Scribe: The Habs Literary Journal, Spring 2010

scribe

scribe.-Spring2010

THE HABS LITERARY JOURNAL

SPRING 2010

APRIL is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, st irr ingDull roots with spring rain.

T.S Eliot ’s The Waste Land, 1922 .

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e Editorial

In Chapter One of Daniel Lande’s magnum opus, we see a clock striking past midnight into a new dawn.In Orwell, we witness the progression of a writer as it dawns on him that he has found his voice. In eNight of the New Moon, Akshay-Kishan Karia frets that a new dawn will never come, as many of thestalwarts of Scribe - including myself – have done.

Literature has been reborn at HABS with this edition of Scribe, long a dream of many who are hereand many who have le. With our budget bump, we can finally give it the respected place it deserves, as abeautifully presented, illustrated magazine that showcases the creative talent of students o-neglected bysuffocating examination boards.

Yet we ought not to count our chickens before they’ve hatched, as Anto Meyer beautifully tells usin A Black Christmas where the streaming sunlight yields only a melancholy day. We must work hard topreserve literature so this dawn is not a false one.

Nor should we stop hoping. ‘e dawn chorus had never sounded so beautiful and the sunrise hadnever looked as beautiful as a new day began’, Siddharth Sheth waxes. is edition certainly marks anexciting time for literature at the school.

Nor should we expect to be remembered. ‘e sunlight danced majestically on the ice, serenelymocking the pair clinging to this glistening mirror, isolated in the gargantuan ocean of glass’, JamesColenutt describes in Survival, showing just how miniscule we all are in light of this literary dawn.Ultimately this edition will be forgotten; what made it exclusive will be commonplace; and its founders,my energetic editorial team, will be just like the pair clinging to the glistening mirror in Survival, serenelymocked by newer editorial teams with leviathan budgets who bask in the splendour of what one will termliterary high noon.

What will remain true is that much literature seems to be underpinned by the recrudescence ofthe morning sun as evidenced by this very edition. It is in these high spirits that we begin this renaissanceof the HABS literary tradition.

is has not happened abruptly. It has not been like the switching on of a light. It has happenedgradually, as a sun rises. I still remember my first editor, the old hack Sam Rabinowitz, bemoaning ourminiscule budget. I remember Book Club guided by Ben Jacobs and Phil Shipley. e clamour for a justtreatment of literature is one with a long history.

Our team realised that this struggle had gone on long enough. Many of our predecessors wishedus well in our endeavour to find money but had no expectation that we would do so. We are writers, aerall; when – ever - was there money in writing?

T.S Eliot, who adorns the back with the opening lines of his morbid e Waste Land, famouslyworked furiously hard to support his ailing wife and did his writing in the evening aer returning from thebank.

As we enter a new financial year in a world obsessed by money, our message is simple. Just as the beautyof a new dawn is ineffable, so is the power of writing. Do not try to measure it in GDP or HDI or any othernonsensical construct. Let it be, and pay it well; nurture it with nothing short of patronage, and it will flourishinto a veritable thicket of ideas not seen since the Enlightenment first broadened our horizons.

Ameya Tripathi, Editor

Scribe | Spring 2010

Scribe 2010 Editorial Team

Ameya Tripathi L6H2Editor

TomOugh L6C2Publishing Officer

Oliver Goldstein L6C2Deputy Editor Features

David Joels L6R2Deputy Editor Short Stories

MarcoMarcello L6R2Deputy Editor Poetry

Arnie Birss L6C1Copy Editor Poetry

David Lawrence L6H1Copy Editor Short Stories

Nikhil Subbiah L6S2Copy Editor Features

Jordan Bernstein 7RJunior Editor

AndrewDjaba 9S1Junior Editor

Joe Salem 10S2Artist

Shaneil Shah 11J2Artist

Zak Kay 11R1Advertising Officer

MrT-S LiSupervising Editor

Email submissions for the Autumn 2010 edition of Scribe to [email protected]

Back cover by Shaneil Shah

49Scribe | Spring 2010

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Contents

e Night of the New Moon, Akshay-Kishan Karia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2e Black Christmas, Anthony Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3e Love Has Gone, David Joels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41974, Yasir Soleja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Called Up, Matthew Huggett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Blackberries, Will Missen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7e Woods, Will Missen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Shadows, Will Missen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Bond of Love, James Lockwood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Green Jade, Siddharth Sheth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Rare Blood, Joey Charles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10HABS Literary Society, Tom Ough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Headingley 1981, Oliver Goldstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Fireworks, Matthew Huggett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Chapter One, Daniel Lande . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14A Break-In, Arnie Birss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Forever Young, Daniel Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16How to tell if someone is British, Ben Kaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Politics, Joe Salem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Orwell: Part Two - Finding His Voice, Ameya Tripathi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21e Pavement Will Be Clean, William ong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26e Dream, Edward Upson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27e Stable, Arsalan Kamal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29A Parting of Ways, Ben Peacock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29e Falling Leaves, Bharrathi Sarvananthan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Crash, Joshua Solomon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Survival, James Colenutt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Accident, Janthula Ranchagoda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Viewing a Runaway, Ameya Tripathi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Impact, Paavan Buddhev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Creative Writing, Jordan Bernstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40How to Write a Poem, Marco Marcello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42How Megavideo can help with your English homework, David Joels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44e true Catcher in the Rye: J.D. Salinger 1910-2010, Nikhil Subbiah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45Salinger, Ameya Tripathi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46e Raging Bull and His Little Brother, Oliver Goldstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Front cover by Joseph Salem and Ameya Tripathi


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e Night of the New Moon

Akshay-Kishan Karia 11R1

Nobody is frightened. Nobody is depressed. Nobody is awake.ere was the eccentric entrepreneur, the busy businessman, the poetic playwright, the seductive

saleswoman, the unfamiliar usher, the solemn shopkeeper and the cray criminal. Rest. Now, it seemsthere is nothing.

e people are in bed, as are the products of the various shops, no longer busy trying to pose in away that makes them presentable and attractive, in their time of rest. Everyone and everything is asleep.Even the reels of red tape, the computers, the cash-registers, the rakes and the uncooked foods revel in theglorious time of slumber. e city is sleeping. e city is dead! Quick! Call for help! It is nowhere to befound. Is this not reason to be afraid?

Nobody answers.Beware. Silence screams at its highest volume, echoing throughout the city, like the schoolmaster, desperate

to discipline his mischievous pupils. e cruel, black regime of this dictator swily sweeps all around. ere is onlyone difference. Nobody is there to hear it. Nobody is there to hear the rough, raucous yell. Who knows what elsemay be stirring, silently and secretly, not snoozing like the rest? e harlot is secretly earning her daily bread and ahusband, staying with her instead. e escapist is running, fast, away, whilst the criminal is now here to stay. eprotestor is planning his obstruction, whilst the evil are planning their destruction. All these wrongdoings are keptaway from our lives. Nobody knows what happens in this eerie silence. Is this not reason to be afraid?

Nobody answers.Look. Everything else is in its place, yet somehow, everything is not there. A shroud of darkness

covers the city and it is as if nothing is in existence. Where would an onlooker find the information centre,the company building, the famous landmark, the complimented restaurant, the complimentary newspaper,or even the longed-for companion? Even an onlooker would not be there. Is this not reason to be afraid?

Nobody answers.Stay clear. Night seeps slowly in, creating a whirlpool of cold. It creeps behind the unfortunate

man, with its evil glare, ready to pounce and envelop him in its frozen fire, a silent killer, searching for itsprey, ready to attack, viciously, any one unwelcome visitor, who stays outside, in its territory. What of hewho must venture into these horrors? e cold’s eyes widen when it sees him and it shows its criminalgrimace as it slowly, slyly, sneaks up to this unassuming gentleman. As it leaps forward it sinks its chillingteeth into its prey and there is no battle as he is simply overwhelmed. is is the land of only the strong,those involved in unlawful happenings. Is this not reason to be afraid?

Nobody dares to answer.Nothing is happening, yet everything is happening. Everywhere, underneath the pall of darkness, hushed

under the silence and within the vacuum of emptiness, are the dreams of those who will revive the city the nextmorning. e poor mother dreams of the day her child will eat regularly, the father of the day his wife will not beanxious, the salesman of the day he will not be ridiculed as an annoyance, the rehabilitated prisoner of the day of hispardon and the lonely one of the day he will be snatched away from this world and from his suffering. ey are allindulgedinthismagicalworldofdreams, inducedbythedrugofnight-time,unawarethattheywill rarely cometrue.Night is truly just a blissful day, the day everyone actually enjoys, and an escape from the torture of the next morning.

To us, the innocent, there is nothing. ere is no sound and there is nothing to see and onlythings to fear. To a few others, unheard-of to our naive ears, the day begins at midnight.

Nobody is awake. Nobody is depressed. Nobody is frightened of the inexistent world outside of slumber.

2 Scribe | Spring 2010



e Black Christmas

Anthony Meyer L6H1

I woke up early, excited. e calm, comforting glow from the sun smothered me like a blanket, trying to lullme back to sleep. But not today. All I had to do was think of what lay ahead, what was waiting for medownstairs. I could already see the shiny red paper stretched across the presents, struggling to contain thejoy inside. I could already feel the so rip of the paper as I tore through to the bike that I had been waitingpatiently for all year. e feeling of relief as I first peeked through the gaps to see what I already knew wascoming. Today would be predictable and happy. Today would be the best day of the year.

She came home yesterday. For once she was free of those machines, the black and white screens reducingall that she is to a series of meaningless numbers and shapes. She lay there, weak and pale, the single tube runningfrom her nose her sole companion. She was a beautiful woman who once would have turned every head in aroom. Now people didn’t look. ey would lower their eyes, embarrassed at the way her favourite clothes barelyclung to her emaciated frame. ey would scrutinize the pattern on the sofa, disturbed by the gaunt and lifelesslook in her drawn face. She reminded me of an empty house. Even looking into her misty eyes I could barely seethe woman I remembered, passionate and determined. Yet she was still there, a fire burning brightly in a cornerof the empty house. I had thought it odd that she was allowed home today. I could remember the first time I wentto see her in that hospital. e corridors, long and straight, packed with patients, visitors and nurses jostlingfrom wall to wall like bees in a hive, still managed to seem insentient. I thought I would prefer it when we gotto her room, where it would be quieter and more familiar. e scene that had confronted me was not familiar.Her body resembled a tube map. I couldn’t see where one pipe finished and the next needle began. e silencewas broken only by the constant rhythm of the heart beat monitor. However it wasn’t what I saw or heard thatshocked me, made my hair stand up on end and almost forced me to run as far away from her as I could. esmell lay somewhere between sterile metal and perspiring flesh. Not quite the smell of death but the smell ofpeople fighting for life. It was peculiar how sick the hospital made me feel and it was mildly comforting when Ifound out that she was to be moved to a hospice. Although I wasn’t sure exactly what this was I knew that itcouldn’t compare to the harsh white lines of the hospital. How could someone recover in a place so cluttered withinert contraptions? It was puzzling then, that lying in her purple leather jeans and leopard skin blouse, ascomfortable as I had seen her for weeks, she should look so hopeless, so resigned. But I didn’t give up hope.

I wandered through to my sister’s room, eager. My fingers itched to curl themselves around thoseglossy bundles that would take my mind off all my problems. Although I had found it difficult to sleep lastnight, my stomach feeling light as air and trying to force its way through my chest, I wondered why my dadhad bright red circles around his eyes. Even more unusual was the tense and awkward atmosphere in theroom. I decided to try to break the ice by going straight for that shining red beacon of delight. As soon asI felt the smooth paper between my greedy fingers my primeval instincts took control and I was tearingthrough it like a starving predator who had finally caught his prey. rough my gleeful frenzy I felt a tugat the back of my mind. Something important, something for which even Santa could wait.

“Dad. When will we see mum today?”I thought I could feel the paper fall from my hands, or maybe they had just gone numb.I sit, staring down at the tattered shreds of paper that had seemed so majestic, that seemed so

glorious and vibrant. Remembering the excitement that I had felt, the excitement that I would never feelagain; I realise that growing up doesn’t mean getting older.



e Love Has Gone

David Joels L6R2

e world bends,And snaps.e skin shivers,And contracts.e hair stirs,And settles.e eyes moisten,And enclose.e nose twitches,And eases.e lips dry,And crack.e body shakes,And withers.e heart ceases,And is silent.

You blink. You blink again.e love has gone.

1974

Yasir Soleja 7R

Growing up in Kansas our family spent many evenings on the front porch of the old farmhouse. We'd sitand watch for hours as the big summer storms rolled in from the distance. Living in the flat lands of Kansaswe had survived some of the toughest storms nature had to offer but nothing ever compared to the summerstorm back in 1974.

Living in Tornado Alley in the Midwest is just the same as living anywhere else. You have to adaptto your surroundings, and make the best out of what you got. But, when Mother Nature points her fingerat you it's time to run and hide.

We lived smack dab in the middle of Kansas in a little town called Bunker Hill close to WilsonLake. Some nights we'd take a ride up to the lake and watch the big storms feed off of the lake. I guess you



could say our source of entertainment was lackingback then.

