Your Messages

December 8th 2008 : So we have a winner(s)…

2008-12-08T19:56:00.003Z

We’d like to thank you one last time for your contributions to this year’s Your Messages – both in terms of your responses and also your generosity to our chosen charity. We had said we would pick one winner, but as someone pointed out early on, that was always going to be impossible. We could have picked many, many, but after many re-reads and some lengthy discussions we have chosen two. They will receive two books each.

One is of thirty words, and one is of three hundred words. This isn’t deliberate, but it feels good.

So many congratulations to Jacqueline Haskell for her response on 13th November:

I dreamed of a closed sea and when I awoke, not understanding, I opened books: the letters swam a river before me and so I resolved to learn to read.

This exquisite response links both explicitly and implicitly to the original post but also develops its own theme and direction. The imagery is wonderfully suggestive (containment, moving from unconsciousness to consciousness, opportunity) and the ending has a poetic closure which completes the piece, in the sense of a decision made by the narrator, but also manages to remain open-ended. The three stresses at the end of the sentence – re-solved, learn and read – reinforce the conviction in the voice. The reader 'feels' the possibility of change in this particular life and might be encouraged to consider such possibilities in his or her own.

And congratulations also to Kathryn for her response on 19th November:

No one sees the dead babies. They are so much easier to cover up. Small. So harrowing is the sight of them that we see right through them to the ground beneath; the hospital floor, the bushes, the road.

Travelling along the motorway, we see traffic cones, blue lights projected at confusing angles, blankets, torn rubber and plastic, jagged remains strewn across the carriageway. A teddy bear. A tiny shoe. A policemen waves you on. You concentrate on the road.

Out walking the dog, the hedgerows stand motionless with the cold. Only those creatures preserved by centrally heated houses can overcome the sharpness of the frost in their lungs. Losing your footing in the frozen trench of a horse hoof print you twist your ankle. You are distracted by the pain. Your dog might sense a cooled body but he is on a lead and you pass by without noticing a thing.

You visit an elderly relative in hospital. You breathe through your mouth, avoiding the stench of urine and hospital sheets. You follow the brown signs on the wall. The endless relay of younger generations trooping back and forth with flowers reeks of the inevitable. As one patient passes, another enters the ward and a new family slips in to the ritual. Curtains are opened and drawn. And so on. It happens.

Down the street, behind the frosted glass door of a ground floor maisonette, is the silhouette of a child. A toddler. Not much more than a baby but it is standing. Because it has to. Its fists are smearing something on the inside of the glass. It is trying to reach up to the letterbox. It can't. The door is shut. The child screams. It is alone. You look ahead and keep walking.

It's someone else's problem.

This piece is skilfully crafted to tell a story – or series of stories - that might otherwise be too painful to read. The use of the second person works well here, drawing us in to what is nominally, as the writer says, ‘someone else’s problem’. From the beginning – No one sees – to the end – someone else’s problem – the tension is almost unbearable, with the use of varying sentence lengths and almost dispassionate reported language resonating long after we have first read it.

Their books will be in the post, but congratulations to us all too. This was a great way to spend November, and has been an enjoyable reminder of just how much good writing we can do when we commit ourselves!

November 2008 and Your Messages is Back...

2008-12-07T09:20:00.000Z

...by popular demand! But in a different incarnation because there’s no way we could duplicate November 2007’s amazing project that culminated in the launch of Your Messages at the Poetry Café in London in February this year.

Every day during the month of November 2008 we will post a writing prompt of exactly 30 words and you’re invited to respond, via the comments box, with your own original piece of writing which may be either exactly 30 words or 300 words long.

At the end of the month we’ll be choosing one response as the overall prize-winner (although we may well comment on one or two others as well) and the writer of that piece will receive signed copies of our books: Leading the Dance, Learning How to Fall, Something Beginning With and The Oven House.

And how will we make our decision from so much fine writing? Here are a few things to bear in mind:

1.There should be some kind of link to the prompt, e.g. theme, image, word or phrase
2.It should be a stand-alone piece of writing.
3.It has to be brilliant! :-)))

We look forward to meeting up with as many old and new ‘Messagers’ as possible online from 1st November.

Let the writing begin. Again!

Sarah & Lynne

Sunday 30th November

2008-11-30T07:49:00.002Z

First off, apologies for confusing you day-wise yesterday (and thanks for the alert, VP!) We are not - yet - so powerful that we can change the days of the week! Just trying to add on another day maybe, but with no luck. Here's our last message for this year. It's been fantastic working with you, and we achieved our aim in running it again this year which was to raise some well-needed money for the Kids Co. Thank you. Before we go though, we will be emailing the writer of our favourite message before Christmas - this isn't necessarily the 'best' message, or the 'best' writer. Just our personal choice. There is some GOOD stuff here - if you want to use it elsewhere please feel free to take it down from this site (or email us if you can't) and we wish you the best of luck. Keep in touch!

30

He calls them his little worlds. With one shake, he can change everything - not just the weather but the way their stories end. He lines them up. Which one today?

Saturday 29th November

2008-11-29T07:23:00.003Z

Well, here we are - nearly at the end. I think you know how much we've enjoyed this month, and we hope you have to. If nothing else it has shown how much you can pack into just thirty words! As stated, we are offering a prize of a selection of our books for the one message that has touched us the most - an almost impossible task to choose just one but hey, we are always up for a challenge and it means we get to read ALL of them all over again! If you want to be considered for this and you've been posting as anonymous or not given us your email address either on the page or privately, please do so. And now here's your penultimate prompt..

29

He wants a banana split with ice-cream, strawberry sauce and chocolate. And he wants it now. Otherwise he will scream. His mother sighs, sees too much of herself in him.

Friday 28th November

2008-11-28T07:06:00.000Z

Good morning to you. And here's your prompt for today ...

28

The blisters make walking agony. She wishes she wasn't vain, that she wore flat shoes, stomped happily. Then she looks down and sees the red sequin flash. Home, she sighs.

Thursday 27th November

2008-11-27T07:22:00.002Z

Yay, we have reached our target! Thank you all so much - and for your messages too. It's such a pleasure for us to run this project and with only three days to go, we're saying roll on next November already!!! And here's your prompt for today...

27

You can want something so badly it hurts, even when you know it's not right. The gold crucifix with paste jewels, the low cut t-shirt, the curly haired ticket collector.

Wednesday 26th November

2008-11-26T07:27:00.002Z

As you all know, one of our reasons for running this project was to raise money for the Kids Co and we originally set a target for - of course - £300. Well, we're delighted to say that we have nearly reached this target which is much more than we expected. THANK YOU. You've made us very happy - it's great to think of Your Messages living on in this way after November. And here's your prompt for today:

26

They ignore the dripping taps and the damp spots. Look at the cherry blossom view, he says. They kiss, they dance. Months later, they can't stop worrying about the cracks.

Tuesday 25th November

2008-11-25T07:42:00.001Z

Good morning to you, and here's your prompt for today...

25

Ever since the Giant Pike Accident, he keeps his mouth shut when swimming. Alone in the night, lips twitching, he can still feel the fish flap deep inside. Searching.

24th November 2008

2008-11-24T07:32:00.003Z

Happy Monday morning to you. We're on the final stretch now, so thank you for those that have been with us from the beginning, and those who have just joined us. So let the obsessive word counting begin for the week...!

24

She thought she might be one of those women who only drank champagne, wore silk negligees, smoked Turkish cigarettes, laughed twinkily and talked about nothing. Luckily, events worked against her.

Sunday 23rd November

2008-11-23T07:19:00.003Z

Good morning. Firstly, in answer to a query posted yesterday: yes! Post as many responses as you want to any daily prompt. Thanks so much for your enthusiasm. And here's this morning's prompt to play with:

23

The magician who guides the sparkling glass spheres through the air might be performing a miracle – the way they seem to float above his palms. Sometimes not knowing is enough.

Saturday 22nd November

2008-11-22T07:45:00.001Z

Wishing you all a great weekend, starting of course with this, your writing prompt for today:

22

He said I was an egg. That meant naivety, a lack of development, but also strength. I said he was a turnip. He said, I don’t want to play anymore.

Friday 21st November

2008-11-21T07:46:00.003Z

Good morning to you all. Three weeks into the project and the responses continue to make us laugh and cry. And here's another one to challenge your imaginations and memories:

21

Leeches were once a favoured species. They sang; their bodies were encased in mother of pearl shells. The first leech to taste blood said it was all a terrible mistake.

Thursday 20th November

2008-11-20T08:19:00.001Z

Hello again - thanks for staying with us this month, so enthusiastically, and so inventively. Here's today's prompt:

20

If you want fidelity, get a dog. It’ll make you happier, my mother said. You have dogs and you’re not happy, I told her. I know. Bad dogs! she laughed.

Wednesday 19th November

2008-11-19T08:02:00.001Z

And today's prompt is:

19

When the baby dies, even the house seems to grieve. The front-door gasps as if light and air are too bright and sharp to meet. In one room, such silence.

