Creative Writing Course

[Draken]

Well I finally decided to do something to get myself writing more regularly and signed up for a Creative Writing Course. It's just a ten week evening course, no formal qualification at the end of it or anything, but I'm really doing it for the fun of it!

Thought it might be fun to share the exercises we're set each week, so you can try the exercises if you want? Will post what my effort was each week as an example. Feel free to jump in, contribute, criticise, whatever.

[Draken]

The first exercise was to write a monologue by a character built around three things. The idea is that the reader starts to build up an idea of what the character is like from the monologue.

My three things were the description "Former child star", a picture of a beach and the phrase "The itch has gone."

My effort is on my other computer, so I'll post it tomorrow!

[Draken]

“On the Beach…I quite like this song. Haven’t heard a Chris Rea song on the radio for a long time. This one always reminds me of that film…now what’s it called? Ah she’s tuned it to Radio Two, that explains it. Radio Two, the place Radio One DJs go to die. Know that feeling: from Saturday evening prime time to Pebble Mill lunch time, that’s my career in a nutshell. Anyway that film…it wasn’t The Beach, modern Hollywood rubbish…it was in black and white I’m sure. And with a sad ending. Hmm, On the Waterfront rings a bell…that was the one where Marlon Brando says “I coulda been a contender”. Know the feeling mate. Two and a half years on Doctor Who and they replace me with a bloody robot dog. I mean acting was all I’d known: stage school, theatre, adverts, those train rides to London for TV auditions. I was hungry for performance, I had an itch to act. I was the youngest ever male assistant to the Doctor! The only one to kill two cybermen in the same episode! How could they take that away from me in favour of a talking piece of tin? Oh I remember now, it wasn’t Marlon Brando…it was Ava Gardner. And it was set in Australia. And they all died at the end. What WAS it called…oh of course! On the Beach: the same name as the song, silly me! Bloody hell, am I REALLY having this conversation? With MYSELF? I need to go out and get my life back. Maybe I should call a couple of agents, I still have friends in the business. Oh, who am I kidding? The hunger has passed, the itch has gone. Ava had the right idea in that film: find a nice beach somewhere and resign yourself to your fate. Not that it’s an option for me: it’s started raining again, for a start. Hopefully somebody has left that damn robot dog out in it to rust."

[katya]

I like your monologue! I don't have one of my own, but just wanted to let you know that I'm listening and I hope you keep posting.^^

[Arat-Falathion]

Yes, I ditto that ;)

[Draken]

Thanks guys, if it's being some use/interest I'll keep posting! :)

The next exercise was to talk to another course member about the character in their monologue - how did they picture him/her, what were the details of their life etc. Then - working alone still - we had to write a dialogue between our own character and the other. It was a pretty good exercise in building up a feel for characters from what they said and how they said it.

I chose a lady who had written a monologue about an aging joke shop owner who had just lost his business, as he seemed a good foil to my somewhat whiney ex-star!

Oh yes, they had to meet over a meal as well. (Not sure why!)

[Draken]

And here's my effort!


Dialogue

Having finally decided to dip my toe back in the water, as it were, my first part was not exactly Earth shattering: Spear Carrier Number 3 in a provincial production. Still it was a start, and it meant I was in the right place at the right time to step into the breach when the celebrity booked for a charity gig had to cancel. No fee of course, but there was a free meal in it and the local press would be there: as my new agent so kindly put it “Man, do you need your profile raising!”

The venue was the town’s Royal British Legion. They had raised a few thousand quid for some hospital or other, apparently. I got there in good time, did the usual meet and greets then settled down to the free scoff ahead of the outsize cheque handover ceremony.

He was sat across from me. A rather crumpled looking old chap with a discontented air to him. Something about him told me I would not be enjoying a quiet meal.

“So,” he said as I buttered my roll. “I wonder what happened to the ‘star of stage and screen’? There was supposed to be some fellow here to grin at the cameras. Keith Chegwin, I think his name was.”

“He couldn’t make it,” I answered before trying out my most charming smile. “You’ve got me instead.”

He looked at me askance. “Well don’t think me rude…but who are you?”

My smile never faltered. “I’m not on the TV so much these days. My name is Martyn. Martyn Rowan.”

“I see,” he answered. “I’m Frederick.”

“Pleased to meet you, Fred,”

“That’s Frederick, if you don’t mind,” he said brusquely. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of you,” he added. “But then, I’m not sure I’ve heard of Keith Chegwin either.”

“You don’t watch much television then?” I ventured.

“Some. Question Time, Newsnight, University Challenge. Students these days…!” He rolled his eyes and reached for the water jug.

“Well I’ve never been on any of those,” I assured him. “Nor has Keith Chegwin, I would guess.”

“I used to watch more telly. With the kids. White Horses in the summer holidays, and The Clangers before the news. When they got older it was the Six Million Dollar Man and The Goodies.” His eyes grew wistful. “I liked The Goodies. Those three knew how to work a gag. They never repeat any of the GOOD stuff on the telly, do they?”

“No,” I concurred with some feeling. “They don’t.”

“Course,” he continued. “They’ve all flown the nest now. The kids. Long since.” The wistful look faded into one of sad resignation.

“Well, I was sort of in kids television. I mean, I had parts in Albion Market and El Dorado – and an early episode of Casualty. But mostly people remember me from Doctor Who,” I explained. “If they remember me at all,” I added.

He nodded. “Doctor Who? My lot used to watch that. My youngest especially, she used to love it.”

“I used to love being in it,” I confessed. “I never really enjoyed acting as much once I left it. I think I was a bit too young to deal with the rejection, to be honest.”

Frederick gave a little snort. “Well both of us have been made surplus to requirements, in our way. The difference is, losing my joke shop happened near the end of my life. You leaving Doctor Who happened near the start of yours. Unlike me, you’ve had a long time to put it right.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I sipped a spoonful of tepid soup before managing: “Well, it can be hard for a former child star.”

He looked disapprovingly at me. “I dare say. But, I would guess, not as hard as it is for a former miner, or a former steelworker, or even for a former shopkeeper who’s lost the family business. Seems to me, if I may be so bold, that you don’t really have that much to complain about.”

“Erm, thanks,” I stammered. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“Anyway,” he continued. “Who were you in Doctor Who?”

“Daxlan,” I said with a heavy sigh. The need for further explanation was so inevitable that I trotted it off automatically: “I was the Doctor’s assistant for two and a half series.”

Frederick leaned back in his chair, regarding me contemplatively. “Hmm yes,” he mused. “You know I see it now. I DO remember you.”

“Really?” I asked incredulously.

“Oh yes. My youngest thought you were wonderful. Cried all evening, she did, when you returned to your planet.”

Again, I didn’t know what to say.

“You see,” said Frederick, a kindly tone in his voice. “I think if you can mean that much to a child, even just the once, then you’ve achieved something. I’m not happy I lost my shop, but if I look back to the times it meant something to the children round here – well it makes it bearable. Maybe that’s how you should think about your time as Daxlan.”

I smiled. An honest one this time, not the practiced one for public consumption. “Maybe you’re right. Thanks for the advice. Did your daughter REALLY cry when I was written out?”

He nodded. “She did.” His eyes misted as he recalled his memories. “Of course, by the next week she thought the robot dog was MUCH better.”



