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abigailspinach · 2 months

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“How often in 100 days do you get to change the trajectory of the world? How often in 100 days do you get to do something that’s going to impact generations to come?” Walz asked. “And how often in the world do you make that bastard wake up afterwards and know that a Black woman kicked his a**, sent him on the road?”

The line was well received on the call and almost immediately grabbed headlines. For many Democrats, at least, the online virality – with apologies to Biden’s “Dark Brandon” meme – was the kind they have pined for over the past few years.

Walz also has a personal story befitting the zeitgeist – a family history, as he discussed last month, of infertility troubles, with his wife of three decades, Gwen, which allows him to speak with some authority against opponents or skeptics of in vitro fertilization, or IVF.

“My oldest daughter’s name is Hope. That’s because my wife and I spent seven years trying to get pregnant, needed fertility treatments, things like IVF – things (MAGA Republicans) would ban,” Walz told Harris supporters. “These guys are the anti-freedoms.”

And to draw a bright, cheeky line under his own childhood experience, Walz – not for the last time – recounted that he “grew up in a small town: 400 people, 24 kids in the class, 12 cousins.”

Prior to Congress, Walz was a high school teacher and football coach and served in the Army National Guard. Over more than a decade in Congress, he assembled a fairly centrist voting record. As a first-time campaigner, he opposed a ban on same-sex marriage and supported abortion rights. And once in Congress, he balanced that out with comparatively more conservative positions on gun rights, which resulted in scoring a National Rifle Association endorsement. Walz has since fallen out of favor with the gun lobby over his support for gun safety actions as governor.

“I think he was a solid Democratic member of the House with a few twists - focus on ag, farmers, rural areas,” said Democratic strategist Jeff Blodgett, a longtime aide to the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. “I think that he wanted to protect rifles and things of that nature as a rural congressman.”

Walz ran for governor in 2018, emerging victorious by a double-digit margin. He won reelection in 2022 with 52 percent of the vote. As governor Walz had to grapple with divided government and slim majorities in the state Legislature. But in 2022, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (as the state’s Democratic Party is known) won control of both the state House and Senate giving Walz’s party a slim “trifecta” of legislative control.

That allowed Walz to sign into law a raft of expansive social welfare programs such as free lunch for public school students, expansive access to Medicaid, increased protections that allow workers to unionize and expanded medical and family paid family leave.

Through the trifecta, Minnesota Democrats were also able to codify abortion rights into law, increase transgender rights protections, pass a marijuana legalization bill and install new gun safety laws. Progressives hailed the work as an example of all that Democrats could achieve. Former President Barack Obama wrote in a tweet praising the most recent legislative session that it was a “reminder that elections have consequences.”

Walz touted the trifecta’s work in a combative 2023 State of the State address.

“There’s nowhere quite like Minnesota right now,” he told the audience of lawmakers. “Together, we’re not just showing the people of Minnesota what we’re capable of in delivering on our promises. We’re showing the entire American people just how much promise is contained in that progressive vision held by so many people.”

“As governor, he’s embraced the idea that it’s really important to invest in people and infrastructure to grow the economy,” Blodgett said. “And to do it in a way that really helps people in the middle and down below. To me, it’s just a huge focus on economic issues that are kitchen table issues that people care about.”

When speculation began about who Harris would pick as a running mate, Walz started out as the darkest of dark horses. He did get support from a few members of Congress such as Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig and Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as well as encouragement from labor unions. In the end, Walz’s background as a governor experienced in working with Democrats and Republicans and his roots in rural Minnesota made him an appealing choice for Harris.

Walz was also a surprise to Republicans.

“Tim Walz doesn’t even register on the fear-o-meter,” Minnesota Republican strategist Kevin Poindexter said before the announcement, adding that Republicans had been more worried about Harris picking either Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly or Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. “Him joining the ticket as VP does not bring anything.”

Democratic strategist Raghu Devaguptapu, a former Democratic Governors Association political director, characterized Walz as a “real steady hand” more than anything else as a governor.