Tuesday 18th November

2008-11-18T07:37:00.001Z

Lovely responses yesterday. Thank you. And we're two thirds of the way to our charity-raising target, so thank you for that too. If you haven't already, you can click on the 'Kids Co' logo to see what it's all about. And here's todays prompt:

18

The History of Doubts was the world's heaviest book. 'Are you REALLY sure you want to take it out?' the librarian would ask. The book always stayed on the shelf.

Monday 17th November

2008-11-17T07:25:00.002Z

Good Monday morning to you. Here's hoping for a good week ahead but in the meantime, your prompt for the day is ....

17

If I have to kiss another frog, I'll scream. I don't even want a prince. I want a girl on a bicycle and a picnic wrapped in a red handkerchief.

Sunday 16th November

2008-11-16T07:53:00.002Z

Good morning - you're half-way through! And here's today's prompt:

16

He keeps the beer bottle top in the pocket of his winter coat. Each time he slips his hand in, away from the cold, he remembers the taste of him.

Saturday 15th November

2008-11-15T07:45:00.002Z

Good morning everyone. We wish you all a 'jolly' weekend, starting right here:

15

Score these words on ‘the funny scale’, with 1 being hilarious, and 10 being humourless: ping, kipper, boobs, diarrhea, macramé, tenderloin, poppadom, squib, lobworm, flageolet, demijohn, chomp, alpenstock, jig, underlay.

Friday 14th November

2008-11-14T07:38:00.003Z

How are you all this morning? Looking forward to the weekend? Here's the next prompt to take you a little bit closer.

14

Five ways to cry and not be noticed: in the shower, staring at the sun, watching ‘Braveheart’, in a five mile tailback on the M25, in all sorts of rain.

Thursday 13th November

2008-11-13T07:33:00.002Z

Good morning. It's wonderful to see how the project is going from strength to strength, gathering more 'messagers' and interest every day. We love it!

Here's today's prompt:

13

On the map of my life I have coloured in a long, blue river. It runs underground in places, forcing its way through rock, but ahead, always, the open sea.

Wednesday 12th November

2008-11-12T08:01:00.004Z

Good morning! Ready to go?

12

Are you day-dreaming? Yes, it's lovely. Come with me. Hop on this elephant, see the colours of the birds, listen to the river. Lift your face up. Feel the sun.

Tuesday 11th November

2008-11-11T07:36:00.001Z

Good morning to you! Brilliant responses yesterday which cheered up our rainy day. And here's todays prompt...

11

The plant rooted itself in her garden overnight. Not a weed. Or a seedling. It should worry her, but she likes how the smug roses now look fearful, petals trembling.

Monday 10th November

2008-11-10T07:18:00.003Z

Good morning! It's Monday already, so let's get straight to it ...

10

She had gone to the shop to buy some noise. She wanted disco dancing, pounding feet, screams. But then she saw the bottle of green cool silence on special offer.

Sunday 9th November

2008-11-09T07:40:00.003Z

Yay, we're nearly half-way to our fundraising target. THANK YOU. Nowhere near half-way through November though, and is it just us or are the contributions really good? Thank you for that too, we've been loving reading them. Here's your Sunday morning prompt.

9

Each season the garden smells different. The heavy emotions wait in every corner to pounce. The roses store up grief, daffodils hope. The honeysuckle is the only one to cling.

Saturday 8th November

2008-11-08T07:23:00.003Z

Good morning. Just before today's prompt we'd like to express our gratitude for the donations made to kids co so far: thank you so much. You can check on how things are going by clicking on the logo on the left.

Have a great weekend.

8

After fifty years she ran out of curses. Just like that. She opened her mouth… and silence. It was the first time since her childhood that she couldn’t taste ash.

Friday 7th November

2008-11-07T07:34:00.001Z

It's the end of the first week of this year's Your Messages and we couldn't be more pleased with your support. Thank you. Here's the next prompt:

7

He worried about: bed-wetting, not being picked for the team, crying, then acne, finding a clitoris, the last of which turned out to be the least of his life’s worries.

Thursday 6th November

2008-11-06T07:39:00.003Z

Good morning. It's wonderful to see so many of you making this a daily committment - congratulations... and keep going! Ready for another prompt?

6

Janet & John taught me the essentials of English. Madeleine & Pierre took over in French. My life would have been so much easier if I’d been Susan & Someone.

Wednesday 5th November

2008-11-05T08:03:00.001Z

Good morning to you all. Today's prompt is:

5

When God decided to write a novel, instead of just his usual private journal, he began to realize the importance of audience. And beginnings. And endings. Endings were really tricky.

Tuesday 4th November

2008-11-04T07:47:00.002Z

Nothing lost and everything found yesterday - new friends, old friends, good writing! And here's today's prompt:

4

The message came in the night. 'Hey Rabbityroo, Graham-mahem here.' It's a wrong number, but she spends the day pressing replay, listening to Graham-mahem saying how much he misses her.

Monday 3rd November

2008-11-03T07:06:00.003Z

Good Monday morning! We're annoyingly cheerful this morning because we've been enjoying reading through your responses. So here's your third prompt ....

3
Among the things handed into the lost property department today were: Four pairs of spectacles, two handbags, one laptop, three library books, six sets of keys, one red stiletto shoe.

Sunday 2nd November

2008-11-02T08:02:00.003Z

What a brilliant start yesterday; thank-you for your support and enthusiasm. Here's the second prompt of the month:

2
The railway station is haunted by the mother of a baby snatched from there in 1955. As the train pulls in, listen hard. In the sound of the brakes, crying.

Saturday 1st November

2008-11-01T07:42:00.004Z

Good morning! It’s so good to be back, and we hope you feel the same and are flexing your writing muscles in readiness for this, the first of 30 daily prompts. And remember, your response, or responses (!), need to be 30 or 300 words exactly. Click on ‘comments’ and post as soon as you’re inspired.

1

Scientific studies show that women can hold their breath underwater for longer than men. Don’t challenge any man to a competition though. Men underwater are far more dangerous than women.

JUST ONE DAY TO GO ....

2008-10-31T10:55:00.003Z

We're getting excited! Join us tomorrow - 1st November - for our first 30 word prompt. Remember that you can reply in either a 30 word piece, or a 300 word piece, or both! Lynne and Sarah take no responsibility for any resulting word-count addiction though...
See you tomorrow morning - we're looking forward to it. And just one more thing, we're very aware how generous you all are at putting your work up here to be enjoyed. However, we will not mind at all if you want to delete it at any stage and send it out for publication. If you credit us, we will be very grateful but we wish you well anyway and would really love to hear of any successes.

February 2007: We have Book Lift Off!

2007-12-07T17:45:00.001Z

YOUR MESSAGES, the very wonderful book of selected messages from this website was launched last night at the Poetry Cafe in London. We had readers from Texas (I know!), Austria (yes, really!), Manchester, London, Liverpool, Oxford ... from everywhere. And we had a fantastic evening, raising - wait for it - nearly £500 for The Kids Company. Thank you everyone.

But remember you can still buy a copy of Your Messages for yourself and your friends. Every penny goes to the charity. In the meantime, here are a selection of faces to put to the messages. If you have more photos you would be happy to share, please email them to Sarah and she'll put them up...

The book!

Sarah and Lynne

Ken (pin up boy for November 22nd)

Clare (pin up girl for 23rd November)

('Diggles' - our 29th November star)

Welcome!

2007-12-06T13:53:00.000Z

Hello and welcome to the Your Messages page.

During November 2007, over 100 writers from all over the world participated in this extraordinary project. Using original extracts from the literary collaboration, MESSAGES as a prompt, writers contributed stories, poems, memoirs, lists, etc etc etc of exactly 300 words and posted them here within 24 hours of the prompt appearing.

The results were astonishing. Not just in the quality of the comments - and read them, judge for yourself - but also in how the individual writers reported their process became freer. They surprised themselves - and us.

Now, we are in the process of publishing a book of our favourites from the many many wonderful pieces contributed but we wanted to leave the website as it stands, for you to browse, enjoy and, hopefully, get inspired by!

All proceeds from the project will be going to the charity, Kids Company, and we thank all those who took part for their generosity here too.

Lynne and Sarah

Anthology Selection

2007-12-05T18:30:00.000Z

Neither of us realised how difficult a task this would be. So many good pieces, so many talented writers, and we wish we could have published every single response as a celebration of everyone’s generosity and commitment. But as that would have resulted in a volume twice the size of War and Peace we had to be practical!

As the original Messages were written as stand alone pieces, despite the links between them, we looked for an element of self containment; writing that did not necessarily depend on the posted message. We also focussed on closure, often one of the most difficult things to achieve in short fiction and poetry, and looked for endings that offered some kind of fulfilment, though not necessarily any firm resolution, and certainly not necessarily happy endings. And finally, we had to consider variety, and how the pieces worked all together.

Again, thank you to everyone who took part in ‘Your Messages’; all your names will appear in the book, regardless of whether your work has been chosen or not. And please be assured that every piece has been read by both of us very carefully indeed. Thank you for that.

