Flash Fiction: The Girl Who Cried Rose Petals

This was a flash fiction suggested by @armouredviolet, based on this picture she took on the Piccadilly Line.

She couldn't cry for many years and felt a sickening envy for those that could. She stopped crying completely between the ages of eleven  and twenty-three.

At twenty-four, her heart was broken, and for the first time in thirteen years, she cried.

Except she didn’t cry tears.

She cried petals.

Red, thick, rose petals. No pain, other than embarrassment. She tried not to cry in front of others.

On the Piccadilly line that morning, he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.

For the first time in her life, she didn’t mind crying in public.

Lads Mags - degrading us all.

To say that I hate 'lads mags' like Nuts and Zoo would be an understatement. I would honestly rather see real hardcore pornography on sale in WH Smiths than I would these unpleasant, unfunny, sexist magazines.

It's taken me a while to put my finger exactly on what I feel the difference is, but this article in The Guardian finally helped me do it. It's by a former lads mag editor, Terri White, who has partially realised the damage that magazines like this do.

I have no problems with sex. I rather enjoy it. I even try to be good at it. I don't have any issues at all with the idea that people may get some enjoyment out of watching people have sex, or even just looking at naked people, and that some people may enjoy the idea of people watching them, or even be prepared to do it in return for financial recompense. That's all fine as far as I'm concerned.

For me, one of the most uncomfortable sex icons in the history of cinema is Barbara Windsor. Note that I'm not saying 'bad', but 'uncomfortable'. I'm not talking about her looks, body or voice, or anything like that. It was the attitude that the characters she played tended to put forward. The kind of characters that would respond to somebody pinching her arse or groping her with a 'Oi...cheeky!' and a friendly laugh. I always found something about that kind of thing to be written in such a way that it was somewhat encouraging of that kind of behaviour - because she enjoyed it, because she was up for it, because that kind of thing was all okay really. I love the Carry On films, but I do think their attitudes towards sex were uncomfortable at times.

It's the hint that real women? They love this kind of thing, they do. Women that don't are probably feminists or frigid or something.  And that's the kind of thing that Nuts and ZOO have ended up running with, with their emphasis on 'real women' and 'humour'.

Pornography tends to sell fantasies. Most glamour magazines tend to sell fantasies. Nuts sells attainability, and that's where the problem comes in. When it shows, say, "Karen, 24 receptionist from Wigan" with her tits out, talking about how she loves porn and has tried threesomes, it's not being sold to the reader as how strong and sexual women are or can be. Instead, it's being sold that this is what 'real women' like.

Bear in mind that the culture that these mags engender is the kind of culture where Danny Dyer (a man who desperately aims to be Ray Winstone but actually manages to land squarely on 'Artful Dodger') jokes that a man should 'cut his ex's face, so noone will want her', and that's okay until someone outside of the cocoon of tits and hate actually reads it.

One of the things that Terri White talks about is the idea that the mags didn't use words like 'tits', because that would be degrading. I rather feel that is completely missing the point, especially when there are regularly headlines like "Massive Boobs Special Issue!" plastered across the front of the magazines.

There's another point. The defence is sometimes put out that they're "celebrating women". They're not. If they were, they'd be reflecting a range of shapes of women, rather than the absolute homogeny of slim with massive boobs. This is a genre of magazine that once ran a competition where they encouraged women to win a boobjob by sending pictures of their boobs and then chose who was most in need of a boobjob. Celebration of women right there.

They don't celebrate women. They specifically celebrate women with huge boobs. Well, slim women with huge boobs. Well, slim white women with huge boobs. Because do take the time to try and spot how often any ethnicity other than white women are on the front cover. And no, Nuts and Zoo, 'ginger' doesn't count.

Anna Arrowsmith (AKA Anna Span) wrote a defence of pornography some time ago where she pointed out that porn is somewhat democratic, in that there's a variety of shapes and sizes, because all kinds of people get turned on by all kinds of visuals. And, also, it tends to feature men as well, rather than just constant disembodied breasts. This isn't to say that the porn industry doesn't have huge problems, and huge issues towards women - of course a lot of it does. However, with lads mags, there isn't even an alternative.

That's a big problem with the humour as well. It isn't humour. It's  what is more and more being referred to as 'banter', which is just shit, boring and moronic, and encourages more of it. It also tends to be parrotted by horribly defensive blokes, who spout homophobic, racist, sexist, idiotic guff and defend it with "it's just banter, mate". The magazines don't print outright racist or sexist jokes, but I'd be fascinated to know how many of them they get sent by readers.

