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THE ALLEYNIAN 709
CREATIVE WRITING
A journey towards the unknown
Thoughts of Wind
Leon McConnon (Year 7)
Calum Skinner (Year 9)
ARTWORK — ELIE ESBER (YEAR 11)
ARTWORK — ELIE ESBER (YEAR 11)
It seems wrong when the wind changes, Swirling back, forth and all around, That not everything changes with it, Like the flow of the river and solid ground. You hear it often, see it often, The random dance of air, Lifting leaves, caressing trees, playing with your hair. A noble force, a strong one, Romanticised for years, Loved even after the lives it has taken, The stolen blood and tears.
timber; almost in response, a thin beam of wood snaps and through the carriage window I see a section of the station collapse. My expectations have diminished, from the shallow hopes I had held, and I now expect that waiting for the war to end will wear me down to an old man. I hop off the train, sticky with sweat, and wait on a rusting bench in the shade of a looming oak. Clip clop, clip clop. I raise my head. Trotting down the meandering, cobbled streets is a chestnut mare, her mane billowing behind her. She is out of breath, and as she rounds the bend to the station, I see a carriage behind her. It is laced with gold, and has silk curtains embroidered with swirls of beads that gleam like diamonds in the sun’s onslaught of golden arrows. It seems unreal, like a fairytale. A woman dismounts from the carriage, her long robes flying out behind her. She is dressed in leather boots, the finest that money can buy, and a long flowing skirt. Her eyes scour the station, before settling on the bold black letters pinned to my shirt. I see her beckon to me and my thoughts drift once again, this time to wealth. My heart is dragged out from the bottom of the gloom and once again, hope surfaces.
The steady chug of the engine bounces me around like a ball: left, right, and left again. I try to swallow the fear and sadness that control my thoughts, but the images of my frail mother, with a dirty, tear-streaked face, and eye sockets hollowed out like an egg, flock to me en masse. I push them away, but they return, birds to a pile of feed. The sounds of the bombs rain down on my thoughts. As I sit in contemplation, my mind is swallowed by a wave of drowsiness. I drift into a restless, melancholic sleep. I awake. The train is making the most horrific noise, much like the bleating of a donkey, signalling that we are nearing the station. It is here where I will spend the rest of the war, hidden from danger, hidden from mother. My stomach is growling like a tiger. I unpack the last of the meagre, mouldy rations and nibble them until they are finished. This seems to put the growling at bay, but the stemming of the hunger invites in the sorrow, which claws to take over my emotions once again. The train pulls up at the station a short while later, when the sun is just past its peak in the sky. I wrinkle my nose at the musty smell of the crumbling, mouldy
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