Teen

By Anna Robinson

A couch potato with a heavy limbed lethargy. Resentment crawling on his chest. Bones growing like tree branches overnight; now he towers above. But he walks as if through sand, weighed down by something he can’t name. 

            Not a child anymore, but not yet a man. In limbo, lost, with no urge to run, or dance, or play, or fly. Not like before. He just sits, stares, watering eyes growing square. Stationary, as if perhaps the world might pause too. 

            Not lazy. Just not ready. Like bread dough, waiting to rise.

Vulgar Weeds

By Borrach Hills

Its vulgarity stood out, amongst the manicured lawns of prizewinning topiary, tiger lilies and rhododendrons. Invasive bristly weeds, dishevelled grass with cascading brambles, incensed the green-fingered neighbours.

Whispers of direct action, galvanized the beleaguered gardeners.

*We cannot allow such monstrous foliage to permeate one of our own! We must eliminate this vulgar anarchy!”

The unit assembled at dawn, with loppers and shears.

By dusk, piles of beheaded bindweed saluted victory: the slovenly wilderness tamed.

She arrived home quietly the next day, fragile from the latest round of treatment.

Entering the garden, she felt gratitude for horticultural butchery.

The Four O’Clock Wave

By Sonia Haddad

She should move but heat crushes her. By the afternoon, sitting is enough. The flat sea stretches to the horizon while the maid sweeps up sand from yesterday’s hot winds. She drinks Kefraya. React, he said, but anger exhausts. She lowers the basket down from the balcony to where Mahmoud waits, fills it with vegetables. He gives her a nod to pull it up. She remembers a beach in Nice, waiting on the four o’clock wave. Vibrant, she jumped into the swell. Now, she waves at the maid to wash the legumes and bring more wine to help Madam forget.

The Sloth (from the old English ‘slow’ and ‘th’)

By Helen Dudley

A canopy of malachite masked a cyan sky.

Following my camera, feet had gone awry.

With tour due to finish, bus due to leave,

Here was I adrift, amongst the jungle leaves.

‘Relax’ a slow voice uttered, somewhere by my ear.

‘Where’s the guide?’ I muttered, but there was no-one near!

‘Slow down’ the calm voice came anew, ‘sit and bide awhile’,

I turned to see a furry face with wide and worldly smile.

So sit I did, and missed the bus;

Missed the crowd, the frantic fuss.

A peace descended, inner growth:

A lesson from my friend, the Slow-th.

Sins of the _

By Ronita Sinha

“Lazy girl,” the teacher glares at me. “Dozing in class and, as usual, homework not done.”

Outside, while the children play and eat their tiffin, I hide in the toilet sucking a sweet stolen from Mrs Goodall’s candy dish. I dusted her Italian dolls for five bucks a week. “Stop being lazy, clean the creases of the skirts,” she admonishes.

I help Mum make supper, scrub the dishes, sing a broken lullaby to my baby brother.

He sleeps,

             Mum weeps,

             tiredness creeps in my deeps.

             My father’s drunken head lolls on the stalk of his neck; withered, debauched.

‘Working’ From Home

By Emily MacDonald

He is deceitful but careless - dented sofa cushions, the flattened hair patch on the back of his head, the over-familiarity with the test match ball by ball play.

One sun-drenched afternoon, she surprises him by arriving home early.  She catches sight of him furtively re-buttoning his shirt as he rushes inside from the garden. She slows, fumbling her keys, giving him time to snatch his phone to his ear, open the laptop cast on the desk.

She should tell him to contribute, participate and pull his weight.  But in despising him, she can’t summon the energy to bother. 

The group chose ‘Teen’ as their favourite. Congratulations to Anna Robinson!