The Interview

The Interview

Tolu gazed back at her reflection in the glass window of River Island. She looked positively raggedy in her baggy faded blue jacket, her old black trousers and beat up Reebok Classics. She most definitely didn't look like she was going for a job interview. Ah hell, I should have at least borrowed Abayomi's ballet pumps she thought as she entered the trendy clothes shop on Oxford Street. The security guard eyed her suspiciously at the entrance, she smiled at him earnestly then and he looked away embarrassed. Tolu glanced at her watch as she wandered around, it was quarter to ten, she was early for her interview. As she loafed around the store, Tolu browsed uninterestedly through racks upon racks of different coloured material. She looked positively uncomfortable. Tolu had never been one for shopping, or fashion, or stores in general. In fact clothe shops made her particularly queasy, but hanging around there sure as heck beat hanging about by the door of the office. She glanced at her watch again after a while. It had just gone five to. Alright, she thought, I may as well get this over with.

          She exited the shop and walked a few feet ahead until she reached a small door half open between two shops. Tolu looked inside, there was a young chap in a crisp suit standing in the doorway.

'I'm here to see Erin Samuels' he said into the intercom.

Tolu heard a women's voice on the other side saying come on up, before the door buzzed open, Tolu quickly slipped through the door behind the suited chap.

'Are you here for the interview, for the job at the Natural History Museum?' she asked as followed him up the stairs.

'Yeah, I'm guessing you are too?'

'Yup.'

As they entered through another door a group of trendy young people, all dressed smartly were sat in the lobby. They looked like professional hipsters, if there was such a thing! A lady, probably Erin, appeared then with a corporate smile on her face.

'Right okay, follow me'

          They all followed her through the offices into a small board room with comfy black corporate looking chairs around it, the kind you'd imagine on The Apprentice. Tolu walked over to the back of the room and sunk into a chair in the corner. She looked around the room then at the people around her. They were all quite young, maybe around her age and they all had a creative look about them, unlike her they were dressed to impressed- in that alternative chic hipster fashion. In fact they all looked like they walked right out of the pages of I.D magazine or Tank. As she listened to a few of them exchange words, she quickly picked up on their posh accents, they sounded middle-class for sure. Tolu suddenly felt a bit out of place.

'I've got some paperwork for you all to fill out' Erin said as she began passing down massive wads of paper. Tolu flicked over them incredulously when they finally reached her.

'Ill be back in a bit,' the lady said before leaving the room.

You've got to be kidding me, Tolu thought as she hesitantly picked up a pen and began to fill out the first sheet in her trademark scruffy handwriting.

'Anyone know what wmp stands for?' she asked when she reached the second page. It was full of random little boxes and bits of text.

'I don't know what half this shit means' one of the girls replied. Tolu left it blank and went on to the next page and then the page after that...

          Soon after everyone had finished filling out the forms, conversations started up across the room. Tolu listened to everyone talk about where they were from and what they had been doing. She was right, most of them were artists (or actors or theatre practitioners). As time went on and words had been shared, Tolu had come up with playful, and what she thought, were quite apt names for everyone around the table.

          First there was Afroman, a tall guy with a golden streak in his bushy afro. He was wearing a pin stripe shirt under his punkish leather jacket. He was currently in the process writing a novel about a boy with a disability. Then was Nerdy, he had shiny blond hair and was wearing a v-neck jumper, his face was framed in squarish glasses. Nerdy had just finished his degree in illustration and had recently had his work published in The Observer. Then there was Rabbit Girl, she was an actress who had just left her job at Cyber Candy in the city, she wore a green jacket and had a side plait. Miss Priss definitely looked the poshest out of all of them, she spoke the poshest too. She had just finished her degree in Art History and was looking for gallery work. She had emailed about thirty places that week to find a job or a placement. Then there was Pretty Boy, he had that rich boy look about him, he spoke with a certain confidence. He had finished his masters at the University of Arts and had since applied for over two hundred placements, or so he claimed.  Irish Blondie looked like the oldest in the group, he had also finished a masters in Fine Art. Then there was Red-Head, she was a newbie in London, a confident theatre practitioner looking for a job. And then there was Slick. The dark-haired mysterious guy Tolu had followed up, he had wavy shoulder length hair, a tiny moustache and of course he was wearing that crisp suit. Tolu wondered then what her name would be...

        Soon a different lady came into the room and began going over the forms. Once she had finished she collected all the paperwork back.

'Okay now for the ice-breaker. I want you to get to know the person sitting next to you. I want to know what they've been doing for the last couple of years, what their interests are and then I want you both to come up with a joke.' The Asian lady left then and Tolu reluctantly turned to Slick, the dark-haired boy with the crisp suit and tiny moustache.

'So what are we supposed to discussing?' he asked.

'I have no idea, I spaced out,' Tolu replied. 

'Ah I hate this sort of thing.'

'Yeah me too.'

'So what have you been doing for the last two years then?'

Tolu thought for a minute, what have I been doing?

'Floating, ah I don't know all sorts of stuff...' she said vaguely before quickly turning it around, 'What about you?'

'Err I recently finished my degree in Fine Art at Bournemouth.'

'Oh cool, did you like the course?'

'Yeah, no... it was great. For my final year project I walked the Thames path and recorded the sounds along the way.

'No way, now that's interesting!' Tolu said genuinely, she'd always liked walking, especially along waterways or rivers.

'Yeah the recording came out really good. I started walking at 1'am from Hampton Court, it was quiet then.'

'Did you finish off somewhere around Canvey Island' Tolu asked.

'Nah Erith..the landscape was bizarre, like something out of that film Hook, dotted with rotting pirate boats and shit.'

'Cool, that must've been quite the project. I would never have thought about recording something like that through sound.'

'A big part of the work was on how you would document it, if you decided to use film, you would be judged by the way you'd go about filming it, the techniques you used, even the very process of filming it. But with sound, it's different.'

'That's interesting.'

'Yeah I mean, I'm more interested in music now. Like songs for instance they're like a memory bank of stuff that's happened, music triggers off all sorts of mental stuff...'

'That's deep,' Tolu said.

'So did you go to uni?' he then asked somewhat curiously.

'Yeah I did BA in Astronomy, Space Science and Astrophysics at Kent.'

'Seriously, that's a degree?' he asked a bit surprised.

'Oh yeah,' Tolu replied.

'Wow, that's different!' he said suddenly taking more of an interest in her. 'So you into stars and cosmos and science and shit?'

'Yeah, something like that' Tolu said laughter in her voice. She was used to people's reactions when she told them what and where she had studied. She had to admit, it was a pretty random course to do, especially if you're a black girl from a working class family living in Peckham. 

'You should have applied for a job at the Science Museum.'

'Yeah well, I like to be different,' she said in a deadpan voice.

'Ah I need a job,' Slick said then, 'It's so bad being back at home after living out for three years.'

'I know' Tolu said. He probably didn't know how good he had it compared to her. 

          Just then the lady who gave out the forms returned. 'Okay great, so lets go around the room and you can tell us about the person you've been talking to.' One by one, everyone offered up random bits of information about the person sitting next to them, what they were doing, a general story or opinion, a lame joke here and there- though most people opted out of offering a joke deeming them to be inappropriate for the interview setting. Tolu quickly gathered that almost everyone in the room was either a graduate or a post-graduate. They were all arty and creative and thus they ended up where most arty and creative people did, applying for low-paid and morale-destroying jobs, for society didn't have room for the artist. After the introductions were done with, and the lame jokes offered up, Erin got down to business.

