Month: October 2026

By Freya Bertham

From the doorway, the world spreads marvellously before me. Streams ribbon through the landscape like veins and the earth convulses with evening life. Teeming with quiet activity against the backdrop of the setting world, the shoulders of the land swoop in drooping shapes down towards the lake, pooled between the arms of the mountainous bodies and suffused with the reflections of low hanging trees tinged pink by the dusk.

On the porch, my grandfather sits cocooned by this worldly beauty. His hands, like folds of thick velvet, rest on the arms of his wicker chair and he silently stares out across the terrain, intoxicated by the heavy August air, which hangs sultrily with the oppressive floral sweetness garnered from the moist summer.  

My nightdress billows around my ankles, taken gently by the humming wind. A chime is caught by the zephyr and the humid evening is scattered with a light tinkling.

The lake stretches out gloriously. In the weeping light it looks like a mirage of deep, liquid silver: a passage to another, ethereal world. When I was younger I’d often spend long afternoons crashing into the water to observe the slivers of golden fish jetting about below the surface. They looked like tiny stars littering the depths of a universe, and I became an astronaut, face submerged, suspended in the liminal space between the world I inhabited and a turbid mystery.

Tonight the small waves roll in noiselessly.

The figure on the porch does not stir. Perhaps his mind conjures fantasies, which colour the world in resplendent ways I cannot fathom. Maybe they are not fantastical, merely thoughts he indulges in to escape the time that seems to have loosened its grip on him. Somewhere lost in the pathways of his mind, he could be on a great journey travelling through lands blanketed in golden barley, wandering through precious streets he used to dawdle along when he was a boy. He could have slipped into a world where he does not find himself trapped by the limitations of his own body; where the medics do not pay him visits; where he does not have to take the four yellow pills, the two pink pills, and the two white pills each morning. I could spend forever placing him in the spaces of poets, of artists, of inventors, of voyagers – but he is not anymore.

Instead, he is a victim to his own brain and lost to the fabric of blank periods of time where he ceases to be anything at all. He is stuck watching the world without absorbing it. He is numbly looking out across the rolling land, and his eyes will be glassy and irritated because he has forgotten to blink. He is propped up, overcome by the pulsing of his heartbeat and the clanging sounds in his head.

When I was little, I’d climb like a leopard onto his lap and we’d sit together on that wicker chair watching the sun dip below the horizon. He’d tell me stories of when he was the captain, his adventures, how he roamed the seas, undertook expeditions others would never dare. He was infallible, undefeatable; a man who could wrestle with the tempestuous waves Neptune hurled at him and come out the victor each time. 

A pair of swans descend elegantly down to the water and break the glass surface. They shake themselves and slowly swim together across the lake. I imagine him bewitched by their effortlessness, eyes watching the ripples intently as they bloom out behind the creatures, how he would be charmed by their smooth movement. 

It’s all going to change. I’m standing on the periphery of tomorrow and suddenly this place feels like something that will become forbidden land, a dreamscape intricately fashioned to the soles of my feet, and ripped away overnight. In years to come, I’ll unintentionally shape the memories of my time here with desperate longing until I mould the melancholy into poignant nostalgia. I’ll be standing here limply as an observer, sanctifying everything to the point that it becomes surreal and idyllically adjacent to time. 

Our peace is ruptured by the birds pulsing from the neighbouring trees. They spiral into the air like billows of black smoke. They squark, madly; scream at one another, malevolently. Crows don’t twitter like songbirds and they don’t hoot deeply like the chorus of birds in the morning, they lurch and croak and cry and fester in trees waiting to interrupt tranquillity. They are an omen of death, a funeral march for this perfect place we shall have to abandon. Time has caught up to us, and bundled the furniture into large vans, left naked nails where pictures used to line the walls, taken the lady of the house. 

Behind me, there is a chasm where there used to be a choir of gentle voices in rooms scattered with memories – trinkets from places I have yet to see, jasmine scented draws filled with photographs of ancestral faces that I cannot assign names to. There were cabinets lined with hand painted plates, pots laden with silverware, glass cases boasting collections of angel sculptures with faded blue wings. There was a home I knew better than the ridges in my hands, a haven that already exists only in my memory. 

