The skeletal silhouettes of naked birch trees scratched against the window, creaking audibly in a cool, autumnal breeze.  Vast, yellow tendrils of sunlight spilled from the whispering branches, pooling like liquid gold on the windowsill and green grass below.  Far beyond the trees and dripping sunlight, an ocean the color of shale pitched and frothed, filling the chilly New England air with a fine spray of salty mist.

Swaddled against the fall morning in a mass of blankets, Fannie Braidwood lay supine, blinking against the fresh morning sun.  A heavy silence coiled around her, permeated only by the whispering, leaf-less trees as they caressed the cold glass of her window.  Her soft features were draped in a tangled mosaic of shadow and light, rising and falling to the gentle rhythm of her breath.

Fannie drowsily wiggled her toes, freeing them from the warm shroud of her blankets and sheets.  She studied the smooth skin of her feet and the knotty curve of her heels.  Blue capillaries traced an intricate web beneath her pale flesh, pulsing gently with the rush of rich blood.  Her nails were unpainted, and in the liquid light they shone like clean bones.  As she watched, the tiny, feather-soft hairs that bristled along her feet rose from static electricity, charged with anticipation of the day to come.

Closing her eyes, Fannie imagined the feeling of grass between her toes: the cool, squishy bliss of running barefoot across an open field.  She could feel the tickling pleasure of water as she imagined bounding across a stream.  Flower petals caressed her flesh with silky sweetness, and marigolds left a faint stain of speckled yellow on her arches.  The warmth of a sun-baked dirt road tingled against the bottom of her feet, and Fannie sighed, losing herself in the wonderful daydream.

Suddenly, the alarm clock perched to Fannie’s right began to squawk, shattering the morning calm with its chirpy proclamation of the arrival of seven a.m.  The teenager grumbled before forcing herself to sit up, still fighting off the throes of sleep and idyllic musings.  Swinging her legs over the edge of her bed, Fannie was careful not to touch her toes to the wooden floor.  Instead, she pulled on a pair of heavy snow-boots and, leaving the laces trailing, Fannie clomped to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get ready for school.

It had been over a year since Fannie’s feet had last touched the world outside.  Exactly seven hundred and five days, three hours, and thirteen minutes had passed since her toes curled in anything other than bed-sheets, boots, or bath water.  Despite Fannie’s aching need to blend in with her peers, she had danced her seventh-grade prom in a glorious eggplant-hued gown…and Timberland work-boots.  Her family’s yearly sojourn to Daytona, Florida was spent in a bikini and the same grubby shoes, resulting in the entire beach-going crowd staring at her for a week.  When she took a bath, Fannie had to lie in the tub with her feet propped on its porcelain sides lest disaster strike while she was at her most vulnerable.  Her entire existence revolved around the arduous chore of assuring that her feet never rested flat against the ground–a task that uprooted Fannie’s teenaged desire for the monotony of suburban normalcy.

An hour later, Fannie sat on the front steps of her family’s house, idly pulling up weeds as she waited for the school bus to arrive.  The fresh air smelled of wood smoke and wet leaves. Winking sunlight glittered across nodding stalks of grass, staining the lawn a brilliant shade of emerald.  Falling leaves danced in the crisp wind, swirling in a rustling cyclone of orange, crimson, and gold.  Nature was slowly steadying herself for the onset of another bitter New England winter, however on this October morning the scene virtually sparkled with life and energy.

Presented with such beauty and quiet gaiety, Fannie could no longer bear her aura of caution and fear.  Ignoring the distant, snorting rumble of the school bus, Fannie hurriedly pulled off her boots and tossed them aside, carefully holding her feet a few inches from the swaying grass.  Time slowed as she drew in a deep breath of the fragrant sea air.  Closing her eyes, Fannie slammed her feet into the grass and stretched her toes.

Hundreds of tiny plants exploded from the soil in a mad scramble for sunlight.  Flowers stretched their fragrant faces to the sky, their arms rapidly growing into broad, green leaves.  Vines tickled the underside of Fannie’s feet as they sought open air.  Tiny ferns unfurled their fronds between her toes, their lush fiddleheads spiraling to reveal row upon row of fractal leaves.  Fannie leaped up and began to dash across the lawn in a wild, haphazard dance of pure bliss, plant life bursting forth around her ankles with every step.

Fannie was brought back to reality by the sound of laughter.  Her eyes snapped open and there, pulled up alongside her driveway, was the bus.  Thirty middle-schoolers leaned out of the windows, their faces twisted into grotesque masks of cruel mirth.  The students pointed and laughed, chanting, “Farmer Fannie!  Farmer Fannie!  Farmer Fannie!”

The plants continued their relentless upward push, filling the air with the sticky-sweet scent of green life.  Her cheeks burning, Fannie bent down and pulled on her discarded boots and knapsack.  She trudged to the bus amid the humorless shrieks and taunts of her classmates, ignoring their vicious jokes and attempts to humiliate her as she took her regular seat at the front of the bellowing crowd.

As the bus pulled away from the curb, Fannie glanced out of the window in an effort to ignore the jests of her peers.  Though her enraptured, joyous dance across the lawn transpired only moments before, the seething mass of plants had already begun to wither.  Once brilliant leaves and stems faded to a dusty brown and flowers closed their blooms forever, rotting even more quickly than they had sprouted.  As much as Fannie wanted to hate her gift, as much as she resented her ability and its social implications, her heart broke to watch the plants dissolve into dilapidated brown piles of decay. As she watched, the plant corpses finally shattered into a cloud of dust, scattering like ashes in the cold wind.

Rosemary Hilliard graduated from Berklee College of Music in May 2009 with a degree in flute performance.  She currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts,  and is pursuing a career as a freelance flutist and author.

by Kiel Gulick

My first boss was an old slob, round in the middle, with a bald spot the size of a grapefruit on the back of his head. His name was Mike Palermo and the only job I could have seen him in was the one he had, maintenance. He sure-as-hell fit the bill – a real blue-collar kind of guy.

With the smell of his morning beer issuing from his gaping, toothless mouth, he would pontificate from the driver’s seat of the company’s beat-up blue pickup as we made our rounds. I sat in the passenger’s seat, attentive, while he lectured me on the strengths and weaknesses of the Steeler’s offensive line or the difference between Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. He talked to me about his wife and how they didn’t do it enough. He swore that after you got a girl’s bra off for the first time it would never be that good again. “All down hill,” he said. Everyday was educational with Mike.