“He’s not the most charismatic guy, but he’s a steady hand. He’s really thoughtful, very likeable. He’s done a really nice job of building a broad coalition of support. … That’s the center of strength around Tim Walz,” Devaguptapu said.

#Kamala Harris #Harris Walz #US Politics #2024 US Election #VP pick #I was worried about shapiro and the youth vote and that harrassment issue in his office (even if he was not involved in anyway)#IVF #And how often in the world do you make that bastard wake up afterwards and know that a Black woman kicked his ass and sent him on the road

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Many in US still face COVID-19 financial loss (AP) Roughly 4 in 10 Americans say they’re still feeling the financial impact of the loss of a job or income within their household as the economic recovery remains uneven one year into the coronavirus pandemic. A new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research provides further evidence that the pandemic has been devastating for some Americans, while leaving others virtually unscathed or even in better shape, at least when it comes to their finances. The outcome often depended on the type of job a person had and their income level before the pandemic. The pandemic has particularly hurt Black and Latino households, as well as younger Americans, some of whom are now going through the second major economic crisis of their adult lives. The poll shows that about half of Americans say they have experienced at least one form of household income loss during the pandemic, including 25% who have experienced a household layoff and 31% who say someone in the household was scheduled for fewer hours. Overall, 44% said their household experienced income loss from the pandemic that is still having an impact on their finances. The poll’s findings reflect what some economists have called a “K-shaped recovery,” where there have been divergent fortunes among Americans. Those with office jobs were able to transition to working from home while those who worked in hard-hit industries such as entertainment, dining, travel and other industries have continued to struggle.

Los Angeles Schools Remain Closed and Families Wonder: How Much Longer? (NYT) It has been almost a year since the coronavirus pandemic virtually emptied public schools in Los Angeles and sent students home to take classes from their bedrooms. Families in the Los Angeles Unified School District are coming to terms with a bittersweet truth: With the spring term scheduled to end on June 11, only a sliver of their pandemic school year is likely to take place face-to-face. District officials say a deal with its powerful teachers’ union to resume in-person learning seems close, and might happen this week. But the superintendent, Austin Beutner, has estimated that, even with an agreement in place, it will take at least until mid-April just to welcome back elementary and special needs students. Older students would be phased in over the next couple of weeks. Of the nation’s 10 largest school systems, Los Angeles is the only one that has yet to resume in-person teaching for significant numbers of students.

US offers residency to Venezuelans and will review sanctions (AP) The Biden administration said Monday it is offering temporary legal residency to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who fled their country’s economic collapse and will review U.S. sanctions intended to isolate the South American nation. President Joe Biden’s administration announced it would grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans already in the United States, allowing an estimated 320,000 people to apply to legally live and work in the country for 18 months. Trump resisted repeated calls from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, primarily from South Florida, to grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans though he issued an order deferring deportation for a smaller number on his final day in office. The Trump administration also significantly tightened U.S. economic sanctions on Venezuela, most notably on its crucial oil sector, to try and force President Nicolas Maduro to give up power after an election in 2018 that the United States and other countries believe was fraudulent. A senior Biden administration official portrayed that as a failed strategy. “The United States is in no rush to lift sanctions,” the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the policy. “But we need to recognize here that unilateral sanctions over the last four years have not succeeded in achieving an electoral outcome in the country.”

Brazil justice annuls Lula’s sentences, enabling 2022 run (AP) A Supreme Court justice on Monday annulled all convictions against former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a ruling that potentially would allow him to run again for the presidency next year. The decision also laid bare the country’s political divisions, with leftists celebrating their 75-year-old leader’s return to the political arena as conservatives said the rulings were tantamount to impunity. Da Silva’s lawyers issued a statement welcoming the decision, saying it “is aligned with everything we have said for more than five years in these suits.” But Brazilian media reported that the country’s prosecutor-general Augusto Aras, an ally of conservative President Jair Bolsonaro, is preparing to appeal the decision.

