Anti-Valentines

I'm not going to lie.  I really wish I had someone to celebrate valentines with.  To be sickeningly romantic with... but I don't/  I don't like the capitalism of it.  I don't want roses, I don't want teddy bears with big hearts.  I don't want cards or candy.

If i was celebrating valentines I would write my lover a poem, something from the heart, something that tells them how much I love them.  I would probably cook them a delicious meal because I am quite handy in the kitchen.  I would just want to be with someone for the day, wake up together, spend the day cuddled up and then fall asleep in each others arms.

I wouldn't go out and be rubbing my sickeningly cute loveliness in the faces of the lonely and loveless.  Last year I had Anti-Valentines with my friend Natalie.  Both of us single and alone, went out for food and got quite drunk on 2 for 1 cocktail pitchers.

Why do we celebrate a day that only succeeds in making people who are single unhappy and makes people who aren't single very poor.  I just don't know why people put themselves through it.  I would much rather spend the day in bed than spend the day exchanging already wilting flowers or chocolates that will be eaten and gone within an hour of giving them to someone.

I would like to celebrate valentines day.  I would like to celebrate it on my terms, not Hallmarks or Thorntons.

Bleak Life

It was a cold Friday night.  Tom Bernam was the last person left at the offices of Bernam and Bernam, a medical firm that was run by Tom and his father.  They specialized in robotic limbs and the regeneration and repair of human tissue.  

Most of the lights on the office floor were off.  Everyone had left for the night though Tom couldn’t help feel another presence.      

Along the corridor in her cubicle, Jennifer James sat staring at her computer.  The smoke from her cigarette was faint.  She had systematically picked her cubicle with smug precision for the distinct purpose of not setting off any of the fire alarms adorning the ceiling.  

Tom crept closer, hearing only the smallest sounds coming from the office. He assumed Jennifer had her headphones in as usual.  

As he peeked round the corner in to her cubicle he was struck with a very strange sight.  Her computer was on, headphones plugged in and music playing, but where was Jennifer?  He knew what was to follow.  

The faint glow of Jennifer’s cigarette still burned away in the ashtray.  

Two pointed pieces of metal were jabbed lightly in to the side of Tom’s neck.  The effects of this were enough to startle him but not to hurt him.  

“You should know better than to sneak up on a girl, Tom.  Especially one who’s as jumpy as me.”  Jennifer cocked her lip in victorious yet friendly manner.  

“I thought everyone had left.”  Tom exclaimed.  He stared forward not even flinching.  This was the kind of game he was used to playing with Jenny.  

“So did I.  Looks like we were both wrong.  I only came to get some things off my computer.  I’m going soon.”  She removed the stun gun from his neck and jaunted back in to the office, picking up her things and removing a disk from the computer.  

She walked passed her employer who was still glued to the spot.  She gave him a fleeting glance with her chocolate brown eyes.  

“Oh, Tom?”  She called from down the corridor, her back still facing him.  

“Next time you try to sneak up on me, I won’t hesitate.  I’ll kick you in the face.”

Tom heard the sound of lift doors opening and closing.  The sound of its creaky descent slowly whistled away in to an empty silence.  

Out in the icy Liverpool air, Jenny crept across the deserted car park.  Her tiny black car sat at the farthest end in front of a grassy area shrouded in dying trees.  Their leaves lost long ago to the cold dead touch of perpetual winter.  

In the distance Jenny thought she heard movement.  She peered around the car park but all she could see was black. 
She pressed the button on her keys and saw her mini cooper light up in the shadows.  It seemed like a candle in the dark that gave her hope and warmth.  

A rustling in the distance caused Jenny to claw at her leg trying to find the stun gun in her pocket.  This time she knew someone was out in the darkness.  She was being followed.  

Tom swiped his keycard through the reader and all the doors on the main floor slammed shut sending a chill down his spine.  No matter how many times he locked up, the strange technological wonder continued to shock him.  

The tiny cat eyes lit up along the hall guiding him from the card reader to the lift around the corner.  

