{"id":11661,"date":"2020-07-26T23:18:22","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T22:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11661"},"modified":"2020-07-30T15:06:13","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T14:06:13","slug":"havent-you-heard-by-madeleine-storer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11661","title":{"rendered":"Haven’t You Heard<\/em> by Madeleine Storer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Year 11 Urmston<\/strong><\/p>\n

He sat in his chair, hunchbacked, with his eyes fixed on the pages. To everyone else he was reading, but really, he was in a foreign world where he could taste the words on the tip of his tongue, hear them as they floated from the paper and chattered in his ears. He held the pages so close to his face, the ink began to bleed, it was as if he was trying to pull himself into the stories to escape from his life. How long had he been sat there? He didn\u2019t know, but it didn\u2019t matter, how much could he have missed anyway, its not like anything interesting ever happens in these parts<\/p>\n

The window next to his chair faced a street, usually busy street, to be expected of course as it ran straight to the pub.<\/p>\n

On this particular day, at this particular moment he had zoned out and glanced out of the window, into the real world. \u201chow odd?\u201d he thought. To his surprise the hustle and bustle, natter and chatter was nowhere to be seen. It was Saturday and he knew it must be midday because of the beams of lights that filtered through his blinds. It was the prime time for pub goers yet, he saw no one. It was too odd for his liking so as one does, he thought he\u2019d investigate.<\/p>\n

On his doorstep he was confronted by a huge nothing. No people, no noise, and no traffic. He looked left and the right, up and down the street and still nobody appeared. As he strolled towards the pub in an effort to quash any thought in his mind that all humanity had disappeared from the face of the earth as there was always people in the pub, he started to noticed what looked like rainbows in his neighbours windows. In all shapes and sizes, they came, painting, murals, even whole windows plastered with every colour he could think of. Suddenly a pang of embarrassment came over him as he glanced back at his bare window, the same embarrassment a parent who sends their child to school without a costume on world book day feels. He drew his eyes back from his characterless pane of glass in an effort not to bump into anyone, though he realised as he looked down the deserted street he was probably more likely to bump into a tumbleweed at this point.<\/p>\n

\u201coh god\u201d he yelped, trying to keep his lips closed, it was empty. The pub was closed. He began to panic. Everyone knew that it would take an apocalypse to close the pub, especially on a Saturday afternoon. Thudding in his chest, sweat on his brow, he keeled over, panting, trying to grasp at as much oxygen he could. He looked up to see a figure coming towards him. \u201cThank God!\u201d he shouted as he ran closer, yet when he saw the mask on her face, the gloves on her hands, he began to back away. The panting started again. \u201cwhat\u2019s going on?\u201d he cried. The figure spoke with a kind and surprising calm voice, \u201chaven\u2019t you heard\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Blink<\/p>\n

He blinked again and realised his pages were covered in tears. \u201cwow\u201d the thought to himself still trying to regain his composure. \u201cwhat a great story, though I\u2019m not really in the mood for a dystopia at the minute\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Year 11 Urmston He sat in his chair, hunchbacked, with his eyes fixed on the pages. To everyone else he was reading, but really, he was in a foreign world where he could taste the words on the tip of his tongue, hear them as they floated from the paper and chattered in his ears. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[400],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nHaven't You Heard by Madeleine Storer - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=11661\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Haven't You Heard by Madeleine Storer - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Year 11 Urmston He sat in his chair, hunchbacked, with his eyes fixed on the pages. 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