One afternoon in the truck, he turned to me and said, “Where do you see yourself, kid? I mean, years from now. What do you want to be?”

The question had caught me off guard. “I don’t know.” I said. “I guess I just want to be happy.”

Mike paused for a moment. He stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel. Then he smiled. “Jesus, kid. You’re all right.”

We drove the rest of the afternoon in silence. At the end of the day, we parked in the grass next to the maintenance shed but Mike didn’t make a move to get out of the truck. He just sat there, quiet, the sun beating down on his legs through the windshield, the engine idling.  Then he cleared his throat. “Promise me something, kid.” He put his hand on my shoulder, just like a father. “Promise you won’t turn out like me.”

Kiel Gulick (The Promise) is currently enrolled at Berklee.  He wrote this story in the Summer Fiction Workshop.

Alexander Muri (The Commute) is a photographer and is also currently enrolled at Berklee.  He notes, “Music has played a role in my entire life, but along with performing and learning with friends, I love to express myself through photography. They often go well together–more than one might think!”

I’m standing in a crowded street, a few feet away from a staircase leading down to the underground station. People blur by, walking purposefully, avoiding eye contact. The sun is already high in the sky; it must be noontime, or close to it. I lift my gaze and stare at the sun for five or six seconds, then shut my eyes, and a painful, bright circular shape is engraved in my eyelids. I feel dehydrated, I have a headache, and I want to find some shade and perhaps a bottle of water.

“It’s a warm day,”  says a voice to my left. I turn to see who’s talking. It’s hard to see through the white blinding circle, but I can make out a shape; a young man, maybe 23 or 24. He’s wearing corduroys and a plain, navy blue T-shirt. He’s got a Yankees cap on, and he’s wearing those John Lennon sunglasses. He is looking at the sun.

“Yes, it is. This weekend is supposed to rain, though.”

“No, no chance of that. Look at the sky, not a single cloud!”

A train of mirthful European tourists – a husband, wife, and three little girls – passes between us, blocking my view of the guy for a few seconds.

“I know, but that’s what they said on the forecast. In the paper as well,”  I say.

“No one believes the papers,”  he says.

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

“What’s that?”

“Looking straight at the sun like that? It’s bad for your eyes.”

“Nah, I’ve got sunglasses. ‘Sides”, he adds casually, “it’s only a dream.”

“What is?”

“This,” he says, pointing upwards. “And all of that,”  he adds, with an all-encompassing gesture of his hands, as if he’s trying to give the world a big hug.

I’ve run into his type before, I think to myself. Street bums with nothing to do but wax lyrical about the world and such. I’ve got a couple of minutes, I say to myself. I’ll indulge.

“So there’s nothing substantial, you say? Our lives are nothing but fleeting moments, and we are the stuff that dreams are made of, that kind of thing?”

He looks at me – is that a hint of surprise in his eyes? -  and says “Yep!”

“Nothing is real, then?”

He watches the cars pass by. “Well, none of this stuff is real. Although I have to say, this is the most vivid dream I’ve had in a long while.”

Now I’m interested.

“So you actually think this is a dream? As in, not a metaphor for an existence devoid of absolute tangible substance or something, but an actual dream?”

“Of course,”  he looks at me a bit funny, “of course!”

“Oh,”  I say.

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill Descartes aficionado, I think. This isn’t a sci-fi junkie who’s watched The Matrix one time too many. This is a proper lunatic, an actual crazy person. I’m a bit surprised; you expect them to be older, and not as casually dressed, and probably locked up somewhere. This guy? If he hadn’t opened his mouth, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed him. But here we are, and I have time, and I don’t have anything better to do.

“Listen,”  I say, “what if I could prove to you that this is not a dream?”

“I still wouldn’t believe you,”  he says. “You’re a figment of my imagination.”

But he’s looking at me from the corner of his shades. He’s intrigued all right.

“Anyway, how would you do that?”

“Wait here.”

I walk up half a block to a stop-and-shop and buy a Snickers bar. I walk back, unwrap it down to the middle and hand it to him. “Try it!”

He looks at me, amused, and grabs the bar. He takes a bite.

“Well?”

“Well what? Just what you’d expect; completely tasteless”.

Of course.

“You know, some people can taste and smell in their dreams. I read about it somewhere.”

“Well, I guess I can’t. I know I took a bite, and I can see a piece is bitten off, but I have no aftertaste of chocolate in my mouth. And believe me, I know a Snickers bar when I taste one.”

“Let me try it,” I say. He hands me the bar and I take a bite. My mouth is instantly bombarded with a warm ultra-sweet mixture of chocolate, caramel, peanuts – you know, a Snickers bar.

“Sure tastes like the real thing to me.”

“Of course it would – you’re in the dream!”  he says, almost joyfully. Then he frowns for a second, and adds: “or rather, I am in the dream. You simply are the dream.”

“Listen,” I want to shout at him, but I try to keep my cool, “if this is a dream, why can’t you grow a pair of wings and fly away? Why can’t you make everyone speak Spanish? Shouldn’t you have that kind of power, seeing as this is your dream and all?”

I’m not being very nice, saying all those things, trying to burst this poor chap’s bubble. But this guy is beginning to get on my nerves.

“That’s a good question,” he says, in a serious, contemplative manner. “I have to say, that is a very good question. But look,”  he points at a road sign right next to where we’re standing, “the letters are all blurry!”

I look at where he’s pointing. It’s a rectangular white sign, with a clear, big, red print saying:

NO PARKING

MON-FRI

6AM – 6PM

“Can you really not see that?!”  I raise my voice. I want to grab him by his shoulders and give him a good shake. “Can you really not read what it says?”

“No, I can’t make out the alphabet. It looks like Russian or something. And the letters are all jumbled up – see how they keep squirming about?”

I’m losing my nerves. I should know better than this, messing with madmen in the middle of the street. He might be dangerous, I think to myself. Maybe I should agree with him. Besides, these street people, they don’t have much going for them. The least I could do is give him an encouraging word.

But before I get the chance to say something, he says: “well, nice talking to ya – and thanks for the chocolate!”

He starts walking away.

“Wait!” – I shout after him, not sure what I should be saying – “Where are you going?”

As he walks away, he shouts over his back: “I’m going exploring; the night is still young! Maybe this dream has a meaning, or something!”

