Bop - descriptions and back story - all copyright remains with Isobel Harris aka Jezabel

It ran deep and cold beneathe the surface of Brixton. No longer able to mark its way gracefully over the meadows, but orced beneath and between tunnels before reaching the Thames. Only a moment quick enough for Bop to see offers an exit way above. He hops out of the leaf just before it is swilled left and away, gone, out of sight.

His climb is rough, but his hands are rougher. The walls are slick with more than 200 years of grime. But Bop uses this to slick his hair back. His pores too small to absorb any of the hell washed down from Crystal Palace. He looks down sorrowfully at the water, the Effras spirit caught tight in this chasm. He allows his thoughts to flee for a moment to the surface, where the water used to run with him aboard ready to take on the day. Youth, what a whimsical time. Bop smiles at the irony in his thought, showing his teeth slightly s his ears wobble.

Brockwell Park sits amongst three very different areas of South London. Boasting of once grand gardens that John Blades Esq had wandered in when she was still a part of leafy surrey. Now her land is hemmed in by Brixton, Tulse Hil and Herne Hill. All very much a part of Londons digestive system. The humans recreate and exercise in the park, they dance and make money in the park, the cook themselves and fornicate in the park. They bleed and piss on her grass after consuming rage and other bizzare chemicals far from unknown to Bop. The edges have crept into each other faster than Bops 18th birthday. Urban sprawl out weighing natures battle each time. Bop of course does not live in a way that adheres to our calendar. His 18 years make him more like 3549 years old. Thats right older than jesus. But he is small and he is tendered by mother earth to work the surrounding areas of the Effra river. The very same river that once ran down from Crystal Palace, along Effra Eoad across Brixton and out to the Thames.

Bops daily life has changed much since his parents time. Though his father still works hard in what is now the Reigate area.

At this juncture I should explain that Bop is a Pixie, the Brixton Pixie (I have introduced him before in a poem).

At this moment I am unsure just how involved with Londons darker side I intend to be. Bop may be more suited to a younger generation of reader.

However. He has a lot of work to do. A pixie must help keep a certain amount of love, hope and natural energy in an area. Of course humans have made their job considerably harder and Bop being a young pixie is more innovative that his elders. He has opened communication with domesticated animals in a bid to get help keeping the young humans happy so that thy dont do as much damage as their predecessors.

Old Hope - an idea from a conversation

2. Richmond Dryad

As the sun still rode
amongst the bark in the hollow
deep inside her truck
sat with the shaman. Shaman?
In a dead tree. No,
She was not dead, she grew leaves.
And we sat inside her, in the hole.

He chanted his verse all to hear
He was loud and we followed.
We asked and we laughed
willing her spirit to give us faith,
then I slept immersed within her folds.

Our lust for greatness
came thrust upon us from the city.
A moment in touch with old selves
elusive and just, we were in control.
Please dear dryad, help us be vast?

Departed and gone, I did
return years later she was there.
Still strong and I shallow, both burnt to the core.
We cackled long into the night.
A tree is a tree, alive
and not dead, but she cant change
what goes on in the beyond.




1.
I sat in a hollow tree with a shaman
if that is what he was.
To ask the dead tree for help
she wasn't totally dead, true
she had leaves.
But there was a hole big enough to sit in.

He chanted his verse all to hear
He was loud and we followed.
We asked and we laughed
willing her spirit to give us faith
Then I slept within her folds.

Departed and gone, I did
return years later she was there.
Still strong and hollow and I
cackled long into the night.
A tree is a tree, alive
and not dead, but she cant change
what goes on beyond.

Vanity

'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity saith the preacher' Eceles 1:2

Preachers scream at passers by.
Young girls steal lipstick in their purse.
Lads stroll together blowing smoke

Vain is as vain does
when he prances own the street.
Vain is as vain does
the girls tighten their coats.

Children scream for more
Fathers hide in the apple mac store
Whilst grandmother slips a shirt
in her purse.

Vain is as vain does from
from birth to death
through and through
and round next door!

The thief and the trickster

Spit on a thieves
feet to show
them how you care
little for the fare.

