The Rope Slider's Wife, by Graham Attenborough

He was a fool for flight. It was, she knew, his true love and always would be.

His father had taken him to the heights when Robert was but a small boy; he had told her how scared he had been at first but fear was soon replaced by rapture.

As a boy, Robert had taken to the towers and spires with such enthusiasm that his steeple jack father's initial delight had soon been replaced with foreboding. A healthy respect for danger and a clear awareness of certain death, if mistakes were made, was essential for such a trade. Young Robert seemed oblivious to his father's concerns and was soon performing daring tricks for the people who aways stood watching in the churchyards below. He would sit or lie on the edge of the curtain walls of the tower tops waving. He would stand on one leg, dance, pretend to lose his footing and cling precariously with one hand from weathercocks. Gradually, he became famous for these antics and money quickly came his way. Encouraged, his father gave up admonishing his son and began to assist him, devising ways for Robert to delight the growing crowds whilst, at the same time, doing so in relative safety.

Ironically, it was his father and not Robert who lost his life in a needless fall. It was on the day that young Robert Cadman married his sweetheart Lucy. Thanks to Robert, the family had prospered. They had bought a fine house in Candle Lane Shrewsbury and, on the the day of the wedding, the elder Cadman decided to hang celebratory bunting from the upper casements. Full of ale, he had climbed out onto the sill, the better to sing and banter with his neighbours in the street. He lost his footing, fell, dashing out his brains on the cobbles below.

His heartbroken widow soon followed her husband to the grave and it fell to the pragmatist Lucy to take charge. Lucy had been a serving-girl at The Lion. Like everyone in the town she knew of its famous son Robert Cadman and had watched the rope slider perform his tricks up on the steeples. When first she met him, whilst walking beside the river on summer evenings, she discovered a young man who lived for the thrill of the moment, a man bursting with enthusiasm to please others, a loving and loveable man but one without an ounce of business sense.

Lucy took control. She it was who designed and made his costume. She who had bills and posters printed well in advance of a performance, and she it was who worked the crowds with her winning smile and a large hat within which she collected the monies due, just reward for the risks her husband took for the pleasure of others.        

They did well. They had a child. A girl whom they christened Susan. They extended their property, became known and well respected about the town. They owned their own wagon and two fine mares who pulled them around the countryside. They traveled far and wide.

And then... And then Robert set up his act to fly across the frozen river Severn from St. Mary's spire into the Gay Meadow; a performance he had given many times before.

The frost fair was in full swing on the morning of the 2nd of February 1740 and the crowds began to swell as Robert walked up the rope from the meadow performing daredevil tricks as he went. Lucy worked the crowd collecting money and explaining that, once at the steeples summit, her husband would slid back down at such speed that the friction would cause his wooden breastplate to heat up and billow out smoke behind him. Within the hour he had reached the top of the steeple and begun his descent. He had even fired off his pistols but something was clearly wrong because he began to signal that the rope was pulled too taut. Lucy stiffened as she watched. Suddenly the crowd gasped and she saw Robert fall away. The rope sprang out across St. Mary's Friars its snapped end aglow with flame. Even from the opposite bank of the river she heard the collective scream from the horrified onlookers as Robert's body hit the iron-hard ground below.

As Lucy Cadman began to run wildly down the bank towards the frozen river she dropped her hat, almost full of money, upon the frosty grass where eagle-eyed beggar boys quickly swooped to claim their share.

The rope sliders wife saw nothing of this. As she ran, she disappeared from history.

Robert Cadman was twenty eight years old.

The rope sliders wife's name is not recorded. Her existence remains a short footnote in her husbands story.

Copyright Graham Attenborough (2014).

Ruminant, by Carol Caffrey

Janan sheltered underneath his father’s stall, swatting the flies off the meat.  The earth was cool there.  He hoped the caravan would come soon.  Would Mirzal’s voice have deepened in the past year, like his own?   Music blared from his father’s radio.   It was the best radio in the village; his uncle had been to Jalalabad to buy it. 

Last night he thought he’d heard the clink of the camels’ harness and the hushed voices of the tribesmen but the morning revealed no sign of them.  It must have been something else.

The approaching waves of dust made Janan sit up but it was just the American trucks.  The caravan was probably waiting for the soldiers to pass, as the camels wouldn’t like the noise.   The biggest one, the one Mirzal called Genghis, would look down his nose at the clatter they made.  The camels had seen many travellers, many warring tribes, in their long lives.  Did not Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great pass this way?  Some said even the Buddha himself had travelled this road. 

The trucks bounced towards the village, rolling through the potholes and craters.  “Hey, kid! Catch.”  The soldier, walking ahead of the trucks, threw him a bag of sweets.  Janan wondered if Genghis would like Yankee candy. 

