New Short Story - The War Copy

The war, 1944. The blitz. The bombs are falling, London lies in ruin and smoke pours through every street. A girl rushes past, fourteen or so, and fear is written on her face, she clutches the hand of a sandy haired four year old, he tugs a teddy behind him. She pulls him forwards, whispering in his ear that every thing will be okay when her face clearly suggests otherwise.
They take a sharp turn and come into a narrow alleyway, and then out and up a steep slope. They stop at the top and gasp for breath. The scruffy teddy slips from the boy’s hands and then down the slope and back into the dark, eerie alleyway. With a cry of despair, the small boy runs down the slope and into the darkness.
“ALFIE!” the young girl shrieks, “Alfie, NO!”
And then the small boy appears, smiling. He holds up the teddy.
“ Found Mr Ted. Loo-”
And then he disappears in the reds and oranges and noise. The explosion obliterates him. The girl runs forwards and searches for the teddy. When she finds it, she sits cross-legged on the street, and allows the tears to stream down her face, her dark eyes empty.


London, 2008. Southwark.
Charlie decided that archaeology was dull work, no matter how hard his dad tried to interest him, he remained unconvinced, he had gone on work shops and countless digs with his dad since the age of five, he was eleven now and he hadn’t found a single treasure, he glared at the hole that cost him sweat and hard work. And then he saw something dirty and matted-looking, half covered with soil. He lent down and pulled out the object: it was a very scruffy teddy. He had found something! He went round the house to find his thirteen year old sister sitting on the pavement eating her breakfast. Obviously she had had one of her many arguments with mum and dad, they were always arguing.
He showed her the teddy and saw that she seemed unusually interested so he smiled smugly.
“Wow!” she exclaimed, un-noticing of his smug face, “can’t believe you finally found something, from the war! And there I was thinking you’d disappoint dad!” she pointed at a tag that he hadn’t noticed before:


He raced to his room. HE HAD A REAL WAR ARTEFACT! He gave it place of honour on his TV.
That night, with thoughts of his artefact and suchlike, he wriggled down in his bed, smiling. Until he saw the figure sitting on the end of his bed, she was translucent and ghostly. She turned her head to look at him,
“Alfie?” she asked in a whisper, she lent over to touch him but disappeared just seconds before she made conact.
In the morning, the first he did was to throw the blasted, haunted teddy out. But when he opened the door to go to bed the teddy was there again, staring at him with those same empty plastic eyes… he threw it out of the window and finally nodded off. But then, in the middle of the night, he woke up again to see the ghost sitting on the end of the bed, she lent over and her mouth formed the same words as the night before: Alfie? But no sound came out, he recoiled and again she disappeared. When he looked in the morning, he saw the teddy was back, but this time he was on a pile of books next to the TV…
These nightly visits became part of his routine and he almost felt worried when the girl was late, but there was this thing that made him just slightly uneasy; each night, the teddy seemed to come slightly closer to his bed, he told himself that he was imagining things and he just put the teddy back firmly to the top of the TV where it belonged but still…
One night though, it was different. He woke up, as expected, at midnight but the lady was not yet there, his eyes darted to his wardrobe where the teddy had been the last night but it was not there, it was on his bedside cabinet. He put it back firmly on the TV and decided to read until the lady came. When she did though, she seemed much more real. She lent over, as always, but she didn’t stop, her hand was millimetres away from his cheek and still coming closer, she wasn’t going to stop… but then she disappeared, he heaved a sigh of relief and turned over, but this was a mistake, the teddy was inches away from his face… it’s paw rose… and it touched him.
There was nothing but darkness, until the alleyway came into focus. An alleyway, at least, that’s what it seemed to be. Two figures ran past him: a teenager and her little brother, just like the one who had brought him here. A few minutes later he heard a voice above the many bangs that were happening around the place:
“ALFIE! NO!”
The boy had run back down but he hadn’t seemed to notice Charlie.
He picked up something and then disappeared to the other side of the alleyway again.
“Found Mr Ted. Loo-”
It was then that the world exploded.
When Charlie’s dad came to bury the hole that he and Charlie had dug a few weeks ago he found a pile of bones wearing Charlie’s pyjamas…
By Chloe Kirk

New Poetry - The Warming Symptoms of Sunburn

A rosy Friday afternoon,
Like the glowing symptoms of sunburn.
Excited I reach for a loyal hair band, lip balm,
Your present in crinkled brown paper. Quickly,
Smiling I shut the door – a dull slam,
Yellowing light of the retiring week.
I gain the pavement – steep, unkempt.
On past a place of painfully cheery past times,
All of which you witnessed, none of which you saw.
The clutter and bunching of leafy park trees
Pressing on against the sturdy iron railings
While giving structure, keeping order
They never keep the chubby children
From the relish of the tarmac playground.
Around the round about now, impatiently I shuffle
Through track after track – bored of inner chattering monologue
I anticipate ours.
The penultimate house – still square, still solid
But not yours
The creamy green of two glossy doors
The memory of a great tree stretching to the sky in previous years
Now merged in my mind
– Gone now the giant still holds a presence.
The rubber round button against my finger tip, patiently
I pause – you, always late but always there:
“Tea?”
By Olive Mackintosh