Play cards
teach a boy
a lesson.
You do not
know he is a thief.

A thief is he
who shares
and cares.
His winning
hand disgusted.

Clothe yourself
and he, for he
can take all
straight from
your hand.

Types of narrator - getting it straight

Third Person

Limited Omniscience - narrator knows all that a particular character may see, knows ad feels, but not about the other characters. Single character point of view.

Omniscience - Narrator knows everything about all events, places, characters and things the characters may not know. Authoritative voice.

Objective point of view - Narrator knows only what can be seen externally 'fly-on-the-wall'. Impersonal.

Shifting methods must be made clear to the reader from the start. Consistency is the key and it is easy to make mistakes. Be clear about the different personalities and be sure that the reader will follow them.

First Person

characters way of thinking and feeling leads the story.


TRUST your READER and TRUST YOURSELF.

Fallen

The edge of the woods is vast and thick, seeping out towards the fields behind the house. They seem closer now than they did before. I remember watching the girls run and skip, seeming to take hours to reach the edge of the woods. They were good girls then. Of course they questioned us. Why were they not to climb through the trees? They were satisfied with our answers then. I made them a rope swing in the oak tree near the stream. Even the least interested of children would be entertained in such a meadow you said. A judder creeps up my arm and a furrow cracks my brow. I am still angry, my heart is pounding. I don’t recall it feeling like this before. I had always said to stay away from the woods. Maisey was so strong willed, but I figured she would be OK if I didn’t push her too hard. Certainly she was not a slow girl.
It has been 16 years since I last gazed from this window. I stood here whilst the women in my house fought, and thought of the times we used to play in the meadow. Spring literally crawled into your pores and the pungent cleanliness of the air whisked the girls high over the water. Now there is a layer of dusty grime preventing me from seeing the stream clearly, or, perhaps it is just so overgrown I would not be able to see it anyway. I turn to look at the room. This sets off the judder again. I do not care that it is my stuff, I do not care even that our house is in such disrepair. The disappointment comes from viewing this prison of bad memory and taste, not far from a mausoleum for you. I can still smell a faint waft of sodden bedclothes crying out to be comforted. I roll up my sleeves and set about cleaning my old home.
I do not lead an extravagant life, nor a lonely one for that matter. I never dared to pick up the phone and see how you were doing. Of course there were reports.
Our second daughter called and I was summoned to the same office we had sat in when we signed for a certificate. Not one to be proud of, but an end to something that had hoped to reap great achievement. And we did, didn’t we? I thought we had. Divorce was not a rare thing and many families survived death then. We had not been frivolous; we had not argued ourselves into a rage. We just seemed couldn’t seem to pick ourselves up after Maisey was gone.
You told me she had gone missing one evening. I had not believed you. She always came back. Most likely just out of town at a party or something I had reasoned with myself. We all knew she was a bit wild, secretly I admired her gusto for life. You and her sister were worried though. I heard the sobs sputtered late into the evening. Hushed telephone calls echoed around me whilst I tried to read. I told myself it was a woman’s thing, that you were all in cahoots and had probably had one of your ‘cat fights’. I was an adult; why should I get involved in such goings on? She did not return. I asked why she wouldn’t come home. Her sisters’ response had been one of anger, questioning how I could be so blind. What was I supposed to think? To be heard in my household would have been a wondrous thing.
The police had come the following Monday and asked me to view the body. A walker had found her on the western ridges of the woods. She had been gone just over a week. Cause of death went as unknown. You retreated to the bedroom.
Our youngest, Charlotte, called and told me you had passed 3 days ago. I asked her to meet. She refused. I asked if she was ok. She laughed.
‘Now you ask dad!’
My arm judders when I start to pull the bedclothes off the bed and it occurs to me that I may not leave this house today. You sat and waited for her all these years. You didn’t ask me to wait with you. I can hear you asking now. I am coming.

What do you do when you no longer know what to do?

I thought I'd be alright

Know what to do and when to put up the fight.

Now ill take your pills,

I'm told I wont be so uptight.

Mr white tails;

with your trimmed tash and piece of paper

Do you really know what i should do?

Broken to the core

just some scribbles