Remember, remember, the fifth of November...

Giggling filled the night air. Giggling that should have been waking the neighbours, but they were probably awake already - how could they sleep while the air was filled with shrieks of excitement and the smell of meat and gunpowder. In fact, most of the neighbours were joining in with our festivities or holding ones of their own. Our giggling was unnoticed by them.

Up the steps we ran with cries of "Mommy this" and "Daddy that" and then back down again with sparklers in our hands and Daddy trailing behind moaning about children and growing up. Once we were at the bottom, on the sandy edge of the golf course, away from the animals and anything that could catch fire, he took them from us one at a time and used a lighter (not his of course) to ignite them before handing them back to us. I took mine carefully, weary of the sparks that were shooting from its top, worried that one would shoot off in the direction of my hand. I almost give it back to him, can even hear in my mind him grumbling about wasting time and money, but then Judy gets hers and runs off into the night with it, twirling it in big circles and trying to write her name before the light fades away. She is having so much fun and I want to join in. I look at my own sparkler, already burned through a quarter of the way and decide in an instant what I want. I chase after her, try to write my own name into the darkness, to leave my mark on the world, but I am not quick enough and the letters start to fade into the night before I can even finish writing them. After a minute of glorious abandon, the sparkler reaches the end of its tether, and Judy and I look at each other. I can't see her face in the pitch blackness, but I am sure that she looks about as disappointed as I feel. We have a moment of silence for the dead sparklers before she tags me and runs away, back towards the house, the giggling returned.

It's almost midnight and Daddy wakes me up from my nap on the couch and gets me to come outside and watch. He finds me a seat on the steps facing the golf course and then runs into the middle of the course where a metal bin awaits him. I see the spark of a lighter trying to be lit, followed by a dim fire that leaves a red glow even after it has gone out. And then it starts. The squealling that isn't coming from the children; the lights that linger longer than our feeble sparklers and in neon colours too; the lights that brighten the sky so much that I can see Daddy's excited face as he rushes to the next one, and the next, and the next. I watch in awed silence with Judy sitting next to me, both of our heads tilted towards the sky, our eyes darting from one spot to the next, wondering where the next one will come from.

And then it is over. There are no more lights, there is no more excitement, there is no more Guy Fawkes. Slow, yawning, the guests collect there summer coats and jackets, retrieve their plates and leftovers from the kitchen and jingle their keys in attempts to get the attention of husbands, children, loved ones of all shapes and forms. The first person walks out the door opening the floodgates for the rest, providing excuses for everyone, and within minutes the house is quiet once more. I try to keep my eyes open, tell Daddy that I'm not tired, that I want to stay awake and watch Beauty and the Beast again, but he is not fooled and he carries me to bed, tucking me in tight as I close my eyes and dreams of fireworks play in my mind.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Season
Should ever be forgot.

Today's excerpt comes from a fictional piece that I wrote about this photo. It is based back home and, as you might be able to guess from the little piece that I have given, isn't exactly a happy story. It's more of a realistic one.





“When you wish upon a star…”
My childhood was spent wishing on stars, and do you think any of those wishes came true? “Makes no difference who you are” my ass. Who you are matters. Where you come from, how much you earn, your age, your gender. People have been telling me all along that these things don’t make any difference. “The same blood runs through you,” they say. “Everyone is born equal,” they say. What a load. The people who say that are the ones who are on the top of the food chain, feeding off those of us who are at the bottom, those of us who can’t catch a break. Everything matters. I learned a long time ago that you make your own luck.

Today's excerpt is from the first poem that I wrote based on this photo. It started off as a poem merely about trying to eat with chopsticks and after the last line quoted here, digressed into a poem more about the whole Korean culture and how difficult it is to understand and immerse oneself in.



Fingers dancing,
Clumsily holding
Thin metal sticks
That clink together noiselessly
As I miss what I am trying to grasp.

Today's piece is from a fictionalised piece. When I say fictionalised, most of this actually happened, but I am exaggerating it quite a lot and some elements of it ran away with me making it a piece of fiction with a non-fictional background to it. It was based on my attempts to take photos in Shinae, none of which worked. This is the photo that I ended up taking that day.



“What are you doing?”
He looks on incredulously as I ignore his question and continue snapping away. It has been a bad night and I am not in the mood for being disturbed or made to feel like I am a crazy person. Which I may well be. I am not denying that. I just don’t want to be made to feel like one, especially not by him. I take the shot.
“Gah!” I scream it out in frustration. “It’s not right.”
He leans against the window and starts shaking his head, not quite believing what he is seeing. People are walking past – not a lot, but one or two every now and then – and I am sure that they are giving me strange looks and wondering to themselves about these foreigners and the drugs that they bring into the country. I try again. It is still blurry. Nothing is working the way that it is supposed to. My hands can’t keep still, my body shivering from the cold consolidated by my damp clothing. My butt is starting to go numb.

The snippet that I am giving you today is from one of the favourites of the stories that I have written, and I am taking it from the end of the story for a change. I feel that it tells you more about the story that I hoped to put across from this picture. Once again, it is pure fiction.



“Look, Daddy! The roses!”
He tries to look, but can’t take his eyes off his once beautiful wife, the monster, the horror that she has become, all because of him and his stupid business and stupid meetings and stupid temper.
“It’s just like the story - the last petal!”
He sits on the side of her bed and gently strokes her blonde hair away from her face, rests his palm on her pale cheek and feels how cold she is, all of the life sucked out of her.
“Kiss her, Daddy! Quick! You have to kiss her before it falls! If it falls, she dies! Kiss her, Daddy! Save her!”
Sobbing, he leans towards his wife and places his warm lips upon her cold ones, gently, his tears running down his face and landing on hers. Only one kiss, as he reaches to the machine beside her and flicks the switch.