Single, by Andrea MacDonald,

There’s a mark on the wall where the cupboard used to be

The one we were given by your family

But now we’re not ‘us ‘

We’re just you and me

That cupboard is my heart and it’s empty

You lied by omission

The unspeakable truth

Old habits die hard

Your misspent youth

I gave you love for love's sake

Then fought a war of attrition

That cupboard is my heart and it’s empty

So I took all that love and

In a fit of pique

 I crammed it in it in that cupboard that you sold after a week

I’m not sorry that I loved you I’m just sorry for your loss

That cupboard is my heart and it’s empty

The Scattering of Ashes, by Catherine Redfern,

You will drop down from the cottage,
past the barn, pink-fringed with foxgloves,
down through the fields, the Welsh Blacks unaware,
Cader across the Maddach rising from its bed of clouds.

On down, towards the grey-hazed oaks,
hearing the mew of buzzards mobbed by crows.

Down, down to the cool woods; bluebells
and bracken fronds brushing your legs with dew,
past old walls mottled with soft-hued lichens,
parts fallen now in drifts of willow-herb.

A sudden stomp and bound of solitary sheep.

This is the place. Go, my love, and leave me to its peace.

Footnote, by Carol Caffrey Witherow,

It was truthfully and universally acknowledged to be dark and stormy last night when I dreamed I went to Mandalay where I met stately plump Buck Mulligan who called out to me: “Lolita, light of my life”  which ain’t my name but you probably want to know where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like (and I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me - but at least they didn’t call me Ishmael) but anyway that brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to the weather last night.

It was dark and stormy, all right, and Pa was fixing to get him a lynching. “They’re out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them,” was all he kept saying. Most likely he should have been saying: “I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I think my liver is diseased.”

All this happened, more or less.  Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.  It was the day my grandmother exploded, too, but you don’t want to know about that.  See, when I was three … we had arrived in Maycomb wearing tags on our wrists which instructed – ‘To Whom It May Concern’ – that we were the Cunninghams from Decatur,  en route to Jasper c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson.  Things hadn’t worked out and we’d stayed in Maycomb and then when he was nearly thirteen, my brother Tom got his arm badly broken at the elbow and they say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did except the Cunninghams was left out of the circle and the entailment and all. 

And now Pa is an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and … had gone eighty-four days …without taking a fish.  In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.  And it seems to me like the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there ‘cos I don’t remember no advantages.  All I know is that it was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York, except that it was love at first sight. The first time I saw the chaplain I fell madly in love with him.  But there was no possibility of taking a walk that day so I upped and wrote this.  You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of To Kill A Mocking Bird but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Harper Lee, and she told the truth, mainly.

Signed: Walter Cunningham Jnr.

