Discourse Between Two Spontaneous Geographers

(As Social and Media Officer AND a Geography student…my cover is officially blown. Yes, the colouring pencils are just a cover for our psychopathic tendancies and complete naivety! Enjoy this little piece by James Barnes – a History student! :-O)

Here follows the dialogue between two middle aged English geographers who have been called abruptly into existence on a bus and are forced to confront this with what little sensory experience they have of the world. One of them is also naturally a bit grumpy.

 

1: Woah! What?! What’s happening? What am I?

 

2: I don’t know. Who am I? Where am I?

 

1: I don’t know either! I don’t know either! (flaps arms around and accidentally hits own face) Ouch! What are these?!

 

2: I have some too.

 

1: Right well then wow! This is all pretty sudden. How should we react to this world we find ourselves in?

 

2: I’m not sure, but however we do it I…I feel it should somehow involve tectonic plates or longshore drift or something. I have no idea what those things are. Are you feeling that?

 

1: What is ‘feeling’?

 

2: I also feel that I want you to stop talking as I don’t like you. (no prizes for spotting the grumpy one) I have no idea what that means or is either.

 

1: Ok well I’m sure we’re not going to get very far with that attitude, after all this is our first glimpse at reality as somehow compounded by fundamental physical rules and dimensions which-

 

2: Please stop talking.

 

1: Right ok. (long pause) (the old lady at the back of the bus who has been having a heart attack since this all started finally dies) (another long pause) Ok well I hate to go on about it but I really think this isn’t a very positive approach. I feel a sudden urge to do a survey on how people feel about us and how our spontaneous creation has affected them.

 

2: Will it involve rock sampling?

 

1: (after thinking) No I don’t think it will.

 

2: I’m out then.

 

1: Ok, I’ll start with her. (walks over to dead old woman and begins to ask her multiple choice questions about urbanisation as he does not yet understand the concept of death) (by this point it should be obvious that 2 is a physical geographer, whereas 1 clearly specialises more in the ‘human’ area)

 

Single Mother: (having just walked down from the top floor of the bus) Oh my god! Those two naked men have killed that old woman!

 

1: What’s naked? Does that mean clothes? What are clothes?

 

2: If we do have to wear clothes I feel compelled to request that they are corduroy.

 

1: Cords sounds more informal.

 

2: Yes agreed, cords it is. (to woman) What is cords?

 

Single Mother: Ahhhh! You’ve really killed her!

 

1: (presumably thinking ‘killed’ is what he was just doing to the old woman, i.e.: asking her multiple choice questions about urbanisation) Yes I did, do you want me to kill you? (Single Mother faints) Ah excellent! (now assuming that loss of consciousness is a prerequisite to being asked multiple choice questions about urbanisation) This is all going fairly well considering. How are you feeling?

 

2: I’m feeling pretty cynical about the whole thing if I’m honest.

 

1: Well not to worry, after all, we still don’t know what feeling is, and shouldn’t start worrying about-

 

Bus Driver: What the hell is going on?! (has leaned head out of booth, has slammed on breaks) When did you two get on? What have you done to these women?!

 

1: (to Bus Driver) Killed them.

 

2: (to Bus Driver) Do you get many earthquakes around here?

 

1: (to Bus Driver) Well I was about to kill this one.

 

Bus Driver: My god…you’re…you’re insane! What have you done, you monsters!

 

2: Yes or no on the earthquakes then?

 

Bus Driver: Get off my bus! (pushes the geographers off the bus and pulls hurriedly away)

 

2: Where are we now? (they are in Swindon)

 

1: I don’t know, but instantly I’m finding the distribution of council resources very interesting. (he also clocks the width of the cycle lanes, but does so without realising he’s doing it) What do you think about it?

 

2: Can you see any tornadoes?

 

1: No.

 

2: Then I think it’s wank.

