We hope you’ve all enjoyed your holidays last December, but now it’s time to let it go!
As you know, we chose to celebrate by posting various creative pieces relating to the theme of Winter. Here are the links to the various short stories and poems we’ve shared on our website for you:
Poems
Christmas Eve, by Kristina Adams
Tradition, by Drew Cross
Wasted, by Kristian Elliott
Short Stories
Christmas Eve, by Paul Adey
The Bone-Filled Basket, by Michaela Panaretou
2014 was a year of challenges and successes.
From January to September the Restless Minds team worked tirelessly to establish the anthology!
09/10/2014 – We had our book launch! (Check out the videos Part 1, 2, 3, 4). We even sold out on the night, a feat never achieved by any MA anthology before!
18/10/2014 – Along came Nottingham Festival of Words where we organised our second print run!
31/10/2014 – For Halloween the Restless Minds Team had many creative treats for all:
12/11/2014 – Kicking off Jazz & Poetry Night, with Four in the Bar, Mathew Sweeney and Cathy Grindrod, was a lot of fun!
29/11/2014 – Many members of the Restless Minds team graduated from Nottingham Trent University!
11/12/2014 – Restless Minds was invited to Speak Your Mind #2 (run by Dagda Publishing). Check out the videos (Part 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5 ,6).
Then winter came and left but not without some holiday themed treats.
You’ve seen our many faces and listened to what we’ve had to say.
But most importantly you’ve bought our book, read our creative pieces, and supported us throughout.
– 206 Likes on Facebook.
– 114 Followers on Twitter.
– 200+ views on YouTube.
– 3.1k+ Hits on WordPress.
And all four are still climbing!
2014 was a fantastic year for Restless Minds and we hope to make 2015 even better. Thank you for all your support and please stick with us as we have more events planned and a few more surprises to unveil. Happy 2015 to you all!
Don’t forget, copies of Restless Minds are available from Five Leaves Bookshop and The Bookcase!
The bones rattled against the woven framework of the basket. It clattered a comforting rhythm that matched the girl’s pace as she moved further into the woods. The road was long and dark before her but it was not endless. Everything was finite, just as the previous holders of these noisy fragments proved. She too was finite. And that was fine. She wasn’t going to die tonight anyway. She had a delivery to make and her consumer did not like to be kept waiting.
The soft satin of her shoes sunk slightly in the damp bracken, making a wet sticking sound whenever she lifted a foot. She’d be scolded for sure when she returned, for wearing expensive shoes out on a job. They had glimmered at her, soft and vibrant and inviting with their long ribbons carelessly arranged over the edge of their box and she just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them behind. They wanted to be worn just like Rouge half-wanted some incident to happen on her journey so it would last all the longer.
Night-time air always did make her restless and she risked a glance up through the red cap of her hair and caught the moon staring back at her. Hastily, she dropped her gaze, keeping her eyes firmly locked on the path ahead again. Mother had always warned her not to do that. She’d disobeyed once or twice when she’d been younger and rebellious and didn’t know any better. She knew now.
Moon fever was more than just speculation – in her at least, it tended to produce severe hallucinations and other nasty side effects such as hearing voices where there were none to be found and a strange sinister desire for something dark and earthy and not-quite-alive.
Rouge didn’t fear much, but she knew better than to invite danger to court her – impulsive she might be, but she had no death wish. She did not look up again and thankfully the deeper into the trees she traversed, the more that glowing orb above was blocked. She felt its light dim like a physical presence; a faint bristling of the hairs on the back of her neck that slowly ceased. Perhaps she should have waited until morning to make the delivery, but she didn’t see why the night should be closed to her simply because of a few dangers.
The hand holding the basket had grown stiff and rigid from the cold air and clumsily she switched hands. A single bone, long and thin like that of a femur, escaped the wickerwork and rolled away off the path. She glared at it for a second, as if willing it to hop back to her through thought alone. Then, she sighed and rested the laden basket gently beside her on the path. Lifting up her skirts, Rouge then did the one thing she had always promised her mother not to do.
She left the path.
