Observations (part 2)

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 22^nd 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.