Joshua
Davies
Edge
Hill common room, lunchtime. Around the table directly sit a group of girls,
adorned in purple hoodies and green shirts, each bearing the campus insignia.
Another stands, wearing a grey raincoat. She has dark black hair, corn-rowed
like wires, with golden beads entwined in each of the weaves. On the table itself are empty Subway wrappers and coffee cups, sitting undisturbed.
A tall, slender man walks past the table, and queues to the left of the crowd,
an older, shorter man stands in front of
him, fingering silvers out of his wallet, as he takes his coffee from the
barista. To the far back of the common room, closest to the crowded entrance
sit two women behind a help desk, dressed in typical
campus purple. The desk bears a large banner, hanging over the front, with the
words “Edge Hill University” proudly on display. On the desk lie piles of
booklets, and behind the backs of the women stand two large navy blue poster
boards, student notices and announcements pinned to both. Orange chairs match patterned
orange streaks in the carpet floor. Students pass by, in and out of the rainy
weather, opening umbrellas, or zipping down jackets as they do. Crowds of
people flock up and down the main spiral staircase, overlooking the entire
floor from above.
Daniel
Marsh
Campus
Entrance
Friday 22nd September 2017,
10:47AM.
Along the front of the lawn is a series of
topiary, fat at the bottom and thinner on the top like an egg. Yet while they’re spread evenly in distance
from each other, each topiary seems to be a different size: some are small, some
are tall. Though all of them share the
same dark green colour. The grass where
these topiaries reside alternates in stripes of dark green and light, brown
leaves dance together to the melody of the breeze and the near bumble bee,
intoxicated by the smell of what can assumed to be nothing other than
lavender. A red-brick wall hugs the
inner lawn, near where two white and grey birds chase each other
playfully. And near red and grey wall
are several trees, one of the most striking near the centre. Its thick base is dark brown and towards the
top where it only gets slightly thinner is a concoction of light green fuzzy
balls and dark green leaves like needles.
Occupying the back right of the lawn are two black statues, suspended in
time. One of them, frozen while playing
with a skipping rope, the other leaning slightly forward as if it might one day
finally fall over. Then to the back left
of the lawn, a statue. Aphrodite by the
Water, a grey figure oddly sculptured. A
series of worn white windows alternate with their blinds down then up, leading
to the cardboard coloured columns and pillars with stone ribbons and flowers
near the main entrance. People: students
and teachers hurry down the centre path to the university. A line of people also wait patiently,
chattering at a purple “temporary bus stop” sign. And as the accompanying purple Diamond bus
arrives, the neat line reshapes into a crowd of people at the bus door.
Cory Knapp
Sculptures stood on the freshly cut grass, one skipping and the
other steadfast, staring, watching the outside world go about it’s typical day,
permanently encased in their steel tombs, doomed to an eternity of observation.
The wind whipped at a young girl’s dress waiting by the bus stop, lightly
tapping away at her phone, so immersed in her online escape that she fails to
realise the true beauty of the huge rustling trees and the fluttering of
butterflies in the grass. The jangling of keys approached from the security
office, a tall and dark man took long strides towards the main entrance, his
chest puffed out and a face that screamed authority. Nature’s beauty flew in
with the decaying Autumn leaves, a Bluetit pecked, stomping on the damp soil,
desperately in search of it’s next meal, it fluttered and danced, the dazzling
coat it wears shimmers in the light as the clouds parted in the sky for the sun
to breathe fresh and warm air into the world once again. A young couple took
slow and small steps, their fingers intertwined, the warmth of one another’s
hand forever warming their hearts. The glow of their giggling faces blossoming
much like their love and affection.
Ellie Briggs
Sitting outside the
creative edge building, the wind bites and nips at my exposed cheeks, the first
day of autumn arrived with a vengeance on campus. The slight drizzle made
everything that much more miserable, adding to the atmosphere which made you
want to curl up inside and not come out of the dorm, thoughts of warm soup and
hot tea circling the mind. A group of girls pass, all holding their jackets
above their heads, almost in unison. All of them had somehow forgotten some
decent form of protection against the weather. Still, they remained dedicated
to the cause, new equipment poking out of bags, ready for lectures and seminars
that would send them off into the world of study. Chatting amongst themselves;
there was talk of what to do for the rest of the day now that their plans had
been ruined by the weather.
“What should we do for
tea?” I heard as they sped past me, eager to get to shelter. Other students
didn’t seem as calm. Pouring over their provided timetables, wondering and
pointing randomly at the map within, wondering;
“Where’s the
GeoSciences building?”
“Is there a launderette
on campus?”
“Where’s my next
lesson?
I moved on, meandering
along the paths that led through Chancellors Court, watching people relaxing in
the warmth of their kitchens, through the glistening floor to ceiling glass
windows, raindrops running down them like a map. I could see the abandoned
construction site, the modern buildings half-finished and melancholy in the
still falling mist. Cranes suspended in mid-air, abandoned once again for the
dreary weekend ahead.
Sam Graves
Soil and Stone
Set in stone, long ago. Moulded by
the ground it lays upon. In the overarching ends of a simplistic green, sits a
bench made of brick and stone.
It's hard to pinpoint, where
exactly it originated. Years, decades, when the university land it preserves
was first developed. It's not the bench itself however, it is the foundation it
rests upon. The thick, grounded soil, forced upon by the harsh stone. Confined
by the man made structure, nature still clings to life. Weeds, plants, grass
and flowers still creep through the cracks. Certifying their will to prosper,
despite the hardship it has suffered. As time goes on, no attention seems to
have been drawn to it. The weeds continue to rise and grow, whilst the stone
bench simply rests in the open, obscure to most attention. Unused, unwanted,
unnoticed.
