Judgment Chapter One - second rough draft

Judgment - Chapter One

A luminous glow dilutes the sky as Clay and I make our way into town. The dawning air is thick with heat. Blades of grass catch between my toes as I walk, and a few grains of dirt catch between my sandals and the base of my feet. The field below me holds the bodies of thousands of citizens. We live in Vita: A country split into divisions and built above its dead.

“I'd sell my mother for a cool breeze,” Clay says, breaking the silence.

“Your mother's dead,” I remind him.

“Fine.” He knocks his shoulder into mine. “I'd sell you.”

“You wouldn't dare.”

“Believe me I would. I'd sell my father right now for a bottle of water.”

“Your father's dead.” I quickly fan my face, then tuck my blonde curly hair behind my ear.

Clay Laughs. “Us orphans can't catch a break, ey?”

“You're not an orphan. You have Birte.”

“You have Birte, too.”

I smile. Birte's raised me my entire life. He took me in when no one else would, even when every other citizen in our Division turned their backs on him for it. I owe Birte my life. “True, but he's your grandfather.”

“That doesn't mean anything, Reed. He loves you just as much as he loves me.”

I don't reply. Clay would say anything to make me happy. He's sacrificed just as much as Birte over the years because of his association with me.

A familiar guilt tugs at my stomach as the concrete skyline of our Division appears over the hill. We've been walking for twenty minutes, but at a good pace we can reach the edge of town in fifteen. It's the insufferable heat slowing us.

“You okay?”

No. On the first day of every month Clay and I make the journey into Town to collect our rations. It's not a trip I look forward too, but Clay insists I accompany him. “I'm used to the glares now. And it's been weeks since anyone felt the need to stop and tell me how much they hate me. I'd call that progress.”

He smiles, a lazy half grin. His eyes look like a starless night sky in the early light. Right now, with the birthing sun reflecting off his face, he looks almost radiant. If it wasn't for the purple hues under his eyes, and sharp cheek bones he would look healthy. And if it wasn't for my parents he would be.

I take a deep breath as we reach the top of the hill. Ahead of us is nothing but concrete. Grey buildings; Grey pavements; Grey roads; Grey clothes; Even the citizens have ashen skin: Another legacy of my parents.

As we weave our way through the maze of high rise buildings, Clay takes hold of my hand. I'm thankful for the heat as it disguises my sweaty palms and hides my nerves. There are more Citizens on the streets than usual.

“Probably woken by the heat,” Clay whispers, hurrying his pace and taking me along right beside him. I hope he's right. The only other time the streets are busy this early are Judgement days, but we haven't had one of those for months.

Other Divisions are more advanced than ours, or so they say. No one in our Division can afford the train fares to travel. Samon Tana, the leader of our Division and one seventh of The Imperium that rule Vita, made sure of that sixteen years ago to punish the citizens of the Division he was supposed to lead. We are under fed, under paid and under valued on Saman Tana's orders. Of course no one blames our great leader. It isn't his fault. He's a good man, a great leader. Our Division was once one of the most thriving in the whole of Vita. Our simple way of living was envied for it's results. Now we're mocked.

And it's all my parents fault.

We snake our way through the market traders, keeping our heads lowered. The faster we can get in and out the better chance I won't anger anyone. Once Citizens collect their rations, some trade each other at the market. Experienced traders hold their own stalls, trading anything from food and clothing to furniture. No one ever has enough of anything, but most manage to balance and trade their rations enough to sustain themselves.

Rations are usually delivered to families in the high rise buildings by runners made up of mostly school leavers, but no one was willing to be a runner out to where Birte, Clay and I lived.

I'm not even sure if that's because of me or because we live in the cemetery. I guessed it was a mixture of the two.

Birte had made an arrangement with a friendly Guardian (The officers of The Imperium who make sure their laws are followed) years earlier for us to collect our rations from him at the back of his wife’s trading stall. Unluckily for me her stall is on the north side of the market, furthest away from where we enter.

The unmistakable stench of poverty is overwhelming in the compact market square - body sweat, dirt and decay – it clogs the air . The back of my neck is damp with perspiration but I can't move my hair to wipe it away until we are out of town. My thick curls are the only good inheritance I have from my mother, they shield my face from others as we rush through the crowd.