He will have forgotten the place he breathed life into. Forgotten why he has to leave it. Forgotten the laughter that reverberated through these rooms; forgotten the sound of small shoes as they clattered into the house leaving muddy trails behind them; forgotten the bonfires we would build in the garden that would burn until the morning of the next day; forgotten the sound of the floorboards on the stairs, the way they creaked, exhaled differently and familiarly under the weight of each person; forgotten the smells that came from the freshly made raspberry jam in the kitchen; forgotten the hands of the small children who picked those berries; forgotten the unruly garden that he used to nurse until it was immaculate; forgotten the door which had all our beaming faces tacked onto it; forgotten that he used to feed the birds with an array of different seeds in the morning; forgotten the golden curls that would float to the floor when they were trimmed with the kitchen scissors; forgotten the cheeky giggles of the children dancing wildly in the sitting room; forgotten the breathlessness of the soaked bodies that would emerge armed with snorkels from the lake. Forgotten the life that was his. 

Though, he would never forget the shuffling of her slippers on the carpet – that I am sure of – and I am certain too that the faces of the ones he loves are etched so deeply in his brain that in their own way, they too shall never be fully forgotten.

From the chair, the captain suspires deeply. A robin lands gracefully on the porch balustrade in front of him. I know it has captured his attention, for he leans towards the bird as if compelled to reach out and touch it. Its orange breast puffs out proudly, vibrant against the collapsing sky. 

I turn and leave him to slowly resurface from the abysm of the sea.

Featured Image: Breannah Holton

By Lenna Suminski

I don’t want to know what you did today. 

I don’t want to imagine you continuing on in a dress, in happiness or in duress. I don’t want to know if you are painting still, I don’t want to know who you are painting for. I don’t want to see your Pinterest boards, I don’t want to know how you’re spending the summer keeping company with nuns. I don’t want to know how you fare, how you do your hair now – I don’t want to know where you’re going, I don’t want to know where you’re planning. I don’t want to know what you’re dreaming of if I can’t see you twitching in your sleep. I don’t want to know your favourite music now or what you will listen to next, I don’t want to know what you did today or what you will do yesterday. I don’t want to hear you sing if I can’t stay. I don’t want you here with me, in my nightgown on my bed, if you’re not going to stay – don’t. Don’t make me say it, don’t make me ask, don’t make me admit what I cannot mask. Don’t – don’t tell me about school or your friends, don’t make me feel what it feels to be with you. Don’t taunt me, stop leaving, I’m hurrying, don’t go on remembering. Don’t tell me how it feels. Do not tell me, please do not let me know, what it would be like to have you. 

I don’t want to know what you did today. 

–

I am panting. It is night and I am panting in the Savoy. The windows are shut though I am sure I left them ajar. I dreamt a scene, I dreamt a story, I dreamt a dream I don’t want to know. I am panting and my silk slip is clinging to my skin. It is night and I am sweating in cotton sheets in this ensuite. 

I am blinking, fast, trying to focus on the light that is blurring, suddenly this bed is a trap so I swing my legs over the edge and try to climb out of my skin. Stumbling, I leave him snoring to my left and brace myself to stand. I am parched, I am dizzy from white wine, my toes touch the carpet and I tip-toe to the bathroom, mapping out the route in my head, navigating my steps in the black. There’s glitter on the walls, silver stars shining from a bird’s beak, on the wallpaper there are mountains and skies and dirt that is soft. Hand-painted in beige hues, the same image shifting from this corner to that one. I cannot make out the lines of the blue-black feathers or if they even are the ones that fly. Nothing moves anyways, except my bony body sleuthing past these scenes. 

I am panting still – across this hotel room – my hand slips against the glass door of the closet and I knock into a chair. A stir – and I hold my breath. He turns in his sleep and I can see through a squint, he reaches for me, a naked hand searching for my body and it limps against a feather pillow. He snores. 

I take a breath in and let my feet search for the cold tiles. I slink forward toward the His & Hers sinks the way I used to tip-toe up the marble steps of my house. Turning on this swan tap I am hoping for the relief of cold London water – it is flowing through my fingers. 

I am panting as I look up at this girl – this woman – sweating from a nightmare. Her cheekbones are angular and her lips pink and wobbly, shoulders slack as I lean against this frigid sink, water pooling in my palms. I tighten my jaw, focus my eyes and take a closer look. I take her in. 

Nipples hard from the fright or from their piercings, poking through the purple slip dress that glides against her body seamlessly. Three hair ties on her right wrist waiting to leash the long brown hair that shies her eyes from sight. And the eyes – frantic. Frantically deciding what to scrutinize in the mirror, to land on a zit or stray eyebrow hair, searching, searching, searching – to no avail. Eyebrows that frown but could not be more detained in their shape and curve and color. A heart-shaped face that will probably start whimpering from the smoking, but tight and right with the upkeep: sunscreen, lotion, gua sha, masks. She is sculpted, given and maintained, to perfection. For now. 

I am splashing water on that perfect face. I’d have to moisturize again. 