Indian activist’s arrest spotlights crackdown on dissent (AP) To her friends, Disha Ravi, a 22-year-old Indian climate activist, was most concerned about her future in a world of rising temperatures. But her life changed last month when she became a household name in India, dominating headlines after police charged her with sedition, a colonial-era law that carries a sentence up to life in prison. Her alleged crime: sharing an online handbook meant to raise support for months-long farmer protests on Twitter. “If highlighting farmers’ protest globally is sedition, I am better (off) in jail,” she said in court two weeks ago. Going after activists isn’t new in India, but Ravi’s saga has stoked fear and anxiety. Observers say what happened to Ravi—a young, middle class, urban woman—hit home for a lot of Indians, who suddenly feared they could be jailed for sharing something on social media. The incident has raised questions over India’s democracy, with critics decrying it as the latest attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government to mute dissent and criminalize it. “They targeted someone not usually targeted by the Hindu right-wing—a young girl from South India, who doesn’t have a Muslim name and is not linked to left-wing student politics,” said prominent historian Ramachandra Guha. “The message they wanted to send is that they can go after anyone.”

Victims of Myanmar’s Army Speak (NYT) The soldiers from Myanmar’s army knocked on U Thein Aung’s door one morning last April as he was having tea with friends, and demanded that all of them accompany the platoon to another village. When they reached a dangerous stretch in the mountains of Rakhine State, the men were ordered to walk 100 feet ahead. One stepped on a land mine and was blown to pieces. Metal fragments struck Mr. Thein Aung in his arm and his left eye. “They threatened to kill us if we refused to go with them,” said Mr. Thein Aung, 65, who lost the eye. “It is very clear that they used us as human land mine detectors.” The military and its brutal practices are an omnipresent fear in Myanmar, one that has intensified since the generals seized full power in a coup last month. As security forces gun down peaceful protesters on city streets, the violence that is commonplace in the countryside serves as a grisly reminder of the military’s long legacy of atrocities. During decades of military rule, an army dominated by the Bamar majority operated with impunity against ethnic minorities, killing civilians and torching villages.

New option for quarantine in Thailand (Foreign Policy) Wealthy visitors to Thailand now have the option of spending their 14-day mandatory quarantine on a yacht as part of a new program to boost tourism to the country. Prospective seafarers will be equipped with an electronic wristband that will track the wearer’s vital signs as well as GPS coordinates—even when at sea. Thailand’s tourism minister proposed a separate plan last week to allow tourists to spend their quarantine period in the country’s beach resorts. The need for unique approaches is particularly acute in the southeast Asian nation: Only 6.7 million foreign tourists visited Thailand in 2020, following a record 39.8 million tourists in 2019.

China launches COVID-19 vaccination certificates for cross-border travel (Reuters) China has launched a digital COVID-19 vaccination certificate for its citizens planning cross-border travels, joining other countries issuing similar documents as they seek ways to reopen their economies. As vaccines are globally being rolled out, a few countries, including Bahrain, have already introduced certificates identifying vaccinated people and the European Union agreed to develop vaccine passports under pressure from tourism-dependent southern countries. The certificate issued by China would have details about the holder’s COVID-19 vaccination information and coronavirus test results, the Department of Consular Affairs under China’s foreign ministry said on its website.

Lebanon’s collapse piles strain on army, security forces (Reuters) Discontent is brewing in the ranks of Lebanon’s security forces over a currency crash wiping out most of the value of their salaries as unrest and crime surge. In unusually outspoken comments, army chief General Joseph Aoun said his warnings that the pressure on soldiers’ earnings and morale could lead to an “implosion” had fallen on deaf ears. Lebanon’s pound has crashed 85 percent since late 2019 in a financial meltdown that poses the biggest threat to stability since the 1975-1990 civil war. “Soldiers are going hungry like the people,” he said on Monday, berating politicians without naming names. The basic monthly salary of a soldier or policeman, which used to amount to around $800, is worth under $120 today. Budget cuts pushed the military to cut meat from its meals last year. In what was seen as a sign of the times, the French embassy donated food parcels last month to the Lebanese army, which has long been backed by Western nations.