As we sat on the porch that aernoonback in 1974, little did we know that thisparticular day would make history. Our mindswere off in the distance watching the clouds andthe squall line as it dipped and little tornadospouts began to form. Usually they only lasted ashort time then quickly disappeared.

It was like a game we played, counting thetornado spouts. When you lived with storms likewe did and spent many nights in the root cellaryou begin to obtain a false sense of security. So,when the big summer storms came they were ourmain source of entertainment for the evening.

at aernoon began the biggestoutbreak of tornadoes ever recorded in a 24 hourperiod. Over 148 tornadoes were confirmed inthirteen states and we were just sitting on our porch waiting for the show to begin.

Many small tornadoes had touched down on our farm in the past. e biggest tornado we had (F-3) took out both of the barns and half of our house. at tornado formed behind us as we were watchinganother one off in the distance. We barely made it to the root cellar that time.

e sound the F-3 tornado made as it passed over the cellar was deafening. It could only becompared to a train and an F-16 colliding at full speed, five feet over your head. When we emerged fromthe root cellar aer the storm we hardly recognized the farm. e entire area had been completely re-sculpted by Mother Nature in a very expensive way.

Aer that tornado I began to feel that we could survive almost anything. With insurance moneywe remodelled and rebuilt the farm better than before, but it only lasted for a little while.

e F-3 tornado we survived was just a brief explanation of what could happen in the future; ourworst fears were just about to come true.

Janet, my younger sister cried out with such intensity that we all ran to where she was at the frontof the house and there it was, not more than half a mile away. e huge, violent funnel of black cloud madehouses groan as they were lied off their foundations.

Quickly and swily, I was the first to get to our new, F-5 safe tornado shelter and surprisingly Iwent in last. We bolted the huge steel trapdoor and prayed silently, hoping for shelter.

When the power cut, a multitude of tornadoes passed over one by one. e room was like a silent,solemn funeral service. Someone would cough once in a while, but nobody spoke.

Later, we heard the chirping of birds and the hushed voices of rescue workers. e trapdoor wasopened from the outside and we all clambered out like desperate dogs. Later on we all moved to NewYork, and one by one, with me first, went our separate ways.

at day in 1974: I will always remember it, and never forget it.

Note: is is a fictional account of the super outbreak of tornadoes (April 13th 1974 to April 14th 1974)


Called Up

Matthew Huggett 7C

It was a cold ursday night. My breath billowed out as I enteredthe pub. I ordered myself a beer and sat down opposite a groupof three men having an argument. I couldn’t help but listen inand this is what I heard.

“Come on, mate,” said one as he nursed his pint of Guinness.

“Yeah,” said another, “you really should join up. If you stay muchlonger, people will begin to think you’re a coward.”

“But I told you,” said the third man in a harassed tone, “I don’tagree with fighting. It is wrong to kill and I won’t do it.”

“But think of all the benefits,” the first one said earnestly. “You’llbe doing your patriotic duty and when you get home, girls willlove you and people will clap you on the back. Who knows, youmight even be given a medal! How will you be able to hold yourhead up high knowing you shirked your duty when your countryneeded you? And besides, Lord Derby’s plan will come into action soon and if you join up now, you’ll bespared the indignity of being called up!”

“I suppose you’re right,” the third man sighed.

“Good man,” the second one said and ordered him another pint.

I drained my glass and got up shaking with anger. I myself had experienced war firsthand and knew forcertain that that man who had been so shamefully tricked into volunteering would die horribly.




Blackberries

Will Missen 7R – Winner of the £10 Poetry Prize

Like flies clasping to a fishing lineFrangible, rigid stalks holdViolet clusters, oozingBlood, red and vividAutumnal breezes scatter thornsPeppered onto branchesBut, alas!e vole uncoverse violet clusters, oozingBlood, red and vividAnd carries them mile on mile,Until his aching heart stops beating.

e WoodsCascades of leavesBlanket the grassUnruly and untamedCreature; fox, scampersrough trees so tallLike giantsGnarled bark plastering their hidesAnd their hair, so vibrantGreens, reds and orangesAll shining together.

ShadowsSlivers of black mistFloat by my side;e face of my conscience.Dark figures plague my mindScreeching, laughing into the abyssInside my head, inside my braine murky mist just keeps coming backUntil the midnight chasm closesAnd they wait until morning to torment me again.


Bond of Love

James Lockwood 7M

How the viola tricolour got its markings

It was the height of summer centuries ago. e sun wasbeaming down, the flower meadows were blooming andthe bees were flourishing.

One bee in particular was irresistibly drawn to atiny beautiful flower of the most ravishing purple. Dayafter day the bee returned to this wonderful flower todrink its golden nectar. When he reluctantly returnedto the hive he kept his precious flower in its hiddencopse to himself.

As the summer wore on, the bee grew old andweary, and sensed his time was com3ing to an end. ethought of leaving his beloved flower was unbearable.Realising that he wished to die with the flower in his sight, he mustered the last of his energy and zoomedto the secret copse. As he entered the copse, he knew that he had to feel the silky petals one last time. Whenhe neared the flower, the last of his energy dissolved but his momentum hurtled him straight towards thecentre of the flower (or was it the flower drawing him in?). As his antennae touched the purple perfectionthere was a flash of white light and the bee was let into the flower leaving his black and yellow markingsbehind on the petals. e searing heat le a beautiful band of white on the perfect petals.

United for ever the bee and the flower live on in the copse, known as the viola tricolour.




Green Jade

Siddharth Sheth 7M

Many moons ago, so many that even the best mathematicians couldn’tcount them with all the calculators they used, it was a time of peace andharmony and all the countries lived in peace – even Iraq and America,although that may have been due to the fact that they didn’t know the otherexisted. e dawn chorus had never sounded so beautiful and the sunrisehad never looked as beautiful as a new day began. ere was no smog fromthe cities and the ozone layer was intact. In a laboratory in the far reachesof China a plant – a stem with purple berries sweet as honey and light as airwas created. Now nothing bad arose from this. It was a moment for theworld to rejoice. It was a plant that smelt more stunning then the whole ofKew Gardens!

It was a biological miracle. It had one problem… it was highlyaddictive – you tasted one berry’s delectable, syrupy taste and you had tohave more. Within days of the first field being created it was stormed bythe aristocratic public - the only ones who could afford it. e yum yumberry plant (for that was its name) had its leaves and flowers trampled in the rush. is plant wasn’t ordinary– it didn’t take years to evolve. Now you hear adults saying that things don’t happen overnight – this did. It grewtoxic blue coloured, tough flowers that didn’t encourage anyone to go near it – let alone eat it.

Luckily, before people had to find the solution to this problem, alcohol was invented and peoplefound something else to get addicted to.

But many yum yum plants were lost in the riots and only a small number survived. It was namedgreen jade aer its colour and is now amazingly rare. So if you ever wondered where the precious stonegreen jade came from – now you know.



Rare Blood

Joey Charles 7M

ousands of years ago, under the hills and mountains lay thehideous goddess of the underworld. Her name was Styx,daughter to Oceanus, the god of the oceans, and mother toNike, the goddess of victory.

One morning, her mother Tethys, the goddess ofthe sea, gave birth to her brother Alpheus. Styx thought itwould be nice to welcome her younger brother into thefamily so she came to the surface of the world to pay respectsto her mother.

“Greetings, my beloved,” Tethys bellowed with a smirkon her face. Styx turned swily and said, “Congratulations onyour new son!”

“Congratulations on your new brother!” Both the women laughed but soon the conversationstarted to turn dry. Tethys broke the silence by saying, “You’re looking skinny!”

“Well, there isn’t much to eat down there! Most of the food goes to Cerberus,” grunted Styx. Anawkward silence prevailed. Styx turned and walked away to see her new brother.

Styx finally saw a golden cradle and knew that her brother was waiting for her. She looked downand saw the most beautiful boy she had ever laid eyes on. He was sleeping, breathing ever so quietly andpeacefully. She knelt down and slowly picked him up. He stretched and eventually he awoke. He lookedup and made a large gummy smile towards Styx. She felt loved and warm inside. She carefully placed himback in his cradle. She stroked his face with the back of her hand. Seconds later she realised that she hadcut his face with her sharp nails and he started to bleed. e peaceful Alpheus wasn’t so peaceful now andstarted to cry.

Styx shook her hand to get the blood of it and it landed directly onto the roots of white orchid.e white orchid wasn’t white anymore; it was red, blood red.

A week later a new type of orchid was produced, the rare blood orchid.


11

HABS Literary Society

Tom Ough, Literary Society Chairman, L6C2

‘To climb steep hills,’ William Shakespeare once mused, ‘requires slow pace at first!’ It was with thisadmonition in mind that the newly-constituted Literary Society began aer Mr O’Sullivan had selecteda committee in February. However, just as the Bard’s illegitimate progeny multiplied, so too did the LitSocfamily grow at speed, with a loyal core of members from both sides of the hedge.

e first talk, delivered by the Chairman on ‘e Joys of Joyce’, drew over thirty students andteachers, and, as other students proffered their own services, the Society maintained its healthy following.Xander Hughes’s address on ‘Dystopia’ dealt intelligently with themes raised by George Orwell, AldousHuxley, and, of course, Yevgeny Zamyatin, while Joe Gaus spoke with flair on the title of ‘Alice: roughthe Looking Glass’. Next to tread the boards of E16 was Arnie Birss, who discussed ‘Bad Literature’ andprovided a home-made chocolate cake. Well-put together, many-layered, and easily-digestible was theverdict; the talk was good too.

is year has also seen close ties being developed with the Girls’ School, in the great tradition ofsuch literary unions as Tristan & Isolde, Romeo & Juliet, and Ron & Hermione. With the boys beinginvited to Wendy Cope’s address at the Girls’ School, and the fairer sex gracing us with their presence ateach of our events, it can certainly be said that, from the first feeble fumblings, members have grown, andrelations of the best sort have ensued.

LitSoc has yet more up its velveteen sleeves. e agreement of Luigi Bonomi, one of the mostinfluential publishers in the country, to run a seminar here in April, is most promising, and other names arein the pipeline, although public exams put the brakes on a proposed trip to Dublin on Bloomsday.

It has been an unequivocally good year for the nascent Literary Society. Enlightenment andentertainment have been doled out in equal measure to supplement the cake that has become customaryat each event. For such success, thanks can be given in part to the efforts of Mr O’Sullivan and theCommittee, but largely to the participation of the other members of LitSoc, without whose attendanceand input the enjoyable year we have had would not have been possible.




Headingley 1981

Oliver Goldstein L6C2

Twelve Tests as Captain without a win, writes the Yorkshire Evening Post.

e air is heavy, the headlines are written – the truth. You sit inclear discomfort on the Headingley balcony and survey the wreckage.England, 105 for five: an hour ago tottering, now on the brink. Australia:arrogant, unmoving, unwavering; Alderman, Lillee and Lawson: grinning,laughing, joking. You pick up your bat and make your way down the stepstwo at a time, two at a time, down, down, down, until you reach the pit.

Out in the middle: out in the middle where there is no air, only thesweat and the nerves and the heat choking at your lungs - this is it. Twelvemonths ago, twelve tests ago, you were loved: a battling and fearless brave-heart of a man. is is how it feels to be the villain. is is how it feels.

Twelve Tests as Captain without a win, writes the YorkshireEvening Post.

You walk down the pitch and shake Boycott’s hand, and he fixes you a dour stare before trudgingback off to his end, knowing that you went twelve tests as Captain without a win, knowing that you failedtwelve times over: failed, failed, failed. 20,000 Yorkshire men stare at you, alone in the middle: 20,000sweaty and impatient men baying for your blood.

Boycott continues batting as before: prod, prod, prod, nudge, nudge, nudge, until Alderman,locks flowing and tail up, coaxes one back in to rap him furiously on the front pad. Out, out, out. Boycottstands there, alone with his thoughts, before trudging off: dejected, disappointed - a failure. A nasty beadof sweat trickles down the side of your face: the noose tightens around your neck.

Twelve Tests as Captain without a win, writes the Yorkshire Evening Post.Taylor doesn’t hang around for long, offering Alderman another cheap, cheap, cheap wicket.

England, 135 for seven: the bells are tolling, the nails are sinking in. You are the damned, and there is noway out: it is hopeless, it is over. You decide with Dilley to finish it, to let the crucifixion begin. You holdyour bat up high as one by one, one by one, one by one they race in: Alderman, Lillee and Lawson – smug,arrogant and smirking, knowing that it’s over, knowing that it’s hopeless. Yet somehow, someway, you arestill out there half an hour later, still out there with Dilley, and the smug and arrogant smirks have grownweary, have grown tired, have grown old.

You soon reach fiy and, with a hard grimace, raise your bat to the balcony, to the team, to Brearley,and suddenly, all as one, the crowd rises to their feet to salute you: no more failures this time. No morefailures. You stand with Dilley and say it gently: this is it. is is it.

Twelve Tests as Captain without a win, writes the Yorkshire Evening Post.Dilley eventually departs on 56 with you on 80, and you can almost touch the greatness that is all

but inches away, the greatness that will keep that damned coffin open and those damned Ashes alive. Oldmarches out to the crease and you shake hands and nod heads: you are ready, he is ready – it is time to winthe War.


