by Cethan Leahy
‘Did you watch Arrow last night? It was awesome,’ said Greasy, his lab partner.
‘No, I don’t watch that show.’
‘You should. It’s awesome. Shit, look who’s in. Thought he wouldn’t be back for ages.’
It was Philip, surrounded by classmates artlessly avoiding the subject of his absence. He played along, however, laughing and joking as if nothing was different.
‘Blah blah blah bla-blah?’ said Greasy.
‘What?’ (Neither of us was listening.)
‘Do you have the pipette?’ Greasy repeated, with his hand out.
‘Oh, yeah, sure.’
The lab continued without incident – well, this was not strictly true; there may have been a small explosion – and Greasy and Adam got the result they were looking for, after some creative recording of measurements. When the bell rang, most people got up and left, except one, who stood on the other side of Adam’s countertop.
‘Hey, how’s it going?’ said Greasy, but Philip did not pull his glare from Adam. Adam was glued to the spot, unable to speak. His left foot vibrated violently.
‘Eh, good to see you back in school, Phil,’ Greasy finished. ‘See ya later, Adam.’
Philip’s eyes narrowed and, once Greasy was out of sight, he leaned over the desk and pushed his finger into Adam’s chest. ‘Chris is your fault,’ he said, then walked away.
Adam’s breath quickened and, as soon as the coast was clear, he quickly ran to the bathroom and hid in his usual stall. After twenty minutes he slowly opened the door and made his way to geography, mumbling something about being called to the office for something. The teacher nodded and told him what page the rest of the class was on. Adam dutifully turned to the right page but I could sense that he wasn’t concentrating on the exciting world of oxbow lakes right at that moment.
***
Once home, Adam said little, speaking just enough so that his parents wouldn’t be alarmed. Clearly Philip’s little jab had wounded him. It was plainly consuming his every thought. This was frustrating, since it meant I would have to suffer through a never-ending set of panic attacks. Nice one, Phil! Now he would go back to spending forever in his room, which meant I would have to spend forever in there too.
Just after dinner, as expected, Adam retreated to his room. I tried to lighten his mood. ‘Hey, there’s no need to be upset. It’s not your fault Phil blames you.’
‘But why does he blame me?’
‘Oh, he probably thinks you inspired his brother to do the deed.’
‘Is that a thing? Bleurgh.’
He moved to his desk and sat there.
‘Wha cha doing?’ I said, in my friendly voice. (I’m not a big fan of my friendly voice. It’s a bit high.)
‘Nothing,’ he said tersely.
He truly was doing nothing. He sat stiffly, his concentration focused on the water stain in the corner of the ceiling. (It still looked like half a bicycle.)
‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Um … do you have homework to do?’
Finally he looked at the clock, sighed heavily and pulled out some sheets of paper from his bag. He began writing something down, then dropped his pen and then his head.
I looked over his shoulder and saw a paragraph about a girl on a bed. What was this?
‘I have to write this dumb story for tomorrow,’ he said. Apparently I was not paying attention in class when his English teacher had given out this assignment. Making up stories was homework?
‘What do you have so far?’
He lifted his arm to reveal that the visible paragraph was in fact the only paragraph. I reread it. It was about a person lying hopelessly in bed. I liked it and said as much. This brightened him up.
‘Don’t know where to go with it, though. I want to write something sad, mostly cos I feel too shitty to write anything else,’ he said.
I stared at it. Something sad was forming in my head as an idea.
‘I have something,’ I said. ‘Do you want it?’
‘Please.’
I told him.
‘I like it!’ he said. ‘It’s kinda grim, but I think we could do this.’
And thus we started. We worked together solidly for the next hour and in the end we had a two-page story. He looked at it with some satisfaction and I will confess I did too. It was a particular feeling, like I had briefly forgotten my main purpose of making snarky comments for my own benefit and found another.
‘Oh wait, there is a theme we were supposed to follow,’ Adam said. He looked through his schoolbag and pulled out a black journal. He pointed at an entry from that week.