Barred from marrying by the rabbis, Israelis find a pandemic workaround—in Utah (Washington Post) For generations, the iron grip of Orthodox rabbis on Israeli family law has meant that mixed couples, gay couples or even couples in which one partner is not deemed Jewish enough have been denied the right to marry within the country’s borders. To circumvent the rabbis, thousands of Israelis jetted off each year to nearby countries like Cyprus or Greece for weddings that the government later recognized as civil unions. But when the pandemic closed even that window, it also opened another: Zoom weddings, administered 7,000 miles away—in Utah. At least 150 Israeli couples have already tied the virtual knot through this technological loophole, spurring a new battle in a national culture war that has long pitted Israel’s non-Orthodox Jewish majority against the politically entrenched Orthodox Jewish minority. Aware of the threat to their outsize influence, ultra-Orthodox politicians who control the Interior Ministry have already moved to dismiss the Zoom weddings, which both sides agree have the potential to forge a legacy that would far outlive the pandemic. Under an Ottoman-era law extended by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, marriage in Israel is governed by the state’s religious authorities. For Jews, it is the chief rabbinate that is tasked with validating the bride and groom as Jewish, meaning that they must prove descent from an uninterrupted line of Jewish mothers. “This is a revolutionary and historical step,” said Uri Regev, a rabbi, lawyer and president of Hiddush, a religious equality organization based in Jerusalem. “For the first time, there will be access, for a minimal cost for Israelis, who won’t need to travel overseas, who can legally and quickly get married or at least obtain a registration of marriage through this new avenue.”

Death toll from explosions in Equatorial Guinea rises to 98 (Reuters) The death toll from a series of explosions at a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea rose by dozens to at least 98 killed after more bodies were recovered, the government said Tuesday. The blasts on Sunday in the Mondong Nkuantoma neighborhood of the coastal city of Bata also wounded at least 615 people, authorities said. The government said that 316 of the injured have been discharged and 299 remain in care in various hospitals in the city. Investigations have shown the fire may have begun when a farmer set fire to his plot to prepare it for food production and a breeze spread the flames to the nearby barracks where the high-caliber ammunition was stored.

From a prolonged pandemic, a rethink of life’s milestones? (AP) Wedding anniversaries for Elizabeth O’Connor Cole and her husband, Michael, usually involve a dinner reservation for two at a fancy restaurant. Not this time around. As the pandemic raged last May, the Chicago mom of four unearthed her boxed wedding gown, recreated their reception menu, and pulled out her wedding china and silver after enlisting another of her kids to DJ their first-dance song, “At Last,” for a romantic turn around the living room. And the priest who married them offered a special blessing on Zoom with friends and family joining in. “Spontaneous and a bit chaotic,” O’Connor Cole pronounced the celebration. “Still, it was probably the most meaningful and fun anniversary we’ve had.” When the crisis finally resolves, will our new ways of marking births and deaths, weddings and anniversaries have any lasting impact? Or will freshly felt sentiments born of pandemic invention be fleeting? Some predict their pandemic celebrations have set a new course. Others still mourn the way their traditions used to be.

#headlines #news

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coldlipsmag · 7 years

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New Fiction from Nina Antonia.

Nina Antonia is best known for writing the most stolen book in rock n roll's history, In Cold Blood about Johnny Thunders (currently in development in Hollywood). But she has scribed and edited on a wealth of others: Peter Perret from the Only Ones, Peter Doherty, The Mission's Wayne Hussey. A rare force of true independence, this tarot reading tour-de-force was a regular at the anti-literary night that led to Cold Lips, and she performed with Thunders' drummer, Chris Musto, at the launch party for the second edition which this is grabbed from...