We hope to ‘meet’ all of you again.

Sarah & Lynne

Kids Company - our chosen charity

2007-12-04T15:45:00.000Z

We are delighted to announce that we have picked The Kids Company as our charity to benefit from the Your Messages project. There's a little bit about them below, but please do visit their website on http://www.kidsco.org.uk/ to find out more. Just one of the things they'll be doing this Christmas is giving over 800 kids a Christmas lunch they wouldn't otherwise get! We hope you will agree this is a good choice - we find what they are doing amazingly inspiring and, sadly, necessary.

Kids Company

Kids Company was founded by Camila Batmanghelidjh in 1996 to provide for children and young people experiencing significant psychosocial difficulties due to the absence of a functioning parent or carer, which can often have a very negative impact on their ability to access education, health, housing, and meaningful employment. It currently supports 11,925 clients.

The organisation has a multi-disciplinary team working at street level delivering a preventative and reparative therapeutic service to children.

95% of the children refer themselves or their peers to our services, which are delivered through three key channels: 33 schools across London, a drop in centre in South London and a post-16 educational site.
Kids Company aims to promote and support emotional well-being. It assumes that the healing process for these young people is only possible in the context of sustained relationships, and strives to provide each of its clients with practical and emotional help they need.
Kids Company has already made a huge difference to the lives of thousands of kids thanks to the support of all our friends and benefactors over the past eleven years. But there's more to be done and more kids who need their childhood back.

Update

2007-12-03T22:55:00.000Z

The Your Messages Project, inspired by the collaborative classic Messages, ran from 1st November to 30th November 2007 and attracted over 1,200 responses from writers around the world. We are currently reading, and loving, and selecting work for the anthology, Your Messages, that will be launched on 31st January 2007 at The Poetry Cafe, Betterton Street, London.

If you took part in the project and don't mind spending a little more time with us, we'd be so grateful if you could reply to any or all of the following questions. Feel free to post your reply, with or without your name, via the Comments facility or email us directly:

sarah@sarahsalway.com
lynne@lynnerees.co.uk

Were you able to identify any changes in yourself, your writing, and/or your writing process during the Your Messages project?
Have you gained anything by taking part in Your Messages?
What, if anything, will you miss the most?
What did you enjoy the most?
Did you have any other realisations or insights?

Thank-you.

Lynne & Sarah

(p.s. There's no necessity to reply to the questions in exactly 300 words but we'll understand if you need to!)

Welcome

2007-12-02T16:11:00.000Z

When we started the Messages Project in 2003, it was all about our shared passion for writing and the creative process. We devised a simple formula over coffee one day. Using email, we would exchange 300 ‘messages’ of exactly 300 words, with each one returned within a time limit of 72 hours. Links between each message were made with words, themes, character, form, or even mood. The project took eighteen months to complete and the original Messages was published in July 2006.

From the first hit of the Send button to the final message appearing in our Inbox we enjoyed the energy attached to the project – the excitement of reading new work, meeting the looming deadlines, as well as the challenges and discoveries in language and form. With the new edition of Messages due out in January 2008 we thought we could share some of that excitement with you by creating a mini ‘Your Messages’ project. And we hope you enjoy what we enjoyed: the connections and loops, the playfulness and seriousness, the journeys through the familiar and strange.

For each day of November we’ll post a message from the book and you are invited to make your own link and write your own response. The only thing we ask is that you stick to 300 words and post your response the same day (see note below). 30 of the most interesting and creative responses will be published in an accompanying booklet, the profits of which will go to charity. All the contributors will be invited to read at a special Messages Event in 2008.

Messages was about generosity from the beginning: about gifts of writing, commitment and enthusiasm. We hope you’ll join us in continuing with that generosity. And of course, have fun because we intend to!

Lynne Rees and Sarah Salway

Note: We’ve had a number of queries about the deadline for posting responses so in order to be fair to everyone, particularly people posting from other countries, and continents, we can consider your response for publication if it’s posted on the site before 8am GMT the following morning.

Signed Copies of Messages

2007-12-01T08:47:00.000Z

There's only 1 shopping day left to order signed copies of the new edition of Messages. You'll have read and responded to 30 of them during this month so why not get the book and have a further 270 writing prompts?

We can add personal dedications, e.g. To the most brilliant 'Your Messages' participant. We couldn't have done this without you, yes YOU... or something rather more subtle. Or we can sign them, as presents, from you to someone you know who will enjoy the book's playfullness.

The link to pre-order signed copies is on the left, and you can let us have specific dedications by email: sarah@sarahsalway.com and lynne@lynnerees.co.uk.

Lynne & Sarah

November 30th

2007-11-30T07:58:00.000Z

And a very good morning to everyone. Your last Message is the first Message of the book because we don’t believe that endings are really endings, only the beginnings of other things. Messages and the Your Messages Project are proof of that.

A BIG thank you to everyone who has taken part this month. It’s a cliché but it’s true… we couldn’t have done it without you. Please keep checking the site for information between now and January, and in particular for the names of the selected writers on 15th December.

We hope to see as many of you as possible at The Poetry Café, Betterton Street, London on 31st January for the launch of Your Messages.

And please keep in touch.
love
Lynne & Sarah

1

One morning, in bed, he turns his naked back to you and you start to write.
Unthinking at first. You wet your finger, trace letters on his skin. ‘I l...’ Then your hand takes over. ‘...eft you,’ it continues.

‘Mmm...’ he murmurs. ‘Me too.’

You worry about this all day – me too what? So that night, when he’s late for the film you both want to see, you scream at him. ‘People are looking,’ he hisses and that’s when you start to run. But he catches you up, holds you tight by the arm until you calm down. ‘Where are you going?’ You’re not sure, maybe you just wanted to be the one to go. While you wait for the film to start, you read the review. The Loneliness of a Jilted Woman.

Somehow you stay, although you clutch at him so tightly he shows you the bruise later. ‘It’s in the shape of a heart,’ you say wonderingly and then he can’t stop looking at it in the mirror.

‘I’ve been marked,’ he crows and you’re OK just so long as he doesn’t show you his back. You don’t sleep because you need to make sure he doesn’t turn away. You try to understand what he’s saying when he makes those little noises that have never bothered you before. Then he takes a sudden intake of breath and you start to punch him. You can’t stop.

He wakes. ‘Jesus,’ he says, ‘it’s four fucking o’clock in the morning.’

You tell him how he wants to leave you. You’re crying so hard you can’t get the words out.

A month later, you pick up the phone. Hear the message you used to share, except now it’s just his name. ‘I left you first,’ you say. Silence echoes down the line.

November 29th

2007-11-29T07:30:00.000Z

Good morning to you. We will say it again and again - thank you so much for such brilliant, inspiring responses during this last month. Reading them all has been an absolute pleasure. And here's your penultimate Message.

255

These are some things I'll miss if I die too early…

* mornings like this one, when everyone’s asleep and I’m sitting curled up in the armchair in the kitchen with a mug of hot coffee writing about things that bring me pleasure, but there’s an opening in my chest too and I’m writing direct to the page, concentrating on writing what I see as the truth.

* the chance to live by the sea, to find a country that will absorb me and take me in without being judgmental, that will have water I can go walk by and watch.

* the excitement of meeting new soul mates, who I want to talk to every morning, sit with over long meals telling jokes and ghost stories, fiddling with candles and laughing.

* the pleasure of choosing and trying on new clothes, when I know I look good and can walk down the street and return smiles, when flirting is just fun, that glance between you that says ‘in another life, then maybe, you and me’.

* seeing my name in print and sneaking up on strangers who might be reading my words. That moment when my work takes off without me and I have to run to catch it up, and when I read it, it’s as if it has nothing to do with me and I think – yes, this could be true.

* the heat of the sun on bare flesh, a full glass of red wine, oily spicy food that drips down my chin, stealing looks at people I love, that feeling of pride bursting through my chest when friends do well and are happy, the sparkle of clear water as I break through a clean swimming pool. Good sex, good food, good chat, good poetry. Good.

November 28th

2007-11-28T07:30:00.000Z

Good morning. Have you written your Christmas cards yet? No? Never mind, here's a Message to get you in the mood.

163

Dear Special Friends

What a better time than Xmas to meet new soulmates! I love to imagine your surprise at getting this letter! Some of you might have gone straight to the bottom to see that the sender is indeed Brian, but this time it’s Veronica-and-Brian as opposed to Jane-and-Brian! I’m pleased to meet you!!

When Brian told me about Jane’s now famous Christmas letters, I thought her tragic death was no excuse to lose touch! Even our therapist has joined our quest to forge a new, special and wonderful relationship (very unlike Jane and Brian’s but that’s another story).

So what’s happening? You’d be amazed to see how much happier Brian looks these days! Jane was a wonderful woman in many ways, but even her friends among you will agree her dress sense wasn’t one of them! I know you’ll all agree that Brian could never be an autumn, so why did Jane keep buying him all those brown clothes? But I digress. To our delight Kevin at Headzone has taken Brian’s hair under control, and his cosmetic surgery is planned for May. Watch this space…!

