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The toy creature…by Eilidh Brown

Deep beneath the city streets,
Where sewer rats and roaches creep,
There lives a very different kind,
Of creature, than would spring to mind.

Its body, ooh, what a sight to behold,
Created from toys, you called old.
And threw away, with not a thought,
To how loved they were, when newly bought:

Armless Barbies, tailless dogs,
Eyes made out of crisp packet Pogs,
Wheelless cars and aeroplane kits,
Legs made out of jigsaw bits.

Night by night, the creature strengthens,
Collecting toys, it stretches, lengthens.
It grows with dragging, clunking hops,
To warn NEW toys in your favourite shops,

So next time when you throw away,
A toy, you got back in the day,
Remember, what I've said to you,
And love that toy as if it’s new.

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5478 days

I've always been interested by death. Some people have told me that's morbid, others that it's just plain weird. But I think that, as we're all going to die at some point, we may as well be informed.
I've read about loads of things to do with death. Famous last words, stupid ways to die, murders committed by the most unlikely people. I guess I aoways thought, if I could read enough about death, I might one day understand it.
Like I said, I know I've got to die at some point; I just never thought it would be this soon. I've lived for 15 years. That's 5,478 days, or 131,472 hours. And now I've been told I've only got months left – a year if I'm lucky. That's the word the doctor used – LUCKY. I felt like jumping up and shaking her, like, what kind of a person woul tell a girl, on her 15th birthday, that she'll be LUCKY to see her 16th?
In any case, I don't believe in luck. I believe in chance, in the chaos theory, in evolution and love and hate and all the other things that change our lives. Luck doesn't come into it.
I walked out of the doctor's with my mum in pieces, clinging on to me, asking why, why on God's earth this had to happen to her. HER. As if she's the one who'll never get to go to university, never have a husband, a son, a daughter. Never do any of the things she's dreamt of doing.
I actually felt quite calm. All I could think of was the things that would happen to me when I was dead. For a start, I want my organs removed – I may be dead, but I want others to know life for as long as they can. I won't be needing them when I'm dead.
I remember past RE lessons, all this talk of God and morality and lifes and death. But I've always known that when we die, that's it. It's just one of those facts that I am certain of. Yet now, knowing I've got maybe a year to live, I wish I could have deluded myself, believed in a God that just doesn't exist, if only for the comfort of knowing that death is not the end.

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They

They watch their friends as they kill;
See the look in their childlike eyes,
As each day another feeling dies.
Forced to fight by promises and lies,
Taught not to think, just to despise.

He lifts the gun to his chest –
A stranger in unknown lands,
His life's in his country's hands.
He's just a boy, doing what he does best,
Learning to kill with all the rest.

He watches life still going by,
Sees families slowly disappear,
Children living in constant feat,
Listens at night when grown men cry
When war has forced them to say goodbye.

He doesn't notice what he sees;
Just focuses on his country's gain,
Never thinks of their country's pain,
Blocks out his friends dying in their teens,
Forgets all about his hopes and dreams.

* * * * * * * *

They watch the empty coffin sink;
Think of the pain in which he must have died,
Finally seeing what he'd done through others' eyes,
His life no longer hidden or disguised –
For them, death really was no surprise.

Eilidh Brown

I am...

I am my father, who showed me how to make a story my own
I am my primary school teachers, who taught me the power of shapes scrawled on a page
I am my Welsh English teacher, without whom I would never have discovered the true beauty of an amazing novel
I am Pippin the Super Hamster and Gary the Ghost, my first characters who live on in my mind and in my attic
I am Sheffield Young Writers and all the people I have been privileged to meet
I am the friends who advise me and those who inspire me
I am Kevin Brooks, Harlan Coben and Enid Blyton, who show me how to write
I am all those who show me how not to
I am the people I meet and the conversations I hear
I am Eilidh Brown, winner of no international prizes
I am who I am because of everybody

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Blurb for a book never written....

“It’s simple. A case of mistaken identity.”

What do you do if you come home to find your father lying dead on the floor, victim of an apparently senseless act of violence? If you suddenly find yourself man of the house, with three sisters and an inconsolable mother to look after? Do you accept it? Let him rest in peace? Or do you delve into the mystery of his death…and of his life?

