These are some of the stories and tales that have warmed my mind over the last few years. Sometimes, they have kept me awake at night. Without fail, they have accompanied me on my travels. Now and again, they have been shared with friends and fellow writers. Now seems the right time to make them a little more public. 'Hiba and Po' is the opening chapter for the unpublished novel Sprits of Sanctuary. 'Prologue' opens the draft novel Owen's Story. The remaining tales are short pieces written in response to prompts from the creative writing tutor, Briony Goffin. I hope you enjoy them.
© Gaynor Kavanagh
Hiba and Po: Cardiff
Hiba is staring at the bedroom ceiling, trying to make out the pattern of electric stars the night light is projecting. She knows about stars and these are nothing like the stars she watched with her grandfather from their garden in Panyria.
There she could spot the sharp white of the planet Venus on the horizon and the rusty red of the planet Mars. She could name some of the constellations, her favourite being Orion’s Belt, so clear and full of stories. She knew that all the stars shift and dance through the sky as the world, her Panyrian world, turns. Now at night in Cardiff, in this sixth floor flat, she can’t even find the stars. They are hidden from her by murky clouds and sodium street lighting, as if they too have had to run for their lives.
Prologue for Owen
Owen walked into the S4C television studio, dressed for the part. His Paul Smith suit had come up well with a dry clean. His navy silk shirt, bought in Milan, during one of Ethnosphere Dance Company’s tours, glistened expensively in the studio lights. His brogues, handmade in Madrid, had survived the walk across the farmyard that morning. Even so, he had carefully washed the soles in a service station on the way over, just in case.