A task to write a piece of exactly 250 words for the first Leeds Savage annual. Thought I'd write of a recent experience I'd had discovering what sort of bird I was actully feeding after setting up the ideal bird table system.
The bird feeder
It has been difficult to attract specific birds into the backyard but I have succeeded and am quite proud.
It takes time to build an environment where wild creatures feel their desire for food exceeds the threat of visual exposure. My plan was to attract bullfinch as they are very desirable specimens.
I erected a birdfeeder with two tiers filled with bulk finch mix and a top tier filled with niger seed specifically to attract the bullfinch.
Of course the tits and chaffinch descend first as they are fleet of wing and territorial. The ground feeding dunnocks and blackbirds swiftly follow to clean up the spills. It is necessary to attract these non target species to provide a populous bird environment so the bullfinches become more emboldened.
It is also mandatory to locate the feeder in the open yard to provide good sight lines and maneuverability around the perches. A squirrel-proof baffle is installed to prevent rodents scaring away the bullfinch.
Great fun, my specific bird now happily feasts a couple of times a week in full view of my study window. He glides past my vantage point well shielded by the holly tree, banks and with needle talons extended thrusts majestically to surgically pluck a bullfinch from the air as it tries dumbly to fly into the shrubs. A puff of feathers and a small squeak is the reward for my patience. I watch captivated as the sparrow hawk roosts in the sycamore and hungrily devours his twitching meal.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Farewell a friend
Task for December 15, Pack Horse Inn, Briggate, our first night in our new meeting place. Great night.
A reflective piece
(One man’s reflection on the passing of his youth)
I’ve known young Max since he was just a lad. We shared some of the most wonderful, and the most horrible of times in our lives.
As time has passed, the stories we shared have become my reminiscences. I regret that I can no more join in the exhilaration of racing to our team’s victory, of riding those south coast waves, or of crashing terrified and unhurt from that mountain rally track.
It is now so many years later, and I am again sitting here alone with a pint of ale, in front of a Yorkshire fire which the publican has just stoked. I pause and watch the heat return into the embers, and as I watch I see the orange flames flick through the smoke and lick at the log. The heat on my face triggers a memory of an afternoon sun shining, there is a chase through summer grass in pursuit of giggling and fleet-footed temptress. A sigh vibrates my chest. It was such a long time ago this delight. The end of the chase on that summer afternoon was so illicit, it excites memories still fresh to this day.
I recall the tension and thrill of other adventures we shared. Even now I wonder about the victories we had in our travels and business, and of the toys and homes we owned. Indulging myself in memories like these is a sumptuous and glorious past time I probably spend far too much time doing but as I re-live them again I feel a lopsided grin growing across my face.
The flames have settled back in the hearth and I reflect on the length of time that has passed and how our exuberance waned. I accept that life took away the feeling that every attempt we made would end in a victory. I stare into my glass and I actually pine for that time when we had unending energy, for that confidence that we knew all the answers, and I long for that time when we were ignorant that our actions would let imperfections remorselessly creep into the body.
I still know young Max well, he continues to dream of all the possibilities. Regrettably he is no longer the man of infinite ability and unending optimism he once was.
Young Max has become a man I know less well. He is a thoughtful, considered man, made cautious by experiences both wonderful and horrible.
He is still a man with dreams of what can be, but he tempers them by what should be. He has a body less able and a mind more circumspect. Middle-aged Max is what I call him now, a bad joke he reluctantly shares. However there remains in him a defiant shaft of light and an energy which propels him and makes clear the ambition and the fun that was always present.
I buy myself another ale and realise that I have become concerned about young Max’s passing. As any good friend would be I guess.
Returning to my chair to be warmed by this fire I sip my final ale. Before I leave the pub to go home to my domestic contentment I wonder, will I feel as good about Middle-aged Max in thirty years time as I do now about his predecessor?
I hope so.
Farewell young Max, I will always remember you fondly.
(for those of you who didn’t get it, Max is the narrator)
A reflective piece
(One man’s reflection on the passing of his youth)
I’ve known young Max since he was just a lad. We shared some of the most wonderful, and the most horrible of times in our lives.
As time has passed, the stories we shared have become my reminiscences. I regret that I can no more join in the exhilaration of racing to our team’s victory, of riding those south coast waves, or of crashing terrified and unhurt from that mountain rally track.
It is now so many years later, and I am again sitting here alone with a pint of ale, in front of a Yorkshire fire which the publican has just stoked. I pause and watch the heat return into the embers, and as I watch I see the orange flames flick through the smoke and lick at the log. The heat on my face triggers a memory of an afternoon sun shining, there is a chase through summer grass in pursuit of giggling and fleet-footed temptress. A sigh vibrates my chest. It was such a long time ago this delight. The end of the chase on that summer afternoon was so illicit, it excites memories still fresh to this day.
I recall the tension and thrill of other adventures we shared. Even now I wonder about the victories we had in our travels and business, and of the toys and homes we owned. Indulging myself in memories like these is a sumptuous and glorious past time I probably spend far too much time doing but as I re-live them again I feel a lopsided grin growing across my face.
The flames have settled back in the hearth and I reflect on the length of time that has passed and how our exuberance waned. I accept that life took away the feeling that every attempt we made would end in a victory. I stare into my glass and I actually pine for that time when we had unending energy, for that confidence that we knew all the answers, and I long for that time when we were ignorant that our actions would let imperfections remorselessly creep into the body.
I still know young Max well, he continues to dream of all the possibilities. Regrettably he is no longer the man of infinite ability and unending optimism he once was.
Young Max has become a man I know less well. He is a thoughtful, considered man, made cautious by experiences both wonderful and horrible.
He is still a man with dreams of what can be, but he tempers them by what should be. He has a body less able and a mind more circumspect. Middle-aged Max is what I call him now, a bad joke he reluctantly shares. However there remains in him a defiant shaft of light and an energy which propels him and makes clear the ambition and the fun that was always present.
I buy myself another ale and realise that I have become concerned about young Max’s passing. As any good friend would be I guess.
Returning to my chair to be warmed by this fire I sip my final ale. Before I leave the pub to go home to my domestic contentment I wonder, will I feel as good about Middle-aged Max in thirty years time as I do now about his predecessor?
I hope so.
Farewell young Max, I will always remember you fondly.
(for those of you who didn’t get it, Max is the narrator)
Monday, December 6, 2010
ghost story - newspaper competition - December 4 2010.
Once upon a time there was a newspaper competition asking for new writers to submit a 2000 word ghost story. I submitted this one below but six much worse stories were selected for the short list. I am not bitter about that at all.
An undesirable patron. (2000 word target)
He wasn’t a friend at all, just a bloke I saw most nights usually lingering over a single scotch, crouched alone and watching the regulars come and go. His name was Nick but other than knowing each other's name our only common link was that we were both regulars of the pub.
He’d adopted the ancient table hidden behind the door as his spot. It sort of suited him I guess, his pale face was made indistinct by his lank grey hair, stained beard and ruined teeth. A threadbare brown checked coat added to his worn-out look and made him the ideal occupant for that battered corner. It was never a popular seat, the stained ceiling hung low there and the entry next to it caused it to be a somewhat cold alcove. Not that Nick was ever involved with much, he didn’t exactly exude an essence of bonhomie, so mostly everyone ignored him.
I admit that while I do drop in to the pub most evenings, I go in for a pint with my mates and to warm in front of the fire, so I mostly ignore him too. Sitting where he did though, Nick was in easy earshot of our often animated discussions. He never interjected or passed comment, although I did see him sometimes smiling grimly.
Occasionally I saw Nick sitting in earnest discussion with the odd stranger over the years but none of the regulars paid him any attention. In effect he was like the piece of furniture really, always there but not noticed.
Anyway, today's the anniversary of my father’s death, at least I always think of it as the anniversary. It’s when the Ministry of Defence told us that Dad was missing in action, presumed dead. I was ten at the time and to be honest, I've never got over the unfairness of it.
Last year, on the anniversary, I had again told the lads everything I knew about Dad’s last mission and they had again let me talk it out. That time though, as I was leaving, Nick grabbed my arm and said, hauntingly, “I know about your dad”.
The surprise at being gripped so firmly stopped me dead. He slowly released my arm from his bruising fingers but his icy blue-flecked eyes stayed staring into me. “Sit down with me and I’ll tell you of things I know”.
I remember feeling compelled to sit despite thinking that I didn’t want to listen to this old bloke’s ramblings. Every November I hear tales from veterans who re-tell their stories. I rarely tire of the unassuming way these quiet heroes release their memories but I know from years of questions that there is no record or memory of my father’s last mission so I was in no mood to hear Nick’s rambling tale.
Nick started to tell me events from my Dad’s mission that only I had ever researched. He went on to provide bits that were missing from my searches and records. I couldn’t believe how much detail Nick knew and said he knew and I demanded to be told where he got all this information.
“I said I knew about your Dad” he answered quietly and intently, looking directly at me again.
“In fact I don’t only know about what your dad did, I know he was not killed in action. I also know his whereabouts this very day”
I sat there looking at this strange thin man. He was not smiling, not pretending, he was simply delivering insights into my father’s past and more shocking to me, was about to tell me about my father’s present.
My brain was struggling to make sense of that. I wanted to refuse to accept he was alive. I wanted desperately to meet him. I was angry. I was incredulous, struck dumb. I deeply wanted to reject but Nick’s facts were so credible, so incredible. I stared back blankly into the steely eyes.
“What do you mean? You know where his body is buried?” was the only rational question my brain would allow. My fear just contained.
“No Dave.. I know where he is. Right now”
“I don’t believe you.” Rationality was my last refuge. Any other thought was lunacy.
“What would it take for you to believe me?” Nick stared through narrowed eyes, his pupils coal black and intense.
“I , I don’t know. How can you prove that its my dad? You could show me anyone.”
Nick didn’t even pause to think.
