THE MARKET

• Notes

  I’m keeping this little story intro around because I’m in love with the rhythm and heavy description. I can feel the story but I haven't given Adi the time he deserves to truly come to life!

  RJ

The market like a fishing net. The market at the surface. The market arching from a crane. The people like flapping fish. Squirming, slipping, sliding over and over and under and over. Opening their mouths for air.

The sky like an empty stove. Red hot and ready to burst.

The sky like an alert. The sky needs a pan.

Some air and then sand between your teeth. Some breeze and then the smell of freshly baked bread. Some wind and then the cumin. Some gust and then the spice.

Between the hollers of the traders and the bargain hunting crowd, there in the horrible discord stood Adi.

Adi stood in that horrible discord and Adi was silent.

His first day behind the stall. His third day after his father died. The fourth day his family was hungry.

And he had no idea what he was doing.

A table of tools with carved wooden handles. No idea. This one here with the three spikes. No idea. The ones his father painted yellow. No idea. Red. No idea. Yellow. Red.

"Two hundred Rupees for the crosshead." Adi picked it up and said, "This says four."

"I'll give you three.”

“Deal.”

Adi wondered if it was a deal. Was it a deal? He guessed it was a deal.

“Five for this,” said an older lady who had been eaten by her hat and was holding up a bag of nails.

“These are good nails,” tried Adi, “The best. I won’t take less than-“

The woman was gone. Swallowed up in the market. Money on the table.

Some noise this early in the morning. Some shouts against his thinking. Some harmony, some melody, too many boats in too small a harbour.

ANIMALS

• Notes

  I’m excited about this story.

  Deciding to share Messy Progress as well as fully finished stories is risky for a few reasons but one of them is the chance that I’ll feel like it’s done, when I know deep down that it isn’t. This story is complete, and finishes with THE END, but I’m still working on the way the characters are killed. It feels rushed.

  I love the narrator’s voice in this story. It’s one of my favourite things I’ve ever done. Freeze time, see the story through an old pause screen. The characters experience flash forwards to their death, after a series of beautiful moments of their future life. I want to really land the tragedy that they will never see their visions.

  And that if you keep reading, if you keep playing the tape, you’ll be the one responsible for killing Hannah too.

  Ready? Play.

  RJ

Freeze time.

The movie’s on pause.

This is the ’90’s so it’s an ugly pause. The room looks like someone shredded a photograph and couldn’t put it back together, but you can still make it out clearly enough.

It’s dark.

Maybe no bigger than a two-car garage.

There are one, two, three- there are seven sources of light. Four security monitors, a computer screen, a sliding window and a door to the daylight outside that looks like it’s about to slam.

•••

There are lines everywhere the light pours in. Sharp lines from the screens, smoke lines from Rosa’s cigars. Her old cheeks are sucked in like leathery bellows and she’s closed her eyes like it hurts a little after breathing out smokey lines of despair from Alex’s questions. Lines of escape from Hannah. From Hannah being Hannah. There are ashtrays and staff radios and old coffee mugs and broken pencils and zoo maps and marker pen corrections on zoo maps.

Here’s how the room’s laid out. That sliding window? That’s where Hannah sits at the reception window. She has a bell that says ring for attention and she has a fake wedding ring that’s just for attention and she has a wooden holder full of timetables and she has a sickly positive outlook on the world that drives Rosa insane because Rosa is jealous because Rosa thinks Hannah is young and naive.

Rosa’s desk is on the left wall of the office, a desk she sits at with her chair arched back so she can stare at the soap opera action on the zoo’s black and white monitors mounted on the wall. It goes: monitor, cable tangled in cables, monitor, monitor, dried up silly string from the Christmas party ‘85, more tangled cables that aren’t plugged into anything anymore, monitor. Below that, a long desk. Rosa. Next to Rosa, Alex. Alex is the work experience boy who pretends he doesn’t want to be there but his secret is he actually thinks this is all really cool. Alex asks curious questions even though he doesn’t understand the answers.

We’ll get to the rest of the room later.

Ready?

Play.

•••

Bang.

Rosa jerked in her chair as the door slammed hard and she yelled “Harriet,” emphasising the last T like her spit was a dart and the ceiling was a picture of Harriet.

The slamming door also made Hannah jump and she jabbed her nail file into her thumb as she turned to answer the visitor’s question at the window.

“We close at nine, but the last road train to the car park leaves at eight-thirty.”

“Nine-thirty,” said the room in unison.

“What’s that?” asked Hannah, beaming, and still talking to the outside world. “Yes, absolutely. The penguin shows are at one, three-thirty and six-fifteen, but they only dress up for the last one.”

Here’s Hannah - twenty years old, crooked nose from a childhood accident she’ll tell you about sometime, eyes like badges saying have a nice day hiding signs saying I’m lonely help me. Mousy blonde hair tied up with giraffe-striped shoe laces from the zoo gift shop.

“You can get your tickets for the show at the entrance.”

She’d worked there for two months and, knowing almost nothing about the Maricopa County Zoo just off I-10 between Saddleback Trails and Lowes, just made it all up as she went along.