It was difficult to imagine that Shepherd’s Bush had once been a genteel neighbourhood. If Celia Gardener had paused for a moment she might have noticed the parallels between herself and the area that she had always called home. There were still some lovely Victorian buildings; the sort of places where Mary Poppins might have alighted a century before, to lend a hand to a picture book family. But swathes of the neighbourhood had fallen prey to a blight identifiable by the peeling facades of former grandeur, as if the tenants had overslept life itself, much like Celia Gardner, who knew every drug den on the street. Head bowed against the rain, she scurried towards a drab little clinic with a trash strewn drive. A crack pipe constructed from a mini-Martell bottle had been thrown into a pile of leaves by the door. She rang the buzzer and was ushered in by Gavin, her key-worker. Celia was good at playing penitent. Although achingly remorseful for a past she’d lost control of, she owed Gavin nothin but her time. Gavin’s solutions were made of paper, ‘Care-Plans’ he called them, consisting of plenty of planning but not much care, or that was how it appeared to Celia.

The supply room was tiny and airless. A variety of warning posters covered the walls, anthrax contamination, overdose, arrest; the myriad risks that injecting drug user’s face. An A4 drawing of a mad looking monkey with the words ‘Worth an arm or a leg?’ beneath it caught Celia’s eye. Gavin assumed a posture of casual concern as he doled out the particulars of her kit: “Just the usual then?” She nodded as he put 20 1ml needles, citric, sterile water, wipes and steri-cups into a small, anonymous bag. “I suppose” he began “that you’ve heard they are holding auditions for ‘Funky Monkey’ at the Tesco Apollo?” She’d thought of nothing else. “We’ve been warning all of our clients to stay well clear and Celia, I’m sure you’re smarter than that….” It wasn’t a question of intelligence but atonement.

No one was sure where ‘Funky Monkey’ had originated from, possibly Mexico or Bolivia. It was rumoured that the programme had been the brainchild of a psychotic drugs baron who’d grown bored of issuing threats to poor saps that couldn’t pay off their debts. As a warning, the baron began filming his machete wielding heavies taking payment in kind, lopping off digits and limbs as bloody remuneration. The show got its name from the Baron’s crew of thugs who donned leering monkey masks to disguise their identities. Debates ensued, just as they had about snuff films, viewers oscillating between horrified disbelief and curiosity. Several media pundits claimed that it was a hoax. One thing was certain however, ‘Funky Monkey’ got thousands of hits. It wasn’t as if the victims were innocent, after all. Indebted scag-heads were considered fair game by the righteous majority. In 2022 the Oblivia Corporation purchased the rights from the baron and modified the rules. ‘Funky Monkey’ went world-wide. No one listened to liberals anymore. The television ratings spoke for themselves. Ritual humiliation and suffering had become entertainment staples. Losers made good sport. ‘Destitution’ had been an instant hit as dotty pensioners and impoverished families slugged it out with bailiffs and ‘The Wheel of Misfortune’ was a Saturday night highlight, the contestants like fish in a barrel waiting to be speared. Celia remembered her father telling her that in the early days of television, toilets were thought too vulgar to show. Now just about everything was permissible as long as it wasn’t the truth.

Celia Gardener was in the twentieth year of her habit and felt every minute of it. With the frayed cuff of her cardigan, she wiped at the grubby bathroom mirror and glanced at her reflection. The lines around her taut mouth formed trenches of need and her skin was like ruined rice paper. When was the last time she’d worn make-up? Had a hair cut? Bought a new dress? She sighed and lit a cigarette. In the final moments before nicotine prohibition, dissenters had sited Clash icon Joe Strummer, who had claimed that he wouldn’t read a book written by an author who hadn’t smoked. These days’ people neither read nor smoked but they did wear Joe Strummer tee-shirts. Celia wrapped a belt around her arm to make a tourniquet and began the desultory process of trying to find a vein. The addict’s world is a narrow one made up of habit and ritual. Apart from short stays in Holloway, a consequence of getting caught shoplifting, Celia Gardener was unstintingly predictable. Raise cash, buy drugs, get high. Though Celia was now the kind of woman that people tried to avoid, she had once been a picture book mother and wife.