It was darker here somehow, as if without having that clear route laid out before her, everything remaining was obscured and uneven. She blinked, hoping her eyes would readjust. The bone she could see though, a faint chalky shape in the blackness, and she headed for that. It had rolled further away than she must have realised. Rouge bit her lip and looked back to where she’d left the basket – and couldn’t see it.
Where’s the path? It was right there. Only, it quite clearly wasn’t. She shivered then, feeling the sudden chill and unfriendliness of the forest around her. It was deathly quiet and though she was used to silence, she couldn’t help but wish for some noise now just to confirm that the world was still moving on around her. A bird or an insect buzzing by her ear, or even the faraway sound of a woodcutter plying his trade.
And then, faintly, and only because she was listening so very hard for it, she could make out a rushing sound as of something moving fast. Yet, by the consistency of the noise she sensed this was not just an animal blundering along after having dropped off the path too. The sound became louder when she moved tentatively closer towards the lost bone.
Here the sound was a roar of motion that fairly rippled through the air in front of her. The air here smelt fresh and vaguely… weed-like? She bent down quickly to grasp at the bone, the sooner to be away again. Her fingers however passed straight through it and she pulled them back swiftly from the sudden icy sensation. They were wet.
She frowned and patted her hand dry on her shirt. The bone had dissipated at her touch and now, as she stared at the darker blackness there, the glow reappeared. The shape was altered this time though, not long and fragile but more rounded. I didn’t know a river ran through this forest, Rouge thought.
She shrugged and turned to go, knowing the bone was likely lost to the watery depths by now and she’d be better off returning to her remaining load. The path couldn’t be that far away – she had surely just not seen it at first. Then, she stopped, her curiosity caught by the glowing shape in the water, which was if anything stronger than ever. She leant in closer, eyes narrowed to try and determine what it was. She must have been staring at it for about a minute, incomprehensible, before she realised with a horrible jolt it was reflecting the moon.
Rouge cursed and stumbled back, her too-soft shoes giving way at last under the mud and pulling her down in an ungainly pile. Her eyes were wide, unblinking. She tried to look away, but remained frozen, locked onto the ghastly lunar image. Her lips formed a small sound of protest and then, she was lost to it. Lost to the destruction, the claws and the hot panting breath as she sucked in the stenches of the forest around her. To the tearing and rending of flesh as it fell so effortlessly to her endless, biting hunger. Lost to the manic, unbounded glee of it all.
Lost to it… or should she say, gave in to it. For this too was Rouge, wasn’t it? She thought through the fever. More Rouge perhaps than the Rouge who was afraid to step off the path, to disobey her mother, to be late with her deliveries. Fear seemed no more than a distant memory now, a conjured illusion in the corner of her mind.
When she came to again in her sodden shoes and mud-streaked skirts, she could still taste the redness on her lips and delicately, she licked it away. There, unstained for the most – the clothes could be replaced, but her face should show no sign of the escapade.
It was morning now and pleasantly she found the path again quite easily. She felt happier than she had when she’d set out the night before and cheerfully kicked off the remains of her expensive shoes. Her bare feet stepped sure-footedly forward as she picked up the basket. Then, with a sudden remembrance, she dug a hand into the pocket of her apron and withdrew a ragged handful of bones, dripping still with tendrils of meat. Dropping them into the basket to join the musical banter of their cousins, she smiled.
She had a delivery to make still, and surely she would be all the more rewarded for bringing extra rather than the requested amount.
This short story by Michaela is not in the Restless Minds anthology. Check out Michaela’s bio here.
Shoppers scurry to grab last-minute over-priced tat
whilst sales advisors all wish they were home
drinking mulled wine and eating mince pies,
not being suffocated by the procrastinators.
This poem by Kristina is not in the Restless Minds anthology. Check out Kristina’s bio here.
See coloured lights in the thick black river, not
Gingerbread lattes, black Friday bruises,
A frenzy of shoppers grown savage and clawed.
Random acts of kindness to strangers, not
Your five-star fucking African cruises,
Those fumbling mistletoe gropes you ignored.
It’s cold crushing breath into ghost-grey clouds,
The overdue cemetery flower treks,
The guilt-invited old relative roused
To rowdy remembrance of the long dead.
It’s gratitude given that you’re still around
To fill up that glass and see they’re toasted.