'So just to make this clear, you're all here for the retail positions at the Natural History Museum, is that right?' Everyone around the room nodded and chorused a vague yes'.

'Good. If you get it you'll be paid about £6.19 an hour.'

'Isn't that the national minimum wage?' Rabbit Girl asked surprised

'Yes, something like that,' Erin replied skittishly. Suddenly Tolu didn't feel quite so bad for looking so street.

          The morning continued to drag on. They were split up into two groups. Tolu ended up with Miss Priss, Pretty Boy, Afroman and the Red-Head. They went into another room and concocted a sufficiently cringey play to highlight the do's and don't's of customer service. Tolu volunteered to play the kid who presents his weird drawing of the dinosaur to the shop assistant. Miss Priss would play his mother and Afroman, the awful sales assistant who would crack up laughing at the drawing and take pictures of it. Pretty Boy would then play the over-helpful and polite assistant who would help Red-Head pick a good book. Once they were done rehearsing they went back into the board room to join the others and there they performed their D-grade play to the others. It was positively awful. The next group followed and began displaying a number of illustrations the creative genius, Nerdy had done. Rabbit Girl and Slick offered well-timed one liners in order to make the experience a little less dire. God, what happened to the good old days of just giving your CV out in shops, Tolu thought as she watched the group from her seat. This was just plain rubbish, a bloody three hour inquisition for a temporary minimum- wage shop assistant position. What was the world coming too! Once they were done, the members of the group took their seats and Erin stood up and explained to them what they would have to do next.

'Outside there are a number of objects, what you have to do is try to sell them. Try to remember the acronym FAB when you're up here, the features, advantages and benefits of the product. Now who wants to go first?'

Rabbit Girl volunteered herself, she went outside and came back with a small ornate elephant.

'What I have here is a beautiful ornate elephant...' she said twirling the object in her hand 'It's hand-carved and ethnic, perfect for the mantle peace or to prop up books...'

She sat down after she had run out of things to say. Miss Priss was next, she picked out a small tub of lotion from the body-shop.

'It's perfect for those of you with dry skin. It smells glorious...' she continued, it was almost unbearable to watch. This went on for a while. Pretty Boy tried to sell a pack of throat Soothers, claiming that they were instilled with magic dust and were known for their marvellous healing qualities. Nerdy presented a small Spongebob treasure chest. Slick, got a small Australian flag, his piece was by far the most entertaining, marked by an incredulous sarcasm and humour.

'I'd sell it for minus 30p,' he finished. Tolu could tell that her comrades were just as horrified and in awe of the whole ridiculous charade as she was. All this for a £6.19 an hour job. Is this what it's come to, life? 

          Tolu was the last to go. She went outside and looked at all the objects on the table, they had all been used apart from one- a pair of tacky bangles. Ah hell, she thought picking them up and walking back into the room.

'Err so I have a pair of stunning pearl-studded bracelets here,' she began feeling more and more stupid with every word. 'You can wear one on each wrist, or on each ankle. They're great for kids and for the ladies and for guys too, if you're into that sort of thing...' She looked ahead at the blank faces of her fellow comrades. 'And you can even get your name engraved into the silver...' she finished. 'That was rubbish,' she said to no one in particular as they clapped for her. She quickly sat back down, she didn't care. Pants, everything about the interview was pants! I went to space school for four years for this?! Tolu thought suddenly feeling quite upset and angry at the system.

          Finally Erin stood up again and offered a final few words instructing the group to keep their phones on and that they would be hearing from them shortly. As soon as she was done talking, the hipsters and creative's began to slowly file out. Tolu grabbed her bag and her jacket before she followed them. Once outside she noticed Irish Blondie and Rabbit Girl lighting up cigarettes by the doorway.

'Can you believe that?' Tolu asked them incredulously.

They both grimaced as they shook their heads in awe.

'It's insane'

'What a joke!' Rabbit Girl said. They stood there in a contemplative silence for a few seconds.

'Anyway It was nice to meet you guys' Tolu said then, 'See you around.' They both offered their goodbyes and Tolu turned around and walked towards the tube station.

          As Tolu walked down the escalator at Oxford Circus station she was met by a man busking in the open underground. He was playing his guitar as he sung The Smiths.

Take me out tonight 
Take me anywhere, I don't care 
I don't care, I don't care 
And in the darkened underpass 
I thought Oh God, my chance has come at last 
But then a strange fear gripped me and I 
Just couldn't ask

          As Tolu stood and watched him a forlorn feeling washed over her, for nothing makes one more forlorn than a busker singing a song by The Smiths (or Johnny Cash for that matter). It was hypnotizing and Tolu felt herself drifting to another place. Once the song had ended she placed a few well-valued pound coins on top of the the buskers coat on the floor, they exchanged a smile and she made her way back down. On the train platform she noticed a billboard advertising a photography exhibition at the Natural History Museum and she laughed a bit. What a joke! She thought, what a joke this life was!

          Tolu decided to head somewhere nice. She decided to head to Regents Park, the sun was shining and the autumn colours looked beautiful and the wind blew and suddenly she didn't feel quite so troubled. Suddenly the world made a bit more sense and seemed a bit less crazy. As she wandered around the park, Tolu noticed a familiar looking person, an old friend, Jas was sat on a park bench reading a book. She couldn't quite believe it, it really was Jas. She hadn't seen her for months.

'Jas!' Tolu called out, just then the young mixed race woman looked up.

'Tolu! She exclaimed surprised, she jumped out of her seat and hugged her friend.

'What are you doing here?'

'I just had a job interview, thought I'd go for a bit of walk...'

         The two of them wandered around the park together arm-in-arm- lamenting, laughing and sharing woeful stories of life as unemployed bums. They finally settled on a bench by the fountains, opposite the park gardeners and Jas regaled Tolu with stories of her recent travels and read her some of a short story from a horror book she was reading. Tolu felt glad then, that she went to the interview, for it led to her to being there with her friend, after such a long, long time apart....

        When Tolu checked her phone that evening she saw she had a received a voice-mail, she was hesitant to check it. She did and through the phone she heard Erin's voice, 'we want to invite you to the assessment day at the Natural History Museum, give us a call back and we'll give you the details.' Tolu couldn't believe it. She got through, beat up Reeboks an' all. But she thought then, she thought carefully- did she really want to go for another assessment day? Another uber-lame group interview? Was it worth it? Ah of course she would go- just for the laugh, for the experience and for where it could lead. Maybe to another long lost friend, another interesting conversation, another opportunity...who knew. 

Group Photo

Group photo from a walk I organised for Tooting sisters circle- it was great trip!

...and another group photo from a trip I organised for Goldsmiths ISOC to the Hope Gap...

Just Another Day In London

I was hanging around London with a mate today, it was great, we went to quite a few different places including the Rain Room at the Barbican, Angel, a Turkish Mosque and a few other places around Hackney. I really loved the Rain Room (despite the long wait!) I'd recommend a visit to anyone living in London. It sort of reminded me of the Yohji Yamamoto exhibition that was on at the Wapping Hydraulic Power Station... I've included some info below from the Barbican Centre website.