“We don’t have penguins,” muttered a voice from a shadowy corner at the back of the room. It was a quiet voice with a strange air of authority, the way a teacher might tell the class they’ve had an hour already and there’s only half an hour to go.

Hannah slid the window closed and rang the bell with a little hand tap of achievement.

“It’s not a typewriter love,” said Rosa. “The bell, you know, it’s for them to get your attention and you have to leave the window open for them to use it,” and then without taking a breath she hissed into the radio, “Don’t- Martin don’t go in there. Oh god.”

Rosa wore big headphones with only one ear covered and the chunky spiral cord rested in her line of cheap coffee-stained novels she bought from goodwill because she had a secret crush on the woman that worked there and would spend no end of loose change on junk just to hear her say good morning.

“What did he do now?” Hannah laughed, filing her nails, oblivious to the customer knocking on the glass behind her.

Rosa was still focused on the radio. “Control to Riley, come in Riley.”

“kkkshhhh - receiving what do you need control? - kksffffsssszzz”

“Riley take a first aider to W4 would you please?“

“Riley isn’t a first aider,” muttered the voice from the back of the room.

“I know I was asking her-“ Rosa turned to Alex who nodded. “Didn’t I just ask her to-“

“Only qualified first ai-”

Rosa lobbed a desk tidy at the back corner of the room, sending pencils and pencil shavings and ball point pens and dust in all directions.

“The otter pool?” said Hannah through the window in a charming giggly voice that made anything she said sound like a fun activity, “you want to go up Main Street, see?” She traced the route on the back of a zoo map with her nail file, “Yes! Past the burger stand that looks like a pickle now ain’t that a dream? Go on up, up past the tigers, be sure not to miss those now - they’re a main attraction here at the county zoo - and you’ll find the otters in no time at all. Y’all have fun now!”

Hannah rang the bell and slid the window closed.

“So what happens when the little light comes on?”

Alex, who was covering his hand in yellow highlighter ink, had a question.

“What?”

“Because that one’s flashing there.”

“Memory of a-it’s flashing on four, ok? That’s the radio channel someone is calling in on.” Rosa pointed them out one by one. “One is maintenance, two, animal handlers, three and four are the park wardens, five is the local police.”

“But there’s six.”

“Well, like I said we don’t use number six.”

Rosa reached up to the panel on the wall and clicked a dial to the number four. Alex moved to press the red speak button on the joystick-shaped microphone but Rosa batted him away. There was a pause while Rosa listened to the receiver and then she dryly replied, “Tell her we lose children all the time.”

“What a lovely balloon!” said Hannah at the window. “And you’re all on your own? How exciting! Go see the penguins.”

Ding. Slide.

Rosa leaned back on her chair and took a long drag of a cigar. “I need an Alpaca-ccino.”

“Caffeine’s a killer,” said the voice at the back of the room, louder now, and it made everyone jump.

“Alex,” Rosa held up a dollar bill with her eyes closed, “just go.”

“See if they have any Double Iced Stingrays,” asked Hannah.

Alex looked at the single dollar bill in his hand like he’d just been asked to dig a six foot hole with a fork. He grabbed his bag and wallet from beside the chair and trundled towards the door.

Rosa turned to the dark corner. “Are you-“

“I’m on break.”

•••

“Was that your boy I saw queuing up at The Watering Hole?”

Hakeem put his bag down at his desk. Where Rosa’s monitors looked out at the animal enclosures, the Reptile House and the Rainforest Pavilion, Hakeem’s station oversaw the footpaths, the car park and the restaurants. His desk had been sat empty all morning. So far he had missed:

• A fight between the head chef of the Bison Diner and the delivery driver, over the sell-by-date on the burger buns.

• The Big Red Road Train spinning out of control and careering into the postcard stand outside the gift shop. Four tourists posed in front of the chaos and asked the driver for a group photo.

• A duck walking across the footpath and wagging its tail.

“Chaos on the screens this morning,” said Rosa. “Catastrophes. All over the park.”

“Good morning to you too Rosa. It is definitely busy. School Holidays.” He bounced into his chair and span around to review the screens, on the opposite wall to Rosa’s station. How Hakeem, a tall, confident man with thick black glasses and cosy oversized jumpers came to work here was less of a mystery than Rosa. Hakeem had spent his youth dreaming about working with animals. His desk was full of every possible species of anything and everything. Plastic figures, wooden carvings, cuddly toys, it was surprising there was anything left in the gift shop. His dream, his real dream was to work with the birds. He loved them all, especially if it was big and colourful. He’d studied hard for his zookeeper finals but found it hard to stay focused under pressure, so after failing three times he decided to take any job that came up in the zoo. The security camera monitoring desk was as close to the animals as he could get, so for the last four years he’d stared at them all day long through black and white screens.

“He’s still queuing?”

“Hmm?”

“Alex. He was still queuing?”

“Like I said, it’s a busy day. He’s got his own drink though so my guess is he forgot yours and had to go back.”

“It’s March,” said the corner.

“I knew it was too much to hope for,” said Rosa, turning the dial to number two and lighting up a smoke. “Ok pumpkin I’ll get some more delivered to you now. Elephant Encounter, right?”

“So why are the kids off school?” said the voice from the corner again.

