250 Words: Imaginary world: wake up!

There you sit in your imaginary world, pretending to be a star of the movie world,
the music world, the football world; and in a country that doesn’t exist and can’t
exist, it breaks so many rules, all formed in your ignorant youth. It was fine when
you were a child but now you are grown and that world gets in the way of your life,
your work, your dreams. You live too much in your head, away from the windows
of your soul sat in an armchair faced away and living firmly in that world of your own
construction: wrapped in its red and blue striped blankets, faded to fuzziness and
ignoring my rapping on the window. It simply isn’t healthy. Just anti-social. You
want a girlfriend, don’t you? But you can only ever imagine one.

“Don’t criticise what you don’t understand… you’re happy… not depressed like me.”

Go then, boy, sit with distant dead eyes if you want. Disappear through the mazes
you make and run to hide. Let mould grow thickly on your skin and your hair fall
out. Allow the world to flow about the impenetrable thorny perimeter unwaded in by
your soft feet. You will miss every boat and be left with nothing but cheap symbolism
in your ivory grotto. You need a Kreuzberg-style realisation, a kick up the arse to
set you free and out, blinking, into this brightly lit world to get a life, grab your real
dreams and join the real world.

Myths of our Solar System (24): Demeter, Persephone, Hades, Zeus and the seasons

Demeter held sway over the fertility of the earth and of the living creatures living upon it.
No one knew quite how critical she was until Zeus, in his eternal arrogance and meddling,
gave their daughter, Persephone, as wife to his brother, Hades. Demeter sought out to
follow and take back her beloved daughter, moving through the earth to the rock below but
could find no way through to the realm of Hades and she began to pine and to cry bitter
tears that killed the harvest and poisoned the livestock causing the people to go hungry.

Meanwhile in the Underworld, Persephone rejected the advances of her husband,
unwanted as he was, and starved herself in protest, pleading to her father, Zeus, for some
hind of reprieve.

On the surface, as the people starved, Zeus saw his mistake and decided to reverse
his decision. He went first to Demeter. Upon promising to return Persephone, Demeter
became happy once more and the plight of the people began to ease.

However, on his way to Persephone something occurred that would allow Zeus enough
wiggle room to save some face following his disastrous match making. As he approached
the lair of Hades, Persephone gave way on her hunger strike and ate. As such Zeus could
rule that she had not entirely rejected Hades and he was able to reach a compromise.

For half the year, Persephone would reside in the Underworld with Hades, while for the
other she would live upon the earth with her mother.

And that is how the seasons began, with spring and summer appearing for the first time
with the return of Persephone, bringing with them birth, growth and harvest. Whilst, during
the autumn, when Persephone returned to Hades, the leaves turned brown, then the frosts
and winter came as Demeter began to miss her daughter more and longed for her next
return.

Myths of our Solar System (23): Ceres, daughter of the earth

Ceres had always been closer to her mother than her siblings. As she grew she had
become a confidant of the First World’s lady leader, counselling Mother as her relationship
with Moon broke down. So close were they that Saturn had had to drag her, and then call
on Merlin to stun her, in order to ensure Ceres was safe from The Chaos.

When she emerged alongside Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Sedna, Ceres had been the
first to recover from the initial shock of seeing their mother crumble into earth and the first
to start grieving. She had also been the first to spring into action upon rising to her feet,
her eyes wide, her cheeks covered with dry mud and seeds in her hands.

But they could wait a little longer. Ferreting the seeds away in her bag, Ceres strode to
the wreckage of the First World and saw the bodies of once immortal beings lying dead
before her. And, initially on her own, she began to bury them one by one as her Mother
had asked her to do, committing the bodies to Mother Earth, their soul joining with their
former leader who took them into her care.

Then Ceres moved onto her main task. The seeds in her bag were a mix of cereals and
vegetables and Ceres soon set to work creating and preparing areas in which plant her
mother’s gifts.

As these grew and stocks of food recovered from the First World dwindled, Ceres supplied
what food she could from the trees and plants that Mother Earth had brought forth as she
formed This World, all the time teaching people what was safe to eat and what was not.
Ceres kept listening and whispering to Mother Earth and learned over time what needed to
be done season by season, soon organising and stocking larders for the frozen and nearly
lifeless season that Mother Earth told her would come. A long period when Mother Earth
would sleep, replenishing herself for the next spring. And when Ceres would rest also
while looking forward to speaking again with her mother.