Random International invites you to experience what it’s like to control the rain. Visitors can choose to simply watch the spectacle or find their way carefully through the rain, putting their trust in the work to the test. More than the technical virtuosity necessary for its success, the piece relies on a sculptural rigour, with the entire Curve transformed by the monumental proportions of this carefully choreographed downpour and the sound of water. 

Romney Marsh

I really enjoyed exploring the mysterious and desolate landscape of Romney Marsh the other day. I've since been doing a bit of research on the area and found this fascinating article on the BBC website.

The name Romney or Rumenea derives from Old English for a wide river, originally referring to the Romney Marsh in general, not just the port towns of Old and New Romney. During the 13th century violent storms swept along the coastline and New Romney was devastated by ferocious storms in 1287 and 1288. The River Rother had altered its course by this time and was flowing through Rye. The harbour was lost as shingle and mud swept into New Romney and severed its links with the sea.

"The World, according to the best geographers, is divided into Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Romney Marsh", wrote the Reverend Richard Harris Barham, writing as Thomas Ingoldsby, in The Ingoldsby Legends, his gothic tales of superstition and folklore, in the 1840s. It's not hard to see why he described the area on the Kent/Sussex border as being an altogether separate part of the world. Even today, where caravan sites dot the coast and the nuclear power stations stand bleakly on the shingle shore of the English Channel at nearby Dungeness, it is still possible to see exactly what Barham meant. At its heart, the 100-square-mile marsh is almost as mysterious and lonely as it was in the 17th century. A thousand years ago it would have been a vast area of reeds and water and some of the church ruins were once on an island. This was all drained away in the 1960's.

It has a strange beauty and the area has always had to defend itself against the elements as well as against foreign invaders. Due to the isolation of the area, its low lying marshland, and being close to France, the marsh churches are unusual, leading to the suspicion that one of their primary uses was smuggling. The marshes and the small villages were dominated by smugglers or 'owlers' where smugglers swapped local wool for brandy from France. There were pitched battles between smugglers and the revenue officers in most towns. Some reports speak of 200 smugglers regularly using an inn when the revenue men had a day off!

St Clement of Old Romney was a film setting for legendary Doctor Syn, a 18th century smuggler. It was based on book A Tale of the Romney Marsh by Russell Thorndike. (1915). The boxed pews were painted pink and stayed pink. Today, it is a flat landscape of rich soil stretching out under an immense sky, defended from the sea by a bank of shingle dotted with Romney Marsh sheep, or 'Kents', skylarks and soul-soothing towns. it still conjures up the memory of great writers who called this corner of England home. Romney Marsh sheep are seen in the open fields which are often swept with harsh winds and heavy rainfall. Their hooves are resistant to foot rot and their fleeces remain healthy in the harsh weather. They are exported all over the world.

Historians, fishermen, farmers, painters and ecologists describe the spirit of the place and what it means to them. “Wilderness is terribly important to people,” says one local. “Perhaps it is a sense that there is somewhere left to go.”

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/content/articles/2006/02/08/romney_marsh_church_ruins.shtml

First Claim

First Claim

Zoya looked up at the shabby building with the small green Job Centre Plus sign poking out of its side. She then glanced at her watch, it had just gone past ten. She was early. Maybe I could go for a walk and then come back, she thought to herself. She knew she wouldn't, come back, but maybe that would be okay. Maybe she could just keep searching...
          As Zoya stood there considering whether or not to go in, a heavy rain began to fall from the grey sky. She looked up ahead at the entrance, there was a lone hooded man sat on the near wall smoking, his large bulldog was sniffing the concrete beside him. Zoya took a deep breath as she reluctantly made her way to the side door. It will be alright, she said to herself as she went inside, it will be fine. The small area inside was empty- there was a door at the end of the narrow passage way, a flight of stairs and a single lift. Zoya decided on the lift. As she pressed the button, the lift doors opened and she hesitantly walked in, she was followed in by a young Chinese woman. The hefty metal doors clanked shut behind her.

'Do you know which floor the reception is on? Is it the first floor?' Zoya asked the lady after a few seconds of silence. Just then, the lift doors opened and Zoya stuck her head out. There was no one around.

'I think it's the next floor,' the lady said as she stuck her head back in.

'Great, thanks.'

After a quick ascent, the lift doors opened again and the lady got off. Zoya followed her onto the second floor. She pushed open the door and walked inside the large open area crammed with identical desks with smart looking advisers behind them. There were two tall security guards on either side of the doorway looking down at her expectantly.

'Do have an appointment?' the podgier man said.

'I have an interview, at 10:30' Zoya responded sheepishly.

'Do you know who it's with?'

'No, this is my first time here.'

'New claims, second floor' he said.

'Okay thanks' And so Zoya turned back around, exited through the doors and walked up the narrow stairs. When she got to the third floor, she was met by two men who looked strangely identical to the men she had just passed downstairs. The area looked exactly the same too, with those same desks and monitors and advisers. As she absent-mindedly scanned her surroundings one of the two men turned his attention to her.

'Do you have your attendance card?' he asked

'No, I'm here for an interview.'

Right then a young Asian lad wearing cords and a chequered shirt not much older than her casually swaggered over clipboard in hand.

'What's your last name?' he asked.

'Doorani,' Zoya replied. She peered over at the long list in front of him and scanned it till she found her name near the bottom, she pointed at it and he ticked her off the list.

'Alright, you can take a seat. It will be a while.'

          Zoya wandered over to the sofa seats. They were all taken and so she stood awkwardly by the wall and watched the people flit around her. The place was buzzing with all sorts of different characters, young and old and of an assortment of colours. She felt strangely out of place. Zoya wondered whether to turn around and go back. No, she wouldn't, she would wait. She had come this far- no, she would face it. A woman approached the seated area right then and called out a name, a middle-aged man got up and followed her. Zoya wandered over and took the newly empty seat beside an old man and a young woman. Both were still and appeared to be lost in thought and Zoya turned her attention back to the circus that was the third floor. The advisers were click, click, clicking on the their computer mouses and there were bits of paper scattered and the same questions were repeated at all corners of the room: Do you have proof of identity? Are you claiming any housing benefits? Are you a carer? As she watched and waited, Zoya found herself wondering what their stories were, the different people, the colourful characters...

          Outside the rain was still falling from the grey October sky and the people filed in and out and everyone knew what to do and where to go and she just stared into space and her thoughts drifted and she listened and watched and waited. Some of the conversations were more interesting than others, some of the questions too, like why did you leave France? Or where have you been living all this time? When was your house repossessed? Zoya wanted to know more about the different people and had she been any where else she would have struck up a conversation with someone for sure, but this was new territory for Zoya. She felt displaced and rather uncomfortable and a bit guilty too, for being there. She had never had trouble finding a job in the past. Zoya had been working since she was seventeen, in fact this was the first time she was unemployed in five years. It had all happened so suddenly, things had fallen apart and now here she was- signing on at the job centre. What was worse, was that Zoya had no idea what she wanted to do, she didn't really know why she was there or what she was looking for. She felt lost. She felt like she was going nowhere in life- fast. The days were flitting by, months too and she wasn't moving, she wasn't going anywhere.