The year-end does not belong to bought things,
It’s time to reflect on all your blessings.
This poem by Drew is not in the Restless Minds anthology. Check out Drew’s bio here.
Two twenty-five. We wait until our eyelids are heavy. Then we duck out of mum’s front window. Woolly hats, hoodies and backpacks.
The dark worlds we take to are the frosted blue back roads; the canals and alleyways. Silent footpaths engulfed by neon yellow lamp light.
Reaching the bridge, safe under many layers, we ditch the bags and begin. My arm works in wide curved angles from hip to shoulder, then strikes downwards in sharp, vertical slashes. I hear the hissing of his can whenever I pause for judgment, stopping momentarily to survey the crude outlines. He works from memory, freestyle almost. But I always work from previous drawings as reference. I drop my tattered A4 paper design onto the quiet road against the wall, and follow the patterns on a times ten scale. I swap cans, going back for the blue, exploding colour onto the empty faded white blocks in the brickwork. We pepper the freezing empty night with the sweet smell of aerosol paint. No chit chat. My index finger is numb from pressing the cap down, a silvery blue layer of paint has formed on my nail and dribbles down to my knuckle.
Before the final outlines are completed, we climb above. We pull on Bensons in the dark and watch the early world blinking. Hunger begins to set in from under my heightened sense of awareness. I meditate on the final colour for my last fill in, and study the long empty tracks leading into town.
As we manoeuvre back down to our brick wall canvasses, a trio of blue and orange Volvo’s pull up in swift silence; violently breaking in front of the still wet paint work. We leave the bags. He runs faster than me. I see his slim silhouette making jagged shapes on the train tracks ahead, his breath billowing out in white clouds around the back of his neck. Then he is gone, and all I can hear are the dogs barking and the shouts of men behind us. The bitter cold air rushes into my ears and I want to laugh. I sprint across the tracks amongst the frozen white overgrowth and never look back.
After a while the dogs and voices fade, so I jut out sideways, clambering down the angles toward the six foot fence separating the tracks from the street. With my legs caught in bramble bushes and my veins filled with adrenaline, I grasp at the fence post and whip over the top. Dropping behind a disused car wash. Quiet ice greys and neon yellows. Calm is restored. I settle my breath and make a b-line for the back road, but there is one open high street to get across first. As I venture closer to the crossing, a shining white bumper comes into view, its license plate followed by orange and blue fluorescent decals. The lights aren’t flashing, instead it is dead silent. Parked.
If I step back into the shadows I’m guilty, if I walk into the road I’m caught. Either way, I’m within ear and eye shot of them, so I keep moving. I decide to ignore their existence. I get halfway across the wide street, then I’m onto the pavement, and moments later I’m into the side road. The squad car behind me must have been empty.
I’m sprinting again. Thinking about the window left ajar at mums, all the evidence I have at home, whether he would tell them my name if they caught him, how Christmas is fucked. Next moment I’m climbing back into the living room, no backpack and no explanation. Dodging the presents and the tree. I’m stripping off and scrubbing my hands raw, tip-toeing to my room. Then I’m opening my chest of draws and pulling out all my artwork, years of work. My designs and my logos and my blueprints. Hours and hours of colourful, painstaking craftsmanship. And I’m tearing it up. Crumpling A3 page sketches and crushing poster designs. Anything incriminating is shredded out of pure, pathetic paranoia. All my ideas and hard work in tatters, but at least if they come calling they won’t find my hands dirty.
Next day my nose and throat are filled with painter’s flu. As we exchange presents my mind spins through the previous night’s narrow escape, and my heart sinks. All my art and my hope. My life’s work in a big bag. Destroyed for nothing.
This short story by Paul is not in the Restless Minds anthology. Check out Paul’s bio here.
The holidays are fast approaching and this December the Restless Minds Team have a special treat for all our awesome readers.
Like we did for Halloween, all this month winter holiday themed short stories and poems, written by our talented contributors, will be uploaded onto the website. Except this time, we are dedicating not one week but the entire month to our contributors’ unpublished work.
So stay tuned as your favourite Restless Minds writer may post something special for you to read.
Happy Holidays!
Restless Minds 