You are on 98 when Lawson charges in, pitches the ball up: you swing the bat down furiously;edge, edge, edge – but it is past Marsh, it is past Lillee, it is past Australia, and you are redeemed as thecrowd and the team and the journalists let out one giant roar of approval - forgotten is the loss in theCaribbean, forgotten is the pair at Lord’s, forgotten is the failure of the captaincy. e weight from yourshoulders is lied, the shackles are let loose and you swing, swing, swing. Old departs for 29 to be replacedby Willis, but you are a man possessed and you swing, swing, swing.

Twelve Tests as Captain without a win, writes the Yorkshire Evening Post.Umpire Meyer signals the end of the day’s play and you raise your bat, triumphant, and salute the

crowd. England, 351 for nine: still alive, somehow, someway. Alderman, Lillee and Lawson: broken,battered, beaten – yes it’s over, yes it’s hopeless.

e whole dressing room claps you in – even Boycott is on his feet - but you find a quiet cornerand sit, reliving the action ball by ball, minute by minute, shot by shot. And you know that you have wonthe Battle: you, the greatest all-rounder the world will ever see. You, Ian Botham.


Fireworks

Matthew Huggett 7C

Standing alone,e blackness of the voidCreeps into your heart.en, suddenly – boom – crackle – hiss.en down and out forever.Light, beautiful lightFloods into your heart.All is well with the world.



Chapter One

Daniel Lande 10H2

e minute hand quivered for a split-second before flickering menacinglybetween the 59th minute and the hour mark on the face of Big Ben. 48 hours hadpassed. Midnight and the dawn of a new day had arrived. e threatening blacksky, without even the slightest hint of the possibility of moonlight, lookedimposingly upon the dark streets of London. A shrieking wind cursed throughthe air, turbulent and seeming as though anything in its path would have nooption other than to be demolished. Not a soul was to be seen out on the eeriealleyways or on the main streets of the subdued city. e foreboding trees, whichhad been around for centuries, no doubt felt threatened by the cruel gale andtheir leaves shook and floated to the floor, as the wind swept through on its path.

Peter looked on. Alone. He was the only person to be awake at that hourwithin the security of the city. He was contemplating what had happenedpreviously, at this precise time, just 48 hours ago. e light in his apartment, on the top floor of a steep blockof flats, was dull and sombre, lifeless to say the least. Atop the pile of takeaway delivery boxes, unfinished andnever to be consumed again, was a stack of papers. ese formed the entirety of Peter’s job, as a journalist,always reporting, always working. Although he held a pen in his hand, he could not hit a thought process,for all the money in the world. e concentration drained from him the moment it had got dark and beingin the heart of a tough winter, this had been around four o’clock. Even so, since then Peter had remained inthis position, thinking, always thinking, and perhaps even regretting. Hunched up on the window ledge, asilhouette formed on the opposite wall; Peter had been reconsidering all of his actions and what had happenedjust 48 hours ago. at was it, just a small space of time, but even so, for Peter, enough time to fill an entirelife. e future looked rather bleak, and he knew it. He was unsure of what was coming up, what trials andtribulations he would have to make, but even so, he was powerless to stop it. Peter was truly scared.

e report needed to be in by the morning, but even so, it appeared as though there would beabsolutely no chance that he would be able to finish it come the hour that it was required. It wasn’t a greatsituation to be in, work wise, seeing as competition between journalists was so great that even someone ofPeter’s intellect could not comprehend it. Peter arose from his temporary workstation and strodepurposefully past the coffee table, with the takeaway boxes on it, and the tatty sofa, which had been acquiredtwo months ago from a cheap second-hand shop in a dodgy back street. Nevertheless, it served its purposeand was there to stay. e picture frames on the wall, filled with the portraits of key historical figures, glaredat Peter, as if they knew what had occurred just 48 hours ago, and were disappointed by the man’s actions.He cut a sorry figure as he turned out the light in the room and strode into his bedroom, undressed and puton his pyjamas. e last thing that Peter did before jumping into bed and sleeping through his torment wasto look into the mirror and see a disillusioned face stare back at himself, someone who was unsure of theirplace in the world at that present moment in time. As Peter pulled the bed sheets over his limp body, he letout an enormous sigh, before shutting his eyes and putting his sorrows away for another day.

e last of the chimes from St. Stephen’s tower filtered menacingly throughout the eerie nightair, with an air about it that sought a purpose. It was unsettling for anyone who cared to listen to it, theonly person being Peter, and a sleepless night awaited him. 48 hours had passed between now and THAT.


A Break-In

Arnie Birss L6C1

Mr Clarendon didn’t intend to spend long at the dry cleaners, he honestly didn’t, yet that delightful younggirl, whose mother ran the local WI, had engaged him in conversation. It would’ve been terribly rude to snubthe poor thing, she was rather dear and interesting, unlike some of the crass ones who smeared themselvesabout the town. What a smart girl as well, to have done so well in her exams, and at that school. Oh yes, MrClarendon had spoken at great length to her, about the comings-and-goings, the weather, politics, everythingpeople spoke about. Of course it started raining profusely, with sodden chariots of cloud enveloping thecounty, and the prospect of trotting home in such inclement weather was frankly unappealing to the oldman. So he stayed, in the warm and dry, chatting away for about half an hour or so until the skies cleared andshe had to flutter off to see her younger brother home from school.

e journey down Church Street, right at Granton Avenue, le across the meadows and ontowards the cottage was quite pleasant. Puddles strewn about the landscape and lilacs warily testing the airwere all Mr Clarendon needed to firmly decide that yes, spring had arrived and settled quite well into therhythm of daily life. e equinox was just two days hence; his own peonies should be pushing through thesoil as he walked he thought to himself. e arthritis gave him some grief on the walk, sadly it always did,but most people were so accommodating to the aging gentleman, especially that day, and combined withthe mood of rejuvenation, it lent him a veritable spring in his step; oh, how joyous it was that aernoon.

His cottage had been ravaged and ransacked; run-roughshod-over, only the bare remnants werele. A maelstrom of paper was just settling down as he stumbled through the knocked-in door: evidentlythe perpetrators had only just le. Old cottage windows were replaced with new installations, jagged edgesof glass which cut the air yet offered no shelter from the elements. Upstairs nothing was le aside fromwalls, flooring and a roof - oh and perhaps an intact door.

Whatever one could deem valuable had been taken by furtive men; his mementoes and hismetronome bundled into a van, along with the more obvious piano. Surveying carnage oen leaves one asense of despair but Mr Clarendon was merely confused. What on earth could be considered worthstealing? Yes, the piano would fetch a bit, but his photo-albums? His Bible? Honestly, he wondered, arepeople so irreligious nowadays that they have to resort to stealing holy texts, as not to suffer the ignominyof purchasing them in public? Once he had arranged his mind and phoned the police he realised. All theirmotives were splayed out in front of him like some writhing, maleficent creature. ese modern types weredevoid of culture and integrity and purpose and manners, mostly manners. So the damnable fools believedthat by stealing all he owned they might posses a fraction of what he had and what he knew. Da peoplelike them were to be pitied really.




Forever Young

Daniel Paul 11H2 – Winner of the £10 Prose Prize

Stooping down Arthur reached out to the wicker basket and cast the penultimate log onto the fire. Goldenflames licked out, tentatively at first, as if savouring the flavour. A prod from the tarnished brass poker sentcrimson sparks dancing up the brick chimney. Embers glowed appreciatively and the fire could not hideher joy at being fed. Crackling with delight, she greedily engulfed the dry bark.

Arthur shuffled wearily across creaking floorboards to the front room window and moved a cornerof the net curtain to one side. His breath misted up the glass; on the other side of the pane Jack Frost hadle his trade mark signature of elaborate ice crystals. e recent arctic weather front had already depositeda thick blanket of snow that smothered his lawn and path making the two indistinguishable. Bare branchesladen with snow defied gravity. Now the subzero temperature of the night added to the scene: the harshfrost that had descended on this picture post card view sparkled under the muted light from the flickeringlamppost. Arthur stood surveying the view and watching the trail of his breath. He filled his lungs withair and then exhaled heavily making the patch of condensation on the glass expand and retract. Unable toresist the temptation, he summoned the energy to inhale deeply then let out a prolonged breath. Liinga trembling index finger he traced a heart on the window, speared it with an arrow and proudly wrote theinitials A and M in slanting swirly capital letters each end of the arrow. It was a bit wobbly and not the sortof writing you saw much nowadays but that had been the norm when Arthur had been a child. It had beendrilled into him by his school master, Mr Kempleton, over eighty years ago. Faced with the cane forinaccurate or smudged letters, Arthur had been quick to master the techniques of calligraphy.

Reflecting on his work Arthur returned to his rocking chair and the warmth of the fire. He recalledthe first time he had carved those very same initials and the very same design into the trunk of the tallest oaktree in the village seventy years ago. Despite the passage of time the memory was as vivid as if it had only beenyesterday. Aged almost sixteen he had just returned from posting a letter for his father when he saw her sittingby the stream. Her long brown hair fell soly in curls on her shoulders; the silhouette of her body was hintingthrough her blouse in the bright summer sunlight. He smiled fondly as he reminisced. Despite being a yearyounger than he was, she was the more confident of the two and it was she who had invited him to share herhome made biscuits with her by the water’s edge. He had noticed her in school. Being a small village school,typically everyone knew everyone but they had never actually conversed; why would they? What would he havehad to say to her? She’d not be interested in football, cricket or fishing and what would his friends have said?

But that day, at that moment, her smile enchanted, words a little stilted at first soon flowedeffortlessly and the smell of her skin was intoxicating. at very aernoon he had known their futureswere destined to be entwined. at very aernoon, as they walked together in the sunshine along thegrassy bank chatting and laughing, at ease in each other’s company, he knew that he had met his soul mate.In an uncharacteristic expression of romance once they had parted company, each to return to theirrespective homes, he carved his declaration of love onto the rough tree trunk with his pen knife. ere itstood for all to see, still visible today, if anyone cared to look.

Snuggling under a patchwork quilt Arthur rocked in front of the glowing fire, comforted by boththe extra warmth from the quilt and the notion that it was his M who had devotedly sewn each of themulticoloured squares of fabric together many moons ago. His slightly bent gold rimmed spectacles misted


up and a solitary tear escaped and trickled down his pale wrinkled cheek. Valiantly he reached for his crispwhite handkerchief and wiped it away. Blinking to suppress further tears he swallowed hard and replacedhis handkerchief in his trouser pocket. Glancing upwards he blew a kiss to a smiling bride in a framedblack and white photograph that stood in pride of place on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. Her radiantsmile warmed his heart with love and filled his head with memories. e handsome groom in the fadedphotograph shared nothing in common with the wrinkled brow, hollow cheeks and white haired reflectionthat stared back at him in the mirror these days but the passion he felt inside burned with the same fervour.

e rhythmic swinging pendulum of the grandfather clock cast its hypnotic spell and Arthur’s heavyeyelids closed. His forgotten brewing pot of tea sat stewed and now stone cold. In the semi-conscious twilightworld of early slumber Arthur mused how cruel fate had been to steal her from him so swily without anywarning, just over a year ago. Life now was so lonely. An intolerable void circulated eternally within. e painof his loss resonated from his core throughout every fragment of his frail being. On occasion it momentarilydiminished but it was always present, possessing the power to rear itself at any time. e arrival of sleep broughtwith it fleeting welcome distraction. Sleep freed Arthur from the constraints of a body slow to react; a bodythat had become plagued with ailments of old age. A body few came to visit or even bothered to speak to. Ashe slept soly snoring in the firelight, he was forever young, forever united with his beloved M.




How to tell if someone is British

Ben Kaye L6S2 – Winner of the £20 Prose Prize

1. Double SOnly the British could come up with the wackiest fashion idea since the toothbrush moustache (whichbecame unpopular aer it was adopted by Hitler). is fashion farce I refer to is the British speciality weknow as ‘socks with sandals’. Only in Britain do we see grown men naively attempting to bring a newdimension to sandal wearing. e result is a detestable display which even manages to give crocs somecredibility.

2. Same old conversationWhich country is the only country in the world where a conversation starts with “Nice day, isn’t it?” and“Was the traffic alright getting here?” Surely these have to be the most pointless questions since “Do peoplein Australia call the rest of the world ‘up over’? “e fact that it is a nice day can be detected by all humanityand merely stating this fact is hardly crucial to human survival. Whether the traffic was heavy or not whenarriving for an appointment can be judged by time of arrival, and so surely the need for this question is asgreat as the need for a radio for a deaf person.

3. Upper class detachmentIn Britain, the practices of the upper class differ from the rest of society, and are exacerbated at the mostfabricated function society has to offer, a dinner party, where everyone makes an effort to smile and notto slouch into their chair, whilst pretending to be interested in Jack’s story of how he set up a vegetablegarden for his nephew. e main difference between an upper class and ‘plebeian’ dinner is the method ofmouth wiping. e upper class tend to go for the dab approach whilst all other classes opt for the speedwipe. Furthermore, upper class dinner parties never include brand foods. It is a prerequisite that all butteris taken out of the Utterly Butterly box and put on a plate, and that all Hellman’s Mayonnaise is put in adecorative pot, which commemorates the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Yet the need for this seems as greatas the need for square wheels.

