Break Time.

‘What do you do in your spare time then?’

 

Is there really a good answer for this question? It goes up there with ‘Give an interesting fact about yourself’ for being one of the most challenging questions to ever answer.

My mind furiously plays with any and every event I’ve ever experienced before settling on probably the most tedious fact about my existence.

 

‘I do a bit of writing when I have the time’.

 

Bravo, you can place a pen to a piece of paper and construct a series of unexciting word-strings. I mean, everyone ‘does a bit of writing’ it’s hardly a mind-blowing revelation. More so if you are already familiar with the fact that I am an English degree student, so obviously, I write. It pretty much comes with the title. To my appreciation most people just mumble the obligatory ‘that’s nice’ or ‘how interesting’ but there is always one person that feels the need to expand the already dreary discussion with a desire to know what kind of writing, what it’s about and if they can read some.

 

Having studied English for half my life with writing becoming a part of my daily routine dating back nearly 6 years, I am used to these questions and respond the same way to all who enquire about it. I write everything, short stories, articles, reviews, poetry, you name it, I’ve tried my hand at it (not all successfully I may add). I have no particular solitary influence for my writing and therefore it can never be categorised by its genre (My poetry ranges from epic love tales to sonnets about Spiderman). In regards to sharing my work I find that my writing is very private, I hardly show anyone, but, like this, the odd text will make it to my online blog.

 

So as I prepared myself to relay this speech again today, I was shocked when the conversation diverted to a new route.  My companion, who sat at an awkwardly close distance to my desk, slurping coffee and destroying my productivity for the day, upon hearing the news that I enjoyed writing, rested the coffee mug with great precision on the arm of the chair, learnt forward and quite sternly exclaimed with raised eyebrows

 

‘Bunch of arrogant, morbid racists writers are, aren’t they?’

 

Now if anyone has been in a work environment with a particularly difficult client, that takes joy in personally insulting you and is beyond opinionated, you may begin to understand my complete shock at the statement.

 

Not only was I being unfairly labelled as a racist (who knows where that had derived from); I was in a position of utter contradiction. To laugh at the statement would surely make the client feel more welcome in the practice, but what if the comment was not meant in light-heartedness, it didn’t seem to be and I surely did not agree with the statement, joke or not. I couldn’t argue with the client in the office, after all, we needed the client and I needed a job and I knew that I couldn’t sit in the awkward silence any longer without a full blown brawl taking place.

 

So I did the only thing a professional could do in the situation. With complete composure, I rose from my chair in silence, reached for the drawer beneath my desk and handed the gentleman a KitKat.

 

‘Time to take a break I think!’

For... (A poem composed by my 15 year old self)

Before this poem is published online I'll just give a short introduction of it's history.
I wrote this when I was 15 years old. I was immature, naïve and ridiculously, foolishly in love.
So feel free to enjoy it or hate, I'm not really bothered. I just thought I'd share the hilarious writing of a headstrong teenage girl around the time she first decided she wanted to be a writer.


I thought that feeling was to hold.
That's what we're all taught.
To grasp and to touch,
that's feeling, I thought.


But this weird thing inside me,
can't be held or be seen.
So I guess I'm not feeling
if that's what feeling does mean.


It's like chocolate and smiles
and all kinds of joy
this stuff in my head
just because of one boy.


So, if it's not feeling
then what can it be?
This warm, funny thing
that is taking over me.


I looked for an answer;
one word was enough
That this isn't just feeling
this is what they call love.

The Doctor: The Story of the Man Who Killed Jack The Ripper. (Chapter One)

Prologue.

This is a faithful narrative of the trials of my existence; just the simple truth of how I came to be and how my misfortunes have led me to where I am now. Death lingers over me and my life is shadowed with darkness as I face the final curtain. Though my tale may repulse you, my actions are justified, my passions are real and I am no different to you. I am like every woman, regardless of what may be alleged. I am Christina Lay, wife of an esteemed doctor and mother of a perfect baby boy. By the time my narrative is out, you will understand. You will understand why I, a modest church girl from Shoreditch, would become the perpetrator of what the newspapers are calling ‘nightmarish assaults’. I ask you not to judge my actions, for it is known in the holy book that ‘God himself is judge’ and ‘the heavens declare his righteousness’.  God alone may be my judge and jury and your verdict has no weight here. I’d waste no time with pointless opinions. You are here to hear my story and therefore, I state this simply; there is nothing I would not do for my baby Jack.

