short story

Dates to watch out for

The start of the year has seen some more writing make its way into the world – a flash piece on attending Pride for the first time in Turnpike Magazine (available now), a second set during the inside out hours of a rainy night in the Spring edition of Capsule Stories, out March 1. A journalism piece on documentary filmmaker Mariah Garnett’s Trouble, screening as part of the Glasgow Short Film Festival (GSFF), will appear in the Skinny March edition.

Thanks to Femspectives for screening Glue in their Made in Scotland strand this month. Glue has since been accepted into CineQ (16-26 March) and Roze FilmDagen (13 March, Amsterdam) film festivals. The film will also be a part of the GSFF Cafe Flicker made by women night, 19 March.

Will update if and when there’s more to share. Thanks for reading!

Gutter 18

It has been a delight and the highlight of my year – being published in Gutter Magazine. They have published work by so many writers I look up to, so to be in their company is immense. This edition also came with a supplement called The Freedom Papers, with some essential words on the subject. Together this edition was the most successful publication at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

My story is called Flying Saucers.

Gutter 18

 

 

 

 

Eat Your Words

A new story inspired by this postsecret postcard. The message reads: “Whenever I finish a good book I eat the last page”.

writingpostsecret's avatarWriting PostSecret

bookBy Eleanor Capaldi

It started as a test – if you could eat it, you were accepted, approved, like a pending loan application.

Small, crumpled and fairly flat, the scrunched up bit of paper sat in between my thumb and forefinger. The tips of my nails making a chipped polish frame. Stray indecipherable text rippled round it. Rotating my index finger, it lay there like a seed for an expectant bird. I scrunched my eyes up too, as if it were on a slide under a microscope and I was angling for a revelation. I popped my head forward and took it, fishing it up tongue first.

The anti-climax in the room was palpable. The entertainment to be had was in the goading, in seeing the concertinaed lips of nervous first years.

That first bite came from a stray corner of a magazine page, slightly glossy. One thing led to…

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After Winter

Last Spring I discovered that when the right eyes catch you in their light, you are seen. Aubrey was like the sunrise after a winter of Nordic nights. She brought a chance to start again, everything reset, you could be the person you wished you were the day before.

Aubre was direct, strong and had the ability to pierce whatever surface wore her reflection. Like slivers of sun-flares, burnt diamonds, she got under my skin. I was full of her.

In a short space of time, feelings grew like stems emerging from seed. Bursting like a river through a barrage, they flew.

I didn’t need to worry about letting myself go, risking running empty, because we were part of this together, me and Aubr . It was a cycle of replenishment, a process that couldn’t be seen but the consequences of which could be felt, proving its existence.

To and fro and back and forth, we exchanged parts of ourselves. As one person evaporated they were filled by the contents of the other.

Combining rushes of water and light left rainbow colours in our wake, a new spectrum for us. Aub danced bright, and I felt like I would never be afraid of the dark again.

—

Au was buoyed, Merle filled her from the tips of her toes to the whirls at the top of her crown.

Merl was rooted. She was strength, non-judgmental, with a sweetness to rival amber. A envied her.

Mer couldn’t fight what was to erupt, unchecked, from her heart. Leaving marks, like bark when its rings are marred with scars. Nurturing warmth turned scorched, their crossed paths were left parched.

Me was no longer doused by      to obscure or salve her wounds. The rush of elements stopped as abruptly as it started.      would have tried to hide a roll of her eyes at being described as ‘elements’. M would have blushed, nudging her love with a lightness of touch.

The ferocity of fire was left to burn itself out, incrementally; a violent, unwanted, renewal.

was glad not to face these consequences.

still searched for diamonds in the amber.

EC

Image by Victoria Morton
Source: generationartscotland.org/artists/victoria-morton/

In Plain Sight

She felt the ground soften under her feet. It mulched and shifted under sole. Made small by her surroundings, branches reached, waving leaves at the clouds as if in conversation.

Holding onto peeling greening bark, she supported herself. With a cautionary tilt of her head through long brown hair, Laure paused and checked it really was clear, that she was alone, that no-one could see, and began to cry. The well she thought she’d exhausted the day before had refilled of its own accord.

