A Selection of Work by Foundation Course Participants - Spring 2002

Caterpillars
by Shamim Hussain

I had a dream once that we were caterpillars.

We munched our way through leaves, trees and valleys for such a long time.

You made me laugh.

We were the best couple of caterpillars around. All the other caterpillars and insects were envious of how much fun we had.

I suddenly started to get fatter but you still loved me.

I started to change - got quieter.

You still loved me.

I started to hide myself. You saw less of me.

You still loved me.

I built a wall of silk around me: my own private heaven. I didn't know what was happening to me. I was scared. You told me it would be OK.

You still loved me.

I disappeared.

You still loved me.

I emerged - an insect with beautiful wings. So colourful. Like an angel. You didn't recognise me. You saw my eyes. You remembered.

You still loved me.

I smiled at you and flew away.

My heart broke. Your heart broke.

You still loved me.

Caterpillars by Shamim Hussain
Neal Street by Helen Proctor
The Boys by Barry Martin
Ragamuffins by Ann McGauran
A Zulu Christmas by Claude Perera
The Lord of Alamut by Katya Maddison
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Neal Street
by Helen Proctor

The deluxe, executive, gold-star minicab drew up at the foot of Neal Street. The rear door opened and a pair of four-inch stiletto shoes darted out. The shoes were on the end of well defined, gym-toned legs, knees clasped tightly together. In one movement, the whole of Mrs Glynis Fillett arose from out of the saloon: tall, six foot, minus underwear, slender, well groomed, immaculately turned out, every hair diligently coiffured. She nodded to the driver. Payment was deferred to the account. Concordesque, she started down the pedestrian shopping street. Every step on her precarious, stylish courts was achieved at risk of total fatality. A small, insignificant crevice in the paving could trap a nail-thin heel. A discarded wrapping could be impaled. From her height, she surveyed the young tourists as they window-shopped, comfortable in their trainers and wide bottomed baggy jeans. She envied the ease with which the young flowed from place to place, unrestricted by the confines of high designer fashion.

The walk down Neal Street was a prelude to the treats that were in store for Mrs Glynis Fillett. She smiled inwardly at the surprises that she would have, the haven that she would discover. Glynis clutched the Prada bag, only big enough for the fatcat husband's credit card and a set of keys. A jostle by an inattentive passer-by could prescribe disaster for one so elegantly chaussured. The destination was reached: a door, and ordinary door between two plate glass windows heaving with merchandise.

Caterpillars by Shamim Hussain
Neal Street by Helen Proctor
The Boys by Barry Martin
Ragamuffins by Ann McGauran
A Zulu Christmas by Claude Perera
The Lord of Alamut by Katya Maddison
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The Boys
by Barry Martin

Soft pale skin
Touched with winter's brush
Painting rosy cheeks as
They scrambled, ran, jumped,
Laughed and talked incessantly.

Young eyes and newer eyes
Opened to the joys of
A Sunday stroll in the park.

We climbed a stump
They chased the birds
As February winds moving
To March, chilled my fingers,
And were warmed in trusting hands.

And I embraced their freedom
And journeys ahead.

Caterpillars by Shamim Hussain
Neal Street by Helen Proctor
The Boys by Barry Martin
Ragamuffins by Ann McGauran
A Zulu Christmas by Claude Perera
The Lord of Alamut by Katya Maddison
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Ragamuffins
by Ann McGauran

It was Monday, so after school the pair got stuck straight into their great money-making scheme - collecting old comics so they could sell them on at school later in the week and fund their Saturday trips to the cinema. They flogged The Gem, The Magnet, Hotspur - anything they could get their hands on. There was good money in that. Sometimes when Malachy's mother remembered what he was up to she asked him for a shilling to help buy food. He always hoped she would forget as that would stop him from getting a fish supper and ice cream from Agnelli's café.

They made a great double act, he and Jimmy, thought Malachy. They collected comics from the rows of tiny terraced houses that criss-crossed the Short Strand. Many of the mothers who liked him handed them over for free, as their kids all had them read by Friday night. About ten mothers were a bit more fly themselves and wanted money before they parted with their precious goods.

On a good week they would collect thirty comics and flog them. One shilling out, five shillings in. Four shillings profit split two ways. The boys loved their work, even getting comics off Aggie Murphy - the hardest nut to crack.

Aggie might have been beautiful once, thought Malachy, but eight children had taken their toll and she had a mouth on her like a sewer. Jimmy, who the girls thought was a bit of a looker, slicked back his hair and Malachy rapped on the door.

Aggie opened it reluctantly, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. 'Don't just stand there getting wet,' she snapped. 'Take yourselves off.'

'You're looking very well as always, Mrs Murphy', said a smiling Malachy. 'How's your husband?'

'What are you after, you wee liar? Something for nothing as usual?'

'Just trying to help you clear the house after the weekend, missus. Can we have Joey's Hotspur now he's finished with it?'

'I won't be able to raise eight children by giving our valuables away to two dirty little chancers like you. If you want it then pay for it same as me. Give me thruppence.'

'Thruppence missus?', Jimmy chipped in. 'You must be jokin'. That's what it was worth on Friday. It's Monday now and yer lucky we're prepared to take it off your hands, us being good neighbours and all that.'