“Your dad will know of things you did together, things you talked of that only the two of you will remember. It will take no time for you to be certain” His voice quiet and firm.
Thoughts flashed like lightening through my clouded brain. He was right of course, the times I have with my kids, I remember the smallest of details for years.
I started to recall days out with my dad. I wondered if he would remember them too.
But this was crazy. Why would my wonderful father have stayed away, left his wife, abandoned his kids, what would have allowed any man who loved his family to do that?
As if reading my thoughts, Nick continued,
“Your dad was given no choice in his actions, he could not make contact with you. But now, I can arrange for you two to meet” For the first time I saw a smile crease his face, it was not a pleasant thing, it was an unnerving gruesome gape.
“How could you do that?” I so needed to remain unconvinced and unwilling.
“Never mind how. What would you do if I could guarantee you can meet your dad again?”
I wasn’t sure but I thought Nick was peddling for some reward or payment so I just looked blankly back at him not knowing how to respond..
“I can make it happen” Nick said smoothly “but I need to know how important it is to you and if it is worth my arranging it. You see, this is a one time offer, the window of opportunity is small and it will pass. I need to know if it is important to you.”
“Well of course it’s important, if my dad is around I'd want to meet him. Of course I want to meet him” I didn’t know what Nick had expected me to answer. Who wouldn’t want to?
“So, what would you do if I could guarantee such a meeting?’ he held that eerie grin.
“I’d do anything” I spat out. “If you can bring my father to me, then I’d do whatever”
“Great!” He said leaning back and straightening himself up. He suddenly looked much less feeble.
“Follow me!” He rose strongly, moved the table aside with ease and strode towards the doorway.
In a sort of emotional trance I caught the urgency of his movements. I trailed behind him into the swirling rain and heaving traffic of the busy high street.
Nick turned to me, his eyes were alive and sparkling now as he said “Come on just across the road and down a bit.” as he headed towards the curb.
I hurried to join him at a gap he’d found torn in the pedestrian fence where the traffic careened past in a solid stream of headlights and spray. No sooner had I joined him than he grabbed my arm with that vice-like hand, and pushing me impossibly hard in the small of my back, he spun me directly into the path of the speeding bus.
In that instant of my imminent death, the last microseconds of my existence took on a slow motion roll. I looked back in horror to see a spectral skull with a yawing yellow toothed grimace where Nick had stood. “You wanted to meet your maker!” it screeched hideously at me. “You are sent now to be with your father” it added in wicked mirth.
I tried to scramble clear but even in the slow roll of my demise I saw the speeding wall of metal would not be escaped.
A world-shattering explosion preceded my scream which pierced the shards of my agony and burst existence. I was tumbling and flailing with a searing pain tearing at every part of me.
Then nothing.
Then the merest hint of a tiny spark of light.
Then nothing.
I have no recollection of the next six months, I am told about the miracle of my survival, of the wondrous works by the paramedics and the surgeons. I am advised of the tiny window of opportunity I squeezed through to survive. I recall being vaguely aware of my wife and children during my recovery from coma.
I know I am here today because of people I’d never met, professionals from all fields, donors of all races and support from all walks of community. I am forever grateful.
I remained mystified about Nick. I've been back to the pub on many occasions since that night. I have had chats with my mates. My story of how my death nearly happened is politely listened to and everyone smiles and nods, then they change the topic. Tonight though, on this years's wretched anniversary of my dad's death , Keith took me aside and said that he had to have a word with me. He was being very serious, a mantle that didn’t fit comfortably on him.
“Mate, I’ve got to tell you, get over it, you have to accept that there never was a Nick, no one threw you into the traffic, you’d just had one pint too many that’s all”
“What?” I was incredulous, “As if I’d walk into traffic!? " I stared at my friend. "You mean to tell me nobody ever saw Nick? He sat at his spot at that corner table every night! I don’t believe you.” I felt like I was being abandoned.
“Dave, no one ever sits at that table, it’s too bloody cold. Sure, sometimes a visitor might squat there for a while but they never stay long. No one has it as ‘their spot’ that’s for sure.”
“I’m not that daft Keith, and I was never that wasted that night”
“Gees Dave, you always get full on your dad’s anniversary, and it’s not like you were the first accident out there you know. People are always getting bowled down. Another punter was turned to pizza a couple of months ago, that’s why they’re putting that new fence there.”
Keith’s confident practicality shocked me. I started to question my memory and sat quietly for a while. Was it booze, or perhaps the drugs, or my coma? If Keith was right then I didn’t know what a real memory was any more.
He slapped me on the shoulder and with a friendly shake added “You’ve just got to stop living in a dream mate” he sat back and said “Your missus told me you shout out "Nic"! in your sleep, she thought you’d been having a bit on the sly. Don’t worry, I've put that to rest for you, but you have to get a grip”
He got up to order another pint leaving me staring at the fire.
It was a couple of minutes before I was snapped out of my muddle by a call to re-join the lads with a fresh pint. I dragged myself up but went to the gents first.
Standing at the hand basin I looked at my torn face in the mirror. I splashed water to cool my eyes before going out to try and slip into to the usual banter. It was good to have mates, good to have survived.
I should get a grip as Keith said.
I walked back into the bar just as a stranger was getting up out of that corner seat. Keith was right, nobody stayed there long.
It was as the stranger was heading onto the street that I glimpsed the back of a grey head and a threadbare brown checked coat leading him out.
I stared transfixed at the door as it slowly shut and my eyes closed over tears as the screams from skidding car tyres and shocked bystanders laid a soundtrack to Nick's latest fatality.
© GregWebster 12/11/2010
An undesirable patron. (2000 word target)
He wasn’t a friend at all, just a bloke I saw most nights usually lingering over a single scotch, crouched alone and watching the regulars come and go. His name was Nick but other than knowing each other's name our only common link was that we were both regulars of the pub.
He’d adopted the ancient table hidden behind the door as his spot. It sort of suited him I guess, his pale face was made indistinct by his lank grey hair, stained beard and ruined teeth. A threadbare brown checked coat added to his worn-out look and made him the ideal occupant for that battered corner. It was never a popular seat, the stained ceiling hung low there and the entry next to it caused it to be a somewhat cold alcove. Not that Nick was ever involved with much, he didn’t exactly exude an essence of bonhomie, so mostly everyone ignored him.
I admit that while I do drop in to the pub most evenings, I go in for a pint with my mates and to warm in front of the fire, so I mostly ignore him too. Sitting where he did though, Nick was in easy earshot of our often animated discussions. He never interjected or passed comment, although I did see him sometimes smiling grimly.
Occasionally I saw Nick sitting in earnest discussion with the odd stranger over the years but none of the regulars paid him any attention. In effect he was like the piece of furniture really, always there but not noticed.
Anyway, today's the anniversary of my father’s death, at least I always think of it as the anniversary. It’s when the Ministry of Defence told us that Dad was missing in action, presumed dead. I was ten at the time and to be honest, I've never got over the unfairness of it.
Last year, on the anniversary, I had again told the lads everything I knew about Dad’s last mission and they had again let me talk it out. That time though, as I was leaving, Nick grabbed my arm and said, hauntingly, “I know about your dad”.
The surprise at being gripped so firmly stopped me dead. He slowly released my arm from his bruising fingers but his icy blue-flecked eyes stayed staring into me. “Sit down with me and I’ll tell you of things I know”.
I remember feeling compelled to sit despite thinking that I didn’t want to listen to this old bloke’s ramblings. Every November I hear tales from veterans who re-tell their stories. I rarely tire of the unassuming way these quiet heroes release their memories but I know from years of questions that there is no record or memory of my father’s last mission so I was in no mood to hear Nick’s rambling tale.
Nick started to tell me events from my Dad’s mission that only I had ever researched. He went on to provide bits that were missing from my searches and records. I couldn’t believe how much detail Nick knew and said he knew and I demanded to be told where he got all this information.
“I said I knew about your Dad” he answered quietly and intently, looking directly at me again.
“In fact I don’t only know about what your dad did, I know he was not killed in action. I also know his whereabouts this very day”
I sat there looking at this strange thin man. He was not smiling, not pretending, he was simply delivering insights into my father’s past and more shocking to me, was about to tell me about my father’s present.
My brain was struggling to make sense of that. I wanted to refuse to accept he was alive. I wanted desperately to meet him. I was angry. I was incredulous, struck dumb. I deeply wanted to reject but Nick’s facts were so credible, so incredible. I stared back blankly into the steely eyes.
“What do you mean? You know where his body is buried?” was the only rational question my brain would allow. My fear just contained.
“No Dave.. I know where he is. Right now”
“I don’t believe you.” Rationality was my last refuge. Any other thought was lunacy.
“What would it take for you to believe me?” Nick stared through narrowed eyes, his pupils coal black and intense.
“I , I don’t know. How can you prove that its my dad? You could show me anyone.”
Nick didn’t even pause to think.
“Your dad will know of things you did together, things you talked of that only the two of you will remember. It will take no time for you to be certain” His voice quiet and firm.
Thoughts flashed like lightening through my clouded brain. He was right of course, the times I have with my kids, I remember the smallest of details for years.
I started to recall days out with my dad. I wondered if he would remember them too.
But this was crazy. Why would my wonderful father have stayed away, left his wife, abandoned his kids, what would have allowed any man who loved his family to do that?
As if reading my thoughts, Nick continued,
“Your dad was given no choice in his actions, he could not make contact with you. But now, I can arrange for you two to meet” For the first time I saw a smile crease his face, it was not a pleasant thing, it was an unnerving gruesome gape.
“How could you do that?” I so needed to remain unconvinced and unwilling.
“Never mind how. What would you do if I could guarantee you can meet your dad again?”
I wasn’t sure but I thought Nick was peddling for some reward or payment so I just looked blankly back at him not knowing how to respond..
