How the Light Gets In E-Book

Clare Fisher

• Herausgeber: Influx Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 166

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

How The Light Gets In is the first collection from award winning short story writer and novelist, Clare Fisher. A book of very short stories that explores the spaces between light and dark and how we find our way from one to the other. From buffering Skype chats and the truth about beards, to fried chicken shops and the things smartphones make you less likely to do when alone in a public place, Fisher paints a complex, funny and moving portrait of contemporary British life.

Leseprobe

How The LightGets In

Clare Fisher

Influx Press, London

Published by Influx Press

The Green House, 49 Green Lanes, London, N16 9BU

www.influxpress.com / @InfluxPress

All rights reserved.

© Clare Fisher, 2018

Copyright of the text rests with the author.

The right of Clare Fisher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Influx Press.

First published 2018. Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd., St Ives plc.

Print ISBN: 978-1-910312-12-4

E-Book ISBN: 978-1-910312-13-1

Edited by Kit Caless

Editorial assistant: Sanya Semakula Proofreader: Momus Editorial

Cover art and design: Austin Burke

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

LEARNING TO LIVE WITH CRACKS

in praise of cracks

textbook burglar

never mind the gap

something else

the genius

mistakes

the thing about sheep

the insomniac

what women want

dark places to watch out for [1]

the neurotic

conclusions

the guardian of travellers

me-time

helping elbow

things smartphones make you less likely to do when alone, in a public place

fried chicken

this city knows you better than you think

the truth about beards

like, the best night out ever

dark places to watch out for [2]

no one messes with hot pants

shortcuts

twenty-first century celebrity

this city’s roaring edge

under construction

HOW THE LIGHT GETS BETWEEN YOU AND ME

blip blip blip

one woman’s love

without the dark there would be no you

things smartphones make you less likely to do when in a private place, with or without other people

headtorch

the wrong thing

dark places to watch out for [3]

unproductive behaviours

mine

the impossibility of later

midday in my mind

HOW THE LIGHT GETS OUT

repeat

is this it

have you seen this person

this application will save your life

a shock

daylight robbery

dark places to watch out for [4]

not talking about it

happy, sad, numb

over the edge

the other lady of the night

LEARNING TO LIVE WITH CRACKS AGAIN

dark places to watch out for [5]

how to talk about potholes

the moon on your face

discovery in the dark

why i’m not scared

no further than a selfie stick

do not alight here

unnecessary attachments

mix up

trying

more than lunch

the engine

everything i know about divine light

How The LightGets In

Clare Fisher

learning to live with cracks

in praise of cracksh

For much of my childhood, there was this poem magnetted to the fridge: blessed are the cracked for they let the light in. I didn’t get it: when I looked in the mirror, I saw no light, no cracks, just smooth pot-bellyish skin. Did this mean I would never know light?

Whenever something bad happened, my mum would read out the poem in a voice high enough to break into the world that lay on the other side of the cracks — the world where the light hid. This other world, I thought, must be the one she went in search of when she meditated behind closed doors, and which glimmered in her eyes every time I returned home from school with a fresh prize.

Prizes! How I loved them! I hungered for them. Dreamt about them. And as I grew, so did the cardboard folder of achievements my mum kept in the red filing cabinet downstairs. There would come a point, I imagined, when some spokesperson from the world of light would say, stop now. Enough. It’s time to join us in the world where no one even knows what a crack is.

The folder got so fat, it wouldn’t close, but still no sign of the spokesperson. Worry gnawed the meat off me. I had more prizes than friends, and yet the few that I did have glowed with a light I couldn’t see; they didn’t seem to care about prizes, and I wanted to ask how they did it, whether they’d charmed the spokesperson out of hiding, but this isn’t the kind of thing you can ask your friends when you’re fourteen. When I looked in the mirror, I saw nothing: no crack no skin no light — no person at all.

Learning to live with cracks — both my own and other peoples’— will win me no prizes. But I don’t care. I’ve been doing it for years now and it feels like life.

If you mention meditation to my mum, she’ll wince. As for the poem, I forget all about it until I’m back in her kitchen, filling her in on my latest adventures — the great thing about my mum is she thinks everything I do is an adventure; the big things and the little things and even the things that aren’t really things — when, in the crack between a leaflet telling me to stop the war and another asking me to reconsider the philosophy of movement, I spot those greasy words from long ago: cracked and blessed.

textbook burglar

There are a ton of theories out there but I don’t read them. Although I did once. I read one and then another and another. I was on the internet and you know how it is: you’re half-way through a sentence when you right click a hyperlinked word, which opens a new tab, coaxing you somewhere else, and you go there, and then halfway through the next sentence… Where was I? Oh yeah, so I read all these theories and they pretty much convinced me I was a very bad thing. A long, Latin-sounding problem. Nothing else.

You see there’s this bloke. He kind of breaks and enters my head. By anyone else’s standards, he fucks things up pretty bad; he rips my clothes, stamps on my tech, pisses all over the bed. Textbook burglar behaviour.

