Rachel Brown
“Landscape in Silver (or close-up of pebbles on a rock)”
Inspiration piece

Outpost
By Helen Lewis
Response

Captain Yang was on watch when exoplanet ZX159c came within view. The sensors showed that gravity was high, but within tolerable levels. The planet had a breathable atmosphere, an ideal temperature range, and initial readings suggested it was teeming with life.

The captain woke up the others – Flight Officer Lin and Science Officer Tan – and all three prepared for the most dangerous part of the journey so far. Their descent through the atmosphere was even more hair-raising than expected, due to strong winds and heavy rain, and Flight Officer Lin had to make an emergency landing.

The spacecraft had come to rest on a rocky plateau near two massive boulders. A sheer cliff face rose above them on one side, and on the other side could be seen the distant glimmer of the ocean.

Despite the sensors’ reassurance that the atmosphere was breathable, the captain insisted that they suit up before they went outside. The rocky terrain was full of undulating ridges and was difficult to traverse.

After walking for about an hour, they came across an enormous conical structure about the same size as the ship, with vertical ridges and subtle bands of colour in green and sandy brown. Science Officer Tan identified it as a giant marine mollusc. When the others looked shocked, she explained that it was almost certainly a herbivore, so posed no danger. Nevertheless, they made sure to give the massive creature a wide berth.

Half an hour or so later, they came to the shore of a lake. Science Officer Tan collected a sample of the liquid from the lake and tested it.

‘It’s water, with fairly high concentrations of dissolved ions. Not drinkable as it is, but it could be made safe to drink through distillation.’

‘Very encouraging,’ beamed Captain Yang. ‘It looks like this planet might be the ideal place for a new colony.’

Flight Officer Lin looked at his watch. ‘Time to head back,’ he said.

*

After the storm, Mary took Barney for a walk along the beach. The little cocker spaniel ran ahead of her, splashing and snuffling in the rock pools.

When it was time to go back home, Mary called Barney to her. As she was putting on his lead, she noticed he had something in his mouth.

‘What have you got there, Barney?’

Mary reached gently into the dog’s mouth and pulled out a little model, about two inches long. This wasn’t the type of cheap plastic toy given away in cereal boxes; it was made out of metal and was beautifully detailed. A child must have left it behind when they were playing on the beach, thought Mary. Well, their prized possession wouldn’t go to waste. She’d give it to her five-year-old grandson, Noah. He had a big collection of toy vehicles, but as far as Mary knew, it didn’t yet include a spacecraft.

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Untitled
By Helen Lewis
Response

Old Money
By Michelle Vanstrom
Inspiration piece 

When I bought the old

coins my mother collected

I always thought I’d give them

back. She called it

collateral for the mortgage

money, or else she wouldn’t

ask and she refused a coin

collector’s large offer

because, she promised, one

day she would buy them

back. I followed her into the bedroom

where she kept them

buried in the floor’s cold

air return inside an ancient suitcase

with broken gold clasps. She placed her eighteen-year

collection into my arms and burdened them

with memories—us searching

for edge-worn faces, tiny minted letters stamped

on silver, D for Denver, S for San Francisco

and scanning bills, ones and fives, marked

with red ink—a trait not normally found

on George or Abraham but always imprinted on us. Small

change always found our hands,

luck discovered in a supermarket parking lot, the gas station,

or the high school cafeteria. Every Friday she bought rolled

coins instead of cigarettes, exchanged

Salems for lucky strikes. After supper

at the dining room table we sat and scrutinized, peering

through blue smoke and

dreams with a magnifying glass

for the rare discovery: bronze Indian heads,

copper wheat pennies, buffalo nickels, Mercury dimes,

Liberty walking halves, or a peace

silver dollar, pressing them into the empty

dated spaces in the green coin collection

books. I bound the blue suitcase with straw-colored masking

tape and I buried it in my storage

closet preserving her memory

and her broken gold clasp promise.

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Marilyn Ackerman
“Moons”
Inspiration piece

A New Beginning
By Helen Lewis
Response

It was during Adam’s shift that the ship came within sensor range of the next planet. As usual, he hurried to the bridge, but the data was already streaming in when he arrived.

The planet had a molten metal core, generating a protective magnetic field; it had Earth-like gravity, a breathable atmosphere, oceans of clear water, and a temperature range close to that of the Earth before global warming snowballed. It also had four moons whose orbits were locked into each other. The gravitational influence of the moons created strong tides and a high level of volcanic activity, providing abundant sources of renewable energy.