“I can make it happen” Nick said smoothly “but I need to know how important it is to you and if it is worth my arranging it. You see, this is a one time offer, the window of opportunity is small and it will pass. I need to know if it is important to you.”
“Well of course it’s important, if my dad is around I'd want to meet him. Of course I want to meet him” I didn’t know what Nick had expected me to answer. Who wouldn’t want to?
“So, what would you do if I could guarantee such a meeting?’ he held that eerie grin.
“I’d do anything” I spat out. “If you can bring my father to me, then I’d do whatever”
“Great!” He said leaning back and straightening himself up. He suddenly looked much less feeble.
“Follow me!” He rose strongly, moved the table aside with ease and strode towards the doorway.
In a sort of emotional trance I caught the urgency of his movements. I trailed behind him into the swirling rain and heaving traffic of the busy high street.
Nick turned to me, his eyes were alive and sparkling now as he said “Come on just across the road and down a bit.” as he headed towards the curb.
I hurried to join him at a gap he’d found torn in the pedestrian fence where the traffic careened past in a solid stream of headlights and spray. No sooner had I joined him than he grabbed my arm with that vice-like hand, and pushing me impossibly hard in the small of my back, he spun me directly into the path of the speeding bus.
In that instant of my imminent death, the last microseconds of my existence took on a slow motion roll. I looked back in horror to see a spectral skull with a yawing yellow toothed grimace where Nick had stood. “You wanted to meet your maker!” it screeched hideously at me. “You are sent now to be with your father” it added in wicked mirth.
I tried to scramble clear but even in the slow roll of my demise I saw the speeding wall of metal would not be escaped.
A world-shattering explosion preceded my scream which pierced the shards of my agony and burst existence. I was tumbling and flailing with a searing pain tearing at every part of me.
Then nothing.
Then the merest hint of a tiny spark of light.
Then nothing.
I have no recollection of the next six months, I am told about the miracle of my survival, of the wondrous works by the paramedics and the surgeons. I am advised of the tiny window of opportunity I squeezed through to survive. I recall being vaguely aware of my wife and children during my recovery from coma.
I know I am here today because of people I’d never met, professionals from all fields, donors of all races and support from all walks of community. I am forever grateful.
I remained mystified about Nick. I've been back to the pub on many occasions since that night. I have had chats with my mates. My story of how my death nearly happened is politely listened to and everyone smiles and nods, then they change the topic. Tonight though, on this years's wretched anniversary of my dad's death , Keith took me aside and said that he had to have a word with me. He was being very serious, a mantle that didn’t fit comfortably on him.
“Mate, I’ve got to tell you, get over it, you have to accept that there never was a Nick, no one threw you into the traffic, you’d just had one pint too many that’s all”
“What?” I was incredulous, “As if I’d walk into traffic!? " I stared at my friend. "You mean to tell me nobody ever saw Nick? He sat at his spot at that corner table every night! I don’t believe you.” I felt like I was being abandoned.
“Dave, no one ever sits at that table, it’s too bloody cold. Sure, sometimes a visitor might squat there for a while but they never stay long. No one has it as ‘their spot’ that’s for sure.”
“I’m not that daft Keith, and I was never that wasted that night”
“Gees Dave, you always get full on your dad’s anniversary, and it’s not like you were the first accident out there you know. People are always getting bowled down. Another punter was turned to pizza a couple of months ago, that’s why they’re putting that new fence there.”
Keith’s confident practicality shocked me. I started to question my memory and sat quietly for a while. Was it booze, or perhaps the drugs, or my coma? If Keith was right then I didn’t know what a real memory was any more.
He slapped me on the shoulder and with a friendly shake added “You’ve just got to stop living in a dream mate” he sat back and said “Your missus told me you shout out "Nic"! in your sleep, she thought you’d been having a bit on the sly. Don’t worry, I've put that to rest for you, but you have to get a grip”
He got up to order another pint leaving me staring at the fire.
It was a couple of minutes before I was snapped out of my muddle by a call to re-join the lads with a fresh pint. I dragged myself up but went to the gents first.
Standing at the hand basin I looked at my torn face in the mirror. I splashed water to cool my eyes before going out to try and slip into to the usual banter. It was good to have mates, good to have survived.
I should get a grip as Keith said.
I walked back into the bar just as a stranger was getting up out of that corner seat. Keith was right, nobody stayed there long.
It was as the stranger was heading onto the street that I glimpsed the back of a grey head and a threadbare brown checked coat leading him out.
I stared transfixed at the door as it slowly shut and my eyes closed over tears as the screams from skidding car tyres and shocked bystanders laid a soundtrack to Nick's latest fatality.
© GregWebster 12/11/2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
A Vole-mas Tale
A Volemas Story.
November 28, 2010. The task was set to write a short Xmas story leading up to the festive season. © GregW. This wasn’t so short.
Verity got a bit of a surprise when she stuck her pink nose out of the burrow and had a big fluffy crystal settle on it. The flake was cold on her bare nose but at the same time it felt sort of crinkly. She raced back to show mummy the present she had been given.
“Oh Dear” Mummy grimaced as Verity watched the flake dissolve in the warmer air.
“Never mind mummy” squeaked Verity, “There are lots more landing outside, I can bring you heaps of them!”.
“No sweetie, I mean ‘oh dear’ winter has arrived very early. I'm not ready... There is so much we have to do.” And she started to bustle around making lots of clear spaces.
“Come on Verity, help your mother. You can clean out your brothers' and sisters' space for me, and after that, well, oh deary me, there is so much more for us to do! So little time....”
Verity busied herself doing as she was told, a bit perplexed at her mother's urgency. When all the sleeping places were clean, and many more cleared spaces had been made, Mummy sat Verity down and tried to speak very calmly to her.
“You and I are going out to find seeds and fill all the spaces we have made with food for the winter”.
“What is, win-ter” Verity asked trying to make sure she said the new word right.
Mummy was a bit distracted as all the children had now woken up and wanted a feed.
Laying on her side, Mummy said “Winter is a cold time, a long time, when there is very little food for us all. We will get very tired and we won’t want to go out in the cold. So now we have to collect lots of food to last us through winter.” Verity could tell mummy was trying to be very patient with her.
“But Mummy”, Verity wondered, “won’t Daddy and Russell come back and help?"
A very sad look came over Mummy’s face, “No sweetie, When the big birds took Russell and Daddy away it was for a very long time and they won’t be coming back to help”.
“But that’s not fair.” complained Verity, not really knowing what a big-birds was. More new words.
“I know sweetie but you just make sure to look up for any big birds and run and hide when you see one.” Mummy was distracted as she began to clean up after the children’s meal.
“Okay” Verity said, and Mummy headed off to look outside, Verity knew she must stay and care for the children.
Mummy got to the burrow entrance and let out a big sigh when she saw how deep the snow was, she turned and came back to where Verity was pushing the fed and sleepy children back into their nest.
Mummy looked very worried, then slowly she got a bright look in her eyes and spoke excitedly to Verity.
“What you and I are going to do today is very, very exciting” she said. “we are going to explore the ‘not-outside’ place!”
This was too many new words for Verity to understand but because mummy had said to be excited, she was excited. “Let’s go then!” she squeaked and dashed off down the entry burrow.
“Verity!” Called out mummy, “Not that way. The ‘not outside’ place is this way”. And she led Verity to the very back of the nest burrow, down and up a long tunnel, at the end of which was a big, long, flat piece of wood on one side of the tunnel. The way through here was a bit narrow but plenty big enough for a vole. From under the long flat wood, through little gaps, came some light, and some warm air carrying a scent of smoke but mostly a nose filling smell of foody stuff. Verity had no idea what the smells could be. She was really excited and scampered back and forth along the wood wall smelling each little gap until Mummy caught her by the tail and went “Shhhh!” which Verity knew meant be still and quiet.
It was very hard to be still and quiet when there was warm and deliciousness so close.
Mummy said in a very soft voice, that in the ‘not outside’ place, there was sometimes lots of lovely food, but, she had to make sure there was nothing moving in the ‘not outside’ place before they went looking for it.
Then Mummy asked Verity to follow her along beside the flat wood. They came to a big piece of stone. Here the wood and the stone left a gap. Verity could see a vole-sized hole had been chewed to make the gap bigger..
Mummy was looking out of the hole and her tail was twitching as she sniffed the air.
She popped her head back in to look at Verity and said. You wait here, I am going to be back very, very soon.
True to her word she disappeared out the hole and in no time at all had returned with a seed bigger than any Verity had ever seen before, it was all black with white stripes and smelled glorious. Before Verity could stop marveling at this wonder Mummy had left and returned again, this time with a smaller brown seed with a little bump on its end that smelled, if it were possible, even more delicious and in desperate need of a taste.
“Verity!’ Mummy scolded, suddenly a bit cross, don’t be there smelling them, take them back to the burrow and start stacking them in the store spaces we made. Reluctantly Verity complied and worked very hard to keep up with the supply of seeds mummy was collecting..
After many trips to and fro, Mummy stopped for a rest and told Verity that there were so many seeds and things called crumbs, another new word, 'not outside' it might be best if they both collected and just bought it all back in here.
It was just then that loud noises came from the ‘not outside’ place and they scared Verity a lot.
Mummy again said ‘Shhh!’ and Verity did.
~~
The kitchen door creaked as it always did. Alice didn’t even hear it any more, it was just part of the house and it’s bumps and lumps, she probably would have been more surprised if her ancient home stopped creaking and groaning.
“Tsk tsk tsk” she tutted as she cast her eyes around the kitchen floor. “Margaret!” she called out. “Margaret! Come here will you? Right now please” as she opened a tall cupboard and took out a broom.
“Yes Auntie?” said Margaret, pulling a strand of hair from her sticky lips while peering into the kitchen. Auntie Alice’s call had the sound of trouble and Margaret came with a worried look.
