A paragraph/stanza difficult to read, then urge/ntly to know widens eyes, detail foregrounds, colour sharpens, shadows acute

No electric/gas light. Wood fires flicker at street ends, in single rooms shadow on walls, glorious stars and robbers abound

Every street must be a wasteland: broken bottles, discarded rubbish, rusty nails, decaying carpet. Belonging is discouraged.

Amount and weight not quality of jewellery you wear is sign of wealth/prestige. Piercings/tattoos admired/flaunted.

Violence is always acceptable. Non violence is cowardice, defeat admitted. Only big, strong survive. Bullying praised.

Freezing cold is welcomed. All animals slaughtered, every part used to build shelter, skins warmth, bone tools, percussion.

All surfaces are child friendly soft. All houses have slides, all workplaces ball pools. Play is work. Riotous creativity

dark corners are encouraged. It is an architectural trend to see how many can be made in one building. Cleaners despair.

where a buildings decay is encouraged as a haven for wildlife. People born/live/die in hides, record wildlife as heirlooms.

Nobody puts things back correctly. Compensation is unknown. Goods on wrong shelves. Kids to wrong houses. Fiction in non

Backyard, eye swag silver, two joy, pica pica purplish-blue iridescent sheen wing feather green gloss tail

on train squeal chatter, vivid, green, blue, beavers, cubs, scouts, ventures: anarchy in uniform

unshaven bald man, open green raincoat, brown leather shoes, hauls local paper packed lime green trolley

old folk bench gab, mothers stroll babies down funeral paths eye gambolling squirrels, cemetery a parkland

bright cemetery leaves behind dark, Bakers window 6 loaves, 1 burnt, nurse boards bus, ‘I was miles away’

sunstruck leaf bunch drips bright molten green glass, other leaves luminescent silver stars in green matter, shade cut

patient silver hubcap rests under stone cemetery wall behind blue bus stop halo, full moon fall: day waits

Shadows pass over bus as if it is stop motion animated. I get on the animation. Hand held camera glare work journey

Town a small canvas tent unzipped tied back crowcall, fragrant grass, earth close, sun blue. Is on holiday

light quality early noon than morning, 3 patient full brown potato bags by grocers, cloud dispersal pends

The figures in the landscape saw the light reach up to where they all met. Their Creators had said “One day you will see the light, again.” and now daylight emerged from the keyhole and illuminated the edges of their landscape. The prophecy was fulfilling. Each knew much work had to be achieved in a short period of time.
Finally the key turned in the lock. The door in the floor opened and their saviour stepped into their world. She was dressed differently from their Creators, had no wrinkles. They heard a click, and a whirr and the voice of one of their Creators
Hello Kurston. It’s your mam and dad. You’ve heard our Will. Welcome to ‘The Pentateuch.’
It’s a loft, dad!
It’s just a loft to you. To us it’s our marriage. Our life.
She could tell he was reading. His voice forced and unnatural. Her mother spoke.
Hi ya, Kurston. Close the door. Take 25 days off work, if you’re curious. There is a bed for you.
A light highlighted a bed against one wall. Explain to your boyfriend.
A light highlighted a phone on the bed.
If you’re curious?
That word again. She’d been brought up to that word. Why should I bother with all this nonsense? What were they ever to me?
I understand your anger with us, Kurston. Leave now, and no more need be said.
There was a pause. Her mother knew her too well. She knew asked to leave by her parents she’d stay. Her eyes began to water. She was determined. The grief over her parents death would be an ordered process. She needed time by herself. She would stay. She sat on the bed and said
This is for me not you.
And as soon as she put her weight on the bed a light flicked on the opposite wall. It revealed a painting so big it covered the wall. She gasped. Out of the darkness, to get colour bouncing out of the dark.
Who? What?
Surprised!
Her fathers voice seemed distant. We thought you would be.
Her mother voice seemed closer.
We call it “Out of the Woods”. Your father thought of the title. Being the clever so and so he is. Do you like it? Don’t be afraid. Get up and have a look. It wont bite.
Slowly she got up. Her legs felt weak and unsteady. The picture was a landscape that inclined like a dormer ceiling up to the single point of the roof ,where she could faintly discern that the other walls were similarly covered with landscapes. However, the other paintings faded into the darkness while the illuminated one shone out its predominant colour of green.
She thought it a forest at first. A primordial wood.
Peering more closely she began to discern a building or two. Then everything was not what it had seemed. She saw a picture of Barnsley: a town hall of white blossom. The football ground at Oakwell was made of Oak trunks.
Looking more closely she could see small Bunnies hopping around a forest path down a rhodedendron Arcade towards a Market Hill full of fruit trees extending from Graham’s Orchard that lined a stream running from Whinny Nook at Pogmoor, down Summer Lane described in Cherry trees, down Peel Street lined with Beech to the bottom of Market Hill and a little stone bridge. In fact this was the only piece of stone in the picture.
She thought she recognised some of the bunnies for they had human faces. Yes, two of the bunnies hopping together were her dead parents.
Why bunnies?
Does it ask questions of you Kurston? Her father was trying to sound portentous and she wasn’t about to talk to a piece of magnetic tape.