The degradation of women in these magazines is awful. It reduces them and their worth to their willingness to get their breasts out (as long as they're big) and whether they enjoy being objectivised. They then act as if this is what real women are like.

The degradation doesn't just stop with women, either. The idea that this is what men like and are like is degrading to men as well. The idea that we're all lads, who can't think of anything better than what Eddie from Bottom would describe as a "wazzo pair of jugs". That we all think that this is what women should look like, and that we're only interested in a weirdly specific kind of woman. It degrades men and women by acting as if we're all stupid.

It's degrading to sex, by pushing a viewpoint that is entirely focusing on a serial-killer-like preoccupation with specific body parts, and women that act a specific way. It degrades sex by ignoring the idea that it should be about more than just big boobs. It ignores variety. It ignores fun and silliness and replaces it with banter.

It assumes stupidity. It assumes sexism. It assumes a base level of ignorance and attitude on behalf of the reader that must instinctively dislike anyone that isn't the same as them.

I can see how pornography can be improved. I think sex is an inherently good thing, and pornography can celebrate that, and the more women that work in the field, the more it tries to aim towards what women like as well, the more the audience can change and the more equal and positive a thing it could become.

Can anyone really see a way that lads mags can improve?

Left - Short Story

I fell asleep on the sofa an hour after my wife went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night, which is always disconcerting. I stood up, noting an ache in my lower back from the uncomfortable position, and set about turning lights off and joining her in bed. They were already off, which sleepily confused me.

I quietly opened the bedroom door and crept in. One advantage of my mobile phone is that just switching the screen on gives me enough light to see where I'm walking without making enough light to wake her up. It wasn't until I was around to my side of the bed that I felt a sudden cold wave of fear and confusion flow down over my skin like ice water.

Next to my wife was someone lying in the bed, quietly sleeping.  I froze, trying to make sense of what I was looking at, and also thinking how quietly I could retrieve the cricket bat from inside the cupboard. I looked over at my wife, who was sleeping heavily, but breathing obviously. I then looked more closely at the figure's face.

I saw my own face lying on the pillow, eyes closed.

I recoiled, horrified and confused. I couldn't make sense of it. I just stood and watched the two in the bed sleep for a while. When he turned over, I could see that he was wearing the same t-shirt that I was wearing.

I walked carefully around to the other side of the bed again, and shook my wife softly. I didn't understand what was happening, but she was always my first port of call when I was upset, or when I needed to talk. She continued to sleep.

I shook her harder. She didn't wake up. I was scared about waking him up, but eventually, I couldn't bear it any more. I shouted her name, and I shook and slapped her to try and wake her up.

Nothing.

Had he drugged her or something? I went back around to my side of the bed and shook him this time. He didn't respond either. Neither of them did. I eventually screamed, but to absolutely no avail.

Not knowing what else to do, I went and sat on the sofa again. I cried out of frustration and confusion before falling asleep.

I woke to the sound of voices. She was in the kitchen while he was getting dressed, and they were discussing their day. It took me a few moments to recognise my own voice, with the slightly unusual quality of hearing it at a remove.

I raced through to the kitchen, and shouted, but she ignored me again. When he walked into the room, he didn't walk through me, but he may as well have. I was pushed easily out of the way when he brushed against me. It felt like I'd been hit by a car, and when I fell against my wife, it was like being hit hard in the opposite direction. I scrambled out of both their ways but continued talking. They couldn't hear me.

I stood up and watched him stood next to me, talking to her. He was exactly my height, my weight, wearing my clothes, speaking with my voice.

After a while, he went to work. I tried to follow, able to get onto the bus, but I lost my nerve when I got to the train station.

Instead, I trudged back to the house, and sat all day. I wasn't hungry. I didn't need the toilet. Nothing like that.

I could interact with household objects, I found. That first day, I wrote messages, but when my wife got home from work, she either didn't see them or didn't read them. The letter was treated as rubbish. The message written with her lipstick on the mirror was perfunctarily wiped off, without so much as any sense of comprehension.

I couldn't communicate with her in any way. When he came back, and they ate, I just sat and watched. When they sat on the sofa and watched television, I sat on a chair and just watched with them. Sometimes, he said the exact thing I was thinking. Watching quizzes, we would often answer the same questions.

One day, I followed him all the way to work. I wandered around the office while he worked at times, but at other times, something was nagging at me that took a long time for me to fully realise.

He was better at it than I was. He was working hard throughout the day, and seeming less distracted than I sometimes felt.

But then he was better at everything than I was. Not by much, but it was enough for me to notice. Better at exercising, better at working, better at listening and taking note of what my wife said. He was a bit neater than I was. A bit fitter. Better at making love.