This was it. This was The One. The prize they’d been chasing for so long: the planet that would eventually become humanity’s new home.

Adam staggered, his head spinning. To steady himself he concentrated on his breathing. Just as he was beginning to regain his composure, the lights went out. All of them. Even the stars. Adam’s panic was whispering thoughts of blindness, when, a heartbeat later, light returned.

But this light wasn’t the cathode glow of the computer screens. It wasn’t the dazzling glare of the local sun, or the scattered sparkle of the stars. This light was a lurid green and it hung, silent and motionless, in the starless void. The light spelled out a word. As Adam stared at it, the word winked out, leaving its impression throbbing in red on the back of his retina.

Congratulations!

Then another flash:

Thank you for playing ‘Life on Earth’.

A moment of absolute darkness.

You have completed the game objective.

Your prize for achieving an all time high score is a free replay.

Replay will start in 10 seconds…

9…

8…

‘Oh bugger,’ moaned Adam.

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Kirsten Brady
“Conductor”
Inspiration piece

Renaissance Man
By Helen Lewis
Response

Giovanni Gabbiano was a true Renaissance man. Not that he ever used that term to describe himself – he’d never heard of it. Orphaned at the age of two, Giovanni was brought up by his paternal grandparents, who ran an inn in a small town on the road between Siena and Florence.

Little Giovanni’s mind was like a sponge. When he was just three years old he taught himself to draw, and he began carrying a sketchbook around with him wherever he went, spending hours every day creating meticulous pencil sketches of anything that interested him. He was particularly fascinated by birds, bees and butterflies – anything that flew.

By the age of four he had taught himself to read. He started reading widely; whatever he could lay his hands on. By the time he was ten he had read all the classic works of philosophy in the original Greek and Latin. Giovanni’s Great Uncle Luigi was the village blacksmith, and as a teenager Giovanni spent countless hours tinkering in the forge, making contraptions out of metal. In his sketchbook he had begun drawing inventions; strange machines that sprung up from the fertile field of his imagination.

When Giovanni was nineteen Great Uncle Luigi died and left him his inheritance, and Giovanni at last had the opportunity to follow his dream, which was to move to a great city of culture and learning where he could pursue his studies in earnest.

Giovanni travelled to Florence and, by virtue of a quiet self-confidence combined with a dogged persistence, managed to get an interview at the university. Naturally, he took his sketchbook along to the interview.

*

The interviewer flipped through Giovanni’s sketchbook and stopped about three quarters of the way through.

‘This would appear to be a drawing of some sort of flying machine.’

‘That is correct.’

‘Hmmm…’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know what to think.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not entirely sure you’re living in the right century.’

‘I realise some of my ideas are a bit of ahead of their time, but if one takes an open-minded approach…’

‘Ahead of their time?’

‘I’m known back home as a savant.’

‘Are you sure it’s not idiot savant?’ asked the interviewer, putting particular emphasis on the word idiot.

‘Are you trying to tell me you’re not impressed by my work?’

‘Mr Gabbiano, if you had lived six hundred years ago your work may have been impressive, but this is the twenty-first century, not the fifteenth. Good day.’

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Helen Lewis

Blood in the gutter

Response

Anthony Valade

Gutter Water

Inspiration piece

Eyes caught a glimpse of nothing as everything turned black.

Ran for days not thinking of the past.

Lost fears – penetrating through flesh.

Never had to stop or bathe.

Just a filthy, filthy, mess.

– Shots –

Screams rang by emotion.

Tight squeezing raging on through the notions.

-Black-

Mind in the dark.

I want to rip your arm apart.

I want to rip your eyes out and taste them.

Then a calm from in the car.

You’d want to kill your mother and baste in a sea of every part.

–

You don’t know the reason of this show.

Can’t leave when the doors are closed,

Dead and alone with no way home.

–

Gutter water.

Take a number.

On the clock running to the daughter.

On the walls breathe in lost lust and lather:

# Faster darling we can make this better #

Take it from a doctor to another physician,

The wounds so deep and gushes buckets of crimson,

Tape it closed and sow it up.

Drench with alcohol and lick it off.

Make another, rough in the cut.

Rip it off, be with me, it’s just another spot.

Oh, the blood goes:

# No sympathetic ensemble for me. #

# Only truth told, we try to get what we need. #

# Never foretold the way we are underneath. #

# Fill that glass with what’s under the sink. #

Just like how we get on the scene right?

