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Erwan Atcheson

The November Editor's Pick Poet is

Erwan Atcheson

Please feel free to email Erwan at:

erwanatcheson@yahoo.ie

Erwan Atcheson

A QUIET PLACE

A quiet place—a town of leaf and green
And pleasant pubs. The sun shone warmly through
On friends enjoying drinks. This Hippocrene
Of speech and laughter made our friends review
The afternoon a good one. Fine cuisine
Of ham and bread, or chips and vindaloo
Completed it. With happiness at peak
Last orders rang, and so did end the week.

Returning then to work, call centers, shops,
Or study—each did wish the dull travail
Would quickly pass. The thin and flimsy props
Of work-life fall when memories of joy
Blow through them. Friendship’s value’s best. Who swaps
A friend for any other pleasure? Aye,
Our heroes pined to greet each other soon—
To laugh, to speak, or sing in a saloon.

This dream was shared by Joe, though new to town
He’d met that friendly crowd through Paul LeClerc.
Joe loved one person chiefly, she of brown
And deepest eyes. With her he felt the irk
Of awkward newness float away. A clown
Was he, his aim to make her laugh. No work
Or effort felt he. But, loved they as friends,
Or lovers? Love clouds reason, difference blends.

That Monday eve, as Joe in bed did think
Of all the things they’d done and said—a shout
Did somewhere break the night. “Won’t sleep a wink,”
He despondently sighed. Got up, looked out,
And seeing nothing, closed the fastening link
That shut the window. Then to chase the doubt
Regarding her, he read himself to sleep
And woke, alarmed, at six, with book to cheek.

He shaved his puffy face. “I’m growing old,”
He thought without much care. He brushed his teeth;
Went down one flight of stairs and felt the cold
Fine blueness of the morning. “Ah, relief
Of June!” he thought. Towards his work he strolled,
And paused to love the flowers on the heath.
Arriving felt the gloom of managing
A phone-out team who hated every ring.

His team of ten were missing three. To Paul,
His peer, he turned and sighed, “Not this.” His friend
LeClerc agreed. “My guys are here so overall
We have enough to work with.” Paul did lend
Susanne and Mick. The two teams made their calls.
Mid-morn a near successful pitch did end
With screams, and then the phone went dead. “How weird,”
Said Paul. By twelve all dial tones disappeared.

“The phones are on the blink.” “I know. A pain.”
“My mobile too,” said Paul, disgusted. “Man,
This sounds apocalyptic!” A refrain
Of nervous laughs. They turned the TV on.
The message from each channel was the same:
“Stay home, stay in.” A governmental plan
Was being executed. “What da fuck?”
“It looks like we can’t leave.” “It seems we’re stuck.”

Debate ensued; an angry, frightened talk
On what the message meant. “Some terrorists.”
“Or North Korea pushed the button.” “Hawks
Inside the US, more is like.” The mists
Of ignorance oppressed them. Ought they lock
The doors? They did not know. Uncertain risks.
The internet was down, to panic quell;
No doubt the truth was better not to tell.

By two o’clock their fear was feeling aged.
Frustration was the mood. “I fuckin’ wish
They’d tell us what was up,” MacWilliams raged.
Susanne and Joe and all agreed. LeClerc bade ssh:
“I think there’s something out there.” Silence gauged
A scratching at the door. And then, a swish
As though of cloth a-brushing past the door—
This simple sound brought terror back the more!

By now Joe wanted knowledge more than bliss.
He wrenched aside the door. A dog, bemused,
Ran off. “A feckin’ mutt.” MacWilliams this.
Joe felt the moment had been too suffused
With groundless dread. “I think we should dismiss
Advice we have received. It is confused.”
And saying so he stepped outside to test
The theory that the TV sole knew best.

“What if it’s radiation?” Paul declaimed,
Remaining in the doorway. Joe declared
That that thing made no sense. “They would have named
The source of our imperilment.” He dared,
Therefore, to leave. Paul cried: “I’d be ashamed
To stay.” So both the friends walked out, though scared.
The bright blue sky bedazzled them. The view
Of all the streets was empty, save these two.

“And will you come?” The others: no. “It’s best,
I have no doubt,” Paul sighed. And then to Joe:
“We ought to find the others.” In his chest
The heavy tremor of Joe’s heart: to go
To see those friends was inwardly what pressed
Him most to risk this misadventure. Know,
That since this strange day turned confusing blur
He’d visualized but one sharp image: her.

The force of imminent danger had reduced
His half-thought doubts and questions to a point.
He had to go a find and introduce
The wonder to a truth. To seal a joint
Or break it; that her task. He felt the use
Of his own being, should she disappoint
The question, would be nothing. He aglow
With need for her—to her now would he go.

With zeal unknown to Paul walked then the pair
With haste to reach the workplace where their mates
Of usual on a Monday toiled. The fair
And pleasant day was heavy with a weight
Unknown to chirping birds. The thoroughfare
Was empty—traffic clean, the populate
In terror hiding. Feel imbalance play,
It’s easy soon to lose our sense of way.

“There goes that dog again.” For wish of some
Companionship aside themselves in arid streets
They called the dog to join them. “Four-legged chum,”
They hailed it. Smeared across its face were neat
And clotted lines of blood. A sounding drum
Some ominous alarm then seemed to beat
Forewarning both our friends of something grim.
Their eyes now seeking it, they saw the limb.

A lower leg, with trauma round the knee
Where it had been, it seemed, severely ripped.
The shoe and jean still wrapped. A browning tree
Of blood oozed from it. Joe and Paul each gripped
The other with a mounting urge to flee.
“What happens here? Is this place now a crypt?”
Paul whispered. With a quiet meet for death,
The duo backed away with in-held breath.