“Didn’t your mother teach you to clean up after yourself? Look at this place, bread and honey left out, butter not back in the fridge, crumbs everywhere. You are a big girl now and you know to be tidy. I want to be able to tell your mum and dad how good you are so they will let you come and spend more visits in the country.”
“Yes Auntie”, it really was worth the extra chores to be here with Auntie but especially with her horses. And tomorrow was cooking day, Auntie had promised that they would use the big mixer and the oven and she could lick the bowls if she was a very good helper.
“I don’t mean to be cross with you dear” Auntie continued, “but we don’t want to have pesky little rodents scurrying through our kitchen do we?”
“No Auntie” lied Margaret. She would love to see a little mouse.
“All right then you set-to and tidy up here while I go outside and clear a path to the barn. This snow may be fun to for you but it doesn’t half make my life difficult.”
And with that Margaret was left alone in the kitchen, with the broom.
Cleaning up was a bit difficult as the table was very high, so after giving the floor a sweep or two she pulled the chair over and climbed up to clean the crumbs from the surfaces. The wood grain of the table made nice lines and the crumbs were fun to push around like cars on a road. Margaret knelt on the chair for some time quietly playing with the crumbs.
~~
Behind the flat wood, keeping very quiet and away from the hole, Verity and mummy hid, listening to the big noises. After a while everything went very quiet and mummy sneaked a peek through the hole again. There were seeds and crumbs very close now and she looked around and could see nothing move except the flames in the big box at the other end of the ‘not outside’ place.
“Verity”
“Yes mummy”
“There is lots of food very close to the hole here, I think it is safe. You should help me quickly”.
Verity was so pleased mummy trusted her like this. Checking that nothing moved every time, they busily dashed in and out collecting all the yummy food they could as quickly as they could. It was very hard for Verity not to nibble a crumb or two, just a little bit.
~~
Margaret watched very quietly from her high perch as the two little voles dashed in and out looking around and then grabbing the tiny morsels and shuffling away behind the skirting board.
They are so cute Margaret thought, I do hope Auntie doesn’t see them.
Whenever the mouses went behind the skirting board Margaret would throw some of her crumbs down, each time a little further away from the hole.
~~
Eventually Mummy stopped collecting and said “I think we have enough food now to take back and store for today”. Carrying and placing all the different sorts of food into the storage places is very tiring work and Verity was soon nestling in to sleep in her straw and feather nest.
Verity woke well before she would normally have and she darted quietly past where mummy was sleeping , past the wriggling children who would soon be demanding food, then down and up to the vole sized hole in the wood wall.
Very carefully she looked out into the ‘not outside’ place to make sure there was no moving thing. What she saw was amazing. It was just outside the hole. It was a long sort of a seed, bigger than any food thing Verity had ever seen. It smelled so wonderful Verity just had to try to have a nibble. She was very nervous and taking a last long look around she dashed out. Her teeth sank in easily and the flood of flavour and smell was wonderous. Verity looked back at the hole as she swallowed a morsel. She didn’t know if she could drag the huge seed back all that way. She tried to pull it with her mouth but her claws kept slipping on the smooth ground. Try as she might, pushing or pulling, she couldn’t make the seed go where she wanted.
Suddenly there was a huge noise and a big animal breath smell, sort of sweet but scary too. Verity looked around and then up.
OH Gosh! She nearly screamed.
Looking down at her from very high up was a huge animal with hair hanging down, it’s mouth opening and closing and horrible sounds shaking the air all around.
Verity froze for a second.
This must be the big bird thing Mummy had warned her of. She was sure she was going to be taken to where Daddy and Russell were and away from mummy and all the lovely food.
Verity didn’t want to leave.
The big animal bared its teeth and made some more noise but it didn’t move.
Verity took the chance and made a dash back into the hole, down the tunnel and all the way back to the nest panting and puffing.
“Gracious Verity what ever have you been up to?” asked Mummy.
Verity explained all that had happened as Mummy preened at her coat.
“I can smell the seed on your breath.” Mummy said. It does smell delicious she thought.
~~
Margaret was ecstatic. She had got up very early, cleaned the kitchen floor and placed a peanut just outside the mouse hole hoping against hope a little mouse would come back. And here it was.
It was sooooo cute.
And as the tiny fury thing tried to take the nut away she said. “Hello little mousie”
The poor little mouse jumped and stared frozen at her. Smiling she said “Don’t be scared, I wont hurt you” “If you leave it there I will make it smaller for you.” but the cute little thing ran away.
Nevertheless, Margaret broke the peanut into tiny pieces and pushed them into the corner and right into the hole where Auntie wouldn’t see them.
‘Happy Christmas little mouses” she said as she left to make Auntie a cup of tea before breakfast. Today was cooking day and she would make sure the little mouses would find a good selection of Christmas baking crumbs right at their doorway.
~~
Much, much later that night when everything was really, really quiet in the ‘not outside’ place, Mummy and Verity, being very brave, found lots of scrumptious food pushed into their vole hole and they danced and jumped around with the taste and aromas of the gifts that the ‘not outside”’ place had given them.
By the end of the night the burrow was full of food and Mummy was happy she was not going to be hungry, which meant that the children were not going to be hungry and they and Verity would grow up to be very happy voles indeed.
~~
It was a good time for everyone in the farmhouse that year, despite the snow.
November 28, 2010. The task was set to write a short Xmas story leading up to the festive season. © GregW. This wasn’t so short.
Verity got a bit of a surprise when she stuck her pink nose out of the burrow and had a big fluffy crystal settle on it. The flake was cold on her bare nose but at the same time it felt sort of crinkly. She raced back to show mummy the present she had been given.
“Oh Dear” Mummy grimaced as Verity watched the flake dissolve in the warmer air.
“Never mind mummy” squeaked Verity, “There are lots more landing outside, I can bring you heaps of them!”.
“No sweetie, I mean ‘oh dear’ winter has arrived very early. I'm not ready... There is so much we have to do.” And she started to bustle around making lots of clear spaces.
“Come on Verity, help your mother. You can clean out your brothers' and sisters' space for me, and after that, well, oh deary me, there is so much more for us to do! So little time....”
Verity busied herself doing as she was told, a bit perplexed at her mother's urgency. When all the sleeping places were clean, and many more cleared spaces had been made, Mummy sat Verity down and tried to speak very calmly to her.
“You and I are going out to find seeds and fill all the spaces we have made with food for the winter”.
“What is, win-ter” Verity asked trying to make sure she said the new word right.
Mummy was a bit distracted as all the children had now woken up and wanted a feed.
Laying on her side, Mummy said “Winter is a cold time, a long time, when there is very little food for us all. We will get very tired and we won’t want to go out in the cold. So now we have to collect lots of food to last us through winter.” Verity could tell mummy was trying to be very patient with her.
“But Mummy”, Verity wondered, “won’t Daddy and Russell come back and help?"
A very sad look came over Mummy’s face, “No sweetie, When the big birds took Russell and Daddy away it was for a very long time and they won’t be coming back to help”.
“But that’s not fair.” complained Verity, not really knowing what a big-birds was. More new words.
“I know sweetie but you just make sure to look up for any big birds and run and hide when you see one.” Mummy was distracted as she began to clean up after the children’s meal.
“Okay” Verity said, and Mummy headed off to look outside, Verity knew she must stay and care for the children.
Mummy got to the burrow entrance and let out a big sigh when she saw how deep the snow was, she turned and came back to where Verity was pushing the fed and sleepy children back into their nest.
Mummy looked very worried, then slowly she got a bright look in her eyes and spoke excitedly to Verity.
“What you and I are going to do today is very, very exciting” she said. “we are going to explore the ‘not-outside’ place!”
This was too many new words for Verity to understand but because mummy had said to be excited, she was excited. “Let’s go then!” she squeaked and dashed off down the entry burrow.
“Verity!” Called out mummy, “Not that way. The ‘not outside’ place is this way”. And she led Verity to the very back of the nest burrow, down and up a long tunnel, at the end of which was a big, long, flat piece of wood on one side of the tunnel. The way through here was a bit narrow but plenty big enough for a vole. From under the long flat wood, through little gaps, came some light, and some warm air carrying a scent of smoke but mostly a nose filling smell of foody stuff. Verity had no idea what the smells could be. She was really excited and scampered back and forth along the wood wall smelling each little gap until Mummy caught her by the tail and went “Shhhh!” which Verity knew meant be still and quiet.
It was very hard to be still and quiet when there was warm and deliciousness so close.
Mummy said in a very soft voice, that in the ‘not outside’ place, there was sometimes lots of lovely food, but, she had to make sure there was nothing moving in the ‘not outside’ place before they went looking for it.
Then Mummy asked Verity to follow her along beside the flat wood. They came to a big piece of stone. Here the wood and the stone left a gap. Verity could see a vole-sized hole had been chewed to make the gap bigger..
Mummy was looking out of the hole and her tail was twitching as she sniffed the air.
She popped her head back in to look at Verity and said. You wait here, I am going to be back very, very soon.
True to her word she disappeared out the hole and in no time at all had returned with a seed bigger than any Verity had ever seen before, it was all black with white stripes and smelled glorious. Before Verity could stop marveling at this wonder Mummy had left and returned again, this time with a smaller brown seed with a little bump on its end that smelled, if it were possible, even more delicious and in desperate need of a taste.
“Verity!’ Mummy scolded, suddenly a bit cross, don’t be there smelling them, take them back to the burrow and start stacking them in the store spaces we made. Reluctantly Verity complied and worked very hard to keep up with the supply of seeds mummy was collecting..
After many trips to and fro, Mummy stopped for a rest and told Verity that there were so many seeds and things called crumbs, another new word, 'not outside' it might be best if they both collected and just bought it all back in here.
It was just then that loud noises came from the ‘not outside’ place and they scared Verity a lot.
Mummy again said ‘Shhh!’ and Verity did.