The way we dance on the red dye.

Asking each other if we’re still alive.

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Untitled

By Cynthia Pailet

Inspiration piece

Meditation on a mountain: five haiku

By Helen Lewis

Response

i

sunrise paints the slopes

in semi-precious colours

pearlescent with ice

ii

the wind carries the

tang of fresh snow, sends flocks of

prayer flags fluttering

iii

rising up from the

monastery the scent of

sandalwood incense

iv

sunlight glints off prayer

wheels, inscriptions worn smooth by

a million fingers

v

the mountain’s a sand

mandala, washing away

in the stream of time

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Arms Wide Open

By Helen Lewis

Response

A Fortune Teller Once Told Me (True Story) 

By Terah Van Dusen

Inspiration piece

Several years ago
I had a psychic reading
Not at one of those hole-in-the-wall places
with the flashing lights
and crystal balls

It was done in my living room

My former roommate, Sydney, had her future read frequently
Sydney had the same lady come over to our house
oh, every couple months or so
Always when nobody was home
I don’t remember how it was arranged
but the next thing you knew,
I too was signed up for a reading
Sydney promised not to tell the “medium” a thing about me
That way we could insure accuracy

The medium didn’t wear a long, flouncy dress
Or bring a satchel full of rocks and crystals,
She showed up in her Subaru car,
dressed in a North Face pullover and jeans
Said to me, this isn’t my day job

We sat facing each other in the quiet house
Nobody there except for us,
That was one of her rules
That nobody else be there

She took a few minutes to gauge me,
Had her eyes closed, seemed to be sniffing around at the air
Like she were some kind of animal.
I closed my eyes too, I was tired

Maybe its custom to start out by saying a
few nice things about the person.
Because that’s what she did at first,
mentioned a few of my qualities,
built me up a little bit.
She said she noticed that I was a writer.

She told me:
Keep writing, someday there will be people helping you.
As you can imagine, I was pleased
This lady was good

She went on to say that there was a person from
my past, a person who wished to speak to me.
From a past life, from a past life, she clarified.
The medium then, with her eyes still closed,
began speaking in a stranger, lower voice
I realized that the spirit was speaking through her:
It’s you! It’s you! I cannot believe I can finally speak to yyyooou!
The emotion that came with this voice brought tears to my eyes
Ooooohhhhh, youuuuuuuu!
Oh, oh, you are sssso lovely in this life!
The voice was truly eerie,
but my, what a compliment! Lovely?

The medium broke the contact with the spirit
She looked at me and said:
Whoever that was they sure are fond of you.
But, know that not every spirit is good.
Spirits, like humans, are both bad and good.
Let’s move on, she said

I have some advice for you, based on what I’m seeing:
First, know that a good way to gauge your happiness, is that
you are happiest when you are light on your feet.

I would imagine…

Second, you should eat less spicy food. More fresh food.

No and okay.

You are very serious, watch more funny movies and TV shows.

Now, I have given you some advice about how to better your life,
I’d like to mention just a few other things before we close:

You are wondering if you will have
everlasting love: you are not the type.
You will not be with the same man for all of your life.

I’ll show you!

You are wondering if you will be happy when you move from Arizona.
You will be happy, you will be more whole than you have ever been.

In the distant future I see you standing up on a hill,
inside of a prairie or meadow.
Your arms are wide open.
You are rejoicing because
you have finally reached the place
where you’ve been headed all your life.

I will keep my eyes wide-open for that place…

That was the last psychic reading I’ve had
The only psychic reading I’ve had
The woman told me all I needed to know,
and then some.
Knowing your future is not fun.
Whether its true or not.
I mean, there’s the good:
I should keep writing!
People will be helping me!
I’m going to stretch my arms out wide like a crazy
person while standing in a high-elevation prairie!
And then there’s the bad:
I should give up Thai food,
No relationship I will have will last.

Enough is enough,
I know enough now.
I will seek that meadow where
I will be whole and free
and I will try my darndest to have a long,
happy marriage someday.
Regardless of my “destiny”

I paid the psychic $25 bucks that day.
She told me a whole lot more
But its been so long that I forgot it.
I hadn’t written it down because
at the time I was sure I’d remember it all.

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Pharoah Bolding
Inspiration piece

Dead man falling
By Helen Lewis
Response

Angelo’s going to die.

