Month / July 2013

by Colette

The Clot

Written by Terrestris Veritas 

misfits

We think these misfits would fit in quite well at The Clot.
Image Courtesy of E4.com

The following was extracted from media records in accordance to reviewing the actions of The Clot – dates have been marked in chronological order above each extract for easy viewing. 

Wed, 9th May 1990
Today marks the grand opening of The Clot: Mark Howser’s Child and Youth Correctional and Detention Facility. Three years in the making, it is expected that this centre shall calm the streets of the unwanted crime specific to…

Sat, 12th May 1990
Capable of housing over one hundred thousand wrong-doers at a time from birth all the way up to eighteen years, the challenge of creating a space of justice for young people has surely met its match.

Wed, 21st Oct. 1992
The first youth who was released from The Clot has gone the last six months without resorting to her former self. It is reported that she has acquired a job and is of working class status. Originally sent there for a series of petty theft, The Clot is acclaimed for her remarkable turnaround in this climate of…

Fri, 30th Oct. 1992
Since the successful release of Clara Hawkers, a former petty thief, parents have been sending their children to The Clot in droves. From babes to adolescents, it’s clear…

Sun, 9th May 1993
In the three years since The Clot has opened, the crime rate on the street has dropped to an all-time low and has been that way for the last four months. The Voice of the Law himself applauded their statistics and proclaimed that The Clot has been a turning point for society. He also stated that, despite certain policies within The Clot, it has proven to be an effective measure against…

Wed, 24th Aug. 1994
This morning it was discovered that a suicide has taken place within The Clot. The sixteen-year-old male attendant was discovered in his bed having taken his own life. The Clot is a hive of activity trying to uncover the reason behind his death. Mark Howser has yet to comment on this tragic…

Thurs, 26th Aug.1994
…uproar within the city about the suicide. The identity of the youth has not yet been released but his initial crime was stealing domestic animals and killing them in mad rituals. Officials are now starting to question the attendant’s state of mind at the time of the suicide rather than suspecting the policies employed by the staff in The Clot. Continue reading →

by marleylilith

Time Was Standing Still

Has time ever stood still for you?

Written by Lost in a Dream

Frozen in that moment,
Time was standing still

The foreign familiarity of an old song
Forges a link
Between then and now.

The lyrics were hardly profound;
Yet, they seemed perfect at the time.

Now, the individual words are insignificant.

They didn’t sum up how I was feeling,
I doubt I entirely understood them
Five years ago.

But I remember singing them out
With conviction.

Time locked in lyrics and
Memories trapped in chords were free.
I had the privilege of indulging in the past.
Just for a moment, that memory came alive again.

It was as though nothing had changed.

by marleylilith

Paper Bag

Written by Moonflower

paperbag

Moonflower’s Paper Bag leaves us feeling all crumpled up.

I’m just a paper bag.
Given to you by hands of fate,
unrecognisable, indistinct.
You were the kind of stranger,
who flashed me a sincere smile,
when I passed on by.
I blended in the background of thousands,
carrying nothing but emptiness.

I met you again.
Drenched under the bus stop,
our conversation slow and awkward,
like the rain dripping off the metal shelter.
You didn’t let on much,
you only offered your sweet voice.

Continue reading →

by Doishy

Tack

Written by Lumberjacktom

fire

Destruction in many forms.
Image courtesy of: http://www.crazy-ivory.de

A little silvery trickle of water began to run from the bent pipe. It was surprisingly tough; the dull, stained copper was standing up to all the force Tack could put on it. He held the pipe by the brass tap on its top. Thinking about it, Tack saw that whoever had put this in was a terrible engineer. How they had expected a fairly flimsy, half-inch pipe to stand up to everyday use without so much as a bracket to support its length against the wall was a mystery compounded by the fact that they had evidently expected it to stand indefinitely, since, most of its length was buried in concrete making any repair an undertaking not worth the effort.

Needless to say, it would not stand indefinitely. Tack wrenched the pipe back and forth through fully a quarter of a turn by its length, levering against the concrete which collared it at the base. As he did so the trickle became a gently arcing thread glittering in the streetlight.

There was a visceral satisfaction in destroying something; some piece of public infrastructure, be it wrenching off a tap or dropping a mattress from the overpass, or watching thick, smoky petroleum flames begin to lick from the top of a litter bin. Pointless destruction of pointless things. For nothing had a reason, nothing had a goal which stretched beyond the void which was the end of all things. People abhorred destruction because they had been told to. Society constructs, it builds, moving toward a greater goal, went the mantra. Freedom is consumption, and labour, in a perfect balance. The freedom to work. The right to a mortgage. A neat lawn. A tidy funeral.

The thread became a spray, a mirror plane of clear glassy water, rent apart by surface tension into a thousand droplets soaking Tack’s shin.

Dab and Fen had finished smashing the lock from the cemented shell of a bin and the plastic inner container now lay bent and crippled on the ground, trails of stinking rubbish strewn along the sea defense. They turned their attention to Tack’s tap. Tack braced against the wall with one foot, and wrenched the pipe as Dab and Fen beat and kicked on the anchored end. Slowly, reluctantly, the pipe twisted and sheared free, a metallic crunch heralding its defeat. Foamy, pure white water ejaculated from the ground in a knee-high column, then ran down the concrete slope to the beach, muddied by dust and sand and grit.

Entropy, Tack smiled.

by Colette

Maybe She Needs A Bigger Table

Written by Fantasy Girl

dining table

The table will be set for three at exactly 7.24pm every evening.
Image Courtesy of http://www.dailymoderation.com

Tea will be served at precisely 7.24 pm, just as it is every evening. The table will be set for three around the small square at which they will eat. Three meals will be put on the place mats. Only one person will be there. Only one person will eat.