4. Tea is the answerWhen someone breaks both their arms and will need two years to recover, what is the solution? In allother countries, a trip to the hospital. But not in Britain. e answer here is ‘Have a cuppa tea and a sitdown’. Despite the fact I am not qualified in medicine, I am yet to discover the healing properties of tea.is, however, does not dissuade British people from saving themselves from immense physical and mentalstrain by drinking what is effectively coloured water.


5. Cheap and cheerfulIt is hard for some to comprehend the Costa del Sol as an area of Spain; it is more an extension of Britain.e type of people that book a holiday to the most British city in the world do not seem to be the type ofpeople who would advantage of Costa del Sol’s Palaeontology Museum. Yet who can resist the multitudeof world landmarks that Costa del Sol has on offer such as sand, sea and over-developed housing estates?

6.We all love a moanAs I wrote this article, I feel I have the right to have a quick moan, another popular British pastime. emost frustrating part of my life is most definitely the experience of flying. is is not because I get queasyand end up being sick over the baby next to me, who has been incessantly crying for the past five hours.ere are numerous reasons for my extreme abhorrence of flying. When stepping onto the plane, the airsteward or stewardess feels that they are significantly aiding your flying experience by telling you that yourseat is down the plane (on their le) rather than in the cockpit. Without this advice, one wonders whetherair travel would even be possible. e saga is not over yet however. Aer the inevitable delay before taxiingto the runway, due to the pilot having diarrhoea or a packet of KFC nuggets getting stuck in the engine,the plane eventually takes off. e air stewards or stewardesses then begin the exceedingly annoying taskof rattling their 4x4 trolley down the aisle with the plane food. By the time they have sorted out who ismeant to have meat or vegetarian meals, the messiah has descended and teleports have been invented.Moreover, I am yet to travel on a flight where the airline has not run out of vegetarian meals, leaving oneperson with a roll to sustain them for ten hours. Aer finishing my meal, I then decide to make use of thetoilet facility provided. e toilet on airlines render the Hadron Collider unnecessary, due to the fact thatthe noise the flush creates provides an extremely accurate recreation of the Big Bang. On coming out of thetoilet, I then have to attempt the treacherous journey back to my seat. Every time I exit the toilet, the cabincrew are wheeling their absurd trolley down the aisle at the speed of Dawn French in a 100m race, leavingme to walk sluggishly behind them waiting for a bag to fall on my head from one of the overhead storagecompartments. On negotiating the most difficult challenge since the Vietnam War, I sat down only for thebaby next to me to give me an extra portion of plane food, but not quite in the customary way one expects.




Politics

Joe Salem 10S2 – Winner of the £20 Poetry Prize

Politics is sometimes saidTo be a game of many heads,But what happens to those who try,And end up in this game of lies.

*******

As those grumbling, fumbling, bumbling idiots all try to gain the power,at all want to hold and desire,Whilst others feed off each others greed to gain attention in this time of need andAer Accusations of who’s a rat and who’s a frog we finally end up in a sticky bogOf mindless Rumours and sex scandals and the odd joke about fork handles,Or is that four candles lighting our way through the dark underbelly of politics?

ree men in a boat or three men to the vote,As Brown always has a frown as his votes seem to keep on going down and downAs Cameron appears on the telly saying why he’s got the welly,Whilst there’s even one with a wooden leg… oh no that’s just Nick Clegg!

e fools who drool over a pool of lies and propaganda,Who sweat and fret and bet on their chances of winning to become what?e one who gets to play the game of shame, who reaps the fame yet ignores the blame.e man who shies away from the bankers’ pay, the hard days and tries to steer us in theRight way.But do these crawling, brawling mountains of men want to lead, to bleed and to heed theWarnings for our beautiful country?Or is it just another game towards their selfish aim of everlasting fame.

But what can we do to stop this endless rot of selfish tots destroying our society?e answer is to go to and fro to show that we know that they know they are wrongAnd aer protests in the night, in the day and the odd time on Wednesday they will thinkAnd stop and eventually rot,And only then will we be freed from the everlasting deed of greed of Politics.


Orwell: Part II – Finding His Voice

Ameya Tripathi L6H2

By the time George Orwell had finished A Clergyman’s Daughter(which he unhappily described as ‘a silly potboiler’), he was stillstruggling to find his literary voice. Down and Out in Paris andLondon was essentially a collection of non-fiction essays strungtogether with a thin plot. It made many pertinent points anddespite being a masterpiece by most reckoning, Orwell was nothappy with it. Similarly, as we have seen in the previous editionof Scribe, Burmese Days was far too decorous for his liking.Orwell was attempting to find himself as a writer in both thesenovels and in both instances he couldn’t. e reason for this isperhaps that in the first he was living a deception; whilstincredibly poor, he did have some way out, in the form of relativesand cousins in England, which was not the case with hiscompanions. He engaged himself in what we might call soconvincing doublethink, we forget that he isn’t as poor as it ismade out (though he is still struggling financially in a major sense).

Fiction was meant to give him more freedom, more capacity to defy reality, yet here again Orwellstruggled to find himself. He wrote decorously, richly, arrestingly. Burma is a tapestry of contrasting coloursin his novel, and the scenes are filled with the most intricate details and fantastic creatures and characters.Yet here Orwell almost lost his own opinion entirely, for his identity could barely be found in any of theother characters. Flory, the protagonist, is ultimately a racist, a misogynist and somewhat too old to bechasing around young Elizabeth Lackersteen. Orwell possessed none of these qualities and in a way BurmeseDays can be seen to be Orwell’s idea of what he might have ended up like had he stayed there any longer.He never felt himself in Burma, and as a consequence some of his strong political opinions aren’t evinced.

So when we arrive at A Clergyman’s Daughter, Orwell tries to reconcile his two earlier problems,by providing a fictional narrative and interspersing it with his own voice, a naked soliloquy, oen twopages or more in length, about any number of issues; the immorality of reverends and those who employhop-pickers; the amorality of private school teachers; the communism of poverty etc., etc. At times thisworks well, and at times he struggles. In short, Orwell is trying to write impersonally, without any flagrantbias, as we can see in Burmese Days, whilst still retaining his own authorial voice. Perhaps the former andthe latter are incompatible, and so it might seem the case:

With one thumb in the belt of his cassock he owned abstractedly at thesteel engraving. His broker had advised United Celanese. Here - inSumatra Tin, United Celanese, and numberless other remote and dimlyimagined companies - was the central cause of the Rector's money troubles.He was an inveterate gambler. Not, of course, that he thought of it asgambling; it was merely a lifelong search for a 'good investment'. Oncoming of age he had inherited four thousand pounds, which had gradually




dwindled, thanks to his 'investments', to about twelve hundred. What wasworse, every year he managed to scrape together, out of his miserable income,another fiy pounds which vanished by the same road. It is a curious factthat the lure of a 'good investment' seems to haunt clergymen morepersistently than any other class of man. Perhaps it is the modernequivalent of the demons in female shape who used to haunt the anchoritesof the Dark Ages.

As soon as we get to ‘It is a curious fact’, Orwell has abruptly terminated the free indirect discourseof the Reverend, the style he persisted with in Burmese Days, and started writing nothing more than whata good essayist would, using his phenomenal powers of observation. It is jarring for the reader, and thereare numerous instances in the novel, most notably when he discusses loss of faith and the failure of theEnglish schooling system. It is a time honoured tradition: tell a parable, explain the message. e Bible.e Republic. Much literature to this very day uses this technique, but Orwell disliked it, thought it cheap.It would be as if you were watching Romeo and Juliet and suddenly the two actors froze in tableau,Shakespeare himself came on stage, and soliloquised about what the message of his play was.

e problem that we have identified is that it is difficult in any political writing to convey more thantwo points of view in either a coherent or artistic fashion, and it is precisely for that reason that this writerpostulates that much of politics is coloured in black and white only. e dilemma Orwell encountered withA Clergyman’s Daughter was subtly different to that in Burmese Days. Now, while he could feel himself inthe setting (he could feel at home in the English countryside and London, rather than the interminable heatand racist slurs of Burmese schoolchildren), he still could not find himself in one of the characters. eReverend is a man of the nineteenth century who believes it improper to pay tradesmen on time, so Dorothyfrets about the bill from Cargill the butcher that has been owed for seven months. At the same time, Orwell’svalues are not espoused in Dorothy, not even at the end of the novel aer she has undergone her radicaltransformation. Dorothy pricks herself with a sharp needle every time she utters a blasphemous prayer. Shethinks God is necessary for life to have meaning, well aer she has lost her faith. She consents to drudgery,something Orwell would be indignant about, and Mr Warburton, a character closer to Orwell’s own,describes in gruesome detail the life that Dorothy will lead if she does not marry him:

'So you really propose', he said 'to go back to your parish work? "e trivialround, the common task?" Mrs Pither's rheumatism and Mrs Lewin's corn-plaster and all the rest of it? e prospect doesn't dismay you?'

'I don't know - sometimes it does. But I expect it'll be all right once I'mback at work. I've got the habit, you see.’

Drudgery, a theme common to Orwell’s work, was something he was terrified of. It dulled themind and killed off any pleasures save accumulative ones; Mrs Creevy, who forces the children in herschool to only do arithmetic and handwriting lessons – so that the vocationally-minded parents are suitablyimpressed – endures a terrific amount of drudgery to the extent that at points Dorothy postulates as towhether she can enjoy any pleasure at all – it is here again that Orwell steps in and says Mrs Creevy’s onepleasure is swindling money, and naught else. Similar themes can be found with the hop-pickers, whowork hours so long and are so underfed they are incapable of thinking properly, so that ideas of liberty arelost. e children Dorothy teaches are angered by her change in teaching style from humane to inhumane


in her first term, because they have been treated as human beings and respond accordingly. In the secondterm, where Dorothy starts teaching them inhumanely from the start, and drills into them that obeying isless painful than punishment, they lose some of their human faculties. ey become dull, listless, lifeless,stagnant. With only a few helping words from his own narrative voice, Orwell the pugilist attacks manyof the institutions the rector would respect; this is largely done by the impact the setting or atmospherehe creates has on his characters, and does so easily and convincingly even though Gollancz, his publisher,tempered and censored much of the book for fear of libel action.

With such sharp differences between him and his character, as the novel progresses Orwellbecomes more and more unsure of how to imprint himself, culminating in screenplay form in one chapter,when Dorothy spends the night out in the cold of Trafalgar Square. Many critics have seen this as a failurefor Orwell. He could no longer hold together the narrative without interjecting, they claim, and so heresorted to merely dialogue between characters.

We shall see it as a success. You will remember that we established that in this novel Orwell wasat least comfortable with his setting, but this is an understatement. Orwell mastered London’s urban poor,the rural countryside and the Rector’s town with Dickensian authority, just as he would later master theworlds of Animal Farm and Airstrip One. e setting, which he creates, becomes the way in which heopines, and it is here that we must backtrack on some of our criticism of Burmese Days. As early as inBurmese Days we see how settings influence character; when the sun is at its zenith and it is very hot,tempers fray and drama ensues; in the cool moonlight, romance foments. is is not just that favoured oldterm, pathetic fallacy. ere is a direct causal link, perhaps psychological, perhaps physiological, betweenwhat is in the setting and how characters respond to it. And there is a direct impression Orwell leaves thereader with through setting, be it the faded blue sky of Nineteen Eighty-Four or this gruesome churchscene in A Clergyman’s Daughter, designed to repulse:

Dorothy remained on her feet a moment longer. Miss Mayfill was creepingtowards the altar with slow, tottering steps. She could barely walk, but shetook bitter offence if you offered to help her. In her ancient, bloodless face hermouth was surprisingly large, loose, and wet. e underlip, pendulous withage, slobbered forward, exposing a strip of gum and a row of false teeth asyellow as the keys of an old piano. On the upper lip was a inge of dark, dewymoustache. It was not an appetizing mouth; not the kind of mouth that youwould like to see drinking out of your cup. Suddenly, spontaneously, as thoughthe Devil himself had put it there, the prayer slipped om Dorothy'Beasts ofEngland's lips: O God, let me not have to take the chalice aer Miss Mayfill!e next moment, in self-horror, she grasped the meaning of what she hadsaid, and wished that she had bitten her tongue in two rather than utter thatdeadly blasphemy upon the altar steps. She drew the pin again om her lapeland drove it into her arm so hard that it was all she could do to suppress a cryof pain. en she stepped to the altar and knelt down meekly on Miss Mayfill'sle, so as to make quite sure of taking the chalice aer her.

It is the setting that is forming the reader’s opinions. Miss Mayfill is part of that atmosphere andthe revulsion the reader feels is one that Orwell the political operator is trying to direct towards the Churchof England by way of Orwell the artist, writing in that familiarly lush, arresting manner.




To return to the Trafalgar Square scene, where Orwell writes entirely in dramatic form, it is heretoo that the setting gets across his political point, and it is the only scene he claims he is happy with:

DOROTHY: is cold, this cold! It seems to go right through you! Surelyit won't be like this all night?

MRS BENDIGO: Oh, cheese it! I 'ate these snivelling tarts.

