Coal-Miner Thirty year old powerloader Brian, stood amidst the crowd of jabbering miners as they waited to descend in the cage. His aching slightly overweight frame already fatigued with the stress of just getting there. He put his holdall down at his feet, then rested his arms on the guard-rail of the fence at the top of the steps leading to the bottom deck of the cage. Who wanted to be down the pit on a sunny day like t...
It takes a while to wake up. Consciousness has to wade through swirling fudge before it arrives for duty, as do new thoughts and last night's recollections. My bloodless legs have been elevated, for some hours, at an acute angle against the opposite wall which is only four feet from the wall supporting my back. The folding fisherman's stool wobbles beneath me as I grab the bottoms of my trouser legs and drag their flaccid...
Part one: I sat in the train carriage feeling separated from the scene around me. I was starting my journey by rail down to Dover; across the Channel by ferry, across France to Marseilles, then by boat in tourist class to Israel. I had lived with this group of girls who were weeping with regret of leaving their parents behind, on a farm in Somerset where we were being selected as Kibbutz community living material; for two...
My beginning: No control. Outside the window, the cold wind is howling and whipping back forth. Inside, deafening electronic music is pounding while dozens of drunken college kids slam their heads and blow their fists in the air. Steaming red lights beam into the room as half-drunk girls sip from their red cups and drift their eyes across the room, trying to latch on to something. Inside, the walls are cheap, paint chips...
