Showing posts with label Ben Osborn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ben Osborn. Show all posts
On Campus
By Ben Osborn
It had been raining that day, and if I remember this right, the paving stones beneath my feet where freckled. I mean they looked like they were freckles. I mean it was like splash marks. I suppose swimming pools aren’t surrounded by paving stones, but if they were, and someone did some kind of dive from really high up, then the paving stones quite far back from the pool (not the ones that got the full drenching, but just the ones that were kind of freckled with droplets) would have looked like this. I’m just trying to give you some idea of what the ground would have looked like, underneath me.
And you know what else – well, this was when I started to notice things were a bit weird, you know, I mean, because so far it probably sounds pretty ordinary. So the other thing was the shadows. Because I was walking up, over these paving stones, and I was looking around me, and the buildings would cast these big, slanted shadows.
That still sounds ordinary enough. Nothing special. But you see – this is the point I’m trying to get around to – the shadows weren’t actually shadows at all. Obviously, I didn’t realize this straight away. Otherwise, it would’ve been the first thing I mentioned, because this was seriously strange.
Because a giant bird was perched on the building. I think it must just have been one bird. I only really saw this one bird clearly. It was big enough to have been a whole flock, though. Its feet were stretched out underneath a couple of trees, and it had just as many talons as there were branches on the trees, so it really did just looking the shadow of the trunk and branches, but actually it was this big black bird’s leg stretched out on the ground. And then, the big black slanting shadows of the buildings weren’t shadows at all. I really didn’t see it straight away, but once I saw the legs beneath the trees I could see the whole shape of the bird. And these big black slanted shapes that I had taken to be shadows were in fact big black wings, with these thin black feathers closely linked together, but fanning out a little bit here and there, and being ruffled slightly by the wind.
And raised above the entrance to the Arts Centre, there was the bird’s head. And it was something quite special, this head. Because, when I had been walking up to the building, I hadn’t even noticed it. It was only when I saw the wings, and I followed the pattern of the feathers, that I noticed them forming into a circular pattern, creating a kind of ruff, like an Elizabethan ruff, that I even saw where the neck began, though for the most part it was obscured by the roof of the building. But right over the arch of the double doors there was this head, huge and black, with a long beak, black also, but with a streak of silver grey outlining its shape.
I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t exactly scared, but I felt like I should run away. It seemed the sensible course of action, anyway. So I did, I ran. It was probably a mistake, actually. My glasses fell off almost immediately. The world had become a blur, but I could feel a hard wind on my back, and I knew from the sound of huge black feathers rushing through the air that this wind was caused by the bird’s wings beating right behind me. Yes, I had made a terrible mistake by running and attracting the beast’s attention! Behind me, its vast dark eyes were fixed upon me, and I suppose from then on all action was pretty much automatic. Those huge wings propelled the creature pretty effectively. Before I knew it, those hundreds of talons where shredding the clothes off my back, and in another moment I was naked. But of course, the talons did not stop with that. I felt them tearing easily through the flesh of my back. I was still running, naked as I was, and that was when I finally stopped, because I saw the stones all over the ground in front of me and realised how pointless it really was. I turned around. I wanted to face the bird. I was just in time to see the black beak opening. Its inner throat was deep silver-grey, just like the streaks along the beak. Its breath was almost odorless, and cold, more like a cold breeze than the breath of an animal. It gave me a sense of vague satisfaction that instead of ripping me to shreds, the bird chose to eat my head whole. I am not aware of what became of the rest of me.
- - -
Ben Osborn is a jobseeking graduate, freelance writer and composer, from Oxford, England.
By Ben Osborn
It had been raining that day, and if I remember this right, the paving stones beneath my feet where freckled. I mean they looked like they were freckles. I mean it was like splash marks. I suppose swimming pools aren’t surrounded by paving stones, but if they were, and someone did some kind of dive from really high up, then the paving stones quite far back from the pool (not the ones that got the full drenching, but just the ones that were kind of freckled with droplets) would have looked like this. I’m just trying to give you some idea of what the ground would have looked like, underneath me.