“Good luck!”  I shout. “And good night!”

He stops, turns around, and smiles. “Hey, if this is not a dream,”  he says – quietly, and yet somehow I can make out every word, despite the crowd and the distance and the traffic  – “Can you tell me your name?”

He winks at me, or maybe he’s just squinting because of the sunlight, and then he turns and walks away. Soon he’s lost in the crowd.

An enormous sadness suddenly engulfs me, like a thick, heavy blanket on a warm summer’s day. I turn my gaze back to the sun; I don’t see any spots, only clear, bright light.

Somewhere, someone is rolling over in his sleep.

Michael Hazani is attending his final year at Berklee. A few of his favorite things are: writing, biking, Skittles, and chasing dreams.

CREATION

The Hero was born on a cold winter’s morn in December.  The wind was blisteringly frigid and blowing to shake the eaves from the roof.  The weather was too dangerous to go out or for a doctor to come to the house, so the Hero erupted from his mother’s womb into the strong cradling arms of his father.  He did not cry, but opened his golden eyes and gazed serenely up at his dumbstruck parents.

GROWTH

The Hero loved adventure.  He spent his youth ambling through the woods surrounding his red farmhouse home, climbing trees, swinging from birch branches and jumping in muddy leaf-strewn swamps.  His father chopped wood in the backyard, swinging the axe with his muscled, pasty white arms, sweeping the raven-black hair out of his eyes.  He’d call out if the Hero wandered too far and the boy would run back, racing jackrabbits and squirrels along the way.

His mother cooked the most delicious chicken potpie in the world and sold her world-famous apple turnovers at the diner a mile up the road.  The Hero’s fondest memory is of running into the kitchen and seeing her in her favorite plaid yellow apron, her curly blonde hair tied back from her plump face.  The Hero would jump into her pudgy arms and she would spin him around and around, his legs dangling and swinging freely.  By the time he was eight, he could pick up his mother and spin her around and around over his head.  She and his father laughed so hard it hurt.

ACCIDENT

His mother caught him reaching into the cookie jar before dinner and grabbed his arm.  Fear turned his skin red-hot.  She shrieked and pulled away, her palm tender and ruby red, the acrid stench of charred flesh.  Appalled, the Hero grabbed her hand and blew on it to cool it off.  It became covered with ice.

Instead of spanking him, his father sat down on his son’s rocket ship bedspread later that night and talked about being careful not to hurt others.  “Your body is different from other peoples’, son,” he said.  “You have to learn to control it.”

“Daddy, if I can’t, will you make me go away?” The Hero asked, sitting under the covers.

His father ruffled his wavy blonde hair.  “Never, kiddo.”

SCHOOL

His parents told him to behave, but he knew that ‘behave’ meant ‘no powers.’

While the math teacher drew equations on the board, the Hero heard his thoughts about ripping off the English teacher’s thong with his teeth.  When his friends looked away, he warmed up the cafeteria meatloaf under the table with his hands.  When he didn’t feel like walking, he flew the rest of the way home, punching holes in cushy white clouds as he soared through.

The Hero liked to row crew.  He went steady with a few girls, but he was afraid that if he had sex with any of them he’d cook them alive.  When the principal’s blue Porsche appeared on the roof of the school an assembly was held, and the principal demanded that the culprits step forward.  The students looked around curiously.  The Hero sat in the back in his ripped jeans and polo shirt, smiling.

PART-TIME JOB

Walking home one day the Hero saw a gang of street thugs mugging someone in an alley.  He grabbed each one by the shirt collar and tossed them over his head like garbage bags.  When he reached his hand out to help the victim up, the guy screamed and ran for his life.  The Hero flew after him and threw his forgotten wallet at the back of his head angrily.

LIST

Flight.  Telepathy.  Super strength.  Super healing.  Heat powers.  Ice breath.  The Hero wrote them all down in his steno pad.  He hoped that X-ray vision would show up later, but the list stopped there.

HOME EC

His mom helped him sew his first uniform.  It was blue and red, with a shiny white mask that covered his eyes like oversized wingtip eyeglasses.  The Hero complained about it riding up in the crotch.

PLEASED TO MEET YOU

After stopping a bank heist, the Hero delivered the criminals to the chief of police personally.  He shook the Chief’s hand firmly and looked him right in the eye when he spoke.  This was his first interview.

THE GIRL

After returning some stolen nuclear weapons to the U.S. Military, he dodged the press by ducking into an alley.  She was waiting in the shadows, her long chestnut hair tucked behind her ears, pencil poised on a notepad. “How about a few words for the Reporter?” She asked in a mellifluous tone.  “How about over dinner?”  he replied.

Her name was Rhonda.  The Hero wore a suit and tie and a mask in the shape of Calvin Klein designer glasses.  He wore an apron while he made Chicken Florentine, and she sat on a bar stool in the kitchen drinking red wine as they talked.  A year later he moved in.  Before they made love for the first time, he took her hands in his and nervously led them to his mask.  She pulled it off and let it drop to the floor.

PAPER OR PLASTIC

They shopped together in the supermarket every Sunday.  Scheming to make the fangirls jealous, she hung on his muscular, costumed arm and giggled while he kissed her forehead and called her pet names.  Around the corners, teenagers wept and sighed longingly.

HARD DAY

The Hero flew home in the middle of the night after narrowly escaping a battle with the most recent criminal mastermind bent on his destruction.  As he stumbled through the door, the light next to the sofa flicked on, revealing Rhonda’s terrified face.

“Lie down,” she said in a steady tone. She took off his mask and dressed his wounds.  The Hero clasped her hand that clutched the moist cloth in both of his.

“Marry me,” he said.  Then he passed out.

FOREVER

Their wedding was small and secret.  The priest was Franciscan, and both of their parents came to witness.  Her dress was a masterpiece of white satin, matching his new mask.

PARTNERS

He took on a sidekick, a promising young crime fighter whom he kept running into on his nightly beat.  The new guy’s costume was based on the Hero’s design, only yellow and black.  “This job is taxing, and it doesn’t exactly pay,” the Hero told him one night as they scouted the city from the rooftops.  “Do you have someone to support you?”  “Oh yeah,” the sidekick replied, pointing to a high-speed pursuit that raced along the streets below.  “My boyfriend’s being great about the whole thing.”  He jumped off the edge to join the pursuit as the Hero did a double take.