Hakeem kept his eyes fixed on the screens and pressed a pencil against the top of one of the monitors to level it.

“Spring break.”

“I love spring break,” said Hannah. “A few years ago all the girls went to-“

“Rosa, what’s the traffic been like from maintenance today?” asked Hakeem.

“Pretty normal honey, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“The crowds are making it hard to see but it looks like there’s a few jobs that need doing. Trash on the corner of E9 and E10 and there’s a broken fence by the pelicans.”

“I’ll report it,” said Rosa, flicking the dial to one.

“God it’s busy today.”

Hannah had been talking about spring break the whole time. “-it was such a blast and when we came home we couldn’t stop saying it to each other. Sir would you mind awfully if I,” she interrupted her own story to burst out laughing, “would you mind awfully if I sat on your lap.”

Alex opened the door adding streaks of sunlight to the dark and smokey room.

“Leave it open a little would you?” Hakeem asked without turning around.

“Yay my stingray!”

Alex addressed the corner directly. “There’s a man out here says the café is out of ice.”

A man dressed in County Zoo overalls jumped to his feet from the shadowy corner and looked ready for action.

“He said it’s out of ice? That’s what he said that the café is out of ice?”

“That’s what the man says it’s out of ice.”

The man in the overalls left the room in a hurry and closed the door behind him. Hakeem shook his head.

“Nine o’clock,” said Hannah at the window, “but the last road train to the car park leaves at eight-thirty.”

“Nine-thirty.” said the room.

“Here you go,” said Alex, passing the novelty drink to Hannah, “it looks gross.”

“-and don’t forget to check out the Arachnid Theatre! Here’s your map, bye now!”

Ding.

“It does not,” she said, taking it from his hands. “It’s chocolate, raspberry and chilli. That’s the sting.”

Slide.

“You’re really friendly to the guests.” said Alex, “you’re so happy.”

“Well they’re taking a break from life,” she said, taking a big long sip through the straw. “And what better way to take a break than to be around the animals.”

“How long have you worked here for?”

She screamed.

She screamed a horror movie scream. A horror movie scream where the director spins his hand at the actress and says, give it more, give it more. A horror movie scream where the red italic text slams into the trailer saying THIS YEAR NOWHERE IS SAFE.

Freeze time.

The movie’s on pause.

This is Betamax so it’s a snowstorm of static. Hannah’s screaming face bent by the bell curve of white pixel lines overlaid with codes and timestamps.

The playhead is caught between frames and Hakeem has both reacted to the scream and not reacted to the scream and he faces in two directions like a two headed monster and it flickers and flashes and Rosa’s head is up and also down and her face is contorted like a mirror broken by a drunken punch.

Play.

••• 

“What is that?” Hakeem muttered under his breath.

Rosa pulled off her headphones.

“What, is that-“

“This,” said the man in the overalls, “is a dead man. Dead as a victorian mouse. Dead.” He wheeled the upright body on a hand truck to the centre of the room. Hannah backed up against the wall and Alex held up his arms to somehow protect her from all the death.

Rosa barked. “Why are you bringing that here?”

“He’s not a that, he’s a him. A hum. What’s the past tense of him?”

“Who is it?” Hakeem asked, standing up from his desk.

The workman tilted the handles forward and pushed the dead man onto the table at the centre of the room.

“What are you doing? This is not- Hannah, please stop screaming.”

“Who is that?” Hannah asked, crushing her cup between her fingers.

“He died a few minutes ago.”

“Who is it?” the room demanded in unison.

The workman walked back to the door and picked up a dark brown briefcase. He placed it carefully next to the face down corpse and said, “I have no idea.”

“What do you mean you have no idea?” said Rosa. “You’re ferrying him around like he’s a stack of sodas!”

The workman walked to the shadowy corner of the room, picked out a few things from a cupboard and walked out into the daylight. The closing door swung spirals in Rosa’s cigar smoke as she reached for the radio and turned the dial to five.

There was a quiet click.

“Did he just lock the door?” Hakeem asked as he walked towards it in wide strides. He rattled the handle. “He locked us in.”

“Call somebody to let us out!” yelled Hannah.

Rosa closed her eyes. “Everybody stay- I’ll call one of the maintenance team to come and open the door.” She turned the dial back to one. “Whoever’s clos-Alex!”

Alex had opened the dead man’s briefcase and was holding a brown leather wallet.

“Alex put that back,” said Hakeem, “That belongs to him, uh, hum.”

“Him.” Said Rosa. “Not that anything could matter less right now yes Harriet are you close? Come and open the door to the Security Monitoring Station would you?”

“What’s his-” started Hannah before she started to cry, “does it say his name anywhere?”

“I don’t want to know his name,” Rosa barked. “Let’s just get him out of here.” She spoke into the radio. “Thank you see you soon.”

Alex whistled.

“What is it?” Hannah stepped forward to look.

“It’s somebody else’s stuff that’s what it is,” said Hakeem.

“There’s a lot of blood on the floor here,” said Alex.

The door rattled. Then a click, and someone turned the handle.

Rosa felt her body turn cold when she saw the wheels of the hand truck and the cold dead toes of another body pushing the door open.

“NO.”