CHARLIE: Ain't it going to be a proper perisher, too? Look at theperishing river mist creeping up that there column. Freeze the fish-hooks offof ole Nelson before morning.

is very simple description of human suffering is all Orwell needs to make his point, and it wasthe only chapter he was happy with. Here again, we are convinced that poverty is undignified andinhumane; and perpetuated by the ancient institutions (Dorothy goes to prison, for example, for begging,and the owners of the hop farms starve you to prevent you thinking freely, not too unlike slavery in theDeep South during the nineteenth century), yet this is all done through setting and atmosphere, just as itwas the case with the church. A Clergyman’s Daughter was Orwell’s most experimental novel and he latersaid, ‘It was written simply as an exercise and I oughtn’t to have published it, but I was desperate for money’.He did concede that his experiments were useful, however, in letters, and aided him greatly. It is here wesee a definite milestone in Orwell’s progress as a political artist. He has found himself in the environmenthe creates, a special and rare skill, and one exploited freely in his further novels.

What we ultimately have is a battle over various selves; Orwell’s person, his character’s person,and how to write all of it in an impersonal, rich manner. e philosopher John Locke was oen troubledby the idea that if you had a man who was accused of a crime, and he had committed a crime, but had nomemory of it, and as such did not know he committed it, and if another man had had a memory transplantfrom the first, and had not committed the crime, but remembers that he did, who would you send thejail? e thought experiment is designed to tease out questions about what constitutes the self, and self-knowledge, and for Orwell, the world he creates in his novels is where his self rests.

Orwell was aware of this connection between memory and the self. All books and literature, bytheir very nature, contain, squash, distort. Such was Orwell’s dilemma as he transplanted his experiencesof teaching and poverty into Dorothy, and they remained even aer he dosed her with a bout of amnesia– such that Dorothy, accused of adultery in the time she disappears from the countryside and emerges onOld Kent Road in London, is exactly the subject Locke describes in his thought experiment. With nomemory of herself, she does not know who she is and it is here that Orwell’s thought experiment begins.A girl with a tabula rasa, or blank slate, with no memory and thus no self-knowledge, is toyed with throughthe settings of poor 1930s England, and henceforth Orwell the philosopher arises, and Dorothy’s opinionbecomes more akin to Orwell’s own.

We see instances of philosophical opinions throughout A Clergyman’s Daughter. e transitionfrom a passive conceptual scheme to an active one, where one actively interprets the world throughlanguage, as Wittgenstein would have it, happens aer Dorothy has lost her memory. Dorothy recitesDescartes’ Trademark Argument towards the end when trying to regain her faith. e mutability of thepast is explored when Dorothy examines the propagandist A Hundred Page History of Britian. MrWarburton accuses Dorothy of what we can retrospectively call doublethink when he explains to Dorothythat she never lost her faith when she lost her memory; she never had it all along. All of these are examples


of Orwell challenging what a self is; what is Britain without A Hundred Page History of Britain? What isthe meaning of life without God? Can there be a self if all we are is a passive receptacle of empirical inputs?e subtlety and grace with which he raises these questions illustrates a sensitivity to the philosophicalfoundations that underpin any writing style and any literature.

e conclusion he came to was that even settings have characters. It is here we see his genius. Evenin toil, he produced a masterpiece, a book so formally experimental it should be mandatory teaching inevery school of fiction or non-fiction; here there are simple lessons on how to convey more than two pointsof view – that’s for e Daily Mail, Fox News; lessons on the danger of mutating history and dogmaticfaith – that’s for North Korea; lessons on how to explain yourself, understand yourself, express yourself,as Plato’s chained prisoners from the Cave yearn for – that is for you, for me, for ourselves. With Orwellwe not only have a narrative master and compelling storyteller, but a sceptic of the highest order. isquestioning nature was what set him apart, a gi from his master, Dickens:

Well, in the case of Dickens I see a face that is not quite the face of Dickens'sphotographs, though it resembles it. It is the face of a man of about forty,with a small beard and a high colour. He is laughing, with a touch of angerin his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man whois always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is notightened, the face of a man who is generously angry — in other words,of a nineteenth-century liberal, a ee intelligence, a type hated with equalhatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending forour souls.

Orwell felt a moral duty to fight for those less well off than him, and to do so in the most compellingway possible. He felt a duty to cry, scream and kick against the totalitarianism that emerged out of war hype,out of fascism and communism, in the way we might say Sartre did. He felt an obligation to apply hisphilosophical intuitions, his vast life experience and his unmatched artistry for the greater good of society,to set free those from the mind forged manacles of drudgery. is is where he found his voice, with a great,provocative atmospheric tension that we find on the cusp of Mrs Mayfill’s blubbery lips.

His self is a fire that burns in all of us.




e Pavement Will Be Clean

William ong 11S2

Harlots sway in the street, and they calculate with penetrative eyesmore knowing than most. ey are watching all, but they arewatched.

For the smiling man sees them, and he scowls. eirdelusions of freedom, and their sin-filled nights; their lost hope, thehope they strive to lose. Like a sofa sale, it must all go, and theyadvertise their willingness to let go. ey just need a knife to cutthem loose, and this he knows he can provide. ey will fall, andtheir glory will be marked with a blood-stained thigh-high pinkboot lying on the filthy pavement. And yet the pavement will beclean.

e homeless child shivers in the bitter night air, but thesmiling man feels no pity. e coarse hessian rags he wears are thehomes of vermin and their droppings, and he has an almost tangibleaura of disease about him. e smiling man knows that his bodywill be collected by the bin-men in the morning. And the pavementwill be clean.

e fat banker is wiping lipstick off his cheek aer what hethinks was part of a passion-filled affair, his head following the heavyscent of perfume out of his front door. His mistress waves himgoodbye and prays that he will lose the wife soon enough so that she can cash in on her investment beforeshe hits thirty. e fat banker still smiles that stupid grin, knowing nothing of the economics playing outbehind him. e smiling man knows of love, and that which is not love. He knows how to end it. Andend it he will, so that the pavement will be clean.

e water and the urine and the syphilitic blood wash over the expensive shoes, and the gangsterstands ignorant, motionless, basking in his manliness. e harsh chill wrings the life from his ringed fingersand he considers seeking warmth inside, but he expects a delivery tonight. He must be fast if he is to avoiddanger, but he knows not of the smiling man. For when he stops smiling, the dirty money sliding intosweaty pockets from greasy palms will not matter at all. And the pavement will be clean.

It is impossible to tell colour or creed on this street. The artificial glare makes them all lookorange. So it is that the orange man with the mobile phone blaring soulless music with a lot of drumand a lot of angry people screaming and very little else is lost, bopping in his own little world. Thesmiling man will step forwards, and the incessant throb will stop. Yes, the smiling man used to dance:the foxtrot and the waltz, the tango and the jive. But the true dance will be that of his skilful hands, andthe orange man’s eyes, and of his jerking feet, and the dance will finish with a symphony of blood. Andthe pavement will be clean.

e policeman is walking down the street, his lips thoughtlessly whistling a tune. is particularman has scores of lives indirectly on his hands. Many good people have been killed because of the bribes


e Dream

Edward Upson 8R

Lucy Freedman was a spoilt girl. She had everything she couldhave ever wanted in life. She was walking up the Front Drivewayfeeling contented about her day at school. Although she hadcheated on her Maths test it still felt very pleasant to receive herfive merit marks in front of the school. Better still, she hadaccidentally-on- purpose spilled milk all over her enemy Melissa.She did her homework and went to bed early without a care inthe world. at night she had a horrible dream…

Her dream had started with her walk home from thelimo to the house. Instead of going upstairs to do her homework (or get her personal nanny to do it for her),she walked past the kitchen and heard her Dad talking on the phone (most likely to her Mum who was onholiday in Barbados.)

“ey’ve done a runner and le me with all the debts.” Lucy’s father was a property owner and hadbecome extremely rich appending money extravagantly on his wife and daughter. “You’ll have to forgetabout the round–the–world tour you were planning to go on with Lucy. We’ll rent a one bedroom flat inHull or somewhere.” is was too much for Lucy to take. She stormed in and screamed the place down.ere were a lot of tears flowing and slamming of doors.

A few hours aerwards, Lucy’s mother returned from holiday without her usual sun tan. eyhad another heated argument where the father blamed the mother for being good for nothing. Lucy wassitting at the breakfast table; this in itself was a very unusual occurrence as her own personal butler usually


that he has accepted. e smiling man knows all this at a glance. e policeman will be no trouble for thesmiling man. e pavement will be clean.

e minute passes, and the scene changes. e smiling man is confused, yet his morbid grinremains. Again, he sees everything, but everything is different. People have le, others have arrived. epavement needs a lot of cleaning.

Not so far away, a nurse in a psychiatric institution checks a patient’s room for his regular drugdosage. He is not present. at strange permanently smiling fellow; he’s gone.



brought her breakfast in bed. However, her dad had fired her butler yesterday along with all the othercooks, cleaners and gardeners that had worked for this family of three. Quite abruptly her father said, “Youare going to live with your Auntie Leah while we sort our lives out. We might see you again in the futurebut I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“I don’t have an Auntie Leah,” Lucy whined.

“She’s an old school friend of mine. She runs a shop in Liverpool; I understand that she is very successful.She should be here by now.”

It all happened very quickly aer that. Lucy had been collected by a woman who was cross eyed and smeltfaintly of blood but otherwise seemed perfectly normal.

In the car Leah asked Lucy lots of questions. Lucy found herself liking her Auntie Leah less and less. Forstarters Leah seemed very interested in Lucy’s health. “You see, in my business health is very important.”

“What is your business? Lucy asked. Leah had mumbled something about selling organs for humans to eatlike a butchers shop. Lucy suspected that she was hiding something.

A few hours later and aer many more questions they arrived at the shop. It was an extremely large placeand Lucy’s first impressions were that it was more like a hospital.

“I hope you don’t expect me to work in here,” Lucy said rudely.

“No but I hope that you will appear in it,” Leah said slyly.

ey walked into a very large room. ere were row upon row of jars of blood with signs like “ABpositive”. During the next few seconds Lucy had seen almost every organ in the human anatomy. A signsaid: “ALL CANNIBALS AND VAMPIRES WELCOME. HALF PRICE ON ALL B NEGATIVEBLOOD”. at was when Lucy finally realised what was going on. ey were going to cut up her organsand sell them to vampires and cannibals. She opened her mouth to scream but of course you cannot screamin your sleep. She woke up with a start.

Her eyes were still closed and Lucy just lay there. It was all going to be alright. Her butler wouldbring her breakfast in bed and then her nanny would help her dress. en her driver would take her toschool. She did not like admitting that she was scared but that was a scary dream. It was so vivid and in allin full colour and most of all it really felt like she was inside the dream.

She opened one eye and saw a surgeon leaning over her with a knife in his hand. is time, she wasable to scream.



e Stable

Arsalan Kamal 7R

e stable has a musty smellIt’s damp and dark where no-one dwellsIt’s full of hay and doused in duste wind comes in with such a thrustere are books that fill these racksAnd clothes are piled in neat stacks

But in the summer it’s full of lifeIt saw the wedding of an old man and wifeSunlight’s rays fill the small spacee ants and rats each have a raceCows and horses make it their homeYet during the day they freely roam.

A Parting of Ways

Ben Peacock 11R1

e window panes in the front door rattled loudly as George slammed the door shut behind him furiously.He began to pace restlessly up and down the front drive, kicking the ground every few seconds in his angerand sending gravel flying. When George realised that his father would come to force him to re-enter thehouse sometime in the next few minutes, he vaulted over the gate at the end of the drive and set off at abrisk pace along the winding country lane beyond.

George had become very frustrated with his parents. To him, his mother and father seemed to haveno understanding or sympathy. He felt that he would never set eyes on them again – not if he could helpit anyway.

at cold evening at the beginning of January 1936 was the fih time in a week that a full-scalerow had broken out over the dinner table at Ivy Cottage, a small but cosy dwelling that was set deep in theheart of the Gloucestershire countryside. e relationship between Mr Gately and his son had always beenfragile, but since George had turned fieen, this relationship seemed to have deteriorated dramatically.

John Gately, George’s father, was a tall, thin, balding and hardworking man, who could notunderstand George’s lack of desire to study or attain acceptable marks at school. Jo Gately, George’s mother,was a rather timid woman, who was too easily bullied into agreeing with her husband’s way of thinking.



is last argument over George’s most recent unacceptable school report had resulted in a physicalfight between George and his father, aer which George had stormed out of the house with the intentionof never returning. George would find somewhere sheltered to sleep for the night and consider his optionsduring the following morning.

A cloud dried lazily across the moon. e postage stamps of light coming from George’s parents’house were now the only sources of brightness, as the night was not at all starry, and no one had everbothered to lavish street lamps on a road such as this.

George felt cold now. He wished that he had thought to bring a jumper or coat with him. It wasonly when he had calmed down, however, that George realised how hopeless his situation really was. Hehad nothing but the clothes on his back and a five pound note in his pocket. He had le the house in sucha state of red-hot anger that his common sense had deserted him.

He also began to feel a growing sense of unease as the wide, expansive fields that had bordered thelane turned into tall hedgerows, pressing tightly in on George on both sides and quite blocking out any lightcoming from the now distant house.

Although George had sworn never to re-enter his parents’ house just ten minutes ago, he nowthought for the first time about returning. Even by day, the winding country roads had very few distinctivefeatures about them but, in the almost pitch dark, it was impossible for George to know where he was.

