Monday 30 December 2013

250 Words: Sleep tonight

Lay down, my child, in your tiny bed and sleep soundly tonight.  Take your favourite bear under your arm, hold him close, close your tired eyes and drift sweetly away to dance the sandman’s dance in the Kingdom of Nod.

And sleep easily tonight.  Dream not of ghouls and beastly things.  I will pray for protection to surround that delicate head of yours, for angels to keep the dark at bay, to keep you from fearing the darkest corners of your room.  The corners where there is nothing to fear, sweetheart; nothing.  It is only your mind playing tricks that tells you so and in time you will learn to tame it.

Sleep well tonight.  Fall deep from this world, rest up for tomorrow, a big day.  Let the night take the bags of tiredness away from you and replace them with energy renewed; let the night refresh your soul and return you to us as a sprightly infant ready for school.

Sleep happily tonight, dream of your happiest place, adventure with your toys in the magical realm beneath your sheets and beyond the end of your bed where you rule as only a child can.  Awake with memories and stories to share.

And if you should not, run to us and shelter in our arms and our warmth.  Let us protect you from harm, together we can chase the demons away.  Far away we shall send them and return you to that happy dream.

Goodnight.  Sleep tight.  Sweet dreams.

Saturday 28 December 2013

250 Words: Book immersion

I get lost continuously in the worlds created in my mind by the shapes made by ink on paper.  Like Alice crawling down the rabbit hole I enter wonderland after wonderland immersing myself wholly in these strange new worlds.
Even when I have marked and closed the books, my brain carries on, pretending I’m doing something like wandering around a misty moor dressed like it’s more than a hundred years ago or walking the streets of Victorian London dodging pickpockets and shady characters.
I go too far, though, the emotional cost draining me entirely so that it is some time before I can carry on to another book and put myself through the mill again, the issues rolling through my mind and not letting me get on with my own life as I worry about the characters and what will happen to them next.  I even changed my name to Jane hoping Mr Rochester would come to call.
Escaping from Vienna, distanced from my family by space and age, it is probably not surprising I opt for this bubble existence, these escapist fantasies; especially in these beautiful surroundings that cause the mind to dream.  Real life keeps letting me down, after all, while books can’t let me down, they can only transport me to places still full of trials and tribulations, but ones that are normally resolved and don’t drag on with no end in sight.  Even if these worlds do stay with me too long they still complete me.

Thursday 26 December 2013

250 Words Christmas Special: Storeman Norman the Gnome (2)

Now everyone knows that elves make toys for Santa to deliver at the North Pole but few know about the gnomes who look after the stores, employed because this role requires a taller kind of magical folk.  The gnome who runs the store is a particularly tall and well organised Storeman called Norman and this is the story of how he saved this year’s Christmas.

It all happened because of Global Warming (or Climate Change I think the fashionable phrase is nowadays).  The North Pole snows were melting and the resulting ice cold water started to enter the Great Store of Presents (neatly ordered by Norman into the order of delivery from New Zealand to Alaska) at an alarming rate. 

Nothing was stacked on the floor, of course, due to this possibility and because of the wetness spread by various folk coming into the store from outside, however the water was rising darned fast and was soon approaching the bottom shelf!

Quick as a flash, Norman grabbed a pickaxe and began to hammer at the floor through the rising water and was soon encouraging (well, ordering) his workers to join him.  Onward he led them and together the store gnomes dug a trench all the way to the sea, down which drained the floodwaters.  After this they then helped out all of the North Pole folk by linking other flooded buildings to their drainage trench. 

And thus Christmas was saved from “Climate Change” by a clever Storeman Gnome called Norman.

Wednesday 25 December 2013

250 Words Christmas Special: Storeman Norman the Gnome (1)

Norman is a the gnome who lives at the North Pole.  He looks after the Great Store of Presents which slowly fills each year as the elves make presents for every child in the world and then empties quickly on Christmas Eve as Santa prepares for his annual run. 

Norman used to be quite a miserable soul, though.  He and his team of gnomes weren’t known about outside of the Arctic.  It was understandable that Santa and the reindeers are so well known but otherwise the elves got all the glory for manufacturing the gifts while the gnomes were completely ignored.  And they did a fine job, Norman thought, sorting and organising all the gifts within the warehouse to help Santa in the delivering (a method copied by Royal Mail among other delivery organisations) and keeping them safe and dry from the elements- they deserved at least a mention from time to time.