Rosa banged the desk and her world turned to static snow and shredded black and white pictures that flickered on the monitor of her whole world and the tape danced over the playhead and she had visions of tomorrow and a long bath next week with the late night news and something near a railway station next month and then next year she would fall down and need a doctor and the year after and the year after and then she was standing with the girl of her dreams from the goodwill store crying and the tape stopped skipping and she realised it was the girl who was crying and she was at a funeral. Her funeral and her death and her screen on pause. At the end of her life.

The world snapped back to colour.

The workman walked forward a few paces stretching the wire between his belt and the key in the lock. He tilted the upright truck just like any man at work. Bricks from a wheelbarrow. Bird feed after the big show.

The second body hit the floor with an awful thud and Hakeem, hand on his forehead, he said,  “Sir, can you tell us-“

The workman muttered, “As good a place as any.”

He was gone with a click of the lock before anybody knew what to say or what to do.

“Now, right now,” said Hakeem, “channel five. Rosa. Now.”

Rosa span around and leaned over the desk. She clicked the dial with one hand and grabbed her headphones with the other.

She couldn’t get her vision out of her mind. The railway. Hospital lights. The girl.

“Requesting police assistance.”

The funeral.

It felt hot and stuffy and awful in that room. A pool of blood gathered under the table and around the body on the floor like the moving shadow of a sundial under the hot summer sun.

“Hannah please open that window. Please.”

“kkzzccczzzzz…dispatch please state your trade identification number…kkkzzzzchhh”

Rosa replied, “395, Area D7.”

“kchhhzzzzzzz…ok Maricopa County Zoo please state the nature of your call.”

Rosa looked up at the room. Hakeem was at Hannah’s desk with her head buried in his chest. Alex reached over to explore the dead man’s pockets.

“Reporting the death of two visitors,” said Rosa.

“Look. These men have been shot.”

“What did you say?” Rosa asked, turning to Alex while the radio buzzed questions she didn’t answer.

“Bullet holes. These men have been shot.”

“Reporting a shooting at Maricopa.”

•••

Hannah stared at the dead bodies. One on the table, one on the floor. The sound of Alex and Hakeem fighting was a loud radio in a distant car and she felt cold and scared. Alone in a way she’d never been able to quite push away but this time was heavy. Those bodies, they were here and not here and predictable and also what if they moved right now.

Hakeem grabbed the wallet from Alex but Alex didn’t let go and they were caught in a grapple that span them both around and Hannah was knocked by sharp elbows and her world too jumped from the tape spools and flickered through her life like it was a magazine at the checkout counter.

There was a party and someone wore blue it looked like baby blue was it her? And then someone looked like they were shouting but the movie was silent and now black and white and the blue dress was gone. Now a telescope. Now a strike in the bowling alley. Now a man in a dark green shirt with a smile like iced coffee in July held her hand and they ran when there was no need for running. Then he had lost his hair and his weary smile was even more beautiful and she saw herself and her hair was short and silver and she had crows feet from a life of deep joy and that’s what it said on both of their gravestones a life of deep joy and they died together in the same year in the same bed in the same headspace of memories.

“I’m sorry I’m so sorry,” said Hakeem, “are you ok?”

Hannah blinked into that dark room and looked at her friend and nodded and smiled a smile like she could already see the green shirt with rolled up sleeves in the distance.

Ding.

“Nope,” said Hakeem, sliding the glass closed on an old fleecy couple holding a map and walking sticks meant for mountains.

Rosa clicked the red talk button and moved the dial back and forth.

“It’s gone dead.”

In a single motion, the door clicked, swung open and the workman span and stood with his back to the door like the door was a dam and he was a dam and soon there would be water.

“They were old men,” he said, breathless, no air reaching the words.

Rosa let go of the dial. “What are you, what did you-“

“I thought they just died. It happens.”

“What do you mean you thought they just died?”

“Dead, you know, like a heart attack. Ice is the code for a death in the-“ the workman put his hand over his mouth and stared with wide eyes.

“Why did you bring them here?” asked Hakeem.

“I didn’t know where els-“ he put his arm back against the door, “I couldn’t remember what to do next so I just bought them here.”

“They didn’t die of a heart-“

“I know,” said the workman. “There are five dead so far.

•••

When the pounding on the door started everyone could feel the tapes of their lives as it tangled in the black machine and ended a run of holding it in their hands. Of thinking about it whenever they wanted. Of wondering how it ends.

When the door began to open there were only black lines. Lines like all your eyes can see when they’re failing or the sky is done or the world is ending. Flicking madly, scanning upwards like the camera is falling into darkness and your heart is broken and you blink to fix it but all you can do is watch and be hypnotised.

Hakeem said something to the two men who were now standing in the room with no sound or colour. One of them spoke and it wasn’t in any language they understood, neither was it a language they didn’t because it was death and death spoke first and Rosa closed her eyes and knew it was over.

She knew it was over and she knew if Hakeem had stayed alive for a moment longer he would have seen his future too in the same cruel joke of hope and happiness and maybe his father was healthy and his dogs were running in the garden and his friends would be arriving soon ready for a week of laughing and no sleep. But instead he blinked and changed nothing and saw Alex join him in a haze of bright colours and soft focus abandoning the life he had just seen pass before his eyes but would never be.