A biting wind was now cutting into George like hundreds of knives, making him think even morelongingly of the warmth of the fires which were undoubtedly blazing in grates up and down the country.e comfortable warmth that George had felt wash over him so oen on winter evenings throughoutmost of his life now seemed as distant and alien as the moon, now obscured by thick clouds that wouldsoon be providing a heavy blanket of snow to the rolling hills that lay beyond the lonely, shivering, terrifiedbut still moving figure that was George.

His feet were numb with cold and he was unable to move his raw, stiff hands, but George’s hearthad lied. e tiniest pinpricks of light were visible through the hedge to his right that was now thinning.At last, the dark and impenetrable combination of leaf and twig came to an abrupt halt, and the lightedwindows of a dwelling hit George’s eyes, now so accustomed to the gloom, like the midday equatorial sun.

Leaving the road, George stumbled across the uneven fields which were full of ridges, ditches andmole hills. By now, he was prepared to do almost anything for warmth and shelter. It did not matter wholived inside the house; he would pay them all the money he had for a bed.

e first flakes of snow began to fall as George picked himself up yet again from a ditch he hadhad no chance of seeing.

George was trapped in the nightmare that had dogged him so frequently during the early years ofhis childhood. ese nightmares involved George walking across a seemingly deserted field at the dead ofnight, following the light of an unknown dwelling. ose nightmares had always ended with Geroge seeinga figure moving towards him out of the darkness.

Every crack of a twig or sigh of the wind had George whirling around to peer behind him. Neverbefore had he felt so vulnerable, his fate resting totally in the hands of luck and chance.

e outline of a large and spacious-looking manor house loomed high over George as he nearedthe source of the light. e walls were covered in thick ivy which extended over some of the windows,causing the light, which was cast on the nearby grass, to take an irregular shape. A sign hanging over thefront door read “e Star Inn.” George cast another petrified glance around him before knocking on thesolid wooden door.



George could hear footsteps approaching the door. It seemed to take an eternity for the footstepsto reach the other side of the door and pull it slowly open.

A tall and forbidding looking man stood before George, his face half hidden in shadow and halfin light from the lamp that he was holding. His hair was beginning to whiten and his face was lined. Georgeguessed that he was round sixty years old.

“Yes?” he asked soly, surprising George, who had been expecting a harsh, brisk tone.“I would like a bed for the night, sir,” George said timidly, holding out his five pound note. e

man took it and examined it closely in the light of his lamp. en, deeming it genuine, he stood back tolet George pass into the house.

e warmth washed over George as if he had just sunk into a hot bath, but the hallway into whichhe had stepped was unusually narrow and high-ceilinged, giving him the impression that he was stuck atthe bottom of a deep well.

e man led George along the hallway and up a wide, sweeping staircase that reached a corridorwith a number of doors on either side. e innkeeper showed George through the nearest door and intoa small room with a brass bedstead and mattress, a table and chair and a chest-of-drawers. He pressed aswitch on the wall, and a small lamp flickered into life. en, without a word, the innkeeper le the room,the door creaking shut behind him.

George did not sleep well. Again and again, he relived his old nightmare until it became so woveninto his brain that, when he woke up three hours later sweating profusely, he thought for a moment he wasreally in the fields outside. When he remembered his surroundings, George realised that he needed to goto the bathroom.

e landing outside his room was pitch black and eerie. George crept along it, wondering wherethe bathroom might be and trying to make as little noise as possible on the creaking floorboards. It was onlywhen he reached the end of the corridor that he realised that there was someone else nearby, someonewho was making no effort at all to contain their noise…



e Falling Leaves

Bharrathi Sarvananthan U6M2

e woman stands alone.Cloaked with the darkness of the night she gazes intently,Her once youthful face, now aged beyond belief,But only a year hath passed.

ere is a stone, a shining beacon of hope in this lonely world.She bows before it and reads the commandments,7th December 20… She can not go on.A chilling wind sweeps by upsetting the tulips which grow between the trees row on rowWhistling, it passes her, et il chuchoteSouvient-moiNe m’oublie jamaisSouvient-moi

She gazes up at the undulating skyAnd the sun qui lui prête bonjour.Hope fills her heart burgeoning within her soulless self.Wisdom does not come with age.For then they appear, cracks in Nature’s impenetrable fortress,And the leaves begin falling.

Last spring Cupid’s arrow found its mark,Love, Hope and Happiness planted in their hearts,e torch had burned the rose, and the birds had been set freeAnd all was well.But then there was thunder.And then there was lightning.under, lightning, thunder, rain.And then the flood came taking away with it the happiness of our heartsAnd the gi of life itself.And the sky is no longer unblemishedFor the leaves begin falling.

Summer came like cinnamon so sweet,And the love that they had for each other burned passionately within their hearts.It was then that Romeo asked the all important questionBut Juliet hesitated. She paused, waited, contemplated,It was too soon she said.Now it is too late.For the sun, once a kind gentle friend,



Unleashed his full wrath, now a terrible foe.e storm of fire swept through the landFeeding of our mortal errors.Love, Hope and Happiness.But there was one thing it did not touch.And so the leaves could keep on falling.

In Olympia, Demeter readied herself for the fast to come,And Autumn assumes the year’s crown.e rain washed away the burnt aerthoughts of summerBut still Love’s Labour was not lost.For two had become three and company a crowdBut they did not mind.Suddenly the earth rose upEt la clepsydre se vide et avale tout.Mais en dépit du tristesse, isolation et le désespoirStill the autumn leaves kept falling

Summer turned to winter and the rain turned to snow.e call came for Ferdinand who, obeying Yama’s noose, le to fightCalled upon by Her Majesty in the name of Dieu et notre droit.Alas Sophie was le aloneWith only Hope, Faith and Love for companyUntil the purloined letter came.en she made new friends:Sadness, Loneliness and Despair.Où est l’épaule sur laquelle elle peut se reposer?But still even in the pain of losse leaves kept on falling.

e icy wind whistled by.She can never forget him.She glances at the sky,e sun is low, la nuit se croîtEt donc elle se rentre chez soi

She can never forget.For the clock will keep on tickinge pain will keep on hurtingAnd the leaves will keep falling.



Crash

Joshua Solomon 11S1

I started to see blurry shapes emergingfrom the enveloping darkness. eycircled all around me in a confusing haze.Every so oen I would feel a searing painin the right side of my head and my arms;I would try to call out but I could hearnothing except a husky gurgling noiseescaping from my parched lips. Blacknesssurrounded me like a comfortablecushion soothing my raw face and neck.I wondered where I was. I could notremember ever having been here beforeor how I came to be here. Bit by bit I tried to piece together the awkward jigsaw of my thoughts andmemories. Sometimes, I would find that there were missing pieces, or pieces that did not fit anywhere atall, but slowly I managed to piece them all together.

I felt a so, cool touch of a hand on my forehead and I was catapulted back in time, to when I was veryyoung. I was a small child, lying ill in bed. e dark, dirty room was in almost complete darkness, other than therays of bright light streaming into it from the corners of the ill-fitting blind. Dancing and playing in these streamswere hundreds of specks of dust that I regarded in amazement and fascination. Sitting by the side of my bed, herhand stroking my forehead, was my mother. Her kind and gentle face was prematurely lined – and there was atiny wrinkle of worry between her eyes. At that young age I did not understand why she permanently looked soworried. She was talking in a cool, soothing voice to me – somehow her mere presence and sweet scent werealways enough to make the whole world seem alright. She finished talking to me, and gave me a kiss on myforehead before easing herself from the rusty bedstead and opening the battered door to my miniscule room anddriing silently into the corridor. e memory faded and dissolved in front of my eyes, and once again I couldsense the frantic movement of people around me. I seemed to be moving, and I caught a glimpse of a bright redriver of blood. Once again, everything went black and I was transported into another memory.

is time I was fieen years old. It was the first of many experiences of what was to become my obsessionand ultimately my downfall. At that time, I had found my way into a group of “undesirables”, and I couldremember the cold, crisp autumn day as vividly as if I was reliving it all over again. A thick grey blanket of cloudhad covered the entire sky, and as I gazed down at my grubby shows I saw crimson-red leaves, floating in a nearbybuddle. My fear and anticipation mingled with the damp, earthy smells of rotting leaves, making my stomachchurn. I was nervous and worried but I had to look cool and calm in front of my “friends”. I forced my gaze uppainfully slowly and reluctantly turned to face my first challenge. It was a gleaming cherry-red Mini. I knewwhat was expected of me and I could not afford to let the others down; aer all I had to prove myself and I knewwhat I had to do. In retrospect, I suppose that this was one of the turning points in my life, a crossroad, and I wishI could confess now to having made the right decision back then. I was all too easily influenced and manipulatedby peer pressure and it is a difficult rut to dig yourself out of, as I soon found out. Right and wrong mergedtogether to become a confused shade of grey, just slightly tinged with the red of that first car.


I was thrown back into consciousness with a start and began to ponder once again where I was andwhy. I suddenly became conscious that I was strapped down tightly. Had I been arrested again? Once moreI was aware of the rapid movement of people around me and the sound of concerned and urgent voices.Suddenly the vehicle I was encased in swerved around a corner and I could hear a loud ringing noise in myears. My head was pounding and felt that it was about to explode with the growing pressure. I closed myeyes and once again dived into a sea of confused shapes and images.

I began to attempt to paint a picture and piece together my fragmented memories of what happenedthat morning and I found myself striding down a small, narrow road. e cold air was numbing my nose and thetips of my fingers and my clothes were drenched with sweat, even though it was cold. I drew closer to my targetand, as always, my senses became heightened and paranoia spread through me; what would I do if I was caughtagain? Was anyone watching me? e acrid smell of a raging bonfire filled my lungs and a chill ran down mysoaking back. From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a drop of melted snow falling from a rooop; Iheard the crunch of ice underneath my battered shoe, and I could hear my heart beat as loud as a drum.

I followed the usual drill; it was so familiar to me now that I barely had to think about what I wasdoing - this was it. I smashed the front window and as soon as the piercing sound of the car alarm echoedthrough the quiet streets, I had already jumped into the driving seat like a pro and was off. is was myfavourite part; the adrenaline pumping through my veins. is was the moment that made everything elseworth it. It was why I continued over and over again, even though I should have gone straight a long timeago. As I sped through the country lanes, up and over hills, I had the sensation of soaring weightlesslywithout care for myself or anyone else that was unlucky enough to cross my path.

A sudden pain in my chest brought me to my senses. e comfortable rhythm of the vehicle’smovement had come to a halt. When I prised my eyes open I could still only make out the indistinguishableshape of a man wearing a white shirt standing over me. I was still tied down but now I could make outdaylight bursting through a large window above. I felt panic rising and bubbling inside me and I writhedaround frantically, kicking out with my arms and legs as much as I could but to no effect; I was weak andhelpless and my body no longer obeyed what I was commanding it to do. I felt the sharp prick of a needlein my le arm and let the comforting drowsiness engulf me.

Once again I found myself in a car, soaring and speeding, but the road was slippery and treacherous fromthe ice and something was not quite right. I tried to push the faint and somewhat unfamiliar sense of unease tothe back of my mind. Now was not the time for second thoughts; I had to be focused on the road. My eyes weredrawn to a sudden movement in the nearby undergrowth and, whereas I would usually have ignored it, I turnedto catch a glimpse of what it was. I took my eyes from the road ahead only for an instant, but that was enough.I lost control of the car and the last thing I remember was the sound of tyres screeching and then skidding andveering off the road. e impact was colossal. I viewed the terrible accident from a vantage point above and sawmy own body being thrown through the front windscreen of the car like a flimsy rag doll. e bonnet of the carcrumpled as if it was made out of paper and the old oak tree it collided with seemed to be solid marble.

Spread-eagled on the ground was the limp and lifeless body of a young man. He was tall and skinnyand his eyes were shut. Blood was pouring from a gash in his head and he no longer had any skin on thele side of his face. e crushed chasse of the blue Vauxhall was resting on the enormous oak tree, and itlooked like a tin can that had been crushed by a giant’s fist. People had already begun to gather around thelifeless young man, and within minutes an ambulance was at the scene and he was rushed to hospital.

at blue Vauxhall was the last car I would ever steal, or drive for that matter. I was dischargedfrom the hospital some months aer the crash with a new view on life and a new face – a constant reminderof that almost fatal winter morning.




Survival

James Colenutt 11M1

e sunlight danced majestically on the ice, serenelymocking the pair clinging to this glistening mirror, isolatedin the gargantuan ocean of glass. e whistle of the windglided past swaying entrancingly as they gripped theintransient mountain that sat above them stoically. Crack.e sound of steel punctured the ice and the harmony andmonotonously repeated itself creeping up the hulking beast.Crack. is sharp intruding melody continued until thewind and light regained their control and the fragileharmony returned.

e men, dwarfed by the mystic colossus that theyclung precariously to, restarted their ascent. e intrepidleader thrust his pickaxe into the ice, revelling in thesatisfying sound it created as it pierced the slope. He then hauled his weight up and jammed his axe in withthe familiar crack. Now, panting profusely, the climber glanced apprehensively down at the rope below. Itwas attached to his companion ten feet below, who was also clawing at the unyielding mountain. Again theleader groaned and pulled up the weight, cutting into the ice once more. e couple pressed on in thismanner, crawling up the face, striving for the white tip that protruded in and out of their limited view.