 

 

 

Sweet Words on a Bitter Winter Night

Can you think of a better way to hide from a windy, cold November night, and forget the mid-term blues by listening to a troupe of wordsmiths articulating their thoughts, the profound and the close to the heart? If you can, you clearly didn’t come to the Poetry Open Mic on the twentieth of November. Even before the event began, the buzz raised in the air like a little pocket of summer around the microphone; words sparked as-you-wait!

Many new faces and insights came forwards that night, with a marked proportion signing up on the spot. Whether it was curiosity, or bullying (certainly wasn’t me!), they prised open their locked books and exposed to us some exquisite and surprising poetry; a ponder upon the influence of bruising upon ones character, to the richness of a goddess stalking the night like a wildcat, to the insipidity of some people (cue lots of sighs and tutting). It was truly marvellous to have new voices leading new faces into our open mic night. Familiar faces provide guaranteed entertainment, but sometimes they need to be challenged by new arrivals with fresh ideas and outlooks.

That said, we must not forget our regular faithfuls who in some cases raised a reaction from the crowd just by their name being announced. They do say that the mark of a good entertainer is one that entertains just by existing. Very few people achieve this. What is often more achievable, however, is the sense of overinflating an ego somewhat…

From plodding through History in the most novel way since Back to the Future to mesmerising music, not only did the faithfuls welcome the newcomers to the fold, they showed signs of developing as poets.

And to crown the (k)night so he became King, in the words of the Poetry Society President Jenn Hart, “Ben Lawrence graced the stage and lulled his audience with bitter-sweet verses and romantic comedy. His genuine take on everyday life stitched together with lessons on growing up, girls in libraries and fruit and veg shops. Punched with puns and hilarious metaphors, the crowd lapped up his smooth deliverance and urged for more as the night came to a close.”

What, as everyone began to leave for the night, did everyone take home from the evening? Apart from a jolly mood from the beautiful words and the open bar next to the open mic (well, poets are very liberal!), a sense of a spiritual inspiration settled amongst the crowd. Perhaps one should not take everything at face value. Perhaps in the rush that is university life, we should sit down and just observe. Take time to describe what you see, hear and feel.

Even if you are Ben Lawrence and spying on a girl in the library.

Doll – Roxanne Johnson

Porcelain doll so pretty, stone cold skin

Smiling demurely at you but she’s empty within.

She was born into her dress of finest lace and silk

With blood red lips, apricota cheeks and complexion smooth as milk.

 

Ask her what she’s thinking and you will only find her mute

So sit her down upon your shelf and tell her she is cute!

Her perfection is egg fragile; artificial soul,

Blank expression on her face revealing she’s not whole

 

She dully gazes at you with two unseeing eyes

If she were to break fall and smash she’d show you no surprise.

A crack runs through her forehead she cannot bleed nor cry,

Because this Ivory girl is already dead inside.

The Curse of Marilyn Monroe – Jenn Hart

Before television was in technicolour,

Before VHS, the reduction of dress

And in the wake of the western women’s ambitions

That stretched further than the kitchen.

 

Through the millionaires, the monkeys,

The seedy neighbour downstairs, trickled

Down to black and white trash. Pin up

To the overweight and stuck in a pitied state

Of pop art and screenplay.

 

Behind those puckered lips breath

crept to the chest, to the heart,

Punctured, cracked, sunken and shallow.

Those come-to-bed eyes that were really

Just please-love-me cries.

The roles, the papers, the speech therapists,

Praises sung, stung with bitterness.

 

“Happy Birthday, Mr President,

I’m desperate and sick,

Really, just a stupid bitch,

Happy Birthday to you,

You might as well shoot.“

 

Norma Jean died alone,

And left the curse of Marilyn Monroe.

This is far too obvious – Christina Wilkins

I could bury it in metaphors;

Euphemise or devise a new

Device to alter the inalterable

Fact. That when it comes to

Our demise, we’re the only

Species acutely aware of our

Imminent death. We can attempt

To subvert, or sublimate the

Urge, or drive, we have – careering

Towards the end, hell-bent on

Outliving the worst. and still,

The ultimate event remains

A finality, an unspoken word.