As the patrol disappeared over the hill the boy heard the sounds he’d been waiting for.  He ran up to his nomad friends, carrying some sweets in his hand.

“Mirzal, welcome! I have something for Genghis.  May I?”

“Hello, brother.  Well, let us try one.”

The beast scooped the offering from Janan’s palm with his lips.  When the explosion erupted, darkening the sky, Genghis closed his eyes against the dust.  He continued chewing, his great jaw moving from side to side in the fleeting silence.

Foretelling of a Death, by Pauline Fisk

On the day he was to die, Robert the Canadian told the truth once, though not to himself, lied five times, as discovered afterwards, bought a swim, took a shave and shampooed his hair.

It was in the Quarry Pool, on his sixteenth lap, that he joked aloud about his dicky heart.  That was his truth, not that he recognized it as such. Later, in the castle garden, he told the old lie about the sea-going yacht.  He had a nautical air. The dog woman, whom he often talked to, never questioned him.  Neither did the beggar on Pride Hill who was used to Robert striding past, crisp in plaid shirt, polished boots, woollen walking socks and combed-back thick white hair, dispensing coins because a rich man like him, with a house on leafy Kingsland Road – lie number two – liked to give to those less fortunate than himself

Lie number three had its moment in the Loggerheads that night, sitting in Poets’ Corner watching Pete the Painter sketching. He was off to Manchester next day, Robert said. Lecturing. Pete - who often disappeared himself - never thought to question the Canadian’s movements. The man came and went.  He had a farm in the Scottish Lowlands, which he talked about with fondness, and did so again tonight, lie number four.  Sometime he’d take Pete up there, he said, though Pete - who knew the Canadian as a man of his word - knew too [by what reason he couldn’t explain] that he wouldn’t do it.  It took one to know one when it came to the fantastical. Perhaps that was it.

Pete went home, door locked, ‘Do Not Disturb’ note sellotaped to knocker on the off-chance that nocturnal friends came visiting.  The Loggerheads closed its curtains. Its last drinkers took the hint, leaving only ghosts to haunt the staircases, or so the Landlady said, drinks in hands, hopes jangling in their pockets, a remembrance of bygone days when the pub had housed a brothel. 

The streets of Shrewsbury after midnight are like a millpond sea without boats.  Only the latest of night prowlers would have witnessed the last walk of Robert the Canadian down St Mary’s Water Lane and under the English Bridge, following the river, though not home to Kingsland Road as was his proud boast.

It was in the Quarry Park that he was found. Who knows why a man would choose one particular bench to die on over any other?  In the morning his body was stone cold.  A rough sleeper with polished boots - and nobody had known it.  The dog lady hadn’t had a clue. The Loggerheads lady, so attuned to lost souls, never caught a whiff of his. The swimming pool attendant – where, as often as he could, he went to keep himself neat and tidy - never would have put him in the category of the man who begged on the street. It came as a shock.

Robert the Canadian kept his secret to the end. It was his only treasure in this sad old world. He wasn’t even Canadian.  That was his fifth lie.  This is a true story. I have not made it up.

The Upturned Glass, by Graham Attenborough

The sun had almost gone down. The green and purple flanks of the south Shropshire hills engulfed by darkness. The Lawley, Caradoc, and Ragleth brooding in the black. The little Morris motored up and along Sandford Avenue, its engine laboured somewhat as it reached the top of the shoulder beneath Hope Bowdler rock. The driver, Tom, crunched down through the gears, cursing whilst his younger brother, Win, gave facetious advice from the backseat. 

Their companion, known as Long-nose Cleeton, sat quietly in the front passenger seat smoking his pipe.

Soon they were bumping along the lane past Soudley Post Office and winding their way into Ticklerton and home. The village nestled unevenly between two farms, and all three men reminisced fleetingly and in silence, recalling shimmering summer days in the fields with their friends, gathering and loading the harvest onto the waiting carts, leading the great, snorting beasts that pulled them to the barns. 

They would do their bit this year too, but their childhoods were over; six years of war had hardened their hearts. They had all seen horrors, things that no one should see.

"Well, I don't know about you two, but I fancies a pint or three," said Win as Hill View lit up in the headlamps and Tom brought the Morris to a halt before it. Their mother's house stood close to the road, the uniform darkness of its frontage interrupted by one dim light in an upstairs window. Long-Nose pulled the pipe from his mouth, visibly leaning forwards, peering up towards it. Playfully, Win took ahold of the brim of Long-Nose's hat, pulling it down sharply over his eyes.

"He's hoping to see our sisters in their nighties, Tom! Dirty little bugger. Which one d'ya love, Long-Nose, Ruth or Eve?" 

Long-Nose wrenched the hat from his head and looked at Tom.