You’ll probably be relieved to hear we’ve cleared out all Jane’s boring books – what a dust trap! – and painted the walls a nice Magnolia colour. In the garden, we cleared out Jane’s herbs and laid some wonderful trouble-free paving. In place of that horrible old apple tree, there now stands a sculpture of Brian and I making love in celebration of that natural and important part of our lives!

We hope all you special people will visit us. My sweet Brian says I’m too modest, but I’m sure you’ll find my cooking is in a different league to Jane’s homely fare!

Yes, friends, come to this joyous celebration of our love!
Veronica-and-Brian xxx

November 27th

2007-11-27T08:13:00.000Z

Good morning. Have a good writing day, and here's a Message to start you off:

26

Once upon a time there was a little box with nothing in it, but it didn’t like being empty and light and wished it could be fuller and heavier. And as the little box grew into a medium-size box, and then into a big box, more and more things collected inside. But the box began to feel so heavy and full it was frightened it would be stuck in one place and unable to move an inch. Then the box began to wish it could be a little box again with none of the weight and clutter inside, light enough to skim across the floor if someone nudged it with a foot, maybe light enough to lift in a wind.

So, the box wished. And wished. And wished. And nothing happened. It carried on wishing so hard that its sides ached but still nothing happened.

Then the box had an idea – it tried opening its lid wide. At first this was very difficult, it was stiff from being closed up for such a long time and its cardboard flaps groaned as they stretched and tried to close back down, but after a while they became more flexible and stayed open.

When the first things started to leave, the box felt sad. They had been there for a very long time and it had become used to their shape, the way they fitted snugly against everything else. But as more and more things left the box became excited – it felt lighter and started to move its flaps. It believed it would become so light that it might fly.

But it didn’t. And after a while the box began to feel empty and light and it wished it could be fuller and heavier. And it wished. And wished. And wished.

Silly box.

November 26th

2007-11-26T00:45:00.000Z

Only 5 days to go, so if you've been posting every day don't give up now! Here's today's Message:

214

When she was about ten she started to play the game with Wendy. They’d go upstairs to her bedroom, lie down on the bed and take turns being the man in the sports car and the girl. The man stopped and asked the girl if she’d like a lift and eventually he got to lie on top of her, touch her and kiss her. At first they kept all their clothes on, but as that became less exciting, they took off their T-shirts.

Then, one day, before they started the game, Wendy told her that her mother had said she could play the game but she had to keep her clothes on. It wasn’t proper touching each other’s chests, she said. But the game wasn’t as good after that, so they went to the beach instead and played hide-and-seek in the sand dunes. Once they came across a man lying in one of the sandy valleys, touching himself. Wendy told her mother about him, too.

She tried playing it with Alison. Alison had a chemistry set and a pet rat and white bedroom furniture decorated with gold swirls, like a human size set of Barbie furniture. But Alison was no good at the words and that was what she liked best about the game, how the man talked the girl into coming closer, are you sure you don’t want to come with me, how the girl resisted for a while, no, I have to go home, so when they did get to lie down she was already tingling and hot. And Alison was bony and her breath always tasted of old pop.

She became fed up of the game shortly after. Then boys began to make her feel hot, though none of them were any good at the words either.

November 25th

2007-11-25T01:45:00.000Z

Good morning. Here's today's Message:

150

The pavement is sticky like uncooked dough; it lifts in strings under your soles. The sun is hot. The skin on your shoulders and knees is burning. That’s when your father pokes his head out of the door and shouts at you to come in but you can’t tell him about the pavement because you know he won’t believe you, he’ll think that you’re lying or you’ve done something wrong. You wave and watch him disappear down a dark hall, into a room with a tiny window at the other end. He sits at a table and carves his name into the wood.

Each time you have the dream you wake up frightened, then relieved when you remember where you are. You haven’t mentioned it to anyone since one of your boyfriends said that in Freudian terms the knife symbolised a penis.

Your mother once told you the women in your family were cursed with bad love. And you believed her because she was your mother. And because of your father.

When your mother calls and tells you he’s died she can’t stop crying. You say, ‘Mum, you haven’t seen him for fifteen years.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she says. ‘I always see him in you.’
After you hang up the phone you stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror, try and see him somewhere in your face. You can’t. And you’re glad.

You haven’t had the dream since he died. Or you’ve had the dream, but your feet aren’t stuck and your father doesn’t call you and it’s you walking down the dark hall into the small room. It’s you sitting at the table with the knife, but you don’t carve your name. You walk over to the other end of the room and look out of the tiny window.

November 24th

2007-11-24T07:53:00.000Z

Good morning. We have been reading all your responses with such enjoyment and admiration. Thank you for taking part! And here's your Message for today.

187

She takes a careful look round first. The detective thinks he’s being clever, posing as an ordinary shopper but she sees him straight away. What ‘ordinary’ business man would really spend such a long time trying to choose a baby’s outfit.

She tries to see who he’s got his eyes on. Can’t be her, otherwise he’d be over here where he could see her actually picking up the goods. And it’s then she sees the young mother with the crying toddler in the buggy. She’s done that one before, stuffing goods into the pleats of the rain hood for a laugh, but this one looks as if she’s doing it from real need. The woman’s face is pinched and tired; she’s not even bothering to try to stop her kid sniveling. Bastard detective. Couldn’t he just turn the other way for once, it’s not as if the shop couldn’t afford it. Look at the prices they charge, the jewelry dripping off the shop assistants, the softness of the carpet.
She takes another look at the young mum. She could go over and try to warn her, but time’s short and Kenny’s waiting. She can just imagine his reaction if she came back empty-handed, polishing her halo.

The scarves are light and floating, and in a reverse motion of a conjuror’s trick she waves her arms and watches the bright jewel colours slip up her sleeve. She wants to curtsey in anticipation of applause but when she looks round to see if anyone’s watching, she sees instead the detective walking purposefully toward the mother. She exits quickly, not wanting to catch the inevitable consequences.

In the café Kenny’s stirring his coffee impatiently, barely looking up, not even when a silk rainbow start falling out of her hands and onto the table.

November 23rd

2007-11-23T07:41:00.000Z

Good morning to you all, both new and regular Messagers. Here's your prompt for today.

229

This is what they had to eat: quails eggs, shelled and dipped in celery salt; seared tuna steak, the smallest new potatoes and asparagus spears with little tubs of butter to pour over; bitter chocolate pots (he fed her using the tip of his little finger.)

This is what they had to drink: crystal jugs full of iced sparkling water (she fished out an ice cube and crunched it between her teeth, icicles sprayed from her mouth as he watched.)

This is what they wore: both arrived in black trousers and white shirts. They laughed and clapped hands, praising each other’s taste (he pulled her red leather belt free from its noose with his teeth, it fell curled like a snake to the floor.)

This is what the room smelt of: beeswax, lavender and the faintest taint of fruit (he rubbed an orange from the fruit bowl over her hair and inhaled.)

This is what they looked at: there was only one painting on the white walls, a black and white etching of an Eric Gill nude, her body curved in ecstasy, hands clasped high above her head. (she put out her forefinger and traced the model’s pubic hair so lightly he shuddered.)

This is what they talked about: how the soul would communicate if it could choose (poetry, he said. Painting, she said, my soul would need colour. Mine too, he said, and he whispered poems into her skin until she started to hear the rainbow.)

This is what she had in her handbag: one key, a chip from the roulette table, a pink lipstick moulded to the shape of her lips (he painted her mouth, careful not to go over the edges, and then when he finished he licked the whole thing off before starting all over again.)

November 22nd

2007-11-22T07:46:00.000Z

Good morning to you. Here's your message for this rainy Thursday.

249

If you eat paper you get black eyes; if you see two magpies something nice will happen; if you see a pin pick it up and all the day you’ll have good luck, see a pin and let it lie, someone close to you will die; feel happy if a black cat crosses your path; don’t walk under a ladder; never give a dressing gown for Christmas because it will bring illness; lick your thumb, place it in your other palm and make a wish if you see a black car; if you cough, raise your arm up high; always pick up a penny because it’ll mean that you’ll never need it; cross yourself if you see a yellow car; if by mistake you put on something inside out then you need to keep it like that for the rest of the day; never say the word Macbeth in a theatre; break a mirror and have seven years of bad luck; don’t look at a full moon through glass; hold your head tight when you go over a hill in case it drops off; press the cigarette lighter in before you take a long journey; if salt is spilt at the table, throw a pinch over your left shoulder; say bless you after someone sneezes in case the devil crawls into the mouth; wish on the first star; wish on your first food of the season; wish when you cut your birthday cake; don’t sit thirteen at a table; throw apple peel over your shoulder on Halloween and it will spell out the initial of your true love; wish on an eclipse and it will be doubled; don’t cut your nails on a Friday; always burn your hair clippings; be careful what you wish for because it may come true.