The Gardener family had dwelled in the realm of cherries, abundant with sweetness. Hailed by critics, her husband, Davey, had been a promising artist and Celia his beloved muse. Together they’d presided over a bustling milieu of alternative art exhibitions and lengthy Sunday soirees spent with friends, whilst their children played in the garden. Once the twins had been tucked up in bed, they’d round off the night with opium tea, poured from a polka- dot teapot that Celia had found in Portobello market. When high, they’d laugh at the scatty alliteration of ‘Polka dot tea pot.’ Davey and Celia considered their famed opium tea a sacrament to England’s bohemian past. Money had been a bit tight yet they got by on shabby chic. ‘Creative Life’ magazine had done a feature on their idyllic existence, which included a family portrait; Celia and Davey in the garden with Tilly and Oskar, adorable in matching vintage outfits. She still had a copy of the photograph, creased now with age, like her.

The lights had gone out more swiftly than the space between breaths. It was 4 am and Davey would later admit he’d been tipsy but that was his only trespass. Speeding over the Westway on his motorbike, he’d taken an unusually sharp turn and been catapulted into a night of steel stars. The screech of chrome on gravel came as an abstraction. Later, the police told Celia that if the bike had been a horse it would have been shot on sight. In time, Davey Gardener would wish the same for himself. He’d survived but his right arm had been crushed. The magic limb, conductor of inspiration was reduced to a withered stump. There were some minor headlines, a flurry of gratuitous interest in the artist who could paint no more. The couple descended into a winter of opium tea, unpaid bills and dust. Tilly and Oskar’s luscious sparkle noticeably diminished, they no longer possessed the lustre of well-cared for children. Celia loved them as much as ever, it was just that she loved life less.

The alarm was raised by the twin’s teacher after they’d been late for school three times in a row. Social services didn’t much like the Gardener’s type, artsy at best, lacksadaisical at worst. Drug testing for all parents called to account for lateness, was mandatory. It mattered not to social services that the Gardener’s drug use was confined to a polka-dot tea pot; they took note only of a positive test result for opiates. This was the big red button inside every social worker’s head, the nuclear reactor about to explode. Tilly and Oskar were put on the ‘At Risk’ register. Using the last of their money, Celia and Davey hired a solicitor but the courts had no clemency for parents like them. With the efficacy of storm troopers, four police men and three senior social workers removed Tilly and Oskar from their beds. Where was Mary Poppins when you needed her? Cloud-hopping over the houses of the fortunate. As the front door slammed and the children’s cries receded into a bitterly cold night, the young woman once renowned for her Sunday soirees and polka dot tea pot, shattered.

The huge billboard announcing the arrival of ‘Funky Monkey’ had been erected in front of the theatre. Portrayed as a grinning cartoon, the Funky Monkey grasped a surgeon’s knife in one paw and a wad of cash in the other. Funky Monkey was always game if the public were up for the challenge. Judging by the untidy queue that was growing by the minute, plenty were more than willing. Although Celia had got to the venue early, there were already a couple of hundred would-be contestants ahead of her. When the programme had first aired on mainstream television, there had been a flurry of dismay but a deal had already been worked out between the government and the Oblivia Corporation. As the tabloids opined, no one of social value would wind up on ‘Funky Monkey’. If it got contestants off benefits, society prospered. At least that was the rhetoric employed by a government spokesperson. The ‘Economics of Cruelty’ was one of the most popular university courses in the UK. Acts of charity were deemed insurgent. Hostels had been replaced by workhouses, donating food to the poor was illegal and the Salvation Army had been banned. Christ had died so we may prosper.

Celia surveyed the gathering swell of no hopers; the nutters, nihilists, desperados, dopers, itinerants, transients, low lifes, loners, scavengers, losers, freaks, creeps and misfits, the laughing, crying, sweating, shaking, chattering, moaning carnie side-show of human wreckage to which she belonged. In the old days, Celia would have smoked a cigarette while she waited in line, but now even that small pleasure came with the fear of a week’s remand in a social correction unit if caught. Eventually, she became aware that a slick looking couple followed by a camera crew where working their way through the crowd. Now and again, someone would be singled out and led into the theatre. To her dismay, Gavin and some of his colleagues from the needle exchange were distributing flyers offering freedom from addiction. They went about their task with a friendly zeal, targeting the most likely candidates. Amiable though they appeared to be, she had never been too sure if drug workers realised that every shred of information gleaned by them from their ragged clientele was fed straight to the government, police and social services. Tired of waiting, Celia had just sat down on the pavement when the camera crew arrived, led by the Oblivia Corporation employees. The couple looked like models, imbued with a well-being that Celia had forgotten existed. “What brings you here Miss?” asked the women with a robotic courtesy: “I want the money to find my children, they have to know it was all a terrible mistake, we loved them so”. With that, the tears began to flow. Pathos made for good viewing.