Or was I just jealous of him, and looking down at myself?

I don't know, but eventually I got used to it. I became his shadow, more or less. I could spy on anyone, and find out information by myself, but I had nobody to share it with. It was so much less effort to allow him to make the decisions.

Sometimes, I sat around her while she went around her day. It felt like I was spending time with her.

Sometimes, it felt real.

One time, when I was stood in the bathroom behind him while he got ready for work, he looked in the mirror, and his eyes shifted from himself to my reflection behind me. He had never done this before. His eyes locked with mine.

And he smiled.

Gym'll Fix It

For the first time since 2008, and the first time regularly since... some point previous to that, I have started going to the gym.

The reason for this is simple. I've kind of got fat. Came as a surprise to me, I can tell you.

The sad thing here is that it actually did come as a surprise to me. I was a pretty skinny teenager, and remained so up until my early twenties. In my mind's eye, I'm still slim. When I think of how to describe myself, the words "fairly slim" tend to come to mind, even though they're an utter lie. It's not that it's an intentional lie - it's that I don't feel like a fat bloke. Not really.

It's not exactly rocket science how it happened. My work has, for most of the last ten years or so, involved me sitting in front of a computer. My main hobby outside of work is writing, which involves me... sitting in front of a computer.

Add in the fact that I'm a lousy cook. Well, that's not entirely true - if I put in the effort, I  can cook pretty well. However, I'm unlikely to put in the effort. Even though I've been a vegetarian for almost two decades, I'm far more likely to plump for a pot noodle or a pizza than I am for something healthy.

It's not necessarily that I'm lazy. I'm just not good at this stuff. I mostly started gaining weight when I quit smoking. Throw in a divorce a few years later, and I kept gaining weight over a good few years. My mother, bless her, has consistently been telling me I've lost weight every time I've seen her, in outright contradiction to all visual evidence to the contrary. This is because my mother is lovely.

Just before my thirtieth birthday, I went to the Doctors, as I'd consistently had pain in my hand for a long time. Being male, and an idiot, I put it off until the joint under my thumb swelled up visibly and painfully to the point of nausea. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. It made me feel very, very old.

If you don't know, arthritis is when joints become inflamed - my hand had become particularly inflamed, and I didn't do anything about it other than start wearing a wrist support which actually caused more harm than good. The Doctor told me to start using ibuprofen. I've always avoided pain killers where possible, but I've found that ibuprofen has become my best friend. It was actually designed for arthritis, and God, it's good. I only use it when I have to, but it does work.

Since then, the arthritis has flared up mainly around my ankle and knees. At one point, I developed a click in my knee when I was going upstairs that I swear echoed, and every time I get up from the sofa, it takes me a while to get my ankles warmed up to the point where they'll actually move.

I realised I didn't like hobbling around, and that I wasn't making things any easier by carrying around all this extra weight. I may as well generally be carrying around a full rucksack. On top of that, building up the muscles in my legs may actually help me to take the pressure off the joints. The problem is that running is quite high impact on those joints.

So recently, I've been making more of an effort. A lot of this is down to my girlfriend who has rediscovered her love of cooking, and has been cooking lots of good, healthy food. She's also been encouraging me to eat more healthily generally, but in a very non-pressured way.  It turns out that fruit and vegetables are delicious. I can only assume this will come as much as a surprise to you as it did to me.

My work does have a small gym. It's been taunting me for months, but it didn't help that I felt massively self-conscious. It's one thing to actually be willing to get into the gym, but other people around, getting to actually see how out of shape I am? No. Not good.

So I got over it. About a month ago, I started using the gym. It was kind of scary at first, because I felt ridiculous.It doesn't help that I feel like it's all kind of mystical. The exercise bike, for example, has all these different settings on it, and I don't know what most of them mean. There's something that I can only describe as a big...frame like thing, which has loads of different attachments. On top of that, there are five different dials on the shower. And besides, will I look more strange if I keep the towel tightly wrapped around me when I'm getting changed after the shower, or if I go what the Ancient Romans would call "cock out"? Is it a moment of "God, you're obviously massively uncomfortable with yourself, aren't you?" or is it a moment of "For the love of God, why did you think it was appropriate to take the towel off before putting your pants on?" - I have no idea.

I kept relatively quiet that I was going to start using the gym. Some of the guys at work were very supportive, and one of them asked me a few times if I wanted to double up at the gym, but the fact that I could use it pretty much on my own felt very important, due to the whole 'feeling ridiculous' thing. Being able to be there pretty much alone, with my MP3 player on felt more private, and while I felt uncomfortable, that seemed like a good place to start.