One day, Norman was sat on a snowy mound smoking his pipe when a little polar bear walked by, saw Norman and said, “Hello there, why do you look so glum?”  And so Norman told the bear about his gnomes’ lack of fame and the bear sat thoughtfully and said, “Well, I have contacts on the internet; I think I might be able to persuade a young man to help change this situation.”

And with that the little polar bear wandered off and soon began a chain of events that would end in this and part two.

Tuesday 24 December 2013

250 Words: Imagined conversations (The new battle)

Rehearsals in my mind for something that hasn't actually started yet.  Something left quickly and unsaid- regret may yet sleep in a bed.

The product of an over-active imagination, a more realistic part of your mind telling you to stop thinking about it, to shut the FUCK UP!

Rehearsals in daydreams for something that may yet happen.  That job interview mentality- rolling situations around to better enable answers to questions and aid conversations that might occur.

The product of too much thinking; and certainly nothing intellectual.  Just dreams to get you through the day.  You haven’t actually made a move yet, remember, not received an answer.

Rehearsals for the future, whatever it may hold.  Whether now, or much later, imagined conversations may yet hold me in good stead.

The product of no guts, no balls, no brains for real life and of too much time alone.  Your a coaster, a dreamer, a fuckwit.  Words unsaid are less than pointless, are vessels that won’t ever be filled.

Rehearsals of hope, then.  Readying oneself so that when it comes it doesn’t slip through your fingers.

The product of dumb hope- remember that phrase?: you’ve avoided writing about it for years; and you know full well that if you stand about on the boundary for years you’ll only miss the ball hit straight at you.

Well, maybe, yeah.

Exactly.  And have you even looked at the pictures.  She would never go for you.

I can still dream, can’t I?

Yeah, whatever.  Fucking idiot.



Note: The part of the title in brackets refers to something I wrote much earlier than this (May 2009) - in fact there are a few references to earlier teenage ramblings, of which , as I said, is a throwback to the one below.  Also, though, it all sounds depressing I fondly remember writing the above while laughing at having started to make a breakthrough from my shier self - one that ultimately ended up with meeting my wife.  Oh, and never fear - there will be a Christmas story over the next two days!


The Battle

I’ll ask her out tomorrow.

No you fucking won’t.

I will. I’m strong enough.

You aren’t. You spineless freak.

I am.. I will, she’ll say yes too.

No she won’t, why would she?

‘Cause she likes me… I’ve heard.

You don’t even know.

I do.. the looks she gives me..

As if to say- I’ve never seen such an ugly freak.

No it’s something else.. in her eyes.

No, it’s repulsion, horror- remember, I see it too.

Is it?

Yes. She hates you. All women do.

It’s not as if you’re good looking or anything.

True, I best not bother, then.

Exactly, save yourself the pain.

Yeah, your right.

I know.

28/12/1999

Sunday 22 December 2013

250 Words: One line

One line smudged by dots across the treeless landscape.  Gassed and left upon the dust to become one with it.  Hate breeds death once more and the earth weeps.  The need for control falls upon a people like a fist onto a desk and changes everything.

One line trudges.  One line displaced.  One line shuffles onward with heavy feet like stones working through the mud.  Behind lies everything.  Everything has passed.  Ahead lies anything. Anything is now desirable.  And, in one line, they are not alone.  And perhaps that will be the key. 

For where there is life there is hope.  Even displaced to foreign lands one line, huddled and massed, can carry on in hope of return to a land healed and regrown.  To return to homes abandoned and dilapidated, to be restored and renewed to a former glory of civilisation whose lungs were asphyxiated. 

One line drawn around them, imprisoning in one lump the survivors.  New homes that would be alien to anyone.  Reliant on the care of others.  Where there is life there is hope.  A forced migration is unwelcome but it is better than death.  Survival is the finest form of resistance.  If, as one line, they can survive then the mustachioed man has not won, cannot win.

Yet one line lives on in limbo.  Unable to really live until their lives are restored.  Hope there may be, alone they are not, but without outside help they are stuck in makeshift homes in a foreign land.



Note: Inspired by an art exhibition held at the Imperial War Museum in 2008 called Displaced by the artist Osman Ahmed which is reported on here and here with videos here.

Friday 20 December 2013

250 Words: Regret sleeps in a tent

A whole night time of chances having passed by, regret sleeps in a tent.  Maybe she wasn’t interested, maybe she was too young (the latter something his friend had no problem with).  Whatever.  Not so much as the merest contact came to be.  And so regret sleeps in a tent.