It is said a Madonna LiIy keeps ghosts from the door and will only grow for a good woman. My names is Abigail. I grow this flower in my garden but it can never keep me from being haunted.

I have two suitors, Peter and John, after the death of my first husband William.

To Peter, I said

You’re gentle with me. William. My last husband followed his affection by grabbing me between the legs. I will consider your proposal.

I see through my windows the Winter sun gleam off the lilies in the garden as Peter leaves my house. The garden is well ordered, unlike my mind.

William was a prosperous yeoman farmer. He fell from his horse, and died.

Brothers Peter and John Pilmey are third generation Huguenot immigrant glassmakers.

I tend the Madonna lilies in my garden in memory of William. His farm is prospering. I can afford table cloths and knives, But I have no heir. I look about and see the brothers recently removed to Silkstone from Lancashire.

I hear from Jonas, the packman, that Yorkshire and, Lancashire suffer devastation due to the Civil War and that there will be need for glass to repair the damage,

Glassmaking is kept secret and passes down only through marriage into gIassmaking families. If you know the secret you know you belong. Well, I thought, there will be a future in this enterprise.

I confide in Jonas when I deliver my letters to him at ‘The Packhorse Inn’:

Peter has bound himself to revealing the secret of glassmaking to me if I become his wife.

Does he think so highly of his family that he would give the secret away so easily.

Jonas clears his pint of brown ale and shouts for another.

He is not the strongest man I have known. I could achieve my aim easier with him.
What of John?

He wishes to meet with me tomorrow. He decided upon the place and time.

By his reputation with the Quarter Sessions he is often bound to keep the peace. Closer to William in his manner,
He has a certain strength.

On the following day I meet John, at his designated spot. I have to rearrange the making of the house Cheese to accommodate him. I reach the meeting place on foot.

It is on the top of a hill where the Iocals dig for coal. The earth is black as a funeral shroud. Before he arrives I observe Silkstone in Its pleasant wooded Valley. I see the glassworks by the water mill in the shadow of the medieval church. The growing number of industries in the hamlet include a nailmakers forge and the oldwater mill crushes bones for livestock. The place has a future. The wind across the moor tops is strong as John rides up on his mare and speaks to me

Be it known lass I’ll not give you the secret till I know you can be trusted.

How do I know you can be trusted to tell me?

Don’t speak to me of trust. I know you confide in Jonas, the packman, in an inn where no decent woman would be found dead.

I leave knowing John will be the harder work, but that at least I know my place and can fight for a better, With Peter his sympathy for my situation can be difficult when it comes to business. Every time we meet I will have to deal with the emotions. I am not used to this. I know I will be the stronger. At home I know the white of the Madonna lily the garden will be a perpetual reminder of my decision.
I marry John who in turn tumbles from his horse and dies. I inherit the business and give it to my son by him also called John. But now there is no Civil War and canals and good roads do not reach Silkstone
so the glassmaking died, Peter remains unmarried.

I have the secret to glassmaking but there are more improved ways to make it of which I cannot afford. Madonna lilies glow white in the garden.

He With Eyes Like Crystal looked at the object. A hard square of fabric with hieroglyphics on its surface. Traced the dusty glyphs with his delicate fingers:
S.E.A.M.
Somewhere recognition. He knew this sign.
Gust blew at his back. He shut the heavy metal doors. The short day would soon be gone. Luckily. he had foraged for Isso motor oil earlier. His eyes brightened to compensate for the dark.
The square of fabric was like the door to his cave. He opened it. Inside were more flimsy squares with more hieroglvohics written in carbon. Perhaps the Translator would know what they were. Closing the fabric door. he decided to visit it tomorrow.
The Translators metal door. the heaviest and biggest. could not close because of the Line Up of Foragers. Ah. once he had presented a long strand of fibre to the Translator who had told a story about the intertwining of lives. The Translator had said the object was like the seam of people lining up at his door. Ah. he had a clue to the object he carried.
When he became First in the Line. he presented his latest find.
The Translator no longer had eyes to forage. He depended upon his sense of touch to tell the story of an object. The hearing of He With Eyes Like Crystal sharpened to compensate for the noise of the Line.
“This is the story of the object.” said the Translator.
“Once there were some people who lived on a planet they called the same as we call the floor we walk upon. They dug holes in the ground. And when they had laid their digger to one side. they would say:
‘This is mine. ‘
These mines could be very dangerous. like when the roof of our caves falls in. One day this happened to some of the people. The rest were outside and saw the cave in. The hole had filled itself as if the planet had said:
‘They are no longer yours.’
Because the people were theirs. and the hole in the ground was theirs. they tried to dig them out. They dug three days and three nights. until they found the lost people. But none of the lost people breathed anymore. They no longer belonged to the others who had dug them out.
So the people came here to dig new holes. They no longer said:
‘This is mine.’
but
‘This is home.’
This is the story of the object.”
The telling finished the Translator put the object on one of his many shelves.
He With Eyes Like Crystal returned through the harsh gust and short day to his cave.
He would forage for another object tomorrow. As he lay on his bed he saw the glyph
S.E.A.M.
in his head and heard the Translator say it and knew what it meant. And remembered he had not foraged for Isso motor oil.