"I was doing no such thing Tom. You know how high I holds your sisters in my esteem. They are both lovely young women, indeed they are. But I knows my place. Why neither  those ladies would ever see me as anything more than auld Long-Nose, and quite right too". 

Tom forced the gears into first and revved up the engine.  "Light your pipe Long-Nose and keep your eyes on the road. Now, all those in favour of Win's suggestion of alcoholic beverages say aye". "Aye!" came the unanimous reply.  "The ayes have it gentlemen," said Win. "Post haste to The Plough at Wall, driver, and don't spare the horses neither."

They drove on around the bend, and carried on along the uneven lane towards Eaton-Under-Heywood. The Morris began to pick up speed as they came down the bank, and they could see the old white fingerpost pointing left to the village of Wall. Tom ground down through the gears  once more, span the wheel in his right hand and pulled hard on the hand brake with his left. The tyres screeched as they slid around the bend, Tom and Win whooping like cowboys whilst Long-Nose held on grimly to the leather strap above his head and puffed furiously on his pipe.

They met no other road users until they drove into Wall. Tom slowed down as he manoeuvred the Morris past two men in a horse-drawn cart who waved at them as they drove past, the two horses skittish, still unused to the roar of petrol engines. 

The Plough was well lit and inviting. They left the car in the road and stopped briefly to speak to Walter Clacket, who always sat and drank his ale in the porch. Fifteen years earlier, Walter had fallen out with The Plough's landlord, vowing that he would never set foot in the bar again. He had been true to his word, relying on others to keep him supplied with pots of ale while he sat on his bench outside in all weathers. 

Once again, young Win tried to coax Walter indoors, reminding the obstinate old man of the comfortable seats in the inglenook. Walter was adamant. He had sworn never to cross the threshold and he never would, despite the fact that the offending landlord had died over seven years previously and The Plough had changed hands three time since.

Within was the usual scene of working men sat talking quietly to one another, or playing dominos and darts. At the bar they were greeted by slim Ivor, the enormously overweight landlord who bellowed down to young Ralph, the cellar-boy, to carry up two fresh jugs and, as an afterthought, to not spill a drop upon the stairs lest he find himself with a thick ear and face down in a barrel. Slim Ivor's threat was empty, because since taking over the licence in forty six, no one had seen him go down or come up from the cellar once in the two years he'd been there.

As they waited for young Ralph, they were distracted by two strangers stood further along the bar. One nursed a pint and looked down into it, seemingly embarrassed by the loud and bragging nature of his whiskey-drinking companion. "Just look at this filthy old dump," the companion was saying, "I should like to gut this place,  clear it all out and replace it with modern decor and facilities. Have proper pumps, like in town, with a pretty barmaid to pull the pints. None of this carrying drink in jugs. It's disgusting, old fashioned, like drinking in a pigsty."

Tom put a restraining hand on Win's sleeve and pointed to a vacant table. Reluctantly, Win followed Long-Nose and sat down while Tom waited.  "Jesus Christ" continued the man, "this place is the pits if you ask me. We should take a leaf out of the Yank's book, have proper, stylish bars like they do. Get rid of these old pubs and drag these sorry peasants into the twentieth century. Fucking country bumpkins. I hate em." 

The bar was silent now, the atmosphere charged with anticipated menace. The man lifted his glass to his moustached lips and drained it.  "Come on, let's get back to civilisation," he said. He lifted the empty glass above his head, then, looking straight at Tom, he slammed it upside down upon the bar.

Collectively, the regulars of The Plough gasped at the insult of the upturned glass and, in the following moment, Tom clenched his right fist and swung it hard, straight into the man's waiting face.

The punch knocked him clean out and he slumped to the floor in a pile. A cheer went up.  Tom picked up the offending glass, bowed to his applauding fellows and placed it back upon the bar, the right way up.

Graham Attenborough (2014).

Two Coffees, by Sandi Zand

Way back, when it mattered, I'd said: "There's only one rule and that is there are no rules."

You laughed. “You can’t do that,” you said. “Can’t say there aren’t rules and make that a rule – it’s a contradiction.”

“Okay,” I said. “Call it a guideline then. No rules, that’s the guideline. Agreed?”

“Yeah, cool,” you said. You laughed again, you sounded full, and I knew I had you.

You were making coffee. Instant. You didn’t drink the proper stuff back then. Even with coffee, you wouldn’t follow the rules; you’d pour hot water into the cups then sprinkle granules on the surface where they’d float in belligerent denial of purpose. You had to stir it for ages before they dissolved.

Now you’re making coffee again, in the espresso maker we bought last June, and you hand me mine – black, just as it comes. Into yours, you shake sugar from the bag, not caring whether you get one measure or five, and you stir the sticky brew with an egg spoon for ages.

“I was wondering,” you say, “what the guideline would be for seeing other people.”