They saw their friends make out, left them to it.  Then walked through the campsite, talked, met some guy smoking, spoke to him (he longed for the fucker to fuck off, nice as he was), then came back and sat in her tent doing the same- just talking.  Neither made a move.  And so regret slept in a tent.

Or so the idea runs.  Maybe he was regretful as he lay his head down, most of the night having gone by and the Red Hot Chili Peppers a distant memory.  But what really started the regret happened the morning after:

Having packed up, her and her friends started the walk away, never to be seen again.  Thirty seconds or so away she suddenly shouted back her opinion of him.  Being reasonably clueless he simply shouted back, “Thanks,” and began to pack up his own monkeys and parrots.

Maybe the regret ultimately came later but the memory of that regret will forever sleep in a blue tent on an August night in 2001- only to unzip and exit the door when a monumental enough event occurs to wipe away the memory of regret for not leaning in and taking a chance.

Wednesday 18 December 2013

250 Words: She made me burn the letters page by page

We met by moonlight and sat on the swings talking all evening.  We never even kissed, it was so innocent. We were kids.  I was twelve years old.

He would leave me letters in a box buried under a large stone in the flower beds.  The smell of lavender still takes me back to those months of happiness.  We would write of our hopes and dreams, funny incidents occurring at our respective schools- all those things we would otherwise talk about on our swings.

I would write on lavender paper, sprayed with rosewater.  He on white watermarked writing paper.  I kept my bounty of paper, tied with red ribbon, under my pillow by night and under the floorboards by day. 

Until the day my mother found us together sat holding hands on our swings for what would be the last time and dragged me kicking and screaming back to the house to cleanse me of him.

She wouldn’t listen to my pleas.  He was sixteen and she wouldn’t believe in our innocence, claiming he was after our money.

The tears burned my face as his words blackened and crumbled to ash.  My hands felt dead, like someone else’s, as they fed each leaf to the flames against their own will.

I could barely see as she forced us to say goodbye and packed me off to boarding school.  My rosy worldview shattered for the first and last time.  I soon became hardened, having taken the first step through my metamorphosis.

Monday 16 December 2013

250 Words: Morning youth

He wakes up alert, having dreamt about her but with straight hair- apparently enough of a change to alter her entire perception of him.  One hand moves south and gains a liquid start to the day and he thinks, “Is there a finer start to the day?” as he cleans up the sticky mess.

Lying in the morning light, waiting to deflate and be decent, he breathes slowly and smiles at the peace surrounding him.  Apart from the smell, everything inside his bubble of a room is just right: from the posters to the piles of CDs, DVDs and books.  It is a little haven for him from family, from school, even from friends.  Moments like these, lying awake before the true start of the day, are the moments he lives for: peace and quiet before the bubble bursts.

Grudgingly, having heard a call from somewhere else, he swings his legs out of bed and dons the weekday uniform.  Then he stands staring at the back of the door to psyche himself up for all that will follow.

He opens the door and is immediately hassled by his sister.  Breakfast is a noisy affair.  Moyles is somehow more annoying than normal.  The bus is late and crowded, he has to stand.  The classroom is a cacophony of youths screaming and yelling.  The first headache of the day arrives and he longs to be going back in bed, staring through his bedroom at the moon while his hand thinks of her.

Saturday 14 December 2013

250 Words: Mourning youth

Bent completely at the knee and hip, naked, hair tied in a bun, her face buried in wet palms, youth mourns before a plain wooden cross in a bleak, pitted landscape.

No comfort can be found in this age of boys driven to death among those waterlogged craters.  And so she weeps into her hands for those lost and those still to be lost- all of her kin, her generation sent to a hell of bullets cracking, shells exploding and mud mixed with blood- acres of it like a million football fields with the players churned into the surface.

No glory can be seen in charging forward with your friends and neighbours into a degrading fight to the death with your European cousins, lungs choking on gas, deflated by hot flying piercings.  She wails as she sees and feels this, every casualty scared as the light in their eyes flickers and dies.  Their name added to the list, a mason ready to chip it into white stone.

No future is clear for these youths whose youth is sacrificed for a greater good by the old with their old values: two parallel lines of handshakes turned skeletal, running forward to bash together the skulls of the fleshy.  Many will see youth mourn above them as worms crawl through their body and those left behind gain the emptiness inside that accompanies the death of a loved one.

In an empty landscape youth mourns, her generation struck down by a very human disease.



