Reduce, Reuse, Ruin

The lights switched on with a dull buzzing noise, the meeting room awake with their fluorescent glow. Six employees filed in, walking towards the central table. They sat upright in their chairs like a set of matching graphite pencils, ready to underline the importance of finance in a dying world.

The director walked in last, the door clicking shut as he sat at the head of the table. He shuffled his papers as he looked around the room like he wanted to organise his employees into a neat stack as well.

“All right, let’s make a start,” he cleared his throat, “it has come to our attention that DMB, the firm’s biggest competitor, are being praised for their sustainability in becoming a paperless office.”

Shock rippled across the employees in a wave of grey. “So as director of marketing, I wanted to take a deep dive into how we too can be a ‘sustainable’ company. Does anyone have anything they’d like to contribute?”

Isabel WilliamsIsabel LondonApril 11, 2024Future

Highland Vignettes

West Sands Beach, St Andrews.

The sky, sublime, is blanketed with heavy, dark clouds rolling out to meet the water, as cruel and cold as it is. The sand is littered with as much debris as the last time, shells and seaweed discarded everywhere, rejected by the sea.

I was with you when I was here last. You pocketed the seashells you thought most beautiful, to give to me before I left – though you forgot to give them to me. When I did leave, their absence in my pocket only twisted the knife that was my absence in your arms. You’re absent today, too. It’s been a long time since I loved you.

Owen CallanJack TicknerApril 7, 2024reflections

Canvas

You’re sitting on an armchair, a mug of tea beside you, your child on your lap. She’s holding a book. She keeps asking where you got it from. You don’t recognise it.

Before you, a blank expanse stretches out, bleak and never ending. There’s nothing in sight that can jog your memory, because there’s nothing in sight. At all. It’s just empty and barren, devoid of anything whatsoever, just you and nothing, just you in nothing, and if you’re the only thing left doesn’t that make you nothing, too?

‘Dad?’ She’s looking at you with big eyes, waiting. As you turn to look at her, you notice something at your side. Something that can make the nothing go away.

Anna YoungLauren WalshApril 2, 2024fiction, reflections, Reality

What Do the Stars Look Up To?

Did you know that all these stars are dead? Isn’t that amazing – that they can shine for so long after they’re gone? And what came before them? What do the stars look up to?

I thought about that for a long while, my gaze searching. In the distance, a bonfire was spitting tongues of smoke into the dusky blue, its warm breath gusting over us. You gripped my hand a little tighter, and that warmth was bone deep. I figured then that it wasn’t so strange at all for stars to shine for so long; you’ll be smiling down at me forever.

Poppy ReadSarah GouldApril 1, 2024reflections

The Ophelia Complex

Perfect

/ˈpəːfɪkt/

Having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.

Amelie Dowson-SnowNigella MarxMarch 27, 2024Reality

Eclipse

‘What does red feel like?’ she wondered. ‘White is light. Grey is thin. Blue is closeness. Black is there, all around my naked self.’

But she had never felt the colour red.

Ella MarstonThomas TranMarch 23, 2024dreams

Purgatory

Life is exhausting.

That was all she could think as she paced along the desolate seafront, the wind and rain at her back, the steady hum of nature disturbed only by distant groups of drunk men shouting nonsense to each other. The late autumn night was as peaceful as it was distracting, both allowing her to relax and find comfort, and offering enough background noise to block out all the emotions she was too scared to feel, let alone express. She knew this wasn’t the safest place to be, but at least it wasn’t there. Being there was too much right now.

Erin WardGuest UserMarch 12, 2024Reality, reflections

Apples

Russet apples were the jewels of my grandfather’s garden. They came in the autumn and left him poor in the winter – a feeble caretaker of hollow timber. My grandfather was a jovial man, as men often are when they grow old and bury their wits. He would mumble and grumble with the airs and graces of an inventor or a prophet, despite inexperience in either profession. There was wisdom to him though – wisdom that comes from dead acquaintances that whisper memories in his ear and goad his tongue to flick and click and speak truths. He would look upon us with eyes that were not his own and stone us with old wives’ tales and stoic idioms.

Nathan StewardGuest UserMarch 8, 2024reflections

Witch in a Haunting House

The house, now empty, holds its hill in wait. Its garden rises too unevenly – a broken mower lies there, rusting well – and shaggy grass obscures the earthen scalp. A pathway reaches down, parting the weeds, and from the pavement points to the eager door. It’s red. The walls are white. Their paint-pores drip with rain.

Katherine GilbertKatherine GilbertMarch 7, 2024Choice

The White Doves of Penelope

We hide, clutching each other in the dark. The sounds of men on the other side of the door cause us to shake and hide our faces in each other’s dresses. The ground is cold and hard, my position uncomfortable, but I cannot move. One of my sisters leans on me and I hold her tight, both for her and for myself. Her body is warm and soft, reminding me of the nights we would lie with the others, talking until Selene in all her beauty has crossed more than half the sky.

Caitlin ParryGabriella ChiuMarch 3, 2024Choice

The Comet

Mother was leaving again, as she always did when the lights in the house were switched off early. It meant that Mother and Father weren’t talking and that the child was awake in her bed when she heard the soft creak of the floorboards beneath Mother’s feet. As her bedroom door was eased open, she stepped toward her, leaning down to whisper a soft goodbye. The child lay still, her eyes remaining closed.

Mother had left three times before she learned to stay awake, to fill the hours waiting for her inevitable goodbye with the plastic stars scattered across her ceiling. She’d watch them until their shapes blurred and stretched, distant figures swirling into a silent dance made for her tired eyes alone. Sometimes she longed to pull them down, loosen their hold on the ceiling so she could watch them from the palm of her hand. They swayed to the rhythm of her thoughts, a constant hum of Mother always returned. Even if she never said it outright.

Nigella MarxIsabel LondonFebruary 22, 2024Choice

Blue Medicine

I was sick when I stole Dad’s headache medicine. I’d had the Thursday and Friday off with a fever but now that it was Monday, Dad had suggested I was fine to go back to school. Mum had nodded, finishing a bottle of wine.

Ben BlackwellTalia BuntingFebruary 21, 2024Reality

FICTION