And you know what else – well, this was when I started to notice things were a bit weird, you know, I mean, because so far it probably sounds pretty ordinary. So the other thing was the shadows. Because I was walking up, over these paving stones, and I was looking around me, and the buildings would cast these big, slanted shadows.
That still sounds ordinary enough. Nothing special. But you see – this is the point I’m trying to get around to – the shadows weren’t actually shadows at all. Obviously, I didn’t realize this straight away. Otherwise, it would’ve been the first thing I mentioned, because this was seriously strange.
Because a giant bird was perched on the building. I think it must just have been one bird. I only really saw this one bird clearly. It was big enough to have been a whole flock, though. Its feet were stretched out underneath a couple of trees, and it had just as many talons as there were branches on the trees, so it really did just looking the shadow of the trunk and branches, but actually it was this big black bird’s leg stretched out on the ground. And then, the big black slanting shadows of the buildings weren’t shadows at all. I really didn’t see it straight away, but once I saw the legs beneath the trees I could see the whole shape of the bird. And these big black slanted shapes that I had taken to be shadows were in fact big black wings, with these thin black feathers closely linked together, but fanning out a little bit here and there, and being ruffled slightly by the wind.
And raised above the entrance to the Arts Centre, there was the bird’s head. And it was something quite special, this head. Because, when I had been walking up to the building, I hadn’t even noticed it. It was only when I saw the wings, and I followed the pattern of the feathers, that I noticed them forming into a circular pattern, creating a kind of ruff, like an Elizabethan ruff, that I even saw where the neck began, though for the most part it was obscured by the roof of the building. But right over the arch of the double doors there was this head, huge and black, with a long beak, black also, but with a streak of silver grey outlining its shape.
I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t exactly scared, but I felt like I should run away. It seemed the sensible course of action, anyway. So I did, I ran. It was probably a mistake, actually. My glasses fell off almost immediately. The world had become a blur, but I could feel a hard wind on my back, and I knew from the sound of huge black feathers rushing through the air that this wind was caused by the bird’s wings beating right behind me. Yes, I had made a terrible mistake by running and attracting the beast’s attention! Behind me, its vast dark eyes were fixed upon me, and I suppose from then on all action was pretty much automatic. Those huge wings propelled the creature pretty effectively. Before I knew it, those hundreds of talons where shredding the clothes off my back, and in another moment I was naked. But of course, the talons did not stop with that. I felt them tearing easily through the flesh of my back. I was still running, naked as I was, and that was when I finally stopped, because I saw the stones all over the ground in front of me and realised how pointless it really was. I turned around. I wanted to face the bird. I was just in time to see the black beak opening. Its inner throat was deep silver-grey, just like the streaks along the beak. Its breath was almost odorless, and cold, more like a cold breeze than the breath of an animal. It gave me a sense of vague satisfaction that instead of ripping me to shreds, the bird chose to eat my head whole. I am not aware of what became of the rest of me.
- - -
Ben Osborn is a jobseeking graduate, freelance writer and composer, from Oxford, England.
Nomads
by Ben Osborn
This morning I started to write it all down, and this is what I wrote:
Marie says that they came out of nothing, only invention and determination. Light out of darkness.
Because all there was was a slope that wasn’t black but the actual absence of black, lit by dim distant stars.
I heard from Marie that they didn’t have flying saucers or nothing like that, not even spacesuits really, nothing like something she-or-me’d recognise as a space suit; what they had was oxygen alligators. Bubbling canals in the void from mouth to mouth; a big conga-line kiss of life. Allegation systems.
What they found in the dark was rocks, just rocks and nothing else, rocks covered in ice, so they knew the ice meant water, and water meant life, and rocks could mean earth, one day, with patience. I always imagine they tore at the rock with their fingernails and stuff, pulling out clumps of new moist earth with green shoots already growing in them.
