On Sunday, 14 June 2015, I launched my Project 365.
You can see all the images as they are posted to the mobile | mono | square album on my flickr account.
My plan, let’s see if I can stick to this, is to post a weekly update here each Sunday.
“…whatever makes you happy
whatever you want…”
“I don’t belong here”
turn the pages
sing
plead
makes no difference
unless, you’re so f*****’ special (and yes, you know, if you are)
creep(y) enough? 😉
Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.
Do you have a dark side?
Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.
Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday
Share your dark side?
I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.
dark | side | thursday | thirteen
She watched as the door slowly pushed open.
She shivered. A memory, of him? Her thin white cotton shift torn, barely covering her aching body. Flesh bruised and torn. Metal hospital cot hard under her back, limbs heavy, arms still by her sides, legs splayed apart, one hanging over the edge of the cot. A sharp pain flaring deep inside her.
Thick choking dust filled her cell, covered the walls, the floor, her body. Turning her face to the door, a memory curled, snaked, buried inside her abused mind.
The door stood open. Cold damp air flowed into the room. Icy tendrils oozing across the floor. Her eyes staring vacantly at the empty doorway, breathing ragged.
She heard a low breathless groaning, a deepening moan. A sound that chilled her as it spawned, grew, filled the room. A sound coming from her own tortured throat.
She turned her head, slowly, away from the empty doorway, her burning eyes passing over the now quiet machine from which she had been unplugged. Had he been here? Had he taken out the needle? Her mind drifted. The wall. The wall was throbbing, coalescing.
The dust covering the room, smothering her, was drifting, shifting, gathering, accreting. Long putrid dusty ribbons seeping down the walls, sliding across the floor, slithering toward the door. Beyond the door, nothing, only darkness.
She felt rivulets of dust running from her nose, her eyes, the corner of her open dry mouth, cracked lips. Dust that poured away, off her body, spilling in a hideous mock waterfall to the floor, dust draining down between her open thighs, pooling beneath the bare metal cot, a puddle of despair on the cold tiles. Streaming across those tiles, merging with the dust that was piling up at the entrance to the room.
The dust gathered in the doorway, building, shifting, growing and extending upward, cold damp air swirling around the emerging column, a vortex of terror, spiralling up, layers of dust taking shape. A terrible, familiar shape.
A faceless stone shadow, palms opened out, began to form from the swirling dust, standing silently in the doorway, its blank face turned toward her. Memories, of pain and desire, lust and terror, love and hope. Despair, death and darkness.
A sob escaped her lips. Pain tore through her body as she tried to heave herself up.
It was shadowy unmoving, passive, terrible in its coldness.
She stood. Her legs trembling, she scrabbled one foot in front of the other, each step provoking the pain deep inside her to bloom and flare.
She stood in front of its empty stone face, reached out, fingers caressing its featureless curves.
The room reverberated with a terrible scream, a shattering screech, as if the doors of hell had burst apart. A fissure opened. In its face.
A torrent of icy dark water erupted from that fissure, a thick jet of water pumping, spurting, blasting into her face, her mouth. An endless torrent of water, filling the room, filling her.
The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.
thirteen | fiftytwo
“No man is an island…
…Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.”
– John Donne
I have been very lucky in life, in some ways.
You may choose whether you agree. Or you may not.
I have circumnavigated the globe by air. Twice. In both directions. In Business Class. Pampered and spoiled. Wined and dined. And once, just once, in First Class, been plied with glass after glass of Krug until wheels up, before flying across half the world under a goose down duvet with tea served in a china cup by a flight attendant who actually appeared to genuflect.
As a senior official in the Federal Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, I found myself invited by Qantas to pass through the hidden portal of the Chairman’s Lounge, rubbing shoulders with Ministers of the Commonwealth, riding the wave, full of a sense of my own self importance. One of the chosen few.
And, as I flew across the world, this way and that way. Did I know the plight of those below? Did I?
On Sunday morning, during a drive across rain storm riven France, weary with a headache, I stopped, tipped the wrappings of my sandwich and empty plastic water bottles into the bin, walked into the Flunch franchise, ordered an Americano and two croissants. Slid my slice of plastic into the offered orifice. On this occasion, for everything else, there wasn’t Mastercard.
Card declined.
The barista looked at me, mouth curling, eyes turned away. Do you have cash? No.
The labels, the badges, the false friends, gone.
