Koestler Awards 2018 Writing Category Winners Anthology
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Koestler Awards 2018 Writing category winners Anthology Acknowledgements The Prison Arts foundation would like to express our gratitude to the Department of Justice, Northern Ireland Prison Service, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Arts Council of Northern Ireland for their ongoing funding support for our programmes both in the prison and community setting. We would also like to offer our congratulation to all those individuals who entered this year’s Koestler Awards, this anthology showcases the writing category winners. PLEASE NOTE: This document can not be freely reproduced or used in an educational, training or other setting without obtaining the permission of the Prison Arts Foundation and the individual authors. 2 © PRISON ARTS FOUNDATION Table of Contents Chapter 1 Flash Fiction and Novel The Final Countdown ....................................................................................................................... 4 Dark Passenger................................................................................................................................. 6 Barking at the moon ........................................................................................................................ 7 The Moon Light Split ........................................................................................................................ 9 The Right Place at the Right Time ................................................................................................. 12 Recommended Daily Intake ........................................................................................................... 16 The Long Trick’s Over ..................................................................................................................... 18 Withering Heights .......................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 2 Life Story My journey through the Care System ............................................................................................ 23 Chapter 3 Longer Fiction and Novel Sire ................................................................................................................................................. 28 Going Back ..................................................................................................................................... 35 Chapter 4 Poem Broken Robots ................................................................................................................................ 45 Wagtail ........................................................................................................................................... 46 Means and Ways ............................................................................................................................ 47 Chapter 5 Spoken Word Alone .............................................................................................................................................. 48 What Men Must Learn ................................................................................................................... 50 Missing ........................................................................................................................................... 51 Chapter 6 Screen Play Gryphender .................................................................................................................................... 52 Chapter 7 Stage Play Pipe Dream..................................................................................................................................... 97 Hercules: The Panto ..................................................................................................................... 178 Working Towards My Release ..................................................................................................... 213 3 © PRISON ARTS FOUNDATION Chapter 1 Flash Fiction and Novel THE FINAL COUNTDOWN This was the best New Year ever. I had Sarah Toland by my side, pockets stuffed with money, bloodstream rushing with the best cocaine this side of the Atlantic and a bottle of champagne in my hand as I made my way out to the car park for a cigarette. The thump of the music and the voices of a thousand revelers faded. I sat down in the old gazebo and lit up. The air was ice cold and crisp. The full moon lit the earth so that it sparkled and glistened all around me. I exhaled and watched the smoke disappear upwards to mingle with the stars. I felt amazing. I closed my eyes and thought how good life had been lately. My heightened senses caught the smell of distant chimney smoke and I could just make out the faint sound of faraway traffic when a noise much closer snapped me out of my reverie. It was the distinctive sound of a twig or a branch breaking. I stared into the darkness toward the small wooded area to my right, wondering who or what could be creeping about out there at this time on a cold New Year’s Eve. Standing up, I tossed the cigarette and walked slowly towards the trees, straining my eyes into the dark, I expected to see a couple, stumbling, giggling and drunken in the undergrowth. Nothing. Only silence. The music in the club stopped and the countdown to 2018 began, 10, 9, 8, 7… The trees and bushes before me exploded and dark shadows came hurtling towards me. I actually screamed. My scream was cut off by two gloved hands; one strangling my windpipe and another covering my mouth. A blow to the head sent me to the icy cold ground and I passed out. Petrol fumes…. Car engine revving… can’t move….. Slowly I came to and realised I was in the boot of someone’s car. I knew immediately what was going on…. I was either being robbed or I’d just been taken by the IRA! Silently I prayed that it was the former! Panic sobered me. The buzz from the champagne and the drugs had been replaced by absolute terror. Only a week ago the cops had warned me of an imminent threat to my life. Republican paramilitaries planned to carry out an attack on me, they’d smirked at me. Was this it? Was this really happening? Or could it be a couple of local hoods after a few bob? Dear Lord… please let it be a robbery… Don’t let it be them other bastards….. I realised my hands had been tied together. My mouth was covered. The fear heightened but I willed myself to calm…” Fuck sake Glen relax will you”…. Maybe this was a prank… some kind of joke, one of my crazy mates thought would be funny… But something deep down in the pit of my stomach told me this was bad… really, really bad! The car seemed to be swerving. It swerved to the left, then right and I could tell we had gone off- road… not good! The car slowed to a stop and after a few seconds the engine was turned off. 4 © PRISON ARTS FOUNDATION There was only silence, complete and utter silence that seemed to scream inside my eardrums. My breathing quickened…. Car doors opened and closed again….a voice. I lay completely still and strained every sense of my being to listen, to smell, to think…. “What the fuck is going on?” Suddenly, the boot opened and I was grabbed by the hair, ripped from the car and thrown onto the wet ground. Both men were masked and dressed in army combats… FUCK! I was dragged across a narrow dirt-path and into a small clearing. An owl screamed and took off with a batter of his wings. I thought “maybe that owl knew what was about to happen and didn’t want to be a witness…” The absurdity of the thought actually made me laugh out loud and I received a hard kick in the gut from one of my captors. Maybe I’d be let off with a knee-cappin’ here, a final warning even… But deep down I knew that wasn’t going to happen. The fact that someone went out of their way on a NEW YEARS FUCKING EVE to take me, the way they were dressed, the death threat from the cops… Everything pointed at one scenario for me here! But it was their absolute silence that made me most certain. These weren’t two dickheads from the town lookin’ to take me for a couple of grand. Nah….. These two guys were calm and measured…controlled. They’d done this before! When the sack cloth went over my head, rather than fly into a fit of panic and maybe shitting in my pants, I actually felt my body relaxing, my breathing slowed and I actually smiled under the tape across my mouth. They say your whole life flashes in front of you. It does! I could see my mother scolding me; “This’ll come to a bad endin’ son” I smiled at that image. My brothers voice now, “You’re bringing shame on this family” I could smell rotten old potatoes from the sack cloth covering my head. I could hear the two men whispering to each other. One of them threw up. Nerves! The metallic cocking of the gun was the very last thing I ever heard on this earth. They found my body dumped in a field on New Year’s Day. The Final Countdown HMP Magilligan Entrant Gold Award for Flash Fiction and Novel 5 © PRISON ARTS FOUNDATION DARK PASSENGER Well, My Old Dark Passenger. Everyone has that guy who would try to steer you into the dark-side of life. Yes, this life is hell. Yes, a kick-ass ride where life just flies by. That Dark Passenger is the weakness in your mind! That silent noise that says ‘let’s skip the gym and watch the match with a beer, I’ll just stay for a pint or two’. Then as that last pint is running down, sure enough the Dark Passenger strikes again. In no time, you’re drunk and making mistake after mistake. The Dark Passenger has had his way. The destruction starts to unravel itself and your messages