And Hannah stared at Rosa. And she knew Rosa had been and would never be again. Because Rosa was gone because Rosa’s eyes were somewhere else now because Rosa’s future was a lie.

Freeze time.

The movie’s on pause.

This is a bloodshed so it’s an ugly pause. The room looks like someone shredded a photograph and couldn’t put it back together, but you can still make it out clearly enough.

There are lines everywhere the light pours in.

And as long as time stays frozen, Hannah will live forever. She will live forever standing in front of the bright window thinking about her time at Maricopa County Zoo during the summer of ’95. Maybe she’ll be thinking about the friends she made and the lost people she helped along their way. The man in the dark green shirt she would long to meet one day and grow old and fade happily to white like old tangled branches. She will live forever and maybe time will save her from what is happening and what would have happened.

Ready?

Play.

THE END

NOT WITH PEOPLE

• Notes

  An active short story, something I'm turning to when I'm feeling the way I need to feel to write it.

  It feels sad and violent, like most of my stories seem to be, and I'm looking forward to finding out more about the main character.

  I'm drawn to the structure of the living rooms, I love it when scenes like that emerge - I call them Loch Ness Monsters. When I was a kid I had a book all about the mythical creature and before I had the patience to read the black and white text, I would flick through the pages to the ones that were broken up somehow. Bullet points, lists, facts, pictures, some structure to draw me in.

  I look for Loch Ness Monsters in all my stories.

  RJ

This is a story about the time I left the house to be around people but not with people. People when they’re looking at the newspaper or at each other are comforting bean bags and people when they ask you to explain yourself are that bed you bought from a cheap website that time. The one that doesn’t feel quite right and your back hurts and you wonder if you’ll ever get used to it.

People when they’re holding each other at bus stops and on each others shoulders across the bridge and wishing the movie was over so they could look at each other again. Those people. They’re the first coffee in the morning after your senses have come back after a head cold and you open the curtains and the sun feels like the sun and you are a frozen flower. People when they make you feel small and then say it was just a joke are that bed you bought once from that cheap website that bursts into flames and burns your house down.

So I left the house to be around people but not with people.

Between the car park and the coffee shop there’s a department store and the department store has a fake cul-de-sac with wooden house fronts and upsell gardens and every possibility of living room one after the other.

If you know what I know, I mean if I tell you what I’m thinking then you’re in my head and you are me and I’m not you but at least something about us will be closer.

You can only see the first one through a fake window. You walk under the flimsy cardboard streetlight and over the plastic grass and there it is. A wooden portal into modern family life. You can breathe deep and smell the flowers from the vase on the coffee table reminding you that family life can be slow and calm and you see the broken banisters from curious customers wondering what is upstairs reminding you that family life can be chaos. The flowers are lilies today and they are replaced every day and that makes me smile and I wonder who does that. This is the room of flowers because there are flowers on the mantlepiece too. Under that, a flat screen TV and games console and pretend homework out on the dinner table with pens and exercise books and a fake spilled glass of water.

Past the room of flowers is the ice cream room. I call it that because it reminds me of every summer the ice cream van jingled to our house like an old cartoon where even the trees danced and the man inside looked like a 99 flake with sprinkles. He would have lived in a house like this. Polka dot curtains and colourful lampshades with see-through plastic stands and I don’t really know what jive music is but they had music playing that was as colourful and angular as the ice cream room.

I like the next room because it reminds me I’m nearly at my favourite room. This room is Julie Garland’s kitchen and it smells of freshly baked cookies in a way that almost smells of freshly baked cookies but reminds you of the early 90’s when they tried to make scratch and sniff TV a thing. Anyway it’s the only room with a mannequin and she’s dressed in a white blouse with a blue apron that makes her look like Dorothy and when I told my friend she looks like Julie Garland she laughed and told me that’s not her name it’s Judy but that’s now the name of this fake housewife offering up a homely kitchen for just $999 plus installation.

That’s my journey. Every day I’m not working. I drive to the car park by Madison and Cooper and make the short walk to the coffee shop past the cul-de-sac of rooms for sale. The room of flowers, the ice cream room, Julie Garland’s kitchen, and then my favourite room. The final room. The final room before the exit to the coffee shop and it’s the only room not for sale. This is the anxiety room. A chair with no purpose and a table with no placemats. A fireplace with no mantlepiece. A vase with no flowers and a door that leads to nowhere. The room is roped off with signs on every surface reading This is a display area and not for customer use. In a store full of sink-in sofas and deep oak dining rooms and lavender diffusers, here is a room so unsettlingly lifeless and an off-grey that can’t even commit to being brown and the only room that tells you off for even looking at it.

After the anxiety room it was a jumble of sale rails and end of line items. Out of season overcoats, last year’s technology and then the exit. Across the street, past the fountain and into my people watching spot.

And it was in my favourite people watching spot that our story begins. Because it was in that spot that I first saw

messy progress version end

scrapbook

I knew them all by heart and accidentally created the strangest kind of anxiety where I feared the day I’d arrive and the houses would be gone. That false street had become my street. The mannequins, creepy and wearing chinos I wouldn’t be seen dead in, but they were a familiar morning greeting all the same and I never failed to shoot them a little knowing smile.