Jack Digby, by Rachel Lane

Jack Digby's mother never gave him anything; not even a memory. All he knew about her was what he'd been told by Miss Harriet Livingston, the maiden aunt who had brought him up; and that was little enough. About his father he knew even less, for his aunt always avoided talking about him at all.
    He had been born in France, shortly before the outbreak of the war. He and the two sisters had been evacuated in great haste just ahead of the German invasion in 1940, but his father had never been seen again, and was entered as "lost; presumed killed". In the confusion Jack's birth certificate had been lost, which had caused him endless bureaucratic delays throughout his life. Then, before he was too young to understand it, his mother and Miss Livingston had had some kind of quarrel, as a result of which his mother had decamped forthwith to Canada and had never again made contact. Miss Livingston was most reluctant to speak about her at all.
   Although his aunt had always performed her duty towards him, Jack soon sensed that she didn't really like him at all: indeed, she rather resented him. It was a relief to both of them when he was packed off to boarding school, from which he duly progressed to university. Even in the holidays he came home no more than was necessary, preferring to stay with friends, or later to go travelling. It was on one of his foreign expeditions that he learnt that his aunt had died in an accident. The bulk of her estate went to charity. She left him some money, but no final message.
   While he was helping to clear out her house, he found an old photograph, tucked away and doubtless forgotten, beneath some yellowing newspaper in a cupboard. It showed two young ladies and a man, and was labelled on the back, in faded pencil, "Mary, Harri and Don". This set him thinking. "Harri" was clearly his aunt Harriet, probably in her twenties at the time; so was the other woman, Mary, who resembled her closely, his mother? In which case, was Don his father? He pondered the matter for a while; but then other concerns took over and filled his time: his work, and a family of his own. It was only many years later, when he had more leisure, that he rediscovered the photograph and sought to investigate his past.
   He researched in archives and genealogical websites. For his mother, he learned little that he did not know already, so he turned to his putative father, assuming that the man in the photograph was indeed Don Digby. Eventually he was able to meet a very aged lady who was Don's sister.
   She instantly identified the photo as being her brother. "So you're Don's son,are you?" she said. "He sent me a letter, you know, and told me he'd had a son; but then he was lost in the war. Oh well. You do look a bit like him. Yes, they often went on holiday together: him and Harriet and poor Mary".
   "Why do you say, 'Poor Mary'?"
   "Well,he wasn't at all kind to her. I shouldn't really say this, him being my brother; but it was all a very long time ago. Mary couldn't have any children, you know. He told me he'd realized he'd married the wrong sister. Me, I didn't like Harriet much"
    "But ...... Mary's my mother!"
    "Oh, no! Harriet was your mother. And of course, Mary was furious about it, poor girl. Didn't Harriet ever tell you? Now isn't just typical of her!"

The Beginning, by Andrea MacDonald

Stepping into the darkness sinking into the deep snow was terrifying. The moonlit starry sky made the snow on the hills appear a light blue , like the surface of a different planet.The clarity of the sky was almost palpable and otherworldly. The outline of the mountains overshadowed like great creatures protecting the valley below.  If only it could .Those jagged stiper’ed jaws of Mother Nature grazing on the winds of time can only be silent and witness what dwells beneath The Cranberry Rock.

The topography offered no signs of life aside from the the hack of a sheep .

Why did they have to sound so human ? As long as it wasn’t him all was well.

As I climbed the hill I saw the warm glow of light from the farm in the valley below .

Home. My backpack straps were razorlike against my shoulderblades and seeing the glowing comfort of the light seemed to exacerbate the pain. Not far now .

My heart soared to think of my beautiful boy sleeping soundly beneath the light , and very soon I would be amongst that same light sharing the security of a roof under which held everything I loved but there were demons afoot on the Devils Chair and dance they must…

The boy was sleeping but was the beast awake . I could see only the light I left burning and no other signs of movement from below so I felt comfort knowing I would soon be by my son.

When the day broke the sky was a brilliant azure blue and the dazzling diamonds in the snow shined brightly, adorning the weird tolkienesque castles of the Stiperstones with an ethereal sparkle.

The low cloud issuing over the horizon gave the appearance of camp fires, as if set by ancient tribes settled in their midst .

My beautiful boy points towards them asking ‘What are they Mummy ?’

So I tell him about the castles in the wind and the tribes people and the fires and the long walk in the blue snow…an altered reality from the reason why we live on the mountain. Our secret would become known .

What I couldn’t tell him about was our future and what would happen when we left our sacred Squilver to live amongst the ‘Lower Down’. The beast would walk among you and you would not know. He is already there.

We should never have left. Ever.

Shipwreck, by Sandie Zand

Day three. Jesus, but time drags. This mob couldn’t organise the proverbial in a brewery. Three days we’ve spent, arguing the toss over where to set up camp, how to set up camp, and of course the blisteringly long drawn-out discussions about our potential rescue or otherwise. It feels like a month of anyone’s calendar.