I found it tough going at first. Of course I did. I had to stop a few times on the bike just to be able to keep going and get water, but I did keep going. And then I went back the next day. And the next.

And it's working pretty well. I've been going a minimum of three times a week, and am aiming for four times a week most times. It gets so much easier, and just over a month later, I'm burning twice the amount of calories than I was when I started, and I've started adding in a little bit of weights and stomach crunches.

I even bought some new trainers for more general wear, so I now have a pair specifically for the gym. It probably says a lot about me that, along with comfort and fit, my main requirement for trainers was 'not something that a twat would wear'.

The scariest thing? I've found that I actually enjoy it. The weight hasn't started dropping off yet, but my ankle and knees are definitely hurting less, and I'm feeling some actual muscle in my legs, and if I squint, I think I'm losing a bit of the gut. I'm also drinking more water and eating more fruit at work. The weight will come. I know this.

I know myself too well to be able to feel comfortable saying that I'm going to be able to keep this up for the long-term. But last week, I missed a session due to a lack of towels, and I ended up actually feeling quite anxious about it, and felt so much better the next time I actually went into the gym.

Fingers crossed, this will help. Fingers crossed, I'll be able to keep it up.

I think I deserve a beer now.

Motion Blur

I was sitting in the pub, quietly sipping a pint of ale when Blur came in and sat at the table with me.

"Did you see it?" Damon asked, his eyes shining with an excitement that belied the aged skin around it.

"What, you guys at the Brits?" I asked. "I actually did. Well done, that was a good show."

"Yeah. Yeah, it was. And did you see that we're on the Olympics closing concert as well?" He asked, nudging Alex James.

"I did. Congratulations. You must be very excited."

"We are." he said. "We're totally excited. We're not messing around this time. No new stuff. Just wall to wall, balls out, classics."

I realised that I wasn't going to get to drink my ale in private, so I put it down and attempted to properly engage with the conversation.

"No new stuff?"

"None."

"I thought you wanted to write, like, new stuff all the time. Like opera."

A glimmer of sadness formed in his eyes, and he briefly looked like a little boy lost in a man's set of clothing. Much like Richard Hammond. "All I ever wanted was to speak to God," he said. "He gave me that longing."

Then he focused and the sadness was replaced with anger.

"No, not this time." he said.  "I didn't want to do it this time. The Olympics, they asked me if I would, right, but I didn't want to. Alex wants us to - "

Alex interrupted him. "I have this great idea for a new chorus. It goes 'Doo doo doo doo doooooooo....I'm loving it'".

"Shut up, Alex." Damon said. "But we're not doing it this time. We're concentrating on what works."

"That's good," I said, beginning to look for my nearest exit. Damon was looking a little bit manic.

"And do you know what the best thing is?" He asked.

"....no, Damon, I don't know what the best thing is."

"It means we win."

"You win?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding his head. "We win. You saw The Brits. You saw Noel Gallagher. Reduced to duetting with fucking Coldplay. He didn't even win Best Solo Male Artist."

"So?"

"It proves we were best. Nineteen Ninety Four, 'Country House' versus 'Roll With It'. We won then, but people thought we lost the war. Everyone was all 'oooh, Oasis, they're brilliant', but look at them now. Where are they now, eh? Nowhere, that's where."

There was a dangerous glint in his eyes that scared me.

"Do the rest of the band feel the same way?" I asked him.

"Who cares what the rest of the band felt?" he responded angrily. "Noel Gallagher, right,  didn't even win best solo artist, and then everybody cheered for us. We won. Like we should have won all the time."

"Damon," Alex said, "Wait. Think about this. If we lose all the anger at Oasis, we can just have fun again. We can project a nicer image, and maybe get corporate sponsorship, like McDonalds. And McDonalds is brilliant, isn't it Damon?"

"Shut it, cheese-fucker." Damon growled. I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows as Alex looked sadly at the ground.

"Maybe you're being a bit obsessive." I tried to say to Damon.

"Everyone's going to be saying how brilliant we are at the Olympics, while Noel Gallagher is sat outside with a piece of card saying 'I used to be relevant, why did I ever argue with Damon'. That's what he'll be doing. While I walk out as the fucking God of Brit-Pop."

"Look, you need to calm down" I said, as Damon continued to raise his voice.

"You know what my last concert is going to be? It's going to be us doing a concert on Noel Gallagher's grave. We're going to dance all over it and sing Song 2."

"I'm going to leave now," I said.

"Woo-hoo, Chris! Woo-Hoo."

As I left, Damon continued shouting "Woo-hoo", getting more and more out of breath.