PRECIOUS

It was a girl.  The sidekick baby-sat while the Hero worked the wee hours and Rhonda worked on her master’s dissertation in Journalism.

LATE HOURS

“You’re home late.”

“I guess I am.”

“Again.”

“Yes, it has been known to happen before.”

“How long are you going to keep this up?  Pushing us aside, ignoring your family-”

“You think that’s what I’m doing out there, all day and night?  You think it’s just some hobby to get out of the house?  I save people, dammit!  I hold this city together-”

“You can’t even hold us together!  We’re falling apart and you can’t even see it!”

Every night for a week they argued.  Their nine-year-old sat in the corner of her bedroom, making her dolls float in the air to distract her from the screaming.

FIX-IT MAN

Sundays were cleaning days, and when the kitchen sink leaked the Hero would lay flat on his back to repair it, head cut from his body by the darkness of the cabinet.  His mask lay next to his toolbox, and his daughter would sit next to him on the tiled floor, hugging her knees and handing him tools with her mind. “You’ve got to use your hands someday,” he told her.  She fidgeted with the hem of her yellow dress, her long brown hair covering her face.

IN PEACE

The Hero’s father died on a Tuesday.  They buried him on the farm, and the Hero wore a black hooded mask that covered the entire face.  His mother couldn’t bring herself to cook for the wake, so he made a cold pesto pasta dish – his father’s favorite.

RETIRED

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fight anymore, just that the little things were more valuable now.  His daughter smiled onstage for the first time at her ballet recital.  Rhonda’s books were selling off the shelves and she got offered full-time status at the University.  It was time for him to take a break from all the violent stuff, the police commissioner admitted glumly.  “Volunteer.  Plant trees.  Save the rainforest, for God’s sakes – you fly down in the morning, back in time for dinner.”  His costumes, which had gone through many alterations and upgrades, hung shabbily in glass display cases in his office.  Through the window outside, the family of three fished off the side of his boat – a present from the cops, who bestowed it with a hidden rejoice at symbolically getting their jobs back.

END

The Hero outlived Rhonda by decades and saw his great-grandchildren graduate from Yale, Bryn Mawr, and UCLA.  None of his offspring felt a calling to follow in his footsteps.  When he felt the end coming on he flew to the arctic in case his demise resulted in an atomic explosion.  He passed away peacefully in his icy shelter in a self-contained spontaneous combustion instead.  The sun forever shone on his end of the earth as his costume and body shriveled.

Sue Buzzard has always loved writing.  Ever since a Thanksgiving story she wrote in middle school brought her teacher to tears, she has had a passion for communication through the English language.  A violinist at Berklee, her other passion is in playing, teaching and spreading string music around the world.

It was during the summer in which I was 17 when I became the invisible boy around my house. It wasn’t so much that I had a bad home life. In fact, comparably speaking, I was raised pretty well. It wasn’t like something out of “Leave it to Beaver” where we’d all gather around the dinner table, eat a roast, and talk about our days. My parents were fairly hands-off. They never reminded me to do my homework, but at the same time, they never hit me for not doing it. Really, my childhood could’ve been a lot worse.

The true reason that I became the invisible boy was very simple; I got a car. When I was 16, I had to ask my parents for rides if I wanted to go anywhere, and I had to be home by 11:00 o’clock. That all changed on my 17^th birthday, when my dad drove me to the DMV on Colorado St. in Santa Monica (which is where I lived at the time). I got my license with no problem; a 3-point turn, parallel park, and I was free to drive. My dad gave me his old Nissan Altima since he had just bought a new Jeep, and from then on, I spent dinnertime on either the PCH or on the 5. I spent my weekends on Sunset Boulevard seeking out celebrities I really had no interest in. I even spent my nights in the driver’s seat, waking up to the sunrise in the parking lot for Zuma Beach. My parents didn’t really worry about me being gone all the time. Like I said, they never made much of a fuss out of anything I did.

Having a car did lead to one unfortunate consequence: I needed money to pay for all that gas. Unlike a lot of the kids in my high school who had parents in the film industry, I had to pay for things myself. Therefore, I got a job as a dishwasher at Johnnie’s Pizza on the 3^rd Street Promenade. In all honesty, it wasn’t that bad of a job. There were always good street performers to watch during my breaks, and my hours were all pre-dinner rush, so I had my nights free.

On one Friday during July, I was on the end of my shift, when I got the usual text message from my best friend Doug Segnini. It simply said “my house. 4:30.” We always met at his house. There was really no reason for it, since my house was just as capable of a meeting place as his. Sometimes you just get into a routine with those kinds of things.

I punched out at four, said goodbye to my boss, and walked out onto the busy promenade. It was a hot day, the kind where if you’re outside for more than five minutes, your shirt will form to your chest to show the public whether or not you work out regularly. My car was parked past the mall, near the beach, so I skipped the people watching in hopes of getting to Doug’s house on time.

When I got in my car, I immediately rolled down the windows as it was about 300 degrees in there, threw in my album of the day (Weezer’s “Pinkerton”), and pulled onto Route 2. Doug lived off of Wilshire Boulevard near Brentwood. His parents were pretty damn rich, which worked out well for us. We often had the house to ourselves, as both his mom and dad were lawyers who were dealing with important cases all the time. However, this also meant that Doug went to a private school in Brentwood Heights, so I didn’t get to see him much during the school year. During that particular summer though, we hung out pretty much every day.

I got to his house a half-hour late, and let myself in. Doug was in his room eating a bowl of cereal and watching a movie. He was wearing an old Pixies t-shirt, jeans, and sandals. His hair was red and mangy as if he hadn’t combed it in weeks. We were at the point where things as pedestrian as greetings were thrown aside. He stood up and turned off the TV. “So Dylan, really good plans tonight man. Good stuff. I was thinking we lay low for a little while. Maybe hit up Ameoba Records and pick up some stuff. You said you wanted to grab the new Mountain Goats record? I wanted to check out some stuff as well.”

“Like what?” I responded. I was always more succinct than Doug. I might’ve been the one with the license and the car, but he was always the wild one with the ambitions. I was just along for the ride.

“Umm, have you heard that new Destroyer album? It’s supposed to be killer. I also wanted to pick up a Van Morrison vinyl for my mom’s birthday. I was thinking of framing it. It’s her favorite album and all. What do you think?”

“It’s a great idea.”