~~
The kitchen door creaked as it always did. Alice didn’t even hear it any more, it was just part of the house and it’s bumps and lumps, she probably would have been more surprised if her ancient home stopped creaking and groaning.
“Tsk tsk tsk” she tutted as she cast her eyes around the kitchen floor. “Margaret!” she called out. “Margaret! Come here will you? Right now please” as she opened a tall cupboard and took out a broom.
“Yes Auntie?” said Margaret, pulling a strand of hair from her sticky lips while peering into the kitchen. Auntie Alice’s call had the sound of trouble and Margaret came with a worried look.
“Didn’t your mother teach you to clean up after yourself? Look at this place, bread and honey left out, butter not back in the fridge, crumbs everywhere. You are a big girl now and you know to be tidy. I want to be able to tell your mum and dad how good you are so they will let you come and spend more visits in the country.”
“Yes Auntie”, it really was worth the extra chores to be here with Auntie but especially with her horses. And tomorrow was cooking day, Auntie had promised that they would use the big mixer and the oven and she could lick the bowls if she was a very good helper.
“I don’t mean to be cross with you dear” Auntie continued, “but we don’t want to have pesky little rodents scurrying through our kitchen do we?”
“No Auntie” lied Margaret. She would love to see a little mouse.
“All right then you set-to and tidy up here while I go outside and clear a path to the barn. This snow may be fun to for you but it doesn’t half make my life difficult.”
And with that Margaret was left alone in the kitchen, with the broom.
Cleaning up was a bit difficult as the table was very high, so after giving the floor a sweep or two she pulled the chair over and climbed up to clean the crumbs from the surfaces. The wood grain of the table made nice lines and the crumbs were fun to push around like cars on a road. Margaret knelt on the chair for some time quietly playing with the crumbs.
~~
Behind the flat wood, keeping very quiet and away from the hole, Verity and mummy hid, listening to the big noises. After a while everything went very quiet and mummy sneaked a peek through the hole again. There were seeds and crumbs very close now and she looked around and could see nothing move except the flames in the big box at the other end of the ‘not outside’ place.
“Verity”
“Yes mummy”
“There is lots of food very close to the hole here, I think it is safe. You should help me quickly”.
Verity was so pleased mummy trusted her like this. Checking that nothing moved every time, they busily dashed in and out collecting all the yummy food they could as quickly as they could. It was very hard for Verity not to nibble a crumb or two, just a little bit.
~~
Margaret watched very quietly from her high perch as the two little voles dashed in and out looking around and then grabbing the tiny morsels and shuffling away behind the skirting board.
They are so cute Margaret thought, I do hope Auntie doesn’t see them.
Whenever the mouses went behind the skirting board Margaret would throw some of her crumbs down, each time a little further away from the hole.
~~
Eventually Mummy stopped collecting and said “I think we have enough food now to take back and store for today”. Carrying and placing all the different sorts of food into the storage places is very tiring work and Verity was soon nestling in to sleep in her straw and feather nest.
Verity woke well before she would normally have and she darted quietly past where mummy was sleeping , past the wriggling children who would soon be demanding food, then down and up to the vole sized hole in the wood wall.
Very carefully she looked out into the ‘not outside’ place to make sure there was no moving thing. What she saw was amazing. It was just outside the hole. It was a long sort of a seed, bigger than any food thing Verity had ever seen. It smelled so wonderful Verity just had to try to have a nibble. She was very nervous and taking a last long look around she dashed out. Her teeth sank in easily and the flood of flavour and smell was wonderous. Verity looked back at the hole as she swallowed a morsel. She didn’t know if she could drag the huge seed back all that way. She tried to pull it with her mouth but her claws kept slipping on the smooth ground. Try as she might, pushing or pulling, she couldn’t make the seed go where she wanted.
Suddenly there was a huge noise and a big animal breath smell, sort of sweet but scary too. Verity looked around and then up.
OH Gosh! She nearly screamed.
Looking down at her from very high up was a huge animal with hair hanging down, it’s mouth opening and closing and horrible sounds shaking the air all around.
Verity froze for a second.
This must be the big bird thing Mummy had warned her of. She was sure she was going to be taken to where Daddy and Russell were and away from mummy and all the lovely food.
Verity didn’t want to leave.
The big animal bared its teeth and made some more noise but it didn’t move.
Verity took the chance and made a dash back into the hole, down the tunnel and all the way back to the nest panting and puffing.
“Gracious Verity what ever have you been up to?” asked Mummy.
Verity explained all that had happened as Mummy preened at her coat.
“I can smell the seed on your breath.” Mummy said. It does smell delicious she thought.
~~
Margaret was ecstatic. She had got up very early, cleaned the kitchen floor and placed a peanut just outside the mouse hole hoping against hope a little mouse would come back. And here it was.
It was sooooo cute.
And as the tiny fury thing tried to take the nut away she said. “Hello little mousie”
The poor little mouse jumped and stared frozen at her. Smiling she said “Don’t be scared, I wont hurt you” “If you leave it there I will make it smaller for you.” but the cute little thing ran away.
Nevertheless, Margaret broke the peanut into tiny pieces and pushed them into the corner and right into the hole where Auntie wouldn’t see them.
‘Happy Christmas little mouses” she said as she left to make Auntie a cup of tea before breakfast. Today was cooking day and she would make sure the little mouses would find a good selection of Christmas baking crumbs right at their doorway.
~~
Much, much later that night when everything was really, really quiet in the ‘not outside’ place, Mummy and Verity, being very brave, found lots of scrumptious food pushed into their vole hole and they danced and jumped around with the taste and aromas of the gifts that the ‘not outside”’ place had given them.
By the end of the night the burrow was full of food and Mummy was happy she was not going to be hungry, which meant that the children were not going to be hungry and they and Verity would grow up to be very happy voles indeed.
~~
It was a good time for everyone in the farmhouse that year, despite the snow.
Monday, November 15, 2010
60 Seconds
The task was to write anything that took 60 seconds to read
I don’t understand 60 seconds.
I have landed in a strange country
I don’t understand.
Everyone speaks my language but they speak it different. I hear people from the south trying to sound like the people from the north for fun.
I don’t understand.
Everyone chose their government but those who chose right and those who didn’t all say the government is no good.
I don’t understand.
Everyone is supposed to work but people get given government money not to work. If you don’t work and can spend all the money, the government will give you a house.
I don’t understand.
Everyone has free education to help build the country. But if you want to be better educated you have to pay the government debt.
I don’t understand.
Everyone from a commonwealth country is a friend and ally but they are not allowed to live or to work for long in this country. Hated enemies from past wars are free to come and go and stay.
I don’t understand.
Everyone knows of someone who was killed in a foreign war and everyone knows it is bad to kill. But everyone loves people who died while killing foreign people and everyone here stands still to praise them for 60 seconds every year.
I don’t understand.
(c) GregW 12/11/2010
I don’t understand 60 seconds.
I have landed in a strange country
I don’t understand.
Everyone speaks my language but they speak it different. I hear people from the south trying to sound like the people from the north for fun.
I don’t understand.
Everyone chose their government but those who chose right and those who didn’t all say the government is no good.
I don’t understand.
Everyone is supposed to work but people get given government money not to work. If you don’t work and can spend all the money, the government will give you a house.
I don’t understand.
Everyone has free education to help build the country. But if you want to be better educated you have to pay the government debt.
I don’t understand.
Everyone from a commonwealth country is a friend and ally but they are not allowed to live or to work for long in this country. Hated enemies from past wars are free to come and go and stay.
I don’t understand.
Everyone knows of someone who was killed in a foreign war and everyone knows it is bad to kill. But everyone loves people who died while killing foreign people and everyone here stands still to praise them for 60 seconds every year.
I don’t understand.
(c) GregW 12/11/2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Cocktails and Dreams
The task was to write anything about the topic "Cocktails & Dreams" for the November 3 meeting
October 28, 2010 Cocktails and dreams. © GregW
It wasn’t the question Geoff had expected.
Why don’t they have any clothes on, or Why are they white, or How come they look so sad, would all have been questions he could have sounded clever about.
They had been dawdling through the Herculaneum and Pompeii statues, him lost in the brilliance of the long dead craftsmen, her, a bored and ignored seven-and-three-quarters year-old niece picking at the frayed stitching of his trouser leg.
Kylie was the mostly likable result of his sister Cheryl’s misadventure in the Pacific Islands. Geoff had agreed to child-mind this afternoon to give her a bit of a break. Its what brothers do, so he had been informed.
The act of being tour guide for this button-nosed munchkin was not chosen as an interesting outing for the little lass, but as an opportunity for Geoff to tick this Leeds museum event off his must-do list before the rare marble figures left town on the rest of their national tour.
Geoff and Kylie were having a break, sitting on one of the padded benches the city had placed a bit away from the statues for comfortable observation and reflection. They both sat hunched a little, one sipping hot black coffee and the other sucking very hard at a blue slushy through a small straw, because the wide one with the scoop on the end was only for little kids.
Geoff knew which battles were best won and which were best left as a life lesson.
“Uncle Geoff?” she whispered,
“Yes?” he answered in a less hushed tone, taking another sip.
Kylie smiled and in a confident voice said “All of the boy’s pricks are broken off. Can we go and find them?”
A cloud of spat coffee preceded Geoff’s “WHAT?” , a word he immediately regretted uttering.
“I want to look for boy’s dicks!” she answered with glee having now gained Geoff’s full attention.
“Cucff, Ka, Gargh,” Geoff spluttered at her calmingly.
“Look for pricks, look for dicks” she was bouncing and singing as Geoff became suddenly aware of how popular this museum was.
“Kyles, sweetie, listen to me”
“Come on Uncle Geoff, lets look for the boy's willies” her strident voice piercing the space.
“They are not here sweetie.” Thinking on the run, he added “They are under hundreds of tons of volcanic ash on the other side of the world.” He hoped this information would give her pause for thought and give him a chance to think of a distraction.