          Suddenly, after what seemed like a lifetime of waiting, a lady called her name. Zoya jumped out of her seat, walked over and planted herself in front of the desk.

'Hi, my name is Pat and I'll be helping you today,' the lady in front of her said. She was a big friendly woman- she had warmth about her, a natural friendliness.

'I'm Zoya.'

'Do you have any ID love?' Pat asked

Zoya looked through her bag and took out her passport. She slid it across the desk and the woman picked it up and flicked to the last page to see the picture.

'Great, I'm just going to need to photocopy this. But first, lets go through some the details on your application together, just to make sure you haven't missed anything or made any mistakes.' She tilted the computer monitor around so that Zoya could see it and then read the information out loud. Zoya followed, looking at the screen. Everything was a muddle, all that was written down, it was all incoherent and random – her work history and studies and finances and everything. Zoya felt disconnected to the words, they were out of touch with her reality, her real life- none of it mattered.

        Zoya nodded along all the time and kept repeating 'that's OK, that's all fine' until they had gone over the entire application.

'Right, so you need to sign these papers and then you'll see an advisor who will book you in for your first appointment,' Pat said finally. 'You can take a seat again and you'll be called over.'

'Okay thanks.'

          Zoya got up and moved towards a different set of sofa seats, this time in the middle of the room -they were empty. Not long after she sat down she was joined by an old Indian man and then a few minutes later a young black guy. He sat down a seat away from her, headphones in ears and legs outstretched, with a confidence and coolness that suggested that this was a pretty regular visit for him. As Zoya waited she once again become immersed in her surroundings. At the desk in front an advisor was talking to a man and woman, beside them was a toddler in a pushchair. Next to them a middle-aged Jamaican woman was speaking into a headset. As soon as her conversation had ended she warmly shouted 'Ai badman!' to the guy sat near to Zoya. He nodded at her as he shuffled in his seat before turned to face Zoya.

'Do you have your appointment with her?' he asked sympathetically.

'I have no idea,' Zoya said glad someone was actually talking to. 'Do you?'

'Nah, I'm with that lady over there,' he said pointing to the smart Asian lady in a corner.

'I don't know who I'm supposed to see, this is my first time here, I think someone's supposed to be calling me...'

'What time's your interview?' the guy asked.

'10:30' Zoya replied.

'Not long then.'

'It's 11:30 now' Zoya said laughing.

'Ah yeah..' he said not at all put out. He seemed to be a bit out of touch with time in a way that people with jobs weren't. There was a glad freeness about him, a certain sublime. 

'I had an appointment with a finance assessor first,' Zoya continued.

'Ah.'

'Where are you coming from?' she asked him then.

'Battersea, what about you?'

'Mitcham.' He nodded in acknowledgement of some kind of shared unspoken kinship. The silence resumed for a while.

'How old are you?' the young man asked.

'Twenty-three,' Zoya replied.

'You're young'

'How old are you?'

'Twenty-five,'

'You're young' Zoya repeated and he laughed.

'Where are you from?' he asked. Zoya thought for a minute.

'Originally?'

'Yeah.'

'Afghanistan, you?'

'Africa' he said a sense of pride evident in his voice.

'Ah cool, where in Africa?' He muttered a reply but Zoya didn't hear, maybe Rwanda she thought, he looked Rwandan.

'I'm Callum' he said finally.

'Zoya.'

          Just then the big man at the door came up from behind. 'Miss, the lady's calling you.' Slightly put out, Zoya quickly got up and followed him to a desk where a small stern looking lady was sat waiting.

'Okay I've got a lot of paperwork for you to fill out' she said before Zoya even sat down. 'I should tell you now that as you chose to leave your last job you might not be entitled to JSA.'

'But I was only working on a casual basis,' Zoya said annoyed. She knew something would come up, things were never simple or straight-forward for her. There had to be some sort of problem, there always was.

'It doesn't matter. I need you to sign and date this and then this and then fill out this form.' Zoya looked down at the ever growing pile of papers feeling overwhelmed.

'Is this your first time claiming?' she asked looking Zoya in the eye for the first time.

'Yes' Zoya replied quietly before asking the one question that mattered to her at that moment 'If I don't get JSA then is there any point of me coming here?'

The lady shifted in her seat.

'That's up to you, you'll receive national insurance credits...' she went on for a bit speaking in a language Zoya didn't understand before changing the subject.

'Okay so I've put you down for admin roles as that's what you've been doing for the last fifteen months...' Zoya was lost. Admin? What?

'I'm not looking for an admin position, my last job was in visitor services.' The lady looked at Zoya blankly.

'Okay, I will just sign these,' Zoya said, she suddenly had an overwhelming urge to escape. She quickly signed and dated the pieces of paper, before moving on to the form. She stared at it for a long while not knowing what to write. If only she had stuck with the same job for long enough, if only her work history wasn't so scatty, if only she didn't look so crazy on paper! She jotted down anything before swiftly sliding the papers back to the woman sat opposite her.

'Look, when you have your first appointment, you'll have a lot clearer idea of what to do,' she said reassuringly. Zoya didn't buy it. The job centre didn't have the answers she needed. Of course they didn't.... 

'So this is your first appointment,' the lady said handing her a small attendance booklet with a date jotted along a blank white space. 'You'll have to come in once ever two weeks, however this week there aren't any available advisers. You'll have to sign in anyway. That's everything' she finished. 
'Okay thanks,' Zoya said as she quickly stuffed the papers in her bag and got up to leave. She said a quick goodbye to the security guards as she exited though the door and then hurriedly walked down the stairs. 
          It was still raining heavily when she stepped outside, she pulled her hood over her head. So now what, Zoya thought, as she wandered down the street. She decided on a whim to head to Waterstones to read for a while, to be transported to a different place for a bit, before getting the bus back South...

Camber Sands and Rye Harbour

A friend and I spontaneously decided to go on a road trip yesterday! It was great. We ended up checking out Camber Sands, Rye Harbour Nature Reserve and Romney Marsh. On the way back to London, we even stopped by Bodiam Castle. I really love the South of England, the landscapes are so incredibly varied and every village has it's own unique character...

The White Jeffrey

This short piece was inspired but the lovely 'white Jeffrey' I crossed paths with in Chipstead a few days ago...

The White Jeffrey

At the end of another long hike, Hira and Kas walked up the railway platform and towards the ticket machine looking forward to a well deserved evening meal back in London. As they approached they noticed an elderly Englishman on his phone smiling at them. He was wearing a fine tweed coat and a gentlemanly straw hat on his head and looked quite otherworldly. He offered a friendly nod of acknowledgement as they approached and they both smiled at him. Hira topped up her oyster at the machine as Kas waited. When she got back, the old man finished his phone conversation and turned to the girls.  

'You look like you've been on quite the adventure!' he said as he looked down at Hira's and Kas' mud encrusted boots and clothes, fortunately Kas didn't look as dishevelled, despite getting jumped by several dogs with mud on their paws.   

'We walked the Chipstead Downs. It was beautiful!' Hira said enthusiastically. 'We even spotted a few wild rabbits!' 

'Ah it is beautiful- this countryside' he said gesturing to the green hills on either side of the quiet suburban station 'You know, I used to cycle across the South Downs when I was young.'

'Really? We go walking there quite often,' Kas said.  