Now I forgot to even say what we were doing there. Us I mean. I’m all jumbled up. I don’t even believe my own self, and putting it in words isn’t helping. Is it alright if I just tell it like a list of things and not with a reason why, would that be alright?
I’m sick of all the high and mighty-ing, see. I was brought up Manichaean, right, but I don’t believe it any more. All of that hierarchical stuff. Lots of things in capital letters. It’s not for me, no. Prophets and angels and stuff like that – well I don’t think that’s how they spoke, not really. I don’t think everything was such a muddle of being totally clear about everything – saying things like This Was The Way It Was – and then cut down to still seeming just as clear, but now being a big mystery – saying: this was the Way it was, or: this was the way It was – I don’t think people spoke like that, not even when they were talking to God, so I’m putting a stop to it in myself. My Manichaean Guilt. I’ve looked up at what I already wrote, and it’s as big a mess as any of the words of Mani. ‘Light out of darkness’ – well let me tell you what I meant, by which I mean, what I saw. Let me show unto you that which was shown unto me.
See, imagine if you read a line like ‘God said, Let there be light!’ or somesuch – well, imagine if that meant, ‘Just now, God said, Let there be light!, and that’s why it got light just now’ – imagine if, in fact, you were reading a description of your own eyes opening, and only opening to read those words, too. God said, ‘I am saying’. You said, ‘I am saying in reply.’ Do you see where I’m going with this? Believing is a kind of doing, after all. Reading too. Doesn’t matter when it happened, what you’re reading about, because you’re reading about it now, so it’s happening now.
Well for me and Marie things got really sped up like that. We saw the past coming out right in front of us. So let me start again; ‘cause if I could start telling this again, I’d start it like this:
Marie says to me, look at that – they came out of nothing!
Because all that we could see in front of us was nothingness, not even darkness but the absence of darkness itself.
See, we had gone out on a little trip, Marie and me. We want to see something we’d only heard about, about our past. Our people had been nomads in a nowhere, and now they were us, but we’d heard that there was a way to see them as they had once been. So we took a little trip out to the edge of everything; you know what I mean, like where the light really stops. We landed on a little bit of rock and grey dirt. She told me what it was you were supposed to do there. She handed me a big spade and I dug a pit out of the grey dirt and then she opened her sack and there was a sheep in it. Still alive. She put it in the pit and held its back legs – sheep looked really scared too – and I shut my eyes and brought the sharp edge of the spade down on the sheep’s white neck. Didn’t work first time, so I had to open my eyes to aim better and really go for it, and this time the sheep just bellowed one croaky bleat and with it came great spheres of crimson, bulging like they were ripe, just splatting into the pit. We really went at the sheep then, ‘cause you got to get at all the blood, and that’s harder when there’s less gravity, plus it’s the first time I ever killed anything and I thought I might as well go all the way with it; and then, just like it’s supposed to happen, we saw them out in the middle of the darkness. They came out of nothing. Nomads – they survive on invention and determination. These things – we were them now, you see? They were the old versions of us. We’re what they became. We were looking at the ghosts of ourselves. I picked up the spade and kind of – brandished it, I guess – trying not to let them come too close. And they had those what’s-it-called – irritation systems, oxygen irritators – so that it was like they were all one big thing. Like dancers in a conga line, like I said before.
And I looked at them as they crowded around the blood and I really saw then where life had started. I looked at their broken fingernails and saw where they had broke them tearing life out of the rocks.
- - -
Ben Osborn is a student at Warwick University, UK. When he writes articles for student newspapers he tends to get emails from confused readers.
by Ben Osborn
This morning I started to write it all down, and this is what I wrote:
Marie says that they came out of nothing, only invention and determination. Light out of darkness.
Because all there was was a slope that wasn’t black but the actual absence of black, lit by dim distant stars.
I heard from Marie that they didn’t have flying saucers or nothing like that, not even spacesuits really, nothing like something she-or-me’d recognise as a space suit; what they had was oxygen alligators. Bubbling canals in the void from mouth to mouth; a big conga-line kiss of life. Allegation systems.