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RUDOLPH’S DIARY ENTRY - 24th December

I used to love Christmas. Every December 1st, without fail, I’d get this tingle in my antlers, and my nose would feel all warm and glowy – it was the spirit of Christmas; I just couldn’t wait to feel the winter wind whistle through my antlers. In the last few years, it’s come later and later. Five years ago, it was around the 10th; last year, it was the 20th.

This year…well, here I am on Christmas Eve feeling as flat as Santa before he starts on the mince pies (oh yes, don’t you believe he’s always jolly, fat Santa – it’s you lot that do it to him! Mrs Claus marches him off to Weight Watchers as soon as the New Year comes!) I didn’t think it would be a problem, I tried not to let it be a problem, but when we went on a practice run I…I just couldn’t do it! I’ve let them all down, I just know it – we were flying off-kilter the whole time, and 0-60 took us twice as long as usual!

I’ve got to get it sorted for tonight, for the boys. But – well – I’ve tried everything! Nothing works! I’ve eaten loads of Christmas pudding, listened to all the cheesy Christmas songs (including that one about that handsome reindeer!) and pulled crackers with Blitzen; Santa even got me the Cliff Richard advent calendar I’ve always wanted, but even that hasn’t helped…I’m still just not feeling Christmassy! I really don’t know what to do anymore…

It certainly won’t help sitting here writing about it. I’m going to go and visit Santa in his grotto. He’ll know what to do. Santa ALWAYS knows what to do.

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Side-by-side with Youth,
Culture lies trashed in gutters,
Reminiscent of...?
                      
Side-by-side with youth
culture lies trashed in gutters
reminiscent of...?

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Equus

Equus recently hit the headlines when Daniel Radcliffe, teenage star of the Harry Potter series, bared all to show us he was no longer the 11-year-old boy we first saw in The Philosophers Stone. So what can we expect from all the hype? Six metal frames hang on six wooden doors; six men, muscled yet graceful, appear, walking slowly towards their place on stage. Gently, they lift the frames onto their heads. Suddenly, they are the horses.   For the current tour, rising star Alfie Allen (younger brother of Lily and son of the legendary Keith Allen) steps into Radcliffe’s shoes, starring as the troubled Alan Strang. Allen is perfect as Strang, a 17-year-old boy in trouble with the police for blinding six horses, and sent to see psychiatrist Martin Dysart, played my master of the stage Simon Callow, to avoid a stretch in prison. Allen and Callow have a tangible link, playing off each other to show the depths of their characters. As the story develops, so does the complexity of Strang’s problem – his love of horses, in contrast to his horrific act of violence, leads us to wonder what went wrong. By the interval, the audience is more silent than I thought possible, as Allen’s acting skills (along with his bare chest) are shown off to the limit, leaving us on the edge of our seats. It is at the interval that it all goes wrong – a hideous clunk sounds, and ten minutes later, Simon Callow is standing in front of us, explaining that the ‘safety’ curtain has broken – the show cannot go on! So that was that. The first half of Equus is an amazing exhibition of fantastic direction, talented old favourites and rising new ones, leaving us with so many unanswered questions – why did he do it? Will he ever change? Equus lives up to its reputation as a complex and gripping tale of growing up, love and lust – or at least, the first half does. A magnificent 10 out of ten. By Eildhi Brown Top

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Winter haiku

Blue moon shines its light
Fields turn to frozen lakes
Nature’s ace card played.

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Beach

A monopoly dog tumbles through the surf, chasing near-forgotten memories of a distant past; its owner, lost in thought, meanders behind, face turned towards the bleaching sun. The wreck and ruins of somebody’s livelihood perches, gull-like, upon the rocks, watching, waiting, wondering.

I turn towards the lapping waves, my footprints flooding as soon as I abandon them. Above me, a lone, dull cloud threatens the crystal sky, turning the colour of the beach to a murky grey, a paint-by-numbers corrected too many times.

The fresh, salty air invades me, taking me over, until I am nothing but the tang of the waves, the stench of the seaweed, the smooth, soft sand beneath my feet. I jog, moved not by a person or a thing, but by an inexplicable need to be closer to the razor-blade rocks that interrupt the stillness of the beach. They are me, interrupting the flow of normality, feared and misunderstood.

Suddenly, the water is attacking my waist, a chilling hand invading me. The gasp comes from another me, a primitive part. I try to fight it, but my senses are overwhelmed, the smells, the tastes, the lights defeat me. I stop, and let my senses win.

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