Your family comes first. In a melody I stole from an old gravy advert. Warm tones and soft furnishings that don’t break the bank. With these surround sound speakers it won’t be your kids giving you zero interest…speak to a team member today about our - little piano jingle - finance agreements.

with hissy ‘50s radio which makes me feel like it deserves better you know? The music and weather reports make me feel cosy but then the colours don’t match and the lights are too bright.

They don’t have to run the advert, my mind makes it up with a jingle and everything.

Walk through every life you could have had! Here, for only $999 - if you finished school and became a high flying CEO of a mysterious multinational corporation - we present to you a hand-crafted seating area complete with a shelf for all of your awards.

A different kind of picture on a page here - time, bullet points, something like colours or smells or something sense based

helloiamalex

• Notes

  This is a very old experiment, but I've never been able to truly let it go.

  A council house, a lonely kid, and a little side room used as a home office. The computer is hardly used but is always on.

  Alex has never used a computer before - he's never even touched the keys of a keyboard.

  There's more detail in the chaos of helloiamalex than appears at first sight. He learns what the shift key does, he learns about space, tab and the little options the word processor gives him.

  If I ever write this story properly, the keyboard mashing will slowly give way to more and more insight into Alex's sadness and pain, and perhaps an unforgettable story will emerge.

  RJ

helloiamalex

hellohellohelllll

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hello i am typing on a computer hello hello i am alex

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhasdASASASASSSSSSSSSSSSBOOB HAHa1@£$%^()(      

//|”:~!@£$%^&*()_+}{}{}

abcdefg

hello i am alex i am typing on a keyboard in my house

i am 17

i am 80

you dont know your a machine

>>>>><<<><<><><><><><><><>//////

i live at 4 camberside crescent

my brother is shaun g

score

alex 87

shaun95

23days togo

type type type. sometimes it knows what I want to say

what just happed?

I like this it easier than  handwriting nobody can read my handwriting not even me lol

hello hello

your still here

nobody usea this computer whats the point

wefwefwegweg3

4t23t23t24t24t223232334t 34g34g4qgaerergaergaer£$Q$GQ£$H£$

HQ£$HQ£$HQ£$HQ£$HQ£$HTVSS%YV£%YWB$

%YE%^UR^MT&*OMTINE^UWB$%BW$%YB$%Y$%Y%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

alex 103

shaunnn 112

19 days

19 days

19days

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllllllllllllllll11111111111iiiiiiiillllllllllllllllllllllllll////////////////////

hello computer your screen is bright nobody turns you off i would but i dont know how

///

-=

haha all of this is still on the screen

terrys a dick

terrysadick

terrysadick

terrysaduck

terrysaduck

terysadick

terry sick duck

score

alex 160

shau n182

    12dayshello computer i am alex g i live

i work at SGP roofing in falton

what did you do today coputer lol

ken told me today i should learn how to use the computer i said i had one at home

i think this was dads

today is Wednesday haha i wrote Wednesday and it changes it to Wednesday

Wednesday 8th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 34 days]

theirs a button that puts the date in now it looks like a diary lol who am i simon tellen from seventh grade

put my feelings in and shit

.

9 days to go11

how do you do the 1 its on the button 111111 why cant i press it 1111

score

me 225

ssss 237

Friday 17th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 25 days]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

i found out how hold down the arrow button just like when you do the ?

just came back from the game. dan couldnt make it i dont think his girlfriend hannH IS VERY WELL. SHAME I HAVENT SEEN HIM IN AGES. Lair came and brought peanut who doesnt play but hes living in lairs car at the moment so he played. Stagger won but only by a king. i had a straight too. Willis and trace had a good game but willis spend the night teaching peanut not to shout snap everytime he had the same number as card in the flop.

Trace wore the bracelet

!

Friday 24th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 18 days]

this computer is always on the screen is always on and nobody comes in here. i dont knoe what time it is i broke my watch this week its been a long week we did the roof of the church hall in Poller down near pizza hut.

i think theirs a button like the date one. 23:47:54PM

23:47:56PM

23:47:56PM

23:47:56PM

23:47:57PM

23:47:57PM

23:47:58PM

23:47:58PM

23:47:58PM

23:47:59PM

23:47:59PM

23:48:00PM

23:48:00PM

23:48:00PM

23:48:01PM

23:48:01PM

23:48:02PM

lol

Sunday 26th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 16 days]

sundays are like saturdays only the shops open late and mum isn’t around as much. terry is here all the time he works a lot in the week at the lesure center on warren street near the place with the board games in the window.  mum hasn’t worked since dad

Monday 27th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 15 days]

I didn't finish writing before what I was going to say was since

i love Trace greenwood

Jessica Lyerson

Wednesday 8th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 34 days] Wednesday 8th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 34 days] Wednesday 8th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 34 days] Wednesday 8th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 34 days] Wednesday 8th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 34 days] Wednesday 8th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 34 days] Wednesday 8th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 34 days] Wednesday 8th March 2006 [To use this feature please unlock the full version of Textmate.exe here for only $4.99 // your free trial will expire in 34 days]

From The Diary Of Nina Hailey #1

• Notes

  From a series of diary entries by Nina called Earth To Nina.