(Apologies, if you didn't grow up watching British TV some of that might not make much sense!)

[IronParrot]

I've always been curious about Creative Writing courses of any sort, mostly because I hear mixed messages about them. On one hand it's been said that they're a scam, you'll never get your money's worth of publication or agency or what have you, even at the university level. At the same time, I like how it forces you to regiment your craft by writing constantly and under deadlines.

Keep us updated with your results.

[Draken]

What I liked about THIS course was that it doesn't make any claims about getting you published or offer a 'qualification'. And at £26 for ten 2-hour lessons it's pretty affordable! It's run by the local college, and the tutor is one of the leading members of a local publisher. Which is interesting, as she has that view on what makes something publishable. Not necessarily commercially successful, but of a publishable standard, at least.

For me there are three benefits:

1) Tackling set exercises that I wouldn't otherwise try.
2) Getting back into the habit of writing regulalry to deadlines (as you said IP)
3) Hearing how other people tackle the same sort of writing tasks.

I'm finding it worthwhile - if I was coming to the course expecting to get a guaranteed publication at the end of it, maybe I wouldn't.

[Draken]

Anyway the next exercise: I was given a greeting card (mine had 16 cats on it) and a phrase ("pillow talk"). Here's my effort:

16 Degrees of Cattiness

Kevin woke up half fearing last night had been a dream. His life could best be described as exasperating, in the main, and to meet the woman of his dreams, whisk her off her feet and end up at her place, all in the same evening – well that was lucky beyond belief. There was, he started to recall, one flaw in all this perfection: she had just applied for a job somewhere far away. But then again she HAD said she might not take it even if it was offered her.

Kevin suddenly realised what had woken him and frowned. He might have known: she had a cat. Women with cats always seemed to click with him. He sat up in bed to look for the source of the soft mewling that had stirred him: to his surprise he saw a large and rather mangy tabby cat with a torn ear and a nose bearing several ancient scars. Selina had seemed much more the sleek house cat type rather than the owner of a raddled tomcat.

The divine brunette beside him awoke and looked up. “Good morning,” she smiled. “I see you’ve met Binky.”

“Binky? He doesn’t look like a Binky.”

She yawned. “I know, it’s sort of an ironic name. He adopted me about a month ago: just moved in, more or less.”

“Hey we have something in common,” said Kevin. “That’s how long I’ve been in town.” He studied the cat, noting the intent look in its wild green eyes. “Oh dear,” he muttered. “4D.”

“4D?” asked Selina. “What do you mean?”

Kevin sank back down into bed and turned to face Selina. “Well you might not know it but there are 16 types of cat.”

Selina stretched while she considered this statement. “You’re nice to wake up next to,” she replied eventually. “But your pillow talk needs some work. Anyway there must be more than 16 types: you know – Siamese, Manx, all those.”

Kevin shook his head. “No, they’re breeds of cat. I mean types of cat. As in types of personality.”

Selina looked at him quizzically and wrinkled her nose. “Oh alright I’m vaguely intrigued. What on Earth are you on about?”

“People think cats are deep, but really they only have two basic characteristics,” explained Kevin. “Independence and attitude. They have four main classes of independence, ranging from Clingy, which I call Class 1, to Feral; Class 4. For attitude you’ve got a) playful, b) cool, c) unfriendly and d) psychopathic. That gives you 16 basic cat types. There are subgroups of course but the 16 types are really all you need to know. Binky has 4D all over him.”

Selina looked at him as if she was starting to regret the night before. “How many subgroups then?” she asked.

“237.”

“Maybe you need a hobby,” she advised.

He sighed, then shrugged. “I guess I notice a lot of things about cats.”

He did indeed. For though he didn’t realise it, Kevin was the male reincarnation of Bast, the Egyptian cat deity. So while he didn’t exactly like cats, they loved, worshipped and adored him. While cat gods no longer sported cat heads, there had been tell tale clues in Kevin’s life. He was obliged to remain clean shaven after his first attempt to grow a moustache had resulted in a set of strangely horizontal whiskers. He had uncanny night vision and had never once fallen on his backside. But Kevin was not given to self-analysis, and remained unaware of his true identity.

Binky meowed, jumped up to the partly open bedroom window and squeezed out of it. Selina dug Kevin in the ribs. “The kitchen’s thataway. Black coffee for me thanks, strong, one sweetener. I’m going to grab a shower.”

*

Across the street the sleek Persian cat looked up as her visitor arrived. While she was the undisputed ruler of This Street And The Next And The Next Up To The Recycling Bins, she was obliged to receive and even show a degree of deference to her guest. For he was the High Priest of Cat-kind, the Most Reverend Pangthandangonaldringom. Or Binky, as Selina called him.

“It is done,” he growled, in a language that sounded like a series of mews and meows to human ears. “Our Lord…”

“Kevin be His name,” responded the Queen automatically.

Binky nodded impatiently. “As I was saying, “ he continued. “He is settled among us. His long years of wandering in the Wilderness are over. My travelling in His footsteps is done with. Blessed are you for He will make your Queendom His home!”

“That’s nice,” replied the Queen, wondering how this would affect her status. “I suppose we should mark the occasion?”

“Of course,” rumbled Binky. “In the time honoured way. Inform your subjects. I shall await you.” With that the High Priest departed abruptly.

*

“Erm Kevin…could you come here for a sec?” Selina’s voice held an uneasy tone. He walked through from the kitchen, a mug of coffee in each hand. She was dressed now and standing at the window, fumbling to shut it, staring through it with wide eyes.

He followed her gaze and felt a familiar sinking feeling. Outside, neatly arrayed in rows that filled Selina’s postage stamp of a garden, were cats. Old ones, young ones, thin ones, fat ones, groomed pets and matted strays. All were sat looking in at the window, unblinking, a low, purring hum emanating from nigh on a hundred feline throats.

Selina looked sideways at Kevin. “You know, you go on about cats and then THIS happens …it’s …um …sort of creepy, you know?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I know.” This always happened. He had been stupid to think this time would be any different.

“Look,” she said, backing away toward the hallway. “I need to pop to the shops, ok? I might be a while…the lock’s a Yale, just close the front door behind you, ok?”

“Ok,” he said heavily. She smiled apologetically and left. He heard the front door open and suddenly realised he had forgotten something.

“Selina!” he called urgently. “Mind out for the….”

He heard her stumble, followed by the inevitable shriek.

“Mind out for the pile of headless mice,” he muttered to himself.

*

“She’s gone! And now He has left!” spluttered Binky to the Queen. “Why does this always happen? Now I’ll have to follow Him again.” He scowled in the direction Selina’s car had departed. “Woman thou art fickle!” he growled.

“Oh that’s right, blame the female,” commented the Queen dryly. “Maybe if you weren’t pursuing Him so relentlessly He might find a nice mate and settle down properly. Ever thought of that?”

*

Kevin got the card some five weeks after his arrival in Swindon. His last landlady, bless her, was more diligent than most. It came in a padded envelope along with a pair of his socks that she had found behind the chest of drawers. There was no message of any kind on the front of the card, but something about the artwork – a collection of cartoon cats – made him pause: after a few moments he realised there were 16 of them, more or less arranged in a four by four square. Inside there was a brief hand written note:

“I took that job. I’m Assistant Warden of the North Ulfsay Bird Reserve. Why not wander up this way sometime soon?”