Day one… well, yes, I grant you there wasn’t much could be wilfully orchestrated after the events of the previous night. Or was that day one? One thousand tonnes of steel cracking, listing, crockery and cutlery sliding from the tables, darkness, screaming, the rush for lifeboats, the confusion, God, what a mess. No organisation, no control, no real procedures at all from what I saw. That’s what comes of the cheap package deal, I guess.

Thankfully, I – and this pitiful bunch of comrades – were on the one and only lifeboat to actually be launched and get away from the sinking mother ship. We’ve seen no-one else. 

It wasn’t until we’d scrambled for that first lifeboat, that I saw a woman I know… well, I use the term loosely… I’d not noticed her earlier. But I recognized her then, same bossy smug bitch, had all the answers, trying to organizing everyone… she was quite oblivious to me, to who I was. Christ, I bet she doesn’t even remember.  

So, yeah, day one/day two… we’re grounded here, quite by accident, and ironically I’m stranded with her. With nothing more than oars, we’d all but drifted on the darkened seas until dawn – grateful for the slim yet hopeful chance – and we reached this island. The hardiest of us leaped forth, scrambled to pull our sorry craft up the beach. I was one of those, of course. The hardy ones. Smug bitch merely gave opinion, criticism, more bossy direction… pretty much how it was last time. Change management. Bunch of tossers. 

Anyway, we’re here. In a brochure, this place would be termed ‘idyllic’. Soft sand, palm trees, blue sky, orange sunset, heat, silence. The epitome of perfection were a person to conjure up their ideal restful scene. But in truth it’s hell. Three days we’ve been here - in hell. No food, no shelter, no real idea where on this sorry earth we’ve landed. We’ve seen no planes. No other boats. We’ve seen… and this disturbs us more than anything… no activity whatsoever out there, the now brightened horizon where the submerged mother ship still projects in angular fashion, sinking very slowing into that quiet calm sea.

Why haven’t they noticed us missing?

On day two, or three, depending how you count it – after that initial panic and the almost catatonic confusion of nighttime drift and  arrival at dawn, exhausted, emotionally wrecked – once we’d slept, sort of, and assembled on the beach at dawn, we assumed in our western middle-class castaway egotism we’d be rescued pretty quickly. Smug bitch even said as much herself. We took shelter from the midday sun under palms, worried about fresh water but happily drank salted on account of how it’d not be for long, and didn’t really think too much about food. We were muted. Quietly elated, if truth be known. One of our number - retired teacher, Old Boy’s network kind of guy – spotted some sort of edible fruit, named it in Latin in fact, swore it was okay to eat. And we ate. 

Life seemed good. We still existed. We would be rescued.

But then we noticed… well, our resident smart arse noticed… what remained of the ship’s hull outlined against the orange glow of that evening’s setting sun. And the silence. The lack of air activity, the lack of other ships. She changed her tune and said, “they should have found us by now, we must have been off route”, and we all felt a twinge of awareness… those last 24 hours on board, the annoying chap at dinner who claimed we’d left our official route - banged on for hours he did, we all tried to ignore him, move away from his wittering - he’s gone now, didn’t make our boat… but he knew. He knew we’d drifted. 

So we sit here, on day three, under our temporary shelter, drinking salty water and eating a fruit that belies all prior knowledge (and has already begun to have adverse affects on some of our bowels) and we begin to understand this might not be over soon. We’ve debated that which can’t be known as though it were fact, and in the sort of convinced frenzy that alarms me, frankly – I’ve seen this before, it’s quiet panic, the same sort of panic that hit my last company when we realised we were going under and our mortgages weren’t going to be paid… we knew what was coming but still enthused with the brightest ideas, as though we’d find something obvious that had been missed and the embracing of it would save us…

We didn’t. I spent my redundancy on this trip. Thought it’d herald a new start.  

And that smug woman. She was there, in my company’s death throes. She was there, called in to make changes, not really giving a flying fuck about my mortgage, my future, our futures. Lining her own CV with experience, that’s what it was really about. And here she is. She doesn’t see me any more than she did then – but I see her. Oh yes I see her.  