I found myself worrying, not merely about the (unattainable) coffee rapidly cooling in front of my eyes, but of the prospect of being marooned in France when my fuel ran out.
Poor me?
Just over a week ago, I visited Belgrade, a place that, despite my early negative feelings, has won a special place in my heart.
I rode the dvojka, the number two tram, around the heart of the city. As the tram rattled past the train station and then the bus station, before it approached the brash flags and even brasher promise of the Eagle Hills “Belgrade Waterfront” development, I was shocked to see the people in the park. Sleeping rough, young and old, men and women, babes in arms. Sleeping in the park off Karadjordjeva, in front of the Faculty of Economics. In a country where the average wage is around 300 euro (and most survive on far far less), where the government impose austerity measures on its battered electorate, in a city where the shoeless children of Roma people bathe in waste bins flooded with hydrant water and build houses from discarded cardboard, a city bombed and blasted by the West, a proud and decent city, a city with its own problems, here were migrants desperate for a new home, huddled under trees. Sitting in despondent groups, waiting, and for what?
The people in the park are reported to be migrants en route through Serbia to the promised land, north, in the European Union in Germany, Sweden, Holland or wherever they believe they can find shelter, food, safety. Most are believed to have walked from Syria or Afghanistan, many have scant clothing, no shoes and the children are poorly prepared for the journey, the intense heat, the privation of a long march. The people in the park are falling sick, they have no bathrooms, no real hygiene. Friends of mine, back in the city, who run the Belgrade Foreign Visitors Club, are working hard to help them in whatever way they can, so also, as they did when the floods came, are ordinary Serbian citizens, folk who, by our standards, also need and deserve our help, they again are reaching out to help these migrants. But, for every one person they help, two more arrive on the following day. And, in a scene worthy of the Game of Thrones, there are reports that Hungary is erecting a wall, physical or virtual it does not matter, but a wall nonetheless to keep the marauding bands of migrants out of Fortress Europe, or at least their part of it. And back in the UK, the government buy more barbed wire, and worry about the economy in Kent.
But these are not ravaging monsters, they are desperate people, children, people fleeing from oppression in countries where Europe has intervened with scant regard for the consequences for the ordinary people that live there. Remember Libya, the cries of delight in certain quarters of the Western media when Gaddafi was “eliminated”, well what of that country now?
So, when I hand over the keys to my company car in a month’s time, surrender my company iPhone, and mourn the loss of my once privileged status, maybe I would do well to remember that I have a bed to sleep in, I don’t have to walk in bare feet half way across a continent in fear for my life, or rip through barbed wire, break into a lorry, to be safe.
All I need to do is look, smugly, at my passport.
And, what does that make me?
Us?
(for wordpress weekly photo challenge – beneath our feet)
On Sunday, 14 June 2015, I launched my Project 365.
You can see all the images as they are posted to the mobile | mono | square album on my flickr account.
My plan, let’s see if I can stick to this, is to post a weekly update here each Sunday.
Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.
Do you have a dark side?
Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.
Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday
Share your dark side?
I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.
dark | side | thursday | twelve
It began to speak.
Words, shrouded, strangled, in dust, and darkness, unintelligible, grating, spilled into the tiled room, cold damp air spreading, from tile to tile.
Its featureless face, unmoving, unyielding, held their gaze as the words, dark, meaningless, toxic, words poured out. Its hands, palms turned open, extended toward them, inviting, offered no comfort, no hope, nothing. Only sorrow. Terror. Mindless terror.
She turned away, recoiling from that blank hopeless empty face. Recoiling from her perceived horror of words, unintelligible, yet seething with morbid meaning. Squirming and oozing meaning, miserable, mindless. Black, terrible meaning. Meaning with no hope. She held her belly, tears dripping down her face.
His arm tightened around her. Its words splintering in his mind, grating words that scarred and seared, burned and blackened his soul. Or what passed for it. His soul. His soul that had burned in hell. Back then.
Something struggled to the surface of his mind. The smell of burning flesh. A woman’s cry. A child’s terror. The anger. It broke wind in his mind, toxic and stale, the cries, the black terror, the flames.
Its blank face exploded. A dark terrible black bloom of barbarity. Blasting across the room. Bilious clouds of desperation smeared across the cracked tiled floor.
Dust blew across the tiles of that confined cell, as the face, the body, its body, blew into a million pieces of detritus, the white tiled walls blasted and smeared with decay, death, despair.
