{"id":713,"date":"2010-06-16T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-16T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=713"},"modified":"2010-06-16T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-16T10:00:00","slug":"new-prose-christine-wells-is-fighting-for-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/new-prose-christine-wells-is-fighting-for-air\/","title":{"rendered":"New prose: Christine Wells is fighting for air"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fighting for Air<\/span>

I know Despair and she knows me.<\/span>
         We first met as I worked, in Hope, as the ground became harder and my tools became blunter.<\/span>
         I worked. I said “this is hard.” My countrymen encouraged me “Try this,” “You're doing well,” “Keep going.” But they moved on ahead and I became slower.<\/span>
         I panicked and then I saw her. She said “Come, rest.” She sat on a swirl of feathers. I joined her. It was soft, white. My tools lay down on the ground.<\/span>
         The feathers settled around me and she smiled at me as I relaxed.<\/span>
        “Stay with me, rest,” she said and I followed her, swimming a luxurious crawl through clouds of cashmere. As I swam I forgot my home country, my work, my countrymen, the expectations of me. If my countrymen looked for me they couldn't find me. I was between the gap in the slow, muffled lair of Despair. I reclined as she fed me and I rested.<\/span>
        “Stay forever,” said Despair. But her voice betrayed her desire and I started fighting for air. Where am I? I looked up and saw I had dropped, metres and metres below. I could glimpse my country, and my countrymen. I was homesick for Hope and I started climbing back up.<\/span>
        I popped up and was embraced by my countrymen. “Where have you been?”<\/span>
        Looking at the feathers that still clung to me with the obstinacy of static. “Nowhere.” To an enemy you don't know, I thought. I'm sorry.<\/span>
        I know Despair and she knows me.<\/span>


* Christine Wells<\/span> lives in London and in whatever book she has open at the moment.  She is a student social worker.<\/span>

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Fighting for AirI know Despair and she knows me.         We first met as I worked, in Hope, as the ground became harder and my tools became blunter.         I worked. I said “this is hard.” My countrymen encouraged me “Try this,” “You're doing well,” “Keep going.” But they moved on ahead and I became slower.         I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}