Words to Tie to Bricks (18 page)

Bentley
: Yes, sire.

Wellington
: Now, make haste! We must defend Quatre Bras in the morning or die trying!

[Exeunt]

C
AROL
M
C
G
ILL

J
UST RELAX
,
THEY TOLD ME
. You’ll enjoy it. You just have to let yourself go.

So here I am.

I can’t breathe. I give up trying to suck in what little oxygen is left in the stuffy room and yell at my friends that I’m getting some air. I duck and dart through the crowds until
I reach the door and stumble through it. The cold night catches me as soon as I step outside. It seems blissful after the stuffy hall. I edge over to a cold, damp wall and lean against it. I wish I
could see the stars.

The only other people out here are the ones who smoke. I know I must look weird, standing here alone, but I don’t care anymore. I watch the flare from a lighter and hope the gang will
decide to go home soon.

They won’t, of course.

It’s so loud at these places I never hear any music, just noise, pounding against my skull, and the lights bounce off my eyes and make my brain swirl and ache. Those same lights transform
the vast space with the sticky floor and nondescript walls into a prison that glows with bright colours in some corners and gleams with black in others and it’s all mixed together and
compressed in my head into one blinding, blaring moment of light and dark and it just makes me stand there feeling utterly confused and stupid.

But that’s not what you’re supposed to do here, is it? Here you’re supposed to have fun. You’re supposed to mingle with the mass of twisting bodies and you’re
supposed to do what they’re doing. You have to find people to imitate because you know that any move you attempt will just look idiotic. You have to stand in the sticky air with the tang of
perfume and sweat and worse burning your nose and force a smile onto your face and look like it’s the best place in the world to be.

And I don’t even have the heart to be sarcastic or irritable about it, because I just feel so miserable and out of place, like I’m that one jigsaw piece that not only won’t fit
in with the rest of the puzzle, but turns out to be in completely the wrong box.

I’ve never understood the appeal of being in that environment, where it’s too fast and too loud and too hot and too bright and too dark all at once. It only ever makes me feel
slightly sick and really I just want to be at home, where it’s safe, or reading a book or watching some random movie or doing anything, really, rather than be there.

But I get put in this social situation, and the worst part of all is worrying about what they’ll think when my awkwardness is tangible and people stop and look at me and laugh and say,
‘Just relax!’

I take a last deep breath, enjoying for one final moment the cold smoky air that can’t be had inside, because I know I’ll only last ten minutes max before I can’t stand it
anymore and I come back out here and begin this whole routine again. I look up at the sky and realise the clouds have shifted, and that up in the heavens I can see some stars.

Then I return to the door with my jaw set and I go back inside and feel the music pounding through my chest once again.

S
AMUEL
H. D
OYLE

There. Look!

Yes, you see her

Finally a friend you know.

A buoyant stride closing in

On the savouring prize.

That hair you remember,

Long and sinuous, an inky shade

Reminding you of blackberries,

The ones we shared last year.

Reaching for her shoulder,

Sheer delight, the tanned collarbone

Identical to that in your dreams.

She turns effortlessly,

And says ...

‘Do I know you?’

S
EAN
C
ERONI

S
HE SITS ON THE RED
chair in the dressing room. She stares at the mirror. She loathes the image in it. She feels ugly even though she has spent the day
walking down runways. She feels fat even though her stomach shrieks from under her white Chanel dress. She opens a drawer of the dressing table. She removes a small red velvet box. She gently
clicks open the silver clasp on the box. It is full of white powder.

Her name is Eve.

She pours some white powder onto the table using a small silver spoon. It is her grandmother’s. She gave Eve all her silverware. Seashells are lovingly carved into it. It is now covered
with tiny white crystals. Eve fishes a 100 euro note and a credit card from her purse. Using the card she taps the crystals into a neat line. She rolls the 100 euro note tight, and places it gently
into her left nostril.

She moves slowly over the line, inhaling every last crystal into her system.