It was signed by Selina, with a telephone number. At the bottom of the card was a PS: “We’re miles from the mainland and there are NO CATS.”

[katya]

Too funny! A little...too many cats, maybe. Funny though.
I'd personally love to take a creative writing class. I never plan on getting anything published (well, maybe), but I'd like to improve my techcnical skills. I was never really taught how to write, unless you count this year in English 11.

[Draken]

Uh huh well cats were sort of integral to it, I suppose!

For the next exercise we were all booked tickets to a book launch at the local literature festival - both were poetry books - and asked to write something inspired by it.

What I came up with was inspired by it inasmuch as it's a poem at least, about something that's been preying on my mind of late!


Impending Crisis

So now the big ‘four-oh’ approaches
It never used to bother me,
But the way people go on about it,
Well it’s making me edgy, you see.
But therein lies the danger
Of falling into the trap,
Of trying a little too hard
To wind time a few years back

So…

Don’t read much in the receptionist’s smile,
She’s just being polite, you know:
She doesn’t find you worldly wise,
She just thinks you’re getting old.

Stay faithful to Pink Floyd and Nirvana,
Don’t pretend you like hip-hop or rap,
Don’t dress like you starred in The Matrix,
DO NOT BUY WIDE-BRIMMED LEATHER HATS.

(As a general rule, if you think it looks cool,
It will just make you look like a prat).

Step away from the motorbike salesroom,
Honda Goldwings and Harleys are worst,
If you’ve never before had a tattoo,
Now’s a bad time for your first.

Don’t resort to the usual clichés
To prove you’re less old than they think,
But then, that receptionist’s smiling again:
I might ask her out for a drink….

[Draken]

Next exercise: write a descriptive piece that makes something disgustingly horrible sound beautiful. It has to be in tomorrow night and I'm stuck!

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

the cat one was exceptional
well done - i can't write half as well as I should like, and I do so half as well as i deserve

[inked]

Next exercise: write a descriptive piece that makes something disgustingly horrible sound beautiful. It has to be in tomorrow night and I'm stuck!

You could try describing the finding on the sole of your shoe as the truly delicious 16 course meal someone had before over-imbibing resulted in a bodacious hurl on your front step! :eek:

[Earniel]

Next exercise: write a descriptive piece that makes something disgustingly horrible sound beautiful. It has to be in tomorrow night and I'm stuck!
*just thinking* You can do something with technology, it can be used for horrendous things but it can come in a nice package.

[Draken]

Ta LCoU!

And thanks for the ideas folks. In the end I went for an idea I'd been kicking over all week but only just got finished by the lesson. It's very short!


Assaulted Slug

I set free a cascade of crystals, tumbling and turning, tiny facets sparkling in the evening sun. They arc earthward, gravity defining the chaos of their descent into precise parabolas. The first brittle impacts: ricochets from the flagstones, a haphazard scattering. Then the target is found: gleaming in the twilight, a sheen of iridescence encasing ochre-flecked autumn brown. Like chips of melting ice the crystals disappear into the dewy shroud. The surface trembles, then bubbles, transformed into an undulating fluid that suddenly flowers into a crescendo of smooth yellow-greens that burst out like breaking waves. Liquefied, the rich insides flow, vivid against the stone grey. A slowly blossoming pool of summer colours lingers in the dwindling daylight.

That will keep it off my lettuces.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

that is brilliant!

simply, brilliant

[Draken]

Thanks again Chrys!

The next exercise has been causing me problems again. It's something called a 'skeleton story' - we're given a random collection of words and phrases and these are the 'skeleton' that we have to hang the story from.

Was deeply stuck until last night as I wanted to avoid the light hearted approach for a change and write something darker. Have finally made a start, will post the phrases we were given and my effort later.

[Draken]

Ok the phrases for the 'skeleton story' are:

Hallelujah
I've lost it
Not my problem
Snowflake
No sugar
Give her a leg up
This is ridiculous
Dressing gown
A full report by the end of the week
Dead cert
Get out

Have done something but I'm not really happy with the ending, will try and finish it and post it tomorrow.

[Draken]

Ok here 'tis. I've agonised about whether it hangs together but sod it, has to be in this evening, I'm finished with it. Warning: it's quite a bit darker than anything above!


Memento Mori

It was the same dream. She was cold. She was always cold. Shouting and screaming had awoken her: a man’s shouting and a woman’s screaming. Even in her sleep she was aware there was a part of her that sat apart, rational and calm, knowing what was happening as it happened. She thought of it as the ‘now her’. But the person in the dream was the ‘then her’, scared and confused and trying to shut out the terrible knowledge the ‘now her’ held.

She woke, sheened with sweat. It was a proper waking this time, not the ‘then her’ emerging from a dream of sleep into a dream of wakefulness. She sat up in bed and ran a hand through her hair: she felt exhausted. The bedside telephone had stopped the dream before it ran its usual, inevitable course.

She shook her head and reached for the phone, glancing at the clock beside it. “Hello?”

“Hello, is that Natasha Browne? Hallelujah, you’re awake. It’s DCI Morrison.” As if anybody else would phone her at 10 am, just two hours after her shift ended. “We need you in, now. A bad one. Primary school. We’re pulling all the stops out. Get here as fast as you can.”

“Ok,” she muttered. “Give me half an hour.”

Hanging up, she got out of bed and set off for the maisonette’s tiny bathroom. On the way she passed a full length mirror hung on the door of her wardrobe. From the corner of her eye she caught sight of something in it that she should not have: a small figure instead of an adult: a flash of pink dressing gown instead of her grey flannelette pyjamas. She whirled round, her heart missing a beat. She only saw herself staring back, blonde hair tousled, brown eyes wide.

Again she shook her head, “You’re losing it girl,” she whispered to herself. She showered and dressed quickly before switching on the kettle and spilling some Alpen into a bowl. She only had just enough milk for the cereal so had to make do with black coffee. She stirred the spoon distractedly as her thoughts flitted between the dream and what might have happened that morning at the school. She sipped at her coffee and spat it out immediately. Never mind losing it, she thought. I’ve lost it. Stirring salt in my coffee!

She made another cup, found there was no sugar left in the brittle, long-opened bag and had to settle for a black coffee without. She stared out at the bleak, leaden December sky: the day was going badly, and something in Morrison’s tone warned her it would get worse.

*

She avoided the TV news and left her car radio turned off as she drove to the station: something made her want to avoid everything about this day. As she turned right into the station car park she did a double take: for an instant she thought she saw the small figure in the pink dressing gown again. But it was just a coat slung over the handles of a pushchair, swaying as a woman rocked it to and fro

She found out what was happening as she buckled on her body armour in the Tactical Firearm Unit’s storage pod area: a gunman had broken into a primary school brandishing at least one firearm. Shots had been fired, and there had been casualties, but with nobody sure where the assailant was the situation was very confused. There was a buzz among the authorized firearm officers as they laced up their chunky rubberised boots and checked the contents of their rucksacks. But Natasha, always on the edge of things as the only woman in the unit, felt more detached than ever today.

Morrison delivered the briefing: it was brief and vague, which only cranked up the tension further. One team had secured the perimeter of the school and another was working through it room by room. But with woodland backing onto the rear of the grounds there was every chance that the gunman had made off unseen, hence the desperate need to throw every available officer into as wide a cordon as could be maintained. Time was of the essence.