‘Oh, that’s kind of the opposite of what we wrote.’
We mulled for a moment and decided on a last line that would tie it in perfectly.
5/10/17 Adam Murphy
A GOOD BOOK
Emily lay at the edge of the bed and looked sadly at the hairy whale snoring beside her. He had fallen asleep almost immediately after the transaction. He slept on his back, his stomach a perpetually expanding bloating and shrinking balloon.
Emily sat up and looked at the clock on the night stand. It said it was 11.52, nearly midnight. He had her for the whole night. He had paid for the whole night so no point in checking. She wished nothing more than to not be there. She wasn’t sure exactly how she ended up in that room. Once, she was just a girl sitting on her own bed, surrounded by posters of horses. Now she was sitting on some hotel’s bed, surrounded by nothing.
Did she need to wait the full hour? Did she need to hang around? It looked like he was asleep for the night. I guess he paid up and some customers get weird about her leaving early. To occupy herself, she began to look through the drawers of the nightstand.
Inside the bottom drawer there was a Bible. A friend of hers, Debbie, a while ago, was obsessed with hotel Bibles. She used to be in hotels a lot for a reason Emily couldn’t remember. Her dad was an hotelier, maybe? She once explained in great detail that the Bibles weren’t the hotel’s. Instead they were left by a group of monks known as the Gideon Order. They liked to travel around a lot and whichever rooms they stayed in, they made sure to leave behind them a small brown book, bound in fake leather, in case the lonely or remorseful are trapped in a hotel room (much like this desperate situation).
And then her friend Debbie explained that there was were stories that these same monks occasionally left money in between some of the pages to reward those who turn to God. Nothing too big, maybe a tenner, although maybe sometimes there was word of a 50 dollar note haunting the pages.
Emily thought of this story and lifted the Bible. It was not heavy. She thought to herself, ‘If it’s true, if monks travel the world, leaving money … if I open this book and find 20 dollars, I’ll take it as a sign that I should not be here. I’ll spend it on a bus ticket and go home, if not home, somewhere else. Somewhere for me.’
A whole life opened before her eyes, one of green fields and cute shops and sunny skies.
She opened the book and flicked through the pages.
Nothing. It was empty. It was just a stupid story.
She put the book back, lay down on the bed and listened to the sound of passing trucks and wondered where they were going.
She checked the clock again. It was 12.01. ‘Happy birthday to me,’ she said as she turned sixteen.
Sixteen
‘Miss, I think Hamlet is definitely crazy since he wants to have sex with his mam and that’s manky,’ said Mingsy. Uff, everyone in this place has a stupid nickname.
‘An astute observation, Michael,’ said Miss Campbell. ‘There is certainly evidence of an Oedipal complex which may be clouding his judgement. Can anyone else point to other signifiers that suggest Hamlet’s antic disposition isn’t pretence?’
We were at the point where Hamlet was putting on a play to reveal his uncle’s guilt, which seemed very elaborate to me. Personally I felt he knew that Claudius was guilty and was just using it as an excuse to dabble in theatre. The bell rang.
&
nbsp; ‘Ah, I wasn’t paying attention to the time,’ said Miss Campbell. ‘Okay, everyone make sure that you read Act Three for tomorrow. There will be questions. Oh, and Adam? Could you hang on?’
As the rest of the students vacated the room for their next class, Adam approached her desk. She was designated the ‘good-looking’ one of the female teachers in the school (or ‘a total ride’ as Mingsy called her), though it would appear she didn’t appreciate being the object of adolescent desire, judging by her eye roll when Mingsy nudged Adam on the way out and winked.
‘Yes, Miss?’ he said with some dread. He was fairly confident that Miss Campbell was not about to start an illicit affair with him, so this could only be because of his story. Perhaps it was too risqué and gritty for St Jude’s delicate sensibilities.
‘I read your story, Adam,’ she said with some weight.