 

 

 

 Chapter One.

I pray to God that the pain and torment will stop.

 

September 22, 1887. Whitechapel, London. 21:56, 5lb 4oz. Jack Richard Lay is born.

My baby was alive and I finally became a true woman of God. Jack had broken my body. Jack could heal my heart. Jack would save my soul.

 

Eight years earlier…

June 12, 1879. Shoreditch, London.

The vicarage was quiet on that particular day and I recall that father seemed unnerved.  He would never tell me or mother what troubled him so; as an act of protection or artlessness I do not know and still I question whether this secrecy achieved its true purpose. I had rarely seen him in such anticipation, lacking composure and discontented. Without no more than two passing words after mass, he retired to his study (which he rarely entered on a Sabbath) and appeared to be engulfed in his papers. As a child, I would often worry about my father. He was a kind and generous man; qualities which, the congregation regularly abused. I daren’t tell him that I had often seen impertinent and impish young girls chatter during his sermons without remorse. I feared such confessions would only distress him so and ache his poor heart. I often thought of confronting them myself but my cowardly nature would always forbid it.

 

Oh, I must not hesitate on the point any longer, for I am sure, by now you are anxious to know what had perplexed my father so.  Thus, I shall continue.

 

I had never been the kind to disobey my father for my mother had set the finest example of how a woman should respect her husband. Still to this day I regret how my childish curiosity led me to do so that day. With a sceptical confidence, I slunk to my father’s study where I found the door conveniently ajar and, without hesitation began to feed my desire for information. How I wish I had turned back, for what I was about to learn would alter my entire existence. In a single act I had sealed my own fate, concluded my own virtue and stripped my juvenile innocence. I would never be the quiet, blissful and chaste young vicar’s daughter from Shoreditch again. 

My father, I found in a state of sadness and through his distorted murmurs I managed to conceive but three words:

Doctor. Not long.

 

Those words. They haunt me still. Repeating in my head even now as I live out the last pitiful moments of my life. Lord I know that my tale must go on. That I must tell it truthfully if I stand any hope of redemption. Forgive me father, forgive me. All I long for is your salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and I shall be saved. I shall be saved. Save me Lord. The pain of it, I feel it now. Why are you not saving me? Just like that day when Jack came to life, I feel my body dying. The doctor will save me. The lord will save me. Jack. Save me.

 

My body is ripped and bleeding; I have no control and the pain is rigorous. Confused, I’m blinded. I feel pain. Pain from where my skin has shredded as my baby escapes the sanctuary my body provided. I have given him all of me. I have nothing left and I reach for him but he is gone; stolen from my body. I won’t cry out, I feel numb. Too exhausted to cry, too abused to open my eyes. He is now my only refuge from the agony.

‘The doctor will come. Not long now’

 

The doctor will come and the doctor will save me from this torture.

I can be with my baby Jack again.

No more! I long for this narrative to be done with. Be satisfied in the knowledge that you have tortured me again with your greed for answers.

But you must understand. Is there no other way? I may never obtain the Father’s forgiveness without justice and that is all I have ever desired. Dear reader, remain open-minded for surely even you could not cast the first stone at a grieving child.

 

 

Outside my father’s study I shuffled uncomfortably, knowing that I had just stumbled upon some information that I had rightfully been protected from. A sickness engulfed me that I’d not felt before. Could it be true? But my mother seemed so wholly well to me, no different to before. Well, she had been spending more time in her chamber, but that was just for reading, my father had told me so. A simple period of intermission to study the fables, nothing more. This doctor is clearly wrong; if anyone were to know the condition of my mother’s health it is father and I.

Content with my judgement on the matter I arose from my serpent like position and arrogantly (or should I say foolishly, for I had seemingly forgot the dastardly nature of the operation) strode in the direction of escape.

 

 ‘Christina, is that you?’ in two short strides father had reached the door.

 ‘I…I’ the words fell from my mouth.

My father raised his eyebrows.

‘I just came to bring you tea’ I spurted out.

