Benjamin Evans - Author

Hi all. Sorry about the brief interlude. Have been engaged in the all the non-writing business of writing - bothering agents, not winnning competition, sending pieces to magazines that no-one reads - but back now, and hopefully with some new-exciting site additons. However, until then here's another little piece. The Reunion Many people have told me that running focuses the mind. It has something to do with the balancing of the brain, where fatigue and effort are countered by a rush of endorphins, and it gives everything a bright, newly painted clarity. You wake in the morning a shivering mess of neurosis and stride-stride-stride your way into a pre-breakfast enlightenment, whole, happy and rounded with the brush of Raphael. I wonder then, what to make of the events of last Wednesday morning when I went my first run since my girlfriend had died a year before. It all started in the normal way. I woke up, cleaned my teeth, drank a cup of strong coffee, looked in the mirror, ignored t

Okay, so here is the final piece after a few weeks of creative writing tutoring. Please see included added 'dramatic tension' and 'contrast.' I ahve also included my commentary on the piece due to popular demand. I'll let you know how it goes. The Liquid Girl of Berlin Raymond Phelps could have been God as far as the world was concerned. He was the highest paid model in Hollywood, regularly feted as the world’s most eligible bachelor, and at a ceremony that evening in Berlin had been crowned ‘Man of the 21st Century.’ On the wall of Sonya Monfis, the French actress, there was even an enlarged print of his face. ‘It’s your eyes,’ she said, stroking the paper with her fingernails. ‘With eyes like that you can have anything.’ But Raymond Phelps didn’t want to look at another picture. He didn’t want to look at anything at all. As the beautiful French actress tore off his clothes he felt his limbs start to grow cold, and as her body curved and squeezed around him his bre

Solid and Liquid Raymond Phelps could have been God as far as the world was concerned. He was the highest paid model in Hollywood, regularly voted as the best looking person on the planet and this evening he had been to a ceremony in Berlin crowning him ‘Man of the 21 st Century.’ His advert for Calvin Klein was even on the wall of Sonya Monfis, the French actress, who had seduced him that evening. ‘It’s your eyes,’ she said, stroking the paper with her fingernails. ‘With eyes like that you can have anything you want.’ But Raymond Phelps didn’t feel like being seduced. Ever since he had been in Berlin he’d had something on his mind. ‘Don’t you want me?’ she’d said, leaning over him and letting her breasts rub slowly over his chest. ‘Don’t you want me to make you happy?’ Raymond traced his eyes over her, the perfect undulations of her back and legs, the measured tip of her nipples as they rubbed gently towards his groin. ‘Come on Raymond. Let us be happy tog

Well, here it is folks. My final piece for the Creative Writing course with the Open University, which has received a 'Distinction' from the Board of Examiners. It must be good! The Action Hero I am pedalling towards a village. It’s a small village, with a few stone houses gathered around a shop selling statues, a church with a graveyard, and not much else. Beside me on the road there is a man walking. He has a tiny dog and is talking to it like it’s his wife. ‘You always do that, don’t you Lily. Every Saturday. Hurrummph. Ev-er-y Saturday.’ I wonder what has happened to his wife. I wonder if she died. I always think about this when I see a man with a dog. I keep pedalling and come to the centre of the village. It is a bit bigger than I thought - there is a pub and a green and a stream that rushes towards a waterwheel - and it smells funny, like our back garden on the day Grandma comes round for tea. I like that smell. I have seen a hundred villages like this i

Sorry about the lack of input recently, but fear not, a bevy of exciting tales will be heading to these pages shortly. In the meantime, here's a short piece about running in the arctic: The Midnight Sun Marathon I have been dropped off at the edge of the world. A pair of trainers, a course map, a box of pasta, and the knowledge that I am about to run the most northerly marathon in the world. It is ten at night, the sun is still up and the lodge-house has gone out to get drunk. Welcome to Tromso in the Arctic Circle. Why am I here? The waters of the fjord shimmer in the light. My body desires sleep but my eyes are hypnotised. A yellow haze, that isn’t day or night - a lucid interval, where people walk in slow motion and wooden houses stand in rows of white. Am I awake? Bang! It’s too peaceful to run a race. Too simple. A thousand runners thunder across the island like blots of ink on a landscape painting, while seagulls sit waiting for fishing boats to return with t