The coffee burns my top lip, hits the roof of my mouth and burns that too. I swear, jerk the cup away, hot liquid curls over the edge and spills onto my shirt.

“I mean theoretically,” you say, “you know.”

“Why ask me?” I dab at the spill with a tea-towel, but it’s seeped right through and is clinging fast. I go to the sink, dampen a cloth and press the stain gently, glad to have my back to you. I wait for you to speak.

“Well, as guardian of guidelines,” you say. “I mean they are always yours, right? So I thought, well, you might have... you know... one in reserve…”

You move forward and peer over my shoulder.

“Rub soap on it,” you suggest.

“It’s silk,” I say, “dry-clean only.”

“They always put that, just covering their backs, it needs soap.”

You do the laundry with the same reckless will with which you sweeten your coffee. I had to make it a guideline in the end – after the first couple of months of sludge-grey whites – that we each take care of our own clothes.

“So…” You drain your cup in one mouthful, swallow it down on the pause. “What say you?”

“I suppose it’s a case of to thine own self be true,” I say.

“That’s the guideline?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Okay,” you say. “Cool. It was just theoretical, just curiosity, you know.”

You put down your empty cup.

I stand by the sink, a circle of damp encroaching on my chest.

And I wait for you to leave.

Offline, by Graham Attenborough

She was taken from her cell by two guards in their google uniforms. At the end of a long white corridor, still flanked by her guards, she was greeted by a smiling young woman who looked up briefly from a glowing tablet as she was brought in to a gleaming office, then looked down again.

'Please sit,' said a man sat behind a Habitat table adorned with a magnificent digitalised flowering plant.   She sat, the one-piece paper suit they had given her to wear crackling as she did so. 'What is your username'? the man asked.  She said nothing. 'Your google account? Amazon? What is your smart phone number?'  'I don't have a mobile' she said, 'or a username, a blog, a Facebook page or a google account. In fact, I don't even have a fucking computer - okay!'

They all looked at her as though she'd just said that she butchered babies for a living.  The man turned to his screen, tapped on it a couple of times and turned it towards her. Immediately she recognised herself walking along a fairly busy street. She saw that as other people walked along, the giant billboard screens flashed up their usernames and quickly directed them to their next shopping destination. A hint of a smile danced across her lips as she saw how the screens went blank as she passed them, unable to identify all her consumer wants and needs.

'As a matter of fact,' he said, 'no, it's not okay. Do you even have a bank account?'

'No' she said, 'I do not have a bank account. I don't want a bloody bank account and I have a democratic right not to have one if I choose.'  

The man laughed.'Oh, democracy. That old chestnut. Didn't you know? We have no need of democracy in the age of google because we have no need of governance. We are all free and equal under google. The world has moved on, my dear. You see, you and your kind are still living in the bad old days. That's why you insist on calling yourselves neo Luddites and Latter-day Diggers. They tried to halt progress too, didn't they, and of course they failed. I suggest you read about them sometime, on Wikipedia, that is - when you're back online. And you will be back online, reconnected to the net, because that is the only rule passed down by google in its all-consuming wisdom.  

'As I say' he went on, 'we are all free to choose under google but our choices must be made online. That is the rule. Everything we will ever need is to be found on the worldwide web and you must be a part of the great google family. Otherwise, well, you are nothing, nothing but a shadow, a waste of digits, an affront to consumerism. Someone like you is a non unit. You might as well be dead.'

'Are you actually saying,' the woman said, 'that our only purpose is to shop? To buy stuff online?' 'Of course', the man replied. 'What other purpose could we possibly have?'  She looked at the man aghast. She longed to go home, to her dogs, to her books and her vegetable garden. She didn't need google to be fulfilled. She only needed her freedom, her friends, love.  She said: 'you can't force me. You can give me an iPad and a username but I just won't log on. I don't want you, I don't need you.'

The man sat back in his chair and laced his fingers into a steeple.  He said, 'Nonsense, we all need google. Google is us and we are google. You see my dear, if you were online and keeping abreast of google events, you would know that the latest google nanotechnology means that we can now connect you to the web intravenously. You should consider yourself privileged, you shall be one of the first units on earth not merely to be connected but  actually to be a living part of google itself. There shall be no logging off, even as your physical body sleeps, you shall live and breath within the net, being updated instantaneously. I'm envious I can tell you. Just imagine, you will be as one with google, and, gradually, as this marvellous, google-given technology is rolled out, more and more of us will join you, our minds and bodies sharing forever the power and the glory of the one great google!'

Realising there was no escape from this madness, the woman began to panic. She stood up and tried to run, but the two google guards grabbed her by the arms and held her fast. 'They will take you down to the technicians now,' said the man kindly, 'we shall meet again my dear, online.' 