Of course, we’re all going to die some day; it’s just a matter of when and where. And how. For Angelo, the when, where and how have already been decided. As for when, he’s going to die today. Let me fill you in about the where and the how. It’s a story I’m uniquely qualified to tell.

I met Angelo when I was fourteen. I was a weedy kid with terrible acne – a magnet for bullies. One day I was lying on the ground in the foetal position while a lumbering troll from Year 11 kicked me repeatedly in the ribs, when suddenly the onslaught stopped and my assailant started making a choking noise. I looked up to see a muscular, dark-haired boy standing over me. He was lifting the bully up by his school tie so that his toes were scraping the ground.

‘If you beat him up again, I’ll kill you,’ he said. From the look in the bully’s eyes, I’d say he believed him. The stranger let go of the bully’s tie, and the bully ran off in the direction of the science block, without looking back.

The dark-haired boy helped me to my feet. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I think so…thanks…’

‘Don’t mention it,’ he said, handing me a business card.

Printed in white gothic lettering on a black background were the words ‘Angelo Morris’. I turned the card over. There were no contact details.

‘What -?’ I began, looking up, but Angelo had gone.

After that I often saw Angelo around school, and we’d nod to each other when we passed in the corridor, but we didn’t hang out together. I never mentioned the incident to anyone, but word must have got around somehow, because bullies never bothered me after that.

I bumped into Angelo again about six months ago. I was sitting in the lobby of City Computer Services, waiting to be called in for a job interview when Angelo walked in, wearing a white suit, black shirt and white tie.

‘Hi,’ he said, ‘long time no see. How’s life treating you?’

I mumbled something non-committal. The chair next to me was free and Angelo sat down in it.

‘Here for an interview?’ he asked. I nodded.

‘Snap. What time’s your appointment?’

‘Three thirty.’

‘Really? Mine’s at three. I’ll put in a good word for you.’ He winked.

About a week later I opened my front door one evening to take delivery of a large quattro stagioni with extra olives, to find Angelo standing on the doorstep, dressed in an Eezee Peezee Pizza uniform and carrying a pizza box.

‘Congratulations on getting the job,’ he said.

‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but how -?’

‘Do you mind if I come in?’ asked Angelo, walking into my flat.

And he’s been here ever since. On the plus side, he always pays his rent on time, and the extra money comes in handy. It’s also good to have someone to talk to, and someone to look after the flat when I go away, although one weekend not long after Angelo arrived I went to visit my parents, and I got back to find that Angelo had decorated the entire flat while I was gone. He’d painted the off-white walls in vivid colours: lime green in the living room, fire engine red in the kitchen, fluorescent yellow in the hall, bright turquoise in the bathroom and flaming orange in the bedrooms.

‘But the terms of my tenancy agreement!’ I spluttered.

‘Relax,’ said Angelo, putting his hand on my shoulder.

On evenings when he’s not working Angelo brings people round to the flat and they hang out talking, laughing, drinking and smoking until the early hours of the morning.

It was during one of these impromptu parties that I first met Caitlin. I was making myself a cup of cocoa in the kitchen when she came in, rushed over to the sink, and started dabbing at her chest with the dishcloth. She was trying to get red wine out of her white blouse. When I told her it needed washing straight away, she whipped her blouse off and put it in the washing machine. Offering to lend her one of my shirts, I went to get one from my wardrobe, and she followed me into my bedroom. One thing led to another, and we ended up having sex.

The next morning Angelo noticed there was something different about me. ‘Bloody hell, you shagged somebody last night, didn’t you?’ He thumped me on the back.

After that Caitlin began coming round on a regular basis, and we’d often spend the night together. One evening Caitlin told me she liked to make love in the open air. I explained that when you live in a twelfth floor flat, the only open air is on the balcony. She said that would have to do. As we were lying naked on the balcony after a hot and sweaty bout of sex that must have got all the binoculars in the neighbourhood twitching, I asked,

‘Are we an item?’

She lifted her head from my shoulder and stroked my chest. ‘I think so, Babe.’

About a week later I took Angelo out for a drink and broached the subject of Caitlin moving in.

‘I’m not keen on the idea,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t like her.’

‘But she’s one of your friends!’

‘I know, but she’s not good enough for you.’

‘You’re not making sense, Angelo.’ I tried again. ‘Do you think I’m asking you to move out? Well, you needn’t worry about that. I want you to stay. Really.’

So Caitlin moved in. And Angelo stayed, but I didn’t see as much of him any more. Sometimes, when Caitlin was out at work, he’d poke his head round my door and we’d hang out together for a while, but when Caitlin was around he kept a low profile.