Clay releases my hand and grabs hold of me by the wrist, pulling me through the crowd still. I concentrate on where I place my feet, careful not to step on anyone or knock into anything. The dust from the ground whips up into my eyes occasionally, but there is nothing I can do but keep my head lowered and squint.

The last time I'd walked through the market with my head held high (during my one attempt at rebellion) a female citizen had spat in my face. I was thirteen.

“Clay!” It's Lirit, the Guardian who Birte struck our ration deal with. “Hurry along now before the market becomes busier.”

As Clay guides us around the back of Lirit's wooden stall, I raise my head. He greets me with a curt nod, just as he always has. Even though he will not directly speak to me he at least acknowledges me. I understand the position he is in, and the risks he takes to even hold our ration for us, and I'm grateful.

“What's going on? Why is everyone market bound so early? It's barely past dawn,” Clay asks as Lirit pulls a sack containing our rations out from behind some empty boxes.

I sit cross legged on the concrete, enjoying a small rest from the gruelling heat.

“You shouldn't be here today.” He tightens the tie at the top of the sack.

“Why?”

Lirit straightens his back, his brown shirt – part of his all brown Guardian Uniform – not tucked in. It's rare to see a Guardian in anything other than full uniform. It's seen as a Judgeable offence for a Guardian to incorrectly represent the Imperium, this includes not showing loyalty through your presentation.

“Um, your shirt, Sir,” I say. It's the first time I've ever directly addressed Lirit, and his eyes widen. Even Clay has his eyebrows raised. “Sorry,” I say quickly, lowering my head.

“No it's fine. It's just... you can speak? I always thought you were a mute,” Lirit says. I lift my head to see his eyes are still wide. “ Why have you never spoken before?”

His attention is on me and it makes me nervous. I can hear the many loud voices coming from over the other side of the wooden shack. What if someone out there heard me speak? What if they recognised my voice? If I was caught here they would accuse me of disrespecting a Guardian and I would be judged. The citizens would be angry, outraged, and Lirit wouldn't defend me. He'd be foolish to publicly defend the daughter of Rootz and Cotton Rousey. But I can't ignore a direct question from a Guardian either.

“I know my place in our Division,” I tell him and he nods.

“You're a citizen just like the rest of us, Reed,” Clay says. “You've done nothing wrong.” His voice is strong but there are some things he can't protect me from. There are some things I wouldn't let him risk his life over, and there are some things that it wouldn't make a difference if he did.

“Dad?” A girls voice calls from the front of the stall, causing all three of us to whip our heads in that direction, and cutting Lirit off before he can finish. “Dad are you here?”

When I look back to Lirit his expression is one I'm all too familiar with. Fear. He might risk himself to speak with me but he wouldn't risk his daughter.

“Dad, what are you...oh.” May Pitcher, Lirit's daughter, is two years younger than me at fourteen, but you wouldn't know it. She's the only other girl I’ve ever seen with hair as long, thick and curly as my own. She's also the only other girl I know who is openly shunned by citizens. When May was younger everyone would comment on how much slower she developed than the other children and as she grew older the differences between her and others her age were undeniable. Parents began to warn their children to keep their distance from her. Still, she isn't hated.

Clay and I see her from time to time at the lake that stretches from Town to the Cemetery. She ventures closer to where we live than anyone else. Occasionally she will join us for a swim or a few hours of cloud watching.

“Hello,” she says. “I didn't know you two were friends with my dad too.”

I chance a look at Lirit and regret it immediately. His face is flushed, his eyes narrowed. “May, honey. Go and keep an eye on the stall for me, please.”

May crosses her arms across her chest petulantly, but she turns and goes.

Sensing we have outstayed our welcome, Clay says goodbye to Lirit. “I'll go make sure it's okay to leave.” He walks around the front of the stall with the heavy sack on his strong shoulders.

I climb back to my feet and wipe the dust from my skirt, aware of Lirit's intense stare. “He's right you know,” he says quietly. “The way you are treated isn't right. You should know that.”

I offer him a small smile of thanks before turning to leave.

“Reed?” I turn back to Lirit. “Stay away from my daughter.”