“Oh” she said, the sing song gone from her tone but the dreaded kid question already forming on her lips
“Why?”
Geoff took a second to think, what he needed was a quick re-direction.
“Well, a long time ago" he started slowly, "before a big volcano exploded in Italy, people fought with each other and chased each other away from their homes. When the winners had chased all the people they didn’t like away, well, they didn’t want to see images of the losers everywhere, and sculptures are like pictures arn't they? So they broke off the noses, arms and things and pushed them over” He could see as he spoke she was losing interest.
Job done he thought, but at the same time doubting his sister's parenting.
They returned quietly to their slushy sucking and coffee sipping, although the latter was done with more care.
“But Uncle Geoff?”
“Yeees?”
“If the arms and noses have been stuck back on some girls, why haven’t the dicks been stuck back on the boys?”
“Because nobody could find any of them” was the best answer Geoff could come up with.
Of course he knew this wasn't going to be the end of it. Sure enough, for the rest of the afternoon Geoff endured a relentless toddler interrogation. He was quizzed on the number, the size, ball inclusion, and the frequency of willie smashing, with varying tones of fascination, at embarrassing volumes and in awkward public transport moments, all the way home to mummy.
“Thanks so much for giving me a break” smiled Cheryl as she gathered her progeny from Geoff at their doorstep.
“That's okay, and no, I won’t come in” added Geoff before the question was put. “I am totally buggered. I don’t know how you do it every day. Anyway, I'll see you next week at Dad’s.” he reached over and kissed her goodbye and tussled Kylie’s hair.
“By the way, if I was you I’d brush up on everything you know about the phalluses of statues” he grinned as he walked away down the front path.
Getting home an hour later it was a relief to kick off his shoes, grab a beer and throw himself at the sofa. The beer was a due reward and he kicked up the foot-rest, pulled out his phone and started to scroll through his messages. There was a raft of them and he set about sorting out the work enquiries from the face and tweet crap that he always meant to hide but never got round to.
His third beer opened and all the work emails and messages done, he noticed a vid file from an old Uni mate of his, Keith.
Keith was now a seismologist on the oil rigs and travelled a lot so they didn't keep in touch much but he had sent Geoff an Italian video news article.
“Bugger me, bugger me” was all Geoff could repeat time and time again as the video rolled showing divers off Palermo blowing the sand off hundreds and hundreds of broken off statue penises laying on the sea floor. Keith had annotated some wry comments but Geoff couldn’t believe the coincidence. “Bugger me” he heard himself repeating.
He went to play the vid again to convince himself he did see what he had seen but the door bell rang. Dropping his phone he stumbled to answer the hammering. He was concerned a little now, who pounded on a door like that ? He glanced through the glass and saw a UPS bloke standing with a digital signature box and a vacant look on his face. Oh yeah, UPS men pound on doors like that.
“Got a delivery for you...Sign here” Geoff looked and saw the screen indicating a delivery from Cheryl. Why would she have sent me something today? he was thinking as he awkwardly signed the little plastic screen..
“Okay, where do you want them?” the UPS bloke asked. As Geoff looked up he saw a tipper truck reversing up his drive and jacking it’s load to dump about two tonne of what looked for all the world like thousands of broken-off male genitals right at the front of his door. "STOP IT " he yelled and raced out to vainly grab at the tipping truck. He tripped and as hundreds of stone cocks started to fall on top of him he felt a stream of strangely cold urine run down his legs.
Adrenalin pumping he woke, jumped up and looked down at his trousers. His last beer had spilt in his lap, a puddle of foam rolling over the leather sofa.
Two stupid cock tales , of course it had to be a dream he thought as he grabbed the spilt can and went soggy-legged into the kitchen to get a cloth.
(geddit? cock tales....cocktails , and dreams......oh, never mind)
October 28, 2010 Cocktails and dreams. © GregW
It wasn’t the question Geoff had expected.
Why don’t they have any clothes on, or Why are they white, or How come they look so sad, would all have been questions he could have sounded clever about.
They had been dawdling through the Herculaneum and Pompeii statues, him lost in the brilliance of the long dead craftsmen, her, a bored and ignored seven-and-three-quarters year-old niece picking at the frayed stitching of his trouser leg.
Kylie was the mostly likable result of his sister Cheryl’s misadventure in the Pacific Islands. Geoff had agreed to child-mind this afternoon to give her a bit of a break. Its what brothers do, so he had been informed.
The act of being tour guide for this button-nosed munchkin was not chosen as an interesting outing for the little lass, but as an opportunity for Geoff to tick this Leeds museum event off his must-do list before the rare marble figures left town on the rest of their national tour.
Geoff and Kylie were having a break, sitting on one of the padded benches the city had placed a bit away from the statues for comfortable observation and reflection. They both sat hunched a little, one sipping hot black coffee and the other sucking very hard at a blue slushy through a small straw, because the wide one with the scoop on the end was only for little kids.
Geoff knew which battles were best won and which were best left as a life lesson.
“Uncle Geoff?” she whispered,
“Yes?” he answered in a less hushed tone, taking another sip.
Kylie smiled and in a confident voice said “All of the boy’s pricks are broken off. Can we go and find them?”
A cloud of spat coffee preceded Geoff’s “WHAT?” , a word he immediately regretted uttering.
“I want to look for boy’s dicks!” she answered with glee having now gained Geoff’s full attention.
“Cucff, Ka, Gargh,” Geoff spluttered at her calmingly.
“Look for pricks, look for dicks” she was bouncing and singing as Geoff became suddenly aware of how popular this museum was.
“Kyles, sweetie, listen to me”
“Come on Uncle Geoff, lets look for the boy's willies” her strident voice piercing the space.
“They are not here sweetie.” Thinking on the run, he added “They are under hundreds of tons of volcanic ash on the other side of the world.” He hoped this information would give her pause for thought and give him a chance to think of a distraction.
“Oh” she said, the sing song gone from her tone but the dreaded kid question already forming on her lips
“Why?”
Geoff took a second to think, what he needed was a quick re-direction.
“Well, a long time ago" he started slowly, "before a big volcano exploded in Italy, people fought with each other and chased each other away from their homes. When the winners had chased all the people they didn’t like away, well, they didn’t want to see images of the losers everywhere, and sculptures are like pictures arn't they? So they broke off the noses, arms and things and pushed them over” He could see as he spoke she was losing interest.
Job done he thought, but at the same time doubting his sister's parenting.
They returned quietly to their slushy sucking and coffee sipping, although the latter was done with more care.
“But Uncle Geoff?”
“Yeees?”
“If the arms and noses have been stuck back on some girls, why haven’t the dicks been stuck back on the boys?”
“Because nobody could find any of them” was the best answer Geoff could come up with.
Of course he knew this wasn't going to be the end of it. Sure enough, for the rest of the afternoon Geoff endured a relentless toddler interrogation. He was quizzed on the number, the size, ball inclusion, and the frequency of willie smashing, with varying tones of fascination, at embarrassing volumes and in awkward public transport moments, all the way home to mummy.
“Thanks so much for giving me a break” smiled Cheryl as she gathered her progeny from Geoff at their doorstep.
“That's okay, and no, I won’t come in” added Geoff before the question was put. “I am totally buggered. I don’t know how you do it every day. Anyway, I'll see you next week at Dad’s.” he reached over and kissed her goodbye and tussled Kylie’s hair.
“By the way, if I was you I’d brush up on everything you know about the phalluses of statues” he grinned as he walked away down the front path.
Getting home an hour later it was a relief to kick off his shoes, grab a beer and throw himself at the sofa. The beer was a due reward and he kicked up the foot-rest, pulled out his phone and started to scroll through his messages. There was a raft of them and he set about sorting out the work enquiries from the face and tweet crap that he always meant to hide but never got round to.
His third beer opened and all the work emails and messages done, he noticed a vid file from an old Uni mate of his, Keith.
Keith was now a seismologist on the oil rigs and travelled a lot so they didn't keep in touch much but he had sent Geoff an Italian video news article.
“Bugger me, bugger me” was all Geoff could repeat time and time again as the video rolled showing divers off Palermo blowing the sand off hundreds and hundreds of broken off statue penises laying on the sea floor. Keith had annotated some wry comments but Geoff couldn’t believe the coincidence. “Bugger me” he heard himself repeating.
He went to play the vid again to convince himself he did see what he had seen but the door bell rang. Dropping his phone he stumbled to answer the hammering. He was concerned a little now, who pounded on a door like that ? He glanced through the glass and saw a UPS bloke standing with a digital signature box and a vacant look on his face. Oh yeah, UPS men pound on doors like that.
“Got a delivery for you...Sign here” Geoff looked and saw the screen indicating a delivery from Cheryl. Why would she have sent me something today? he was thinking as he awkwardly signed the little plastic screen..
“Okay, where do you want them?” the UPS bloke asked. As Geoff looked up he saw a tipper truck reversing up his drive and jacking it’s load to dump about two tonne of what looked for all the world like thousands of broken-off male genitals right at the front of his door. "STOP IT " he yelled and raced out to vainly grab at the tipping truck. He tripped and as hundreds of stone cocks started to fall on top of him he felt a stream of strangely cold urine run down his legs.
Adrenalin pumping he woke, jumped up and looked down at his trousers. His last beer had spilt in his lap, a puddle of foam rolling over the leather sofa.
Two stupid cock tales , of course it had to be a dream he thought as he grabbed the spilt can and went soggy-legged into the kitchen to get a cloth.
(geddit? cock tales....cocktails , and dreams......oh, never mind)
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Last note from England
September 20, 2010
Task, Write something to do with technology.
© GregW
One final note - For the Record.
Late summer of the year 2047or 49
Thanks for taking the time to read what I fear is the last note from England.
I do hope to be able to explain a few things about what has happened here over the last few years. I am sorry but I have no method of keeping count of the number of those years, a survival existence provides so few diary keeping opportunities. I do know it has been more than ten winter seasons but how many more I can’t say.