“Thanks man. So anyway, after we get our tunes, I figure we’ll need some dinner. I’m cool with an In-N-Out burger if you are.” I was. “Alright, cool. So anyway, after we do all that, and get all of our pre-gaming and cruising done, I want to go to this beach party. This guy I go to school with is having it. It’s on El Matador Beach just past Malibu. There’s going to be all sorts of surfers and models there, and I know that might not be something you public school kids are interested in, but it should be really fun”

“What do you mean by ‘you public school kids?’ Just because I go to school with those bastards doesn’t mean I’m one of them.”

“That’s the spirit Dyl! Alright let me just grab the goods and we’ll be on our way.” Doug went to a box in his closet and pulled out “the goods:” a bottle of Adderall, a couple of joints, and six pack of PBR’s. He put the Adderall in his pocket, the joints in his socks, and the beers in a grocery bag, looked at me and said “Chop chop Dylan!” I gave my parents a quick call and told them I wouldn’t be home for dinner, then got in my car, and headed towards that hell-hole that is Hollywood.

On the way, I took 15 MG of Adderall. I know it’s not smart to mix drugs and driving. All those PSA’s the school gave us were right, but I was young and stupid. The Adderall kicked in while I was in Ameoba. Luckily, the extra jump in my step didn’t inspire me to buy 30 CD’s. I escaped with just the one new Mountain Goats album, and Doug, who also took 15 MG, got out with just his Destroyer and his Van Morrison vinyl. After that, we walked through the madness at the Chinese theater over to the In-N-Out burger on Sunset Boulevard. It was just as busy as usual, but we were able to get our food fairly quickly. After enjoying our milkshakes and cheeseburgers, we got back in the car, set controls for the heart of the setting sun, and drove back towards the coast.

At this point, the Adderall was wearing off, and my body was settling back to its normal condition. By the time we got back to the PCH, it was only 8 o’clock. The party wouldn’t even start for two more hours, so we stopped at a small beach somewhere between Malibu and Santa Monica to smoke our joints.

The air by the water was very cool, so I threw on a sweatshirt and walked out to the rocks that Doug was sitting on. As I sat next to him, he gave me the joint and we smoked together. Earlier in the summer, I would’ve described something like this as “a pristine moment with my best friend, and although my eyesight was fogged by the smoke surrounding us, I could see what it meant to be alive.” But after doing this kind of thing every night for two months, I finally just felt tired and out of focus, like I was stuck between stations on the radio. My eyes were groggy, and I felt sick, but I wasn’t ready to go home. Doug was desperate to really go for it that night, like a character in one of those early Bruce Springsteen songs looking for redemption, and willing to go through any means to find it.

For a while we had the usual meaningless kind of conversation we had been having all summer. We just talked about girls and music, funny TV shows we had seen recently, and if we really wanted to dig deep, we might even talk about books. After that wore down, I turned to Doug and said “Hey man, you ever wonder if we’ll still be doing this kind of stuff when we’re 30?”

“I hope so. I’d rather be here than working some desk job, going home to a wife who’s getting more wrinkles every day and kids that I don’t really love. After all, what else do you need? Ya know?”

“I don’t really know anymore,” I said. “This summer has been one of the best times of my entire life, and I wouldn’t lose it in for anything. And I know we’re fucking idiots sometimes. We get loaded up almost every night, drive around, maybe meet some girls, and are usually in bed by 3 at the earliest. I feel like I haven’t really talked to my parents in a week, and I really miss them. Every day I wake up, go to work, and then immediately go out for the rest of the night. I’m sure it’s going to change a lot when school starts again. You’ll go back to Brentwood Academy and I’ll be at SMHS. We’ll be applying to college and getting ready to bypass all this stuff. But you know what? I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision I’ve made for another five years of life.”

“Tell me Dylan, are you menstrual?”

I flicked Doug off, killed my joint, and smiled at him, “C’mon queer. Let’s get going.”

We got back in the car and drove the 20 miles to El Matador. I turned up the stereo and we sang every word to that Weezer album together as loud as we could. The windows were down, and although I was a little depressed when we were on the rocks, I was suddenly high again. I was ready to run into the welcoming arms of the night and drink from its breasts.

When we got there, there was a bonfire blazing, music playing, and people dancing like crazed tribal women in an African desert. It didn’t take long for me to lose Doug. He was absolutely electric, pulsating with energy and life. I stood on the side watching him tell elaborate stories that never happened, jumping around describing a fight he was never in, and trips he’d never had. He told one story in particular in which he was hopping a train: “I was got on the train just fine. I waited at the train yard until one started moving and then I found an open cart and jumped in. Since I didn’t have a car, it seemed like a good way to take a vacation north. So about two hours in, I’m in the middle of a nice cigar when we stop to change the track, and what happens but the door of  my cart opens! The conducter is pointing a gun at me, and so I booked it out of there and dove into the reeds next to the track. I had to hitchhike home from Fresno!” He was better than any actor or musician I had ever seen. You not only believed him, but you were constantly begging for more. His arms waved like those of a mad jester, and the laughs that returned to him were louder than any court of the king ever was.

I eventually took my place around the bonfire with the majority of the party. Most of the people there were in college, but I’ve always felt more comfortable with an older crowd than with the majority of the dumb-asses in my grade. I made small talk with a blonde haired, blue-eyed girl in a green bikini that was next to me. She was an English student at Pepperdine University. She was actually really beautiful and kind.

After about a half hour with her, she got up to talk to some of her friends from school. I passed the time by placing the tip of a stick in the flames, seeing it burn, and then blowing on the glowing embers. A man sitting next to me saw me and spoke up, “Bored?”

“A little. I never quite know what to do at these kinds of things.”

“Well, here’s something that should liven up your night.” He passed me a couple tabs of LSD. I had never done it before, but I really didn’t want to let the guy down. After all, it was a very generous gift. I put my tongue to the sheet of paper, thanked the man, and decided to go for a walk.

I walked the length of the beach, my shadow stretch out across the sand by the light of the full moon. Pretty soon I started to feel the effects of the acid. Everything had much more texture and certain sensations were extremely intense. It was as if I was a bystander and was letting the world envelope itself around me, with no power to stop it.

I eventually felt so out of it that I stopped walking and collapsed on the beach. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing and the feeling of the sand between my fingers. I was at least a mile from the party at this point, but in my mind, there was no party.