The retired prof has been trying to work out our location. Came up with a plausible enough story about this island, where he thinks we are, went on at length about its role in the overthrow of some ancient government or other and I just said, “yeah, right, but where the hell’s the nearest civilised conurbation?”

Smart-arse then suggested we nominate a leader. Maybe there was a glimmer of recognition in her eyes at that point. Maybe she remembered. She said things might get difficult, that it’s only a matter of time before “character will be revealed” and if we don’t put in place some sort of leadership structure… blah, blah, utter psychobabble but it’s had a curious traction, several others are now agreeing – clearly some just want a boss and are heartily lost without one. A timid mouse, who’s barely said a word until now, pipes up and suggests smart-arse herself as the leader – how apathetic is that? My blood boils. 

Just coming up with an idea doesn’t make you the right person to lead on it. This I know to my own cost. Redundancy was un-welcomed, the wrong folk were in charge, but ultimately it was my liberation. I’m not one to buckle under pressure and I did have new high hopes. I survived that bitch’s interference once, I’m not going to join the apathetic masses now and kow-tow to some random nomination that puts her in charge again. If I’d been more forceful back then, we’d not have gone under.   

Latin fruit prof is now heartily agreeing the nomination. There’s a lot of nodding. Smiles. Happiness in fact. Jesus but this crowd is easily swayed. 

So here we are, nearly into day four and I’m on the sidelines. Again. I won’t stand for it this time. I raise my hand – my voice too – and say “We need several candidates for voting, this has to be full democracy…” the vocal old boy interrupts with some diatribe about what democracy means blah blah, but I hold firm:  three candidates, not one done deal. The smug bitch narrows her eyes. Yeah, she remembers me now.  

She immediately nominates the prof, who pooh-poohs without conviction and readily takes on the mantle. Then there’s a quick coercion for another of their number to stand – some guy who’s refusing to even fish, how the hell’s he going to keep us alive? - and lo, it now seems the running board is smart-arse, teacher guy and this tree-hugging leftie who’s insisting there’s enough non-animal produce on the island to keep us alive for months, despite the fact that most of us could now shit through the eye of a needle from 3 days of eating it, and frankly if he gets a single vote it’ll be not only a miracle but a travesty of this so-called democracy, here, on this supposed haven of holiday bliss, as we watch our third sunset and, in the distance, silhouetted against orange sky, the remains of the hull of our former unseaworthy craft, “Hope” – can you believe it?! – sinking beneath the horizon line and removing all visible trace from air or land that a ship ever passed over this sorry patch of ocean, let alone sank into it.

Jesus, what a mess. 

I turn from the self-congratulatory circle of apathetics, from the narrow-eyed gaze of smug bitch, the pontifications of prof and the fruit-loving leftie who, on finding himself cast away on an island where the only life-sustaining protein idles innocently in rock pools, won’t fish, and I continue to grind the edges of hard abalone shell to sharpness against rock… God but I should have done this first time round… 

I harness my shell to this makeshift grindstone.

I stare out to the horizon.

And I wait for day five to dawn.

Firm Foundations, by Judy Jones

At a time of year when minds are buzzing, feet are tramping, when all around is confusion and grief, you stand thee proudly, as steadfast as you always are. Unyielding, you continue to thrust up to the icy blue sky. Your branches, like tentacles, reach out to passers-by, offering comfort like the embrace of a long-lost lover. With the will of a wisp, you sign, and I almost miss it.
   I cling to your heart, straight and sturdy, rough to the touch like an armadillo crust. Woody and damp, summer scents are no more. Hoar frost sparkles in the midday sunshine, masking your nakedness for a short while, like the fur which coats the antlers of a deer then falls away.
   Soon the cycle will repeat: tiny buds becoming blooms. Then the rhythm of spring takes hold; leaves unfold and once again we will marvel at the gift of life.