November 21st

2007-11-21T19:07:00.000Z

It's Wednesday, and another Message day. What are we all going to do when this is over?! Let's not think about that yet.

14

There are some mornings when you feel like floating away, so instead of getting straight into your car when you leave the house you take off your shoes and stand on the pavement flexing your heels. It doesn’t take much, just a slight shift in the breeze, and you’re up, raising your arms to a T for the current of air to lift you higher. And there’s nothing like height and distance to give you perspective. Your house, for example, looks exactly the same as the rest in the curve of your street – slate roof, red brick, the white flashes of windows. The individual touches you’ve added over the years – the heather bed, the paved driveway, the carriage lamp and house name plate on the wall outside the front door, the brick lawn-edging that took you four weekends last summer – are indistinguishable from here, just blotches, shadows or scribbles. Which is laughable when you think of all that time you spent in Homebase stacking your flatbed trolley with compost, sand, cement, plants, wall fixings.

Even the moving flecks of your wife and children in the garden are the same flecks as every other woman and child down there – they could live in any house with any of the men walking out of glossy front doors, getting into company cars and driving off to work, to return twelve hours later.

You’ve tried to explain all this to your wife.

‘If you want to know about mind-numbing ‘sameness’, she said, ‘you try being at home with the kids all day, every day.’

But it’s not only the routine that’s bothering you, it’s looking in the mirror each morning and not knowing your face or your name, and this floating, how liberating it is and how, each time, it’s harder to come back.

November 20th

2007-11-20T08:12:00.000Z

Here’s your Message. Have a good day. No, have a great day.

294

A man comes out of a flower shop carrying a single red rose. He carries it in front of him, like a torch, proud to have such a magnificent thing in his possession, but also slightly self-conscious of the deep red, the fullness of the head, the stem seeming to defy gravity. A small girl holding her mother’s hand, twists around to see the rose take the corner before him, her feet stumbling backwards as her mother continues at the same pace. She wants to smell the flower, feel the rims of the petals tickle her nose, make perfume when they start to drop. A young man on a bicycle, kicking the metal pedal against the kerb, again and again, waiting for his friend to come out of the newsagents with twenty Camel cigarettes, stares at the rose, and then the man, and then thinks of his grandmother who kept a plastic red rose in a glass vase on the windowsill of her parlour. She always called it the parlour. The sofa covers were rough. They used to scratch the backs of his bare legs when he went there on Sunday afternoons. A woman coming out of the opticians catches a blur of the rose and she stops in the doorway. There’s something wrong with her glasses, she should have seen that clearly with her new varifocals, and she starts to follow the man. ‘Come back,’ she wants to shout, ‘come back and show me your rose again.’ ‘Please,’ she wants to say, but then she stops at the window of a travel agent. All the cards are blurred. She feels like crying. The man keeps walking. It seemed like the right thing to do an hour ago, but it’s only a rose. How can it help him at all?

November 19th - and an announcement

2007-11-19T08:26:00.000Z

Before today's Message, here's advance notice of the January date for the launch of the Your Messages anthology. We'll get in touch with all selected authors by 15th December.

Meet the Authors
of Bluechrome’s collaborative classic

MESSAGES
Lynne Rees & Sarah Salway

7pm on Thursday 31st January 2008
The Poetry Café, Betterton Street, Covent Garden
London WC2H 9BX

and celebrate the launch of
YOUR MESSAGES,
an anthology of original writing
selected from thousands of responses.

Lynne and Sarah will talk about their collaboration
and introduce the authors selected for the Your Messages anthology.

And here's today's Message for you. Click on Comments to respond:

262

It was never like the movie.

Okay, I was sixteen going on seventeen, and I did have a crush on a blonde Hitler youth, but that was the closest it got. The only music in the hills was the goats, and as for us, we hated the sight of each other, couldn’t bear to be in the same room for more time than it took to eat breakfast. They were right about Father (at the beginning), he did have a whistle and used to blow the fucking thing every morning at eight, expecting us to march downstairs and take our allocated places at the table.

The first time I ignored him he stamped upstairs looking for me, dragged the bed covers off then stopped when he saw I was naked. I knew I had some power as soon as I saw his face – his lips quivering and the eiderdown limp in his hands.

‘What?’ I snapped at him, making no attempt to cover my breasts, and I smiled.

He walked out of the room. ‘You’re just like your mother,’ he spat at the door.

He was probably right. She’d been dead for three years, and that’s pretty much how I felt.

The Baroness was a joke. A pathetic simpering twit. And the stuff about all the other governesses was fiction. Father couldn’t bear to have outsiders living in the house but he had to compromise when he was called away for a few months. That’s when Maria came. I can imagine her face if I told her the story about the curtains – she’d have looked up over her black coffee and cigarette, wrinkled her face into disbelief, and screeched with laughter.

It was like this: Father was a Nazi, the nuns betrayed Maria. All I want to do is forget.

November 18th

2007-11-18T01:47:00.000Z

Hope you're all having a good weekend. Here's something to wet your appetite for Sunday:

196

Ambry Carbonado

A delicious fish and pasta dish of Sicilian origin first introduced to this country in the 1870s by Signor Antonio Vespucci, the Italian ambassador to the court of Queen Victoria. The sauce is a blend of shredded ambry (a shellfish once found in deep waters off the rocky coast of Sicily), green onions, green grapes, white wine, and thick cream.

Signor Vespucci was determined to impress a deputation of Italian dignitaries, including La Contessa Maria Aligheri de Vincenza, reputed to be one of the most powerful women in the Italian court at that time, so arranged a banquet for five hundred guests in the presence of Her Majesty.

Two thousand ambry had been caught, packed on ice, and shipped to London a few days earlier, and when the silver salvers were uncovered by two hundred and fifty waiters and the sweet scent of ambry flesh poached in Frascati with the plumpest green Tuscan grapes reached the nostrils of the homesick Italians, a shout of Magnifico Vespucci! echoed around the Great Hall at Buckingham Palace, followed by spontaneous applause.

Neither Her Majesty or the guests, however, were ever made aware of the outrage felt by Sicilian fisherman whose fishing grounds had been voraciously depleted of this delicacy, an irresponsible act that threatened the shellfish with extinction. They protested at the central government buildings, marching around the main square dragging their nets and spitting as they chanted Vespucci’s name. But they hadn’t counted on the weight of the Contessa’s influence on the island and their protest was broken up by the Italian Royal Guard, two fishermen losing their lives during the stampede of the soldier’s horses.

Within twenty years not a single ambry could be found around Sicily and today’s recipe books use white crabmeat or monkfish in its place.

November 17th

2007-11-17T08:09:00.000Z

Good morning to you! Enough jokes now to last the Christmas period, I think, and here's your Message for today.

241

The white wine was warm.

She could see how cross it made him. He beckoned for the waiter immediately. ‘Ridiculous,’ he shouted.

‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘can’t you leave it just today? I know it’s annoying but this is our anniversary.’

‘Exactly. That’s why everything needs to be perfect.’

She could feel the panic rise in her chest, just like it did at home when he’d come back from work and start to criticise. Why were the children still up? Why were their bags littered round the hall? Why was everything such a mess? Why couldn’t she make more of an effort. Why? Why? WHY?

He was thumping the bottle on the table now in an effort to gain attention. She looked down at her plate, not wanting to catch his eye in case he started on her.

‘All I ask for,’ he shouted, ‘is an evening out with you where nothing goes wrong for once. A chilled glass of wine, some pleasant conversation, no stress. Do you have any idea of how stressed I am at work. How tired. Do you?’

She shook her head. Why couldn’t she have checked the wine first, popped into the restaurant that afternoon to make sure everything was perfect for him? She was such a fool not to anticipate this. She’d spoilt everything now.

‘I could swear that waiter’s avoiding me deliberately,’ he said, waving his hands wildly.

She looked up then, caught the eye of the woman sitting at the next table who smiled sympathetically.

Maybe it was that smile which finally gave her the courage to stand up and pour her glass of white wine all over him.

Then she floated out of the restaurant, curtseying left and right to thunderous applause, as light as a bubble in a fine clear glass.

November 16th

2007-11-16T07:26:00.000Z

It's a cold and wet morning here for us in Kent. We wish you better weather! And here's your Message for today:

73

It was as he was going to the loo for the second time in an hour just to avoid the silence between them that the strange man approached him.

‘What do you want?’ John stuttered, but the man put his hand up to stall him.

‘Couldn’t help but notice the conversation seems rather dry in your corner,’ he said.

John grimaced.

‘Have you tried the Jokeman?’ The man gave John a number, told him about this service - a joke for free, the cost of your telephone call, a joke appropriate for any situation, particularly one when you can’t think of anything to say to a girl you’re desperately trying to impress. And John was desperate.

Minutes later he went back to the table.

‘Two fish were in a tank,’ he said to the girl who was frantically trying to hide the fact she’d been making a call on her mobile. ‘One turned to the other and asked ‘do you know how to drive this thing?’”

To his surprise the girl started to laugh. It eased things so he could begin to tell her how he’d wanted to be a soldier once, and it turned out her dad was, and after that there was no turning back.

