your hands, cast down your eyes

Mary, our refuge and our strength,

Pray for us  that, shunning all temptation,

We ever seek the virtuous path.        

Brigid O’Flynn,

You will report to Reverend Mother

 Immediately after Benediction".

Alone, by John Garland

I only knocked on her door because I was in such a difficult fix. I’d always enjoyed taking long walks on my own in remote areas, and in the past I’d always been completely safe, but this time a whole series of things went wrong. There was heavy mist on the mountain-top, and somehow I contrived to lose my compass. The result was I must have taken the wrong path down, so when it lifted I realised I was in a completely strange valley, miles from where I should have been. Then the sole of my boot started to become detached, until after a few miles it was only hanging on by the heel; and at this point I knew I’d got no chance of getting back to my car until well after dark, and then it started to rain. So when I noticed this isolated old farmhouse some distance from the road, I thought the most sensible thing was to go and ask for help; and she answered the door.

          It was no more than a cottage, stone-built and whitewashed, with very small windows set back into the thick walls. It was quite likely centuries old. And she matched it: small, with a mass of wrinkles on her weather-beaten face. I started to explain my difficulties to her, but she then gestured me inside with little more than a grunt, and I found myself on a wooden settle beside the fire in the dark little parlour.

          It was clear that she lived there on her own. Now in my years of walking, I’d generally found that men and women in isolated farmsteads were quite garrulous: they met so few people that they were glad of an extensive chat with any passing stranger, and often it was quite difficult to get away. I thought I was in for one of these experiences when she explained that I could catch a bus from the crossroads, but that the next one wouldn’t run till tomorrow morning. Then she had a look at my boot, said that she’d got some glue which would fix it back together again, but that it would need a few hours to set, so I’d better stay there for the night. Well, I was very grateful for the hospitality, and thanked her profusely, though I was a little surprised that she was so open with a total stranger. I settled back,

anticipating a long, one-sided conversation on the bad state of the world, the ruinously low level of farm prices etc ,as the fee for my night’s rest. But strangely enough, I had to do most of the talking. Despite my prompting, it was hard to get more than a few brief sentences out of her, and these were generally cryptic and most puzzling when I reflected on them afterwards. When I commented that very few people must pass that way, she said, “Aye, there’s not many come - and fewer go”. Wasn’t she lonely, here on her own? “I don’t lack for company”, she said, without elaborating. Wasn’t she alarmed by reports of robberies on remote farmhouses? “Nay, I’m plenty safe, as long as I’ve got them”. She made a gesture out with her right arm, but I had no idea what she might be indicating. I saw a couple of very dark old portraits on the wall behind her; a man and woman from a past century, crudely done by some country artist. Were these her ancestors? “Aye, my great-great grandparents. But they’re still with me, you know”. Finally, in a desperate effort at a new subject, I remarked that in the 17^th century this part of the country was notorious for its witches. “Still is”, she said, and left it at that. I gave up at this point, concluding that she must be more than a little mad. Finally she fetched me a mug of tea from the kitchen and announced she was going to bed. I could stay here in the parlour, since there was only one bedroom, but I would find rugs and blankets in the chest. I said I was happy with that, since as an experienced country walker, I was accustomed to bedding down almost anywhere. Then she left me.

          I drank the tea, which was unlike any tea I’d ever tasted, but I couldn’t sleep. I realised I was a little light-headed. There more I pondered on her odd remarks, the stranger and more sinister they sounded: “I don’t lack for company ….. Not many come, and fewer go” What on earth did she mean? I got to my feet and looked around the room. Besides the ancestral portraits, there was one other picture, dimmed by dark brown varnish. It appeared to be some religious scene, but I couldn’t recognise the details. The only book was a massive old bible, which I opened, knowing that many country people wrote their family details on the flyleaves; but instead I found a mass of small unintelligible diagrams and a script of characters completely unknown to me. Turning to other pages, I found similar writings in the margin of the text.

          Was this woman from a family of witches, I wondered. Or, worse, did she consider herself to be a witch? Who knew what strange archaic fantasies lurked in her mind? But if so, what did she intend for me? By this time I was fairly sure the tea must have been some kind of drug. Was she waiting for me to fall asleep? And then what?

          I’m writing this down as a record, in case anything should happen to me, but also in order to keep awake. I don’t intend to go to sleep. If she, or anyone else, tries to come for me during the night, I’ll be ready for them.

……………………………….........................................................................

          (The manuscript breaks off at this point. The presumed author, James Douglas Wright, is currently being questioned by the police in connexion with the death of Marion Armstrong, the elderly and reclusive owner of Underknotts Farm.) 

New Year, by Peter Shilston

Brian awoke to see weak daylight creeping through the window. Sheer force of habit meant that he always woke up at the same time every day, and it was only after a few seconds the he realized that it was New Year’s Day, and he was entitled to a little extra lie-in. Not that this day would be particularly special: he knew exactly what was going to happen. Certain people would wish him a “Happy New Year”, and he would wish the same to them: others he would attempt to avoid. After breakfast he would have a stroll outside. He always tried to walk round the garden unless the weather was absolutely foul: not that there would be anything much to see there at this time of year, but he could at least reflect that in a few weeks little green shoots would be emerging from the soil. And maybe he would see a few birds come down for the crumbs that he always scattered. Then for the rest of the day he would read and watch television, and maybe play the odd game of table tennis or pool with his mates. In fact, it would be a day much like any other. The next day was just as predictable, and the one after that. Another year in his life had ended, another was beginning.

   The sheer sameness of each day, and each week, might have preyed upon some minds, but Brian had become accustomed to it, and it no longer bothered him. In a way, the unchanging routine that stretched for years into the past, and ahead into the future, was quite reassuring, and saved him having to think too much. Though of course, he reflected, there could be some major change lurking in the coming year, something beyond his control, which would upset all his routines. They might even decide to transfer him to another prison.