To Stumble Upon Sentiment

  My wings were made of silk. They shimmered in natural glory - thinner than paper, lighter than air. Each evening Mummy would handwash and steam them, enhancing their blinding glow , as Mummy adored my wings. She said they were ‘just like my father’s’ – a man I never knew. She said I had ‘ his adamant gaze’ – one of eyes I had never seen. She says those eyes saw the failure in her , so that’s why she’s alone and that’s why she has to look after my wings. She wanted me to meet him one day. He was a tall man – strongly built, firm faced. Nothing contrasted more than my father to his delicate wings, the spitting image of my own. Although frayed at the edges from use, they had the same enviable beauty – I could see why Mummy came back to him, but I couldn’t comprehend why she stayed. My place was at the window - staring at melted horizons, listening to a household of screams . Cries of a woman I barely recognised, her cotton wings bedraggled, who tip - toed across the corridors...

A thick gleam of white light skimmed its surface – scouring its depths of warm rosy gold. Peering in , you glimpse fingers, tangled, and lips, soft under the pressure of another. A hearty sunset stretch es across it like a smile whilst a rejoiceful melody echoe s at a fallen knee. Then eyes – many eyes curiously gaze at you from within, they watch ed you and taunt ed you until nothing felt your own, even your very own melody became mere s houts and screams . So you pass it over the counter, that ring, and gently rub away that white gleam as if it were a tear.

I don’t suppose I felt anything when she came through the door, her cheeks raw. Her eyes enveloped in veils of tears, layer upon layer, each one making her gaze seem further and further away. I could stare back for hours and be none the wiser. There was a distance – a level of awareness I hadn’t reached – and I suppose that is why I felt nothing. Instead, I swivelled around in my rickety desk chair as she fumbled her way over to the bedside, removing her cardigan, ineffectually dusting away at her under-eyes which only further soaked in the tears – staining there. Anxiously – or perhaps to mimic anxiety – I nibbled at the end of my pen, awaiting as she gathered her words, her eyes now downcast from my own. She was barely able to face such youthful naivety, to watch the dropping of my countenance – shifting from a neutral optimism to a ruminating shock, paralysed by how to act, what to say, how to behave. Whether to scream as one is snatched from a comfortable reality to that of somethi...

  It was that silence in the evening, the one that hovers in the air. That sensation of a completed day leaving you snuggled deep in covers far too thick for a comfortable sleep, only to find them kicked far aside early next morning. Although, it wasn't morning yet. It was the evening, one with just the right glimmer of light sneaking through treetops to justify leaving the curtains undrawn, letting you gaze out at bloody skies. A horizon stained but not tainted – released; undignified. Painted with emotion. The night was cold, but the evening was warmer than any sunlight, and you admired its striking colours in your pretty patterned pyjamas, two sizes too big, creased beyond repair.   And as you turn back to the silence, you're faced with a ghost who died no more than five minutes ago. A woman unrested with a darkness in her eyes, a vacancy in her movements and a tension in her scalp from the ponytail pulled back tight. You knew she was friendly but more than dead; she never ...

The room was a storm. Wild and treacherous , it erupted with distraught screams. It bounced from the walls. Constant ; present ; in escapable. The gusts of chatter whipped one from the ground to cavort and hurtl ed them back like a discarded toy, whilst p encils crept off tabletops and crashed below like fallen trees. Then rainfall came , as it always did. It always rained when there was a storm. They broke their favourite tree, so the drops fell, ripples in the ocean, and were dutifully accompanied by howls, throaty and rough. Cries that grew and fell until they found another tree - t heir real favourite tree . Although, silence never follow ed . The clammer of the storm struck on.   The savages fought over resources, snatching and biting over precious blocks of plastic, gnawing at each other’s limbs with teeth unsheathed. Tiny blunt stumps unintimidating in nature but white, pure white, glimmering with playful rivalry. And the feet, how the bare feet hammered on the...

‘ It’s all your fault… ’ I was muttering, ‘ all yours. ’     My head hung. My eyes, glazed with salty tears, watched the floor seemingly wallowing below. Eventually, gravity took hold and the same salt-ridden river clustered to drops, splattering at my feet and dispersing. Dispersing to the point of almost being absorbed into the sheen tiles. I felt lighter. The choking grip grasping my throat seemed to loosen; but not release. I could move my head. I could lift my eyeline to hers . It was a gradual process ; I was still very much recovering. At any point, the weight of it all would hammer down on me once more. The dam would shatter, and the river would flow.   ‘ It’s all your bloody fault, ’ was my reaction as I held her gaze for a matter of seconds, ‘ all this mess – this incoherent mess. It was unnecessary. Laughably avoidable. ’ As predicted , those couple sentences stripped my throat of moisture and I was left coughing and spluttering pathetically. Left as a pat...

It burnt.   Whoever considered the idea of resting spread out under a window sill was eloquently insane. My abdominal skin felt raw and sticky under the thin layer of fur. It sucked my energy. I only felt drained as I lay helplessly in my enclosure of self-reflection. Reflection of decisions – of regrets.   It kept burning.   It would only take a couple pawsteps , just a few. The sun was cut off by the window sash a matter of centimetres away. However, I still lay there. Sprawled out. Sprawled out just like a soldier on no-man's-land. Burning. My eyes were locked shut tightly, leaking some form of gooey substance which only further trapped them within their hollows. Curse my luscious grey fur – holding me hostage to the cosmic rays of the sun. No neck massages can suitably balance the agony in which I was experiencing.  

What do you associate with the phrase 'a forei gn land '?   A city far beneath the ocean seas? An island floating aimlessly across the Atlantic? A rock hurtling through the midst of space? Or just simply a country you're yet to personally explore? It's an extraordinary term with its meaning being altered each time you take a step. In conclusion, it's meaningless. An empty phrase that can be filled with purpose by your own experiences, but yet it feels so unsatisfactory. Wouldn't it be the ultimate achievement to create a land so difficult to comprehend that it could honour a word such as 'foreign'? Somewhere which is wholly original rather than a disjointed puzzle formed by fragments of past experiences?