Judgment - Chapter One (Rough Draft)

Chapter One

Monday schedules are my favourite of the week: they keep me busy from dawn till dusk. Aside from the usual morning announcements in the Courtyard, I spend my Monday's working on Roots farm. Last year I'd only been able to help out sporadically as I'd had school and commitments, not any more. I loved the farm, I loved the animals, the earth, the crops, and I loved the sense of serenity I only seemed to find amongst Roots fields.

As the lazy sun drifts slowly behind the far off mountains, I run against the wind hoping to beat Clay to the Lake. Today I was on spread duty and I still have bits of the Imperium supplied crop fertiliser stuck in-between my fingers; It feels rough like the grain at the edge of the lake. The air is still warm from the high sun we'd had all day, warming me even as the wind cools me. The sensation alights my senses.

I hitch my full-length peach skirt up a little more, exposing my ankles to the wind. Blades of grass stick in-between my toes as I move, my sandals leaving me exposed to the elements and the earth. The texture of the grass reminds me of where I am racing too, and I run a little faster. I have to beat Clay, I have to.

Ducking under a few low-hanging branches that belong to the tree's separating the farm and the lake, I smell the fresh water before I see it. The familiar break in the browns and greens of the small woods becomes clear so I slow to a jog before settling at a hurried walk. I don't want Clay to know I ran in an attempt to beat him. He'd tease me to no end.

“What took you so long?” Clay asks, sitting on a rock beside the edge of the biggest lake in our Division. “I've been waiting forever.”

“How...I...How?” I asked, stopping still in my tracks. There was no way he could have beat me. I'd seen him talking to Roots near the animal pen before I'd taken off running and the pen was on the other side of the house, a good five minute walk away from where I had started.

“I could beat you running backwards, Reed. You're fast, but I'm faster.” He smiled triumphantly.

The setting sun is behind him silhouetting his frame, giving his brown hair an amber glow. The grey hand-knitted jumper he wears matches mine except Clay's is a few sizes larger and has snags in different places to mine. Roots had traded for the jumpers only a few months prior - once we had turned sixteen and finished schooling. He'd said at the time that we needed new clothes to work the farm, but we'd soon figured out that our old clothes would have sufficed; he'd done it out of kindness; a gift to each of us. Roots is the kindest man I know, he proves it time and time again.

“You gonna stand there all day, or ya gonna come join me?” Clay asks, bringing me back out of my revelry.

“I'm coming, hold your haystack. I just wanna wipe this fertiliser off my hands.” I rub my hands backwards and forwards over my ankle length yellow skirt – made from a pair of Roots old curtains – until the residue is gone. Flexing my fingers, I join Clay sitting on the rocks. We'd learned whilst we were schooling about all the life that exists in the lake: some dangerous, some not. My favourite is Water Skitters, tiny little bugs that skim over the surface of the water. Sometimes, during our personal time, Clay and I would lie still by the edge of the lake for hours looking at the surface of the water, hoping to see a Water Skitter. We'd seen a fly seemingly skim the surface once but the Water Skitter has so far eluded our hunts.

“Is it a new batch of fertiliser? My granddad mentioned something about the Imperium changing the chemicals, I think.”

“Yeah, Roots said it arrived this morning.”

“Are your hands sore?” he asks, concern lacing his voice. Sometimes the Imperium send batches of fertiliser that leave your hands raw, even bleeding. Roots, Clay's granddad has the worn hands to prove it. From the little we learned in schooling I knew that the Imperium had to change fertilisers and things as developments came about. Apparently yesterday's batch is no longer sufficient in helping our farming and so tomorrow Clay and I would spend the morning filling the back of Roots cart with the remaining old sacks of fertiliser, ready for Roots to take into the courtyard's shipment building.

I turn my hands over in-between mine and Clay's faces. “No, not sore, just tired.”

With careful, precise movements, Clay places his hands over mine, skimming his skin softly against my fingers. Barely touching me, the sensation relaxes my tired muscles. “You should have let me do it,” he says, his voice low.

“You had pen duty, right?”

Awareness lights up his eyes as he realises just why I much prefer spread duty. He moves his hand massage lower onto the backs of my palms, almost apologetically. “It wasn't so bad today,” he lies. I know it was bad; it's always bad.