It has been some twenty five years since I have actually put any writing implement to paper in order to communicate. It is strange doing it for the first time in so long, especially here in the Data museum in the wasted ruins of the city that was once Leeds.
First, let me get the obvious out of the way, yes, my handwriting is terrible, close to illegible I grant you, and my spelling less than perfect, I am guessing my spelling is poor, I really don’t know after all this time. I only ask you to endure the process of reading it as I am trying to be as neat as possible and voice recognition printing is a thing of the distant past. Oh, would that those days could return.
You will see around you the glass encased examples of leading-edge technology up to and including the year 2035. I have managed to remove the accumulated dust and detritus off this particular cabinet so the latest and smallest mind chips and eye cameras can be viewed through the magnifying lenses.
I guess now I have mentioned these chips and cameras I can say that England was proudly at the cutting edge of this information capture and interface technology prior to ‘The Event’. By the year 2028 more than two thirds of the UK population had joined the BT rollout of proximity networking, all of us had had our mind chips and eye cameras implanted and the rapid decline of hand held communication devices was not lamented.
England was delighted to be finally at the global forefront of something.
Naturally there had been resistance to the technology from the fundamental religious countries like the United Continents of America, New Combined Europe and Pacific China.
They had joined their voices to decry it as, and I can quote from memory, “One more evil initiative of England’s drive towards the un-godding of the planet.”
My guess is that it was really more a human objection to the government networked components being inserted into its citizen’s heads. But personally, I really liked having 50 terabytes of memory and infinite image recognition implanted into my life. I suddenly knew everything I wanted to and I could see anything I wanted as long as I was in range of a network hub, and by 2025 prox networking had reached everywhere in the UK.
The downside was of course that other nations had patchy networks and smaller countries refused to install the costly technology. This meant not many UK residents wanted to travel anymore. Why bother, after all we could download the artworks and architecture, have the atmosphere of a place simulated, order the food and fashions and see the views anytime we wanted, while doing what ever we wanted.
But as you probably know, all that ability ended when the tiny little asteroid landed on Drax.
It was huge news on the day of course, the National Grid lost most of its northern power generation and all the region went into brown-out until the nuclear generators came on-line to catch the load. I do wonder at the billions of pounds we spent on wind generation as we knew that climate change would bring weather and wind speeds outside their operating range. The rotting towers continue to litter the countryside with falling blades. But,,, I digress,,, and I can little afford the time or energy.
Of course you, dear visitor, will know much more than I do about what happened in the rest of the world when it was discovered that the Drax meteorite had bought an electron stabilising virus to earth. As the virus spread so quickly through our national power grid what we saw here was the daily failing of power distribution. Before the communication networks collapsed altogether we did learn our whole country plus Ireland was being isolated from all global interaction as the virus was found electrically contagious.
I do understand therefore that power sharing with Europe had to be cut.
But communication links?
Did they ever prove the virus could be spread by wireless and optical links?
I do wonder if such total panic was the right response.
I mean when the power stopped here, the network stopped, the mind chips and eye cameras stopped, the transport and manufacturing stopped, everything here stopped.
Anyway, as you would know, England was isolated from all world communication and travel. As far as I know, the virus didn’t spread outside the UK. I am hoping the rest of the world continued to exist. There were early attempts by us to travel off shore by boat but as all marine electrical systems were affected, that only left dead reckoning and sail craft. I did hear rumors the first attempts to cross the channel were met by hostile fire and I never heard anything about later attempts. But to be honest with you, after the initial shock, my life was one of protecting my home and fighting off the neighbors who raided my vegetable patch and stole my hens.
Life here has been grim, and I would have presumed there are no witness records of this country’s demise. The young generations had never learned to write. I thought today I’d just have to pretend I was strong and make it through the ruins to this abandoned and forgotten Technology museum in the hope I could leave this one last letter from England.
I know it is a very poor final chapter to the accumulated works of the Great English poets, playwrights and academics, but it is sadly what we are left with.
Regrettably I will not be able to continue my report further as my ability is failing, I know not of what cause, but I do have sufficient energy just to seal this note to the display case and I intend to do that and lay here beneath it with some remaining vanity, hoping my body at least will escape the hungered ravages of the remaining starved population.
Task, Write something to do with technology.
© GregW
One final note - For the Record.
Late summer of the year 2047or 49
Thanks for taking the time to read what I fear is the last note from England.
I do hope to be able to explain a few things about what has happened here over the last few years. I am sorry but I have no method of keeping count of the number of those years, a survival existence provides so few diary keeping opportunities. I do know it has been more than ten winter seasons but how many more I can’t say.
It has been some twenty five years since I have actually put any writing implement to paper in order to communicate. It is strange doing it for the first time in so long, especially here in the Data museum in the wasted ruins of the city that was once Leeds.
First, let me get the obvious out of the way, yes, my handwriting is terrible, close to illegible I grant you, and my spelling less than perfect, I am guessing my spelling is poor, I really don’t know after all this time. I only ask you to endure the process of reading it as I am trying to be as neat as possible and voice recognition printing is a thing of the distant past. Oh, would that those days could return.
You will see around you the glass encased examples of leading-edge technology up to and including the year 2035. I have managed to remove the accumulated dust and detritus off this particular cabinet so the latest and smallest mind chips and eye cameras can be viewed through the magnifying lenses.
I guess now I have mentioned these chips and cameras I can say that England was proudly at the cutting edge of this information capture and interface technology prior to ‘The Event’. By the year 2028 more than two thirds of the UK population had joined the BT rollout of proximity networking, all of us had had our mind chips and eye cameras implanted and the rapid decline of hand held communication devices was not lamented.
England was delighted to be finally at the global forefront of something.
Naturally there had been resistance to the technology from the fundamental religious countries like the United Continents of America, New Combined Europe and Pacific China.
They had joined their voices to decry it as, and I can quote from memory, “One more evil initiative of England’s drive towards the un-godding of the planet.”
My guess is that it was really more a human objection to the government networked components being inserted into its citizen’s heads. But personally, I really liked having 50 terabytes of memory and infinite image recognition implanted into my life. I suddenly knew everything I wanted to and I could see anything I wanted as long as I was in range of a network hub, and by 2025 prox networking had reached everywhere in the UK.
The downside was of course that other nations had patchy networks and smaller countries refused to install the costly technology. This meant not many UK residents wanted to travel anymore. Why bother, after all we could download the artworks and architecture, have the atmosphere of a place simulated, order the food and fashions and see the views anytime we wanted, while doing what ever we wanted.
But as you probably know, all that ability ended when the tiny little asteroid landed on Drax.
It was huge news on the day of course, the National Grid lost most of its northern power generation and all the region went into brown-out until the nuclear generators came on-line to catch the load. I do wonder at the billions of pounds we spent on wind generation as we knew that climate change would bring weather and wind speeds outside their operating range. The rotting towers continue to litter the countryside with falling blades. But,,, I digress,,, and I can little afford the time or energy.
Of course you, dear visitor, will know much more than I do about what happened in the rest of the world when it was discovered that the Drax meteorite had bought an electron stabilising virus to earth. As the virus spread so quickly through our national power grid what we saw here was the daily failing of power distribution. Before the communication networks collapsed altogether we did learn our whole country plus Ireland was being isolated from all global interaction as the virus was found electrically contagious.
I do understand therefore that power sharing with Europe had to be cut.
But communication links?
Did they ever prove the virus could be spread by wireless and optical links?
I do wonder if such total panic was the right response.
I mean when the power stopped here, the network stopped, the mind chips and eye cameras stopped, the transport and manufacturing stopped, everything here stopped.
Anyway, as you would know, England was isolated from all world communication and travel. As far as I know, the virus didn’t spread outside the UK. I am hoping the rest of the world continued to exist. There were early attempts by us to travel off shore by boat but as all marine electrical systems were affected, that only left dead reckoning and sail craft. I did hear rumors the first attempts to cross the channel were met by hostile fire and I never heard anything about later attempts. But to be honest with you, after the initial shock, my life was one of protecting my home and fighting off the neighbors who raided my vegetable patch and stole my hens.
Life here has been grim, and I would have presumed there are no witness records of this country’s demise. The young generations had never learned to write. I thought today I’d just have to pretend I was strong and make it through the ruins to this abandoned and forgotten Technology museum in the hope I could leave this one last letter from England.
I know it is a very poor final chapter to the accumulated works of the Great English poets, playwrights and academics, but it is sadly what we are left with.
Regrettably I will not be able to continue my report further as my ability is failing, I know not of what cause, but I do have sufficient energy just to seal this note to the display case and I intend to do that and lay here beneath it with some remaining vanity, hoping my body at least will escape the hungered ravages of the remaining starved population.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
It is such a comfortable place
Task: Write something to do with vegetables.
October 6, 2010
It is such a comfortable place. #1
GregW ©
Day notes from a hospital bed.
Oh fantastic, Sally has finally come, she’s late. I can hear her voice softly outside the room.
Today has been a long day, I think every doctor and nurse in the hospital must have come to prod, poke and read instruments around my bed. I feel exactly the same as I have always felt and in the end they all agree that nothing has changed. The situation report remains static as one of them put it. Great, it’s 1969 , there’s a man on the moon and the greatest medical minds of this modern age can only tell me I’m static.
Anyway now Sally is beside me again.
“Hi My darling” and I get a warm, soft kiss.
I wish I knew how she did that, generate such a wonderful feeling in me with just a simple kiss. I am sure she would love it if I could return that feeling in a kiss. It’s the sort of thing couples never discuss but I always feel I just don’t exude the warmth she does. She knows how I feel though. I’m sure she does.
It is always great at the end of a day to hear all that has been happening at home and in the business while I have been stuck in here.
She drags her seat up close and holds my hand. We have always held hands, its not something all long-married couples do I suppose but its how we are. I catch a smell of her and for some strange reason her scent makes the whole tiresome day disappear and stops me telling her about my petty complaints.