He pressed the button and waited.  He waited for the unearthly grinding and ghostly whisper to creep up the lift shaft.  Silence pushed another chill down his spine.  

It was uncommon for power to be cut in such a tech savvy building.  If the card reader worked, why weren’t the lifts?  With all the doors being locked, the stairwell was not an option.  

Toms dark sense of suspicion kicked in and without a second to react, the two prongs of a stun gun were jabbed in to his neck, this time without the delicate playfulness his colleague had shown earlier that evening.

The shock was so intense that he didn’t even feel it before passing out.  

Jennifer ran to her car and through herself in to the back seat.  She slammed the door and  locked them with the keys still clutched tightly in her hands.  

She heard something slam against the window.  When she looked up there was a man at the door dressed head to toe in black.  His face obscured with some kind of gas mask.  

He took something out from behind his back, as if it where attached to his suit.  In his hand he held a small, sharp hammer.  

He swung his arm back and began to pummel the car window with sadistic intent.  

Jenny was not one to scare easily but the nature of the attack had thrown her off guard and she had no idea what to do.  The shatter proof glass would hold him back for a while but his psychotic tirade on her car would eventually take its toll.  

Composing herself she made a split second decision.  Reaching her hand under the back of the drivers seat she quickly found her target.  

She unlocked the doors of the car and waited.  

Her assailant almost ripped the door open as he pulled the handle.  His eyes met Jenny’s as the bang went off.  Again and again she fired three rounds from the handgun in to the mans chest.  

He fell back away from the car and made a blood churning sound as his entire body fell back and his head smashed against the icy concrete.

She walked over to the corpse lying on the cold car park floor.  She knew that no one could still be breathing after three shots from her gun to the upper chest.  

She lifted the mask from his face and was stunned that his green eyes were pinned open.  His flesh was a horrible pallid color.  

She couldn’t help wonder who he was.  It all seemed to calculated to be a random attack.  What did he want?

Angela Bernam awoke to the sound of an alarm buzzing next to her bed.  The sound was practically unfamiliar.  She had heard it only once before when the system was being tested.

She pressed the button on the alarm to stop the sound and went to her nightstand for her glasses.  

“Security.”  She seemingly addressed to the air as she glided across the bedroom.  “Where in the house are the intruders?” 

She rubbed her eyes and placed her glasses on her face as she adjusted to the darkness.  

“Terrace door is open.  No life signs detected.  No intruders.”  Angela was concerned.  It was not unlike her husband to work late but without him she barely knew how to work the security system.  

She walked quietly and composed in to the living room.  The terrace door was unlocked but hadn’t seemed to have been opened.  

Angela locked up and returned to her bedroom.  The security system was no longer flashing.  She assured herself it was a minor fault and Tom could look at it in the morning.  

She placed her glasses on the night stand and turned off the bedside lamp.  She was confused for a moment.  Had she even turned the lamp on?  

A hand with a powerful grip pulled her from behind and tossed her to the bed.  The dark figure encroached upon Angela as she began to sob.  

A large crash broke the painful silence followed by a hellish bang, and another and another.  

The dark figure fell lifeless, slumped over the bed.

Beyond the broken window, still pointing the smoking pistol was Jenny.  Her green eyes gleaming in the moonlight.   

Jenny kicked in the terrace door and ran through the house till she reached the bedroom.  Angela was still fetal on the bed.  Cold tears clung to her face, quickly freezing in the harsh cold that barged in through the shattered window.  

“Angela get up, we can’t sit around.  They want us dead now move!”  The crunching glass beneath her feet seemed to loud as the sound clung in the air of the suburban mansion.  

Angela started to nod as she slowly lifted herself out of the bed.  Jennifer grabbed her by the arms and yanked her to her feet.  She dragged her to the wardrobe and tossed any comfortable and warm clothes at her to wear.  

“I have no idea whats going on here.”  Angela proclaimed as she was quickly guided in to the passenger seat of Jenny’s now slightly dinted car.  

