Each of Us a Petal

Today I’m delighted to share an excerpt from award-winning short story writer Amanda Huggins’ latest collection, Each of Us a Petal. She will be holding a launch event for the book at Marsden Library on Thursday 27 June, 7.30-830 (see link and poster below).
https://www.marsdenmechanics.co.uk/events/amanda-huggins-short-fiction-reading-at-marsden-library/

AN UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPE

Is it true that only a suicide stops a Japanese train from running on time?

Why did her father always ask questions about death? In his last letter he’d asked if she knew anyone who had visited Aokigahara, the so-called Suicide Forest. He said he’d read about it in National Geographic, that you could sense the spirits when you walked through the trees. And did her husband, Paul, know anyone in his office who had died of karoshi – death from overwork?

Sophia pushed the letter back inside her bag, at the same time re-counting the six blister strips of painkillers with her index finger. Reassured by the feel of them, the whisper and rustle of the foil, she snapped the clasp shut and picked up her coffee cup. The café was usually busy, but that afternoon it was almost empty. For the first time she was aware of the low, slanting light pouring in through the windows, the shoals of yellow leaves in the gutter, and she realised the season had changed without her noticing. Most people were taking advantage of the weather, enjoying the warmth of the October sunshine on their skin.

She drained her cup, stood up to leave, and as she crossed to the door the staff called out their thanks in unison: four ringing voices rising above the hiss of the Synesso machine and the background jazz.

‘Arigato gozaimasu!’

Sophia still found it impossible to tune out the everyday clamour of Tokyo: the cuckoo signals at pedestrian crossings; the J-pop and chirpy adverts blaring out from every shop; the cacophonous din of the pachinko parlours; the over-cheerful TV shows with their sherbet-pastel sets. At night, the lights added an extra layer of silent noise; a busy, bright chatter of flashing neon that crowded her head.

She’d been told that even in the villages it was rarely quiet. Her Japanese teacher, Fumiko, explained about the announcements and jingles which were broadcast through tannoys in the streets, how the sound carried on the wind to the rice paddies. When she asked why they didn’t complain, Fumiko shrugged and said there was nothing to be done. Shikata ga nai. It was not to be questioned, it was just part of life.

Sophia had tried to quieten the commotion inside her own head with a daily routine of coffee shops and art galleries, with the hush of museums and books, with endless walks through unfamiliar streets. But inner silence eluded her. She often remembered something her father said when she asked him why he spent so much time in the woods. He told her that solitude was the best companion, that in the wild outdoors it took on a different character, became in itself a connection to the world, an invisible cord between you and your true self.

‘I’m alone in the woods,’ he said, ‘but I’m never lonely.’

Sophia called out her thanks and goodbyes as she left the coffee shop, and by the time she reached Yoyogi Park she knew what she must do.

This collection of short fiction from award-winning author Amanda Huggins takes us on a journey through Japan, from the hustle of city bars to the silence of snow country. The people, culture and complex social mores of this beguiling country have inspired Huggins’ writing ever since she first visited Japan almost twenty years ago.

The book can be purchased via Paypal (free delivery) direct from Amanda’s blog:   https://troutiemcfishtales.blogspot.com/

Becomings

I’m still buzzing from watching the John Coombes/Holmfirth Writers’ Group film, Wordflow at Holmfirth Arts Festival (see https://timwordsblog.wordpress.com/2024/06/02/wordflow/). Though I’d heard the poems before, it was the first time I’d seen the film. It melded so well with the words, producing a very satisfying overall experience.

So I thought I’d share my poem from the film – also published in the accompanying Wordflow booklet.

Becomings

In this place was a lake, where the rivers once came
with the soil they had scoured from the mountains above.
Here they joined, became still and relinquished their load,
so their brown, rushing water became blue and clear
and the pine trees grew tall by the wave-caressed shore.

Over time, those same rivers, the rain and the ice
ground the mountains to hills and the hills into plains
and the water was filled with the dust of their bones.
Then the trees and the rivers all faded away
as the lake became mud, and the mud became stone.

Underneath, the old earth gave a shrug in her sleep.
The plain was now folded and thrust to the sky
and the sandstone laid down in the lake that had died,
made from dust of forgotten hills long worn away
would be moulded like clay into peaks of its own.

And of course, there is rain, there is ice, there is snow
and the flesh of the mountain is bitten once more
by the streams that emerge, like the sweat on its skin,
that will swell into rivers and flow down its flanks
and the valley they carve will be filled … by a lake.

Wordflow

News of an exciting event at Holmfirth Arts Festival.

A 30 minute film, Wordflow, by John Coombes with Holmfirth Writers will be showing on a continuous loop at Nowhere Cafe and Restaurant, Norridge Bottom, Holmfirth between 10am and 4pm on Sunday June 10th. There’s no entry fee, but refreshments are available to buy at Nowhere Cafe. I’m thrilled that one of my poems, Becomings, features in the film.

Wordflow is also available as a book, and will be on sale on the day.