“We need to split up into pairs,” informed Morrison. “We’ve mapped out the most obvious routes through the woods, and we have just enough men…” He caught Natasha’s eye. “I mean, just enough officers to patrol them. If he stays off the paths he can avoid us, but his movement will be much slower: we have reserves from neighbouring forces on their way to help us flush him out in this eventuality.”

Natasha forced herself to concentrate, but couldn’t shake off the surreal distance she felt from events around her. She heard Morrison telling them which pairs would work where, and was faintly surprised that she was to accompany him along the pathway that ran closest to the school. She felt churlish for not feeling more grateful that she would be working with the boss in the thick of the action.

Sergeant Jim Broadstone queried this. He was the most experienced of them all, as he never failed to point out, and had a swaggering matey manner that attracted a clique of the younger recruits to him. He was visibly put out at being told that he was needed as a vital last line of defence: in other words, furthest out from the school.

“This is ridiculous,” he grumbled to one of his acolytes as the team left the briefing room. Quietly enough that the DCI didn’t hear as he strode off ahead, but doubtless meant to be overheard by Natasha. “You know what it’s about don’t you? Browne’s a nice blonde bit of skirt and Morrison’s at that age, I think he wants to get in with her, give her a leg up at our bloody expense.”

“A leg over for a leg up, eh?” quipped someone further back. “I bet our Nat’s a dead cert for that.” The conversation dissolved into laughter.

She ignored them, but couldn’t help but cast her mind back to her final interview with Morrison…

[Draken]

“I need to ask a few more questions,” he had said solemnly. “I appreciate your honesty in the psychological survey. That must have been hard for you. But it means I need to dig deeper. I have to be certain before I recommend you join the unit.”

She had told him she understood. Here was where, she was certain, her application would fail.

Morrison had looked so grave it was almost comical. “I can’t imagine what it was like for you Natasha, finding your mother murdered like that. And you so young. You must have such anger for the man who did it: anybody would. What I need to be certain of is that anger won’t spill over into the job.”

She had been honest with him. “My anger is with myself,” she had answered. “I know I was only ten but I knew what he was like. Maybe I could have got my mum to leave him. I could have told a teacher, got social services involved. I could even have waited for him to fall into one of his drunken stupors, got the kitchen knife and killed the bastard. I honestly did consider it. But I said nothing, and I stayed my hand. So my mother died.”

Morrison had pursed his lips. “You were just ten, Natasha. You couldn’t know what would happen. And you were no killer.”

She had shrugged. “Either way, I suppose that’s me out of the running, sir.”

“Not at all,” he had said to her utmost surprise. “Evidence of a thoughtful nature and ability to self-analyse. That’s a tick in the box, for my money.”

When she emerged from her memories she was already sitting in the back of an Armed Response Vehicle – basically a Volvo estate with an armoured gun cabinet in the rear. In it was stored her weapon – a Heckler & Koch MP5 carbine, accurate to 100 metres. Dave Hansen was driving, which meant they were the first of the follow-up teams on site – Dave took pride in being the fastest pursuit driver in the nick.

They drove past a gaggle of TV news crews, through two police checkpoints to the car park of a grocery shop. Here a mobile incident unit – a large, boxy van – had been set up as a temporary HQ for the police operation. A senior officer wearing body armour over plain clothes clambered out of the rear. As Natasha got out of the car she saw the traces of wiped away tears on his ruddy cheeks.

“They’ve just cleared the school,” he said to Morrison, his voice clipped and gruff. “He’s not there. They’re bringing out the injured now. The injured and the dead.”

Morrison nodded and looked around. The school’s small playing field lay between the car park and the school itself. Across the road was the edge of a residential estate of pebble-dashed semis. Behind the school and the playing field was the start of the woodland.

“Do we know what he’s carrying?” asked Morrison.

The other officer shook his head. “Not really. We’ve managed to speak to a teacher and a classroom assistant so far. They were in the room furthest from where the shooting started. They caught a glimpse of him as they got their class out. They say he’s the caretaker – he was sacked a week or so ago. Two guns for sure they think, a pistol and a rifle. No idea if they’re automatics.”

Morrison looked back at the houses. “And you’re sure he hasn’t run into the estate?”

Again a shake of the head. “He took a shot at the classroom assistant so she crouched behind the wall at the front until we got here. She’d have seen him go past her if he’d left that way.”

Morrison did not look convinced. “He might have headed along the edge of the wood and then doubled back further up…”

Natasha looked the opposite direction, into the woodland. The trees were stark and bare. A confusing tangle of spiky bushes made the wood seem dense and furtive. For a brief instant she thought she saw something small and pink flit between the trees. She blinked and it was gone. Almost without realising it, she spoke aloud. “No. He’s in the trees.”

The two men looked at her. “Hmm. He probably is,” concurred Morrison. “And we don’t have time to second guess ourselves. Keep your cordon tight around that estate, Bill. We’re going into the woods.”

The other ARVs had arrived now. All twelve officers stood in a circle. They donned helmets, checked weapons and looked at maps as Morrison ran through their dispositions one more time. Broadstone glared across at her. She stared back coolly: he didn’t scare her. The only emotion that men like him stirred in her was anger. Not teacher’s pet any more Jim? Not my problem.

They moved off in pairs, scrambling over the wall at the back of the car park and making for the woodland. Broadstone and his partner Blakeny, with furthest to go, set off first. As she waited her turn Natasha looked across to the school playground. Stretchers were being brought out to waiting ambulances: a dozen or so were lying in a row, shrouded with blankets. Two held adult figures, the rest were about half that size.

She had expected that setting off on the operation would snap her out of her strange somnambulance, but the adrenalin rush never happened. She simply nodded in response to Morrison’s queries and followed him over the wall, around the playing field fence and into the woods. Her training carried her through: eyes scanning, carbine held in the approved position, senses – disconnected from her conscious mind as they were – alert.

They picked up the path easily – it was broad, a muddy thoroughfare fringed by dead ferns. They moved along slowly, using ears as well as eyes. A snowflake drifted down from the cold grey sky. The trees loomed around them, muffling the few sounds of the day. Then with a crackle their radio handsets burst into life, shattering the silence.

“Boss, it’s Broadstone here.” The distorted voice sounded agitated.

“What is it Jim?”

“There’s a bloody school trip somewhere in the woods.”

“What?” Morrison instinctively wheeled to face the general direction he had sent Broadstone. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah pretty much. There’s a car park down this end, by the B-road. There’s an empty minibus from St Chad’s here.”

Morrison grimaced. “Damn…OK this doesn’t change anything. There was always a chance there would be civilians in here. But let’s get this bastard found, right? Everyone receive that?” Each pair acknowledged in turn.

“Right, Natasha….” He turned and then stopped mid-sentence, mouth agape. His partner was nowhere to be seen.

*

[Draken]

She couldn’t remember consciously deciding to leave Morrison. That familiar glimpse of pink had caught her attention and her feet had drawn her towards it almost against her volition, into the woodland, surely and quietly. The girl in the dressing gown was somewhere ahead of her, she knew. The dream-like sense deepened until she wondered if she had never awoken earlier that morning, if the phone call and all that followed had been part of her reverie. Perhaps, if this was a dream, the ‘now her’ would finally meet the ‘then her’.