‘Where is the tea then my child?’ he inquired, discontent with my reply.

Before I had time to respond a third voice, unknown to myself, intercepted.

‘What a disrespectful, insolent child you have Mr Mooreson.

 I would not stand for it sir, not for a moment. This is how it begins you know’

‘Richard I’d rather..’

‘I know, I know but she will turn from you sir. I’ve seen them out there on the streets. Lord knows the things I have seen. First it is disobeying her father, then a husband; would you believe it sir, I have seen many a girl turned out on to the streets for it. You would not believe what I have witnessed’

 ‘I think that is enough Mr Lay. Maybe keep this conversation for a more appropriate audience’

‘It is too crude to mention in our society I might say. I daren’t not in front of the child’.

The third character, now identified as Mr Lay, lowered his tone and with an exaggerated movement tilted his head to a position he considered safely out of my hearing.

‘Harlots sir. Every street corner I see them. Why, I would never dare to speak to one. Could you imagine?’

 

Speak to one. How laughable? To think that I thought Richard Lay an honourable man. Who knew these harlots would become his most familiar acquaintances? Of course you know not what I mean. Funny my head seems to be running wild again…

 

My father too seemed fooled by his appearance of respectability, yet, it was clear that he was at unease with his choice of conversation.

‘That is enough, Richard’

My father looked to me with concern.

‘Oh of course. My apologies’.

Mr Lay, suddenly aware of his surroundings, glanced at me once with a cunning smile that I now know only too well and took a seat in the corner of the study before gracing my father with a stern nod of encouragement.

 

‘Christina. Come here at once’.

I had never heard such hesitant anger in my father’s voice before and an unanticipated fear swathed over me.

‘It is for the best’ he proclaimed with an undertone of guilt and remorse which, at the time, I had struggled to understand, for I had felt that my father had been wholly justified in his annoyance at my actions.

 

What followed I now struggle to recollect; whether this is due to my own desire to forget or the unforeseen nature of the action that left me in a state of disillusion. As a child I had not seen what I had been charged of as so terribly punishable. The doctor clearly did. His influence had led to my father to commit a dreadful sin I shall forever be haunted by. For the bible states that we should ‘be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you’. I fear I am still yet to be forgiven.  I am still yet to forgive.

Composed Just Now Upon A Bridge.

Water. Stream. Fall and crook.
Sea, rain and babbling brook.
Ive read of you in tale and book
But never thought of what you've took.

A leaf that falls into your hands;
I'll no not where again it lands.
And that creature no-one understands,
Washed up on the yellow beaches sands.

But one thing of you, I can justly declare
There is nothing of more beauty that I dares' t compare.

Bells.

I doubt you’ve ever met a narrator with as little consequence as I maintain, so I’ll make it clear; prepare yourself for disappointment. I have no exciting narrative or horrific past to divulge, simply an account of one day; the day that I discovered love, experienced hate and murdered my brother.


Patience readers, I feel your judgement of me may be built on your limited knowledge of the event and therefore too brash. I remind you that you know nothing of my brother, his ways and his temper; therefore, let me tell you of him truthfully. We were born to our mother Carol Ray as identical twins in the early days of December 1995 and spent a secluded childhood in one another’s companionship without need for alternative company. These days I can faithfully declare as some of the fondest days of my existence, the strength of our bond seemed impenetrable and too often we were considered as one mind. As we moved through primary education to secondary the blemishes in our unity forced through and a conflict in interests drew us apart; he took pleasure in study, I found it, as most young men do, in girls. The unruly competition between his passion for the mind and my desires of the body became unstoppable and in the months leading up to my brother’s death I found his company intolerable and his morals frustrating. Of course, everyone praised him for his academic achievements and I soon found myself in the shadows of his accomplishments, only gaining the attention I yearned for by fighting or indulging in alcohol and cannabis. My popularity had been replaced by his solitude and he basked in all the attention I once enjoyed. On the 20th May this year, my patience relented, anger surpassed reason and a wild passion consumed me. I was tired of seclusion and bored of intimidation; his evident impersonation of who I once was eradicated my loyalty and abolished sanity. It had been decided that on this day, when the bells had silenced, he would be silenced too.