Alex ran up after me. "Look, I just wanted to say..." he said. "...I don't fuck cheese. I just really like it."

"I know, Alex," I said. "I know."

Review: The Woman in Black

The movie of "The Woman in Black" is far from the first time this story has been told. Susan Hill's novel has previously been a well-received TV adaptation and the second-longest running play on the West End (behind Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap").

I went to see the stage version last month. If you're in London, I cannot recommend it enough. It's a superb, old fashioned ghost story, and elicits some genuine jumps from the audience. This is particularly impressive considering it's performed with a very small cast. It also (along with the television version) takes liberties with the original novel. In the book, the main character is an old man who tells the story about his youth. In the play, the old man is looking for advice from an actor who helps him to tell his story.

This version is far more stripped down and straightforward, which is good, because the story is fairly simple. A young lawyer goes to a remote area to work on the paperwork of a recently passed woman. While he's there, he starts being stalked by a ghost. To give much more away would be to do you a disservice.

It's not quite as strong as the stage play, but it's still a fairly fresh movie and belies it's 12A certificate by being genuinely quite frightening in places. Some may say that the jumps that are elicited are "cheap", but that's only fair when it's in a movie that doesn't have anything else to offer. The jumps in this are the punchlines to the increasing tension created by each scene - in fact, some of the moments that work best are the ones where you're expecting something to happen and nothing does.

Daniel Radcliffe is good in it, playing a man recently bereaved. He constantly looks pale and drawn out, and actually has to carry a lot of the film almost entirely by himself. In silence, no less.

To give you an idea how well this suceeds, it can be compared favourably to the movie where John Cusack spends a night being haunted by a hotel room ("1408", based on the Stephen King movie of the same name), which was interesting but flawed. Radcliffe comes off better here than John Cusack did. And I say that as a John Cusack fan. And, for that matter, a Stephen King fan.

The film looks beautiful throughout, internally and externally, and it uses darkness better than any movie since "Rec". The cinematography, the design, the lighting - all excellent. Great work by all involved, and all brought together well by veteran Horror director James Watkins.

The only major issue I have with it is that it kind of falls betwixt and between the 12A and 15 rating. It feels like it occasionally wants to be more unpleasant than it is, and I'm not massively keen on the slightly tacked-on ending. While I like the narrative turn, I think the choice made softens what should be quite a hard blow, and that felt possibly a little too intended not to upset anyone too much. It's a shame, because the ending could have been so, so effective, and it's slightly neutered.

Otherwise, though, Jane Goldman is the real star of this one. After Stardust, Kick Ass and X-Men: First Class, she's become the queen of adaptations. "The Debt" was, I believe original, and she cowrote a solid screenplay there, but I'm now massively interested to see if she can turn out something completely original and entirely in her own voice.

Overall, it's mostly successful. It's nice to see the new Hammer Studios working well with the kind of material that the original studio made its name with. Hopefully, there will be more where this came from.

The Knight in the Library

The forgotten characters sit quietly in the library. They look at each other occasionally with sad and sometimes hopeful smiles.

They are afforded privileges based on age and popularity. After all, an older, popular character has lost more than a minor character in a recent novel.

Once, some of them were loved. Once, some of them inspired people. Now, they sit there, gathering dust.

He is one of the oldest of them. A Knight, who was one of the group that inspired the Knights of Camelot. One of the group who fought alongside of the original King Arthur, but one who had failed to be recreated the second time around, and who had just grown progressively more forgotten.

Every day, he comes in, and sits patiently, hoping to be remembered. He does not complain. He does not feel sad. He is a Knight and Knights have dignity.

Also, every day, he gets to see her. The ancient African princess, who is beautiful, wise and kind. She makes every one of his days better, and the endless purgatory worthwhile. They don't talk much. Nobody talks much after so long. But they always find something new to say each day, and they always make eye contact, and he can always make her smile.

She likes to see him. Some days, that's all that matters.

Today, he waits, and she does not come.

He looks around the library, but she is nowhere. He talks to the world's first detective (a fat Chinese man who laughs a lot) and he talks to the golden calf (that spoke to Eve in the garden and became so popular that God himself got annoyed) but neither of them know why. But neither of them care as much as he does.

The Knight has only rarely spoken to the Librarian. There has never been any need. But today, he clears his throat and enquires after the princess.

"Oh, her? Got rediscovered", the Librarian says. "Some fantasy writer sort of updated her, and the book came out this week. Very good reviews. There may even be a movie. You won't see her back again."

The knight thanks the librarian, and makes his way back to his normal chair, where he sits and waits.

He looks at her chair, but it is empty.

He waits.

And waits.

Waits.

And waits.

Patiently.