The dressing gown flapped at the edge of her vision, off to the left. She turned, but there was nothing there. It didn’t matter. Her body seemed to instinctively know what to do: she slipped the M5’s safety catch off and stealthily picked her way over to a low tree-cloaked ridge that stood proud of the circling tangle of dead undergrowth. She crested it. A natural hollow lay beyond, ringed by thin young birch trees with peeling white bark.

The scene below seemed to wash over her in slow motion. A huddle, faces looking up at her, pale and frightened. A khaki clad figure beneath her, whirling around too slowly. She glanced down calmly, saw the assault rifle in his hands and fired two shots.

The figure cried out and fell, one hand a bloody mess, the gun sent spinning from his grip. Natasha jumped down into the hollow, landing squarely in front of him. He was in his twenties, podgy and unshaven, his face sweaty. He wore a baggy camouflage jacket over army style fatigues. With a strangled sound of panic he reached for the Browning pistol at his right hip: Natasha stamped on his hand, then bent down and languidly un-holstered the gun, tossing it away over the ridge.

She turned to the school party, looking calmly into the wide eyes of one of the teachers. “Get out of here,” she ordered quietly, then turned to look down at the gunman. He was cowering, the whites of his eyes showing.

“They made me do it…” he mumbled. “Making up stories about me, they made me, you see that don’t you? They act so innocent, don’t they? You’re in the police, you must deal with them and their lies all the time, you know what I mean, don’t you?” His voice took a wheedling tone.

Natasha looked around once more and saw that the teachers and children had done as she had told and made good their escape. Only one child stood there now: a young girl with tousled blonde hair, wearing just a pink dressing gown over her thin pyjamas yet not seeming to notice the cold. Her face was pale to the point of translucent, her dark brown eyes deep and knowing.

Natasha nodded to her and stepped a pace back from the man. She looked back down at him and without a flicker of emotion emptied the carbine’s remaining 13 rounds of ammunition into him.

*

Morrison leant awkwardly against the frame of the door as Natasha cleared her desk into a green plastic crate. He bit his lip, pondering his words. “I’m sorry it ended like this,” he said at length. “I feel to blame.”

Natasha emptied a drawer onto the desk and looked up at him. “You shouldn’t,” she replied.

He looked down at his shoes. “Yes I should. It was my call to let you join the unit.” He sighed. “And I’m sorry I’ve left it to now to speak with you. I had to get in a full report by the end of the week…especially after what you said in your statement.”

She gave a tired smile. “I wanted to tell the truth. Even if it was uncomfortable.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “At least the CPS won’t take it any further. When all’s said and done it was a hostage situation and he was turning a gun on you. And of course there was the concealed .22 in his sleeve: who knows what might have happened if you hadn’t…well…played it safe.”

Natasha looked down and started sifting through the documents strewn across her desk.

“This time I knew not to stay my hand,” she said quietly as she moved an envelope and uncovered an old, creased photograph.

Morrison cleared his throat. “What do you mean you knew? How could you know?”

Natasha picked up the photo. “Someone told me,” she whispered.

She looked down at the last picture her mother had ever taken of her: ten years old that day, blonde hair unkempt, just out of bed and still wrapped in her pink dressing gown.

[Draken]

Well THAT shut everyone up!

I missed week of the course so now I'm playing catch up. The owed work is to be a poem incorporating dissonance, assonance, alliteration and onomatopoeia (sp?).

Plus I need to do a haiku AND a piece based on a painting by Magritte - preferably that reflects the ideas of the Surrealists. Hmmm!

[Earniel]

Actually I meant to reply earlier, but I forgot. Your last story quite impressed me. It has a very smooth build-up until the final climax in the woods. And it held me captivated until the last sentence. And it was quite interesting to look up just where you used the skeleton phrases.

[Nurvingiel]

Yeah that was a very cool story. At first I thought Natasha was a soldier. But at the end I thought she was a police officer.

But since she saved her past self and therefore her own life... one can never be sure...

:cool:

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

my god, that was brilliant, man!

eerie, and yet cold, i smell an A!! :D

[Draken]

Earniel - thanks! The phrases didn't help, as a lot of them were quite light hearted - but I was DETERMINED to do something serious for a change. Thanks for your comments - actually I think I oversold the pink dressing gown thing early on, I did a slight rewrite later that I think handled it a little more subtly.

Nurv - yeah sorry, was written with a British reader in mind, introducing her boss as a DCI would have identified this as a police story to most Brits (I hope!). Was more her past self (either as a dream, or a sortof ghost, or just a manifestation of her own troubled mind, you choose!) saving her future self.

LCoU - ta! I wanted a sort of distance and coldness to both Natasha and the feel of the story, glad it worked. I think I seized on that "snowflake" phrase!

[Draken]

Trying to catch up: here's a poem which I'm hoping has alliteration, assonance, dissonance and onomatopeia in it...


November Waves

.Near us the sea was playful
................Chuckling past pebbles
..............................Skittering across the sand,
.........................................But over Roker way
.................................................I t surged against the seafront,
.................................................. .Waves reflecting and recoiling,
.................................................C rashing into those behind,
.........................................Crests high-fiving to the sky.
..............................The kids wowed and oohed,
................Made giddy by the tumult,
.And capered off to kiss the spray.

[inked]

Draken,

I enjoyed that. One point I would make is the transitions between past and active present tenses in the action verbs tend in my mind to break the sense of the action. I would suggest as follows (forgive my gall!).


.Near us the sea was playful
................Chuckling past pebbles
..............................Skittering across the sand,
.........................................But over Roker way
.................................................( It surged) Surging against the seafront,
.................................................. .Waves reflecting and recoiling,
.................................................( Crashing into) Battling those behind,
.........................................Crests high-fiving (to the) sky.
..............................(The) kids (wowed) wowing and (oohed) oohing,
................(Made giddy by) Giddying in the tumult,
.(And capered) Capering off (to kiss) kissing the spray.

I would omit the parenthesized words and employ the active paticiples.
See what I mean?

[Draken]

Ta inked, that's just the sort of thing I'm looking for.

I see the poem as being in three parts - (they would have been separate verses but that would have spoiled my sine wave!)

1. How the sea was where we were, at the shallow end of the bay
2. How totally different the sea was just a couple of hundred yards along the seafront
3. The kids' reaction to it.

So I used that discontinuity in tense to try to heighten that feeling - there was a discontinuity about the sea that day, if you see what I mean.

'Crashing' is there largely for its onomatopeiac effect - I wanted a 'sh' sound in that section!

I thought long and hard about adding 'to the' after high fiving, so I can see your point. Will reconsider this before handing it in tomorrow.

Many thanks!

[Draken]

Ok, first part of this week's exercise: write one or more haiku. I think I'm right in saying that traditionally the Japanese use haiku's to reflect on aspects of nature, which gave me the idea of using some to tell a story, with nature as a metaphor, reflecting a cycle of four seasons.


Fragile Bloom

Weak winter sunshine
Lit her pale fragility
A pretty snowdrop

Night scented springtime
She sparkled in the lamplight
My belladonna

Hot summer parkland
Her languid as an orchid
White against the green

Grey autumn bleakness
She slipped between my fingers
Like a wind-blown leaf

[inked]

Draken,

More gall from me!