“Those things that attacked us, they have memory cards with pictures.  Pictures of me, of you and Tom.  They seemed to have had more files but they have been deleted systematically over time from what I can tell.  I can’t get them back but I think they where pictures.  Other people.” 
“Wheres Tom?”  Angela whispered in a painful hushed tone.  

“The power is down in the Bernam building.  All but one floor.  The bio-mechanical suite in the basement.”  Theres only two people with access to that floor after 10pm.  Tom... and you.”  Jenny proclaimed.  

“I’ve never set foot in that building.  Why would I have access to it?”  Angela looked concerned as she pondered the nights turn of events.

“Because he trusts you.”  Jenny filled Angela with a hope and a warmth that she only truly felt when Tom was around.  

The stairwell leading to the basement was well lit.  Everything was white and pristine.  It looked and smelt clinical.  

The women cocked their eyes at each other, both acknowledging the irony of anything that was comparable to a hospital made them feel sick.  

As they entered the bio-mechanical suite, they were greeted with the sounds of machines all around them moving in harmonic unison.  

From behind one of the machines Tom ran at them.  

“Oh god, you came.  I thought I’d never see you.  I was attacked and... something brought me here.”  Fear filled Toms eyes as tears filled Angela’s.  The two embraced each other in a kiss that lasted only seconds.  

Jenny took her handgun from her jacket and fired a shot in to the back of Toms head.  Angela screamed in agony as if the pain caused by the bullet had seeped from Toms body in to hers.  

Anguish and rage filled her.  Jenny moved the gun to Angela as if ready to fire however as she pulled the trigger the gun just clicked.  It had run out of bullets.  

Angela grabbed a sharp cutting tool from one of the work surfaces and slashed across Jenny’s face.  He skin sliced open in a clean and precise cut but failed to bleed.  

Jenny dug her nails in to the flap of skin and ripped it from her body revealing a shiny layer of metal and wires.  She continued to scratch and rip and tear at her own flesh like an animal until all there was of her face was a metal exoskeleton.  

Angela took in a breath, preparing her lungs for a devastating scream but the sound never came.  

Before she had the chance, Jenny lifted a solid block of metal from one of the tables surrounding them and smashed it into Angela’s face so hard the she broke her nose and knocked her unconscious.  

The next day, as a new window was being fitted in her bedroom, Angela Bernam worked around her home.  Cleaning as she went from room to room, dusting and polishing, brushing and tidying.

She picked up her glasses from the nightstand in her bedroom and snapped them between her fingers before throwing them out with the rest of the rubbish.    

In the afternoon she baked a cake but refrained from eating any.  She just sat at the kitchen table waiting for her husband to come home. 

At the office, Jenny and Tom passed each other in the corridor without saying a word.    

Tom went to his office and sat at his desk.  His green eyes reflected in his computer screen.  Jenny went to her office and sat at her desk.  Everyone at Bernam and Bernam sat in their cubicles.  

As each clock turned its hand to 9am, everyone of the little cubicles began to awaken.  Each member of staff typing in harmonic unison.  

   

   

Lorelai Was

I woke up to a cold December morning.  I don’t ever remember December being this cold before.  I was fixated on it, the cold.  I was wrapped in so many blankets and yet I could feel every inch of frost that glazed the house as if it was burrowing in to my flesh.  

I had no idea why I felt so cold under my quilt and my throw and my pyjama’s.  Today was always going to be a cold day.  We all wanted to feel cold, to feel empathy for dear Lorelai.  No one should have to imagine that feeling, let alone experience it.  

I don’t remember much of that day.  We were only young; I was two years older than her.  I had lost sight of her in the wooded area and then I heard the splash and the screams.  At nine years of age and not a strong swimmer, she never stood a chance.  

“Lori!” I remember shouting.  I saw her hand slip beneath the cold water.  She grasped at the ice on the surface but she kept slipping.  I tried to reach for her but I couldn’t grasp her fingers.  She was wet and slippery and every time I caressed her fingers for a second, they slipped through mine.  