Suddenly a picture started to form before my closed eyelids; it was a hill with one great oak tree on top. The sun was setting and the air was warm. Around the tree was a young boy with his parents. The boy was running around the tree and rolling down the hill. His face was covered in dirt, his jeans coated in grass stains, and his ragged t-shirt ripped. It then occurred to me that this was me when I was younger. We used to take day trips to this park in San Diego, and even though the park was filled with a vast expanse of hills and even more trees, I always wanted to play at this one.

As soon as I realized that I was looking at my younger self, I took his place. All of a sudden, it was me being swung in the air by my parents hands. It was my face covered in dirt. The sky bathed us all in an orange-y pink glow, and the sunset tree’s leaves and branches swayed and danced in the wind.

After what felt like a lifetime spent playing on the hill, I could no longer find my parents. I was also no longer a small boy. I was a middle-aged man standing alone. I called out for my mother and my father but no one answered. I felt in my pockets but nothing was there. I had no money, no cards, no identity.

I lay down in the grass and closed my eyes. Just as I did, my eyes opened back at the beach. I was still tripping, and felt extremely ill, so I walked to the water to wash my face. By accident, some of the brackish water got in my mouth, which caused me to vomit into the ocean. I decided to try to get back to the party so no one would worry about me.

It took what seemed like hours, but I eventually arrived back at El Matador, exhausted, beaten, and sick. The fire was now down to a glow. There were far less people there than when I left, and most of them were either asleep or having sex. I saw Doug sleeping on his back, spread-eagled near the fire. I flopped down into the sand and was asleep within seconds. 

I woke up a little after sunrise. There was sand in my hair and some bugs on my back that I had to wipe off. Doug was sitting by the small fire drinking coffee, so I walked over to him. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah sure.” he said. We got in the car and I drove him home. We didn’t talk much. In fact, I didn’t even tell him I got sick. When I pulled up to his house, he got out and said “I’ll call you later”

“See ya.” I said.

I backed out of his driveway, turned on the radio and got back on the road. The sun was now fully in the sky and the roads were busy with people driving to work. At a stop light, I saw a young man who was no older than 25. He was dressed in a suit, and was walking to work. The wrinkles in his face were coated in sweat that was reflecting the hot California sun. He didn’t look sad though. He was smiling.

The light turned green, and I turned left towards Santa Monica. I had to get to work, and then I was going to go home and have dinner with my family. I missed them dearly, and I needed them to be with me more then ever because I didn’t want to see what would happen if I decided not to grow up.

Eric Bolton is a student at Berklee.  This story was written for his College Writing 2 topics course, Literature as Creative Writing

The battered gray mailbox at the end of our cul de sac used to read  “400″ in red letters before some neighborhood kid (who wasn’t me) stole the four and probably hung it in his bedroom next to a Red Sox poster.  The red zeros they left behind looked like two eyes.  During the summer, when waves of heat made the asphalt blurry, they almost blinked at you if you squinted real hard.

We lived in a housing development called Oak Forest Manor, though most of the trees around us were sickly-looking maples whose strung out branches gave little shade.  We’d moved into the neighborhood a year ago, three days before I turned twelve.  I’d had to celebrate my birthday with a Carvel crunchy cake propped up on a cardboard box instead of our dining room table, which didn’t make the move from California until a week after we’d arrived.  My parents were convinced suburbia would be good for me.  I was not.  They said I‘d love the northeast, bribing me with images of carved pumpkins and hockey on frozen ponds.  Mom swore I’d be able to hear wolves howl at night, and Dad promised snowball fights and trips to Fenway.  All I knew was it was almost my birthday, I’d left behind all my friends in San Francisco, and life pretty much sucked.  And then I met Connor who belonged to the double “o” mailbox and the dilapidated house behind it.

Connor was fifteen and had ears like hockey pucks, which he hid under an old Kenworth baseball cap.  I saw him the first time when we pulled up to our new house after the long drive cross-country.  He was standing at the lip of his driveway, and we stared at each other through the car window.  I waved, but he stood with his arms pinned to his sides.  That very afternoon, my Mom marched down the street and invited him over.  I begged her not to, but when she sets her mind to something, she’s as immovable as cement.

The next day, Connor knocked on our door ten minutes early and stood there like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.  He wanted to bolt, but when he was struck by my dad’s “Hullo, there,” he had no choice but to come in.  We sat around on folding chairs while Mom made small talk, and Dad hid behind the newspaper.  After tuna fish sandwiches and some awkward conversation, my mom threw us outside so she could unpack, and we spent the afternoon kicking rocks down the empty street.

“Is that your house?”  I asked, pointing past the mailbox to the house, which peeled paint like a snake shedding skin.

“Yup” And his face closed down like a trap door.  So, we left it at that.

From that moment on, Connor and I started to hang out.  We weren’t friends really, but we shared a common boredom.  As summer dragged its feet into August, we practiced pitching against the tree in my backyard and ran after the ice cream truck every time it meandered into our neighborhood.  We made rockets out of plastic bottles filled with Coca Cola and Mentos and drew tattoos on our skin of our favorite rock bands.  But the truth is, I never felt like I really knew him.  At times, he was as quiet as a mute.  I guess he was just shy, but that shyness felt like a splinter I couldn’t pull out.  It made my hands itch to punch him just to see if I could knock something into his dull brown eyes.

What bothered me the most was that he never had me over to his house.  If we needed a snack, we always got it from my refrigerator.  If we needed to pee, we used the wall of old Mrs. Whitley’s garage, which backed onto our property.  And day after day, Connor’s house sat there, hiding secrets behind its cracked and peeling door.  Even Connor’s family was a mystery to me.  I knew his mom worked from home.  Dad said he thought she did telemarketing, but she never invited us in for so much as a granola bar.  I also knew Connor had an older brother, but I overheard my parents saying he was in a juvenile hall upstate.  And Connor never mentioned his dad, and so, I didn’t ask.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I came up with a plan.  It was the week before school started, and we were having a contest to see who could spit a watermelon pit the farthest.  I knew I was going to win.  I’d beaten a bunch of kids at an all school picnic the year before.  I told him the loser of the contest had to do whatever the winner asked.  We lined up at the curb of the sidewalk in front of my house, and sure enough, my pit landed about a foot beyond his.

“Ok, you win.  So, what do you want me to do?”  He asked.

“I want you to show me your house,” I answered like it was nothing special.

“My house?”