The silence of the town now seemed much worse.
Paul said they should go back. Joe disagreed.
“There’s danger here, there’s danger there.” Reverse
Their course? No chance, for Joe. His clamant need
Was all the raucous more for silence cursed
With danger. “Quick, let’s go, let’s make all speed.”
Unwilling, Paul did follow. To the place
Where friends in trouble lay they made their race.

Not far, but feeling too far was the goal
Along the river’s bank and over bridge.
A corpse was floating underneath. The toll
On our friends’ heart-rates measured high. A ridge
Of trees now met them. Stink beyond control
Of rotting bodies rose. A cloud of midge
Descended on our sweating friends. “Sweet God,”
One swore, as on a human face he trod.

They stumbled through the wooded grove where side
By side the corpses lay. Emerging from
The pit of waste, they wondered—genocide
The only explanation that would come
Across their addled reason. Countrywide,
A deep alarm had sounded but stayed dumb
Concerning what was fearful. Joe: “A coup?”
“But then, why kill, and who is killing who?”

Despair their hearts, despair their minds. To creep
And hide: the one desire that lived this dread,
And hard to overcome. “It’s murdered sleep;
I’ll never be the same.” The severed heads
And rendered limbs that made the mangled heap
Behind them just some steps away—the dead—
It pushed them on. “Let’s get to P&T.”
That place of work, their goal. Joe did agree.

The glassy building glittered in the sun.
They knocked on doors, on glass, until within
The rattle of a lock replied. “There’s none
But you we’d let in here right now.” The thin
And happy form of Kathy had undone
The lock and let them through. “Begin
At the beginning—what is up?” Joe asked,
His stress by trembling utterance unmasked.

“There’s no beginning, nothing that we know.
The TV tells us stay inside—we stay.
The danger’s worst when sinks the sun below
A half its highest peak.” “A half, you say?”
All turned to watch the solar disk, aglow,
Descend and reach the half-way point. “We may
As well now lock the doors up good and tight,”
Said Kathy, doing that with knuckles white.

They went through double doors and locked these too.
An office space, with people pacing and
Immediately saw her, went into
A helpless trance. He went to her. Unplanned,
He waved. She smiled. He smiled. “Hello, it’s you!”
The ease of being with her! Loose, like sand
Through glass. “I love you,” Joe with joy confessed.
But then feared he’d simplicity perplexed.

She had not time to give an answer. Bangs
And broken glass reflexively recalled
Attention to the setting. Inward ganged,
Through windows smashed, some people, or so-called:
For “people” will not usually harangue
In speechless moan, nor leglessly will crawl
Towards the nearest flesh with grasping arms
Desiring blood’s sweet flavors, brain-sweet charms.

With eyes a-rolling in their heads, and tongues
Half-bitten off by jaws that couldn’t cease
A-gnashing, came the evil hoard among
The panicked living few. They moved like geese,
Each pecking where they would. An artless lunge
Brought down some luckless worker. To the feast
All cannibals fast joined, in bloody spats
Devouring those fresh innards like starved rats.

The others fled—which way, wherever. Up
A set of stairs went Kathy, Joe and June:
The hand Joe held was hers. When at the top,
Before they slammed the doors, Paul, opportune
In timing, reached them. “Quickly, we can’t stop,”
Said Kathy. Chairs and desks used to festoon
The doors they hoped would keep the dead ones out.
But still they came: they’d found another route.

It seemed slow-motion. Mesmerized, Joe stared
At drunken-gaited walkers lurch and fall
Their arms and legs spasmodic. On they fared,
Ignoring knocks, oblivious to all
Except the mutton helplessly ensnared
For slaughter. Joe they chose to rip and maul,
They caught his leg and toppled him. He drank
A draft of pain as in his leg teeth sank.

A frenzy took the monsters; in they swarmed,
Attempting to exsanguinate our man
The ardent grabbing hands of June performed
This service: up was hauled, to form the van
Of stealing rescue. Muscles duly warmed,
The party made no slack of gaining span
Between the foe and them. With death agape,
Our heroes took their last chance of escape.

Another flight of stairs. This time the roof,
With nowhere else to go. The miles of sky
Denuded them. They made the door as proof
As breathlessness would let, then fell a-by.
Recovering from the race, in doubt of truth,
No one amongst the four could even try
To openly relate what passed. The still
And silence sang with heart-attacking thrill.

The silence deep, abyss with no escape
Surrounded them, their hopelessness quite clear.
Some little time remained before the drape
Was pulled upon this show. For Joe the spear
Of pain was dulled as something else took shape:
The summer-brightest month of June was near
And warmed him with these words: “I love you.” Love:
His heart soared like the country birds above.

To wait for zombies now it was no chore
They stood and hugged and looked upon the land
That drowned was with heaving bodies—more
Came streaming through the trees. The little band
Of Kathy, Paul, and Joe and June—these four
Awaited fourteen hundred with a calm
That signaled that they knew that they were doomed.
But in two hearts, while waiting, loving bloomed.

Erwan Atcheson is presently a student of Biochemistry at Queen’s University in Belfast. He obtained a Masters in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh in 2006.

He has had a range of jobs including glove-puppeteer, science-show presenter, observatory tour-guide and snooker-room attendant. In September 2013 he will depart his beloved Belfast for the University of Oxford in England to tackle an old foe of humanity, malaria, aiming to produce a vaccine. Erwan likes to promote effective charities for Giving What We Can.

The Big Pink, his first novel, is available free HERE and for $0.99 HERE.

the big pink