'Glorious landscapes. Mind you, the trips did take a lot out me, what with some of the hills being as steep as they are!'

'Oh I can imagine!' 

'We should do that. We should cycle the downs.' Hira said to Kas, Kas nodded in agreement. 

'Where are you girls coming from?'

'South London and East London' Kas said pointing to herself and then to her friend beside her.

'I'd love to live somewhere around here,' Hira said. 

'Ah I think a lot of people would love to live here! Though I have to say I miss London. I moved down here from Kentish Town with my wife for a job.'

'Really?' Hira asked.

'Did you ever watch that programme The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.' 

'Yeah of course!' Kas said surprised that the old gentleman had made reference to the cool sitcom.  

'Well I'm the white Jeffrey,' he said earnestly 'I'm a butler!' 

'Wow, seriously?' Hira said in awe. 

'I work for a nice chap, he's very rich, older than me can you imagine!' he said gladly. As the three of them waited for the train to arrive, they got lost in conversation. 

'...when you're young everyone looks different, everyone's going off in different directions and trying to make something out of their lives but then when you get old, when you get to my age, you end up in the same place and everyone looks the same. We all look the same!' the old man exclaimed. 

'Hmm I never thought about it that way...' Hira said. Soon the direction of the conversation shifted. 

'So you girls must be Muslim,' the man declared.

'Yup' Kas confirmed.   

'It's a lovely religion, Islam' he said. Come again, Kas thought surprised. 

'That's refreshing!' 

'We don't get to hear that very often!' Hira added. 

'Ah well, most people just believe what's in the media. They're ignorant really. You know I'm thinking of converting one day,' he said thoughtfully. 'Did you ever go to that mosque by Regents Park?'

'Central mosque? I got there quite often, almost every Friday' Kas said.

'I go there every now and again, for a curry. I remember the first time I went, I asked the young chap by the door if I could go in to the restaurant and he said you don't have to be a Muslim to eat here! The food was very tasty!' 

'Good value too,' Kas added, 'I love that mosque, I always end up going for a long walk through the park and down the Grand Union Canal afterwards.'

'Great isn't it!' He then slipped out an antique time-piece from his jacket pocket. It was round and silver with a thin chain attached to it- the train would be arriving soon. 

'Anyway I'll leave you both to plan your journey,' he said with one last smile 'It was nice to meet you!'

'It was really nice to meet you too!' the girls chorused, both a bit in awe of having met such an interesting fellow....

Banstead Countryside Walk

I went on a circular walk today around Banstead Woods and Chipstead Downs. It was beautiful! Autumn, in my opinion is def the best season for hiking. For any of you living in or around London, I'd really recommend a visit. Chipstead Station is only 30 minutes from London Bridge and in Travelcard Zone 6.

This last year, I've discovered some really beautiful chalk grassland sites bordering London including Quarry Hangers, Happy Valley, Chapel Bank and Saltbox Hill. Many of these sites are accessible via public transport and really worth checking out especially if you're in interested in wildlife...Here are a few photos I took along the way.....

Cowdray Ruins

I took these pictures today in Midhurst, West Sussex using my new camera....

Imagine...

Free...

Extradition Documentary

I've been following the story of Barbar Ahmed and Talha Ahsan for a while now, and have even met Barbar's dad on a few occasions. For those of you who don't know, Talha Ahsan is a British-born poet and writer with Asperger syndrome facing extradition to America. Babar Ahmad is a 38 year old British Muslim and the longest detained-without-charge British detainee held as part of the global ‘war on terror’. In December 2003 Babar was arrested at his London home under anti-terror legislation. By the time he reached the police station Babar had sustained at least 73 forensically recorded injuries. Six days later he was released without charge. In August 2004 Babar was re-arrested in London and taken to prison pursuant to an extradition request from the US under the controversial, no-evidence-required, Extradition Act 2003. The US has alleged that in the 1990s Babar was a supporter of “terrorism”. Babar denies any involvement in terrorism. He has now been in prison for more than seven years even though he has not been charged in the UK, despite 141,000 British citizens signing a petition to put him on trial in the UK.
For more info: http://www.freebabarahmad.com/ http://freetalha.org/

One Winter's Morning

Half a Mind

A Swift Landing

Communities like you...

A Red Sail

 

....it's only a passing thing, this shadow.

“It's like in the Great Stories, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? 

But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too young to understand why. But I think I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something-that there's some good in the world, and it's worth fighting for!”  

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

The Whispering Chattri

So I think this might be my last South Downs story for a while....

The Whispering Chattri

Sunil struck a match and with it, he lit the incense stick that rested in the small glass vase in front of him. A warm sweet aroma swiftly began to diffuse into the thick cool air around him. The scented particles intertwined with the floating particles of music. As he sat on the stone steps of the Chattri, he watched the tiny columns of white smoke swirl upwards into the night sky from the glowing amber tip, he absorbed the faint melodic notes of an old Hindi folk song that resonated around him. The dark navy blue sky was adorned in crystal stars, the contours of the white dome gleamed brilliantly in the moonlight and a wind, a whispering wind, blew softly across the hills. He felt a warmth wash over him then, a calmness. He was home now. He was home.

           Sunil repeated this ritual every once in a while when he was feeling particularly homesick. He would walk up the grassy hills from Patcham and settle on the steps of the Chattri where he would chant a prayer, play the same Hindi folk song on his old Nokia, light an incense stick and bask in the warmth. He was back where he belonged. He was back in his small rural village in faraway India.

           Sunil stretched his legs out and lay down flat on the step. His head descended onto the icy stone and he gazed up at the dark sky, a weariness travelled through his body and settled within his heart. He hadn't slept much during the night, in fact he couldn't remember the last time he had. Sunil still couldn't get used to sleeping on a bed, he wasn't accustomed to it. His whole life he had slept on a charpai, a bedstead of hemp stretched on a wooden frame held up by its four legs. He couldn't get used to the sinking feeling he would get when he lay on the bed. He would lie awake for hours waiting for sleep to descend upon him, with only his restless thoughts for company. He would find himself wondering how he had arrived there, in that strange town in a foreign land. He would wonder what everyone was doing back home in his village- he could imagine his mum gathering the crops from the fields and his father and brother ploughing the land. He could picture them coming together at nightfall to share roti, salan and stories. Sometimes while he was lost in his thoughts, he would hear the laughter of his flatmates rise up from the lower levels, it offered him a lonely sort of comfort. A distant longing. 

           As a cool wind blew through him and a single starling flit across the sky, Sunil brought to mind all the images that had made up the day, all the moments. He had woken up at sunrise and walked by the seafront before going in to university to sit his lecture. Afterwards he spent a few hours in the library studying, then at dusk he started his evening shift at Bombay Spice where he worked as a waiter. His mum had called him just as he was about to leave. She didn't call him very often, maybe once a month and he always got that same inexplicable feeling when she did, when he heard her soft voice on the other end of the line. She asked him how he was doing and he dutifully responded that he was doing fine, better than fine, he was doing well. She told him she was cooking daal that evening, his favourite and he would cheerfully reminisce about her cooking and then she regaled him with the goings on in the village. He cherished the brief conversations he shared with her. They made him feel more connected to reality- to his reality and to a way of life that made sense to him.

