S. Williams's Blog

Bees

Lionel dressed immaculately. It took him up to 3 hours each morning to bathe and don his clothes. By the time he walked out of his front door he had no time for school. All he had time for was a quick pose up and down the high street, before heading off to the fashion houses to see what was new.

Out of all the clothes Lionel owned, his pride and joy was his coat made from the skin of baby foxes. No-one he knew had one. Everyone he knew wanted one. He didn’t know very nice people.

When the stupid animal rights groups began to get their way Lionel was devastated. Almost overnight it became impossible to wear his coat.

Then one day Lionel had a brilliant idea.  That night he snuck into his neighbour’s garden and gassed all their bees.

Night after night he went about the area, sneaking up to beehives and sticking in his hosepipe, then pumping the gas.

After a week he had gathered enough. Showing his plans to the owner of an illegal coat factory that employed immigrant children, a deal was struck.

Each of the bees was stripped of their fur and the little bodies tossed aside. Then the skins were sewn together, eventually making a magnificent full length coat.

When Lionel saw it he was absolutely ecstatic.

There was no society for the prevention of cruelty to insects.

Lionel could wear his coat with pride.

Each morning he would step out of his house, with his nose in the air, and promenade down the street in his beautiful coat of bees.

One day when he was out showing off he noticed a tiny black cloud in the sky.

“I must get home before it rains and the water ruins my coat,” he said.

As he walked briskly homeward it seemed that the cloud was following him. In fact not only did it appear to be following him, but it seemed to be bigger, too.

And giving off an angry buzzing sound.

Too late did Lionel realise that it was not a cloud at all, but rather the biggest swarm of bees that had ever been seen.

It swooped down on Lionel just as he passed the illegal clothes factory. The owner, seeing his best customer being attacked rushed out to help.

When the swarm finally lifted, the two still bodies had been stung so much they resembled massive red bumpy beach balls.

“Yes,” said the other, clutching her doll tightly. “But he’s not.”

Dolly Mixtures

Cuthbert was a boarder at St Michael’s School for Medically Gifted Boys and Girls.

Even by the high standards of the school he was not a nice child. He despised his parents for not letting him practice surgery on the servants at home. That was one of the reasons they sent him to boarding school. He hated his teachers for not being as clever as he was. He loathed his classmates for their attention to rules.

The only rule Cuthbert followed was one he made up himself: always keep the knives sharp.

Out of everybody, Cuthbert hated the girls at his school most.

They were always playing ‘doctors’ with their dolls: always putting bandages on them and taking their temperature. Watching them made Cuthbert feel ill.

“They’re not real!” Cuthbert would shout at them, “They’re not alive! You’ll never learn anything.”

One day Cuthbert decided to teach them a lesson. While they were all out at an accident unit learning how to plaster broken legs, Cuthbert sneaked into their room. After half an hour of work he was satisfied.

When the girls returned he was sitting in the common room reading a magazine. It was two minutes before the screaming started. The girls came storming back in.

“What have you done to our dolls?” they demanded.

“I just played a game of Dolly Mixtures,” said Cuthbert, smiling at them.

All the doll’s arms and legs had been taken off and mixed up.

So had their heads.

Some arms were attached to necks. Some heads were attached to thighs.

The girls were not happy. They called Cuthbert lots of names.

Cuthbert laughed and took himself off to bed.

When he woke up in the morning he could tell something was wrong.

He couldn’t move his arms.

He couldn’t move his legs.

Try as he might, he couldn’t move at all.

There was something in front of his eyes, stopping him from seeing anything.

Then someone pushed it up, away from his eyes.

It was a hat.

He was in a shop window. He could see his reflection in the glass.

He was made of plastic. That’s why he couldn’t move.

Someone had removed his brain and put it in a showroom dummy.

The hat had a feather in it.

He was wearing a dress.

Outside the shop staring at him, were two of the girls from school.

“You know,” said one, tilting her head. “He almost looks real.”

Dinner Lady

Mrs Gruffle was an exceptionally ugly woman, but there was a reason for this.

Not only was Mrs Gruffle the school cook, but she was also a goblin.

