Moderate this: Track 19

Though it’s many years since I saw you, I still carry the photograph you gave me. It’s of you when you were a teenager - lithe and warm with skin thin stockings, your eyes, the colour of wet coffee. I loved your ears, the way they curved through your hair and your sharp chin; it gave your face a severe look, as though it had been carved from the same stone they used to build the pyramids. The last time I heard from you, you were still in your room on the edge of time. Your fingers, still holding that pipe to your lips, the mauve smoke sliding out from the corners of your mouth. You said you’d just made the dish we used to eat together: jasmine rice with lime leaves, garlic prawns - their curved bodies flecked with chilli. You’d place lemon water in saucers for our hands, and we’d sit by the fire, eating them. I watched your fingers - how they moved over the prawn’s body, teasing the shell away from the flesh. After, you said: ‘Go now. Leave me. Don’t come back.’ You were having what you’d call, a ‘heavy moment’ often brought on a Friday night when the moon was low, or cracked. I’d say: ‘Don’t say that. You don’t know what you’re saying,’ and you’d say: ‘Oh yes, I do.’ I’d look at you again, leaning towards the fire in the grate, your pale hair smudged with soot, ‘But I’m alone,’ I said. You’d stand up, take the raven-feather mask from its nail and walk away.

Moderate this: Track 13

From the house, it was easy to slip down to the river. Today, literally: Rob struggled with the sucking weight of wellington in mud, and – finding gravity mischievous – lost balance. Grasping forlornly at shrubbery, he slid the twenty-odd feet from the top of the slope to the edge of the river, where he lay wetly for several moments, regarding the scene from the unusual perpendicular at which he now found himself. The house – all white-washed clapboard and garrets, whose edges the week's constant rain had gilded with algae – glinted from its windows; Rob glared back. His T-shirt had gathered in a puckered roll around his stomach, and he see one half of the pair of boots sticking smugly, improbably upright, where he did not remember leaving it. His hair, usually black, was now stiff and uniformly brown. The river rushed behind his head, unseen, smelling of damp vegetation and trout.

Rob hoisted the sail of his body by means of a rock and a well-hooked foot, and stretched. He felt the familiar, long-forgotten need to test his limbs, to make sure they would do what he asked; his body seemed somehow alien, treacherous, when it didn't do as he expected. He stood with one sock plunged in the wet soil as he arched his back – the vertebrae clicked satisfyingly. He looked up at the slate of cloud, receiving a drip in the eye which quickly became a full-on faceful of storm; the mud spluttered from his T-shirt and jeans, revealing their drenched, too-dark blues like photographic negatives. In a moment, his skin was the only thing about him that retained its original colour. He shook the blur of his hair: his waterdrops were lost like bullets through trees.

Clamped to the ground by his unbooted foot, and cautious near the edge of the river, he reached for a rhododendron bush; its secret leaves shone rain-light on his hands. Rob braced his knees and heaved. Strength coaxed his foot free; backwards-slipping half a yard for every yard gained, in ten minutes he had regained his wellington. It was firmly wedged. Jiggling it in its suck of mud loosened its affection for the soil, but in balancing to slip his foot inside, something slid; and Rob – finding gravity malicious – lost balance.

