By Eithne Cullen

Welcome to March’s Thoughtful Tuesday page. If you read my page in February, you’ll remember it was all about beginnings. So, in keeping with our theme of Beginnings And Endings, I’m using today’s page to share some endings. They cover endings of places that meant a lot, a break-up told from the heart and a ghostly story with unrequited love.

The first piece is a poem which comes with an explanation of its origin.

The following collaborative poem was written as the Skylark Café closed in 2023 at the Southbank. There were many memories created in a space that will always remain special, as the time we spent there created lovely memories in a chapter of our life. As we sat there in reflection, the words just spilled out, so we co-created the following poem about endings.

Endings: Skylark Café Closes

I will remember.
The stories we told and the stories we heard,
The songs we sang and the tunes we learnt,
The music we heard and the moves we made,
The friends we made and the friends we kept,
The activities we did and the things we created,
The laughs we had and jokes we told,
The hugs we gave and the hugs we received,
The memories will reign in our minds forever.
I will remember.

© Dr Afsana & Sebastian Elanko, 2023

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The next piece is a powerful and reflective poem from Amber Hall. It tells of an ending.

The Separation

I love you.
The words slipped out,
Despite myself.

Then you left.
You’d spend the night on your friend’s sofa, you said
And meanwhile I sat, separating our things.

The end marked with knick-knacks
Collected over the years,
Now gathering dust on shelves

In the corners of a home
That was no longer our home;
Just rooms in which our lives played out,

Singly.

Books, candles and flowerpots,
Frames with the photos removed,
That lampshade you bought

With the dent in it
All packed into boxes; sealed shut with brown tape
And labelled ‘living room.’

It seemed callous, piecing ourselves apart like that
Impersonal. Too final.
A hard line etched on cardboard.

The detritus of our coupledom
Swept away under the rug we bought together
As though I wouldn’t be taking you with me.

© Amber Hall, 2023

Connect with Amber on Instagram: @amber.marie.123 and X: @amber_marie_123

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Here’s a story from Claire Buss; an unsettling tale of weird happenings and a touch of unrequited love…

The Haunted House

The house on the hill was dark and gloomy. A permanent fog wreathed its turrets while the blackened windows and door made an angry face, glaring down the hill at the town below. Brambles grew thick in the gardens, overgrown hedges made it difficult to peer inside and the rusty gate had been locked for years and years. Every Halloween, children dared each other to wriggle between the rusted bars, creep up to the front door and ring the bell. And every Halloween the tale was told of Zac Plimpton who had wriggled and crept and rang. He was never seen again, they would whisper, looking at the house in expectation of a grisly apparition.

The old folks of the town say his family moved house, a simple straightforward explanation. So what if they did it in the middle of the night. Some people like the privacy. It’s as good a time as any to move. But the youngsters of the town disagree. They believe the house ate Zac. Or he was carried off by a headless horseman. Or aliens abducted him because it was easier for their spaceships to target people if they were standing on the top of a hill. The alien theory had the least amount of traction.

Zac wished he could go down and let everyone know it was none of those. He’d rung the bell and the door had swung open so he’d gone inside. You see, it doesn’t matter how many horror movies you watch, human curiosity is a powerful thing, especially when mixed with additional supernatural blood. For Zac was a cambion, half human – half demon. His family had left town because his dad had murdered the dentist to use his blood in a demonic ritual. Dentists are a good choice because on the whole, people don’t like them. However, this town loved their dentist. There was a hullabaloo. And so the Plimptons upped sticks and left before anyone could point a finger in their direction. The fact that Zac disappeared on the same day had been a boon. It was a great piece of deflection. The rest of the family weren’t too bothered that Zac never left with them, he was a bright lad, he’d catch up.

Only he wasn’t so bright and instead of catching up, he died. It takes quite a lot of powerful magic to kill a cambion. Or they can fall through a rotting floorboard and skewer their brains on a rusty pike that some thoughtless person left lying around. Zac plumped for the latter. He hadn’t been looking where he was going because he’d become entranced by a vision of loveliness. Margot Forster, a delicate young lady with waves of auburn hair and striking green eyes. Margot had been singing to herself when Zac first saw her. Overcome by her beauty he’d followed her through the house, not looking where he was going and when she floated across the floor, his weight caused him to crash through it.

And now he was dead and a ghost, living in a haunted house with another ghost who he thought was a bit of alright. There had been quite a lot of ghostly expectations and at least the concept of shenanigans but Zac had been bitterly disappointed. You see, the problem with ghosts is, they’re self absorbed. So while Margot spent her time practising the song she was going to sing in the Christmas talent show, she ignored the new ghost quite thoroughly. She herself had died in that house after choking on a peanut whilst rehearsing, hence the attachment to song. After fifty years of pining for love, Zac now spent his time hoping someone from the town below would wriggle, creep and ring. Then they could be together, forever, instead.

© Claire Buss, 2018

Connect with Claire on Instagram: @grasshopper2407 and visit her website clairebuss.co.uk for more information about her writing and books.

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Finally, I’ll leave you with the thought that endings don’t always have to be painful. They can be liberating and create opportunities in their own way. Thanks to all who’ve shared their writing this month. You can submit your own writing at pentoprint.org.

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Issue 19 of Write On! is available to read online here.

You can hear great new ideas, creative work and writing tips on Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo or find us on Spotify.  

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