Pen duty consists of working inside the animal pen and its the one job me and Clay would argue about doing when I first came to live on the farm. Eventually he had taken over the role completely, after I was found huddled in the pen corner, screaming and white with terror. I just couldn't handle it. Thankfully Clay had volunteered once he saw just how badly it effected me: he and Roots had been scared half to death. I'd never been more embarrassed in my life, but I just couldn't help it. The pen, as Roots explained to me after my screaming episode, is a completely necessary part of our Divisions survival. There has to be someone to watch the animals; There has to be someone to feed the animals; There has to be someone to take the animals to the shipping building, ready to be transferred to the butchers. I know this, I understand this, however after living beside the Courtyard for most of my life and only moving to the farm aged twelve after my mother passed away, I wasn't used to the.. the...carnage of what lay inside the pen. It is the animals, they weren't like they were in the diagrams in school, they were...different.

“Liar,” I say, pulling my hands from his and thanking him with a smile. Clay returns the smile, but he hesitates first and I know why.

“Are you okay?” I ask him. I understand our predicament just as well as he does.

“I'm fine, Reed.” His tone has changed, and I know he is not fine. He pulls at the sleeve of his left arm, thawing more of the threads around the cuff.

“Clay, I -”

“- Don't, alright. I'm fine,” he interrupts, climbing from the rock and walking down towards the waters edge. He's ten yards from the lake before I'm even off the rock.

I follow him down the small slope, the gravel I'd longed to feel gathering between the soles of my feet and my sandals, mixing with grass. This is why I had wanted to beat Clay to the lake, I'd wanted us to go for a swim as an early celebration of Clay's birthday tomorrow. That is impossible now of course, I couldn't strip off with Clay already here. I had planned to beat him here and be in the water before he arrived; problem solved. I'm sure if he'd known Clay would have let me arrive first, but it is too late for that. There is no way I am even suggesting the idea now. I know where this conversation is leading. We've been here before, more and more of late.

I watch him as he stares out across the still, dark waters. The surface is smooth: a black mirror. I take him in from head to toe, relishing in the opportunity which is so rarely given. Clay likes to keep eye-contact so I never get a chance to look at him without restraint. He is barefoot, his slip-on shoes most likely left back up the slope. He's wearing the same loose fitting sky blue pants - made from another of Roots old cloths – that he wears everyday. His jumper has a new hole at the centre of his back, and I see his skin through the gap. From the position I know it is around the spot that Clay's birthmark is, but I can't see it in the dying light. His dark hair no longer appears amber, it's darker now and in a disarray, sticking up at odd angles due to his long day of labour.

He's a man of seventeen now, as I'm a woman of sixteen. That's the problem.

“Do something for me, Reed,” he asks as I reach his side.

“Anything,” I reply, hoping to cheer him up, hoping to let him know that it pains me too.

“Bubbles.”

Bubbles? It's been so long since he requested bubbles that I'm taken aback at first. Only for a moment though, before the idea overtakes my mind. It's always been the same way. Ever since I started doing... it. Any time the idea came into my mind it was near impossible to ignore.

Closing my eyes, I focus on my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. out. In. The smell of the water overtakes my senses, and I feel my fingers twitch by my side. A familiar feeling courses through my veins - as though replacing my blood – and then I know that it's time. I want it, I will it.

Opening my eyes, I smile when I see the bubbles floating above the surface of the lake. Small, delicate and different sizes, they slowly rise higher, floating around Clay and I. Small, perfect spheres of water, no longer black as it appeared under the blanket of the lake's surface; the water of the bubbles is translucent.

“You're amazing,” Clay says, sounding happier. At one of our Lake side Water Skitter hunts, years before I'd moved onto the farm, Clay and I had been laughing about something neither of us remembers. What we do remember is that the more I laughed the more these tiny bubbles crept up from the lake. At the time there had only been a couple, but it had amazed us both. I wasn't ever really sure how I could do it, Clay couldn't. That first time we'd agreed to never tell anyone, fearing the Imperium would not be happy with my... ability. However, occasionally whist at the lake I'd manipulate the water. I never dared attempt it on the farm, or back at my old house, both were far too close to other people.

The snapping of twigs and rustling leaves breaks my concentration, and the bubbles pop simultaneously.

“Who was that?” I ask, spinning to face the tree line, panic overtaking me.

“My granddad?”

“He never comes by the lake, Clay.”