She never changed her routine, even after the incident. She still bought clothes for the other two. She still washed them. She still ironed them. She would even put them away for them. She would have conversations, seemingly with herself; about what they should have for dinner, about what was on telly that night, or what film they should go see at the weekend. Nothing changed. It never changed.

It’d been ten years since the incident, ten years since they died. The car went under. She was the only one to get out. Why couldn’t she save them? Why didn’t they let her die too? Because she’s a survivor, that’s why. She had always been a survivor – when her parents died, when her husband and child died… funnily enough in the same way.

Or maybe that was the point – that she was meant to be alone – that they were all meant to die, and she was meant to survive? But what kind of survival is this? Living in the past, believing they are still alive, believing that they will one day be home for dinner.

Because that’s why she sets the table, you know, not because she doesn’t know they’re dead. Of course she knows. But because she believes that one day they will return, and be home at 7.24 pm for dinner. And maybe they will bring mum and dad too… maybe she needs a bigger table.

by Colette

The Tawarkelion

Ankou

Ankou ‘The Legend of Death’ – his presence is near.

Written by Eruantien 

Within Arachnos does darkness rise
And Ankou shall watch as hope dies
For in his lands his power shall fall
And lo they shall roam, not one but all

No more shall light the dark hold back
And no safety shall be on the track
Five shall leave to tread on wood and stone
With one to pass through fire alone

Now on the fields shall they be arrayed
With the hosts of hate against them played
Arms of steel to their aid shall come
Yet through pain of loss are lips struck dumb Continue reading →

by Colette

Alex

Written by Dice

multiverse_2-660x266

Time. A tricky topic for sure, but incredibly intriguing.

Alex was your average mid-twenties young professional. He was tall, slim with short brown hair and blue eyes. He worked nine to five every weekday before returning home to his one bedroom flat to watch TV or browse the internet.

Today was different, lo and behold he had turned off the TV, finally bored of watching the same old rubbish. He sat for a while staring at the black screen, glancing occasionally at the remote which sat within easy grasping distance. He glanced at his watch: 9:58pm, that new comedy would be starting soon…

Alex was brought out of his battle of will by a knock on the door. Confused at who would visit at this hour, but glad of the distraction, Alex peeled himself from the sofa and made his way to the door. He stopped at the sound of another knock. The knocking wasn’t coming from the front door, but the door to his bathroom. He sighed, clearly he’d left bathroom window open.

“Come in,” called Alex joking to himself. His laughter was cut short when the bathroom door opened and a man who, in nearly every way, looked exactly like him. Apart from the clothes, the Alex doppelgänger wore an expensive grey suit which fitted to this man’s clearly more toned body.

“Thanks,” replied the doppelgänger whose voice was also exactly the same as Alex’s. Alex stood perfectly stunned, after a short silence the new Alex held out his hand and spoke, “I’m Alexander, good to meet me again.”

Alex fainted. Continue reading →

by Colette

It’s July And Inkblots Is Back!

july

Happy 4th July Everyone!

Hey Inkblotters, we’re finally back from our two-month break, have you missed us? Well, we’ve certainly missed giving you great content on a weekly basis to read, that’s for sure. And as July is setting up to be an absolute scorcher for a month – if the start of this weekend is anything to go by – then we’ve got some hot, hot, hot material to feast your eyes on. But before I get to the good part, there’s a few (possibly quite boring) bits the Inkblots team need to address first.

There’s been a few changes to the administration and editing team for our website, and as sad as we were to see Sparky go, he’s gone off to pursue his dream as a Maths teacher and will be starting his PGCE in September. He’ll still be around, but only as a writer not an editor. With Sparky gone, the position needed to be filled, and luckily Doishy was up to the job. He’ll be starting this month to upload and edit Inkblots’ content, and we’re sure he’s going to do a cracking job.

Another slight change to our regular content is with regards to The Friday Frenzy – although very successful, our writers also have very busy lives and sometimes a night out on the town is just too hard to resist! But the Frenzy hasn’t disappeared – we recognise a great concept, after all – so it’s had a bit of a name change and is now The Fiction Frenzy! The competition and its rules have changed somewhat as it’s now taking place either quarterly or tri-annually throughout the year – we haven’t decided yet! When The Fiction Frenzy does take place, however, it will be over the course of the third or fourth month, so you’ve got a bunch more time to send in those entries. We’ll update those details in a blog post further down the line.

We also have a new event taking place this weekend – short notice, we know – but if you remember back to our two-month breather post, we mentioned that a Review Day would be taking place in the summer. Well, summer is here and so is SWORD (Summer Writing Open Review Day) which will take place on Saturday 6th July, midnight to midnight. The aim of this event is to encourage writers to submit their work for review and return the reviews (or critiques) to other writers who have also submitted work for SWORD. This event is strictly happening on The Inkwell, so if you’d like to read more about it, you can do so here.

I realise this post is now becoming extremely long, and if you’re still with me, I’ve got to thank you with a virtual cupcake: *hands through the screen*. While you’re chomping that down, and before I finish my tea, Inkblots has seven posts scheduled this month. From some incredibly deep and emotional poetry from Lost in a Dream and Dizzy Dazzle, to some great and dark short fiction from both Fantasy Girl and Lumberjacktom. And last but not least, the HHC theme for this month is SERENDIPITY – as always, if you wish to enter this month just send your entries into creativewritinginkwell@hotmail.com. Remember, you only have half an hour!

Thanks for sticking with us Inkblotters, and we hope you enjoy our content this month.

– Silver, Inkblots Editor