Of course, it wasn’t always so simple. John had to use the Jokeman several times after that, and he took pleasure in passing the number on to other guys he saw in similar situations. He’d look over minutes later and see it always worked.

Sometimes he’d wonder if girls used a service like the Jokeman but the girls he met hardly ever told jokes, and he’d see them talking to each other in a way that made him sure they’d never dried up.

No, the girls would have no need of the Jokeman.

November 15th

2007-11-15T07:41:00.000Z

Good morning on the half-way mark for November and the Your Messages project! Here's your Message for today.

279

THE SATISFACTION (OR OTHERWISE) OF LISTS

There are lists that are useful …
a) THINGS THAT NEED DOING IN THE HOUSE
b) COOKING INGREDIENTS FOR TONIGHT’S SUPPER
c) READING LISTS FOR SUBJECTS YOU WANT TO LEARN ABOUT

and those that aren’t:
a) REJECTION LETTERS WITHOUT A PERSONAL NOTE
b) HOW MANY TIMES EDITORS HAVEN’T RETURNED YOUR EMAILS
c) PEOPLE WHO MAY BE USEFUL BUT YOU’VE INSULTED THEM WHEN DRUNK

There are lists that make your stomach turn …
a) ALL THE PLACES YOU’VE EVER BEEN SICK IN
b) THE THINGS THEY DO IN TORTURE CHAMBERS
c) STRAY CURLY HAIRS LEFT IN THE SINK BY THE LAST INHABITANT OF YOUR NOT SO CLEAN HOTEL ROOM

and those that don’t:
a) AN INVENTORY OF YOUR BEST WHITE BED LINEN
b) THE LATIN NAMES OF HERBS
c) YOUR FAVOURITE SMELLS – LAVENDER, RAINWATER, LEMON

There are lists that bring you pleasure …
a) THE COUNTRIES YOU WOULD LIKE TO VISIT
b) THE PLANTS YOU COULD GROW IN YOUR GARDEN
c) THE PEOPLE YOU MIGHT MEET IN THE FUTURE

and those that don’t:
a) THE NUMBER OF FORMS YOU HAVE TO FILL IN FOR WORK
b) OUTGOINGS FOR TAX RETURNS
c) FRIENDS THAT YOU’VE LOST FOR REASONS THAT JUST MAY BE YOUR FAULT

There are lists that motivate you …
a) ALL THE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU’RE FIFTY

and those that don’t:
a) TOO MANY THINGS THAT HAVE TO BE DONE BY A CERTAIN TIME

There are lists that aren’t important ...
a) THE RECIPES YOU JUST MIGHT GET ROUND TO TRYING ONE DAY
b) BOOKS THAT AREN’T INTERESTING ENOUGH TO BUY BUT YOU MIGHT READ IF THEY’RE IN THE LIBRARY
c) DESCRIPTIONS OF OBSCURE WORDS
d) LISTS OF LISTS

and there are those that mean far, far too much ever to list.

November 14th

2007-11-14T07:23:00.000Z

Good morning - and here's your Message for today...

155

Last night I dreamt about someone I see regularly on the train.

We’ve never talked, but there’s an energy between us that’s hard to describe, just something you feel.

I knew it was him straight away in my dream even though he was dressed in a long black cloak with a hood that came right over his face. He kept holding out his hand and I tried to grab it but he was always just one step ahead of me. All I could think of was putting one foot in front of the other. The path up the mountain got narrower and narrower but I couldn’t see the end. Even the top of the mountain was hidden in the clouds.

There was snow everywhere that night but it wasn’t crisp. It felt as if I was wading in toffee. My legs were heavy but I knew if I could just catch up with him, I’d finally be safe.

So much snow. The cold circled my heart with ice. In comparison, he was surrounded by a glowing ring of fire. I wanted so much to catch up with him, but his hand was always out of reach.

It was good to wake up.

I was nervous catching the train this morning, but neither of us looked at each other. I tried to forget my dream but when we got to our destination, I couldn’t stop shivering. It was so cold in the carriage. Icy. Then I felt him standing behind me. In my panic, I opened the carriage door too early. The last thing I remember was the feel of him pushing hard at my back, the shock of trying to grab for his hand as I fell back. And back.

But however hard I tried, I couldn’t reach his hand.

November 13th

2007-11-13T08:11:00.000Z

Here's this morning's message for you:

272

Number of children: 3. Number of times married: 1. Number of times engaged: 2. Number of times you have sex each week: 1.5. Number of houses lived in: 6. Number of bedrooms slept in: 48. Number of facials you have had: 2. Number of manicures: 2. Number of meals you cook each week: 18. Number of times you’ve said to yourself, ‘I’ve got to change the way I think about things’: 623. Units of alcohol you drink each week: 29. Number of handbags you own: 11. Number of matching shoes: 0. Number of close friends: 3. Number of husband’s friends you really like: 3. Number of socks you pulled out of the washing machine yesterday: 37. Number of times you were cut off when you called Comet about the delivery of your new fridge: 3. Number of times each day you don’t say what you really want to say: 6. Number of mothers at the school gate you really like: 2. Number of times this week you opened a bottle of wine before six o’clock: 3. Number of pieces of toast you burned this morning: 4. Number of living parents: 1. Number of telephone calls from living parent each week: 15. Number of expensive lacy underwear sets you own: 2.5. Number of cars: 3. Number of children you’d prefer right now: 1. Number of things you wanted to do before you were thirty that you still haven’t done: 19. Number of tiles on the wall in front of you: 36 blue, 24 orange, 28 green. Number of splits in your rubber gloves: 1. Number of yellow roses in the vase on the table: 12. Number of cards: 15. Number of birthdays you’ve had: 39. Number of years you think you’ll live: 82. Number of days: 29,950. Number of hours: 718,800.

November 12th

2007-11-12T08:01:00.000Z

Another Monday, and another Message. Looking forward to reading your responses to:

28

She kisses her lover again and again, starting at her feet, the oyster pink of her toenails, the arch of her foot, the curve of her heel. She holds her calf in both hands and brushes her lips along the hard ridge of her fibula, from ankle to knee. She loves her knees, their polished smoothness, the ivory scar on one where she fell walking down the hill from the University seven years ago. She didn’t know her then, but she knows the story of how a road sweeping lorry was edging towards her, its brushes spinning close to the kerb, and how the driver had stopped at the sight of a woman looking helplessly around, pressing a hand to her knee apparently unable to stem the flow of blood.

‘Are you alright, love?’ he called from the cab. Then he got out clutching a green plastic First Aid box. ‘Lean back against the wall,’ he told her. ‘And put your foot up here.’ He patted his thigh.

She imagines him kneeling before her, wiping the blood away.

‘You haven’t got Aids have you?’ he asked, smiling up at her, but he didn’t wait for a reply. He cleaned the wound, taped an antiseptic dressing around it, asked her if she’d be okay, and then he was gone.

Her lover jokes about her road-sweeping ‘Prince Charming’ and still feels bad that she never thanked him properly, didn’t try and get in touch with the local council to tell them how he had rescued her.

She digs the tip of her thumbnail into the centre of the scar. Her lover doesn’t respond. She imagines the man’s hands holding the knee, the nerves in the torn flesh already dying. She kisses the scar again and again.

‘You’re all better now,’ she whispers.

November 11th

2007-11-11T07:35:00.000Z

Hello from us on a grey Sunday morning in Kent. Brighten our day with your responses, posting via Comments as usual.

2

He doesn’t want to talk dirty. It’s not a sexual thing. He doesn’t care if it’s a man or a woman. He just wants to listen to them answer the phone and know if they’re happy or if the day has turned sour and cranky. He loves the anticipatory lift of a voice convinced of the call’s origin, or the bark of someone interrupted, imagines their homes according to the timbre and accent – gilt-framed mirrors, Parker Knoll armchairs, Sky TV, stone floors, white walls, the smell of polish, or dogs, or chips.

Most people hang up within the first ten seconds, after a few hellos. The timid ones squeak, Oh! Some spit down the line – Get lost you creep! slapping into his breath. Though he tries to breathe quietly. He doesn’t mean to frighten anyone.

He has his favourites. The woman who chattered, Hello, hello, hello, anyone there? I can’t hear you, talk to me. I’m going to hang up now so why don’t you call me back? If you can hear me call me back, okay? Bye then, I’m going now, really, that’s it, try again, byeee! He pictured her with long dark hair, about 50, wearing something purple and woolly, with dangling earrings (there’d been a tapping sound against the receiver), and standing in a kitchen where the counter tops were stacked with books and candles, where people came and sat around the table and drank red wine and talked a lot.

But the best one of all was a phone answered and only a sigh released – a single exhalation of breath meeting his. And then a silence gifted to him for nearly thirty minutes before the disconnecting blip. He could see it all – a pale yellow wall, bare feet resting on wooden boards, a curl of smoke.