“Maybe he's looking for us,” Clay says. “Who else could it have been? Relax, Reed, whoever it was they were too far away to see anything anyway. Besides, it could have just been an animal.” He pauses. “In fact I'm sure that's what it was, an animal.”

Unsure, I stare at the trees expecting at any moment for a Guardian to jump out and arrest me.

“Come on,” Clay says, offering me his hand. “It's getting late and we have announcements in the morning. We should head back.”

Silently I grab his hand, allowing him to lead me home to the farm. My heart races as we walk but it's not caused by the heat radiating from Clay as he stands close as it sometimes is. This time it races through fear. If a Guardian saw what I just did, or if someone else saw and reported me to a Guardian then I'm in trouble. I broke one of the top rules of all the Divisions: keeping a secret from the Imperium. An unstable secret. A secret that marks me as different. A secret that marks me as a threat.

I swallow back a heavy lump that forms in my throat as the word threat echoes around my head.

There's only one thing that would happen to me if the Imperium discovered my ability: I'd be judged.

Agnes House extract

Agnes House

Part One

Living

Agnes House is a place where children go to die. It's not like they write that on the brochure or anything, I mean, that's not very child friendly it it? Hi, welcome to Agnes House. There's a toy room, a computer room, a swimming pool, a bike shed and children die here. Still, it's not exactly a secret either. I was eight when I first saw the room they take the dead children to. I'm not even sure why they call it the rainbow room, there's nothing reminiscent of bright colours, a pot of gold or a leprechaun in the entire suite. There's just a bed that they lay the kid out on and an old air conditioning unit that rattles more than it pumps air.

Agnes house is deaths waiting room for children and that's exactly what I'd said when my dad suggested sending my sister, Pippa, to live their full time. If he'd listened to me I wouldn't be where I was now.

“Come in, Imogen,” my guidance counsellor Miss Booth called through the thin wooden door. I'm a regular visitor to this room, so it doesn't surprise me to see Miss Tyne sat at her desk, laptop open and ready, shoes slipped off under the desk, and two chocolate moose yoghurt's ready and waiting in front of her when I enter. I've spent a lot of the last six months of my school life in this small box office, above the music room, talking through my feelings with Miss Booth. Ever since the incident – as she calls it – I've been forced into these daily hour long sessions just to make sure I'm coping.

The free chocolate moose is infinitely better than P.E.

“How are you today?” she asks as I sit. Her hair's mousy brown and falling loose from her bun, her glasses large and thick rimmed. She's slim and inoffensive and probably experimented when she was at University. She's been single for a year now, which isn't exactly surprising considering her lack of effort with her appearance and her plain features. Miss Booth would probably end up marrying someone as equally inoffensive as herself and they'd live in a homely yet messy house and have the appropriate two and a half children.

At least she isn't shy.

“Got a spoon?” I reply, peeling the lid of my moose and ignoring her question.

She hunts around her desk, lifting folders and staplers until she finds the spoons. “Knew they were here somewhere,” she says, passing me one. It's as though she expects me to clap her achievement. “Now then, let's get started shall we?” I take a mouthful of moose. “How did you sleep last night?”

Are the deep shadows under my eyes not enough to answer her question? Did my pale, puffy skin and lank, greasy blonde hair not scream the answer to her as soon as I entered the room? “There was a party,” I tell her. Honesty is the best way to go in this room. Miss Booth deserves to know the ramifications of the choice the school, my father and herself forced on me.

“What time did this party finish?”

“Finish? I'm pretty sure they’re still going strong.”

“Who were you with?”

“Dunno. People.”

“Where were you?”

“Places.”

She stops eating her moose to type, no doubt filling her laptop in on my 'wild' behaviour. Wild, like I'm an animal. Wild, like I have no self control. Wild, like I'm a lost cause.

And it's all their fault, but I'm the one with the problem.

That's the story of my life. When I die they'll probably write that on my headstone.

“Was there alcohol involved?” She's typing as she asks, as though if she doesn't rush her thoughts out they will become lost within the scrabble of her mind. “Drugs?”

“I'm sure there was.”

She stops, fingers still hovering over keys, looks at me. “You know what I mean.”

I finish the last mouthful of my moose, knowing there are plenty more where that one came from. Miss Booth keeps a good stock of them in the small fridge in her stock room. They're her addiction, not mine. “You should ask me directly if I have been drinking or doing drugs. You should know by now I don't respond well to sneaky people. I've never lied to you before, have I?”