What they found in the dark was rocks, just rocks and nothing else, rocks covered in ice, so they knew the ice meant water, and water meant life, and rocks could mean earth, one day, with patience. I always imagine they tore at the rock with their fingernails and stuff, pulling out clumps of new moist earth with green shoots already growing in them.
Now I forgot to even say what we were doing there. Us I mean. I’m all jumbled up. I don’t even believe my own self, and putting it in words isn’t helping. Is it alright if I just tell it like a list of things and not with a reason why, would that be alright?
I’m sick of all the high and mighty-ing, see. I was brought up Manichaean, right, but I don’t believe it any more. All of that hierarchical stuff. Lots of things in capital letters. It’s not for me, no. Prophets and angels and stuff like that – well I don’t think that’s how they spoke, not really. I don’t think everything was such a muddle of being totally clear about everything – saying things like This Was The Way It Was – and then cut down to still seeming just as clear, but now being a big mystery – saying: this was the Way it was, or: this was the way It was – I don’t think people spoke like that, not even when they were talking to God, so I’m putting a stop to it in myself. My Manichaean Guilt. I’ve looked up at what I already wrote, and it’s as big a mess as any of the words of Mani. ‘Light out of darkness’ – well let me tell you what I meant, by which I mean, what I saw. Let me show unto you that which was shown unto me.
See, imagine if you read a line like ‘God said, Let there be light!’ or somesuch – well, imagine if that meant, ‘Just now, God said, Let there be light!, and that’s why it got light just now’ – imagine if, in fact, you were reading a description of your own eyes opening, and only opening to read those words, too. God said, ‘I am saying’. You said, ‘I am saying in reply.’ Do you see where I’m going with this? Believing is a kind of doing, after all. Reading too. Doesn’t matter when it happened, what you’re reading about, because you’re reading about it now, so it’s happening now.
Well for me and Marie things got really sped up like that. We saw the past coming out right in front of us. So let me start again; ‘cause if I could start telling this again, I’d start it like this:
Marie says to me, look at that – they came out of nothing!
Because all that we could see in front of us was nothingness, not even darkness but the absence of darkness itself.
See, we had gone out on a little trip, Marie and me. We want to see something we’d only heard about, about our past. Our people had been nomads in a nowhere, and now they were us, but we’d heard that there was a way to see them as they had once been. So we took a little trip out to the edge of everything; you know what I mean, like where the light really stops. We landed on a little bit of rock and grey dirt. She told me what it was you were supposed to do there. She handed me a big spade and I dug a pit out of the grey dirt and then she opened her sack and there was a sheep in it. Still alive. She put it in the pit and held its back legs – sheep looked really scared too – and I shut my eyes and brought the sharp edge of the spade down on the sheep’s white neck. Didn’t work first time, so I had to open my eyes to aim better and really go for it, and this time the sheep just bellowed one croaky bleat and with it came great spheres of crimson, bulging like they were ripe, just splatting into the pit. We really went at the sheep then, ‘cause you got to get at all the blood, and that’s harder when there’s less gravity, plus it’s the first time I ever killed anything and I thought I might as well go all the way with it; and then, just like it’s supposed to happen, we saw them out in the middle of the darkness. They came out of nothing. Nomads – they survive on invention and determination. These things – we were them now, you see? They were the old versions of us. We’re what they became. We were looking at the ghosts of ourselves. I picked up the spade and kind of – brandished it, I guess – trying not to let them come too close. And they had those what’s-it-called – irritation systems, oxygen irritators – so that it was like they were all one big thing. Like dancers in a conga line, like I said before.
And I looked at them as they crowded around the blood and I really saw then where life had started. I looked at their broken fingernails and saw where they had broke them tearing life out of the rocks.
- - -
Ben Osborn is a student at Warwick University, UK. When he writes articles for student newspapers he tends to get emails from confused readers.