He stood to attention, tapped his chest with his right hand before stretching his arm out before him. 'Google be praised' he said, and the others responded.

'Praise be to Google!'

Her legs gave way beneath her.

Eat My Words, by Penny Simpson

“For a shilling? I’ll do it,” said a ragged young man. Several mouths opened then closed up, a few caps were shaken but nobody spoke. The stranger looked once more around the tap room then turned to the young man and said, “Come with me.”

When it was over, the young man went back to the inn, put his shilling down on the bar and ordered a pint of ale. The landlord stared at the silver coin and slowly shook his head. The young man grew red and shoved his shilling further across the bar. The landlord took a step back. When the embarrassed young man glanced around the room, every eye seemed to sink in deep contemplation of a glass. At length, old Thomas reached into his pocket, drew out two copper pennies and placed them next to the silver shilling on the bar. The landlord nodded, fetched a pint of ale and pushed it towards the young man. 

When he raised his glass, not one hand stirred but his own so he drank in silence, alone and too fast. Not until the door had shut behind him did anyone take a sup or speak one word. As he reeled along the lane and across the meadows, the young man heard old Thomas start a song. He felt the bitter tang of the shilling in his pocket and tasted it as he lost his pint of ale in a ditch.

The sourness remained and tainted his luck; he rarely got work, few bought the poles he cut or the sticks he tied in bundles and it was seldom he met with a smile. One November night, he heard a voice and saw a lantern approach with a well-fed growl, “You’re wanted.” The young man was reluctant to go. He sat and thought for a while but, this night or all, one silver shilling or thirty, what he had done was done. So he followed the lantern over the meadows and up the lane to a house where one window was lit.

The corpse lay stout and tall, starched linen under broad black cloth leaving scarce room at head and foot for two women, one quite old, the other quite young, both well dressed in the same black silk. A wooden platter of bread was propped on the dead man’s breast. The young man took it and ate. The old woman passed him a bowl of ale and he drank, the growl in his empty belly the only sound in the room.

When he had done, a maid appeared with a trembling hand to take the platter and bowl for burning. “Now say it,” the younger woman spoke and he remembered words repeated over an open grave, “I give easement and rest to thee, dear man. Come not down the lanes or in our meadows. And for thy peace, I pawn my own soul. Amen. Christ receive thy soul.”

He travelled wide where nobody knew, but found neither work nor company. A farmer hiring looked once at his clean straight limbs, again at his face and moved on. If a girl smiled or looked his way, her friend was sure to hurry her on. 'I cast a long shadow,' he thought, ‘It is the darkness I’ve taken into my soul.’

With his two shillings he bought supplies and returned to his corner to earth. They found him out whenever a death came sudden, unshriven. Each time the bread grew harder to swallow, the bitter taste grew stronger, the weight of the words grew greater. In the meadows he went muttering, “I’ve pawned my soul and can never be redeemed.”Down the lanes he’d wander and howl, “I’m lost. I’ve lost my soul.” From his bed in the woods come cries in the night “My soul. My soul. My soul.”

The village hears and fears their wanderer who had belonged but was lost, who carried his burden of sins into his grave and on, in their meadows and down the lanes.

Wild, by Graham Attenborough

Ironic, is it not, that I, of all men, should find myself roughly jostled about in this filthy wooden cart. And on such a journey too. I do not write this short tract to justify my life. I know who and what manner of man I am. I wish only to make the most of this, my exit from the stage.

Look at all these faces along the route. I should be gratified. I'm not. I recognise a few. Those simpering sycophants who would come to my office off the Old Bailey, squealing about their pilfered pocket watches, their silk kerchiefs, their family heirlooms. I, who came into this world with nothing, who worked and schemed and fought my way to riches. I was the man they ran to for help, to retrieve their treasures. Fools! Did they think me a magician? A seer? Did they believe I was a good man, their friend?

They did. They thought I actually scoured the stinking taverns and rotten rookeries of the city, like a bloodhound, sniffing out their precious stolen baubles. When all the while - and still it makes me smile to think of it - their silly trinkets were safely locked within my strongbox, just a few steps from where they sat.

I ran it all you see. All the pickpockets, house breakers and footpads of London Town worked for me, were in my pay and none would dare to cheat me. They went about their business doing my business, reporting back to me until I double crossed their names from my ledger. Alas, I went to far with that. But what was I to do? Catching thieves was my profession, ergo, some were sacrificed to the drop.

Blueskin Blake was my mistake. He thought me his friend, he thought us equal in the game. That's why I scratched the second cross against his name. But instead of sealing his fate, I sealed mine. He knew too much and found the time to tell it, to shout it out for all to hear. The magistrate set off the hue and cry and sent his hired louts for me.