Thing is, I’m so used to it, that if you saw me just after a break-in, you’d think I was a bit tired, or coming down with man-flu. You might wonder why I hadn’t come out in a while, or why, when I came, I drank but didn’t speak, not until you pushed me and pushed me and so I forced open my jaw and the words that came out were blurred — like they were coming from way under the water. Then you’d forget. And I don’t blame you: everyone has their own private break-ins to deal with.

It’s only when I’ve finally bothered to sweep and scrub and tidy up; to throw out the broken stuff and go out in search of new stuff; only when I’ve been running and boxing and fake-laughing and talking even though I’ve nothing to say and don’t believe I ever will but I do it anyway because you’ve got to start somewhere — only then do I see how bad it was.

And that’s the moment I reach out my hand, only to find that no matter how good everything else looks, you’re not here to share it with.

You’re not here any more.

And so I sit by the window, on the lookout. This time, I’ll catch him. I’ll catch him before he takes anything more from me.

never mind the gap

Between the you who bought the train ticket in your pocket and the you who is reading this, is the gap.

Now stop reading.

Close your eyes.

Breathe in in in and ooouuuut.

Can you feel it? The gap, I mean.

Well the gap is here, and wafting through it is the you who, whilst buying your second best friend a celebratory you’ve-just-got-yet-another-promotion-drink read, on the narrow grubby screen of your phone, the email thanking you for your application to the position of Executive Assistant but that it was felt — not by the sunken-cheeked man who interviewed you, but by the universe, in general — that you were not quite right for the role.

Dragging its feet through the gap is the you who rang your grandma even though the thought of ringing your grandma made you want to sneeze; this you rubs shoulders with the you who found that, even though you had to shout every word into the receiver so your grandma could hear, even though it was almost impossible to understand her spit-saturated words, by the time you hung up, the heat from your listening ear was spilling right down to your heart.

Slumped at the bottom of the gap is the you who looks out of the window on the journey for which the only proof is the receipt long since chewed by the washing machine. This is the you who’s struck by how strange and ordinary it is that you’re whizzing past life after pebbled-dashed life; how each is as sprawling and unique and unknowable as your own, and yet, every house is encased in the same slim layer of frost. This is the you that hungers to stare until you’ve imagined each and every life whole; it’s squashed out of the frame by the you who scrolls your Facebook newsfeed, jabbing the screen even though the train is now in a tunnel and — he’s dead, Jim! — the page just won’t load.

something else

Before he was Slip, he was Shorty. He was Clumsy, he was Midget, he was one of Year Seven’s seven dwarfs. He was the Year Seven the Year Nines only had to look at, and the dinner money would fall from his blazer pockets. He was the boy who stayed in the school library until it closed to minimise the amount of time spent playing with the cling film wrapper his mum left over his dinner whilst she was at work. He was a loser; just like anyone else.

Slip has nothing to do with that boy. Slip, although only two inches taller, is the kind of kid Year Elevens nod at in the corridor, whilst Year Eights and Nines apologise if he rushes them in the lunch queue. Somehow, a rumour started that he stuffs his socks with blades; when people ask, is it true, he just smiles and shrugs, as if it might be (it’s not).

Slip has a swagger that all the Year Sevens copy. When Slip shows teachers an ‘early home’ pass signed by his ‘mum,’ they nod and look away, breathing out deeply as he says, safe! And swaggers out of their classroom.

Slip hangs with his crew until 9:10 p.m, leaving him just enough time to run home, chuck the cling-filmed dinner over the balcony, scatter some pens and school books around the table, and climb into bed before Mum stomps through the door, muttering and sighing about whatever it is she has to mutter and sigh about.

Slip has been caught snoozing in class three times in the past week, but it’s alright because he’s not the boy he was before and so he styles it out, kissing his teeth, ruffling his shoulders and saying, loud enough that the whole class can’t help but hear: ‘And WHAT? I was just chillin’. Just chillin’.’

And now, any time a teacher tells anyone in that class off, they say: ‘just chillin’, just chillin’,’ and everyone laughs, whilst he sucks in his smile, not wanting anyone to hear this boom-boom-boom in his chest that tells him he is king.

When his eyes are open, it’s harder and harder to focus on the weird-ass symbols and the weird-ass equations ands the weird-ass teachers; his mind keeps wandering back to those six sweet hours with his boys — the only time he’s properly home. He makes out like they are up to Big Man gangsta shit, but mostly, mostly, they sit around on walls and bikes, gassing and laughing and, when they can be arsed, teefing crisps and chocolate from the corner shop. They drink Coke and chat about girls and GTA and COD. Then there’s the chicken: at some point in the evening, there is always chicken. Don’t eat too much, the Big Guys tell him. We need you small. Slip wants to ask why but just laughs and nods. Stay that size and your time will come. Trust.