And that was how things continued for several months. Until today.

I had to stay late at work tonight, and when I got home the flat was in darkness. The doors to the balcony were open and the long net curtains were swaying in the breeze. I pushed one curtain aside and saw Angelo and Caitlin going at it like a couple of rabbits.

I’ve heard people refer to rage as a ‘red mist’ before, but I always thought it was just a poetic description. I didn’t realise that when people talk about ‘seeing red’ they’re describing something that actually happens. Until it happened to me. Suddenly, I was in the middle of a thick, red fog – everything was tinged the colour of blood.

‘Caitlin!’ I yelled.

Angelo got up and covered up his genitals with his hands. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not what it looks like.’

‘Then what the fuck is it?’

‘It’s all right, Babe,’ said Caitlin, who had also got up. She reached out and touched my arm.

‘Don’t touch me!’ I shouted, shaking her off.

Caitlin gathered up her clothes, which were scattered all over the balcony, and stormed back into the house. She delivered a parting shot over her shoulder as she left: ‘You’re crazy!’

I advanced on Angelo, and he backed away, his hands still covering his genitals.

‘Don’t be angry,’ he said, ‘it really isn’t what it looks like.’

‘Oh really?’ I said. ‘Don’t tell me – you were helping her look for her earring. No, wait… you were out here watering the tomatoes. Or were you stargazing? Go on, I’d love to hear your explanation of what you were really doing. I’ll bet it’s fascinating.’

‘It’s not so much fascinating as… well…complicated. And possibly a little hard to believe.’

‘I’ll bet. You know, I used to think you were so brave, so tough. But that was all a show. You’re just a little weasel, aren’t you?’ I advanced on Angelo even further.

‘What are you doing?’ Angelo said, backing up against the balcony railing. For the first time I saw fear in his eyes.

‘I’m going to kill you,’ I said.

All trace of fear left his face. ‘No you’re not,’ he said. ‘Killing me would easily be the most stupid thing you’ve ever done. And you’ve done some stupid things in your time. Like that time you superglued your finger up your nose when you were eleven.’

‘How do you know about that?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he said. ‘Maybe it isn’t, when you’re as stupid as you are.’

And so I pushed him.

And this is how I know Angelo is going to die. Very, very soon.

I know I pushed him. I know it. So why is it me who’s falling through the air, arms and legs flailing, staring at the pavement as it rushes up towards me from below?

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Helen Lewis

Too many ghosts

Response

Hildie S. Block

Palette

Inspiration piece

It is time to create, but every time I look around, the room grows more crowded.  I lift my paintbrush to the canvas and into the room walks my ex-wife.

Q:    What are you doing?

A:    Trying to paint.

Q:    How could you do this without me?

A:    You were not here.

Q:    (she points) I am here.

It’s true; she was there, buried deep in the fibers of the canvas.  I begin to furiously ready my brush.  My mother walks in between me and the canvas.

Q:    What are you doing?

A:    Trying to paint my ex-wife.

Q:    Don’t you have anything else to do?

A:    No.

My mother disappears but for a second I see her disappointed grimace reflected in the far bottom corner of the canvas.  Again, I am about to touch paint to canvas when my daughter tugs demandingly at my sleeve.

Q:    Let’s go!

A:    I can’t.

Q:    Why not?

A:    Because the paint is calling to me to tell a story.

Q:    Who cares?

A:    You will.

My daughter takes her stuffed puppy and mopes into a corner.  Her face burns from the corner through the canvas until it is superimposed over my ex-wife’s.  I peer out over the top of the canvas at the generations of women talking loudly and sipping wine.  They crowd around me as I again begin to put color onto the stretched fabric.

Chorus:     Paint!

A:          When?

Chorus:     Now!

A:          Why?

Chorus:     You have no other choice.

My sister sits next to me on my stool.  “I will stay and help,” she says.  “You can go now,” she tells them. And in single file they all leave by the only door, the last one locking it from the outside.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying

or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or

artist is strictly prohibited.

Sukia

Agave

Inspiration piece

Helen Lewis

Bloom

Response

Rose awoke to a gentle jolt, a pneumatic whoosh, and a rush of hot, dry air. She opened her eyes and looked out of the window.

This was the place from her dream. Not just similar, but exactly identical in every detail: the undulating smudge of hills in the distance, the rocky outcrop whose outline looked like the profile of a human face, and the cluster of agaves in the foreground.