           Sunil felt his eyes well up as he remembered her final words. 'Beta, mujhe tumhari yaad bahut ati hai,' she had said with a deep maternal warmth. Son, I miss you very much. Sunil replied with a gruff, I miss you too mah, before putting the phone down quickly. He felt his sadness rise to the surface and knew his voice was on the verge of breaking. She would know. If he continued talking to her, she would know. She would hear it in his voice- the pain, the loss, the longing to be home again. The words were always on his lips, always. He could never say them. He could never voice the words- Mah, can I come back? Mah, main akela hoon. I am alone. He couldn't burden her with his heavy thoughts and abiding grief. He wouldn't, not after everything she had done for him- everything she had given him and given up for him. No, he would endure it. He would go on. He had to. Sunil slowly closed his eyes and pretended that he was back at home again, lying on his charpai outside under the Indian sky.

           Sunil had found out about the Chattri three months ago. Early one morning he was walking by the seafront in Brighton when he came by an old Indian man, a guru named Sri Nagavanshi. He saw Sunil, he saw the troubled look that marred his face and so he called him over in Hindi and asked him questions, a whole series of questions. He asked him about his life and his family and his studies and what had brought him here- to that bright and colourful seaside town and Sunil told him, he told him everything.

           He couldn't remember how long they had been there, time seemed to dissipate as they got lost in conversation, otherworldly conversation about the cosmos and the sun and the fields and the constellations. They shared stories and memories of India too- of the smell of gol gappas and sweet jalebis, the colours of the rainbow- reds and yellows and oranges and golds and the cacophony of sounds and the people. They talked a lot about the people- the rickshaw drivers and the shop keepers, the crooks and the beggars and the beautiful women. Sunil couldn't have been more grateful to be there, to have someone to talk to, to connect with. He couldn't have been more grateful to have someone to speak his language with. It was a great gift to be able to communicate in his mother-tongue. A gift he never appreciated till he arrived in England. Soon, as morning gave way to noon and before they parted ways, the wise old guru promised Sunil he would take him to the Chattri, a memorial dedicated to the Indian soldiers who fought and died in the First World War. They would say a prayer together. Sunil agreed, he would surely go. He missed his lecture that morning, it was the first and only lecture he had missed since beginning his degree programme at Brighton University.

           A few days later, just before sunrise Sunil met Sri Nagavanshi at the foot of the hill in Patcham and they walked up together in silence. He couldn't describe the feeling he got when he set eyes upon the white dome in the middle of the open hills, in the soft light of dawn. He climbed up the steps behind the old guru and watched as he lit an incense stick and placed it in a small glass vase on the ground. They both performed the ritual chants and then sat down to watch the sunrise. Sunil remembered that morning well, he remembered everything Sri Nagavanshi had told him about the Chattri- the secrets it held, the whispers of his countrymen, the spirits that reigned the hills. He regaled Sunil with the history of the monument and the story of the fifty-three soldiers who were cremated on the hills nearly a hundred years ago. He told Sunil how it happened- how the mourners would gather together at the bottom and the bodies would be carried, they would chant as they crossed the downs. He told him about the rituals. Sunil was familiar with them, but so far removed they were from the land surrounding him, that he couldn't quite seem to picture it- the sprinkling of water on the concrete, the building up of the wood blocks for burning, the exposing of the face, honey and ghee passing though the deceased Indian's lips. Despite being so far from home, from their families and their relatives, they were cremated in the same way as their ancestors. It was a beautiful and comforting thing to know and as Sunil listened to the old man, he felt his connection to the Chattri grow.

           Ever since that morning, the morning Sri Nagavanshi had taken him to the memorial, Sunil had felt a great affinity to the stone white Chattri and the fields that surrounded them. He felt an even greater affinity towards the Indian soldiers who were cremated there, the soldiers who had died in a land so far from home. He often went to the Chattri when he was feeling homesick. He would usually hike up at night, when the fields were still and absent and the holy moonlight would bathe the dome.

          Sunil was still and calm under the sky. He cherished the moments he spent there resting. It was the only place he could rest. It was the only place he had discovered, since his arrival eighteen months ago, that he felt protected and safe. As he rested his body, he found his mind wonder, as it so often did. He thought about the soldiers that were cremated at the spot where he lay. He listened to them whispering in the wind, he felt their presence in the air and in the surrounding soil and he offered them a prayer. He spoke to them, as he often did. He asked them questions, a myriad of them. Why did you come here? Why did you leave India? Did you ever feel as lonely or displaced as I do now? Did you miss your family as much I miss mine? Did you miss your mothers' aloo paratha's? Did you miss your father's life lessons? Did you miss your country fellows? The warmth and familiarity of life at home?

          Sunil did. More than anything else in the world, he missed the warmth and familiarity of his life at home, in his village. He missed the laughter he shared with his friends and family and neighbours, he missed mealtimes with the crowds. He missed sharing out food. He missed his mum's cooking. He missed the slow pace of life, the long mid-afternoon conversations, the connection he felt with his surroundings, with the land and the present. He missed cycling three miles to his school, early morning through the narrow lanes on the edge of the green green fields, he missed the yellow hues in the sky in the early morning. He missed greeting the cows and the horses as he went. He missed the birds. He missed the birdsong. It was different in England, the birds looked different and they spoke a different language- a language Sunil didn't understand. In fact everything was different, the grass and the sky and the buildings and the roads. It was a different world. A world he didn't feel part of it, a world he didn't feel he belonged to.

        City life moved too fast for him- he couldn't keep up. When he jotted down orders at the restaurant or took out library books using a machine or when he walked down the high-street and streams of people flitted past him in a blur- he couldn't keep up with city life. He couldn't catch his breath and align himself with it- with this new reality. This lonely new reality, in which everything moved so fast and life was emptier than it should be, for him at least. He wasn't used to being alone. He wasn't used washing his own clothes and cooking his own food and sitting quietly in an empty room. He couldn't adjust to it.

        He missed the simplicity of life back home. A simplicity that he resented growing up, a simplicity that stifled him. He missed wearing his plain dhoti- he missed feeling the light woven cotton against his skin. He missed his sandals too. Sunil suddenly opened his eyes and lifted his head to look across at the black loafers he was wearing. They didn't look or feel like they were his feet. They didn't belong to him. He felt like a different person in his work uniform, in his white starched shirt and black trousers. These weren't his clothes. This wasn't him. He lay his head back down and as he closed his eyes, he wondered if the soldiers felt comfortable wearing their uniforms. In the black and white pictures on the board they appeared stoic and it was hard to tell. Did you like wearing those clothes? Did you like speaking their language? Is it just me? Am I different?

        A fierce wind danced around him, he heard the whispers, they comforted him, they told him he wasn't alone. For that moment he felt as though he was part of a fellowship, a unique fellowship of outsiders. He opened his eyes and looked up at the stars. He heard them more clearly then, the whispers of every soldier who was cremated on the hill. He listened to them, he felt their spirits glide across the hills, across the night sky and he felt like he was home- amongst his ancestors, amongst his people, amongst his family and his friends. He could feel them. They were close to him, they were present....

