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CREATE By Dan MacKenzie QuailBellMagazine.com The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Sirenia By Jennifer Hor QuailBellMagazine.com “Now my young friends, hear of the perils that await you should you ever see the ship Sirenia sailing on the far horizon beyond this bay under the full moon’s light or hear its ghost crew hags singing to you!” So spoke the aged mariner to the village children as they sat in crescent formation on the beach sand at his feet. All thrilled to hear him spin his long tales about the life he’d led on the high seas so many years ago. Never though, had he uttered a word about the ghost ship until now. Rumours abounded that not only had he seen the ship but had even sailed with it, rumours that he neither confirmed nor denied but which had been whispered throughout this village for so long, from one generation of children to the next, that even the youngest children, those not yet walking, shuddered to hear of the idea of a ship of ghost women. So when the mariner finally mentioned the Sirenia, all the children present fell silent and leaned forward (in particular one boy, small and puny for his size, sitting at the back of the group) to hear more of what the mariner had to say. “Have you ever heard of A____ who ran away from home thinking he’d like to be a sailor instead of a fisherman? He was gone for a month on that evil ship and turned up on this very beach naked and hairy, devouring a gull in the way of a wolf.” The mariner paused and surveyed his audience, noting slight nods of heads and throats gulping. The story of A____ was well known in the village: the parents would have told the children numerous variations of the story. “Ah yes. The insolent child refused to obey his parents and carry out his daily tasks and so he ran off. He fell in with those devil women and they turned him into a dumb animal that had to be caged for the rest of his life. Ha-ha-ha, let that be a lesson to you all, ha-ha!” Two small girls sitting on the mariner’s left-hand side jumped and clutched at each other at the old man’s sharp cackle. “And do you know of N____ who swam out to the ship at night and swam back at dawn the next day to discover he couldn’t walk because those hellish creatures sang his legs into an eel’s tail? He had to live the rest of his life in the sea alone for even the eels wouldn’t accept him as one of theirs! Hee-hee-hee!” So loud and wicked was that mariner’s laugh that several youngsters, boys and girls alike, stared at him uneasily, wondering if somehow he really had sailed with that siren crew and himself had come under their influence. The small and puny boy at the back of the group had different thoughts. “He’s telling all these tales everyone hears from the old people so that we’ll be too scared to go out after dark or swim too far out in the bay! He’s probably got a box of gold hidden on an island somewhere and doesn’t want anyone to find it. And this ship, this Sirenia – it must be a real ship that comes in and picks up people to help sail it. One can get rich finding lost treasures while sailing on a ship. What a grand life! It must be better than going to school and having Teacher shout all the time, and then going home and having Auntie yell at me to wash saucepans.” So ran the child’s thoughts. He had lost his parents years ago and his only family was a surly aunt who relied on her tiny garden plot and the neighbours’ charity to support herself and the boy. The village children laughed at him because his clothes were often thin and ragged and his shoes were tied with strings or bits of rag. The village schoolteacher scolded him constantly for being late to school or for daydreaming, the one thing the boy excelled in, in a world that either treated him as a nuisance or a figure of fun. “I’ll find this ship,” the boy muttered to himself, “I’ll find out if there’s treasure the old man is hiding and doesn’t want anyone to find.” “... and so ye have been warned,” the mariner concluded, having exhausted his repertory of stories and his breath, “of what happens to disobedient children when they meet the Sirenia. The full moon is shining next week so beware! Ha-ha-ha!” One full moon night after he and his aunt had retired for the night in their room and the woman’s noisy snuffling began, the boy quietly got up and crept around her and out of the house. He made his way through the shadowy back alleys and lanes behind the village buildings down to the beach. The boy shuffled through the sand down to where the fishermen laid their boats upside down and crouched down among them to avoid being seen by passers-by. Behind him, while he waited for the Sirenia to appear, the fires and lamps gradually went out, one by one, and the general noise levels dropped until only the lamps in the watch-towers on the far side of the village remained alight. The full moon gleamed brightly over the restless waters of the bay. The youngster was tired and his arms and legs ached from the long wait but within his thin body, the determination to see the ghost ship burned. “It must come! It has to! I must see it!” he repeated over and over. Waves of sleepiness rolled over and his eyelids wavered and were sore and heavy but he would miss the ship if he were to sleep. But it was so very hard to stay awake! He must stay awake! Even so, sleep kept coming at him as the waves of water come up the beach in a regular rhythm until his head bowed, his eyes closed and his body slumped onto the sand. In the depths of sleep an angel’s honeyed voice began to hum a melody. A long-forgotten memory of his mother singing to him appeared as the humming grew louder and clearer and the sounds formed distinct words. That voice, that must be his mother’s voice. It had to be! He could remember the words. “Hush little sparrow, the night has fallen. Stars are now twinkling. In the nest you’re dreaming ...” The singing grew louder, clearer and more confident. A distant flute, low and mournful, cooed and a chorus of female voices hummed. His mother continued: “Hush little sparrow, the crow has flown. The moon’s now shining. ‘Neath my wing you’re smiling ...” Or so the song seemed to flow. As the music continued, he dreamed of warm hands lifting him up and rocking him. They put him in a nest of soft feathery bedding. He was a baby again in a gently rocking cradle. And he slept on. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
COFFEESBy Alex Beh QuailBellMagazine.com The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Photosynthesis By Jasmine White QuailBellMagazine.com Thanks to ObsidianDawn.com for Photoshop brushes.