Today she would have been sixteen.  We never talk about her birthday but it is always a quiet day.  It’s almost as if after her funeral, she was wiped from existence, had never ever been there.  There are no pictures of her in the house and Lorelai Elizabeth Garner is just a figure of my imagination.  

In the summer, mother had the pond filled in.  The water is gone and now a meadow of beautiful flowers sits in it’s place.  

This beautiful image doesn’t excite me though.  We have always had the beautiful gardens connected to the wooded area.  The most crimson Roses and vivid Lilacs have always floated in the breeze and the sweet smell of Lavender has always blossomed in the air.

When we were younger, my Grandmother Marie Garner for who I was lovingly named often urged myself and Lorelai to take up art forms.

“Grandma, why is art so important?”

“Dear sweet Marie.  Art is beautiful and inspiring.  If you can tame a the muses to your will then it will surely help your standings in society and life.

You can see all these beautiful paintings can’t you?  Portraits of myself and your Grandfather, portraits of your Mother and Father.  They were all painted by the same person.  He is a very prominent painter and he will have a made a considerable amount of money just from the paintings we had commissioned.”

From the age of eight, I painted all I could.  Practicing when ever I could and painting portraits of fruit, of family and of friends.  Soon after I discovered my love of painting landscapes.

Our garden was vast and filled with beautiful flowers, plants and animals.  The birds and the swans that roamed the grounds came in all shapes and sizes and were my most prized subject.  

Lorelai had chosen music as her form of art.  She had a beautiful voice and Mother taught her to play piano so gracefully.  Like me, Lorelai took to the piano with a great deal of love and respect for music.  When she was in the house she would open all the doors and play.  The music would echo through the corridors, upstairs and downstairs lifting everyones spirits and on occasion, moving house staff and guests to tears.  

Around the time Mother had the pond filled in she sold the piano.  It left a large gap in an already large room.  

Mother and Father said that I could use it as a place to hang my paintings if I so wished.  I not only did this, but I turned it in to my work room.  My paintings hung solemnly on the walls and my easel and paints sat near the window.

Before the pond had been filled in I used it as my main subject.  I felt this was always in honor of Lorelai.  I wanted her to know how much I still thought about her and so I painted the last resting place of her soul.  

I would paint the banks first.  The damp greenery was always so vivid in the summer and spring.  It always seemed to be calling out to the water.  The water always answered.  

It looked as if the grass ran out in to the water and the water would run toward the land as if a great war would ensue between them.  

I wanted to run toward the edge and feel the water in my hands, against my skin and then to move away before it overcame me.   

The lake and the earth twisted and embraced in to each other.  The long fingers of the water encroached upon the shore and clawed at the dirt.  It held on to the land for as long as it could before being forced to let go.  But, before it went back to its black abyss, it tore flesh from the earth and dirt seeped like blood from the wounds.  

I wanted it to claw at me, at my skin and bones but I knew, I knew that if it touched me it wouldn’t be claws.  It would be subtle and gentle and sensuous.  

The land seemed to push back against the water.  It tried to negate the hands, to exorcise the poltergeist that reached from the depths of nothing to reap the land.  The water kept fighting. 

The slender hands stroked and clawed and ragged and pulled at the tender flesh like a vulture, though the earth held strong.  

They were ancient and immortal.  Forever they would take from each other, Incubus and Succubus.  The waters skeletal fingers would take from the earth and the earth’s great beast like hands would take it back with such tormenting ease.

In the distance the birds and swans frolicked.  They looked almost dark and sinful.  As if their eyes were piercing me as I painted them.

They danced through the grass, teasing the water and the land.  Watching them battle with such dark intent.  

The painting had sucked me in.  I had no idea where the time had went but by the time I had finished it was dark.  The moon shined through the window.  

As I walked down the corridor, a few candles flickered and in the distance I could hear the whisperings of staff finishing for the night and the tiny footsteps of the maids putting out candles.  

As I reached the staircase I saw mother coming to bed.  

“Oh Marie, are you alright?  You’ve been painting all day.  If your hungry have Annabelle make you some soup.”