The first bell of the day rang at 8:30. This is the bell we all dread the most; the reminder that the school day has only just begun and hours must pass before we can retreat into darkness and ignore the troubles of it. For my brother and I, this bell meant that double physics was about to begin and 2 hours of torment lay ahead. I couldn’t escape my brother, even at school, the unfortunate union of the same surname ensured that I would never be able to escape his company; though this company was never welcomed and in turn, never acknowledged. We spent hours sitting on opposite sides of a classroom wishing hateful thoughts upon each other through glares and whispers from close-by students would drift around the room. It was these whispers that bear the blame of my brother’s death, for there is only so much one boy can ignore. The whispers grew from a subtle undertone of pathetic insults to ceaseless abuse but none had affected me so much as what I had heard that day in double physics – ‘Daniel would fucking kill him in a fight, I’m surprised he hasn’t yet, living with a bastard like that’. Daniel Ray, that’s my brother, so it doesn’t take a genius to work out who ‘he’ was. I knew that our relationship was unhinged but the extremity of it had never been as prominent as the hatred that rang through those words. My brother now wore the title of my enemy and what was a petty sibling rivalry turned into a competition of survival. If my brother wanted to fight, we would fight, he would lose and I would reclaim my former position that he stole from me. So readers, as you can see, the fate that awaited my brother was of his own accord. In a battle for survival, can you honestly say you wouldn’t have acted as I did?


12:30, that bell again; this time with more serious consequences. It had been nearly 2 years since Daniel and I had spent the dinner break in mutual company. This precious hour had been the only chance of escape I’d been given but today it offered me a more permanent escape in exchange for those minutes that before I considered so sacred to me. The time offered me a perfect opportunity to end my misfortune and begin his. I wanted him to feel the humiliation and pain that I’d felt for the last two years. It was his turn to suffer the degradation, to understand the pressure he’d put on the very reason for my being. I’d lost everything and he deserved nothing. We’d arranged to meet at the school’s car-park, a hectic place whenever the dinner bell rang and the perfect place for my brother’s public disgrace. Jostling groups of high school students gathered to kick a ball around or update their Facebook status and in a moment of reflection I recalled spending a lot of time in the last two years finding entertainment in the care-free nature of the children. The car-park was regularly full of activity and rarely free of mishap but today it held a sickening sense of foreboding and disorder. As Daniel approached, sniggering at some predictably cliché joke directed from one of his many followers, I caught a glimpse of the brother I once knew and loved in his laughter. That laughter I heard so many times before and treasured as the foundations of the memories we shared together. ‘Don’t do it to yourself Daniel, you’re better than this’; then no more words passed between us. A claustrophobic silence disturbed only by the single strike of a bell. A bell that I did not recognize. The bell that haunts me. The bell that prompted my brother’s death.


I warn you readers, that the following events are not for the fainthearted, for my brothers murder can be described as nothing more than brutal yet necessary. I fail to remember how it began - It’s intriguing how the mind can alter your perceptions and modify your memory. Though the memory of my brother’s resistance is one I cannot seem to repress. Even within the closing moments of his existence, Daniel faced me with as much love and loyalty as he had dedicated to me within our childhood. His devotion I saw as weakness and his simplicity still amuses me. Finally everyone would see how pathetic my brother was, that he deserved to be hurt. My brother had been distracted by the very emotion that I’d considered absent from our youth, love. This moment of weakness presented me with an opportunity I adored and with a smile on my face I withdrew a single crafted blade from my pocket. With each cut a sense of satisfaction overwhelmed me and encouraged my actions. I cut deeper and deeper, laughing with each laceration as a river of red cascaded down my arms from his wounds and submerged my hands.


The need to continue this recollection now appears redundant, as my dear readers, I fear that you are already too familiarly acquainted with my mind to unearth a false conclusion. I’d achieved my freedom. My brother is lost to the world, as if he never existed and I am greeted with more attention than I ever before received. My freedom relies on the ignorance of others to the crime and whispers of suicide attempts and mental illness replace accusations of murder. I now wear the title of schizophrenic rather than murderer, but don’t be fooled; I’d wear any title to maintain my freedom. This title is only a mask I wear to conceal my crime. My brother is gone, I have survived and every day the bells will ring and our story will be retold.