However we choose to dress it up,

There’ll always be that pause,

A gasp, before the ceasing of breath.

House – Jenn Hart

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed
the little ringing, the singing of silence
sitting soundless in the air.

It’s like static, as I stand below the attic,
Or was once the attic and is now just a
ragged skyline with the faint smell of
petrol and the lasting fraquence of piss.

One hundred years ago this place was
grand, great and smothered in luxury.
The owners then were straight backed
laced and up, tossing back another wine.

Fifty years ago the plumbing went; the electrics too
The house aged, paged with sixteen layers of wallpaper,
each to represent another occupant, one more memento
as the ‘you remember that big old house we lived in once…’

Two years ago it was the last resort, the only place,
Aching from walking and carrying my life
I watched it’s depressing lurge in daylight.
At night, I crept in, a nest full of mess of someone before.

One year, nine months I grew up
rough, tough and rich with lip.
I became the hunter, gathering meager eats
to feast on in the fireplace.

It’ll soon get condemned, and then it’ll be the end
Of The house with the history, mystery, creaking in decrepit misery.
The family house of the nobles, the normals and the nowheres.

Dressed Up as Life – Oliver Cooper

I.

“So, how do I look?” she asks.

And she flashes herself a smile.

“With your eyes, I’d expect,” he desponds after a while.

“Now none of that,” she snaps. “I’ve had enough of your lip.”

“I don’t have lips,” he mumbles, (and he thinks maybe he should flip

her the bird every time she looks away,

But then he’d drop the mirror, and it would shatter, and anyway,

She never looks anywhere but in that pane of glass –

that pain in the arse – if he had an arse – that he’d carried long past

its welcome, in his thin, unshaking grasp.)

 

His bones itch. He says so.

“My bones itch!” he groans.

“Bones don’t itch,” she replies, in her condescending tones,

“and anyway, you look handsome, so just … stand there! Keep it still!”

And he’ll stand there, looking handsome, in his itchy suit, until

she stops her admiring – whenever that will be –

and settles on retiring – at which point he’ll be free.

“Just kill me now.”

 

“Uh! Men!” she sighs.

“I’m not a man,” he replies. “I used to be, but—”

He stops and waves a hand between his thighs.

“Hold still!” she snaps. “Or I’ll get it all wrong.”

And she cries out in frustration as she drops her sparkling thong.

“Have I got nothing to wear?! Where are all my clothes?!”

“You’re wearing them,” he mutters. “They’re right beneath your nose.”

And as she stands there naked, he fiddles with his clothes.

“I used to have a nose … I used to have a nose.”

 

II.

She tries another outfit, flashing each a smile.

And he stands there, feeling itchy, as she takes another while.

He watches as she dresses and undresses from her dresses,

And regales the finer details of messing up one’s tresses

for that windswept look, which is “absolutely necessary,”

she says. “It’s what the young people wear this time of year.”

“You could always go outside,” he says, but the words escape her ear.

Though for a while her flashing smiles are fewer in the mirror.

She administers her poison with a knife that points with poise onto

her cheeks and her throat, and bleeds a hinting, blushing rose

of red, “a little colour,” or so she always said,

“or else one runs the risk of looking all-together dead!”

 

He eyes the alabaster skin she took out on a loan,

Stretching all too thin across her thin and pallid bones,

Eyes her with his sockets, those empty holes he owns,

Knowing that she’s dying, and knowing that she knows.

And for all the wordless words that might escape his tongueless tongue,

She chokes herself with powder to fill her powdered lungs.

“How much longer—,” he wonders, “How much longer ‘til she’s done?”

 

III.

She stops.

It’s raining again.

She can see it on the glass.

It’s dribbling down her eyes.

There to linger, not to last.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

In the crimson hourglass.

But this time it’s a downpour.

This time it might last.

“How do I look?” she whispers.

And she flashes him a smile.

“Like one of us,” he whispers back, and he stays there for a while,

Just watching her through sockets, forgetting how to smile,

Before his fingers come away and strike the bathroom tiles.