Inspired by the painting Youth Mourning by George Clausen. Also here.

Thursday 12 December 2013

250 Words: The passing of the last dragon

Rotclore lay still in a cave beneath the Himalayas, his last thoughts rolling through his aged mind.  It was long since he last flew or breathed fire and many of his teeth had fallen out, while his famous red claws were now blunt and split.

It was at least a hundred years since he had last seen a fellow dragon and not a lot less since he had taken refuge here under the great mountains of Central Asia.

In his life Rotclore had seen many major events in the history of dragons and of men.  More than a few times he had fought with men and had helped in other ways, too.

Until the time came when magic began to drift from the minds of men and dragons became mistrusted and then hunted with great ferocity.

And thus, burned and with a diamond-tipped arrow in his hide, Rotclore flew east, away from those who had turned against him.  Always he had regretted and wondered if he could have helped the rest of his kind.  But his mother had bid her son, much faster (and weaker) than most, to flee in such a way that Rotclore knew he could not refuse.

And so he flew east with the three eggs hoping to keep them safe, hoping to be joined by another dragon some day, or to find a wizard to hatch them.  But finding only safety, Rotclore had finally come to the end of the line and passed on without fanfare.

Tuesday 10 December 2013

250 Words: No need for a favourite

They asked me what my favourite Pixar film was and I refused to answer.  I have had no need for favourites for a while now.  Ever since I stopped watching programmes compiled of lists of things, I guess.  Or maybe before.  I know when I voted for the best music of the last century I found it very difficult to choose something because there is so much I like.  Things are still the same.  I have lots of favourites overall.  Lots of films I really like, lots of bands, lots of books, lots of food.  To able to choose a favourite in any genre or strand or whatever is impossible.  And pointless.  I might have a favourite thing of the moment (Los Campesinos! in music) but “of all time”?  Do me a favour!  Lord, where do you even begin?  How can you even compare?  There are too many differences; and too much baggage attached, even.  Memories and stuff tacked to the side.  Monsters, Inc, for instance, was one of the only times our second year household did something together.  Plus each is partially defined by its accompanying short.  The Incredibles will always be helped a little by Boundin’.   No, no.  I cannae do it.  And I have no need.  I know what I like (virtually everything I come into contact with: so shoot me, I’m a whore!), I know what I don‘t like: why define further?  I’d rather sit happily with everything surrounding me like a million cuddly teddy bears.

Sunday 8 December 2013

250 Words: The 10 hardy souls

We had been flying happily through the Kent countryside on our ways home.  I had been reading Watchmen.  Then everything came to a standstill.  Ice further up the tracks had crippled another and a de-icer train could do nothing.  After standing before a signal for almost an hour we were forced to go backwards to Borough Green & Wrotham.  I took the news as a cue to urinate.  I would be glad I did.

We got to Borough Green at about one and were told buses were on the way.  Some people got lifts, about 100 people were left to wait in the freezing cold.

Before long the taxi companies found out about our plight and began to turn up in their droves picking off people in groups and ferrying them away.  As the night ticked by, more and more gave up and paid up.  10 hardy souls, however, stuck it out.  One rang customer services to find out where we stood.  Advised to take taxis home, our hero pointed out we had no money and even began negotiations to have Southeastern pay for taxis home. 

Eventually the taxis stopped coming and cold took hold of my feet.  So I started to walk about quite a bit.  I started to think that we’d be there until the next train when, at 2:35, a big yellow bus arrived like a flaming torch of hope in a dark cave of despair and the hour and a half journey home to bed began.

Friday 6 December 2013

250 Words: Three pints of Young’s Special Bitter, my brother (three pints of Foster’s) and a Carling Cup Final defeat (bit late, still topical!*)

Got the call just before two and quickly finished my tea before walking into town, ringing David on arrival. The Ashes was rammed so we looked elsewhere: with Earl’s also packed, we checked the Druid’s and Society Rooms: neither, unsurprisingly, showing the game.  The Albion was shut so we took overheard advice and went to The Old House At Home (quite a strain on the word count, that one) which was full but we got a place to stand and watch. 

The match passed by, interesting but goalless.  The atmosphere inside the pub was heated with chanting from both sets of fans.  Mind you, a lot of our fellow punters looked a bit scary and there seemed a slight air of menace. 

The first explosion was the worst.  A great flash, deafening bang and smoke soon rising from the ground.  At half time a miracle occurred and we got the table we’d been standing by.  I then briefly escaped the heat to get cash, being successful at the second machine, nodding hello to a man from the first. 