She straightens up. She clears up all signs of her habit before placing the velvet box back in the drawer and rushing out of the room. The corridor is brimming with busybodies. Members of staff
jostle by her. ‘Eve, you’re needed now for makeup!’ is shouted at her from down the corridor. She hurries towards the makeup area, where she is grasped and pushed into a chair.
She is quickly plastered with various substances before being gestured forth for final inspection by Karl Lagerfeld. He looks her up and down quickly. She can’t see his eyes from beneath his
sunglasses. He adjusts the positioning of the dress on her shoulders and pushes her towards the catwalk. She is hit by the bright lights of a thousand cameras. She has done this thousands of times,
a thousand times too many.

She collapses onto the catwalk, her white dress billowing behind her. She can feel the flashes of camera light on her eyelids as the photographers rush onto the catwalk. It is the last thing she
will ever feel.

A
CLASS EFFORT

Challenge: Describe chocolate in one sentence, without reference to taste.

C
HOCOLATE MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH
then slides down your throat like medicine for the soul until it fills your stomach with regret.

The sound of a vibrating bass string, dipped in liquid gold.

It creates an instant sweetness and tingles in a person’s mouth; it brings relief to those who feel fear, illness, despair or simply addiction, it is a joyous substance that is magical and
comes in many different forms.

A thick solid that will melt on touch and coat every part of your being in smiles.

Imagine you’ve never slept your entire life; everyone always talks of how glorious it is but you don’t give it too much thought, you convince yourself it’s fine and that
you’re losing nothing and that the extra productivity is worth the constant restlessness and the feeling of hot sand in the throat – with all of this, chocolate is falling asleep in
someone else’s arms.

Chocolate is like empty words of velvet that let you down after you hear them.

It starts as a small block of solid joy and wonder, before melting into a pool of liquid comfort and warm coziness that slowly coats your whole mouth in a layer of love.

If it were sound, a harmony that builds to cacophonous crescendo of sweet, silky and rich.

H
ANNAH
-R
OSE
M
ANNING

I
STARE AT THE WHITEWASHED
wall, wondering when my life will begin. This room encloses me, trapping me in a prison of despair. I sigh heavily, hot tears
running down my already stained cheeks. Nothing to do, nothing to see and no one to talk to. I run my slender fingers through my hair until its silkiness soothes me. Every day like the one before.
Waiting for someone, anyone. Even my parents would do at this stage, despite their abandonment. She said my ‘isolation to think about what I have done’ would be temporary. Day 16 and
counting. No more, no less. I keep a record of the date so I won’t lose the parts of my mind that are still intact. Every day, the desperation increases. Every day, I realise what I do not
have anymore. Every day, I forget why I did it and then I remember his eyes. The eyes that saw into my soul, past my prickly exterior. I hope he knows what I did for him.

The days grow longer. Each day takes a little bit of me and I see no way to get it back. I try not to wallow in self-pity, but the difficulty of trying
not
to do something overcomes me.
I do not have long to live, I think. Not like this. I have no food now and scarce amounts of water. I dream of him coming to rescue me, yet I know the truth. He left and nothing can change that,
not my letters, not my pleas, not my hopes, not my dreams. A few short weeks ago he held me as though he would never let me go. I felt beautiful, loved. Now look at me. A 16-year-old girl so thin
her bones are showing locked up in a room with no windows or doors. Whenever I hear footsteps I think it is her. I imagine her pitying me and giving me back the one thing I want above everything
else: freedom.

I try to find things to occupy my day, but the room is bare and bleak and does not accommodate the residence of humans. Every day I draw pictures on the walls but every night while I am asleep
she washes them off. I cry a lot which takes up time. I hope she hears my tears, I hope she knows what she did to me. At twelve o’clock I run around the tiny room fifteen times. I eat
whatever will not kill me and I drink whatever water there is. I clean and clean and clean with an old rag until my hands are raw and filthy but the room is fairly respectable. I sing until I
cannot sing any longer and I shout nonsensical words to entertain myself.

I talk to myself and to him. I answer back, but he never does. I know that he is long gone, but he will always be in my memories. I miss him every second of every hour of every minute of every
day. Yet the sun keeps shining, although he is gone. The world keeps moving, although I am gone.