Darkness soon cut its way across the ice, spreading from behind the great mountain until it nearlyengulfed the undaunted pair. ey did not have long. e darkness brought with it untold danger and yetthey remained sprawled out on this open face of the mountain. However, they continued, labouringupwards, puncturing the silence with crack of steel and the groans of effort. e ice, once so regal in itsshining splendour, lay out all around them with a wicked sense of foreboding. is deathly shadow wasdisrupted by the flicker from the lights on the helmets of the valiant adventurers. All that lay in front oftheir frightened and abashed faces was a small patch of light, surrounded by the hallowing murk of thenight. Yet the pair carried on, crawling upwards to the summit.

e cacophony of groans and cracks continued deep into the surrounding blackness. is seeminglyinterminable ascent was ripping the withered spirit of the pair as they clambered up the hostile mountain face.Suddenly this monotonous rise was halted; the leader glimpsed through the rancorous dark fixing on a narrowfissure further up the slope. is modest crevice could serve as a resting place for them until morning when theycould proceed further. With this comforting thought in their minds they careered upwards finally reaching thisslight scar in the ice. e leader smashed his pickaxe against the laceration and felt the snow crumble away andreveal the small cove that lay behind it. He wheeled round with a face of pure elation to his comrade whoreturned his enraptured glee. ey scrambled messily into the nook and revelled in the delight of the warmthand security as they pressed up against each other. is content comfort immersed the pair into a sleepingabyss as they lay huddled together pressed inside this Herculean beast that stood majestically above them.

is peaceful euphoria dragged on through the night until the dark retreated meekly behind theridges of the mountain. However, the foreboding darkness soon reared its vengeful head and snow flakes



began to tumble out of the rapidly darkening sky. is black vault began to dispel a vile, malevolent windwhich shattered the pair’s innocent slumber and toppled them into a malignant nightmare with seeminglyno escape. ey now clasped each other and stared out grimly at the rasping wind, still alone on the colossalmountain. e leader tentatively collected his axes and placed his right foot onto the ice attempting to findsome stability. He began to bring his body out deliberately, gasping for air in the cove as he pulsated with thewind. Eventually he had managed to bring himself onto the slope and he now lay clinging with desperationto the side of the mountain as the wind ravaged him, tempting to rip him from his precarious position.

Now it was the second climber’s attempt which he completed in rather the same gradual mannerand lay sprawled out on the ice grasping the slope. Attached by the thin cord which held both of theirlives, they then began to rancorously shuffle up the mountain face, tossed from side to side by the roaringwind. is hazardous venture continued as the pair clasped the sharp surface and crawled up the mountain,defying the awesome power of nature. e wind, however, was not intent on conceding defeat and ragedin vehement fury, snarling and gnawing at the pair as they clambered on. is indignation rose to adeafening crescendo of pain and force, throwing the two climbers from their positions. e duo still carriedon through the devastation that surrounded them, gasping and wheezing with the struggle.

e cord that held them together lay strained, twisted and snarled as the pernicious wind ravagedit. It continued to creak and groan with the tension, gasping for release. Suddenly, with the wind beratingthe intrepid pair, the cord ripped round with fury and smacked into the ice. e leader jolted backwardsand let out a deep bellow that resonated through the anguish; he felt his back seize the weight of hiscompanion. He glanced down hurriedly and saw the rope still intact but twisting in violence incandescence.He yelled out to his companion but heard no reply. He called out into the wind which spat out freezinggusts and still no response. e leader, now agitated into a state of frenzy, screamed out in despair. Howeverthis time he heard a reply; a moan half drowned out by the vicious wind. He asked what had happened andagain heard the same whimper in reply. e leader peered down into the swirling mass, gulped, and rippedhis axes free from the mountain and began to descend.

He finally reached him aer what seemed like hours, completely blinded and only following theagonizing cries of his comrade. ey gazed at each other, both exasperated by the hopeless situation. e leaderinspected him and saw his right leg fixed in the ice, skewed from the knee and perpendicular to his body. Onseeing this repugnant sight he recoiled, gulped and reattached the meagre cord to his friend. e storm,however, still battered them, threatening to tear the two apart and ending this torment. e leader stepped backup, reassuming his position on the ice and glancing back, frequently praying for his partner. He began to moveon but immediately felt a surge of pain in his lower back and let out another cry. e man gripped the mountain,defeated, before trying again and once more screaming into the rasping storm. It was impossible, knowing thiswas worse than all the pain he had endured. He glanced down again and saw the crippled figure of hiscompanion spluttering and clinging onto the cold, unforgiving slope. Tears were now streaming down hisfrozen face and he again peered down, hoping he would see his friend grin back at him. He did not. Instead,the leader saw a withered, weeping shadow of a man glaring up at him in wretched despair. He knew what hehad to do. e climber reached for his knife from his pocket, turned round once more and opened the blade.



Accident

Janthula Ranchagoda 7R

ere once was a man, a nutter,Who ate a whole lot of butter,en he got lost,Amongst the frost,And slipped down into an icy gutter.

Viewing a Runaway

Ameya Tripathi L6H2

I wish my head fit under the rail,(It doesn’t).

Instead it cranes over itResting on folding shoulders,Nose reaches; it and window hit,Temples crushing like boulders.

One day, ancient shins will summit it,(e railing).

en I’ll be old - very oldAnd I’ll be tall - very tall,And I’ll see every thing soldTo kids who are small - so small.

I’ll repeat things like a hypnotist,(Or God).

Or a goldfish,Or a demented old fool,Or a green fish with dementia(Or Cod).

Like a hypocrite,(Or Doc).



Impact

Paavan Buddhev 10S2

I cannot see him.

He is standing on a roof, veiled in the shadows,waiting.

I step outside, beginning my journey home. esun is warm on my hair. e weather is unusual;one of those odd days when London chooses tojoin the rest of Europe in experiencing summer.

He is nervous. He is trembling very slightly as hesets up the sniper rifle, loading a magazine, andlaying one sweaty finger on the trigger. Oneround is all it needs. And then, in an instant, hefreezes completely still, takes aim, and the only muscles he tenses are at the tips of his finger.

ere is a silent explosion from somewhere far from me, which I am oblivious to. A miniscule shard ofdeath is accelerating towards my chest. How funny that Grim's scythe should have become so small?

I take a step forward. Something hits me. I feel like I have been punched in the chest, yet there is no onearound me. How very strange.

I look down and see blood. My shirt is a blurred mass of red. My chest is bleeding. I'm not quite sure why.

And now the street is moving. ere must be an earthquake happening; everything is swaying from sideto side. Or is that just me?

A woman appears from the side of the building and screams. I'm not sure what she's so afraid of wheneverything seems so calm and peaceful. In fact, I'm feeling quite tired.

I lean back to go to sleep and fall into nothing...



Creative Writing

Jordan Bernstein 7R

As Ben Dowry sat at the kitchen table through lack of a desk in his room, listening to the beating of theTV in the other room, he realised how much he hated creative writing. His mother was a murder mysterywriter and his dad wrote children’s books. So, once a week, Ben would have to write a two page essay usinghis “imagination.” He would sit for forty minutes pondering what to write and then he would scribble onhis page until he got bored. Finally, he would write a story about the everyday life of barnyard animals. iswould have misspelt words, misused grammar, and inappropriate language.

Today though, as Ben sat at the table, he realised how horrid writing had been to him over theyears. Numerous impositions at school had turned into even more as the original had been scrappy. English,History, and RS essays had never been given above a 2G, and the comments always suggested he shouldhave been graded considerably lower still.

Whilst Ben’s parents were starting to have doubts about Ben’s writing skills, Ben himself wasalready there. He was barely thirteen, yet his parents had already set their hearts upon him taking a literarycourse at university and becoming an author. Ben was not sure what he wanted to do, but he would dropEnglish as soon as he could.

e reason why Ben hated writing so much was because he had never had a good imagination. Hewas amazing at Maths and the Sciences, and even Geography, but he never had any ideas stuck in thatbrain of his. His friends would all write about spaceships, dinosaurs and faraway lands, but Ben found ithard to imagine anything at all.

But, would his parents listen when he told them his problem, or that he did not like to write? No!ey would silence him and send him back to the kitchen table to write a real story.

Ben’s parents were starting to worry about him. ey were watching the TV in one room whiletheir uncreative boy sat in the kitchen. ey were both keen writers and so encouraged their son once aweek to write a story. Why? Because they found writing thrilling, being whisked away into the worlds offictional characters.

John blamed the lack of imagination on his wife’s father, who was a chemist. Margaret blamedthe lack of good grammar on her husband’s mother, whose first language nobody was quite sure of.Whatever the reason, their son was what they liked to call, “creatively challenged.”

Perhaps they were too hard on Ben, when they did not listen to him whine about his writer’sblock, but that was their style; firm and bordering on unfair. John turned off the television and turned toMargaret. Margaret closed her magazine and turned to John. “I suppose that it wouldn’t be so bad if Bendidn’t become a writer,” he said. “I guess he could always go into science, like my dad,” she said calmly.

Ben’s parents talked and talked for an age, wondering why they had been so hard on Ben to writebeforehand. Perhaps there was some mythical family legacy that they had started that they wished to becarried on. ey decided that writing was not that important to them if it did not exhilarate the boy sittingand sucking his thumb in the kitchen.

Ben had just started to really get into this particular tale that he was writing. Granted, it was stillabout a barnyard animal, but not in his usual genre. It was exciting, fun and the story was none too shabby.en, interrupting his train of thought, his parents stepped into the room. Seeing the serious expression,



even on his father, hesheepishly asked, “Have I donesomething wrong?” His eyeswere curious, trying to figureout why his parents, who werebig believers in the fact thatstories must be written insilence, had come in.

“Son, if you don’t wantto write, that’s fine with us.We’re so proud of you foreverything else that you do.”Ben opened his mouth to tryand speak, but his mother cuthim off with a low andeffortlessly cold voice.

“Ben, sweetie, we werewrong to try to pressure youinto doing something that youdid not want to do. My Dadverbally whipped me until I told him that I liked Chemistry. at’s not the kind of parent that I want tobe. I love writing, but if you don’t that’s fine with us.” Both of Ben’s parents put on the large false smilesthat you see Brad and Angelina pose with for the glossy magazines. Ben was going to open his mouth againwhen the big finish came from the mouths of his parents. “We love you son.” ere were the smiles again.

“Well,” Ben’s voice finally made it through above the tough love of his parents. “I thought I wasreally on to something here. I started to enjoy it, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Maths GCSE practicepapers. I’ll be in my room if you need me. anks Mum, thanks Dad, I love you too.” He mirrored thatdeath-smile and gave each of his parents a hug in turn.

Once Ben had gone back up to his room, his parents looked at each other again. “Did he just saythat he was onto a good story?” asked John, deep in thought.

“Did he just say he was enjoying writing?” asked Margaret bemused with wonder. John waddledover to the table and picked up the piece of paper that his challenged son had been working on until theycame in. “Well,” inquired Margaret, “How is it?”

“ere are a few spelling mistakes, and the grammar is not perfect, but it’s not all that bad,” said John.And so it came to be that on the Twelh of March 2010, Johan Dowry produced his latest book:

e Piglet Spy. He would have felt a twinge of guilt had he not planned to put about thirty percent of theprofit into Ben’s university fund (though he never did). Plus, Ben never read any of his books anyway.



How to Write a Poem

Marco Marcello L6R2

How to write a poem?From line to line,Must it rhyme?Keeping within some rhythmic time?

How many lines should each stanza containWithout my poem looking insane?Maybe ree?Maybe four?Maybe more and more and more and more?And how many stanzas should there beTo make my readers not hate me?What if I write stanzas up to thirteenIt would make my poem much less obscene.

Or perhaps it should be short.

Wait: must my poem really rhyme?Surely it need not flow like a lyrical riverBut rather exist as an ocean,With depth and meaning of incomparable vastness.

Which words would best befit my cause?Which syntactical combinations are fit for applause?Would it really be such a terrible concession,To just return to normal expression?But I don’t want to be considered nerdy!What if I made my poem slightly dirty?Ah, but what if someone protested?Alas - I don’t want to be arrested.



Instead I could give my poem a common twang,And write it in cockney rhyming slang.But must it appeal to ethnic minorities?Should I write it in Polish or Japanese?

e answers to these questions do not exist,So with these questions I shall not persist,To truly utilise your poetic tools,You should not be confined by any rules.

Individuality allows poets to shine,Perhaps by putting down on paper something controversial in the form of an insanely longline,Flick the switch in your mind; turn on the light,Pick up your pen - and just write.



How Megavideo can help you with your Englishhomework

David Joels L6R2

So, take your average Monday evening. You’ve got home from school, changed into comfortable clothes, eaten abiscuit or two, prepared an orange squash and are now “ready” to get started on some homework. You dri slowlytowards your desk, dragging your bag laboriously behind you, too scared to look at how much homework you haveaccumulated that day, and remembering the English essay that you supposedly wrote and le at home, due in theprevious Friday morning. However, your spirits rise tremendously when you remember your dormant computerlying on your desk. You jump forward in excitement, narrowly avoiding overshooting the vacant chair, and bootup. For those of you who haven’t picked up on it yet, the anticipation is not so much of your computer itself, butthe joys and treasures hidden amongst the endless drivel that can be found on the Internet. And yes, I am talkingabout that certain video hosting website that has given all of us so many pleasures and fond memories… Megavideo!