Ah well, tis the nature of the game. I have won so many times, eventually I had to lose. And now, well here I am, the centre of this sorry spectacle. The shouts and jeers grow fierce and the coach curtains of the rich, twitch, with anticipation. It is time to hand this scrap to Mister Defoe. He may make of it what he will.

I see it now, the Tyburn Tree. I've seen it many times before but, this day, it waits for me.

For I, am Jonathan Wild. Thief-Taker General.

I have played my part.

The Atheist, by Graham Attenborough

On the day of resurrection, no one was more astonished than the atheist.

He woke from nothing into an utter darkness and had quickly established that he was confined within a small, damp-smelling box.  That realisation had induced sheer panic and he found himself screaming uncontrollably.  He kicked and punched and trashed about and then, with a sense of elation, felt the wooden walls fall away.  The solid, six feet of earth above him parted with ease - it was almost as though he were swimming through it. Without any real effort, his head burst into bright sunshine, hurting his eyes as he breathed deeply of the warm, clean air.  

The churchyard scene reminded the atheist of Stanley Spencer's Cookham Resurrection.  Bewildered men, women and children leaned or sat upon their own headstones.  Some wept with joy hugging loved ones whilst others knelt besides their open graves thanking God for granting them eternal life. 

At first, the atheist could do nothing but stare with incredulous wonder but soon his observant, questing mind began to take notice of detail.  There were perhaps three hundred people in the meagre village graveyard.  Others were emerging, mole-like, all around and he realised that no one appeared to be more than in their early thirties.  Including himself.  Yet he distinctly remembered his eightieth birthday.  He saw also, that everyone's burial clothes were in a pristine condition despite many having been dead for hundreds of years. 

As he watched the jubilation, he began to feel a sense of loneliness. The atheist had never married, had no children, few friends, preferring always to be the solitary scholar. His previous life, the atheist now considered, had been lived selfishly.  A sedentary existence, lived only for self gratification, shunning others and lacking in so much that constituted being fully human.  Now, here at the resurrection, surrounded by long lost loves, reunited, his aloneness pained him.

To his right he heard the gentle sobbing of a woman. She wore a delicate white Empire Line dress with matching Mop Cap and had clearly lived over two hundred years before himself.

The atheist stood before her. He held her long, warm hands and gazed into her depthless, timeless eyes. This simple human contact electrified him.  She smiled and he fell in love. His pure heart pumped love through his perfect veins as his imagination soared on wings of possibility.

Suddenly, the sky cracked and split asunder.  The atheist looked up and stared into the awful face of God.

Graham Attenborough (2014)

The Distractions of Hercules, by Peter Shilston

Many thousands of years ago, around the time half of Britain was covered in ice, the River Severn flowed north into the Dee estuary. But then, when the ice retreated, the god Zeus spoke to Hercules and said, “It is my desire that the Severn should now flow southwards. Take your club and beat out a new channel for the river”.

Hercules took his club and began his labour at the northern end of the new river-bed. But the god of the northern marshes, fearing that his wetlands would be drained, sent out his reed-girls to distract Hercules. And the reed-girls said, “Stop your work, Hercules, and come with us, and we will show you pleasures beyond imagining!” But Hercules answered, “Go away! Come back when I’ve finished!” and he continued with his work. But he was thinking so much about the beauty of the reed-girls that he beat out his channel shallower than he intended, so some of the wetlands survive to this day.

As Hercules worked further southwards, the river god, annoyed that he had not been consulted, sent river-nymphs to distract Hercules. The river-nymphs danced round Hercules and sang, “Stop your work, Hercules, and come with us, and we will show you pleasures beyond imagining!” But Hercules answered, “Go away! Come back when I’ve finished!” But he was so confused by the nymphs dancing in circles around him that he lost all sense of direction, and the course of the river-bed he was beating out, through where Shrewsbury now stands, instead of being a straight line, ran in great loops and meanders.

Hercules now reached a line of hills and began to beat a passage through them. But the god of the hills, foreseeing that men would come and cut down his trees to fire their furnaces, and blacken his rocks with their smoke, sent woodland dryads to distract Hercules. The dryads sang, “Leave your work, Hercules, and come with us, and we will show you pleasures beyond imagining!” But Hercules answered, “Go away! Comeback when I’ve finished!” But he was so eager to sample the pleasures that the dryads had promised that he stopped the work early, so that the Ironbridge Gorge was narrower than intended, and it remains a place of fierce and dangerous waters to this day.

At last Hercules finished his labours, and the Severn now flowed southwards in a new path. And Hercules went and sat down to rest in the Quarry gardens, and he called out, “Ho! Reed-girls and water-nymphs and tree-dryads! I’m finished at last! Where are the pleasures beyond imagining that you promised me?” But there was no answer, for they had all gone away. And Hercules in frustration smashed his club on the ground, causing a great pit which is now the Dingle Gardens. But eventually he fell asleep, tired out by his labours.

