This meeting was very well-attended, and there were many pieces on offer for us to enjoy. It was noticeable (though not surprising) that several were influenced by the rich backdrop of the Forest of Dean. Themes included suicide, the supernatural and the natural world, relationships, conflict, coping with new situations, identity and vision.
We had: a Forest love affair gone sour and a deeply-depressed man leaping to his death; a brief, joyful summer with a lover in the gold and green of the Forest cathedral, which then fades to twilit memories; the spirit of a milkmaid, freed from her heavy yoke, emerging from the woods to dance with her Will-o’-the-wisp through cowslips and dreams of the past; two young women waking up on a bench, aching and exhausted, eventually remembering that they had been dancing with fairies; a driver’s initial thoughts of casually slaughtering the spider in her car undergoing a change, so that instead she adopts the harmless arachnid as a travelling companion; the quick-witted anti-hero Tom, now at Responsa, discovering how not to get shot, pondering the advanced technology behind the automatic doors and meeting his four associates; an argument on the street between two men escalating into violence via a phone, a scarf and a screwdriver; opening up to someone sympathetic about complex and painful dealings with loved ones – especially when officialdom has blundered in; the experience of being mistaken, by strangers, for one’s ‘egg companion’ – aka one’s twin sister – but happily going with the flow; Wendy’s sight improving dramatically after cataract surgery, so that all Gerry’s wrinkles – and, worse, her own – are revealed in sharp focus, to the point where, wishing to preserve her husband’s more youthful, if slightly blurred, image of herself, she cunningly advises him against having the same surgery done on his own eyes.