The second half drew to a close with extra time to come.  David went to the loo leaving me holding on.  He returned with pints and said something about being threatened.  I went anyway and some of the scary looking people were very courteous on my return. 

The penalties went the wrong way and we left abruptly.  It was a long walk home (made longer by my searching shops for part-baked bread).



* At the time of writing

Wednesday 4 December 2013

500 Words: Tales from the City: Red mist

I’d always wanted to join the Force.  Ever since I’d had to try and stand bullies down on my own.  I saw those smart guys, in pairs or larger groups, and knew that was where my future lay.  I wound up in training and that’s where it all began. 

I’d always been a weedy little fuck, hence the bullying, and that didn’t change.  I could barely manage the assault courses, couldn’t fire anywhere near accurately.  It seemed I was destined for a desk job.

Until one strange afternoon, for some reason, I closed my eyes before firing on the range- figured I couldn’t get any worse.  Instead something real weird happened.  It was like I became someone else and I put a whole clip through the centre of the target. 

I had to quickly pretend I’d been putting in a lot of secret after-hours practice.  (Some shit about tin cans with my uncle’s pistol, I think).  The same on the assault course.

I couldn’t explain it- every time I closed my eyes I became this kind of super man, every sense becoming more acute, every movement becoming no longer that of a clumsy idiot but that of a lithe athlete or something.  Everything just clicked into place because I could see better with eyes closed. 

Once on the streets all the filth and the grime the city was covered in started to rile me as never before now it was down to me to clean it up.  A few months in, me and my partner came across a gang raping some poor young woman in an alley.  We called to them to stop.  They pulled guns on us.  Quick as a flash I closed my eyes and blew every head away.

Over time similar incidents occurred- once I even entered a building and rescued a hostage with my eyes closed, dodging bullets and taking out several gangsters.  Apparently such skill is considered weird, though, and my partner, then the rest of the Force, started to look at me funny, stopped talking when I entered the room, and looked at me with fear in their eyes. 

And soon I was alone again.  Sort of.  I could always close my eyes and see a field of red that seemed to make more sense or make things easier than in the real world.  I started to walk the streets at night, cleaning-up any mess I came across: drug dealers, gangs, prostitutes and their pimps- even a bent Forceman or two.

And it became addictive, this second life.  I got transferred (due to spreading poor morale) behind a desk during the day and fought crime at night, getting all the power and none of the paperwork.

My life was great.  Until Homicide started sniffing about and I began to see the grime on my own hands, the shit embedded deep under my fingernails.

They interviewed me.  And they knew.

Until the army came to call I didn’t know what I was going to do.


Note: I originally tried to make this a two part 250 Words story but failed - I think one half was always going to be too long, the other too short, and it probably works better this way anyway.  Also: I wrote it before I knew anything about Kick-Ass - I can remember being pretty annoyed when I saw the trailer and discovered another Red Mist out there.

Monday 2 December 2013

250 Words: Dinner guests (one unwanted, one always welcome)

I am the end.

I am sometimes short, sometimes long.

I am sometimes a surprise, sometimes relief.

I am disease, famine, pestilence, war, nature.

I am the worst elements of human nature.

I am grief, despair, mourning, even memory.

I am cold as ice, hot as fire- whatever’s needed.

I am the plunging knife, noose, bullets, bombs.

I am sometimes the end of addiction to alcohol and drugs. 

I am pills, poison, severed veins and throats, leaps into the abyss, asphyxiation.

I am twisted metal, lungs filled with water, crumbling rocks, burning, electricity, suffocation.

I am all means to the end.  I am the cold hand that stills your heart and squeezes out your last breath, I am.

***

I am almost everything.

I am your childhood, metamorphosis, adulthood.

I am your first kiss, exams, bike rides, long walks, days at the seaside, holidays.

I am museums, art galleries, monuments.

I am family meals, family weddings, family funerals.

I am your hobbies, your jobs and career, your spouse, your children, or the lack there of.

I am your dreams, your nightmares, alcohol, drugs.

I am every feeling: every tingling nerve, every hair stood on end, every sound, every sight, every taste, every emotion.

I am love, sex and masturbation.

I am grief, despair, mourning, I am the smells and sounds of memory.

I am the sun, the rain, the earth, every plant, every animal.

I am all things between birth and death, your every joy and even your strife, I am.