Adam was gripped with fear. ‘Oh, sorry about that. I guess I shouldn’t be writing about–’
‘No need to say sorry at all!’ she said with surprise. ‘Other than a few sentences that were a little off grammatically, I thought it was very good. I’m actually a bit surprised. I didn’t realise that you could write creatively. All your stuff before now was fine, but this, this shows real potential. It has a rare empathy.’
This was our first critical review and a generally positive one too, although I did wonder which were the ‘off’ sentences she was referring to. They must have been pretty obvious; otherwise she wouldn’t have mentioned it. I knew we shouldn’t have included that bit about the horses. Adam was relieved though.
‘Thanks, Miss!’ he said. ‘I’m glad you liked it. Ah, is that all?’
Miss Campbell pulled out her wallet and opened it. I thought she was going to pay us for writing such a good story, but it was soon clear that there was no money in there, just loose papers and receipts where euro notes should be.
‘I realise you have had … personal troubles recently,’ she said, as she searched the debris, ‘but creative writing can be a great way to express yourself and perhaps work through some issues.’
‘Oh.’
‘Or fun. It can be fun! No issues resolved. It’s just I think you may have something worth exploring. Ah, here it is!’
From a small pocket, she pulled out a small collection of dog-eared cards and presented one to Adam. It said in big lettering ‘YOUNG WRITERS ASSEMBLE! Creative writing workshops for teenagers’, and, in smaller detail, the place and time. It was on after school on Fridays.
‘I think it could be seriously beneficial for your writing, if it’s something you wish to pursue. Do you know where the Unitarian Church is?’
‘The one where all the hippies sell stuff outside?’
‘That’s the one.’
Adam looked at the card. ‘Ah, thanks, Miss,’ he said uncertainly.
‘Go on so,’ she said, seemingly cheered that she may have discovered a new literary light.
***
I don’t know much about history’s greatest writers but I understand that they drew their inspiration from their surroundings, so it’s probably important to find inspiring surroundings: sweeping countryside, cool cafés, jungles. There’s most likely a list somewhere on the Internet (‘34 places to write your masterpiece’), but I strongly suspect that not listed is the back room of a small Unitarian church in Cork, Ireland.
‘This is the place,’ said Adam when we stood outside the Princes Street building, hidden like a dormouse between a Starbucks and a hardware store. We walked down the paved path, passing engravings of worship. Inside was a modest building and the sound of chatter led us to the back quarters where a circle of would-be scribes were seated. The timbers of the wooden floors echoed with a large clunk on every step, so everyone was immediately aware of Adam’s arrival. They all turned around and stared at the newcomer.
‘Adam!’ said a familiar voice. It was Aoife.
‘Thank God,’ he muttered.
‘This would be a good place to do it,’ I said, looking at the cross on the wall. ‘You’ll be pretty covered.’
Ignoring me, Adam found a stool and pushed it next to Aoife, much to the ire of the pasty gentleman next to her.
‘Hey! I didn’t know you write things,’ she said.
‘I don’t … well, I guess, I’m starting to. My teacher, Miss Campbell, suggested it.’
‘Miss Campbell? Oh, you mean Niamh?’
Miss Campbell (or Niamh, apparently) entered, holding some sheets and a selection of mismatched pens.
‘Great to see you here, Adam. Time for writing!’
This received a big whoop from the circle. They must really be into writing.
***
Writing exercises are weird. First Miss Campbell – I mean Niamh – asked the group to write down a list of their favourite places in the world. We weren’t to think about it, just write down what came naturally. Adam started and had pretty big trouble thinking of places he liked. After three minutes, he had his room, the park near his house and Coney Island (which was a fairground on a beach in New York he has never visited, but which looked cool in pictures). He looked over at Aoife, whose list was reaching the end of the page.
‘Okay, stop,’ Miss Campbell said. ‘Now I want you to think of people from history. They can be good or bad. Just write them down.’
Our list (I helped out on this one) of famous historical people was a bit longer: Michael Collins, Hitler, Abraham Lincoln and Oscar Wilde all made appearances.