The god of the River Severn saw Hercules asleep and thought, “Now I’ll have my revenge! Reject the pleasures offered by my water-nymphs, did he? Not to mention the reed-girls and dryads too! I’ll place a curse on him so that he’ll never be able to enjoy such pleasures again!” And he cursed Hercules, but Hercules did not realize it till he awoke.

Men came and erected a statue of Hercules, which you can still see in the Quarry Gardens. This angered the river-god, and he was angrier still when he realized that, thanks to the labours of Hercules, he now faced a very long and weary route to the sea. His anger continues to this day; and every few years he sends down a flood, which often fills the Quarry Gardens and surrounds the statue of Hercules, but he has never managed to topple it. And if you go to the Quarry, you can still see Hercules, with his lion-skin and his mighty muscles and gigantic club – but if you look closely you will notice that, thanks to the river-god’s curse, he wears only an infeasibly tiny fig-leaf.

The Straight Tail of a Lion, by Nathalie Hildegarde Liege

A good breakfast in a hotel after a first night in Shrewsbury; I have my journal, Physics Education, by my cereals bowl. A lady dressed in blue from head to toes pushes a double glass door, heads to the Breakfast Room and pauses until the waiter shows her to the table next to mine. She is early for a cooked English breakfast. She waits. She pins her eyes on my Journal. Her hands unzip and go through her blue luggage, clogged up with her essentials, at the same time as talking to me.

"I love Shrewsbury. The guide who took our group for a history tour of the town told us with a nostalgic voice, Shrewsbury is now known for its many charity shops. I’d say there are also plenty of hair dressers for all styles.” She smiles and adds, “If I may, please enjoy this book. I'm guessing you teach Physics. Perhaps you could pass it on to one of your students.'

"Thank you," I say, taking the book. 'Yes, I do teach Physics. What an unusual title, Physics for Poets." 

"It was several days ago now," the lady said.  "I was on the opposite pavement to this hotel. I'd been looking its balcony, which Charles Dickens once referred to, and had turned away from it and gone into the Severn Hospice Charity shop. I wished to choose a book for the evening. The Christmassy silver cover caught my eye, also the red apple badge on Sir Isaac Newton’s chest. I bought it, but I can’t understand or read it as poetry."  

That was it.  The minute I bent my face to take a spoon of cereals, the lady vanished. No breakfast for her, not even a cup of tea.

Inside the book, I saw that someone had left a note numbered (4) at the first page of Chapter 5, entitled The Romance of Energy.

Written in red ink it said: The star expands into a red giant or a red super giant. On the back of the same note, written in luminous blue, were the headers of the paragraphs of the same chapter The many faces of energy, Binding Energy, Stars, Planets and Life.

Was this my first poem, made up out of the structure of the chapter?

If I think of stars or red giants, I'll always remember my nose up towards the heavens the first time I noticed the very special sculpted Lion over the doorway of this hotel, pulling into its car park beneath a clear winter sky. The tail of this, the Percy Lion, was a mystery.  I knew about the Alnwick Bridge’s lion and its unique straight tail, the Brentford Syon’s Park second Percy Lion with a straight tail too. Oddity of oddities, I even found a third Percy Lion with a straight tail at the very top of this Hotel, all tensed and isolated as if in self-defense, and crowned with stars? But this curly-tailed lion - I didn't know what that was about.

What I do know, though, was that the 1403 Battle of Shrewsbury took place here! Does the Percy Family know all about the Shrewsbury Lion that re-emerged in 1962 at the rear of the hotel, rich in the history of the town? His eyes and pride appear placed on the town centre and in the map line out to Battlefields. 

And dear Lady in Blue, if you had taken time for a breakfast I would have shared with you that piece of art and read out to you about the Lion Hotel, including all the things that the guide who led your tour didn't mention. 

.

  

The Old Man's Choice, by Peter Shilston

Paul sat in his chair as rigid and motionless as a statue, but inside his head thoughts spiralled endlessly around without reaching any conclusion. In the past he had always had confidence in his judgments; it had been one of his strengths; but not so now. Was he doing the right thing? Was it too late to change? How was he to know? He had always acted in accordance with certain fixed and inviolable rules, but he had never pretended to great intelligence. Throughout his long career, others had always done the detailed and difficult work for him: his function was to provide dignity and stability, and to calm down those brainy chaps when they got over-excited, as they often did. 

He had been respected too, and generally successful. But now here he was, alone. He dimly sensed that the world had changed: the rules which had governed his life had perhaps ceased to exist. The brainy chaps who might have helped him out had gone. He should have gone too: he realized that. More than once he had retired, and then allowed himself to be called back. He should have resisted that last call; in his heart he had known it all along: the only time in his life that he had ever acted weakly. Surely at his age he should have been allowed to live in peace! It had brought him nothing but uncertainty, when every course of action seemed distasteful.