If you happen to be one of the very few who are unaware of this website, the following paragraph willtell you, in no uncertain terms, exactly what you are missing out on. According to its owners, MegaUpload,Megavideo is “a new online video sharing site based out of Hong Kong, which will beat YouTube”. However,many just know it as a free website where one can watch TV shows that are out in America, and haven’t quitereached the UK yet, or as a quicker and easier to use version of BBC iPlayer or 4onDemand.

Back to our scenario then. Megavideo has loaded up, you have skipped through the two or threescreens of advertising that stand between you and the latest episode of Family Guy or the BBC’s portrayalof Great Expectations, and you are staring at the “Buffering” screen on the monitor, anxiously gripping thesides of your chair, knowing that if this video fails to work, you will have no choice but to return to thatlong overdue English essay. You sigh in relief as the “Play” button appears, and sit back in preparation forwhat would be a 90-odd minute bliss of Dickens’ genius.

72 minutes later you begin to cry! Your screen has turned grey and is now displaying a new message,the message that every Megavideo user knows all too well… yes, the one and only, “You have watched 72 minutesof video today. Please wait 52 minutes or click here [sign up for $20 per month] to enjoy unlimited use of Megavideo”.Typically, this would come at the most pivotal moment in the novel, such as when Magwitch and Pip arepreparing to flee in a boat, under the cover of night. Now, however, you are faced with a real problem – what todo for 52 minutes while you wait for Great Expectations to restart. And this, my keen and loyal reader, is wherethe real genius of Megavideo reveals itself from behind its masquerade of secrecy – you do your English essay!

Just think about it, you’ve already written the essay notes, so typing up the full homework won’t take muchmore than an hour anyway. Additionally, think of the weight off your shoulders, both literally and metaphorically,of getting the homework out of the way. Or alternatively, by doing the homework, you won’t be singled out byyour English teacher as the one who still hasn’t managed to write the essay, an embarrassing position for anystudent to be in. So, you do the homework and roughly 49 minutes later, for it must have taken you approximatelythree minutes just to process this moral dilemma, you have finished your “Critical Analysis on Romeo and Juliet”and are back in front of the screen, watching how Magwitch and Pip race along the ames, before being caught.

So there you have it. You’ve relaxed on coming home, watched a feature-length production of yourfavourite Dickens novel of all time, and completed that dreaded English homework, and you would not havebeen able to do it all without the help of Megavideo, supporting, rewarding and encouraging you the whole way.



e true Catcher in the Rye: J.D. Salinger 1919-2010

Nikhil Subbiah L6S2

“Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do diesomebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something.Anything except sticking me in a goddamn cemetery. People coming andputting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap.Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”

e Catcher in the Rye, Chapter Twenty

Aer hearing all the hype about e Catcher in the Rye, I must confessthat when I first came across it, it did not quite live up to my expectations. edefinitive coming of age novel though it was, it did not speak to me in the waythat many other books has done. I did not feel any connection with HoldenCaulfield: although I sympathised with him I did not share his problems. Onlyaer I read it again did the novel start to affect me in the way that To Kill aMockingbird did upon first reading. As I embarked upon the ‘second stage’ ofadolescence, the later teenage years, I began to feel an affinity for the problemsthat Holden Caulfield experienced. Isolation, alienation and sarcasm becamethings that I increasingly identified with, and although I was not experiencing itat the same level as Holden, I do believe the novel encapsulates the whole natureof being a teenager brilliantly. Here lies Salinger’s genius. I believe that eCatcher in the Rye is so brilliantly craed that it will speak differently to everyone at different stages of theirlives. It took me a while to realise that, and I am grateful for deciding to pick it off the shelf once again andgiving it a go.

Unfortunately, the novel that defined Salinger as an author also turned him into one of the world’smost famous recluses, on a par perhaps with Howard Hughes himself. Although e Catcher in the Rye isby no stretch of the imagination his masterpiece, the works that followed it were sadly lacking in the geniusthat had so closely inhabited his earlier works. Perhaps it was fame, or perhaps it was the effects of theSecond World War. Salinger had participated in the D-Day landings during the Allied invasion ofNormandy during 1944. He was later to remark to his daughter that, "You never really get the smell ofburning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live."

To the outside world, Salinger died the moment he stopped writing and withdrew from public lifeall those years ago. To remember him is to remember the time that you read e Catcher in the Rye and howit affected you, in however small or large a way.



Salinger

Ameya Tripathi L6H2

Just for a momentDid he think it was worthLooking down, and staring at the glinting tableMaybe there wasA hidden stop clock,Split seconds bleedingMoney wasted(Our money wasted).en, it abated.

Remembrance was over.Passover?No.e Holocaust?No.It was the deathOf Jay Dee Salinger,Who’s this?A WriterFatherinker.Who?(60 million copies).Oh, okay.

e only video footage they hadWas from a prying camcorder.Footage of him walkingEyes down to the tarmac,Hair upOn end like watchful antennas,Frazzled.

It didn’t mean anything more to mean it did to you.I’m not acritic of literatureOrCONTRARIAN



OrTEEN-AGER.OrpYscho!!!OrLOST SOUL?Ordisillusioned yoof

- Won’t claim any of that fakery.

en it ended.Ninety one years in ninety one millisecondse old news reporter looked up,His sprightly white hair not unlikeat of his fleeting protagonist.A century in a flicker,A culture in an exhale,A candle in a room filled only by gasps.

Legacy?No legacy. e old newsman looked upAnd said:A Post-Mortem is being carried outOn a murder case where two childrenAged 2 and 3 were foundIn the boot of a car,In East Sussex.

Even the revulsionAnd outrageat emanated as he stressed the children’s ages;eir youth,eir innocence,(Etcetera, etc.)Was a load of nonsense.A façade and a veil and a masqueradeAnd a load of humbug and a tyranny andJust a bit more phonyness.



e Raging Bull and His Little Brother

Oliver Goldstein L6C2

Successful sporting films and novels are hard to come by. In fact, they are almost impossible to come by.Where sport succeeds in compelling the masses, sporting art fails. e problems are numerous: plot twistsare obvious, characters are unoriginal, the writing is ponderous; however, essentially the problem lies in thelack of realism of sporting literature. What attracts people to sport is the raw emotion of a game, wherethe sports fan somehow translates himself into becoming a member of the team: take away that rawemotion and you are le with a sorry replica of the real thing. However, as with all things, there areexceptions. Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, the story of Jake La Motta, a masochistic boxer with an intensesexual jealousy of his wife, is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. Cinderella Man was apretty picture, albeit one where sport took on a side role to the Great Depression and its effect on JamesBraddock and his family. Yet is in the field of literature where there has been the least success. While certainAmerican writers have achieved the distinction of writing an intriguing and entertaining sport novel, itwasn’t until 2006 that a British writer could definitively lay claim to such an achievement.

e Damned United was that novel, and David Peace was its writer. In 350 pages of mesmerisingrhetoric, Peace presents British football’s most famous character, Brian Clough, in all his warts and wounds,condensing Clough’s extreme paranoia and alcoholism into a troubled and doubtful voice: "jobless andboozing, fat and f*****, you are in hell”. Peace’s decision to intertwine fact and fiction means that eDamned United maintains its authenticity; the reader is not waiting for the inevitable moment of sportingtragedy or triumph, but is instead hanging on every word of Clough’s mysterious inner voice. Clough’stragedy in e Damned United is his fear of losing: in the book, as in real life, a victory is only a loss deferred.Although he states ‘I don’t believe in God’, Clough’s fear of losing is magnified by Peace’s regular allusionsto religion: before delivering his infamous ‘Pots and Pans’ speech, Clough ‘says a little prayer’, while thespeech itself is interrupted regularly by Clough’s inner voice reading ‘the Prayer to be said before a Fightat Sea against any Enemy’.

What makes e Damned United so brilliant, however, is not the actual spectacle of a sportingevent. In many ways, Clough is peripheral to the sporting action that takes place: Peace willinglyacknowledges that the reader is far more interested in Clough’s hubris than they are in Billy Bremnerscoring a goal. It is here where the comparison with Raging Bull can be applied most appropriately. emost striking scenes in e Damned United occur when Clough is either alone in his office or when he isin the dressing room with his treacherous Leeds team; similarly in Raging Bull, the scenes of La Motta athome with his young wife and brother are what truly intrigue the viewer. Just as we are appalled by Clough’streacherous language and heavy drinking, we are shocked by La Motta’s sexual possessiveness. Clough wasthe manager who won the First Division with Derby County and Nottingham Forest; La Motta was thefirst man to inflict a defeat on the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson; however, both Peace and Scorseseacknowledge that we are not interested in witnessing their triumphs – it is the exposal of all their faultsand infidelities, their warts and wounds, that we really want to see. at is what compels us, what intriguesus, what entertains us: illusions of sport do not compel a reader, but real stories, believable stories, do.


e Editorial

In Chapter One of Daniel Lande’s magnum opus, we see a clock striking past midnight into a new dawn.In Orwell, we witness the progression of a writer as it dawns on him that he has found his voice. In eNight of the New Moon, Akshay-Kishan Karia frets that a new dawn will never come, as many of thestalwarts of Scribe - including myself – have done.

Literature has been reborn at HABS with this edition of Scribe, long a dream of many who are hereand many who have le. With our budget bump, we can finally give it the respected place it deserves, as abeautifully presented, illustrated magazine that showcases the creative talent of students o-neglected bysuffocating examination boards.

Yet we ought not to count our chickens before they’ve hatched, as Anto Meyer beautifully tells usin A Black Christmas where the streaming sunlight yields only a melancholy day. We must work hard topreserve literature so this dawn is not a false one.

Nor should we stop hoping. ‘e dawn chorus had never sounded so beautiful and the sunrise hadnever looked as beautiful as a new day began’, Siddharth Sheth waxes. is edition certainly marks anexciting time for literature at the school.

Nor should we expect to be remembered. ‘e sunlight danced majestically on the ice, serenelymocking the pair clinging to this glistening mirror, isolated in the gargantuan ocean of glass’, JamesColenutt describes in Survival, showing just how miniscule we all are in light of this literary dawn.Ultimately this edition will be forgotten; what made it exclusive will be commonplace; and its founders,my energetic editorial team, will be just like the pair clinging to the glistening mirror in Survival, serenelymocked by newer editorial teams with leviathan budgets who bask in the splendour of what one will termliterary high noon.

What will remain true is that much literature seems to be underpinned by the recrudescence ofthe morning sun as evidenced by this very edition. It is in these high spirits that we begin this renaissanceof the HABS literary tradition.

is has not happened abruptly. It has not been like the switching on of a light. It has happenedgradually, as a sun rises. I still remember my first editor, the old hack Sam Rabinowitz, bemoaning ourminiscule budget. I remember Book Club guided by Ben Jacobs and Phil Shipley. e clamour for a justtreatment of literature is one with a long history.

Our team realised that this struggle had gone on long enough. Many of our predecessors wishedus well in our endeavour to find money but had no expectation that we would do so. We are writers, aerall; when – ever - was there money in writing?

T.S Eliot, who adorns the back with the opening lines of his morbid e Waste Land, famouslyworked furiously hard to support his ailing wife and did his writing in the evening aer returning from thebank.

As we enter a new financial year in a world obsessed by money, our message is simple. Just as the beautyof a new dawn is ineffable, so is the power of writing. Do not try to measure it in GDP or HDI or any othernonsensical construct. Let it be, and pay it well; nurture it with nothing short of patronage, and it will flourishinto a veritable thicket of ideas not seen since the Enlightenment first broadened our horizons.

Ameya Tripathi, Editor


Scribe 2010 Editorial Team

Ameya Tripathi L6H2Editor

TomOugh L6C2Publishing Officer

Oliver Goldstein L6C2Deputy Editor Features

David Joels L6R2Deputy Editor Short Stories

MarcoMarcello L6R2Deputy Editor Poetry

Arnie Birss L6C1Copy Editor Poetry

David Lawrence L6H1Copy Editor Short Stories

Nikhil Subbiah L6S2Copy Editor Features

Jordan Bernstein 7RJunior Editor

AndrewDjaba 9S1Junior Editor

Joe Salem 10S2Artist

Shaneil Shah 11J2Artist

Zak Kay 11R1Advertising Officer

MrT-S LiSupervising Editor

Email submissions for the Autumn 2010 edition of Scribe to [email protected]

Back cover by Shaneil Shah


A33780 Habs The Scribe 09-10 cover 14/4/10 15:46 Page 2

scribescribe.-Spring

2010

THE HABS LITERARY JOURNAL

SPRING 2010

APRIL is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, st irr ingDull roots with spring rain.

T.S Eliot ’s The Waste Land, 1922 .

A33780 Habs The Scribe 09-10 cover 14/4/10 15:46 Page 1

Scribe: The Habs Literary Journal, Spring 2010

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Transcript of Scribe: The Habs Literary Journal, Spring 2010