Moderate this: Track 5

I had my eyes closed. I could hear birds, a dog, and, distantly, the train. My hands were bound to my front, my knees and ankles were tied together and my shoulders and hips were wrapped up and knotted to the tracks. A snail began to crawl on my face. I cursed at it and tried to turn away, but it persisted. I blew on it through the side of my mouth. It paused for a moment, retracted its antenna, and then continued to undulate towards my lips.
‘I’ll eat you,’ I said. ‘I'll crunch you up.’
But it could not understand.
It reached my upper lip, and then stopped, making a moustache of itself.
‘I’ll get you once I’m untied,’ I whispered.
By this time the train was clearly audible. I began to sweat heavily, which did something to persuade the mollusk to continue moving. It seemed we would meet our end together. Though, of course, it could well survive. I wished it luck.
‘Peter,’ shouted Frederick. ‘I’m here – you’re...’
The rest of what he said was lost to the train’s whistle. He began to untie me.
‘A snail crawled over me,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry – I’ll get you out soon.’
‘Where did it go?’ I said. ‘Has it moved under my ear?’
He was panting too loud to hear. He cut the knots around my shoulders and hips with a knife he carried, and dragged my still-bound form onto the gravel beside the track.
I laid there while he caught his breath. He pressed a cigarette between my lips, and though I didn’t want it, I could hardly resist.
‘How can you let them keep doing this?’ he said.
‘I don’t let them.’
He shook his head. ‘We let them by staying here,’ he said.
I wanted him to feel better. ‘You were very fast with the knots,’ I said.
He put his hands in his jacket pockets and wandered his gaze across the sky. The train roared by, shaking the rocks around me. I winced.
Frederick cut the rest of the ropes and I stood. As I looked down to the tracks I saw the snail, curled up and clinging to the side of one of the sleepers. I picking it up with my thumb and forefinger, carried it to the grass where it would be safe, and sat down beside it, crying.

Moderate this: Track 19

Track 19


Truman struggled, stooped, out the doctor’s door into sunlight solely meant for those nurturing growth. Heat, a burnt-out nurse‘s feverish palm, irritated his wan neck. He limped til shade, some, just some semblance of oasis, allowed his frame to creak and fold onto the Council’s metal bench.
He lit his last fag, flouting all Reason of the terminally healthy, and sucked smoke deep into scarred lungs. The tests were negative. Not a thing wrong. Nothing.
Silently keening - gut to throat, no further - Truman tried to seek beyond himself. Lives, purposeful lives, so many, streamed along the pavement towards horizons which demanded no change of direction. Care no further than the nearest café, the next meeting.
Across the high street sat a tramp. Stock-still. Mere subjective motion, flickering from the brief gaps between high-end motors. An incessant, ephemeral zebra crossing no pedestrian would brave without codified traffic lights.. Truman would never see the tramp’s eyes, but with this meagre purchase he softened back into the bench. He allowed his song to escape, seep, smoke-stained, from his parched lips. The aleatory music of the streets harmonised, a low hum, some, just some human pleading. Stay, a moment, one, just one moment. Please.
A starched collar flicked an indeterminate coin into the tramp’s upturned cap. Stirring from his stupor, he clasped the coin and stumbled around the corner. Too soon. Truman stifled his song. Stuffed his ears. Took a last drag to singe skin to skins to skin. Stepped out into the sun and weaved his way along somewhere out beyond but ever-bounded.

Task 27: Swapping Roles

For Task 27, I am laying down the gauntlet for the moderators themselves.

I have asked them all to post their own attempt at EITHER Task 25 OR Task 26, and I would like them to do so by Saturday 28th June.

Then, at some point before Saturday 5th July, you each need to choose TWO submissions to 'moderate' yourself.

How to moderate? Well, for starters, you can take the lead from the excellent comments the moderators have placed themselves over the past year.

Beyond that, I would like you to do three things:

1. Comment specifically (i.e. with examples) and generally (i.e. overall) about what you especially liked about the piece.
2. Identify two or three examples of what you feel EITHER didn't work so well OR could have been done differently. N.B. Always give reasons for your opinions, and NEVER come across as insulting or rude: you are aiming for constructive and sensitive criticism.
3. Finally, also feel free to ask any questions you like about any concept or vocabulary you did not understand, and the moderator can then enter into a dialogue with you to explain and answer your questions.

If you do this properly and this 'experiment' works, then both STUDENTS and MODERATORS will:

• have increased respect for each other's talents and abilities
• develop more understanding of the writing process itself
• achieve an even firmer foundation and rapport on which to build with wordvoodoo next year.

If you do not do it properly, then:

• the MODERATORS will get offended
• the entire wordvoodoo relationship will break down
• the entire workshop grinds to a complete halt.

So no pressure at all then! :) I do love a bit of risk!

Good luck!

And any queries, just ask...