  RJ

Sometimes my mind gets stuck.

As soon as you ask me for something, it feels like I’ve filled up two canteen-style ketchup bottles with glue and I’ve stuck them in both ears and I’m squeezing it around my brain.

Some of it comes pouring right back out, it drips from my earlobes and down my shirt. The rest rushes right in. Making gaps where there were no gaps, filling every new crevice and crease.

I loosen my fists and let the air rush back into the bottles with a smacking sucking sound. For a moment, as the glue in my brain settles, it’s almost…nice. Like there’s no chance of ever finding a clear train of thought anyway so the option may as well be taken away from me.

And then I clench my fists again and the last of the glue rushes in, mixing intrusion with panic. Paralysis with speed. It overflows out of my nose and eyes and I know I’ll never see or breathe properly again.

And you’re just standing there like a dumb bear saying, “Hello? Hello? Earth to Nina.”

Maybe I’ll just nod this time.

Maybe I’ll play a high-risk game and reply with, “Yes, of course.”

But the truth is I didn’t hear you. The people in my head that run my ears are doing their jobs just fine. And I’m pretty sure my brain at the other end of the line works ok, it’s the little guys with blue overalls that run the line in between the ear canal and the central cortex that didn’t turn up to work today. Or maybe they did and they’re just horrible people. It often feels less like there’s a gap between my glue-covered ears and brain and more like a group of mean, doubting, belittling figures.

They don’t transmit the words, they just roll their eyes at me.

And you’ll say, “What do you mean Yes? Are you even listening to me? I asked you if you-“

Glue.

Men in blue overalls.

Paralysis.

Panic.

SIRENS

• Notes

  I once applied to join an exclusive writing club in the community Scribophile.

  The moderators chose five applicants to write an audition story, with only one winner being given a membership.

  The blue section was the prompt, and the rest was mine. It’s hard to read such an old version of my writing now, but it’s part of my journey!

  And yes, I won.

  RJ

Brandon flicked the half-finished cigarette to the parched ground. He mashed the still smouldering stub beneath his stained boot. Gazing across the sunlit cornfield, he spied his prey foraging through ears of freshly harvested corn. Raising his rifle, he brought the scope to one eye and planted his prey firmly in the crosshairs. He pulled the trigger.

The crack resounded amongst the farmhouse and barns. A flock of startled birds took flight, their wings frantically beating against the heavy summer air.

“Nailed it,” he muttered, glancing nervously towards the bunker.

“You must be crazy,” came a whisper over his shoulder. “They’re killing us while we sleep and you decide to come out here to find dinner.”

Brandon still had his eye to the scope. “Keep your voice down.”

“You don’t think they already heard-”

“Lucy. Stop talking.” He reached into his pocket for a round, but it was empty. “They’re looking right at me.”

The bunker was a half-buried black box which stretched for a four-day walk across the plains. Brandon had never found an entrance and yet these creatures seemed to come and go as they pleased. Little Lucy with a thousand freckles and ringlets had been hopping shelters with her father since the towns were destroyed on the day she was born.

She nested between the tall rows of corn and the canvas bags of sandwiches and grenades. “Did they see you?” She lowered herself into the dirt. “Are they coming?”

“They’re looking over. They’re all just staring.”

“Which type is it?”

“The tall ones. Long jaw, black eyes.”

“We…you…shouldn’t have…”

Lucy’s whispers were drowned out. The entire sky filled with a blistering siren. The pulsing bunker alarms distorted Brandon’s vision as he tried to keep track of the creatures. One figure became two, and two became an army. The tall grass at every side became whipping razor wire. Blood was dripping from Brandon’s eye socket as he wrestled to keep the scope to his face.

The ground shook as though something huge was passing just inches under their bodies.

“Lucy.”

The sandpaper soil scuffed their skin raw as they were rattled again and again.

“Lucy.”

The siren looped between a ground shaking rumble and a high pitched squeal.

Brandon chanced a yell, “LUCY COVER YOUR EARS.”

He could feel the siren burrowing into his skull and it started a crack which ran through his cheekbones and split his jaw in two. The alarm worked its way through his nerves and tangled them in knots. His arms became stiff and the rifle fell from his grip into the crushed grass.

The spiralling octaves brought more swarms out of the bunker. Groups of wide eyed creatures all stood, monumental, staring at the cowering couple. Lucy looked over at her father who was face down in the dirt. His brown shirt trailed into a sticky red mash on the ground. She screamed, still covering her ears and unaware that the world was silent again and that her voice was bouncing between the bunker and the farmhouse.

Her hands were shaking and she moved them to cover her mouth. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her father’s face but she didn’t need to. She could see tiny black specks in the distance but couldn’t make out the detail. She climbed on top of her father, sobbing as she grabbed his belt to hoist herself towards the rifle. She remembered.

Slow is smooth, Smooth is fast, Pull back the bolt, Don’t let it jolt.

She rustled through her fathers pockets; deep pits of cigarette butts and pictures of her mother. She found a new box of rounds and wrestled it from the seams.