'Yeh, you've got hearts of gold the two of you. Tuppence and you can have the blooming thing.'

Mrs Murphy was just about the loudest, tightest person in the whole of the street, thought Malachy. But he knew her price. 'We'll give you a penny, take it or leave it. It's just cos we're feeling generous.'

All right then you little tinkers. I'm going to regret this.' She pulled the Hotspur off the table and handed it over with a bad grace. 'Give us the money then.' Off they ran to their next victims.

Caterpillars by Shamim Hussain
Neal Street by Helen Proctor
The Boys by Barry Martin
Ragamuffins by Ann McGauran
A Zulu Christmas by Claude Perera
The Lord of Alamut by Katya Maddison
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A Zulu Christmas
by Claude Perera

one day I will be glad
that I don't own a mobile telephone
or have to write hundreds of christmas cards
to people who are not even friends anymore
but would like to boost their pile of greetings
to feel secure that they still have friends in distant places

one day I will be glad
that the government will finally ban the christmas turkey
and switch the queen's speech to sky tv

one day I will be glad
that somebody somewhere gave me calvin kleins eternity
and a black and decker cordless screwdriver

one day I will be glad
to sit for a whole week watching batman forever and michael cain
fighting the zulus with a cockney accent
and drink teachers whiskey with stones ginger wine and crack walnuts in the palm of my hand
and be dressed in my new socks and boxer shorts
on boxing day and
if I am lucky I might even get a cashmere jumper but thats hoping

one day I will be glad
to pull a christmas cracker and find a cigar lighter with a box of snuff and
a screwdriver set that can tighten the screws on my spectacles

one day I will be glad
that I could fly over to new york and shop and shop and shop and come back in time for the sales and shop and shop and shop in oxford street and fight my way round m&s and selfridges and shop in harrods and shop in mfi and the enticing world of leather

and eat my christmas pudding listening to bing crosby dreaming of a world of rubber

Caterpillars by Shamim Hussain
Neal Street by Helen Proctor
The Boys by Barry Martin
Ragamuffins by Ann McGauran
A Zulu Christmas by Claude Perera
The Lord of Alamut by Katya Maddison
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The Lord of Alamut
by Katya Maddison

A loose rock shifted under the weight of his feet, teetering for a moment on the edge before plunging towards the riverbed. It fell for several long seconds before hitting an outcrop of rock and coming to rest on a narrow shelf beneath it. The man looked around him, his gaze sweeping across the horizon. Before him rose the melting crest of Solomon's Throne and, to the side, the peaks of the Chala range were visible, their profiles sharp against the cold blue sky - just so many old men, the haughty elders of an ancient land. From this standpoint high on the fortress of Alamut he could look them in the eye and believe himself their equal.

He felt the sun vainly trying to warm his face through the thin air, and sensed too the people gathered beside and behind him, their eyes fixed on him. They were irrelevant. His wiry body was enveloped only by a roughly spun garment, knotted around it rather than sewn and scarcely covering his elbows and knees. But he did not feel the chill, his mind already more numbed than his body. He took one last breath, drawing it in whistling through taut lips, as if savouring the taste of the air - and then he was gone.

For a brief moment nobody seemed to have noticed that he had jumped; only those standing nearest the edge saw the perfect, liquid arc into the void. Sound and time were supended, until a distant thud marked his impact. At once, people in the crowd were whispering, remarking on the beauty of his fall, the angle of his drop, the merciful neatness of his death. As their voices rose with repressed excitement, one of the spectators threw up his arms in mimicry.

Towards the back, where a clear view of the death-leap would have been difficult, an old man, a full head shorter than those around him, pulled lightly on his neighbour's sleeve in a gesture which might have indicated distaste at the spectacle and a desire to distance himself from it. He led the way along the rampart to a massive grey tower, its base hewn lifetimes previously from the rock of the mountain itself, where a low doorway marked the entrance to a cramped stairway.

The two men emerged moments later on top of the tower and walked over to the edge where the wind was gusting more strongly than it had below. Without glancing at his companion, the old man motioned broadly with both his arms as if to embrace the distant lands beyond the castle. William understood perfectly the meaning of the gesture. This was his country. This man, frail and bent with age, was the master of men as far as the eyes could see, and beyond. He hadn't stirred from the mountains of Alamut for almost fifty years but still sultans and princes, generals and clerics and men everywhere whispered his name with dread.

"The Lord of Alamut is powerful", said a voice behind them. Startled, William turned and saw the boy who'd been appointed to serve him. He had noted their quiet departure from the excited crowd below and followed them, and his voice as he spoke of the Master was full of admiration, totally devoid of sycophancy.

William nodded and shivered, less from the cold than from an acute awareness that on this fortress he was exposed to a power almost as formidable as the elements. The man who had just ordered one of his disciples to plunge to his death simply to impress on William the power he held over men's minds and lives, could with the lifting of a finger order his own death. For he was Hassaan-i-Sabbagh, Master of the Assassins.

Caterpillars by Shamim Hussain
Neal Street by Helen Proctor
The Boys by Barry Martin
Ragamuffins by Ann McGauran
A Zulu Christmas by Claude Perera
The Lord of Alamut by Katya Maddison
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