In her dream it was night-time; the agaves’ grey-green foliage shone silvery blue in the moonlight, and the distant hills were backlit by the glow of an unidentified city. Rose would hear the unfamiliar sounds of the desert at night: the chirping of crickets, and numerous unidentified hoots, barks and howls. Then she’d become aware of another noise: the sound of a vehicle’s engine. She’d turn, and see a pair of headlights approaching. She’d walk out onto the side of the road, and stand with her thumb out.

And then she’d wake up.

‘Fifteen-minute break,’ said the coach driver, taking a packet of cigarettes from the chest pocket of his short-sleeved shirt and disappearing down the steps.

*

Rose had been brought up by her grandmother. Her grandmother’s interest in alternative therapies, her eclectic dress sense and her love of cats (she had eight of them), led to whispers among the local children that she was witch.

When a five-year-old Rose asked, ‘Nana, are you a witch?’ her grandmother answered, ‘Everyone has magic in them, Rosie. I’m one of the lucky ones; I was born knowing it. Most people don’t recognise the magic inside them until life cuts them open, but then the magic flows out, like blood from a wound.’

They say the first cut is the deepest. But not with Max. With him the cuts just got deeper and deeper. And then one day, while giving Rose a particularly violent beating, he collapsed and died. The doctors said he’d had a massive heart attack.

It was then that the dreams started. Or rather the dream – it was the same dream repeated over and over.

*

Rose stepped off the coach, her rucksack slung over her shoulder. This was definitely the place from her dream. She wouldn’t be getting back on the coach when the fifteen-minute break was up. All she needed now was a distraction – something to grab the driver’s attention, and make him forget to take a head count before leaving.

There was a sudden squeal of tyres and a brown station wagon slewed into the car park. A teenage boy leapt out of the driver’s seat, yelling, ‘Is anybody here a doctor? My brother’s been bitten by a rattlesnake!’

‘I used to be a paramedic,’ shouted the coach driver, running towards the station wagon.

Rose slipped around the back of the toilet block and leant against the wall, enjoying the coolness of the shade. Within a quarter of an hour she heard an ambulance siren, and five minutes later, she heard the coach pull off.

One of the agaves behind the toilet block was in flower. The flower stalk was at least five times as tall as the plant itself, with green florets branching off the top half. It looked as if a giant had been throwing trees around, and had speared one of the agaves with a gangly pine tree.

Rose’s grandmother had grown agaves in her sprawling back garden. They’d never grown this big, though, and Rose had never seen one in flower before. Her grandmother had explained that an agave flowers just once, and then dies. Or rather, the old growth dies back, but the plant lives on in the form of suckers that sprout from the base of its stem.

Rose sat in the shade and waited for nightfall.

*

Rose woke up shivering. It was dark. She opened her rucksack, put on a jumper, and then hoisted the rucksack onto her back. She emerged from behind the toilet block.

The car park was empty. Beyond the low wooden railing the landscape looked exactly as it had in her dream, and the night noises were in full swing.  She wondered which city was lighting up the horizon behind the hills, and thought perhaps it was Phoenix. Rose thought Phoenix was an odd name for a city. Like calling a place Dragon, Unicorn or Mermaid. When Rose was growing up her grandmother had had a fire screen in the shape of a phoenix rising from the flames. Whenever Rose had suffered losses and setbacks as a child, her grandmother had urged her to remember the phoenix. ‘Don’t forget, Rosie,’ she’d said, ‘whenever our lives are consumed by fire, it’s an opportunity for us to start again; to build an even better life out of the ashes of the old one. All you have to do is be open to the possibilities that present themselves.’

Rose didn’t have to wait for long before she heard the engine and saw the headlights on the horizon. The vehicle was heading west. Rose took up her position by the side of the road.

The vehicle was a van. It pulled up beside her.

The lettering on the side of the van read, ‘Back to the Fuchsia – floral arrangements for every occasion’.

The driver of the van was a man in his mid thirties. He had a friendly-looking face and an unruly mop of dark, curly hair. He leant across and opened the passenger-side door.

‘I’m going to Phoenix,’ said the man. ‘Where are you headed?’

‘Same place as you,’ said Rose.

‘Hop in, then,’ said the man. Rose got into the passenger seat.

The air in the van was filled with the scent of freesias, carnations and roses.

Rose was on her way to Phoenix. She had a feeling it was her time to bloom.

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