Author: Gavin

The Wonders of the Deep by Claudia Foster

What do you think about when ‘wonders of the deep’ comes to your mind? Tropical fish and sea plants? Underwater caves? Whales and sharks?

I have never seen those in my life. All I’ve seen is the bottom of my local swimming pool. Boring, right? But if you open your mind the bottom of a swimming pool can be just as interesting as the bottom of an ocean.

First of all, pay attention to what you see. You see people’s legs. Some long, some short and chubby like a toddler’s. Some hairy, some wizened. Some are thrashing and some are still.
You also see slightly sinister, smiling yellow and green toys lined up in neat little rows. And children diving in to grab them. One of them, a cross looking girl, gives me a funny look.
I see a boy of about four jump into the pool. He looks at me, grins and blows a raspberry before strong arms reach into the water and pluck him out.

I swim across the tiled floor and then turn round and stare at the shimmering light as water floods my nose. Foam boards soar over my head like manta rays with bubbles on the bottom, blocking the light for a moment.

I’ll make do with these ‘wonders of the deep’ for now.

The Worker by Sandy Foster

I don’t remember much about my young life. All I have ever remembered is endless gears, needles, presses and fabric.

I was very rarely outside of the building that the men said was my home. It is where I would eat my food, drink my water and rest. Well, I was not meant to rest, rest was permitted roughly 6 hours a week. But sometimes I couldn’t stay awake no matter how hard I tried, and I would fall asleep. I would never sleep for long as almost immediately one of the men would approach me and show me the penalty of sleep by striking me on the back with a bamboo cane until I bled.

All I knew was that my name was Haoyu Zhang and this was my life, endlessly using the big metal needles, heavy metal machinery and coarse fabric to create items of clothing.
Although I probably made at least 5000 tops a month in my never-ending struggle, we boys and girls at the factory never had luxuries like this ourselves. We all were wearing the same clothes we were 3 or even 4 years ago and if these items of clothing didn’t fit anymore, it didn’t matter, you would have to rip them even further to be able to fit them on our thin starving bodies. Speaking about food, if you could call it that, all we got was a handful of rice at dawn and then another handful of rice along with about a tablespoon of corn gruel that was often mouldy at dusk. I learned to accept this cruel life as it was all I knew.

Once I made a friend, secretly, a fellow worker, we communicated in code with our hands. One day the bad men caught us and were furious. I thought that they were going to beat us to death like some other children who had disobeyed the men’s rules, but my friend said that it was his idea, that he had forced me to communicate with him and I had nothing to do with it. That was the last time I saw my friend. They took him away and never brought him back.

But everything changed when one day I was working at my machine, and I noticed there were no guards standing around, they had all left. Just at that moment a fellow worker slumped against his machine, exhausted.

I expected the men to come back and beat him, but nothing happened. But then a man came in. He looked nice, unlike the horrible looking factory men. He explained to us that the bad men were now gone, and we were free. I later found out he was a human rights activist and I thank him with all my heart for saving me from that hell.

I now live on the banks of the Yangtze River, a fisherman, with my wife and kids where I can forget about that factory and live a happy life.

The White Bird by Kerry Foster

The White Bird

You make your own luck – that was what my mother always said.

She meant by discipline and hard work. Making prudent choices. Not this…coming to Paris on my own as a woman in my forties with nothing but a trunkful of books and faded vintage gowns.

And yet here, in this nondescript café opposite the Gare St Lazare, I do feel lucky, for the first time in my life. I have my own tiny room, six floors up, with a view of the Eiffel Tower. A room that is my own, a room where I can think.

I love the café too, L’Oiseau Blanc or White Bird, after a doomed transatlantic flight in which the two French pilots ‘vanished like midnight ghosts’. It has red leather seats and dirty tallow walls, the Art Nouveau aviation prints sprawling between the specials boards making it look tired and racy at the same time.  

Most importantly, I don’t have to answer to anyone. No one looks askance at my beloved silk dresses, or asks about my family, or wonders why I don’t wear a wedding ring. I can devour all the books I want, make endless lists, replay conversations that happened, invent ones that didn’t.  

But that was me all over, according to my mother. Peculiar, for want of a better word. With questionable social skills. And a CV that was a carefully woven blend of delusion and out-and-out fantasy.

I was also a bad example to Clara, she said. No wonder my daughter had dreamed her way through school. Now she was eking out a living as an artist on the south coast, selling her strange luminous paintings at craft fairs and exhibitions.

And then there was Mark. In him, I had seen a potential soulmate, a poet, a dreamer. My mother, on the other hand, had immediately clocked him as a timewaster at best, and at worst, well… and right enough, two weeks ago, he had walked out, never to be seen again, taking my meagre savings with him. He had always been ambiguous about the future, now I came to think about it.

But if he hadn’t left, well, I wouldn’t be here now, would I? I take another sip of wine and catch sight of myself in one of the mirrored panels above the bar. I look like someone else – someone who isn’t blinkingly apologetic, someone hasn’t given up on magic or beauty.   

The door swings open, briefly filling the room with night air and the rumble of buses heading to the Opera Garnier. “Bonsoir, messieurs dames!” Another of the dinner time regulars. He nods in my direction.

I realise that the streetlamps have come on, silently bathing the purple street in pools of smoky light. Another night in Paris.

Yes, you do make your own luck, I tell myself. Starting now.