The white wine was chilled, just the way Celia Gardener liked it and the powerful painkillers administered by a nurse calmed her nerves. All of those sinister stories about the Oblivia Corporation that Celia had heard evaporated as she settled into a soft armchair in the pleasant backstage room that had been designated to her. Celia Gardener couldn’t believe her luck. A waitress placed a bowl of chocolate coated strawberries on the table in front of her. Every contender was allowed a treat of their choice, so long as it was legal. The Oblivia Corporation’s catering crew called it ‘Death Row din-dins’. Ensconced in the chill-out room, Celia savoured the strawberry’s sweet flesh inside the creamy chocolate. They reminded her of Sunday soirees. How she wished that Davey and the twins could be with her now. Celia had just dozed off when the show’s surgeon came to prep her, gently wiping her hands with a numbing sterile solution. She had agreed in advance that she was prepared to lose five fingers. That was all she could realistically cope with. If she could make this sacrifice then surely Tilly and Oskar would realise how much they meant to her.

As Celia stepped out on to the stage, accompanied by two men in monkey suits, the audience began the customary chant of ‘An arm and a leg, you’d be better off dead’. The crowd’s feral arousal alarmed her. A reprise of the show’s dreadful loping theme tune blared from the speakers, as she was guided to a seat opposite the surgeon. Then came the thundering announcement ‘Will the plucky lady take on the ‘Funky Monkey?’ Judging by the howls of derision, the audience thought not but Celia had attained a resolved calm that didn’t falter even when the surgeon swiped the air with an oversize scalpel. He reminded her of a fencing teacher doing warm up exercises. The Oblivia Corporation had ditched the machetes early on as being too extreme, substituting it with a scalpel. With methodical strokes, the surgeon began removing her fingers, placing each one on a silver platter. In the distance she could hear the audience roaring but it was an abstraction, like the sound of the sea remembered.

Tilly and Oskar thought of their birth mother rarely, if at all. Their dreams had come true when Mary Poppins had carried them to safety; whisking them over the roof tops to gentler climes. They had woken up in the warmest, softest beds imaginable. In time, they regained the honey lustre of the well-cared for. On the twin’s sixteenth birthday, social services had presented Tilly and Oskar with a report on their parents, should they wish to find them. Celia’s various charges for shoplifting and drug possession were included in the dossier whilst a death certificate was proof that Davey Gardener had drunk himself to death in a Bristol workhouse. Having no love of art, social services failed to mention that Davey’s paintings were highly collectable. Sotheby’s had auctioned ‘Woman with a Polka-Dot Tea Pot’ for a tidy sum. Poor Celia Gardener, an eternity of night had passed her by. Overtaken by decades, she’d been watching the horizon, not the time. Her family were a still life. She blinked at the television lights, smiled like a beauty queen and waved at the crowd with her good hand. Oskar pointed at the plasma screen television and grinned ‘Look at this one, she’s mad as a box of badgers.’ ‘Funky Monkey’ was his favourite show but Tilly couldn’t stand it. She nudged him hard in the ribs, ‘Don’t be so rotten’ she chided. ‘Imagine having that for a mother’, Oskar chortled, rubbing his eyes, unaware that he was erasing a memory before it could take recognisable form.

@NinaAntonia13

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'Still Life' is a short story by Nina Antonia published exclusively in the sold out Cold Lips II, also featuring writers Irvine Welsh and Geoff Nicholson. To support other activities of Cold Lips, visit our online store.

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