None of the children or staff knew she was a goblin. They just knew that she was a fantastic cook, and that she lived alone.

They thought perhaps she had suffered some terrible accident when she was a child.

She was bent almost double, and wore a turban on her head to hide her ears. She used to bath in cheap perfume to disguise her goblin scent.

You could smell her coming from miles away.

All the children loved her. She knew every one of them by name, and was always especially nice to those that needed a little extra loving.

The ones that didn’t have many friends.

The ones from the orphanage.

Every day Mrs Gruffle would hobble into school, muttering merrily to herself.

“Hello, Mrs Gruffle!” the children would say.

“Hello my little nibbles!” she would reply back. That was just what she called them.

A term of affection said by a lonely woman.

Both staff and students looked forward to Mrs Gruffle’s lunches.

Often it was a steaming stew.

Sometimes it was a meat pie.

Mrs Gruffle did do a vegetarian option, but it was very rarely taken up.

Her meat dishes were so delicious.

Sometimes there were spongy dumplings.

It really helped the children to have such a yummy meal. They needed something warm and comforting in their lives to help them get over the sadness.

Children had gone missing.

Two or sometimes three children seemed to go missing every year.

Everyone was at a loss.

There were patterns, of course.

Many of them were loners.

None of them seemed to have many friends.

A large proportion of them seemed to come from the orphanage.

They all seemed to be vegetarians.

It was a great sadness to the whole community.

The police had been into the school, and told the children about ‘stranger danger’.

The vicar had been involved in setting up the “don’t be late, walk with a mate!” initiative.

The PTA had issued every child with a whistle.

Even Mrs Gruffle had done her bit.

When she found a child alone in the street, she would, after a quick check that no one was around, get them to carry her herbs and spices home for her.

Just so she could keep an eye on them.

That was just her way.

Good old Mrs Gruffle.

Cupboard

Joseph’s parents didn’t believe in the cupboard monster.

He told them again and again but still they didn’t believe him.

Joseph’s dad was a dentist and Joseph’s mother did something with money in a bank.

Every night his parents would be woken by a blood-curdling scream coming from Joseph’s room. When they rushed in they would find him staring goblin-eyed at his cupboard with arm outstretched, shaking fingers pointing.

He told them that a monster lived in there, and it had said it was going to eat him all up.

His dad stroked his brow, thinking perhaps one of his teeth needed a filling.

His mum stroked his cheek, thinking perhaps she should decrease his pocket money.

He was obviously spending it on sweets; the excess sugar giving him nightmares.

One thing appeared odd to them. Each night Joseph insisted on wrapping his lucky scarf around the cupboard handles to keep it shut; but every time they came in when he screamed, it was wrapped tightly around his neck.

Joseph’s parents consulted all the doctors they could find. One said to play whale music to relax him before sleep.

They did. It was awful.

One said to light scented candles.

They did. Joseph still screamed.

They were getting to their wits’ end. The cat had taken to sleeping outside.

Then Joseph’s mother had a brilliant idea.

“That’s a brilliant idea!” said Joseph’s dad.

That night they told Joseph they had a plan to stop the monster coming forever.

Mum got her toolbox, and went upstairs into Joseph’s room.

There was the sound of hammering. Joseph was so happy.

His parents were nailing the cupboard shut, he thought. He ran upstairs to watch.

Joseph couldn’t believe what he saw.

His mother had hammered the doors open.

Wide open.

She said that this way Joseph could see that there was nothing in the cupboard, apart from shoes and clothes.

They were very pleased with themselves.

Joseph begged them to shut it again.

They would not.

Joseph went to bed crying.

The parents were sad, but knew they were doing the right thing.

They locked the door.

When they went into Joseph’s bedroom the following morning, he was nowhere to be found.

The cupboard door was shut, with the nails neatly lined up on the floor.

There was a ‘thank you’ note.

Teeth

One day Tom’s tooth came out. It was one of his milk teeth.

“You’ll have to put it under your pillow for the tooth fairy,” said his mother. “She might leave you a pound!”

“A pound?” thought Tom. “That’s not very much! I can’t get a bucket of sweets with that.”

