The Alleynian 708 2020

THE ALLEYNIAN 708 | OUT OF THE ORDINARY

squeezing, kneading it together, trying to rebuild what she could remember. She slumped down onto the floor, tired, sticky. She felt as if nothing was real, not even herself. Exhausted and confused, she picked up a piece of what had been her son. She stared at it. She slowly lowered it into her mouth and started to chew. It tasted divine – the cake slightly moist, but not so moist that it was soggy, combined with the ambrosia that was the jam, it just tasted heavenly. Suddenly, realising what she had done, the woman started howling. She started running around frantically, erratically sticking her finger into all kinds of objects, trying to find something that was real, that was a solid, rigid object. The ringing in her ears – the words ‘Victoria Sponge’ echoing around in her head, didn’t help. In a frenzy of trying to escape from her tribulation, she broke down and ran to her cottage. There, she slumped onto her bed. She slept.

dawned on him that his limbs were growing stiff. At first, it was just a little bit, like when you do exercise but then stop suddenly. However, this was not normal because it kept growing and growing. Finally, it was at the point where he was completely paralysed, with his limbs spread out. He was quite literally petrified. A million thoughts were racing through his tiny, less-than-pea-sized brain.

T he moon glinted eerily in the sky; a ghostly orb suspended in time. Down below, the black water mirrored the white light from above. I ruffled my feathers, gazing around, passing giant monoliths carved from jagged rock, fighting the raging ocean that stampeded against the shore. My hazel feathers, tipped with earthy dark brown and a light grey like the horizon on a foggy winter morning, my eyes, a magnificent glint of yellow. I was the majesty of the skies, the king of the ocean above, and I was on the hunt. I spied a gliding bird, oblivious to the streamlined torpedo riding the currents of the skies; I readied myself, stretched my malevolent black talons …

AlexanderDeAlmeida Year8 Feather CREATIVE WRITING

* * *

Suddenly, a couple, wheeling a pram, walked up to the stall. The baby sputtered some nonsense and pointed at the farmer. The parents spoke to the shopkeeper, pointed at him, the farmer, and handed over some coins. The shopkeeper, with a wide grin on his face, handed him to the baby. At first it wasn’t too bad: the baby just held onto him unnaturally tightly and stared intensely at him. Then, without any warning at all, the baby started hitting him and flinging him about all over the place. It was excruciating, for he was being swung around by the legs, and getting bruised and battered by the pram. The baby grabbed the farmer by the arms and started tugging. Pulling them apart. Hitting him. There was a loud snap. The baby tore off one of the farmer’s arms and threw it away. The baby’s menacing laugh was a fuzzed-out blur in the background for the farmer. The pain was so intense that all he could hear was the stamping of his stone heart, and his own screaming. He barely even felt himself fly through the air and hit the ground. As he lay there, occasionally being kicked or stepped on, he gradually began to feel his limbs again. They were loosening up. A seagull landed next to him. He tried to drag himself away but someone who looked incredibly similar to his neighbour stepped on him, and he felt his hand turn to powder. He tried to carry on, lugging himself with his one good leg and arm, but he couldn’t escape. The seagull scurried up behind him and pecked at him a couple of times, snapping his one good arm before picking him up and grinding him about in its beak and then, finally, swallowing him.

She awoke, one hour later, suffocating. She had sunk into her bed during her sleep, for the bed too was made out of Victoria Sponge cake.

And dived.

* * *

Wind roaring like a wounded beast, ocean crashing far below, the dark blue sea rushing ever closer, talons stretched, eyes wide, passing pale chalk cliffs and racing towards the bird … My wings spread at the last moment, sharply slowing my descent. I let out a harpy’s screech and the bird was dead. Shock, impact, the razor claws jutting from my feet embedded deeply in the seabird. But I hadn’t seen the growing storm: great grey clouds and billowing rain. Now I saw them. I hadn’t heard the growling thunder. Now it echoed inside my head. The fog rolled in. Hurricane winds tossed me around. I dropped my hard-won prey. I didn’t see the cliffs. And when I did catch sight of the looming tyrants, it was too late. I fell upon the ground, broken limbs lying limp against the rock, mist rolling in, a thousand stallions on the charge.

I drifted back to the fair.

A man this time, dressed in unremarkable farmer’s clothes, was walking down the street with his slightly plump, rosy- cheeked wife, who was wearing a simple black and white dress with a white bonnet cap. They were chatting and meandering through the fair until they came across a toy stall. There were little wooden toy trains, figurines, and plush toys.

The man looked at his wife and asked, ‘Wouldn’t it be boring if the baby had nothing to play with?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said, ‘but don’t spend too much!’

He bent over to look closer at the toys. Some of them were very detailed and some even had moving parts! Wind-up, of course. ‘Woah!’ he thought. ‘Some of these toys, somehow, are made with such craftsmanship that they can change size!’ He looked back over at his wife to tell her, but for some reason, she seemed much taller. ‘What?’ he thought. He had always remembered himself as being taller. That wasn’t just all: she was growing bigger and bigger by the second! He tried to reach out to her, but his arm wasn’t long enough. Suddenly he looked around, and realised. She hadn’t been growing bigger. It was the contrary: he had been shrinking. He reached the size of the other figurines and then, to his relief, stopped. He tried to scream for his wife, but nothing came out, and she turned and walked away. He sat down and tried to make sense of his situation. It then

* * *

I drifted away.

And I was lost in a spiralling rage of terror.

The fair was over now. All that remained was an abandoned stall. Everything was silent. Two men, both smoking pipes, started to walk down the empty high street on opposite sides. One a sailor, the other a business man. As they were walking, they slowly got closer and closer together until they were touching shoulders. From there, they slowly turned around on their right foot and stared right at me. I had completed my task. I drifted over to them and they collected me. We went off into the woods.

Lost to the eye of the storm.

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