Fragile Bloom

Weak winter sunshine
(Lit her) Lighting pale fragility
(A) Her pretty snowdrop

Night scented springtime
(She) Her (sparkled) sparkling in (the) (lamplight) moonlight
My belladonna

Hot summer parkland
Her (languid) languishing, (as) an orchid
White against the green

Grey autumn bleakness
(She) Her (slipped) slipping between (my) fingers
(Like a) Turning, wind-blown leaf

Yes, I do favor active participles which catch the fleeting evanescence of the moments captured in syllabillic reflection(s). Note to that I turned the connecting metaphorical expressions - as, Like a - into unlinked ones. Also, I found lamplight jarring in an otherwise nature poem and went for the obvious nature image, but considered starlight or silvan (in which case it would have read "Her sparkling silvan gleam").

I think this effort quite good in the original. A poet's goal is to capture the gleam of beauty encountered in the world they experience and you captured the sense of sight and tactile impressions very movingly. Chasing it through the seasons in a very delightful and yet slightly melancholic mode which works well as a round (as in music) conveying the sense of change with the permanence of each winter/spring/summer/fall cycle.

I'd mark this one very high if it were to me. Congratulations! :D

I got your intended sense of discontinuity in the first one, but I didn't connect it the way you explained it. That fault lay in my perceptions of the scene to which I attached my experience. Not every reader will encounter your expression as you intended, but don't let that stop you. Just be prepared for the alternate explications adduced by your readers! :eek:

[Draken]

Thanks again!

Yes, the change in tense works extremely well. Might have got there myself if I'd obeyed my usual rule of putting it in a drawer for at least a week then revisiting - but time is against me!

Lamplight would stay in no matter what though - she was most definitely a city flower.

[Draken]

And here's the last task for the week - something inspired by Surrealism in general and a painting my Magritte in particular. The painting is at http://www.abcgallery.com/M/magritte/magritte23.JPG if you're interested.


On the Nature of Reality

Retirement do. His. Driving back on a wet night in a sour mood. Took his mood out on the accelerator. Missed the bend. Big brick wall. Blackness.

*

He woke up. He was on his back, looking straight up at a bright fluorescent light surrounded by speckled polystyrene ceiling tiles. He looked around: ah yes, a hospital room, that made sense. To his surprise there were no tubes sticking into him, no machines beeping and pinging. He wondered why he was surprised and then remembered: the accident. Yes, he remembered that. And his name: he was Stephen. He was called Stephen and had been in a bad accident. That was all he could recollect for now, but it was a start.

Cautiously he sat up. All his limbs responded as they should. He touched his face, then ran his fingers over his bald head. No bandages, no jagged stitches, no lumps or scars. My God, how long had he been here? He looked around but could see no calendar.

“Ah you’re with us,” came a deep, amused-sounding male voice in his ear. He jumped, startled: he had definitely been alone in the room. But now, right beside him, stood a tall, gaunt man. He was dressed in white, like a hospital orderly, but there were two perturbing details: a bowler hat was perched on his head and a lit candle was in his hand.

“Erm…yes I’m back,” said Stephen uncertainly. “And I feel fine.”

The bowler-hatted orderly nodded. “Of course you do. Why ever should you not?” He smiled politely, evidently not intending to say anything else.

Questions crowded into Stephen’s mind, but it was a trivial one that popped out first.

“Why the candle? Are you expecting a power cut or something?”

The man’s cadaverous face continued to smile. “You’re really asking the wrong person. I imagine it symbolises hope. Or maybe comfort. Such a comforting little light you get from a candle isn’t it? Bobbing about like it’s alive, warm and illuminating, yet so small. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Er…suppose so,” replied Stephen. “But what do you mean, asking the wrong person? You’re stood there holding a lit candle and you don’t really know why?”

The orderly looked down at the candle, head tipped slightly to one side. “What you need to do, Stephen, is ask yourself why you NEED to see the candle. Or this very fetching hat. Or indeed myself, dressed in this attire.”

Stephen did not know what to say. Had he suffered a bad head injury? Was he in a mental hospital talking to a wandering patient?

The orderly paused and looked him in the eye. “Let me help you,” he offered gently. “You’re seeing this room and me wearing this clothing because your conscious mind tells you that’s what you SHOULD see when waking after an accident. But you’re seeing this candle and this hat because your subconscious is starting to assert itself. Indirectly for now: a candle for comfort, a bowler hat for some form of solid authority, I would imagine: you’re of that generation.”

“My subconscious?” exclaimed Stephen. “Are you saying I’m going mad?”

The orderly chortled. “Quite the opposite. I’m saying you are leaving the world of your consciousness, perhaps for ever.”

Stephen felt himself go cold, staring up at the orderly aghast. “You – you mean I’m dying?”

The other man grinned. “Or being born. So hard to tell the difference.”

His levity shook Stephen from bewilderment to anger.

“I don’t believe a word of this! I want to see a doctor! No, forget that, I feel fine – I’m discharging myself!”

The orderly shrugged. “As you wish, but first, look into this.” He held out his hand.

He wasn’t holding a candle any more. In its place was a small antique hand mirror, the sort a Jane Austen heroine might have used. Frowning, Stephen took the mirror by the smooth wooden handle and looked into the oval glass. To his relief he saw himself frowning back, unscarred and intact.

The relief dissipated when the reflection stopped frowning, raised its eyebrows and winked. “Let it go, mate”, it said to him in his own voice. “You’ve been keeping the lid on me for too long. No don’t say anything, arguing with yourself IS a sign of madness. I’m your subconscious you and it’s my turn now, OK? And if you think you’re still in your boring boring BORING conscious world, why have you been talking to a giant jackdaw, hmm?”

Stephen dropped the mirror like it was hot and looked up at the orderly. Who, though still with the body and clothing of a hospital orderly, did indeed now have the head of a giant jackdaw. The feathered head tilted and looked down at him with its penetrating black eye.

“Some cultures were closer to their subconscious worlds than others,” said the jackdaw orderly. “If I stand sideways on I look like an ancient Egyptian god, don’t you think? Think of me as Thoth, God of Wisdom.”

Stephen felt his mind gradually losing its grip on the situation, like he was holding onto sanity but having each finger prised loose in turn. “Thoth had the head of an ibis, not a jackdaw,” he said weakly.

The orderly shrugged his human shoulders and ruffed up the feathers on his avian head. “It’s my day off,” he explained, the great grey beak clacking with each syllable.

Stephen felt light headed. He lay back on the pillow. The room seemed to be becoming blurred at the edges. He felt a battle raging in his head. One part of his mind – the familiar part that he lived with every waking hour – was protesting and fearful, churning out rational explanations: it’s a medical student in a mask playing a prank…or a bad dream as you lie on the operating table…or maybe you’re just a little concussed. The other part of his mind, ignoring this tumult, was thinking for some reason of an –

“Apple?” said the orderly. “A good choice.”

Stephen looked up. The jackdaw head was gone. But he could not see if the figure had its original face again, for in front of it was a large red apple. It simply hung there in mid air, with no visible means of support.

“The apple is laden with symbolism,” said the orderly. “Paris awarded a golden one to Aphrodite, you will recall from your Greek mythology. The Bible doesn’t say what the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was, but everyone just assumes it was an apple. And even in more enlightened times the apple was still credited with inspiring the theory of gravitation.”