Tom was quite a greedy boy.

After staring at his tooth awhile, an idea came to him.

“What if I write a letter to her saying that I’ve had all my teeth out, but have lost them all except one?” he thought to himself. “That will be worth almost an entire sweet shop, I bet!”

Tom felt very pleased with himself, and started composing the letter to the tooth fairy. It took him awhile, and there was lots of crossing out, but at last he was satisfied.

When he went to bed he did not tell his parents what he had done. He put the note, his tooth, and a large bag under his pillow in anticipation of all the money that was going to be left for the teeth. Then he went to sleep.

In the middle of the night Cowslip, his tooth fairy, magically flew in through the window. She settled on the side of his pillow and reached underneath and pulled out the lone tooth. She also pulled out the note.

Cowslip read the note.

Cowslip was a little short sighted. She read the note again, and looked at the solitary tooth in her hand.

“He wants me to take all his teeth?” she said, amazed. Then, shrugging her tiny shoulders she covered Tom with fairy dust, and got out her tools.

First, she yanked out all the loose teeth with a pair of pliers. It was not easy. She had to brace her legs against his nose for leverage.

Then she got her little fairy sledgehammer.

Over and over she swung, smashing the teeth out of Tom’s mouth.

She worked up quite a sweat

After she had hammered out all she could, she got out her power drill. Carefully she drilled out all the roots, until there were no teeth left in Tom’s mouth at all.

Sadly, because all the teeth were damaged, they did not have much re-sale value, so cowslip could not leave him any money.

Whistling a merry tune Cowslip flew out of the room and on to fairy land.

In the morning Tom’s mother came into to wake him up. When he yawned and gave her a big wide smile Tom’s mother screamed and screamed.

Hi all

As promised, here is my audio on book envy

Enjoy!

s

Mary was feeling lonely and so decided to make a doll.

First she tore some rags off a rainbow.

She got a strip of every colour

Then she knotted them together to make her rag doll.

She filled the inside of the doll with acorns.

This gave the doll its shape.

The doll needed buttons.

Mary sewed pearls on her doll.

The doll needed a heart.

Mary put the thorn of a rose in her doll.

Now the doll had a heart.

The doll needed some hair.

Mary got out her loom and weaved hair out of a golden spider’s web.

Now the doll had hair.

Mary and her doll went to play in the meadow. The sun was out and Mary fell asleep.

While she was asleep a butterfly fluttered onto her hand.

‘Oh how sad I am!’ said the butterfly. The doll, who had been sleeping, woke up.

‘Whatever is the matter?’ she said.

‘I have been flying in the sun all day, and he has stolen my colours!’ cried the butterfly.

The doll undid one of her rags and soaked it in a pool. All the colours of the rainbow came out into the water.

‘Please Mr Butterfly, wash yourself in this pool. My coat was cut from a rainbow, and I am happy to give you my colours.’

The butterfly washed himself in the pool.

His wings were all the colours of the rainbow.

‘Thank you, sister!’ he said, and fluttered away.

The doll began brushing her hair with a thistle.

As she was doing this a squirrel came hopping along.

‘Oh how sad I am!’ said the squirrel. The doll, whose head had been down whilst she brushed, looked up.

‘Whatever is the matter?’ she said.

‘My mother sent me out to find food, but there is none to be found!’ cried the squirrel.

The doll reached inside of herself and pulled out some acorns.

‘Please Mr Squirrel! I gave my colours to a butterfly; let me give you my acorns.’The squirrel took the acorns and put them in his cheeks. He was very happy.

‘Thank you, sister!’he said, and hop- hopped away.

The doll felt a little tired, and so went to sit down under the shade of a willow tree at the edge of the meadow.

The doll was feeling quite hot, and so fanned herself with a fern leaf.

As she was doing this a spider fell on her lap from the branches above.

‘Oh, how sad I am!’ cried the spider. The doll, which had closed her eyes while she fanned her face, opened them and looked out.

‘Whatever is the matter?’ she said.

‘A wind blew me to this tree. It blew so fast that I did not have time to bring my thread with me so cannot make a web!’ wept the spider.