“Yeah, come on, Connor.  We’ve been hanging out for like two months, and I’ve never even seen your room.  What’s the deal?  Do you have a dead body in there or something?”

“No.,” he said.                                                                               

“Yeah, I bet your grandma’s in there,” I said.  “You probably got her stuffed like some old moose head.  And you talk to her just like that guy from Psycho.”

“I do not,” he said.

“Well, then, what’s the problem?  What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid.”  He said, and with that, he took off down the street, with me following close behind, making chicken sounds. 

When we got to the front door, he turned the knob with a quick and furtive movement, and we walked in.  After the glare of outside, the inside seemed pitch black, and I couldn’t see a thing.  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I made out a small living room with an old raggedy couch on one wall and an overstuffed armchair in the corner.  A woman was sound asleep in the chair.  She looked like Connor except she had stringy gray hair and a slack open mouth.  In front of her on the scarred coffee table, there was an open bottle of something brown and a container of orange juice.  A talk show blared on TV, and the room smelled like cigarettes and something else musty and slightly rotten.  I paused for a moment, but Connor didn’t even look in her direction, as he walked past her and up the stairs.

“You wanted to see my room.  Well, here it is,” he said, opening the door.

There was a single bed in a room the size of my parent’s closet.  He had an old dresser covered with 70’s decals that said “Dy-no-mite” and “Keep on truckin’” and a piece of plywood over two sawhorses for a desk.  The only thing on the walls was a small wooden crucifix above the bed. 

I didn’t know what to say.  I was afraid to go back downstairs where Connor’s mom was passed out, but I was also afraid to stay in that room a moment longer.  My face felt hot and uncomfortable.

 ”Want to see something cool?”  Connor asked.

“Sure.  I guess,” I said.

Connor opened his closet door and took out a shoebox.  In the box, he pulled out something wrapped in black cloth.  Slowly, gingerly, he pulled back the cloth and showed me the knife.  It had a huge blade with a serrated edge on one side and a flat sharp edge on the other.  The handle was black and shiny.

“It’s my brother’s.  Before he left, he gave it to me.  Do you want to hold it?” 

“Uh- sure.”  And he handed it to me.  It felt heavy, like anvil heavy, and I was suddenly sweaty all over.  I handed it back.

 ”It’s very sharp,” he said, and then paused for a moment.  “Can I show you something else?”

“Sure” I said, not sure at all.

“But you’ve got to promise not to tell anybody.  Especially your parents.”

“I promise.”  I said.

He went back to the closet and carefully parted the shirts and jackets that were hanging there.  The back wall was pock marked and gouged out in a thousand tiny places.  There were so many holes; they made a pattern that looked a little like the state of New Jersey.

“What’s that?  A map of New Jersey made out of Braille?”  I joked, but my heart was going so fast, I thought it was going to conga right out of my chest.

“No, that’s what I call my ‘Wall of Detoxification’.  Sometimes, you know, things get really tight in here.”  He gestured around the room with the point of the knife.  “And in here too.”  And he marked his chest.  “And I don’t know.  I gotta let off steam, you know what I mean?” 

He smiled at me, and I saw a spark of something behind the flat screen of his face.  I looked away.

“Sure.  I know what you mean.  I feel like that sometimes too,” I said with a mouth all strange and cottony.

“So, I just come in here and you know, de-tox-if-y.”  He said, jabbing the air with the knife for emphasis.

“Oh, yeah, sure.  Sounds cool.”  I said. 

Then, he put the knife back in the closet, and we headed outside as if nothing had happened.  In the sun, I found myself blinking hard.  Everything around me seemed strange and wrong.  The shade beneath the anemic trees felt darker somehow, and my house, where I could see Dad raking up leaves, seemed not just down the street but a million miles away.  I waved to my father, who thankfully, waved back.

“Uh, I gotta go.  I think my Dad’s calling me,” I said to Connor and fled from him up the street.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room with my face pressed up to the air conditioner.  My mom was sure I was coming down with something and made me eat Saltines and soup for dinner even though it was 90 degrees outside.  For the next few days, I did my best to avoid Connor.  He stopped by a few times, but I always found an excuse not to go out; my Dad needed help fixing the garage door or I had to finish some summer reading for school.  My mom kept asking if there was anything I wanted to talk about, but I just shrugged her off.

I never told my parents about the knife, and that secret burned in me like a brand.  I started having nightmares.  In my dreams, Connor had his knife and that strange smile on his face.  In my dreams, he was yelling “De-tox-i-fy” as he chased me.

On a Monday, in the middle of October, Connor and his mom disappeared.  They left in the middle of the night.  All we knew was one day, they were there, and the next, they were gone.  About a week later, a state trooper and some moving men came and loaded up their furniture in a truck.  They posted a white eviction notice on the door, and it stayed there until a young couple moved in and started to fix up the place.  One of the first things they did was toss the mailbox into a dumpster they had in the driveway.  I was glad to see it go and for the first time, in a long time, I finally slept without dreaming anything at all.

Susan Kean Cattaneo is Assistant Professor of Songwriting.

Clive Duffy cleared away the empty glasses and mopped the bar. It was almost closing time. Soon he’d be popping down to Lime Street and meeting the lads for a pint or two. They’d have a game of darts, a few laughs. Then it’d be home to Milly for the usual kippers-on-toast, slippers-before-the-telly Sunday night.

Clive gave the last-round bell a resounding ring. “Time, gentlemen,” he called. Force of habit; with the Liverpool University students on holiday, the pub was nearly empty. Today’s clientele consisted of a Kirkby whore, a trio of Woolton aunties, and a middle-aged geezer dawdling in the loo.

“Time,” he said, more loudly. A wintry gust rattled the leaded windows, blew in through the cracks. Frozen rain spattered against the glass. Clive sighed. It’d be a good job hustling this lot outside by four, and there was still the cleaning up to do. The lads would have a bit of a wait.

The loo-straggler returned and took a place at the bar just as Clive was closing the register. “Sorry, mate. Last orders were ten minutes ago.”

The man’s boyish smile contrasted with his tweedy, schoolmasterish appearance.  “No problem, barman,” he said. “Just here for a chat.”