       Sunil watched as the bright lights of a plane slowly moved across the dark sky. Back home, he would lie on the charpai for nights on end just counting the numbers of aircrafts passing over the village, over the endless fields and small mud houses. He remembered looking up at the planes flying by and thinking to himself, one day I'll get out of here. I'll be on one of those planes. I will discover a new world, a different world, a world in which I can be whoever I want to be. It was in his fate, he knew it, he would one day leave. He would get away from his family who were always there and that village in which nothing ever really happened. He would go west.

          All his life, he dreamed of going to Britain to study. His dreams were the cause of his hard work, his steely focus, his determination. He would dream about what life would be on the outside, he dreamed of pretty girls running through fields of sunflowers like they did in the films. He dreamed of the friends he would make and the fun they would have, the knowledge he would gain, the places he would discover. It was everything he had worked towards since he was a child, this. This was it- his big dream, his great escape. Only he never imagined it would be so lonely- so different. He never imagined it would be so difficult.

         He was nineteen years old, all the friends he had made in England, well if they could be called friends, for his idea of friendship seemed to be very different to theirs, were set. And it wasn't that he hated it, being there, he had learnt so much, he had met so many good people, but they weren't his people. He felt out of place most of the time. When he first arrived, he hoped that he would get used to it, but he didn't- the food, the culture, the way of life- it was all so alien to him still. He was lonely. That's what it came down to mostly. He didn't have anyone to talk to, about the things that mattered to him, about India. Right then, he thought back to one of his earliest exchanges...

'But in India, we eat together, always. It is custom,' he had said to his friend.

'For God's sake Sunil, you're not in India any more!' he had errupted. Sunil felt most alone amongst his Indian friends, they had embraced this new life, they loved it and he felt jealous that they did. But they were different, they were from wealthy families, they came from the cities, of course for them it wasn't so very different. For them home wasn't so far away, it wasn't a rare and brief and long-awaited conversation.

         As the incense burned away and the fragrant smoke had subsided, Sunil remembered what Sri Nagavanshi had said, that before the bodies were burned, pictures were taken of the face of the deceased and they would be sent to relatives in faraway India.

         Sunil's family had always supported him. They had shown him a love that only poor people knew or felt. It was a deep and comforting love. Perhaps they had shown him too much of it, because the outside world felt cold to him and he felt lost and isolated. Sunil thought of them often. They always did the best by him, made sure he could study at whatever cost. They didn't send him to work on the field like they did his older brother. He was different. He was special. He didn't fail them, Sunil was awarded a full scholarship in England as a result of years of hard work.

         Sunil set his gaze upon the stars once more. He was afraid of disappointing people, he was afraid of disappointing his parents. He was afraid of disappointing himself. His course would end in another eighteen months and then he would have to go back to India, he would have to find a job with a top company in the city. He would have to carve out a life for himself, not a life he had chosen, but one that others wanted for him. Sunil wanted to live off the land, he wanted to stay in his village- he knew his village. Life made sense there. He felt the wind blow again, embracing him softly- reminding him that he wasn't alone. Was it as hard for you as it was me? Were you afraid, of going back? Of what the future might hold for you when you did? As the questions drifted through his mind, Sunil felt himself grow drowsy and soon, in between thoughts and with the wind and the spirits still blowing through him, still comforting his body and soul, fell asleep there on the steps of the Chattri...

The Road

Teardrops in a Dew Pond

Teardrops in a Dew Pond

Edna Teakle stared back at her reflection in the dew pond. She could barely recognise herself, her brown hair had become limp, her tired eyes had grown listless and her face was etched in deep dark lines. As time slipped on, Edna grew tired of the person looking back at her. She didn't want to face herself, she couldn't bear to and so she threw a stone in the water and watched as the waves coiled outwards until finally all movement stilled. This is it, she thought to herself, soon I will fade away like the ripples in this pond. A strange feeling washed over Edna as she once again set her gaze upon the returning reflection of herself in the water- it was a weighty sadness, a glad melancholia. Right then she felt an overwhelming sense of warm familiarity together with a feeling of marked detachment from everyone in the world. 

  She was going to die. She knew it from the moment she woke up that morning- her head pounding, her heart racing and her thoughts muddled. She couldn't describe it, the ominous fear and anxiety that took hold of her- the sad certainty that had settled within- time was surely slipping way. The consultant had called the previous day requesting that she come in to see him as soon as she could, she had a feeling then something was wrong. But that morning she knew it, she knew she was going to die. 

She thought back to earlier that day. She had found herself at the hospital, sat in front of a handsome smartly dressed consultant. He had a slightly mournful, sympathetic look about him. Time stood still as she waited for him to speak, knowing what he would say- knowing that it wouldn't be good.... 

Edna had been coming up to the dew pond from her home in Seaford since she was a child. Growing up she loved climbing the trees that surrounded it, she loved watching the birds and putting her feet in the water and collecting funny looking insects and she loved watching the clouds change in the sky. And as she grew older she loved the solitude it offered, the quiet. She found herself wandering up there when she had a bad day at work, or when she was feeling contemplative or when she'd had a particularly heated argument with her husband or when she just wanted some peace. She couldn't quite explain it, why she felt so connected to the pool of water. She couldn't explain the way she felt it had become part her. Since as long as she could remember, she had always believed in its healing powers- she had always come away feeling renewed. She loved the timelessness of it, the fact that it was always there and that it never seemed to change. She loved staring at the reflections, sometimes for hours on end. She saw herself change a bit each time she returned. It was a mirror to her, a looking glass into a different world, a secret world, a world in which anything was possible. It revealed to her what her life was and what it could have been had she gone down a different path. 

It was also her refuge from modern life- it offered her a different sort of security- a safe place away from the buildings and the cars and the noise and the people, away from the stresses of society. The pond itself couldn't have been situated in a more perfect location- in view of the sea and hidden behind a few trees just beyond Chyngton Farm where the sheep grazed in the open hills. It had always offered her a sense of comfort that no one or nothing else could. She knew it would be there, even when she departed from the world. The waters will never dry. I will die, but these waters will never dry, she thought to herself. Right then, she saw the doctors reflection appear in front of her on the waters' surface, she could hear the words on his lips- they rung out in her mind... 

'The MRI scan showed an abnormality, a mass' he said as he pointed to an obscure shape on a dark laminated sheet on the desk in front of him. 

'What does that mean?' she demanded, her heart racing.

'Well, it means you have a tumour' 

'A tumour? A brain tumour? Oh my God, you mean, I'm going to die?' 

The doctor shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

'Right now it's too soon to know the outcome Mrs Teakle. There are a number of treatments we could try...' he looked up at her to see the panic on her face. 'Look, I think you should come back tomorrow. I know this is a lot to take in, perhaps it would be better to talk to you once you've calmed down a bit and I think it would be best if you brought someone along, a loved one...' he offered sympathetically. Edna had stopped listening, colours and shapes had blurred and his words too, his voice. Abruptly, she got up and walked out of the surgery. She needed some air. As soon as she got outside, her thoughts began to race and she found herself almost involuntarily walking towards the direction of the hills- as if they were calling out to her; the sea, the chalk -her dew pond. 

She had been there for hours, the sky was beginning to darken and the air was steadily growing colder. Edna was sat with her arms wrapped around her legs, her raincoat flapped in the wind and her eyes were transfixed on the water a few feet ahead. She didn't want to go back, she wasn't ready for the questions she was sure to be bombarded with. She wasn't ready for the tears, for the strength she would have to show. She knew she would have to be the one comforting her family. She would have to be the one to say 'everything is going to be just fine'. She would put the kettle on and make them all a cup of tea and pretend that things weren't so bad... 