The doll reached up and pulled a strand of her hair.

‘Please Mr Spider. I gave my colours to a butterfly; I gave my body to a squirrel; Let me give you my tresses!’

The spider took the golden thread and spun it into its sack.

‘Thank you sister!’ he said, and scuttled away to make a golden web.

The doll was feeling quite tired, and so to revive herself went to lie beneath the heads of a rose bush. The scent was so soothing that the doll began to drift off to sleep

As she was lying there she was woken by a gentle crying. She opened her eyes and looked up. Above her tears of dew were falling from a beautiful yellow rose.

‘Oh how sad I am!’ cried the rose. The doll, tired though she was, stood up.

‘Whatever is the matter?’ she said.

‘A bird stole my thorn to use as a beak, and now my sap is running out as a river, and I will die!’ sobbed the rose.

The doll reached inside and pulled out the thorn.

‘Please, Mr Rose. I gave my colours to a butterfly; I gave my body to a squirrel; I gave my hair to a spider; Let me give you my heart!’

Saying that the doll placed the thorn on the rose, and it was healed.

‘Thank you, sister!’ he said, and raised his head up high.

The doll, feeling very tired, walked back to Mary and lay down, fast asleep. The very longest sleep.

Just then Mary woke up and saw the doll lying next to her.

She picked it up and gave it a hug.

She wasn’t lonely anymore.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Loss stares at the fire in the sky, but only sees the blizzard in his heart.

Loss sits on the step looking out at the patch of concrete that is his garden. Concrete garden. London is reflected back at him in the night sky but he doesn’t see it. All he sees are tiny images, fracturing his vision, breaking through the white noise in his head.

It’s one of those nights. Like London is on fire. The clouds have formed a roof over the city and they are glowing red, lit by a million street-lamps. Loss sees them but doesn’t see them. He sees the red London sky, but a thousand years ago. He sees the red sky of when his daughter was young. He sees them in a flat with no air conditioning, melting in the summer night. He sees them dragging an old sofa onto the flat roof of the flat, laughing with the absurdity of it, and sitting up there drinking coke and eating chicken Shawarma with pickles and hummus. He sees them staring at the radioactive sky with his arm around her, sat on the sofa with her curled into him like a promise.

Suzanne.

‘I love you daddy.’

All gone. Buried under years of pain and regret and locked in rooms in his mind he barely knows the way to any more.

Loss stares at fire in London’s sky, but only sees the blizzard in his heart

Drink me

There are doorways all over London.

Sometimes they have “No Entry” written on them in peeling red letters.

Sometimes “24 hour Access required!”, litter from a hundred bad-choice food products papering the foot of the alcove.

Sometimes just a hard-core, zero-tolerance padlock and a scarred veneer.

You just never know which one of them leads to the other London.

The hidden London.

The London below and behind.

The ghost stations, some still with ghost trains, preserved for the silent commuting dead.

The citadels, remnants of a country at war, kept clean and dimly lit, tidy and neat, as if The Bomb dropped, and nobody made it.

The secret telephone exchange, it’s ceramic switching units seemingly poised for the new cold war.

The row of houses, where all the doors are fake, and behind the front facade is the entrance to a different world.

I could show you these places, and more. I could take you by the hand and lead you down the spiral stepped rabbit hole to a subterranean cityscape of tunnels and wires; sewers and electrical conduits big enough to drive through.

It’s easy, once you know how.

Well maybe not easy. Maybe quite hard, if you don’t want to get caught, or lost, or injured.

Maybe we could call it research?

Maybe if we took a camera, or an ipad, or a hand-held, we could pretend we’re doing reportage.

But we’re not, are we?

we’re going into Narnia.

Victorian-industry, cyber-wrenched inter-bled electro-spark Narnia, sure. But Narnia never the less.

And it’s not safe.

We’re not alone down here.

I’m not talking about the animals; the bats and the rats and the wild packs of blind dogs. The foxes and the crabs and the unique, never found elsewhere, variety of mosquito.