“I don't know, have you?”

“There was both drink and drugs in abundance, and yes, I tried both,” I said. “More than tried, actually. It was a party after all.” I laugh even though nothing;s funny.

“What drugs?”

I look around the messy office, wonder if Miss Booth realises she is wasting her life in this room that is nothing more than a coffin really. I bet she was a needy child who rarely played outdoors. No one who appreciated space could work in this room. “Cocaine. Vodka. Jack Daniels. Some shots – I'm not sure what was in those.”

“Is this the first time you've taken cocaine?”

“Yeah. I won't do it again either. It just made me tell a house full of strangers all the thoughts I don't like to admit to myself. It wasn't fun.”

She turns her attention back to the laptop so I allow my thoughts to drift. It's too quite in this room. The music class must be empty because there's no distracting loud noise booming through the floor. I hate the silence. My ears ring.

“Have you seen her yet?”

The question catches me so off guard that I almost answer. Then realisation kicks in and I'm angry. She knows that's off limits.

“I also fooled around with a guy last night. Might want to add slut to the list of words you and my dad use to describe me.”

“This isn't a conspiracy, Imogen. We want to help you.”

“I was fine.”

She gives me a look of pity. I narrow my eyes at her. There's a moment of pregnant looks exchanged between us both. She thinks I'm not coping. She's worried I'm taking too long to adjust. I don't know what she expects. She is one of the main conspirators behind a decision that has irrevocably changed my life, how does she expect me to react? I don't want to cope.

“Your father tells me your sister is settling in well. He also tells me you still haven't visited her.”

I know she isn't accusing me of being a bad sister, not really, but my brain automatically goes into defensive mode. I am a bad sister. I should visit her. It's not like I don't know that, it's just hard. They've made it hard.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“It might help.”

“It wont.”

“Imogen...” She stops talking, taps away at her keyboard once more.

Picture challenge 2

In flood

This love? A lonely river in spate, boy.

I run, but Connected distance is waste.

Broken banks that bind me; crumbling out.

Decaying away what was grown in haste.

A tempest, you devour, then tempt me here

once more. The mirage of your love - the lie -

is stagnant now, the tempestuous truth clear.

Traitorous love, in flood. Buried under sky.

Still the cadaverous war call of your

heart to mine beckons, a beacon (a trap),

a lighthouse drawing me home, boy for more ,

serenading me, lulling, pulling back

to you. To then. To us. To love? I see

no way to escape this. With you drowns me.

Song shuffle challenge 1

Song: Autumn Leaves - Paolo Nutini

Who am I?

Autumn leaves drift on the air, like embers.

Cinders: Crackling, Cackling Cinders, igniting the sky.

Drifters drift, with their faces to the ground, lusting to look, without being looked upon.

I wonder as I wander, Who am I?

Lovers quarrel, bickering back and forth.

Children play games gifted them through generations.

Somewhere, surely near by, a kiss is being shared.

The whistling wind whispers, to those too busy to hear it. A murder

lingers under the trees,

unnoticed by the sheep.

I know these things. I've heard those lies

And yet still I am unsure, 

Who am I? 

Short Story extract - Sweetheart

Sweetheart

Tommy-boy was on his way to dab it up with Agnes, he was excited, his tackle hardening at the thought. Hands tucked in the pockets of his bell-bottomed trousers, he whistled as his pointed clogs clipped the piss-stained street. The icy February air stung his face, drying the blood to his skin and shirt and blowing a metallic smell up his nose. He flexed his fingers in his pockets, feeling the ache setting into his knuckles. The ache excited him. He'd done it, he'd finally done it -- he'd single handedly won the fight for the Bengal Tigers, securing his reputation as the toughest guy in Ancoats. He'd be a legend by sunrise, he deserved a victory dab.

Turning from Union Street onto Murray Street he watched the moon vanish from view behind the row of houses to his right. The homes around Ancoats were crammed together, row upon compressed row, like prison bars. The way to survive the roads that surrounded Bengal Street was the same as it was in prison: Violence, violence and, more violence. It was survival of the toughest, and Tommy-boy Tyne was the toughest, he'd proved that.