Slow is smooth, Smooth is fast, Pull back the bolt, Don’t let it jolt.

She lay prone on Brandon’s twisted back, gripping the rifle with tiny hands. She lifted her head to the scope.

The creatures had started walking towards her.

Pull back the bolt.

Thumb the round, tip first.

More of their skinny frames joined in the march, out of their hidden entrances to the bunker.

Push the bolt forward.

Take a breath.

The piercing alarm started again, ribbing the hot afternoon air with its poisonous shriek.

Fire.

The bullet cut through a creature and it dropped like a flapping chunk of meat.

“Nailed it” she whispered as she looked down at her father through tear soaked eyes.

She took aim through the scope again, but now the creatures were running towards her.

Lucy fired wildly past the stampede. They were kicking up the dirt and moved as a single cloud, rapidly approaching, increasing their speed with each round she fired in panic. The siren was cutting into her ears. She had an itch in the centre of her brain and somebody was scratching at it with broken fingernails.

She fired again. The cloud began to choke her. She fired again but the siren was too painful and she dropped the rifle. At the moment it clattered to the ground, the noise stopped.

She covered her eyes with her hands and was curled up on her father’s back. The scuffing of hooves against the dusty ground told Lucy they were standing in a circle around her. She pictured her mother in the dark palms of her hands. She could still hear her voice as it was becoming more frail from starvation.  Her words broke through the scrapes and snorts as the long-jawed creatures moved closer.

“My darling” she said, rubbing the stains of a shirt with a butter-coloured bar of soap, “No matter how small you are, you will always have your father’s shoulders. You can look all horrors in the eye and they will never forget you.”

Lucy dug her heels into her father’s back. The creatures were tightly packed in a black stain around her. The air was filled with a rotten mist and she could barely breathe. She stood as tall as she could and stared deeply into the ink filled void in the creature’s faces.

“You can look all horrors in the eye, and they will never forget you. Even if they win.”

Lucy smiled, raised her fist to the sky, and spat out the pin.

RENTALS

• Notes

  Rentals was the result of a writing exercise I took part in with my friends. I wrote the part in blue, and then we all finished it on our own and shared what we’d come up with. Perhaps one day I’ll reach out to them and see if they still have their version!

  RJ

I was distracted by the mud on her shoes.

"Do we have a deal?" she asked, frustrated.

"We have a deal."

She handed me a white envelope. It had four numbers written along the side.

"Is this it?"

"This is all you need."

I slid the envelope between the pages of a John Steinbeck novel and put it back in my jacket pocket.

"When do I-"

"When I've left" she snapped.

The distorted speakers played a mix of REM and The Cranberries, and some guy in front of us said “10 please.”

“How easy was it to find?” I asked, trying to pick apart my shoelaces with my fingernails.

“What do you think?” She said.

The guy in front was with his girlfriend. She put her shoes up on the counter. “6 please.” He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. They both left the queue with their rental shoes in hand, walking towards a bench near the pick ‘n mix.

“I just mean-“

“I know what you meant,” she said, putting her shoes in front of the assistant, “8 please.”

Somewhere down the lanes, a birthday kid got a strike and yelled.

She picked up her new shoes. The red and black squares of leather were as frayed as her home-bleached fringe.  “He wasn’t where you said he would be. So now we have to be more careful.”

The attendant turned to me and I told him I needed size 11.

“I never said he would be in his office at the weekend.” I picked up my shoes. “It was your idea to go on a Sunday.”

She blew her wispy hair out of her eyes. “Are you serious?”

“Where did you think he would be?”

“Well I didn’t think he would be a church-going fella.” She pulled her shoes over her heels and grunted. The assistant asked us to move out of the line.

“You got what you came for. I ain’t sticking around in this racket any longer.” She grabbed my hand. Her fingernails were mustard with black edges. “It was nice doing business with you.”

She checked the coin return slot of the arcade machine and walked out through the sliding doors. I’ll never forget that walk. That carefree stride with a backing of Everybody Hurts.

How anybody could walk in those shoes is beyond me. I went to the men’s room and danced between the sticky puddles and boot-print hot dogs. Inside the envelope was a mobile phone. It was locked with a four digit code so I tapped it in. The screen lit up the cubical showing thirteen missed calls and a voicemail. Bingo.

Julian, my darling. My wife’s seduction. Once reserved for me. I miss your strong hands. When you’re not too busy to answer my calls I want you to take me away. She laughed. Take me back to the lake and the soft blankets from the cupboard under the stairs. I’ll tell Joel I’m going away with the girls. Call me.

I put the phone in my pocket and walked back to the alleys of happy families and birthday parties. I’ll never know if it was the old popcorn smell or the Shiny Happy People soundtrack, all I know is I turned to the door to see her standing in the car park with a trail of smoke between her mustard and blacks.

It might take me a while, and perhaps I’ll never get used to them, but as I walked out of the door in those ankle cutting rentals I felt young again.

“Fancy a game?”

“With you? You gotta be kidding sweetheart.” The smoke drifted out of her mouth as she spoke.

“A drink, then.”

“You buying?”

“I’m buying.”

She flicked the cigarette onto the kerb and her shoes creaked as she tiptoed out the embers.

“C’mon then.”