The orderly plucked the apple from the air and held it out to Stephen. “A tribute? A curse? An inspiration? Maybe it’s all three.”

As the apple dropped into Stephen’s hand a blue ribbon appeared around it, tied in a neat bow.

“Whatever it is, regard it as a gift,” said the orderly. “A gift from your subconscious. A resolution to all this confusion.”

Stephen looked down at it. Within him the battle in his mind had now stopped, as if the two sides were watching and awaiting what he would do next. He clung to the apple as if his life depended on it. Amid all this weirdness it alone felt firm and solid. It looked like an apple. It smelled like an apple.

“It seems so real doesn’t it?” said the orderly quietly. “But what is reality? What you think back on as your life – school, work, marriage, divorce, retirement, the crash – was that the REAL world that happened when your conscious mind was switched on? Or was it just a construct to fill the time when your unconsciousness was switched off? It’s time to make a choice Stephen. I’m not here to make it for you: just to show you how.” He pointed a long, pale finger at the apple.

Stephen took a deep breath. He bit into the apple.

[Draken]

*

Bright light. Sitting up gasping. Sitting up in a hospital room, in bed, with tubes tugging at his arms. Disappointment.

“Don’t worry!” It’s that orderly. That same one. Stephen blinks.

“Don’t worry! You’ve still not shaken off the construct. This is your consciousness saying goodbye.”

He transforms into a giant jackdaw, not just his head this time, all of him. With a brush of his wings the tubes, the bed, the room dissolve.

“There’s an escalator to the Shepherd Moons,” says the jackdaw. “Most days it’s free but today they pay you in nectar. Shall we go? We can walk or take the neon fish.”

“Neither,” says Stephen, changing into a humming bird. “Let’s fly!”

[Draken]

And finally (thank God you say) - the last exercise for the last session of the course is to write a Christmas ghost story.

[inked]

Ohhh, do be beastly and write something obviously patterned on Dickens :rolleyes: .

Good providence to you!

I like the surrealist.

EDIT: when you have a mo' check out #48 and #50 on the INSTANT POETRY thread and give me a criticism of two back, if you have a mind! Thanks.

[Draken]

Nah, the two rules of world domination: don't march on Moscow and don't take on Dickens at Xmas time!

I've come up with an ok little story I think, given the constraints of time. Will post it in a bit.

Will be happy to look over the poems when I get a minute, ta for the invite!

[Draken]

Here it is then, the last exercise of the course: a Christmas ghost story.

Hope you've found some of the exercises useful. I've enjoyed the course and it has certainly got me writing again and trying out storylines and techniques I wouldn't have attempted otherwise.

So, worthwhile from my point of view!

[Draken]

Bleaklow

The wind tugged at the fog and blew about the thin layer of powdery snow. Frank struggled up out of the narrow stream bed, his flying boots shlucking reluctantly out of the boggy ground that lay beneath the snow. He crested the next outcrop in the vain hope of spotting something other than snowy moorland and solid greyness. But there was nothing to see other than yet another muddy stream cutting through the peat, yet more dead brown heather gathering snow. Beyond, indistinct in the swirling grey, was yet another jagged mass of rock, poking through the hillside’s soft brown skin like broken bones.

He turned to Mitch, who was still standing on the other side of the stream he had just forded. The kid was looking up at him dejectedly. Frank knew Mitch was blaming himself for getting them in this fix: after all, he was the navigator. But Frank wasn’t one for dwelling on such things: he figured they needed to pull together to get through this. Besides, plotting a course through bad weather was never easy. Add to that they were trying to cross an island they knew next to nothing about – well it was an accident waiting to happen.

No, if Frank blamed anyone it was the jerk who wanted the ship ferried across the country by nightfall, and be damned if it was Christmas Day. He looked back the way they had come: a misshapen tail fin could still just be seen above the skyline, black against the grey. Well the jerk sure wasn’t going to get what he wanted.

“C’mon kid,” called Frank. “We need to find some shelter or surviving the crash will be the least of our worries.”

Mitch nodded and clambered down into the deep trench cut by the stream, splashing across it before climbing out over the other bank with difficulty. “Jeez, Frank, I’ve no idea which way to head. You sure we shouldn’t just stay with the plane?”

Frank shook his head firmly. “Those rocks ripped her open like tinfoil,” he reminded. “She’s no good as shelter. And there’s gas pouring everywhere, one spark from a battery and boom.”

Frank hadn’t been much of a one for schooling, but all the same he was smart and blessed with a good memory. He pictured in his mind the map they had pencilled their flight path onto that morning. “We should have been south of this high ground,” he mused out loud. “So we strayed north, but we don’t know how far. I bet we’re in Derby Shire, or maybe even York Shire. Either way, these hills run north to south. So I say we head east or west.”

“The wind was supposed to be from the north east,” offered Mitch. He said this without conviction. He had plotted his course based on the forecast wind: either the direction had changed or it wasn’t as strong as he’d expected. Either that or he had got his calculations completely wrong. That couldn’t have happened…could it?

Frank turned to face the chilly gusts. A few icy little snowflakes stung his eyes. “Ok so let’s say I’m looking north east….” He pointed to the hidden horizon, a way right of where he was looking. “That makes east thataway. Yeah?”

Mitch shrugged and nodded. “Guess so. You’re reckoning we should head that way then?”

Frank shrugged. “Yeah why not. These streams are more or less flowing that way. If all we find is an empty valley, at least we’ll be outta this wind.”

Mitch nodded again. He was a city boy, born and bred: he wasn’t a one for blazing a trail. Frank was older than he was, and a higher rank too. Not only that, he was from a little town way out in the sticks in Virginia. The long flight over the Atlantic had been whiled away by swapping tales of their youth, and Frank’s had been about his days in the mountains, hunting with his pa or just plain skipping school. Frank was a country boy all right, he’d know what to do. Mitch was happy to let him make the decisions.

As he struck off in the direction he had indicated, Frank did not share Mitch’s confidence. He felt light headed and cold. The going was harder than he expected too: with each step his boots disappeared into the sodden peat up to the ankle, and the effort needed to pull them out and move on was sapping him. With the horizon lost in a blur of cloud and fog, he had no points of reference. He couldn’t even tell if they were moving uphill or down: the ground undulated from stream to outcrop and back down to stream.

He climbed over another peat bank and looked up for the rocks he was aiming for. They looked further to the left than he expected. Or was it those rocks over there? They looked so damn similar, he couldn’t be sure…. Despite the cold, a bead of anxious sweat trickled down from his temple. They were gonna survive a plane crash but die on this darned hill, all because he couldn’t find a way off of it! “Goddamn it!” he shouted in sudden frustration, startling Mitch.

Frank guessed which rocks he should be making for and took a pace towards them, but Mitch stopped him. He pulled on the older man’s sleeve, motioning him to shush. “Did you hear that?”

Frank cocked his head. All he could hear was the thin wind gusting around him and whistling in his ears. He was about to shake his head when he caught the faintest sound. It was a sort of high-pitched cry, hollow and eerie. His blood turned to ice.

Both men stood transfixed. The keening came again, a little louder but no less unearthly.

“Frank! Frank!” Mitch was tugging at the older man’s cuff like an insistent kid. “Whaddya think that is, huh?” His eyes were wide and frightened.

