MEETING IN THE SPACE BETWEEN DREAMS.

There once was a girl who used to close her eyes and tell herself stories every night as she slept.

Or as she tried to.

She would imagine dungeons and dragons and, or the light-footed sandals of Achilles whisking her high up into the air.

She would imagine breathing fire, bending water, having the clouds whisper into her ears.

Sometimes, when sleep did finally surrender itself to her wanting embrace, she would wake and want only to capture those dreams-before-dreams in words.

But by then, they were almost always forgotten.

But then she met a boy who was different to her.

Where she read books and studied words and marvelled at the multiplicity of meaning

(she overthought a lot)

He was practical and logical, applied this to his ambition and thought through a lense of numbers and strategies.

But such is often the beauty of encountering a mind so different to your own.

They often sat quietly, trying patiently to guess what the other was thinking.  

And then he told her own one night, before she had time for any confessions of her own,

That he too made up stories in his head every night as he waited for sleep.

“I usually give myself superpowers”, he said,

and she smiled.

THE PORCELAIN HEART.

Once there was a princess who was born with a heart outside of her body. It was a pale and slippery thing, and her parents lamented so, for how was she to be a great ruler in the kingdom with such a feeble heart? As if in demonstration, her mother went to pick up the heart, and cried out as the mucous tissue escaped her fingers and fell to the floor. There, the heart sat in a puddle of its own fleshy juices, surrounded by the eyes of the doctors and nurses, the king and queen. How was the princess to survive with a heart that could not withstand the light touch of fingertips, let alone the calling of a kingdom? 

A lot had been placed on the shoulders of this baby without a heart. She had not been the product of an easy birth. With no brothers and no sisters, the weight of her lineage rested at the foot of her cot. And here she was, with soft skin and supple lips, dainty features and a lick of golden cupid’s curls, perfect in every sense of the word bar the slimy, slug-like object on the ground at which her mother now pawed, attempting to retrieve it from the reddish mucus. The doctor bent to his knees, gently pushing the queen away, and retrieved the heart from the floor with the lithe fingers of a skilled surgeon. Well-versed in bedside manner, he told them in soothing tones that the girl would survive. It would not be an easy life that she would lead. She would have to carry her spineless and slippery heart with her, wherever she went, and keep it safe. It would need to be protected, held safe. He was certain that a cage of sorts, a portable device designed to safeguard the heart from greedy fingers, from foul smells and poisonous substances, from careless bystanders who might crush it by accident, or trample it by force. It would take some adjusting, but with time, he was certain the princess would learn to live with the heart outside of her body. 

The mother and father of the girl wept bitterly. They were grateful for the birth of their beautiful and blessed child, but they feared that it would be nothing but a short life that she would lead, with such an important organ beyond the safe confines of her skin. One mistake, one thoughtless manoeuvre, and the heart might be squished and pulverised into a pulp of nothingness. So, they prayed to the old gods, of whom we speak little and dare seldom to grant us wishes, for fear of powers so great they may only be whispered. They prayed that the girl’s heart would be strengthened and supported, so that she might be able to lead a normal life. The gods are cruel, tactless, and often take fancy in the torment of man. Prayers might come answered, and wishes granted, but never without a clause. Whichever god happened to be listening on this occasion delighted in acquiescing the pleas of the parents. One flick of the wrist of the powers of old, and the slippery red heart hardened and thickened, the soft, porous walls lengthened and fixed, and the heart transformed from something spongey and tongue-like, into a beautiful and shimmering heart of porcelain. The king and queen dried their tears and peered down at the baby and the chinaware heart nestled beneath her elbow, baffled by the modification and dubious as to whether this was actually an answering of their prayers. The doctor, ever versed in positive approaches, leapt to his feet and jumped to and fro in an excessively delighted manner. The gods had answered, a medical miracle had taken place, and though the heart had not been moved inside the boy, a heart of porcelain was far harder to break than a heart of blood. 