November 10th

2007-11-10T07:05:00.001Z

We are so happy and amazed at the quality of the responses so far. Thank you! And here's your Message for Saturday:

273

I’m counting my blessings. There are five of them. Security’s wrapped up in bed, nurturing is in the kitchen, luxury soaking in the bath, love’s waiting for me on the sofa and creativity’s popped out. She’ll be back when she feels like it.

I’m putting all my eggs in one basket. I collect them up each month in soft blankets and keep them in willow nests I’ve made in the trees. At night I go out and listen to the wind whistling through.

I’m seeing the wood for the trees. I spend hours carving the initials of everyone I’ve ever loved into the bark of young saplings. Over the years I’ve watched the love grow until some letters take on a life of their own, branching out in all directions.

I’m running before I can walk. I’m gone before you have time to turn around and tell me to stop, that I can’t do that, that I’ll never be able to do that. See me go. I’m doing all the things you never thought I could.

I’m putting the cart before the horse. It likes the view better that way. It never knew what it was doing before. This way the horse can take an active part in proceedings. Can feel really involved.

I’m falling before my pride. I need to, so I can get to the bottom before it, cradle it safely down in my arms so nothing gets broken, that it isn’t damaged, that it can carry on being so beautiful, so big, so vivid.

I’m a bigger fool than any old fool I know. I’m red-shoed, red-hatted, no knickered. I’ll fly high up to the sun and flex my unburnt wings. I’ll never be sorry one day. I’ll never come to my senses. I’m loving every minute.

November 9th

2007-11-09T07:29:00.000Z

And a happy Friday to you! Here's your message for today:

179

He waits until Annie’s asleep before he can do it properly.
It’s not that she resists him. She has no idea of what he’s doing. He knows that by the way she tries to keep secrets from him. It’s just that it feels more proper somehow to have rules.
So, only at night, when she allows the dreams to come, does he slip in too. It’s so amazingly beautiful, her mind. She’s no idea. Keeps saying things like how muddled her thinking is, how much crap she has stored away, so much useless knowledge.
But he walks round the loopy grey and silver corridors breathless with excitement. He’s been in other minds before, but they had regular clean outs. Annie’s kept everything.
He'll never get bored in there.
He goes down her playground memories, listens to the skipping songs, feels the fear as teachers prod and poke at him as he goes past, running automatically to kind playground assistants just as Annie must have done.
He can’t resist stalking her first loves, asking out loud how she could have found this one attractive with his red hair and freckles, or how this one could have found HER attractive.
But it’s the travel aisles he enjoys the most. Here he just sits and lets Annie’s excitement wash over him as she sees a whale swim up to the boat she was travelling to Greece in; snorkels over coral reefs in America, barters for Moroccan jewellery. He sips mint tea with her, scoops up spicy rice with his fingers and lets sweet candies explode on his tongue.
He never gets bored of it.
‘I love you,’ he tells her every morning. ‘You interest me more than any other woman I’ve met.’ And what he loves most is how much he means it.

November 8th

2007-11-08T00:46:00.000Z

Hey, we've been going for a week now, and the response has been brilliant. Thanks to everyone who's taken part so far, and welcome, if you're joining us for the first time. As usual, click on Comments at the end of this message to post your own 300 words.

54

Front door key, back door key, car key, garage key, suitcase keys, all the keys you have, you lay them all out. The key to the photocopier room at work, your neighbour’s key, a tiny chrome key for a diary you threw out years ago, the key to your Granny’s clock, the winder key for the oak kitchen table, chrome and bronze keys, Yale keys, Chubb keys, the key to your mother’s house even though you left ten years ago. You don’t know what some keys are for. You’re all keyed up. There aren’t enough keys to the puzzles around you. If you found stiff locks you’d oil them so their keys turned smoothly. If you had the keys to the city you’d keep it open twenty-four seven. You don’t want to look through keyholes and you’ll never use the key to the door at the end of the long dark corridor. You won’t. You promised. Maybe there’s a keyword you’re missing, or a key on the keypad, the keyboard that you’re not striking. You should know by now that things only work properly if you key in the right number. You don’t know what key you sing in. You want to go to the Florida Keys. Did he leave his key? He left his key. It’s a blue key. You try it in the lock – it slips in, turns easily, and opens the door. You close the door and do it again. It works every time. You hold it tightly until it feels hot in your palm. You want to lock up your heart and throw away the key, let it rust at the bottom of a drain, turn green in a lake. But you’ll make a duplicate. It’ll be a good thing to have more than one key.

November 7th

2007-11-07T07:32:00.000Z

Good morning! Here's your Message for today...

267

This is how quickly it can happen, you think. This is how quickly your life can change.

It’s just another ordinary day. You’re crossing the station concourse peering up at the board to see when your train’s due. You’re not looking where you’re going when you bump into a strange man. As he helps you up, he touches your arm and you feel a jolt of electricity. You stare into each other’s eyes and you can’t quite get a grip of reality any more.

I’m sorry, you say after what seems like another life and he smiles. Will you take the package now or later, he asks. You don’t understand and he stops smiling. Don’t fuck with me, he says, this is too important, and then he starts to back away hissing at you. People around you are pretending too casually that it’s not happening. Suddenly you have become an outsider.

This is how quickly it can happen, you think. This is how quickly your life can change.

You run after him. I’ll take the package now, you say, still not really understanding but wanting him to smile at you again. He does and you slip the brown envelope into your handbag without another thought. It hardly makes a bulge. He touches your arm again. I’ll catch up with you later, he says and you nod. You’re both smiling so hard at each other you think your cheekbones might burst.

You float back to the destination board. Trains are toot-tooting in parallel with your happiness. Commuters are turned into angels. When the hand falls on your shoulder you turn in anticipation of something good, something wonderful. It’s two policemen and they’re not smiling.

This is how quickly it can happen, you think. This is how quickly your life can change.

November 6th

2007-11-06T07:47:00.000Z

Your Tuesday morning therapy session! As usual, respond by clicking on Comments.

158

Did you have a happy childhood?
What is your happiest memory?
Are your parents happily married?
Are you happily married?
Is your husband happy?
Do you believe you have a right to happiness?
What would you choose if you had to decide between being happy and being secure?
Are your children happy?
Could you make them happier?
What’s the happiest thing you can imagine doing?
Do you cry when you’re happy?
If you had to locate happiness in one part of your body where would it be?
Do you ask yourself Am I happy?
Do you believe New Years should be happy?
When you are happy how do you express it?
Do you think that searching for happiness is one of the main sources of unhappiness in the world?
Is happiness your goal?
What is more important than happiness?
Would you take a happiness drug?
Could happiness be a negative state, a passive condition, which undermines things you should value more – your striving and yearning, your improving and growing, your inventing and discovering?
Is happiness a side-effect?
Would you rather be a happy pig or an unhappy person?
Is there such a thing as false happiness?
If you went to a fancy dress party that had ‘Happiness’ as a theme what or who would you go as?
What’s the point of happiness?
Is it true that happiness justifies the means to its attainment?
Are serial killers happy?
Who’s the happiest person you know?
Do you know what happy is in any other language?
When was your last really happy birthday?
Do you know the etymology of the word ‘happy’?
Is it possible to dislike very happy people?
What does happiness taste like?
What shape is happiness?
If you were given a single wish would you wish for a happy life?

November 5th

2007-11-05T08:01:00.000Z

Something that we hope will brighten up your Monday morning. Respond via Comments, as usual.

34

I guess some people are tolerant, but it’s still not the acceptable thing for a bloke to do, is it? And it’ll be a long time before Society changes enough for us all to be open about it. A girlfriend found a stash of wrappers in my car once.

‘It’s not normal,’ she said.

Of course, there was a gleam of hope with Yorkie bars but you could tell they weren’t thinking of us once you saw the ads – lorry drivers looking more like male models than your average knackered, unshaven juggernaut type.

It’s all women – in overflowing baths (can you imagine the grief we’d get for flooding the bathroom floor?) getting sexy with a Flake, or a couple of giggling girlies sucking Maltesers up with a straw. There is one with a bloke – him and his girlfriend on the sofa watching a horror movie and he pretends there’s a scary bit coming so he can scoff one of her Quality Street. Now that’s good – chocolate and cunning, I like that. But why do they have to use a fat bloke? I’ll tell you why – they want to put us off.

But they won’t. We get it at garages, motorway service stations, in the newsagent’s on a Sunday morning when we’re picking up the paper. Of course, you won’t hear us talking about it like women do. We eat it and we shut up. We don’t even talk about it to each other. You see a couple of women at the supermarket check-out with a few bars and packets on top of their trolleys and they’ll start up a conversation in no time – I know I shouldn’t…, If I don’t have a small bar every day I get really cranky… Not us.

Blokes don’t make comments about other blokes’ chocolate.

November 4th

2007-11-04T07:37:00.000Z

We hope you're having a good weekend. Here's your Message for today - please go to the comments box for replies as before.

129

It was the change in her knees she noticed first. She’d run further than ever before and was treating herself to a hot bath. She sang as she soaped herself and came to a full stop halfway down her thighs.