It was past midnight, the only people about were the drunkards and the trollops of the bawd houses. Tommy-boy loved being out at night, he loved the freedom. His family lived in one room, all eight of them. As stale and ashen as the air in Ancoats was, it was nothing compared to the stench of the coffin he called home.

The wind picked up and the smell of blood became almost overwhelming. Tommy-boy could still hear the loud crack as Otto Burns' head had collided with the pavement. The noise had seemed to ring out above all the commotion of the duelling gangs. The memory of the encounter stirred Tommy-boy once more, and his semi-erect tackle become predominant in his mind.

That's when he saw her... Cora... the bitch. Cora was Agnes' fourteen year old sister and the only girl around here that made him go loll tongued.

*

Cora Murphy was freezing. She rushed towards her destination watching every step she took, as the dress she wore was too long for her frame. It wasn't a problem, she knew these streets like the back of her hand; they were rooted inside of her as firmly as her veins.

Agnes and her father were nowhere to be found, so it was up to her to fetch aunty Mabel to help deliver the baby. Her thin dress did nothing to protect her from the elements, the wind stung her cheeks. The dress was given to her by her father last year when he had declared her the most beautiful girl in Ancoats. It was the dress her mother married her father in, though it was not a traditional wedding dress. Made from a thin material, high necked, long sleeved and plain, her Grandma had made it from old bed linen. It was a little too long for Cora but she didn't mind, she spent hours tenderly washing it each week and was careful not to cause major damage to it. By Bengal Street standards it was immaculate, even if it was more grey then white these days.

Raucous laughter picked up with the wind as she approached Cotton Street. At the end of the road was the busiest bawd house in the area, and it sounded as though it was busy tonight.

*

Tommy-boy was neatly tucked into the long, narrow alley as Cora passed by. With a quick pull of her waist and hand over her mouth he pulled her into the darkness. It was easy.

“Relax, Cora, it's me,” he said quietly.

She stopped struggling, going rigid in his arms. It annoyed him that she wasn't afraid of him. He released her, and she turned around to face him. The candlelight from the windows of the bawd house casting them both in a half-shadow. He pressed himself against her, holding her arms to the wall at her side.

“I don't know where she is.”

He smirked at her statement. “Who says I want Agnes?”

“Get off me.”

Cora's dislike for Tommy-boy was written all over her beautiful face; it only made him want her more. Who did she think she was? She was no better than Tommy-boy. They were born and bread on the same side of Bengal Street, they drank the same water, breathed the same ash filled air and walked the same piss stained streets. Cora Murphy should have been grateful for his affections, she should have been elated that he wanted her to be his sweetheart; her sister was.

“Make me,” he taunted her enjoying her discomfort.

Cora stared into the familiar root brown eyes that she often found staring at her. She wasn't usually a dreamer, but she was certain that Tommy-boy had no soul.

“I have to go.” She could see blood smears on his face but no obvious wound. This boy was an animal, and she couldn't for the life of her understand why Agnes wasted her time with him. “Now.”

The thin material of Cora's dress was leaving nothing to Tommy Boys imagination. She was perfect. Agnes was nothing but a watered down version of her sister. Both were blue eyed blondes but Agnes was pretty not beautiful; charming not captivating; the practise before the perfection. “Kiss me.”

“You've got blood on your face.”

“That's not a no.”

“You disgust me.”

“That's still not a no, sweetheart.”

She stared at the cluster of freckles below his left eye: they shaped a distorted heart. “I'll never be your sweetheart.”

Picture Challenge 1

Buried under sky

I think I'm shrinking, slipping, sinking,

I think my breathing's lacking, leaving,

I think I can't suppress this feeling,

That I'm buried under sky.

P@<3

Just a place, of sorts. With my writing, of sorts.

Being a Creative Writing student I am constantly told to start, and maintain a blog. It's important, they say. You must blog, blog, blog, they say. Blog, blog, blog.

I think we* all know by now that I have indeed taken up their advice, albeit at the end of my first year.

So I guess I'm going to blog. I have become a blogger. When I'm cryogenically frozen maybe they will write on my tube, 'She blogged.'

At least they will write something.

P@<3

*By we I almost certainly mean myself and occasionally a much hounded friend I convince to stumble by. Anyone else is a bonus. Any accusations of bribery are completely unfounded.