I steady myself against this granite – it’s blue-blooded – my feet stay pointed, for some reason. There are two toothbrushes on the bathroom counter, concealer stains on the hand towel, the bath mat I am standing on is wet. Below the mirror is a used tea bag in a coffee cup dressed in lipstick stains. I catch her in sight again, sweat and wet dripping from the slightly-too-short chin and dropping to the floor. Moving my hands to the back of my neck, I look up at the ceiling, nothing but light. 

Leaning back and back, I put my hands up and stretch – towards the chandelier. I lock the door. Then I catch my breath, and collapse at once to the floor. I let myself fall undone. 

–

In the dream you were warm, and I was funny. We were laughing. Somehow, I’d imagined a utopia. It was university, but we took classes in trees. Every pupil belonged to a species: oak, birch, pine, cedar, fir, maple and ours – willow. It was twilight, my favourite time of day, a time where possibility still reigns but tragedy exempts, and I looked down at beautiful girls walking under the branches of my weeping willow. I could taste their smells, flurrying flowers of rose and moss and lily and salt. Their eyes twinkled like fairy lights, like the ones teenage girls hung in rooms, they hummed lantern tunes on the way to apothecary lessons. Through the woods that we called home there was a path for people, winding and small, manageably absorbed. I had raced from behind one rock to another to get to our willow. I wrote a poem, I don’t know what of, but it called for you. I tied it with a red ribbon and hankered it onto the lowest-hanging branch. I hoped you would see it, I knew you would see it. 

I think you did. Suddenly we were strolling down King’s Road, past boutiques and shops that glittered with leather and alligator along Sloane Square. In a pottery shop we stopped before a wall of mugs, just around the corner from our forest-school. It smelled of rain, right before or immediately after a downpour, I could not tell. Examining these ceramics, we weighed them in our hands, imperfections calling to us to choose one for the other. A mug with mushrooms and green dandelions, a cup with a handle of birds, two with pink waterfalls and four that were molded from jade. I scrutinized them all one by one, trying to discern the tupperware for your treehouse dorm. I am hungry for buttered bread and broth, after shopping we’ll go to the pub, play cards and huddle close in a booth. 

You had seen my letter, I called you and you came. I watched you from atop the branches, stopping abruptly in your step, picking up the envelope, and smiled. In the pottery shop I stood in front of you looking at the shelf of clay, you draped your hands over my shoulders and I leaned back – we are admiring the scenery and you are warm against me and I am funny in front of you. You laugh –

Behind me is him holding me tight. 

–

I see myself in the reflection of the porcelain bathtub. Is it still night out? 

This girl is a pool of purple, hunched tightly to keep from melting. A thousand shades of brown circle a halo across the tiles, falling in pieces and strands and catching between her hands. Hands pink manicured, digging into her head, fingering her temple to try and impede this epic pounding. Knees crammed against her chest, a concise ball of prey ready, but not wanting, to bite. Teeth white and neat and gnawing at her inner cheek – the taste of metal. The sound of a pule escapes, then two, then three, then at once, finally – a cry. 

Is it the wine or the Ambien? Is it the bed or the man? Is it your voice or a song? Is it a metier or a meteor? Is it a want or a must? Is it a necessity or a consequence – imaging you – is it me or is it you? 

Before I get an answer my stomach twists. 

I am lurched into myself when my gut slices. Cuts down my spine and across my forehead, chest, shoulder sides – pain that is sobering enough to get me to want to sit up, and I’m all the more wary that I can’t. With the pits of my palms I lift my body up half-way, enough to half-crawl like a half-dead centipede dragging along the bathroom floor. My legs won’t respond, and everything below my waist is burning. Waves are knocking into me, I recall the particular feeling of desperately holding onto coral when I snorkel, as tides hurry to slam me into the reef, again, again, and again. My body is puking something up. 

Four counts breath in, four counts hold, four counts breath out. I think I’m having a panic attack. Regulated breathing – a trick from the books, and it’s saved me before when I’ve taken it too far. In between the second and third round I make it to the toilet, below my belly button something is kicking out at me, battering my insides. 

My ankles are folded under me when I feel it start to go. I know – chased faith one too many times, took chance at her liberty and now – she’s pointing at me, smoldering. Stupid, stupid. My heart is hurting, that’s all that I’m thinking when I see all that red come out. My hands lined up on the floor, I put my forehead to my fingertips and barely get to say I’m sorry my –

I am bent in my bloodied mess and I am not crying for what is lost. I look up at her –

Against the marble is a woman – a girl – howling in a brilliant maroon pool. 

It is night. He snores. I wonder what you will do today. 

Featured Image: Aaliyah Angir