The girl grew, and wherever she went, either she or one of the king and queen’s many servants carried the porcelain heart. It was transported with delicacy and caution, wrapped in sables and furs and kept far from harm’s way. Not until the girl got older, was anyone other than her mother and father allowed to handle the porcelain heart. The lick of golden hair had lengthened into bouncy golden curls, her skin remained soft, her cheeks rosy and her eyes dark and bright. She was hard not to look at, and attracted the gazes of most of the young and available suitors of the kingdom (and some that were neither young nor available). Soon, there were more suitors lining up at the door than the kitchen staff had time to prepare tea and libations for. They clamoured and called, begging to enthrone the golden princess, to wrap a golden ring on her finger, or a ruby crown on her head, to spin her round the ballroom, or to trade her for the season’s pickings of produce and livestock. They were so enamoured with the princess’s round cheeks and light laugh, they failed to see the chips in the pretty porcelain heart, where cracks were already beginning to form.

It was not her fault that the heart had been chipped. Her gaze had one day fallen upon a young stable hand in the courtyard below. He had held her hand and shown her the tall draught horses, and the small stout pigs, and then sat down beside her in the straw and pressed his lips to her own. She had been so caught up in the newness of the feeling, the wetness of his lips and the heat of his breath on her face, that she had not seen him snake out his hands and run them over her porcelain heart, seated beside them in the straw. She had not felt the urgency of his clammy hands, squeezing the delicate ceramic, running grubby nails along its sides. She did not notice her heart contract and splinter, a small shard of sharp china falling off into the straw, burrowed deep amongst hooves and manure and sawdust.

Though this was the first occasion upon which the heart cracked, it was not the last. A deep fracture spread through the pale porcelain, when a visiting merchant’s son swapped some cinnamon for a quick fondle through her gauzy undergarments. A jagged edge broke loose when a young and dauntless prince swept her round the ballroom on light feet, kissed her goodnight with promises of endless returns, and failed to materialise the next morning. Further and further the heart splintered and cracked, until the heart was more splintered than it was whole, and the princess had to walk with it clutched gingerly to her chest, for fear of segments breaking away in her wake. Her curls flattened and her red cheeks paled, and the king and queen came to fear for the princess, who in turn feared leaving her room, and the safe confines by which the heart might not break any further. Anxious and distressed by the calamity of their only child, who now sequestered herself far up in the turrets, afraid of the greedy hands of the world, the king and queen prayed again to the old gods, begging them to repair her porcelain heart. But the old gods turned away and ignored the pleas of the helpless couple, for they had already had their wish granted, and no deity is so generous as to accede to two wishes of mortals (they mustn’t be spoiled, after all). 

All around the kingdom, word was sent of the princess’s breaking heart, and a huge prize was prepared for anyone who might be able to repair the ailing organ. Many came, and some tried (the princess was by now very particular about whom she allowed to touch her fragile porcelain heart), but none succeeded, and the heart cracked and splintered further, and the princess became ever increasingly fragile and weak. Curtains were drawn and doors were closed, and the castle became a dark and gloomy residence, of timid movements and careful steps, all in fear that even the slightest of tremors might cause the porcelain heart to crumble.

As does so often in the crucial moment of stories, a tall dark stranger arrived at the doors of the castle. Wrapped up in cloaks and gloves and a long woolly scarf, he spoke in hushed whispers of his trade, and requested a sitting with the princess, as to ascertain the damage to her porcelain heart. The king and queen regarded him with worried glances, but dreaded even more the fast-approaching day that the porcelain heart collapsed, and most probably took their daughter with it into the dust. The stranger was brought up to see the princess, who was by now listless and gaunt, her golden curls lifeless and her eyes drooping and dull. The stranger sank deep into a bow before the girl, and asked gently to see the porcelain heart. He was a pottery maker, he explained, with a penchant for fixing the broken dishes and vases of the world. To lifeless and tired to think of a reason to deny him the request, the princess pulled out a bundle of tattered rags, within which lay the cracked and dying heart. Held together only by thin conduits of porcelain, the heart looked wretched, as if a strong breath might blow it to pieces. With slender fingers, reminiscent of the genteel surgeon who had once saved the slippery red heart from its imminent demise upon the birth of the baby girl, the stranger reached out and stroked the frail sides of the heart. From the depths of his coat, he pulled out a curious looking gel – a home remedy, taught to him by his mother, who was taught by her grandparents, and so forth - and with a swift precursory glance at the princess for her express permission, he began to glue the shards back together. 