The monster in her heart found its voice in her tears. Air couldn’t reach lung before what remained was expelled. The deficit made her head light and she sat before she fell. Her heart stopped. Not of excitement or fright. She thought this must be what it is to break, to be snapped underfoot.

Trying to count breaths in and out, rhythmically, she reached an uneven compromise. Her hand rested on the half submerged roots of the tree she had chosen, arching into the ground. Blurred branches hung over and above her, a drooping canopy, diffusing sunlight through the green. Raindrops began to fall, bubbling in the puddles at her feet. Some were burst by sharply pointed strikes. They swam into the gully of the roots.

One brisk eye rub and the canopy came into clarity. The criss-cross of intersecting branches looked like it formed a letter. Laure reasoned the shape existed independently, and she only noticed it because it reminded her of the first letter of an important name. A reflection of how her mind was focused on it, searching. She was reserved for that name, it was ingrained, and every object became a mirror of it.

To make sure it really was there, she leaned away from the trunk slightly, knees still bent, to trace her fingers over it. Sure enough, one slope connected to a pinnacle met by another slope, and crossed in the middle, marking the letter A.

The wind blew in and around the leaves as further letters began to form. Branches lay across each other, giving — to As and Ts. Looping round, buds provided the . to is and js. The canopy yielded, lowering. It bent and undulated, pushed out of place. As branches tried out new shapes, they began to find new formations. The canopy of letters began encircling the central trunk, encasing Laure underneath. Temporarily shocked, panic erupted until she noticed that she was not being pinned but enveloped. The part of the trunk she had been sitting on sunk back to create a concave nook of a hollow. She sat in it.

Although contracted, there were still gaps between the leaves. Laure risked a push of the woven structure and found it pliant. She could hide here, and no-one would know. If she wanted to leave, a push and a squeeze under the periphery and she would be free. She pulled it closer.

EMC

Photo by the author. 

 

 

 

Pencilled In

My submission to the University of Aberdeen’s Book Week Scotland Flash Fiction competition.

———

The blankness was intimidating. White vastness like untouched snow. Not a mark, an indentation, or a print. Except for her. This was square one. Of how many squares there might be she didn’t know. She hadn’t seen any others.

She looked at the shadows and lights of her arms and used them as a guide. A drawing from life, still. Finger outstretched, she daubed graphite liberally in front of her. Softly edging out fine lines in a pattern, cross-hatching. This would create the wall. The scale of it made her nervous, but false confidence took hold. It was better than none.

She began to push the lead into the paper with increasing force. When removed to create highlights it would leave a starker contrast. The background had to be not just dark, but like the midnight hours. As if you had your eyes closed with your hand on top too. Her arm was moving quicker and quicker against the resistance of the paper, when it moved. Jolted right in front of her. She froze immediately.

Deliberately slowing down she resumed with conscious care. A crease in the newly drawn wall was throwing the evenness of her lines off. With some more shading in exactly the correct place perhaps she could trick the eyes. Peering very closely, finger all that was separating her nose from patterns in rows, she pushed. It was one push too far, the weakened structure broke, a rip taking a trajectory of its own accord, rapidly splitting all the way down to the ground. Through the space, a solitary eye blinked directly into hers. “I think I’m your neighbour. I drew the square next door?” Like lifting up a bedraggled, loose piece of wallpaper she pulled the paper away and saw a stick drawing in their own line drawn home. Their uncomplicated circle face with oval eyes containing another circle each, and dots for the pupils, nodded her in. She stepped through the paper, careful not to smudge any of herself on either of their designs.

They showed her round, pointing out the garden, sharing ideas, and patterns. They were taken aback at her own appearance. She had worked on herself before her surroundings, creating more depth and detail, practising. Then she had turned outwards, drawing whatever felt right and true. “I’m more words than drawings,” they said. Smiling sympathetically to themselves. They handed her a book. “I wrote that. All from my own imagination.” She gladly took it. She had never seen a book before, and didn’t know what it would contain or if she could make sense of it. Slipping back through the tear in the wall, both agreed to keep it there until she had made her own door and outside, to see if she could get round that way. Until then, she would leave a small gap in the paper rip.

She rocked herself in her newly drawn chair. Ankles rotating in gentle motion, she set out to discover her book.

The story was inspired by the image above, ‘Wood cut ‘October’ by Eric Ravilious from Almanack 1929 Watt 686 209 Lan a