“I’m fine Mother.  I’ll just have something light.  I don’t know why but I lost myself in my painting.  I will see you in the morning.”

I gave my mother a hug and went downstairs.  I found myself something to eat and had a glass of milk.  I didn’t want to bother Annabelle.  She works to hard and it was far to late to be bothering her.  

After finding something to eat, I went upstairs to bed.  There were candles still lit and so I took one to guide me through the halls.  

At night the corridors seemed so much longer and wider than they were.  The house had an eeriness to it after dark and sometimes I swore I could hear laughing.

As I approached my room I heard the faintest creaking sound.  It chilled my soul to recognize such a faint noise that I remember far to well.

My heart skipped a beat when I heard the piano.  It was such a beautifully serene song that I hadn’t heard in years.  Lorelai’s song. 

I gripped tightly the candle stick holder and swiftly moved down the corridor and in to the old music room.  

The music had stopped and there was no piano to be seen.  My paintings were on the wall still but from some strange reason each of them was swaying as if caught in a breeze.  

A candle on my desk flickered.  It sat illuminating my easel and the new painting I had made.  The pond still battled the land, the birds and the swans still danced their ominous dance and... a new face.

In my picture, partially obscured by a tree, I saw her.  Her winter coat and hat were a beautiful soft maroon color.  Her eyes were green and her face pale as ice.  I had not painted this, I had not put her in to the picture but there she was.  Clear as day, Lorelai sat in my painting, cold and alone.  

I looked through the other pictures but she could not be seen and when I returned to my newest piece I saw that she had moved.  

No longer was she hiding behind the tree but sitting on the bank of the pond.  She was looking over her shoulder, out of the painting and in to my eyes.  She was so scared and so alone.  

I had made her alone.  The birds did not play with her and they could not speak to comfort her.  The picture was a beautiful summer scene but the water was still like ice to her.  

What could I do to reach her.  How could I let people know that beautiful Lorelai was in my painting.  Surely they would think me mad.  I would be locked away at Lennox House were I would be kept till the day I did go crazy.  

Maybe, just maybe I was crazy.  Could I truly be seeing my sister within my painting?  Could I truly be seeing her cold dead eyes before me in a piece that she had not been painted in to?     

I was suddenly overcome with inspiration.  I took my paints from my desk and with them I added to the painting.  

Sat on the banks of the pond, I painted a girl, no more than twelve.  She wore a summer dress with yellow ribbons and in her hands she held another beautiful summer dress of white and lilac.  

I painted myself as a girl of twelve, how Lorelai would always remember me.  In my hands I took the dress and I gave it to her.  

She slipped behind the trees once more and in an instant she was stood, full of color and life and wearing the summer dress.  

She took my hand and pulled me in to the forest.  We ran through the gardens and we danced through the house together.  We were so free here.  

I continued to paint and Lorelai played her piano day after day.  Now my paintings were different.  I no longer painted the gardens.  I painted the house, and Mother and Father, Grandmother and Grandfather.  

I painted us all together sometimes.  I secretly hoped that I could pull them in to our world or put myself and Lorelai with them though I knew nothing would ever come of it.  

Lorelai seemed content to have me here.  She didn’t need anyone else and honestly neither did I.  

I think that I was in heaven.  

Tea Pot

Her porcelain frame 

is draped in an

elegant golden dress.

She pours sweet 

smooth and hot

into my cup.

Her steam lifts

and dances on my tongue. 

She leaves 

a tender burn.  

1956

I'm uploading some of my old work from my course because I feel its some of my best writing.  Its there in bulk and I like it.

This piece was well researched due to it having to be based around something from 1956.

American Dreams

Marilyn Monroe was so beautiful.  I always wanted to be just like her and I saw all of her films.  I remember seeing Bus Stop at the East Town drive-in with Jimmy Roberts and he thought I was something else and he wanted to kiss me so bad.  Jimmy never really cared for Marilyn Monroe, but he cared for me a lot.  He kept his eyes on me the entire film and I kept mine on her. Marilyn Monroe, she was my idol and my inspiration. 