Now the heart was never truly fixed. It is difficult, if not impossible, to fix things that have been broken. But, with time, and care, a cautious hand and a precise eye, the shards gradually returned into the walls of the heart where they had once stood. The princess fell in love with the man (for how could she have not, having been privy to his soft words and velveteen manner, in a world otherwise full of vying, greedy individuals). The fragment of heart that had once been lost in the stables, amongst the straw, was even found years and years after it first broke loose from the porcelain heart. Together in the castle, the princess and the pottery maker lived, with him patiently on hand to glue parts of her heart back together as they weathered and aged.

WELL CHILD.

There is a girl at the bottom of the well. 

Of that he is sure.

He hears her whimpers late at night. 

At first, he thinks it must be a kitten, for all the soft and breathless mewls. 

But one day he lets his curiosity get the better of him.

On tip toes he stands at the side of the well.

Even so, he is barely tall enough to peer over the edge.

He teeters,

Grubby fingernails clinging on to the webs of lichen and moss,

Covering the century old structure. 

A string hangs in the centre of the well.

One he hasn’t noticed before.

Or perhaps it is more of a rope?

The end of the rope is knotted and tied

Such that it reminds him of a noose. 

Not that he’s ever seen a noose, mind.

But after the order for whole pastures of fat cows and fluffy lambs to be burned,

One of the Eastern farmers strung himself up to the barn rafters

And dangled above the milking machines.

The boys at school traced one in the playground in powdery chalk

that refused to wash away for weeks after.

The wooden beams supporting the rope aren’t strong enough to hang a body from anyway.

They look brittle and rotten and riddled with bugs.

And who could blame them?

No one has cared for this house since his Great Aunt Matilda

Who patched up the holes and tended to the gardens

Who thatched the roof and mended the awnings

Who whispered to plants and spread love into paint.

His own mother sighs as the house crumbles, 

And floats off to bed. 

He hears her most at night, through the cracked glass

Of his windows which face the orchard

And all its wizened trees

Which have born no apple in the days he can remember. 

She is calling him.

Or is she singing?

He down the pillow over his ears 

And tries to block out her lonely song.

Now the boy grows braver too,

As boys of his age tend to do. 

Up to the rim of the well he clambers

Peering precociously over the edge.

For a brief moment he wonders who would come to rescue him

If he were to fall in.

It certainly wouldn’t be his mother. 

Nonetheless, the brave boy hoists himself up

Bearing the weight on the flats of his hands

And squints down the tunnel.

He thinks he can see a pale face

Lit up by a portion of the moon.

But the boy looks back and sees that it is still daylight behind him

The sun peaks at its highest over the bowed apple trees

And he knows he shall soon be expected for the afternoon wash.

So he turns on his heels

Making off for the washing house,

But he doesn’t dare forget the pale moon-touched face. 

Now you’d think that the boy might forget the girl at the bottom of the well.

Boys do after all have a lot to think about

From slugs and snails to newts to balls to spinners to diablos

From cuts and scrapes to scratches to very unfortunate broken arms

From bedtimes and wake-ups to sisters and cousins and babies

From lessons and tutors to lonely walk homes and slightly too small shoes

From anger and embarrassment to getting pink-cheeked when sat beside the girl with plaits.

But this boy remembers

And waits for the dead of night

When he knows that the moon will actually be up to guide his way

And light up whoever lingers at the bottom of the well.

And so he sneaks out

On timid feet

In undersized shoes.

But why he is sneaking, even he doesn’t know.

He could burn the house down and his mother would still stay as she is

Head buried in the pillow 

Vegetating in the sheets.

He slips out into the dead of night.

Outside it is quiet

As it tends to be when you inhabit a space in the country so deep

That the boy could walk for all the hours of the darkness

And still not come across another house.

His footsteps are muffled in the damp and dewy grass

The silence is in fact stifling.

He reaches the well, and hoists up his limber body

And peers back down into the unforgiving darkness.

He wonders if he should have brought a snack.

Perhaps she likes jam sandwiches?

But it is too late to dally and consider a strawberry sweet peace offering.

He swipes at the frayed rope, and catches it between clammy hands.