Ceres, the doting daughter, devoted her life to fulfilling the pleas of her Mother,
transforming her into a less wild and more organised landscape, though one still beautiful.

250 Words: Fred’s Tea Shop

I will always remember this among the lighter memories from those sweaty days in
the jungles of Burma, along with the self-heating soup can exploding on me and the
look on my corporal’s face every morning when he took the nasty salt tablets. All
the little things that helped get us away from the memory of the Japs running at us
screaming, “Banzai,” with a look straight from hell in their eyes. A look we always
returned with bullets and bayonets. No doubt a similar look in our eyes.

Whenever anyone went out on patrol through the thick jungle one by one, nerves
on end, shirts drenched, rifles loaded and bayonets fixed and ready to pierce along
paths well trodden, eyes constantly looking into the green dazzle keenly looking for
anything not part of the pattern. The ears similar, filtering any noise for anything as
unnatural as us. And through villages hoping to meet with friendly Burmese and not
the retreating enemy with one up the spout and aimed at us. Our nerves always on
end, our fingers always itching: scared enough but not too much.

Anyway, whenever anyone returned from patrol they would always find Fred grinning
and ready with a brew: that little piece of home that was always with us. He would
be sitting down with his funny little cardboard sign reading, “Fred’s Tea Shop.” And
he would hand us a mug to refresh us. “Get that down you, make you feel better.
You’re home now, son.”

Myths of our Solar System (22): The Six Dwarf Children of Mother and Moon

After the First World had pulled apart and This World had formed, its people were clueless
as to how to continue. Before them was a land of earth and rock, plants, trees and
animals. All of which they knew nothing at all. They had seen some of it in the gardens
around the Tree of Life but had never taken the time to learn about it all. That had been
the domain of the servants, who were all now either deceased or transformed. Some
wizards knew but they were aloof creatures and spent their time furthering their studies
rather than teaching at the start of This World. In short, the people had lived in a world
without worries or concerns and now they had to learn how to live. The Six came and
showed them how.

The sextuplet dwarves had been the darling of the First World when they were first born,
seen as a sign of Mother and Moon’s great love. As they grew, however, people could see
they weren’t normal (particularly when also given the behaviour of Eris and Makemake)
and they were shunned, their parents keeping them away from the rest of the population.

Soon they became forgotten by most but not by Saturn who had seen what they would do
long before they were born. And thus, as with Jupiter, he kept them (apart from Eris) safe
from The Chaos that existed after the First World began to tear apart.

And so The Six, long drifted from memory, seemed to come from nowhere. Many
speculated about where they had come from and where they had been. Upon emerging
from their shelter, five of The Six saw their mother walking aimlessly, seeing nothing, her
brain a fuzz of shock and sadness.

Together they tried to catch up with Mother, seeking to help her. But it was difficult to do
so whilst also trying to get through the crowds and avoiding falling rocks and so before
they could do so she transformed before their very eyes.

They all stopped in unison, staring at the earth spread out before them like a rug. Until
Ceres stepped forward and laid down on her front, the others following her example. They
each put out their arms in an attempt to hug their mother, grasping handfuls of earth with
their fingers, their tears intermingling with the soil and muddying their faces.

There they remained for hours, the grass forming around them, leaving them in a perfect
circle of earth. And they did nothing but weep for their loss. Until suddenly they each
thought they heard the voice of Mother. Frowning they looked at one another before
putting their ears to the ground and finding that they had not been mistaken.

And they each listened, then whispered. Listened. Whispered. And Mother Earth
imparted the secrets of This World that she was still shaping around them so that they
could help build its society alongside their brother, Jupiter.

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (18) The ‘Mr. Tumnus’ Plan

Back to rip-offs, natch.  Or homages.  Yeah, back to paying homage to some of the greatest plans in history.  By ripping them off. 

I read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when I was a child.  Watched it on the TV when I was a bit older in a Sunday evening teatime slot just before Christmas.  One thing that always stuck with me was the bearded faun, Mr Tumnus, and his plan to kidnap Lucy to hand over to the eponymous witch, and  his failure to go through with it because he was ultimately good.  He put her to sleep by playing a funny flute-like instrument mixed with an open fire.  When she woke he was crying at what he had done.  I can play the flute, you know, so I thought it was worth a shot.  And, as far as I knew, there was no fascist regime watching over us to be afraid of.