          

Now there was this man he had to meet: a man young enough to be his grandson. Not that he would have wished any grandson of his to turn out like that! He had already met him more than once, and had disliked him intensely. The fellow was common beyond belief; obviously risen from the gutter; ill-mannered, disrespectful, dishonest and consumed with violent ambition: a man who acknowledged no rules of any kind in his pursuit of power. Paul’s oldest friends had warned him against having anything to do with this person. Where were his friends now, when he needed them most? Gone; all gone. He was alone, and what was he to do? For the first time in his life, Paul felt helpless; a mere cork, drifting in the tide of events.

          

The door opened to admit the unwanted visitor. Paul rose ponderously to his feet and, maintaining dignity till the last, stood as ramrod-straight as if still on the parade-ground. The other man was plainly ill-at-ease. He had taken the trouble to dress formally for the occasion, which served only to make him look more ridiculous than ever. The two exchanged stilted and unmeaning compliments, scarcely bothering to disguise the contempt they felt for each other. But the formalities had to be gone through. So the older man and the younger shook hands, and Field-Marshal-President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany.

Don't Touch, by Martin Needham

It is now the 734th year since the outbreak of the Great and Merciful Peace and all the inhabitable areas have agreed upon two supreme commandments. These two rules were  born out of the  necessity of circumstance and have transformed human existence. 

Early in the time of Scarcity  the elders who took control of the holy google-net ruled that all human life was sacred and may not be taken, every individual must eat in moderation and exercise to maximise their lifespan. The eggs and sperm are still taken from the young at 17 years of age to be protected so that selected embryos can be produced  in gestation tanks when required by their family.  

For the first  two hundred years humanity prospered, people expected to live to 120 and then 150 and now 200 years. The sterile homes and blessings of the virtual worlds created by the omniscient and most revered google-net  meant that people continued to live entertained and safe existences.  So the planet was fully repopulated until the time of the  Super Abundance, coinciding with the final impotency of antibiotics. 

At this time the second great rule was revealed to us. Thou shalt not treat the sick. So for half a millennium we have lived in the midst of a dichotomy of rules born out of conflicting necessities which are  sustained by a personal greed for life and enshrined in religion. Thus we preserve and revere our online lifespan but we may not interfere with the sick. In this way the overall balance of life is preserved.  We study the great sciences of prevention, sterilisation  and vaccination that we might live longer. Everyone must wear their life preservers; white synthetic spider silk suits that armour us against the scourge of abrasions. We live within our sterosphere helmets that protect us from infection. We conduct our business through virtually controlled machines and exercise in virtual worlds inspired by reality and imagination.

I am a servant of the great and most majestic high google. In my first half century I was one of the developers of the most miraculous world time web, which has become the great investment sensation of our  age. We succeeded in drawing in  digital signals refracted back from the black star gravity pool. These data streams from the birth of our most revered google net brought us knowledge of what we now call  "the age of visceral engagement" .  At first we were shocked and sickened  by the violence, bare flesh and physical contact. It has since been used to reform our virtual entertainments.  

This is my first attempt to send a super accelerated data burst on the reverse path back through the curve of the  space/time depression. There is no rule against it, but in my heart I know there should be.  Studying your lives for over a hundred years now I feel compelled to warn you of the unfortunate alignments of rules, culture and circumstances that have enslaved us. I realise that this act may threaten our own existence.

I am 198 years old. I have followed the rules, lived long and been  well rewarded by our standards,  but perhaps less well in your judgements. I will send richer data streams after this simple old fashioned coded message, but try to imagine.  We must endure our illness and the consequences of them, we must not intervene.  We do not touch and remain untouched. 

I have recently lost another greatgreatgreatgrandchild in such circumstances as further fuel my doubts about the rules by which we live. We had stepped outside our block - risky but not against the rules. Five year old Louis saw the leaves blowing down from the trees. Before he could be stopped, he put up his visor that he might chase and catch a leaf. It brushed his eye as it floated down: infection followed and then death. 

I have stood coldly by and watched death too many times, and I know that you would judge me ill by the standards of your time for doing so.  Our children's instincts betray our true nature. It is  buried deeper as we mature by the consistent layers of conditioning that we must not touch.   When I first looked back at your time I was shocked, offended and physically sickened by the way that you touch each other, walk barefooted, breathe the air. We had lost the words for two mouths touching and even now I cannot bring myself to write it,  but now I am obsessed  by it and jealous.

 Preserve your humanity not your individual  selves, live a real and dirty life. Set your descendants free.

Yours in perpetual  servitude.            Gideon