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Sea Story By Jane Walsh QuailBellMagazine.com From the top of the cliff she looked out over the vast the ocean. ‘Sea’ was too small a word for this great plain of water. Its surface rumbled with small waves, as if it was the skin of a horse shivering to rid itself of flies. Where the sun reflected off a wave light briefly flashed, but overall the ocean lay heavily in the field of her vision, bound by the gentle curve of the horizon; a shoulder of a great animal. On its earthly edge, nearer her feet, the mass of water broke itself in a crash and hiss of waves. So pointless were they it was as if the ocean was embarrassed by this betrayal of its greater dignity; such fuss on its periphery. The sky above had no such qualms. It moved where it wanted, toying with the water, curling its clouds, then moving its fleeting attention to strands of her hair. The air was movement. And here she stood watching them both: ocean and sky. Earlier in the day during her third cup of tea she became aware of her eyelids drooping and her chin sinking downwards. She huddled nearer the little fire that warmed the range and experimented with a doze. It was nice. The grandfather clock in the hall ticked slowly with each swing of the pendulum. Outside a wood pigeon burbled lazily, every note of its call sounding like a bursting bubble of soup. In the corner of the kitchen the cavernous Smeg fridge hummed at such a pitch that she couldn’t distinguish it from the faint tinnitus in her ears. The warmth of the fire and the continuous slow sounds around her combined to blanket her in hypnotic comfort. But as her body began to sleep her conscious jumped awake in horror. What was she doing? It was only half ten in the morning. This was not the time to be succumbing to nothingness. Her eyes popped open; she lifted her head, and took a long refreshing breath through her nostrils. Body and mind now aligned in purpose she stood up and put the tea cup in the dishwasher. Flinging in a tablet of detergent she slammed the door shut, and clicked on the machine. It splashed into life. What to do next? There were no urgent domestic tasks to be done. Basically hygienic, with no danger of catching preventable diseases, the house didn’t need cleaning. The garden then: the fish had to be fed. A few days ago the fish had been spooked by a heron. They skulked now at the bottom of the pond, so the flakes of food floated untouched on the surface of the water. Witchy’s beneficence was unrewarded with any activity. The flakes remained greasily turning where they fell. So what were the jobs of the day? She looked around the garden. There were a few small dandelions that could be weeded away. Perhaps some seedlings needed pricking out. The truth was, that just as in the house, nothing urgently needed doing. Today then was the day to start the novel she knew she had in her, or she could go sketching in the woods. More productively there were always alms to be distributed to the poor - she had not yet taken her part in The Big Society. Or simply a day of shopping would be entertaining. A car moaned past along the lane at the bottom of the garden. A sigh heaved her bosom. Her world ticked along without her. It didn’t need her. No part within it faced her square and issued a challenge. There was no asking or refusal, nothing to trip over, no hole to fall down. It was though she was the one who had to ask to get involved, had to pop the balloon just to get attention. Fridges, fish, dishes, pigeons: small things. No wonder it was tempting to switch off from the whole place and just doze away the day. What she wanted was Elements, big fundamentals: the sea, salty air, noise, rushing, crashing, eye-squinting light. With the energy of a teenage girl leaving her parent’s house to go clubbing she rushed back indoors, grabbed the essential pointy hat, skipped onto the trusty broomstick and zoomed out towards the Cornish coast. A couple of chilly hours later she stood on the cliff edge looking out to the far horizon, licking salt from her lips. The sigh that moved her bosom this time was one of relief. As the external world swirled around her she relaxed into internal stillness. Using the broomstick for support she climbed down the cliff face and alighted on the soft sand. The beach was a theatre with the sea performing a great Shakespearean tragedy, roaring its words around the enclosing granite cliffs. Witchy was the only audience member. She had the choice of seats, but given this morning’s passivity she chose to take part in the play. Sitting on a rock like a mermaid she unlaced her boots and rolled down her stockings. Then she jumped down, splash, onto the wet sand, her splayed toes sinking in. At first she walked along the edge of water, letting the waves tease those sandy toes, but there was something she wanted from the sea, that her garden back home could not provide. She gathered up her skirts, now heavy and gritty with seawater, and strode purposefully towards the onrushing waves. They hit hard, forcing her to take a step back, but she waded on until thigh deep. Her legs looked white through the clear water. Strands of seaweed tickled past her calves. A tiny fish darted away. Heaving the skirts higher she peered round at her pale thighs and found what the sea could elicit but home could not: goosebumps. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
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The One Who RottedBy Christine Stoddard QuailBellMagazine.com Eyeballs bob in the creek like acorn caps, crashing against rocks but never cracking. Their owner—her lilly skull—lies submerged in a cloud of bubbling algae and crayfish. I do not know where to find her hands, but I do know that the owls and deer can blame her wrists for staining the water. Every pebble, every periwinkle is red. She wanted to paint the stream after she discovered her lover had painted the stream, too. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
e-lectricityBy Miklas Manneke QuailBellMagazine.com |