            I don’t remember the day I was born, do any of us?  All I know is I must have been the happiest little girl in all of Alabama because my mother named me Norma Jean Henderson.  I knew I was destined for greatness from the moment I could talk.  I would be a singer and a dancer and an actress.  I wanted to have my face on the silver screen. 

         The night I was there, watching Bus Stop with Jimmy, I pictured myself as Chérie, wearing that little sea green dress.  I always wanted Jimmy to be my boyfriend but I pictured us more as Lorelei and Gus from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. 

            “Norma Jean!” my mama would say to me.  “Why don’t you get that pretty little head out of those clouds and do something real.  That Marilyn Monroe is just a pair of legs for men to gawk at.  People might start thinking your one of those dykes.”

            I knew better than to back talk to her but for some reason I just had to speak out.  I love my mama but she can be so pig headed about things.

            “Mama, she is a beautiful and talented actress.  She is loving of all people, even dykes and the blacks and despite everything, I’m sure she loved Bette Davis to.”  Mama wouldn’t speak to me for a week after that.  I always thought I was like Marilyn and mama was like Bette, I was talented, young and beautiful and she was aging, bitter and resentful. 

            Things started to get serious with Jimmy.  After our end of summer date when he took me to see Bus Stop, he started to get closer to me.  He would sit with me at lunch in the cafeteria and for my birthday he used all the money he had saved from working at a local garage to buy me a beautiful dress.  It wasn’t a designer but it looked just like the dress Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang the song about diaomonds in gentlemen prefer blondes.  It was so beautiful and I knew then that I would always love Jimmy. 

            “If my mum see’s this Jimmy she will freak but I love it.  Thank you Jimmy.”  I knew I’d remember this moment forever.  This was the first time I had ever kissed a boy and it meant so much that it was Jimmy. 

            The year was nearing a close and Jimmy dropped out of school.  I thought I knew pain the day I got attacked by a dog when I was fifteen but this pain was different but it was worse.  He told me he’d signed up to join the army and that he was going to fight in Vietnam.  I cried that night.  I think Jimmy did to.

            “When I come back Norma Jean, I promise, I’ll be the man that marries you.”  I looked at him, and he was fighting the tears and he was looking at me and I just cried.  

“I doubt if I’ll be here Jimmy.  I’ll be in Hollywood, making myself, just like Marilyn.  She might be here waiting when she can’t get acting work because I’ve got all the best parts but I won’t be waiting Jimmy.”  I told Jimmy my plan and he just smiled and still fighting those tears he kissed me and said goodbye. 

            I never saw Jimmy Roberts again after that.  I saw his coffin.  I never asked whether he was inside or if it was just symbolic but somehow I knew he was there and I felt so cold seeing that box.  One day I will dedicate my best female actress award to him.  

here we are again....

It seems like only a few short days have passed since I finished my second year of University and now here we are again.... back at the beginning of another year.  The last year to be exact.
     I know that myself and so many other people have worked so hard to get where we are.  Writers and media students alike have come and gone and yet the dedicated few still remain.
     There are so many people I have met who I will be sad to see go at the end of the year.  People from all over the country.  If I have to I would travel to no ends to see them all again... even in to Leigh if I had to.
    We define ourselves by the friends we make and the company we keep.  We know who the true friends are.  We stick with the people who are most like us.  We have clicks, groups of people who fit our needs and of course some people are outsiders.
    Then there are people who make themselves outsiders.  People who are brash, rude and dare I say Holier than though.  I pride myself in the fact that the people I am friends with are nice people.  Weird, loud, insane but none the less, nice.
     I think that after two years of university I know who I will honestly miss, who I won't miss and who's names I will have forgotten by this time next year.
     It is at this point in our lives were we make the friends who will be our friends for life.  Don't alienate the people you care about.  Don't push away people who will always be your strongest and most loyal allies.  Marriages are fickle, lovers are fleeting, friends will be there always.