 

She steps out of the mirror. She holds her scarlet knife.

Dressed up as the living.

Dressing up as life.

McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse Gets Laid Off- James Barnes

It was a very awkward moment for everyone, frankly. Alonso and Sixtus were given the job and neither was particularly keen. ‘Ok,’ said Sixtus to Alonso while adjusting his hat, ‘let’s just get this bloody over with.’ From the other side of the door they heard the secretary’s voice, mumbled and a little grossed. ‘Thank you, Mr McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse, you can go in now.’ The door creaked open and in shuffled McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse, the broken ankle bone of his left foot jutting out awkwardly from a tattered brogue and scrapping against the floor like fingernails on a chalk-board. ‘Alonso, you sonuva  bitch! How’ya doin’ eh?’ Old glooping McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse looked dreadful and had done since the resurrection. His three-piece pinned in scrabbling rips and xenophobe liver and lungs. The black-list donned his pocked as a bigoted kerchief, ready to wipe up the supposed messes of the Earth and blow the nose of God. ‘Ugh…’ Sixtus mumbled under his breath. ‘Sixtus! You put on weight, my man! Hope you ain’t gettin’ sloppy, heh-heh!’ He winked at Sixtus, but his eyelid yielded to gravity and slipped to his tie.

 

‘Yes hello McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse,’ said Alonso, keen to finish fast, ‘how are you?’ ‘Hell I’m better than I ever been!’ replied McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse, laughing loads, ‘I love being with this agency! So much freedom! So many facilities! Not like the 50’s. Couldn’t bash a queer without some hippy breathing down your neck. Fuckin’ reds had the government on drugs by the end, Christ. But not now, eh! You boys sure do know how to handle and investigation! Can’t imagine I’ll ever leave!’

 

‘Yes well, that’s actually why we called you in,’ ‘Oh yeah?’ ‘Yes well, look McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse, we just think that…that maybe the Spanish Inquisition isn’t quite for you anymore.’ ‘Don’t quite catch your drift there, Sixy.’ His eyes bulged and pussed with worry and confusion. ‘It’s time for you to move on.’ There was a super awkward silence. McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse subtly cried out a bit of his brain; it fizzed. ‘I…I don’t understand. I’ve been ‘ere for years. I’ve tortured witches! I’ve burned gays and such! I’ve spent entire days feedin’ Complete Arthur Miller hardbacks into a woodchipper!’ ‘Look!’ Alonso stepped in, ‘we thought this would work! Honestly, McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse, procuring your dead rotted carcass and pumping it full with the power of a thousand suns to gift you this new racist lifeblood really did seem like a good idea at the time. But it’s over now. You’re just so…rude. You’re brash, McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse, you shock us. And to be fair we here at the Spanish Inquisition really do take some shocking.’

 

To this day McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse can be seen trudging round the same local bars, blithering away to people and shouting ‘Are you or have you ever been a member of the Spanish Inquisition? Well I have, motherfuckers!’ Poor old McCarthy’s Reanimated Corpse, he really hadn’t expected it.

Here- Christina Wilkins

No doubt every city has its downsides,

Murky streets where unkempt gardens leer,

And people stumble, drunk. But here, I’m 

Struggling to find a silver lining.

Perhaps it’s the design; buildings clash,

Glum squares protrude, morphing the skyline.

They’ve boxed us in; past city walls,

Densely packed and almost overrun.

It’s not London. The streets are riddled

With litter and spit, but I guess that’s

The case for many an urban landscape.

And they say people make a place yet

All I see is an endless sea of faces and 

Few smiles. I’ve heard others say that

They see the place as grey. Or, yes,

There are parts worth the sum, but

Each and every one has its replica

Elsewhere. So for the loyal few, apologies.

But I’d rather be anywhere but here.