I made the bonfire quite small, mainly so I didn’t have to carry quite so much wood to the clearing.  Yeah, I know I could have collected wood once there but I was too scared something weird would happen.  I figured non-magical wood was the way to go and built the fire as the light began to fade, igniting the wood in the gloaming; cooked a dinner of sausages and beans in the glow and heat of  my little creation, by which I then read as I waited for my audience/victim.

Mid-evening she arrived and sat on her hind-quarters opposite me, as it were, on the other side of the fire.  I picked up my flute for the first and only time that day, having felt that my presence alone was, by now, enough to bring her to the clearing.  Or if not, the fire would be.

I started to play a kind of lullaby that I had spent the evenings of that week composing (while recording all my weeknight TV for a proposed Sunday marathon).   It was a sleepy, circular chant with a certain dreaminess to it, or so I thought, or hoped.  Something that was supposed to compliment the fire’s lazy crackles and snaps.

And it started well.  The mix of the repetitive softness of my song and the soothing, rhythmic crackling of the fire made the unicorn’s eyes droop pretty quickly.  And soon she began to sway from side to side.  I watched her through the madly dancing flames, my eyes (and only my eyes because of my playing the flute) watched her move back and forth like a swing.  And my ears began to tune in to the fire’s sweet sounds and how it acted as a neat accompaniment to my piece as I listened to its spiral and watched the unicorn sway gently.  And the fast, random movement of the flames started to become too much, it made me feel tired.  And the heat of the fire washed over me, beckoning me like a duvet on a cold night.  I decided to keep my eyes on the unicorn to see the progress I was making, to try and re-focus, but that didn’t seem to help - it just made me more tired and made my eyelids go heavy and they started to close briefly and against my will every ten seconds or so as I tried to play on but my fingers and hands were getting heavier too and then my arms as all the factors mounted up against me - the lullaby and the crackle and the pendulum and the embracing heat and the flute’s tune by then just in my head because the flute hit the floor first.  My head can’t have been far behind.

It was a peaceful night’s sleep in the main - I’m sure there was a dream of me and the unicorn sitting in the positions we had that night, but without a fire and in the daytime.  And we were talking.  Though, if there was a dream, I’ve never been able to grasp the contents of what was said.

I woke with a start, hearing what sounded like hooves (or coconuts…) banging together, by the cold ash of the fire.  It was the middle of Sunday afternoon - I had slept right through.  The unicorn was nowhere to be seen so I sleepily made it back to the van to drive home in time for the evening, missing out almost entirely on my marathon of weeknight TV.

Attempts to Capture and Tame a Unicorn: (17) Breaking Back In

Following my disastrous attempt at discovery, I forgot those events completely and eased myself back in with a variation/near repetition of a method I had tried before and seen a be-zillion times on screen: the box and the stick.

I dragged a large box missing its bottom (or top or side, I suppose, depending on how you look at it), some parcel string, a sturdy plank and some delicious, delicious oats to the clearing and set it all up in the obvious way, complete with a sprinkled trail of the oats to lead the unicorn under the box where a pile of her favourite treat would greet her. 

I sat back to wait, string in hand, waiting less nervously than I ever had in the past.  There was almost an air of devil may care about it.  Deep down the lust was still there, otherwise I might have been at home, but there were various coats painted over the top that took away a lot of the desperation. 

Mostly this was the feeling that I couldn’t win, of course, but this new attitude felt like there was more to it than that.  Like I felt this was the way it should be.  The idea still doesn’t make total sense to me, even now, and at that time I knew it was just a front.

She appeared in the middle of the afternoon just before the sun began to dip for its descent to beyond the horizon.  It wasn't long before her nose was leading her mouth (and attached body) along the trail of oats and in barely thirty seconds I had her trapped right in the centre of the clearing!

Eagerly I stepped forward with the sixth side of my cuboid jail and knelt down in the grass to slide it under the box, slowly and carefully, so as not to cause injury to my prey.  Nervously, I moved the piece of wood but it met no resistance, and neither did I hear any feet shift onto the new surface.

I stood and put my eye and then my ear to one of the air holes.  I heard no breathing and could see no unicorn shaped shadows within.  I hammered the top with my fist in anger (nothing) before gently tipping the box on its side, again feeling no resistance, and finally slid the removable side out of its runners to confirm what I already knew.

Or thought I knew.  I had to throw myself aside as the unicorn bolted out of the box, neighing triumphantly as she ran for the trees.