Edna placed her hands under her head and lay down on the cold damp grass. She could feel her hair soak up the tiny particles of water and was momentarily comforted by the fusion, as she looked up at the darkening sky, she felt a warmth run through her. If no one else could see or understand, the sky certainly did, it bore witness to what she was going through. It was ironic, out there under the sky she didn't have to hide, she could shed a thousand tears without feeling ashamed or guilty or weak. She knew she wouldn't be allowed to expose that vulnerability back at home, she wouldn't be allowed to let up how afraid she really was. 

Edna was terrified- not just for herself, but for her family. How would they cope? She was worried about her husband mostly. He was so reliant on her, she thought as she brought her hand up into the air and traced the edges of her icy gold ring. Edna was worried about her two daughters too, neither of whom were particularly settled or happy. She wondered how she would tell them all, how they would take it. Edna slowly got up from the ground and started to circle the marshy edges of the pond, her boots sunk in as she went and the long grass gathering around her ankles, keeping her grounded, keeping her connected to the earth. As she floated around the pool, her eyes were suddenly drawn to a single wilting flower by the waters edge. She bent down to inspect it closely, it's limp white petals drooped downwards and dark lines framed their centres. Edna gently trailed her index finger across the soft surface of the flower, you are dying the same way I am dying, she thought to herself. She felt jealous of the flower at that moment, for it would die a quiet death, still and alone. It wouldn't have to endure the torrent of emotions that would take hold of her and her family- regret, anger, fear, loss, sympathy, absence and of course guilt. Edna tore herself away from the fading bud and contined floating, she knew she was bound to feel guilty for the hurt she would cause, time was slipping away and she was fated to let them all down for being human, being only human.

She felt the fear arise within her and anger too, she sat back down again by the water and suddenly let out a sharp scream of desperation- the sound reverberated across landscape. The wind blew in a fierce defiance, ripples circled and spread on and on and the the waves crashed violently against the shore. A few birds flew from a nearby trees and across the sky and a sheep off in the distance turned to look at her, eyes wide and sorrowful as if willing her to remain strong. Edna felt angry at the world for what she knew was coming, for letting her life end the way it would. She felt angry at the pain she knew she would have to endure. She felt angry that she had been a cursed with slow death, a gradual decaying of the mind and body. 

She wondered then, where her life had gone. She felt she had wasted it. She hadn't achieved much. She'd lived a simple life, an ordinary life- a life too ordinary. She thought of all the places she still wanted to visit, the sights she wanted to see, the places she planned on going to when she left work- now it was all gone, her dreams vanquished. She felt cheated by life. This was it for her. It was all a waiting game now. She had no control. 

The sky had almost completely faded into darkness, the stars shone and the moon looked brighter than she'd ever seen it. She couldn't make out the sheep clearly anymore, they looked like dark otherworldly beings and the crystal waters of the dew pond, usually so clear and inviting, now looked sinister and dark- like an abyss, a black hole- she was afraid to fall into it. There in the dark, in the open- she felt things she'd never felt before in her whole entire life- a mosaic of all sorts of emotions- a sad peace, a sorrow and a great love of life and of the landscape held before her. Tears rolled down her face, they had been doing so since she arrived, on and off. One thought would trigger them- one sad thought- the prospect of being absent at her daughters' wedding, the fact would never have the chance to share the secrets of the dew pond with her favourite grandchild, she wouldn't have the chance to watch them play and enjoy and learn from the land the way she had. The wind blew every now and again causing the leaves on the trees to rustle or a bird would cry out and her thoughts would dissipate and she felt herself return to the present. 

She had only ever left Seaford once before, when she was twenty-four. She had saved enough money from her admin job at a local school and she went to Thailand for a month. She volunteered there, at an orphanage. It had been amazing. She thought about all those smiling faces and how happy she was during her time there- how alive she felt, how big the world seemed; how beautiful. She got sick in her last week, so sick that she ended up in hospital. The doctors didn't know what was wrong. She made it through in the end, by some miracle. Though after that she never really went away again, she was afraid and then life happened- she did all those normal things that women do. She got married and had kids and gave up work to raise her kids and then went back to work when they were old enough. Time had passed and before she knew it, she was in her mid-fourties lamenting all the opportunities she missed out on- all those chances she never took.  

Right then, looking into the dark pool of water, Edna felt her whole life pass her by, she felt her whole life travel through her. At that moment she felt a strong connection with the earth and soil and nature and time and eternity and God and every person that had ever lived and died and everything she had witnessed, everything she had done and seen and every person she had met. She felt a connection with everything and everyone that had ever played a part in her creation and growth and being -everything that had brought her to that moment. It was an otherworldly experience, an epiphany that could never be described, it could only be felt. In that brief spell, images, a whole lifetime of images flit across her mind's eye- every pain, every joy, every failure and every success was exposed to her. The images appeared and disappeared across the sheets of water- her father embracing her at her mothers' funeral, her sister's tears on her wedding day, the birth of her daughter, the conversation she shared with the priest, the moment she lost her faith, the flock of starlings making shapes across the sky, her first day of school, her daughters first day at school. The tears streamed down her cheeks mercilessly as she watched her life unfurl, finally she wiped them away and let them drip down the tips of her finger and into the dew pond, the small ripples they made caused the images to merge in a way that rendered her part of the water and part of life itself. And she felt glad about it, she felt a sense of peace wash over her as the images on the water and reflections of her life faded away. Life would continue, she would fade away but life would go on, the dew pond would endure. For it was part of the circle of life, death was not an end but a new beginning. 

Soon after the images had disappeared and the sky had bled black, she finally decided it was time to go back- it was time to face her fate. It will be okay, she thought to herself. At least she had this place to come back to when it all got too much. It was comforting to know that she could always escape to her dew pond and dream and reflect and merge into the background. She would be okay. Everything would be okay, she thought as she got up and started on the journey back to the town. As she walked down the final hill, she felt into her pocket and touched the little diary book she always carried around with her knowing that she had the precious little flower pressed safely between its pages. Everything would be just fine.

For no one knew...

All for the Best

Things mostly happen for the best.

However hard it seems to-day,

When some fond plan has gone astray

Or what you've wished for most is lost

An' you sit countin' up the cost

With eyes half-blind by tears o' grief

While doubt is chokin' out belief,

You'll find when all is understood

That what seemed bad was really good.

Life can't be counted in a day.

The present rain that will not stop

Next autumn means a bumper crop.

We wonder why some things must be-

Care's purpose we can seldom see-

An' yet long afterwards we turn

To view the past, an' then we learn

That what once filled our minds with doubt

Was good for us as it worked out.

I've never known an hour of care

But that I've later come to see

That it has brought some joy to me.

Even the sorrows I have borne

Leavin' me lonely an' forlorn

An' hurt an' bruised an' sick at heart,

In life's great plan have had a part.

An' though I could not understand

Why I should bow to Death's command,

As time went on I came to know

That it was really better so.

...most things, I hold, are wisely planned

If we could only understand.

-Edgar A Guest

The Coming of Autumn