That One Time We Took All The Anger In The World And Put It In A Gnome- James Barnes

You should have been there this one time when we took all the anger in the world and put it in a gnome. You really should have been there, it was so funny. The whole world should have been there, it was that funny.

We found him mucking about in a bush. He was trotting around platting mushrooms or something. We knew then he’d be perfect for it. We grabbed him by his dungarees (which were yellow) and he kicked and screamed. You really should have been there. He started shouting, ‘put me down!’ he said ‘put me down!’ His voice was really annoying, but also funny. ‘What are you doing!?’ he shouted, but we just laughed. We weren’t going to tell him.

God you should have been there this one time we put all the hatred in the world into a gnome. The process was actually really easy. All we had to do was hold him up in front of someone and say ‘there you go’ and the anger would just sort of drift over. It was so funny, every time we did it the gnome would get more and more pissed off and his little legs would kick about faster and faster, and the thing is that every time we did it, whoever did it, looked loads…happier. I think. I certainly felt better. Anyway he got really heated and started dashing about, all bumping into things and stuff. He started shouting ‘what have you done to me?! you monsters!’ and we just laughed at him.

Soon enough word got round the whole world and all we had to do was plug him into a computer. Basically some guy in…Silicone Valley I think, in the US, had created a programme or an app or something where you could just click and drag all your hatred and contempt. So what we did was we took all this distain and surplus bitter passion and plugged him in and yeah. Just synced him.

God you should have been there this one time when we uploaded all the anger in the world into a gnome. He was really boiling over by this point anyway, and then someone like, took his pointy hat and that. just. did it. He started to stamp his feet and jump up and down and swear loads and we all pissed ourselves because him saying like ‘oh shit!’ and ‘balls!’ was really funny coming from a gnome. And he punched the air and kicked things and kicked a fire hydrant, which hurt his toe and he was hopping about going ‘oh fuck my toe fuck!’ I didn’t even know we had them in this country. Fire hydrants I mean…not…not gnomes.

Anyway then Paul came over, with his mate, and Paul’s a bit of a dick. And he said ‘what are you doing?’ and we said, you know, ‘we’ve taken all the anger in the world and we’ve put it in a gnome,’ and he said ‘that’s stupid’ and we said ‘why?’ and he said ‘well because you’ve blatantly created a Frankenstein’s daemon that, in manifesting every blemish of the human condition, will through its own faculty and omnipotence, indirectly or directly, obliterate your souls’ and his mate said ‘yeah that’s gay’ and we said ‘it’s not gay…it’s really funny…piss off Paul…’

Anyway you really should have been there this one time we took all the anger in the world and put it in a gnome. When we’d got all the anger in we…aww where to start? Well we used him as a rugby ball for like…eight days. And then we set it up like a profile on this dating website where it said ‘what are you interested in’ and we put ‘men’ and so he kept getting added by all like gay gnomes and that really annoyed him, you know, because he like girl gnomes. And then we went out and got small model plane (it was expensive but worth it) and it was just big enough to fit him in and we flew him up into the air and he was all like ‘get me down from here! ahh!’ and you could still here him from up there. And we got in the car and drove, with me out the window with the controls, and we drove aaaaaaaaall the way from Brighton to Falmouth, which is near Exeter. And we drove all the way back again, always laughing, him in tears, and then we just crashed him into the ocean. My mate said we should crash him into a wall but I thought that would have been a bit harsh.

Anyway he sort of got washed up and staggered onto the beach. God he was exhausted. And he went up onto the pavement and collapsed. He was all puffed out. We went towards him but he was quite still. I think he’d just taken too much…poor little bastard. Everyone else got bored and went away but I stayed. I went up to him, you know, to check, and yeah he was dead. And looking at him lying there, like a…crippled ball of torture or a dead puppy, I couldn’t help think that…that maybe we’d done the wrong thing. I mean I dunno because after that the world did enjoy eons of peace trade and goodwill…and it was really funny.

You should have been there this one time we took all the anger in the world and put it in a gnome. You really should have been there. I think you had to be there.