So that’s what the poor sod wanted, a little therapy-on-the-cheap. Problems at home, or trouble at work-if he was lucky enough to have work. In Liverpool, joblessness was rampant. With the death of heavy industry in the North, and massive cuts in the workforce, the old seaport had become a ghost town of shuttered shops, torched buildings, and boarded-up manufacturing plants. Stupid bloody Thatcher and her politics of selfishness: benefiting the greedy at the expense of the needy, destroying livelihoods with her brutal economic reforms. The 1980’s had been the worst decade on record. Good thing they were finally coming to a close.

The stranger wasn’t giving up. “Don’t recognize me, do you, Duff?”

Duff. It had been Clive’s nickname back in the Liverpool Institute days. No one had called him that for years. He studied the man but couldn’t place the face. “Local lad?”

“From Allerton. Your sister used to go with me brother Michael.”

“Sweet Jesus. Now I remember.”

Paul, that was his name. He and Clive had been in classes together back at the Institute, shared some of the same school chums. Like Clive, he’d be pushing fifty now.

“Welcome home, son,” Clive said, positioning his hands over the pumps. “What are you having?”

“Don’t bother, if you’re closing.”

“No trouble. Don’t get celebrities in here every day, do we?”

Paul rolled his eyes. “Well, then. Make it a lager and lime, and pour one for yourself.”

Clive served up two foamy pints, dashed liberally with limeade. “Haven’t seen you in ages,” he said. “Revisiting the old stomping grounds?”

“Not by choice. Me dad died last week. I came back to sort out the house.”

Paul tore the wrapper off a packet of ciggies. Clive got a closer look at his face as he leaned forward to give him a light. It was hard seeing Paul like this-gray-haired and worry-lined, running to fat. Still, there was that smile. When he smiled the years fell away, and Clive saw Paul as he’d been: a pretty boy in a white sport coat and tight black drainies, his hair greased up in a Tony Curtis pompadour, strumming Elvis tunes on the back of a street fair lorry. ‘Paulie’ the birds had called him, screaming his name over the din of noontime club sessions, clawing and kicking their way to the front rows to get his attention.

That was back in the early 60’s, when rock ‘n’ roll still had a grip on Britain’s imagination. Bands were everywhere, rehearsing in mildewed basements and playing neighborhood dances, but Paul’s combo was a cut above the rest. They’d gone from amateur dates to bigger venues like Litherland Town Hall, and had even traveled to the Continent. Then there’d been the winning of the Mersey Beat poll, for which Clive could take partial credit. He and  Milly must have mailed in fifty votes between them.

“That group of yours, what was it called? Used to see you at the Cavern on me lunch break.”

“Ancient history, Duff.”

“Come on. You were good.”

“Lots of others around, doing the same thing.”

But Paul’s band had something special. You felt it at the Cavern, when they’d been at their height: four leather-jacketed Teddy Boys larking about on a shoe box stage, blasting out “Long Tall Sally” between mouthfuls of beans and chips. Clive still recalled those deafening drumbeats, the mobs of shrieking fans, the unbearable humidity that soaked you to the skivvies. It was a magic he’d never known before and wouldn’t experience again: raw, pure, raving rock ‘n’ roll, a big, beautiful tidal wave of sound that swept you away without ever pulling you under.

Paul and his mates had been Liverpool’s likely lads, poised on the brink of success. Then came the near misses, the mounting rejections-three years of pushing and struggling, waiting for the big break that never arrived.

Clive drew them both a second lager. “You keep in touch with the others?”

“I saw George a few days ago. He has a house in Upton Green. Works as an electrician. Or used to, before Mrs. Thatcher pulled the plug on him. Been on the dole six months now.”

“What about that drummer, the one with the enormous hooter? Milly was mad for ‘im.”

“Emigrated to the States. I still get the occasional card.”

Smart lad, fleeing Merseyside before the 80’s boom went bust. Clive wished he’d had that kind of foresight. “That Lennon fellow made something of himself.”

“Saw one of his exhibits last time I was in London. He’s still doing those daft cartoons his auntie used to toss in the dustbin. You wouldn’t believe the prices they’re fetching.”

Paul grinned. “I found some of the songs we wrote, going through things at me dad’s. Weren’t half bad.”

The neon jukebox caught Paul’s eye. He wandered over to it and scanned the selections. “Bloody Tremeloes. I can’t believe they’re still around. They were the group Decca signed, you know? Instead of us.”

The lager was bringing it out of him. “Decca had this junior executive, Mike Smith. He dug us. Brought us to London to cut a few demos. We hung in there for months, waiting to hear. Finally his boss rings our manager. ‘Groups with guitars are on the way out’, he says. ‘Stick to selling records in Liverpool, Mr. Epstein’.”

He slipped a few coins into the machine and punched some buttons. The wailing plea of the Marvelettes exploded from the speakers: “Wait! Woh yes, wait a minute Mr. Postman…”

“Tamla-Motown was cool. The surf thing was good while it lasted. But all you hear these days is that teen idol shit. Same crap I hated thirty years ago.” Paul bolted the last of his drink. “Sodding industry fatcats with their profit margins and tried-and-true formulas. Good thing I quit the business when I did.”

“Maybe you should have stuck it out a bit longer.”

“I dunno. How many times can you play Hamburg?” There was a glint of nostalgia in those aging puppy-dog eyes, a wistful sense of what might have been. “Knocked me for six when the band split up, but I haven’t done too bad for meself. Went to teacher-training college. Got a job on staff. Made me dad happy, at least.”

It was time to close. Clive shooed out the remaining customers, then saw Paul to the door.

“The lads would love to see you,” he said. “Feel like tagging along?”

“Thanks, but I’m late as it is. Don’t want to keep the missus waiting.”

“Well, then. Good talking to you.”

“Yeah. Cheers.”

Paul walked off. A thought occurred to Clive, and he called after him. “That other drummer, the one you sacked. Pete Best. He still comes around from time to time.”

“I felt pretty guilty about that. But it’s not like he missed out on anything, eh?”

With a final wave, Paul rounded the corner and disappeared.

Clive whistled to himself as he tidied up. Those were great times, the early 60’s. Crackling with energy, bursting with promise. For a while, it had seemed as if anything was possible-that humble, workaday Liverpool could suddenly reach beyond its inner-city slums and crumbling docklands and capture the world’s attention. The old girl had deserved better. It would have been nice to be known for something more than telly comedians, soccer brawls, and Toxteth street riots.

Clive locked the doors and zipped his jacket against the evening chill. Ah well, he thought.

Life’s a bitch, innit?

Didi Stewart is Assistant Professor of Voice.