One deft tug, and it tells him that it will carry his weight

Down to the well floor.

The boy and the girl do not run into one another’s arms

For why would they, they are not acquainted.

Instead, the boy having landed on his hands in knees

In an inch of putrid well water,

The girl sits at a safe distance and watches him warily.

He can see that there is little left of her

Soft flesh stripped away, leaving milky white bones.

Her hair remains.

It even seems to have grown down here

In this dark and desperate dungeon,

And hangs in clumps and tangles, embroiled with lichen and weeds.

Now for her face.

He cannot tell if she is smiling or grimacing

For undressed from flesh and skin and organs,

All that remains is a skull, tilted to one side

And gazing at him with what he supposes is a perplexed expression

(but this is hard to tell without cheeks and lips

and in place two dark vortexes where blue eyes once sat).

He supposes she wouldn’t have enjoyed a strawberry sandwich after all

As she seems to be missing all the necessary organs.

Nonetheless, he squats in the murky waters at the bottom of the well

And extends a hand.

An act of peace and welcome.

She has little to offer in the way of hospitality herself

With no seat nor bed nor food at the bottom of the well

And only the company of newts and slugs and the odd rat who has gladly avoided drowning

But yet she extends her hand to match the boy

Though the joints creak and groan and weeds fall away from her ulna.

So they sit, the two children at the bottom of the well

One bright and buoyant boy

Although his rosy cheeks are subdued by the watery greens and greys

And one skeleton girl.

A leader of a lonely life,

With only the accompaniment of his mother’s soft whimpers in the dead of night,

The boy is somewhat lacking in the friendship department.

He hasn’t been to school in months now anyway,

But his classmates conceded him were a series of nicknames and snickers. 

So, the boy is obliging and open hearted. 

He meets the skeletal fingers that extend out to greet him,

And makes as not to look at the rancid water that drips from her bones. 

Now the girl cannot speak.

She lacks the flesh and the blood and vitality to speak.

In fact, her voice box decayed decades ago.

But somehow, through her touch, she tells her story.

Is that so difficult to imagine? 

More so than a skeletal girl living at the bottom of the well?

She spreads out her digits, scraping against his soft palms,

And tells him her tale.

Now I must prepare you, for it is a sad account

For whoever heard of a girl who lived at the bottom of a well

Who lived a happy story, 

A happy life?

She was once so very beautiful,

A thick dark mane that once gleamed free of the lichen and newts that now lived within,

Soft white skin and rosy cheeks.

She looked like her mother, who was known around the parts 

Largely for her wayward spirit.

She prayed to the old gods, and taught her daughter

Never to mix wolfsbane and nettle

And that a fox seen at sunset cautions of a broken heart.

They kept to themselves, largely at the edge of the moors,

For the townsfolk didn’t understand her potions and prayers,

And how she whispered to the ghosts of the undead, 

Who at night roamed over the marshes.

Yet sometimes in the dead of night,

The townswoman crept over to the little cottage,

And asked for a milk thistle paste to cleanse the body,

Or a tincture of basil and borage to heal the heart.

The wild woman of the moors never turned them away,

Despite the way they turned their faces from her in public

And the spits and sneers with which their husbands greeted her.

She greeted these women stragglers with few words,

Ushering her own children into the corner of the dimly lit cabin, 

And pressing the desired tonic into wanting hands.

She never accepted any of the coins they tried to return.

And though she minded her own ways, 

And though she gained a quiet respect from the village women,

Soothing their aching heads and ailing stomachs and cleansing their corporeal corruption,

The men still hounded her children.

At first, with glances.

This quickly followed by catcalls.

Once, they chased home her eldest,

The lithe girl with the mane of black curls.

She was lucky, on this occasion.

On the second, her mother’s rose quartz lacked the luck to bring her safely home.

They traversed her with callused hands

Still dirty from the fields.

She ended up red and black and blue

But these marks marring her soft white skin were hard to see

For there was hardly any light at the bottom of the well.

She wonders what happened to her mother.

Of course, she is by now long dead.

But whether she stayed, tied to the log cabin with the kindling fire

And the rows of herbs and roots and seeds.

She misses the sweet, earthy smell of those four wooden walls.