After that, she went on and on noticing. Her knees weren’t the only things emerging from the layers of fat, beautifully defined and purposeful looking. There was the faintest shadow of a line down the side of her upper thigh that grew deeper and deeper until she could run her finger along it. Her calves developed until she could cup one in each hand and feel how they moved when she stretched her leg.

Even dressed, she took to stroking her bottom feeling not so much what was there as what wasn’t. She’d tuck her hands into her waistband to feel the narrowness of her stomach. Whenever she went running now it was difficult to stop. She spent hours pouring over the map, planning longer runs. Once she got over the difficult first 100 yards, she felt she was floating. She’d just fly down the street, looking into brightly lit windows and pleased to be outside, to be moving onwards.

Onwards and upwards became the rhythm of her steps. She was levitating.

She used her body at every opportunity. Sitting at her desk, she’d flex her toes so she could feel the muscles react. Walking across to the photocopier she’d force herself not to break out into a skip at the very pleasure of the movement. She got so fit she couldfeel her skeleton moving. Every bone, every muscle, every fibre became a perfect machine that let her move.

Once someone asked her what she did. She smiled broadly, pirouetted on one perfectly toned foot. ‘I run,’ she said.

November 3rd

2007-11-03T07:45:00.000Z

Good morning. Here's today's message - click on the comments button to respond.

278

the coalbunker smelling of earth and onions spades and rakes a hoe garden forks leaning against the cinderblock wall an empty metal bucket some cardboard boxes with dusty overlapping lids the onions plaited into ropes hanging from big nails and kept in the dark all winter their papery skins flaking in your hands when you broke one off the door was latched and padlocked the keys on a hook too high for you to reach

the front room venetian blinds slanted so no-one could see in from the street a dark oak table with flaps that pulled out at each end and pinched your fingers when they dropped into place the stereo you had to be careful with the gas fire’s chalky blocks trapping blue and orange flames the woman who wore a headscarf to say a prayer the books of the bible from Genesis to Revelation you learnt by heart

your bedroom where you could see the sea and hear the sea when you closed your eyes at night the two single beds with yellow candlewick bedspreads yours with a bald patch where you picked at the tufts and always said you didn’t your sister scratching your back the G-Plan wardrobe with sliding mirror doors and a big drawer at the bottom the shell box and the blue glass bambi

the tumps you ran up and down petered out at the BP chemical works the grass was sharp your calves ached in the soft sand you ate picnics in the valleys to keep out of the wind at the Ferry Bend there was a wreck you could see at low tide a girl called Faye pushed you down one once because her boyfriend liked you and Geoffrey Moyle tried to make you laugh he kissed you in Verdi Road

November 2nd

2007-11-02T06:31:00.000Z

Thanks so much everyone for that fantastic response. And here's the second one - please add your pieces to the comments section just as before.

39

Kumi’s rushing ahead. She always does. It comes from being a two-child

family. Kumi and her sister have special benefits because they are so unusual.

We were told about it at Meeting. How her mother and father had extra-fertile

seeds and eggs which made more than their allocated one. Kumi and Kestra

stood at the front as the teacher pointed out the features that were shared by

two bodies coming from the same parental gene-mix. We were told how

fortunate we were to see this at first hand and not through photographs.

So Kestra went to the Museum of the Past and transferred the memories to

Kumi. The rest of us have to make do with fresh vision. Kumi drags us all to

see the skeletons of women from the 21st century, and for once she hasn’t

exaggerated the horror. A scale measures the primitive women against the

men and although it’s impossible to believe, male and female are almost

the same size. The female skeletons are straight and so broad they look like

men. I mean how freaky is that.

Sura stands next to one. It’s almost double the height she is, and so ugly

without the elegant curves of her legs and backbone. The arms look

doll-like and useless, not even reaching the ground. The head is positioned

on an upright neckbone, looking ahead. It’s shaming thinking how women

then must have met each other's eyes.

We are silent as we walk into the underwear room. We laugh at the skimpy

bits of cloth, and then the first clumsy attempts at cage building. All of us

surreptitiously feel under our gowns for the tight metal cases surrounding

our bones since birth, shaping and refining our perfectly bent and twisted

bodies.

Thank Femininity, we think, as we hobble through.

November 1st

2007-11-01T13:37:00.000Z

and Your Messages is 'live' from today with the first of this month's daily messages. Your enthusiasm and feedback for the project have been amazing and infectious and we look forward to sharing more of that with you over the next 30 days. So, click on Comments... and post your responses to:

154

He taught you everything you know about snow. You know it’s frozen
vapour, watery particles congealed into crystals that fall to earth. You
know it’s formed in the air when the temperature of the atmosphere
sinks below freezing-point, that the minute crystals of ice form flakes
which present countless modifications of the hexagonal system. You
know these crystals adhere together and form irregular clusters, and
that the incident rays of light which are refracted and reflected to
present individually the prismatic colours, are scattered after reflection
and combine to give the colour sensation of white. It was years before
you realised that this meant snow lies.

In the years you spent together it only snowed twice. The first time,
you woke and knew it was there even before you’d looked out of the
window – something about the light, flat and shadowy. And sound was
flattened too, the cloak of snow muffling everything from birdsong to
car engines. Neither of you wanted to shovel the drive, preferred to
leave the drifts undisturbed. When you had to go out you played a
game of walking in each other’s footsteps. You liked the look of a single
track leading to and from the lane. You made a snow-rabbit together.

The second time there was only a skinny crust of the stuff. The
gravel on the drive poked through as soon as you stepped on it. By the
next day it was a tide of brown slush, by the day after, it only looked
like it had rained.

It wasn’t the snow’s fault, you’re not blaming it, and you don’t want to
bestow it with symbolic significance. It’s only that you can’t think of
him now without thinking about snow. About the snow-rabbit. How
for weeks you watched its slow escape into the melt.

Want to have a go?

2007-10-16T13:23:00.000+01:00

Here are two messages from the book as an example of how we linked, but please be as imaginative as you want to be with your own links. From the 1st November you can add your original 300 word response to the messages we'll post each day. Click on 'comments' and post your response in the box, and remember to add your name and email address so we can contact you. And if you'd just like to add a comment of appreciation to any of the postings then please do that too.

125

To Achieve Silence in Your Kitchen Cupboards

1. First enter kitchen.
2. From your position at the door, mark your kitchen cupboards like a clock face. Start with the twelve o’clock position. Move to stand in front of the first cupboard.
3. Open door.
4. Remove all potentially noisy items in cupboards. These could include:
* Dish clothes which could be rubbed violently on surfaces.
* Glass items which could be clinked together in exuberant greetings.
* Tins which may be rolled across the floor, causing accidents and consequent cursing, screams, ambulance sirens.
* Any ingredients which are so delicious that when heated and mixed up can only be eaten with loud grunts of appreciation.
* Cleaning fluids with the potential of making anything squeaky clean.
5. Remove dog from pile of discarded items. Move to next cupboard.
6. Repeat No. 4. And then No. 5.
7. Work round kitchen, or clock face, until all cupboards are empty.
8. Follow the sound of Borsetshire accents and despatches from the Ministry of Agriculture.
9. Start to remove radio from kitchen, but then sit on floor and listen to the rest of the Archers. 10. Wonder how Brian always gets away with it.
11. Begin to listen to a medical phone-in on IBS before you realise what you’re doing.
12. Remove radio from kitchen.
13. Paint insides of all your empty cupboards a duck egg blue.
14. Stencil gold stars as tiny as your little fingernail along the edges and corners of each cupboard.
15. Wave bunches of sage leaves around the insides of each cupboard to chase away bad spirits.
Ring bells for similar effect.
16. Go out to a restaurant to eat because you have no food. Try not to wonder why you wanted silent cupboards in the first place.

126

You’ve no food left. It’s taken months but you’ve eaten your way through every tin, packet and box. You nearly gave up in the third week when the novelty had worn off and you felt desperate for something fresh and leafy, something that hadn’t lived inside metal or plastic or cardboard before you ate it. But you made yourself focus on your goal – to eat everything you’d bought when he was still there.

You could have thrown it all out, but that would have been admitting he was right when he said you were such a martyr, that you did everything for him, never thought about yourself, that he couldn’t bear the pressure of that anymore.

It was quite easy at first – you worked your way through the dried pasta and jars of sauces, cereals with the few pints of milk made up from powder. When it became more difficult you tried to impose some dietary order – tins of salmon and peas, the tin of corned beef topped with Del Monte Sling Peaches in Syrup. After that you didn’t care. This last week you’ve eaten a tin of chestnut puree and 24 Mini Croustades filled with the last of the tomato ketchup, caesar salad dressing and piccalilli. When you woke up this morning you could still taste evaporated milk in your mouth.

Today you have to go to the supermarket and start over again. You feel relieved and frightened. What if he was right? What if you won’t be able to make a single decision about what to buy when you only have yourself to think of. But you have no choice now there’s nothing left in the house. And you have a deep craving for a fresh mango – you can already taste its sweet juice running over your lips.