Once

Once, as a child, I was lost.

I don’t remember my exact age. Time has never been kind to my memories and my recall of events – dates, details – has always been a vague and untrustworthy thing. But I remember a sibling in the baby seat of the shopping trolley and as I was old enough to walk and wander by myself this must have been my brother and I must have been in the region of five.

It was in a supermarket. I was following my father and I turned away, just for a moment. What caught my five year old attention in the vegetable aisle of Safeway I do not know, but for a moment I turned away and I slipped into another place where I was lost.

I didn’t know I was lost until I turned back; mind still elsewhere, dreaming the day gone, and I put my hand into my father’s and then, at a jolt from him, dragged my gaze along that hand and the arm and looked up into the face of a man who was most definitely not my father.

He must, I think, have been a nice enough man. His puzzled smile is kind in my mind; his amused ‘hello?’ is gentle.

He almost certainly did not deserve the look of horror I bestowed on him, or for me to scrabble, cringing, away; heart tripping with mortified shame at having touched a stranger so casually with a trust that did not belong to him, and with the panic of being alone, alone – no parents, no sisters to be seen and the sudden, absolute, nightmarish conviction that they would not be found again, ever, and my throat clamped down with fear –

And there, down the next aisle, was my father; one hand on the trolley, frowning down at a packet of pasta. I rushed to him and clung, to his confusion. Bemused, he asked me what was wrong and so I learned he hadn’t even known that – for a moment – I had been lost.

Five things I like (and a bonus)

1) Ethnic supermarkets 

The ones you wander round in a happy bemusement of childish glee, picking up products and wondering what they are.

There will be packets covered in a language you do not speak, with pictures that seem to have no relation to food at all - or which you hope don’t. A small child may feature, or a cartoon panda. Or a small child dressed up as a cartoon panda. Is it panda flavoured? Small child flavoured? How do they know what small children taste like?

You will buy it and it will sit in the cupboard until you unearth it again and learn from the one piece of information you can understand, the sell by date, that whatever the child-panda food is it is now sadly past its prime. It doesn’t matter. You have consumed all the possibilities it contained. You can throw it away now.


2) Proper second hand bookshops

It should have nooks and crannies and precarious, avalanche ready piles of paperbacks leaning against the one shelf you are trying to get to. It should have the smell of books; their yellowed pages and crumbling, Penguin-orange spines and the dry, faintly-vanilla dust scent of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of much loved words.

It should have at least one cat and if possible the owner should have a beard. Even if they’re female.


3) Snow

Or the moment, first thing in the morning, when you step into freshly fallen snow.

Or the moment right before you step into the snow, the moment just before your foot places down.

The virgin moment just before you raise your foot and take that first explorer’s step.


4) Reading something new

Reading a poem or piece of prose and coming across the first, startling line or turn of phrase that hits right underneath your heart and makes you want to gasp. That makes you want to stroke the page and lift your fingertips to your mouth afterwards as if you could taste the words.

They would taste dark and roughly sweet.

They would taste clean and fresh and prickle your tongue with their lightness.

You want to find someone now and press your mouth to theirs and open up so they can lick the tang of the words from your tongue and savour your amazement with you.


5) Inspiration

The flash when inspiration strikes and the words start filling your head and you hurry home, cupping the words carefully, in dry-throated terror that they will spill and trickle out from between your fingers and leak away before you can capture them safely.

All the way back you are holding back part of your breath and the people on the bus only see your far-away look and don’t realise that you are a tightrope walker, a circus act; balancing wonder and performing miracles above their heads.


And a bonus 6) You

I like you.

(Keep it secret, but really you are my favourite.)

Twitter fiction

I worked out that I've written about 1,500 words of fiction on twitter under the hashtag #vss (very short story), and since I haven't posted anything here in a while I thought I'd take the lazy route and repost some of my favourites.

Some of these were written using 'tweet the random' rules that I'd made up: use a random word generator to come up with five words, use at least four of those in a #vss, hope like hell the story makes sense. So if some word choices seem a little more... well, random than others, you'll know why.

(Posted from March 2011 to now)

Your bloodstream is a liquid buffet to me. Rapids of sustenance spiralling round. Of course I don’t sparkle. I’m a leech not a firefly. #vss

“I told him. Don’t say those things about Mam and me” He’s calm now. Guards lead him away. The psychiatrist’s body cools behind him. #vss

A neat man, he liked to grapple with big questions. Was hate distinctive to humans? Did God exist? Can’t Tesco sell a nice sandwich? #vss

“I could just eat you up!” He starts to cry. His mum comforts him “Granny didn’t mean it!” His Gran bares her teeth, white and strong. #vss

Beauty products. Processed food, additives. A chemical taint. The decision not to eat human flesh is a matter of taste, not morals. #vss

Nuclear winter’s not so bad if you have the essentials, she thinks. A solid bunker-door. Provisions. Every series of Star Trek on DVD. #vss

‘Well.’, the witch thought vengefully as the oven door clanged shut, ‘At least the little bastards will end up with cavities.’ #vss

‘Let’s play a game.’ She ran her thumb over the knife. Licked off the blood and ignored their whimpers. ‘You hide and I’ll seek.’ #vss

The sun is shining and there’s the scent of new blossom on the air. The lid stays on the pills. Today is a good day not to die. #vss

“There.” Vicki drops the purple crayon she’d used to draw in the bruises. “Now Barbie looks just like Mummy.” #vss

When he reached the seashore he thought he was safe. Turns out zombie barnacles are very tenacious. #vss

“Look, we all voted. It was fair. Why the complaints?” Bob the cabin boy eyes the knife and wails “We’ve only been adrift for an hour!” #vss

You’re like a bog, she said, densely packed. I’m like the tundra. I only seem empty; you have to look close. I don’t get it, he said. #vss

“Ours was a tainted love” he said. “With melamine, like the milk scandal?” I asked. “Replies like that are why we split up” he said. #vss

‘Make Yourself An Exhibition!’ Should’ve read the fine print. My heart’s on a plinth, my face’s skin in a tidy silent scream behind it. #vss

We overthrew all the rules. Of physics. Geometry. Now we don’t know if up is down or what shape we are. And we’re so happy. #vss

I know the shining fracture in the sky is just the moon on the clouds. But it’s so bright and there’s the whole universe beyond it. #vss

“Well, would you prefer I called you gorgeous patronisingly or ironically?” he snaps. “Are those my only options?” she asks. #vss

I go on a biennial desert cure. It sears away my tears and dries up my heart, so I can show the world a cold face for two more years. #vss

“Divorce is a terrible thing” she says “How would the kids have coped?” I tell her she’s right and ask her gently to give me the knife. #vss

I’ve made an iron heart to replace my old ceramic one. This one is strong and will not crack or chip or shatter. Or let anyone in. #vss

It’s not been all bad, locked in this cellar for years. The ants made me their king, the wall’s a good talker and I’ve kept my sanity. #vss