‘Okay, stop!’ she said. ‘I want you now to take the last favourite place on your list and the last person on your other list and start writing something with both of them in it.’
Adam looked at his lists. It was going to have to be a story about Julius Caesar in a famous amusement park. Adam looked up and could see that everyone else had already started writing.
‘Just start writing,’ whispered Aoife. ‘It’s not a test.’
He put pen to paper and began: Returning the conquering hero, Caesar had seized Gaul and Britain, and to celebrate, he went to Coney Island. It was time to conquer his great fear, the WonderWheel …
***
Afterwards, Adam and Aoife walked together to the side of the street deemed the easiest to be picked up from.
‘Soooooo, can I read what you wrote?’ asked Aoife, as they waited.
‘Ah, I’d prefer if you didn’t.’
‘Well, if it’s too personal … I mean, the class is only for expressing yourself and all.’
Adam laughed. The laugh was rather easy, with a lightness I was unfamiliar with. ‘Yeah, I’m not sure you can handle my deep thoughts about stuff,’ he said, handing her the sheets of paper on which he had scribbled.
‘These are insightful. Excellent, but insightful too,’ she said, trying to hide a smile. On the sheets of paper, Adam had written two paragraphs and then had drawn several doodles of rabbits. They weren’t very good so I’m assuming that Aoife’s approval was nothing more than politeness.
‘Now that you know too much about me, can I see what you wrote?’
‘Sure.’
Aoife pulled out her neat leather journal and pulled from it two neatly folded pieces of paper, that were folded with the corners touching each other perfectly.
‘I’m not going to show you what I wrote tonight, because it’s terrible, but here’s something I wrote earlier.’
‘Two pages, double-sided?’
‘It’s too late now. You’re committed.’
Adam made a sad expression, biting his bottom lip. Aoife grinned as if she had walked in on something embarrassing. It was clear to me that they were engaging in some obscure communication I was unfamiliar with.
‘You don’t have to read it if you really don’t want to.’
‘No, no. I want to.’
In front of them, a car beeped and a hand waved from behind the wheel.
‘Ah, there’s my dad. See you tomorrow!’ she said, hopping into the car.
‘See ya!’
&nbs
p; ‘ALSO REMEMBER IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, I’LL HATE YOU FOREVER,’ she shouted out the window, as the car drove by.
‘Hey, Adam,’ said his mother, who had appeared right behind him, making him jump slightly. ‘I had to park by the School of Music. Who’s your friend?’
‘Oh, just someone I know,’ said Adam.
‘Of course,’ said Mum, smiling. There was a lot of smiling that night. On the way home, he held up his phone to the page so that he could read Aoife’s story. It was pretty weird and I didn’t really get the jokes, but Adam seemed to enjoy it. When we arrived home, he decided to start writing something immediately. The class was clearly more inspiring than I had thought.
CHANGES
by Aoife Tuffour-Callaghan
DRAFT 2ish
The vampire bared his nude teeth. Anne pulled her hair away to reveal her neck, expertly made up to emphasise what she presumed was her juiciest vein. Soon she would be the eternal lover of the vampire; how thrilling to lose one’s mortality in the local graveyard.
He plunged his terrible fangs into her and drank. In response, she moaned. (A little too loudly, she thought. She didn’t want him to think that she was one of those girls. He seemed old-fashioned.)
The vampire grabbed her hand and, with her sharpest nail, he carved a line in his breast and entreated her to suckle on his wound. Anne thought for a moment what her family would think of her participation in this unholy parody of the mother feeding her newborn. But it was for the briefest of moments, as she quickly obliged.
At first, the iron taste repelled her, but after a few sups of crimson, it became richer and full of ghastly life, replacing her deceased purity with a new demonic brew.
‘Done!’ announced the vampire, gently pushing away Anne’s head from his ivory chest.
‘What?’ said Anne, wiping a trickle of blood from her mouth.
‘Done. You are a vampire now.’