Although they’re bad enough. Meet some of those when they’re hungry enough and you’ve just fallen 15 metres down a shaft and you’ll know about it.

I’m not even talking about the homeless and dispossessed, the people who have place-hacked themselves under London’s skin, trying to make a life out of the neverworld below.

I’m talking about the ghost-girl. The girl who walked straight out of my head, dressed in tatty black streetwear with a soul full of anger and as face full of pain, and disappeared into the systems beneath the street.

The vengeance girl

The girl with the moral code of a cracked record; scratched and jumping to a messed up beat.

I’m talking about Tuesday.

No. Best not to go down there for real.

Better to do it through a cypher.

Better to download her. Try and control her and contain her on our devices.

Although I doubt it will work.

I’d imagine that when you’re reading about her on the tube.

Thinking about her as you stare out of the window.

You might ghost-see her beside you.

With her army shirt and it’s ripped collar.

With her fuck you hair and her scuffed DM’s

grinning.

and tapping her bag.

The beginnings of Tuesday Falling

When I was six I got into trouble for smashing a hole in the back of my cupboard with my dad’s hammer,trying to find Narnia.

It wasn’t a lot of trouble, me being only six, but me being only six, meant it made a big impression!

For years after that I tried, wholly unsuccessfully, to live in just one world.

Then I moved to London

Going down into the underground is going into a different world.

The air is different, hotter and dryer, gusting round corners unexpectedly, or suddenly dying away.

Noise behaves strangely. The busker’s accordion that can clearly be heard, but not seen. The sub-sonic rumble of trains in tunnels below or beside you; unseen but felt directly through the body.

The sheer size of it. The feeling that one can go anywhere under London, just popping up in an entirely different part of the city.

Somehow it feels secret.

And then there are the closed off walkways, with their sliding metal gates. Where do they go? Why are they closed off? And when one looks out of a tube window, into the tunnel, the ghost image of someone not quite you staring back. Then suddenly the wall outside the window disappears, revealing an alcove, or a padlocked door, or another tunnel, with sparks fracturing the distant image like it’s hiding something.

What does it all mean?

When I first moved to London I worked under Oxford Street for one of the big department stores, warehousing their surplus stock in tunnels that came off store basement like snakes.

The warehouseman seemed like he was made out of paper, all dry skin and uniform pallor.

It was him who told me about all the tunnels under London

All the old rivers and the victorian sewers.

The Royal mail mini-railway and the disused stations.

The telephone exchange tunnels and the private bunkers.

How, during the second world war, there were special stations for the government, and secret tunnels where the nation’s art was stored.

The blitz and all that.

Some years later I was having a drink with a friend round the back of a well known West End theatre. There was a pop up, for one night only, bar; almost certainly illegal. All it consisted of was a man dressed up in a dark suit, waiter’s apron and bowler hat, serving gin and tonic in plastic glasses, ice glittering in a stainless steel wheelbarrow by his side. It was a narrow alley with everyone sat on the floor (no care of London dirt for the young!). From grates in the wall, presumably due to kitchens in the buildings that made up the alley wall, steam leaked out into the night, and the whole thing had a magical quality.

Or it could have been the gin.

Anyhow I was telling my friend about all the tunnels under London, and she told me about a group of people, urban explorers, who actively look for ways into this hidden world and document it.

I was fascinated. I had no idea there was a whole movement out there. Apparently, she told me, there are loads of secret ways into this subterranean ‘other London’, from old doorways at the end of tatty alleys with nothing behind them except spiral steps leading down into the depths, to tunnels branching off the main, current system connecting to whole abandoned, yet still intact, stations.

After our drink I walked to Piccadilly underground to catch a tube home. On the platform I noticed a girl, a teenager, slim, slightly indy, with stay-away clothes and never go to bed hair. She was sitting on the platform floor, her back against the wall, and it was as if there was no-one else on the station.

Anyhow there was a gust of wind, a kind of pushing and pulling at the same time, and i looked in the tunnel and saw the single eye of the approaching train.

When i looked back the girl had gone, nowhere to be seen.

It was on the tube, staring at my ghost self in the window that I began forming the settings for Tuesday falling.