Or whether the loss of her eldest daughter proved too much to bear.

Her mother would have known,

Surely.

A child of the marshes, she knew never to stray too close to the bogs

Or to dare cross the swamps past bedtime. 

Did she look for her?

Did she walk into the village,

Bare foot as she went, with her raven hair and sun weathered skin

Did she scream and cry and beg the townsfolk to bring her back her baby?

Did she ever peer down into the dark and cavernous well

And see the broken white body that lay below?

All this the well girl tells him 

And all the while the boy listens.

He offers to take her

Or what is left of her,

And bury it above ground

But she refuses.

For what would she be now

A dead girl amongst the living?

She presses something into his palms.

A silver bracelet encrusted with muddied charms

A pretty thing that doesn’t belong in the shadows. 

She bids him farewell, and hoists him up

So he may clamber up the slippery wet walls

And return to the land of the living.

Gradually,

The boy forgets.

He forgets the girl that lives at the bottom of the well

And perhaps in his forgetting,

She ceases to exist.

Nonetheless, he grows up

And marries a pretty girl of his own

SEASIDE.

It’s what you British like to call summer-time, and you’ve dragged me to the sea. You wouldn’t believe it. The canopy of clouds is too thick for any sun to pierce its way through. Were we still in LA, on a beach day back with my family, the beach would be littered with scantily clad tourists and sunbathers. Here, we are alone. Almost alone, if you discount the faint silhouette of a man and dog tossing a ball to and fro. I don’t mind it. In fact I think I prefer it. I can hear the wind and the waves and a few stray gulls and your laugh piercing these sounds of the sea as you toss something my way.

I feel saltwater seeping into my old worn welly, but I don’t mind that either. I scrunch up my toes and it seeps slightly further into my socks, a slightly cold and prickling sensation. Your mum lent me these. Pulled the well-worn boots out of a cupboard with a delighted smile and told me I was going to love the British seaside. It took a little to win her over. I paid due care in saying please and thank you, and complimenting her cooking, but what really won her over was when I got down on my hands and knees whilst she was weeding, and asked questions about the clematis and rhododendrons. You were in the shower. I could see her face light up, the formal mask she likes to hold up around me soften. I know she’s apprehensive. They blame me a little for your jet-setting lifestyle. You always spend a lifetime in the shower, enough time for her to point out the late-Spring bloomers, and rant about the peat-laden soil in the area. After that she was warmer, brushing my shoulders as she walked past, or filling up my mug of hot coffee without asking. She pulled those wellies out of the cupboard with gusto, assuring me that despite the temperature and the dubious looking skies, we would have the best time. Alongside the wellies, I’ve been clad in a thick tweed waterproof, just the sort I imagined your family to have lying around. I almost look ready enough to go out and shoot something. 

Something slaps me on the chest, and I look up. Your light peals of laughter have increased to cackles. Following the unidentified object, I find myself peering at a lilac-hued pile of what appears to be slime. Upon closer examination, I realise that it is in fact a tentacle-less jellyfish. I think you see the annoyance flash across my face, as your laughter slows and you gesture to the tide line.

“They don’t sting. These ones are harmless”.

I roll my eyes, but take a step closer to the streamlined section of beach where the water meets the sand. Hundreds of these lilac-blue blobs line the tideline.

“These guys must’ve been unlucky. Happens when the tides change, or it’s too cold”. 

I didn’t know you were a jellyfish expert. I guess that sort of thing happens, when you have tweed jackets in your cupboard. I pick up a loose piece of driftwood and prod one delicately. This triggers fresh amusement on your face. 

“They won’t bite. Or sting. Such a big group of them, it’s called a bloom”.

A bloom of jellyfish. How poetic.

You take a step closer, and I narrow my eyes. I don’t want to be hit by anymore harmless-or-not-so-harmless dead jellyfish. But, you pause, smile, then press your lips against mine. I can taste the salt in your kiss. You pull away, looking almost bashful, and entwine an arm around mine. 

“Come on”.

We meander back to where the car is parked, bracing against the strong winds and the gulls, and the lone man and his dog. You’ve promised your mum you won’t let me leave without tasting the finest ice cream the British seaside has to offer.