Its out-turned palms, blackened, erupted, sprayed across the room.
He held her tight, arms wrapped around her, so hard. He felt her body quiver, felt her tears on his chest. Felt her body pressed into his. Perversely, as its face exploded, covering them in the dust of hell, he wanted her. Wanted to pin her down on that metal cot, wanted to fill her belly, wanted her, to take her. Again.
She felt his need. Felt his grip on her tighten. The emptiness in her belly unfolding inside her. She pulled him hard against her. Wanting. Longing. Needing. Hoping. Remembering, him.
His arms tightened around her. Pressed against her, hard. Wanting her. Pushing away the darkness, the flames, pushing it all away.
Wanting him, needing him, she took him. Enveloped. Encircled. Enclosed him. The emptiness inside her aching to be filled. Yearning to be fulfilled. Pushing back the flames, the smoke, the horror. Tightening. She cried. And then, screamed and screamed.
The darkness devoured him as he lost himself. Fabric of the room ripping out of shape, her screaming flooding his mind, dust his eyes, darkness his soul.
He felt her meet him. Tenebrous, billowing and exploding. He felt her body against his. Fingers digging into his flesh. Tearing him, as did he into her. His body convulsing, mind racing.
Nothingness. The void.
She saw the door opening slowly. Her eyes opened wide, breath caught in her throat.
He shivered, reached out to the door, turned, and slowly, with trepidation, pushed.
His desk waited, the box, open.
The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.
twelve | fiftytwo
On Sunday, 14 June 2015, I launched my Project 365.
You can see all the images as they are posted to the mobile | mono | square album on my flickr account.
My plan, let’s see if I can stick to this, is to post a weekly update here each Sunday.
“Smoking is indispensable if one has nothing to kiss”
– Sigmund Freud
do you give up?
can you?
will you?
would you?
(for dp weekly photo challenge – inspiration)
Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.
Do you have a dark side?
Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.
Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday
Share your dark side?
I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.
dark | side | thursday | eleven
He stepped into the tiled hospital room, walked slowly toward the woman laid out on the metal hospital cot. The acrid, cloying, sweet, smell of the anaesthetic, lingering in the room, caught in his throat.
The metal door stood open behind him. Damp, chilled air rolled across the tiled floor.
Watching him approach, she struggled to breathe, her eyes fixed on his. Hope began to bloom inside her. Hope, or perhaps fear.
He walked across the room to the metal cot, stood over her, leaned forward, his hand reaching out, slowly.
For a moment, as his hand moved toward her, she was afraid, pulling away from the approaching fingers, the needle digging in to her. She felt him gently brush a strand of hair away from her eyes. Strong fingers, yet warm, soft, comforting. He leaned further forward, she could feel his warmth, smell his skin, and she felt his lips brush against her cheek.
He pulled away. Walked around the metal cot, toward the humming machine. He reached down behind it, found the cord, pulled it out and the humming stopped. Moving back to the cot, he gently pressed his thumb down over her skin where the needle pierced her, and, in a swift, smooth and practised movement, pulled the needle from her flesh. Reaching down, to a shelf tucked in below the machine, he found a small white bandage and pressed it gently against the spot of blood which had welled up as the needle was released. He taped the bandage in place, stood back for a moment. He had not spoken since entering the room. His movements as if in a dream, someone else shifting levers, pressing buttons, sending instructions to his limbs.
She felt his arms move over and around her, supporting her, helping her sit. He sit beside her on the narrow metal cot. His arm around her, her head, heavy, weary, collapsed into his shoulder. She felt his arms envelop her, comforting, protective and strangely familiar.
Tears spilled from her eyes, her breast heaving as powerful sobs racked her body, the pain in her belly twisting and growing, she pressed herself closer to him. Heedless of the what, the why, she felt safe, protected, and hope began to course through her body.
He had stopped thinking when he entered the room. His mind, for now, a blank, his actions measured and precise, his mind distant, dislocated, absent.
He felt her warm body against his, felt her shaking, pressing against him, seeking comfort, answers. For now he had no answers. All he could offer was comfort and for the moment, silence.
Then, they heard it.The harsh sound of stone on stone. Grating. The room grew colder still.
Turning their eyes to the open door, they froze as they saw what stood, unmoving, at the threshold. The comfort they had shared drained away as they looked into the featureless frozen face that was turned towards them, stone hands held out, palms open.
It began to speak.
The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.
eleven | fiftytwo
andy townend 