The only similarity between Slip and Shorty is this itch of fear, which slides somewhere between his skin and his hoody. Slip has no trouble ignoring this itch until he’s squeezing through a stranger’s dog flap, a big brown envelope tucked into his pants, a knife in his sock, heart racing, eyes seeing only that Slip’s time is up: the boy is turning into something else.

the genius

Her mind is bursting with great ideas but other people have always thought of them first. Not only have these other people thought of them; they have often turned them into real things you can buy in shops or on Amazon. This is why she is stuck folding ties in a TM Lewin in the interminably draft-ridden Leeds train station. Her only customers are businessmen pissed off because their train back to London is delayed (there are a lot of delays at this station). The managers do not allow her to wear gloves because gloves (they claim) would damage the ties, which means her hands are permanently dry and numb, which means she has trou-ble tapping her ideas into her smartphone at the end of her shifts, which is another reason she is stuck here, trying to smile at businessmen whose eyes don’t bother to hide the fact that they hold her personally responsible for the fact that they, important businessmen with important businesses waiting for them back in London, are still stuck here too.

mistakes

Will be made.

And sometimes, you will make them.

You will press the button or fill out the form or turn the corner or write the word or say the sentence or open the door that everyone agrees is wrong.

Some of these times, someone or two or three or many, many people will find you out. Some may even post a photo of said mistake, or of the pain they have suffered as a result of said mistake, on social media. Other people may RT this photo or christen it with a hashtag, which may or may not catch on.

Other people may shrug and say it’s okay, they didn’t really care whether you saw them in their concert anyway, and you may nod and say thank you, acting as if you don’t know that this other person is squirrelling away this mistake of yours for some barren moment in the future, in which your argument about another mistake of yours you are yet to make, suddenly runs out of fuel.

But don’t worry. Because most of the time, the mistake will be made by a human being who is not you. And you will be the one who is tweeting a photo of your recycling bin Which Has Still Not Been Emptied For Two Weeks In A Row If You Think This Is What GOOD PEOPLE Pay CounCil TAX For. You will be the righteous in your capitalised certainty that the wrong things are all outside.

But not always.

Not always.

Because mistake will be mad e, and somtimes

Sometimes

The person making them

Will be

You.

the thing about sheep

Our parents compensated for the fact that we were growing up in a city of over seven million people and God knows how many million tons of concrete by driving us out to the country ever other weekend. We’d spend the morning crawling through traffic to reach the M25; lunch would be eaten from a tupperware somewhere along the M25, and even though the whole point of packing tupperware was to avoid the over-priced service stations, we would be so close to a) wetting ourselves, and b) killing each other that my parents had no choice but to stop.

There would inevitably be some disaster in the country: our father would trip over a stone and twist his ankle; our mother would drop her wedding ring in a cow pat; I would climb up a tree and find myself too anxious to come down. If you ever have the misfortune to have dinner with my parents, you will no doubt hear at least one of these hilarious anecdotes.

However. What sticks in my mind about these misadventures is the sheep and how angry my brother got when he saw them. ‘Do they mind just sitting outside all day?’ he’d ask my dad and my dad would tell him that no, of course they didn’t, they were sheep and they didn’t mind anything — they just were. My brother’s face would wrinkle and warp and then he’d pound his fist against a delicate stone wall and my mum would shout at him and he’d shout at her for shouting at him and then my dad would shout at them for shouting at each other and so on and so forth until we decided it was time to go home. This happened every time we ventured out and yet it inevitably got over-shadowed by whatever drama was particular to that day.

When we got too old to be forced into a hot Volvo on a Saturday morning, my parents did everything they could to sign us up for Duke of Edinburgh and whatever other outdoorsy activities our school offered. I, a straight-A student, a goody two-shoes and, as my brother would never let me forget, my parents’ favourite, loved these trips; I even won an Award for leading my group to safety through a storm when one of the party was injured and the other having what I now know to be a panic attack. As for my brother, he hated them; teachers would ring my parents complaining that he wouldn’t take part, he was winding up the other boys, etc., etc., and the final straw was when he was brought home early and suspended from school for smoking weed when — in the words of the teacher who broke the news to my dad — he should have been preparing dinner for his teammates. It was then decided that the great outdoors and my brother should have nothing more to do with each other; my parents can now laugh about it, given he has ‘settled down’ since then and now lives in a cottage so remote it cannot be reached in certain months.

I was always sure there was more to it than that, however, it was only the other day that I got around to asking him. We were, as it happens, getting stoned (my idea, not his).

‘What was it about the sheep?’ I asked. ‘Why did they make you so angry?’

We laughed and laughed, but I knew, even as he was wiping tears from his cheek with the edge of my Moroccan throw, that he knew exactly what I was talking about.

‘I was jealous. They could be who they were. Do what they needed to do. Whereas we were forced to spend our whole fucking weekend in Dad’s car.’

This set us off again.

‘But of course they thought it was grass I hated or something. Those Duke of Edinburgh trips only made me more sure: being a human sucked. It was slavery. And being forced to trudge through the New Forest with a load of other humans who didn’t even get weighed down by manky food and some manky tent, that was so much worse. So much worse.’

‘I’ve always thought being a human was… alright,’ I admitted.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘No shit.’