The Hawk…

The school was always making noises. We boys, being the ones that we were, merely added to the general volume. Most days would see us tempering our explosions, sometimes not. We were like juvenile pressure points that had very little control over themselves. The temperature, the pressure per square inch, was often pre-set before the...

Staying in the womb…

The school was always making noises. We boys, being the ones that we were, merely added to the general volume. Most days would see us tempering our explosions, sometimes not. We were like juvenile pressure points that had very little control over themselves. The temperature, the pressure per square inch, was often pre-set before the...

Unwanted…

I had never thought about how I had arrived at Sandham beyond believing that I had been dropped off by my mother. I thought that she had dropped me off and just forgotten to pick me up. Something had been happening with the other world and I had the impression that all of what was...

Lovely, Dark and Deep…

There is nothing safe about the woods. They are the deepest secrets, the most guarded truths, and our most obdurate confessions. The woods were lonely, dark and deep and they had a promise to keep.  She had asked me to save the boy, the boy who had struck her down without remorse – she had...

What’s in a Name?

Not so fun pun: Bored and board. Bored:  a feeling of unhappiness because something is not interesting. That can be something like playing football every single break or lunchtime because nobody has any other ideas about what we could be playing instead. Bored (verb): when you make a hole in the ground to search for...

Freedom of Thought…

The way people are thinking these days, or should I say the way that people are choosing not to think, is an eye-opener only to the people who choose to open their eyes. To everybody else, it is an irrelevance, a wasted action, an act of treason. Thinking hurts, so why bother when there are...

The Importance of Non-Colour…

Fun definition: Umber: a mixture of colours ‘terra d’ombra’ (earth of shadows) in Italian was first made from mixing rich soil with iron oxide. People used it in paintings to show connections between the inner and outer selves. It’s a little hue that points towards the uncertain.    When I woke up in umber I was...

On Not Being Winston Churchill…

“What’s your full name?” the main man asked.  I thought him to be the main man because he was the one to ask whilst the others nervously pushed together in an attempt to allow him his rightful share of the space. He had grown accustomed to such reverenced for his authority and he moved around...

B is for Bedside Metaphors…

I was on the threshold of understanding something without being able to muster the required framework for comprehension. My hospital bed had become a battlefield for forces that deemed it necessary to play out a metaphor whilst messing with my mental state. Being lost in the world that had grown out of the ward, the...

Let It Be…

The old Egyptians allowed their Pharaoh to rule absolutely and without any fear of censure. When faced with an invisible deity that came from some place else, he just shrugged and told his people that there was nothing in the universe that could reach beyond his own powers. So when the Hebrew god sent the...