“I – I dunno Mitch. Quit pulling at me!”

The young navigator bit his lip. “I mean…you don’t think… you know England is really old right? Maybe it’s a ghost or something? What you think, Frank?”

Frank was thinking he should tell the kid to stop being stupid, but in truth his mind was running down the same road. His pa had told him stories about the ghosts of frontiersmen up in the mountains, and of Indian spirits that prowled the rivers and forests. Mitch was right, England WAS old. And perhaps he was right about what it was out there too…. Frank cleared his throat but said nothing to the kid.

The noise came again. A wordless wailing that trailed off into nothing.

“You – you hear stories about ghosts helping people in a fix, yeah?” babbled Mitch. “You know, there’s no rule says a ghost has to scare you, huh? Could be, you know, the ghost of a friendly shepherd or something?”

A movement ahead of them caught Frank’s attention. An indistinct form in the mist. Something heading towards them. The sound came again, clearer now and definitely being made by the figure : “Helllooo...”

Next instant the shape resolved itself into a person. Frank sighed with relief and smiled around at Mitch before waving his arms above his head. “Yeah, hello! Over here!”

The figure approached. As it emerged from the fog Frank thought at first he must be a military guy too: he wore a bulky green heavy-duty jacket with matching pants. But then it became clear that the ‘he’ was in fact a broad, and one that was too old to be enlisted. Maybe some kinda Limey female reservist?

It didn’t matter. “Boy are we glad to see you!” he greeted.

[Draken]

She stared at him with slightly glazed eyes, like she wasn’t really focussing on him. Though she was standing not more than two yards away, the fog seemed to thicken and swirl about her, making her indistinct.

“I thought I’d heard someone…!” she said uncertainly. “The weather caught you out, too?” She spoke in a funny way that sounded sort of old-fashioned: nothing like how Limeys spoke in the movies.

Frank nodded. “You could say that. We don’t even know where we are.”

“Bleaklow,” she replied.

“Wow, that’s one appropriate name,” said Mitch.

Frank snorted. “Well sure is bleak. But not low enough for my liking. Listen, ma’am, are you as lost as we are? Or do you know a way down off here? Me and the kid really need to get warm and call the base.”

The woman did not answer immediately. Her face was wreathed in mist that was added to by her frozen breath, making it hard to read her expression. There was a distant, other-worldly air to her that made Frank feel ill-at-ease.

“Yes I’m lost,” she said at last. “I know this hill but I’m off my usual path. The fog makes it dangerous: there are cliffs all around. We need to head south and pick up the road.”

Frank looked at Mitch and shrugged. “South, not east hey? Looks like I guessed wrong.”

“But we need to find the monument,” continued the woman. “It’s easy once we find that: due south from there. Have you seen it?”

Both Frank and Mitch shook their heads.

“What about Greygrough Rocks?” she tried. “A set of rounded boulders, three of them together. Two big ones with a smaller one between.”

“Hey!” exclaimed Mitch. “Hey yeah! I saw a bunch of rocks like that! Back that way, near where we started from!”

Frank grinned. “Ok folks, all we have to do now is follow our….” His words faded as he turned to face the way they had just come.

‘Wouldya look at that?’ he said in disbelief. In the brief time they had been standing there, the snow had already managed to obliterate their tracks.

“Well at least we know the rough direction,” said the woman. “It will be all right I’m sure.”

Frank, Mitch and the Brit lady set off back towards, they hoped, the rocks Mitch had spotted. Frank was relieved to be with someone else: she might be a bit kooky and almost as lost as they were, but at least she knew these hills and had a plan to get off them. However as he trudged through the morass of the peat bogs he could not entirely quell the disquiet stirring inside him. There was something wrong about her. The mist moved around her in an odd, clinging way, keeping her blurred and out of focus. And there had been a strange look in her eyes that bothered him.

With Frank advising the woman as best he could on the route, the group picked its way from outcrop to outcrop. Frank was starting to think he didn’t recognise anything around him and wondering if he’d only managed to make things worse for all three of them when the woman suddenly stopped. She pointed to a set of shapes looming indistinctly ahead. “Greygrough Rocks,” she announced.

Then she looked round, scanning for something. “And there’s the monument.” She pointed away to the right.

About twenty yards from the rocks a column of concrete rose from the peat. It was three or four feet high and topped by a slanting slab, edged along one side with snow. Mitch looked from rocks to monument. “How come we didn’t see that before?” he pondered out loud.

Frank strode over towards the monument. As he neared it, the boulders a few yards beyond came into view… and showed themselves to not be boulders at all. They were weathered metal ribs, sparsely covered by a few square yards of crumpled aluminium skin.

“So some other poor saps crashed here?” he asked.

The woman looked down at the aging wreckage and nodded. “Yes. These hills are littered with crash sites I’m afraid,” she said. “They make me sad.” There was a haunted, melancholy look in her eyes.

“So what brings you out here on a Christmas Day?” asked Mitch, trying to lighten things. “Especially in this weather?”

She smiled sadly. “We would always make this our Christmas Day walk – me and my husband. He’s gone now but I like to keep the tradition alive. I suppose I’m just a lost soul that wanders Bleaklow every Christmas Day – year in year out, no matter what the weather.” She sighed and seemed about to say something else, but instead she looked down at the compass she had hung around her neck on a piece of red cord. She held it up and let the needle settle.

“South is that way,” she announced, nodding off to the left somewhere. “We’ll be on the road in fifteen minutes.”

She set off, but something made both airmen linger a moment, unwilling to follow her just yet. “This has been one bitch of a day,” said Frank, looking down at the twisted remnants of the old wreck. “But I guess we’re lucky all the same. I still have no idea how we got out of our plane alive.”

Mitch didn’t reply. Frank looked up at him. He was staring down at the slab that topped the monument. Frank moved over to him and followed his gaze. Mitch raised a trembling finger and pointed to the two names carved on the memorial plaque beneath the crest of the United States Army Air Force.

“We didn’t get out alive, Frank,” he whispered.

*

She turned and looked back, shaken by the experience. As she had expected, there was nobody there. She could still make out the World War Two wreckage and the monument, standing cold and lonely in their patch of snow-crusted moor. Footprints led up to them and then over to where she now stood: just one set of footprints, made by her feet alone. She fancied she maybe caught a last glimpse of the two wartime aviators dissolving into the darkening greyness, but the fog suddenly swirled denser and she could not be sure.

A shiver ran through her and she turned to walk back to safety.

[inked]

Excellent! Very, pardon the pun, atmospheric! :)

[Earniel]

Wow, indeed very atmospheric... You can almost feel the snowflakes in your face and the peat sucking at your boots. I didn't see the twist coming until the very old wreckage was mentioned. Very nice, very nice indeed.

[Draken]

Thanks folks, glad you liked my parting shot! :)

I've always wanted to write SOMETHING about the wrecks in the Peak District (which is in my home county). The larger wreckage is still there to this day. And with the ground being so boggy, quite often the bodies were buried deep underground by the impact of the crash and not recovered. Which is a good basis for a ghost story!

The Americans had some sort of depot at Burtonwood in Cheshire from where they would ferry aircraft to the frontline stations in the East - which could take them over the Peak. But there are also Canadian, German and of course British wrecks there - the hills were very democratic in who they claimed.