I am much keener to hear how the new partners are working out in our firm because although I have not been able to keep my eye right on the changes in the office I have almost enough confidence she is in control. Last week when the new orders all came in she couldn’t stop talking about how well things were running, and how the staff had all stepped up to the challenge of the new product lines.
But tonight there is something bugging her. There is a quavering in her usual chatty manner as she tells me of our young Matthew’s first day at big school. I feel that despite the happy story there is a sadness she isn’t telling me about. I know not to interrupt as I have learned from many years that she will tell me what’s bothering her in her own good time. Almost without a pause she babbles on and links seamlessly into the set up of the new offices for Keith and Ray, how they liked the fit out and the new board room. I am about to enquire whose desks had to be moved downstairs to accommodate the new floor plan when Dr. Richards interrupts our conversation.
I never liked Dr Richards, he rarely acknowledges me unless Sally directs him to include me. I hate doctors like him who see patients as inanimate objects of clinical fascination.
This time again he ignores me and asks Sally in a tone rather softer than his usual brusque manner,
‘Has there been any response tonight?’
Sally squeezes my hand tighter and I feel her warm kiss again on my forehead
‘No Doctor’ she says.
‘When you are ready then Mrs. West. Take as long as you want. The nurse will find me when you are.‘
Then he just leaves the room and I’m totally mystified.
I feel a tear fall on my cheek, and another one, suddenly Sally is crying great sobs and hugging me tight.
I can’t understand why she is upset.
She gasps and judders and asks me why I won’t fight.
She tells me she can’t go on and on and on every night talking to a vegetable wired up on a bed.
I have no idea what she is talking about, I want to get her to calm down and explain what she means.
But she doesn’t.
She lies quietly for ages next to me, sobbing occasionally.
Before I realise what is happening she sits up, takes a deep breath, kisses me on the lips and walks out without saying anything more.
I am stunned.
Almost immediately a nurse is beside my bed playing with some cords, I feel light headed and floating, it is such a comfortable place, and warm, I know there is something I should be upset about but, I can’t recall what it was, I just want to fall, deep, deep, asleep…………. . . . . . . . .
It is such a comfortable place. #2
Greg W ©.
Occasional notes from a pepper's bed
July 30, 2010.
This is such a comfortable place I find myself in now. The days and nights roll by, me and my brothers and sisters are all nicely cosseted in this wonderful translucent green orb. Sometimes it rains and every time, not too long after we have heard it pokking on the skin of the pod, we all get a wonderful sweet nectar which makes us all plump up a bit more. We really are all looking very well on it and happiness is everywhere.
August 12
I have noticed in recent days the pod starting to change to being a bit striped with yellow but today there are signs of deep red light filtering into us as we all huddle together at the top of the pod, getting closer to the nectar supply. We are all very thirsty and I think we are sucking too hard sometimes.
August 18
Nothing much has happened in the past week since the pod started to change colour but now we are bathed in an even red glow in the daytime and to be honest, things are getting a little bit uncomfortable. There seems to be less nectar coming and it’s sometimes very hot in here. I feel myself sort of drying out a little. The mist in the pod is thinning. One or two of my siblings have let go and lie un-fed below. We feel a bit sad about that but cling to our nectar supply.
August 22
A momentous day today. Quite catastrophic I think. There was a loud rumbling sound and lots of shaking, quite a few of my brothers were knocked off their nectar supply and they fell about, bumping into everyone else as the pod rolled around.
Almost immediately the shaking started, my supply of nectar, which had been getting less every day anyway, well it stopped. Just stopped. I panicked of course but I think I can survive if I stop trying to grow bigger than everyone else and sort of shut down, I’ll stop looking after my outer skin too, concentrate on saving my inside. I don’t get to think about how to do this much though because our pod is rolled and shaken with varying ferocity all the rest of the day.
August 27
I must have passed out. I am shocked to find my outer skin has dried off alarmingly, the pod is looking wrinkled and there is no mist or dew lining it’s inner walls any more.
WHAT IS THAT!?
A huge hard silver thing has pierced the pod. Horrible acrid dry air is rushing all around us. The hard silver thing is knocking us and scraping us all off our pod stem. I am ashamed to admit I pass out again.
August 28
Its so hot. I am suddenly aware I am lying out in the raw air, with a lot of us who I don’t recognise, I think I recognise one of my sisters nearby but I’m mistaken, she is horribly dried out and as gone a dark colour. A huge hot ball is throwing heat at us and I realise I’ll have to sacrifice my outer skin totally if I want to stay alive. I watch through the day as it goes slowly black and I retreat further within myself.
August 29
I have given up all hope now, late yesterday a huge warm soft thing pushed me around a bit and then a while later a different hard silver thing scooped me and a lot of others into a big hard cold silver box where we were left for ages. At least we are not under that huge hot ball anymore and I am feeling like if I could just get a little bit moist I might be able to recover.
August 30, 2010
That’s it for me then, this is my last entry. I‘m giving up, I’m closing down until I am sure the world still exists. The last straw has fallen on me I think. Today a not so big but still hard silver thing scooped me and about fifty others up and now we are all in some sort of airless clear pod, no mist, no nectar. I quit.
April 16, 2011.
It’s unbelievable. It is such a comfortable place I wake to find myself in. Without any conscious effort on my own behalf I find I have gained a new lease of life. I feel plump again and the old dry skin I remember has softened. I am in what I had always hoped to be in, a cool moist place. It’s very calm and dark and quiet. I try to get my bearings. At least now I am lying the right way up. But it is dark. I try to gather my thoughts, what do I want to do now? What do I want most? Easy. I want a drink, I want some nice light and rain, light is what I most want. After drink.
June , 2011
I am so sorry for not keeping in touch.
The past couple of months have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to make notes so I’ll try and catch you up now because I have made such a huge breakthrough!
So much has happened since I was dropped into that clear shiny pod then woke months later.
When I woke up I was parched. So parched. The first thing I had to figure out was how to get a drink. I was so surprised to find part of me, which I didn’t even know I had, it started to grow and as I watched it pushed out through my skin. I don’t think I could ever explain how amazed I was when it started to drink from the darkness around me and gave me some nectar.
Honestly, I just lay back and sucked up as much as I could for days. I am rather embarrassed to admit I have gone on to become a bit of a binge drinker over the period. Because of this I don’t recall a heck of a lot but I felt very different with a huge range of hard and soft things branching out everywhere from me and through which I happily sucked more and more in great gobs of wonderful nectar.
I actually got to a stage when I had just had far too much nectar. I was over satisfied but quite content. Then I remembered how I had once longed for some light and warmth. It was like I became immediatly obsessed. Light and Warmth, light and warmth, that was all I could think about. I had no idea how I could get light and warmth but one thing was sure, down wasn’t the way to go to find it. I had grown a big mess of hard and soft things that formed a mat beneath me so up was the only route. I had no idea how far up, nor how I could drag this mass of mating with me but as I said I was obsessed with light and warmth and I was now convinced up was the only way to go.
If I was pretty surprised to have grown nectar getting things before, you will never understand the feeling I got when a hard spike shot out of my head and proceeded over the course of a couple of days to push itself up through the dark.
Anyway, I stand here now, in full light, my top quite warm and my base busily sucking nectar. I have fun playing with the abundant source of nectar and I fill myself and slosh it around some new big green flat things that I have produced. I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now and I have finally discovered my purpose in life.
I’m pregnant.
Yes. Lots of pregnant. Popping out all over me. SO exciting!
I had thought the big pretty soft yellow things were gorgeous and I had loved the attention they bought me from all the flying jeweled things but pregnant, well pregnant is better than anything.
I have been quite lazy really just growing and plumping up my babies in the sun. I am rather bored now to be honest. It is such a comfortable place here that I have been lately a little slack in feeding the babies and I notice they are going a bit red on me.
Ooh! What is that I hear, a sort of rumbling is shaking the ground.. Hang on a minute, I’ll get back to you when I see what this huge motory wheel thing is going to do. It sounds exciting.
October 6, 2010
It is such a comfortable place. #1
GregW ©
Day notes from a hospital bed.
Oh fantastic, Sally has finally come, she’s late. I can hear her voice softly outside the room.
Today has been a long day, I think every doctor and nurse in the hospital must have come to prod, poke and read instruments around my bed. I feel exactly the same as I have always felt and in the end they all agree that nothing has changed. The situation report remains static as one of them put it. Great, it’s 1969 , there’s a man on the moon and the greatest medical minds of this modern age can only tell me I’m static.
Anyway now Sally is beside me again.
“Hi My darling” and I get a warm, soft kiss.
I wish I knew how she did that, generate such a wonderful feeling in me with just a simple kiss. I am sure she would love it if I could return that feeling in a kiss. It’s the sort of thing couples never discuss but I always feel I just don’t exude the warmth she does. She knows how I feel though. I’m sure she does.
It is always great at the end of a day to hear all that has been happening at home and in the business while I have been stuck in here.
She drags her seat up close and holds my hand. We have always held hands, its not something all long-married couples do I suppose but its how we are. I catch a smell of her and for some strange reason her scent makes the whole tiresome day disappear and stops me telling her about my petty complaints.
I am much keener to hear how the new partners are working out in our firm because although I have not been able to keep my eye right on the changes in the office I have almost enough confidence she is in control. Last week when the new orders all came in she couldn’t stop talking about how well things were running, and how the staff had all stepped up to the challenge of the new product lines.
But tonight there is something bugging her. There is a quavering in her usual chatty manner as she tells me of our young Matthew’s first day at big school. I feel that despite the happy story there is a sadness she isn’t telling me about. I know not to interrupt as I have learned from many years that she will tell me what’s bothering her in her own good time. Almost without a pause she babbles on and links seamlessly into the set up of the new offices for Keith and Ray, how they liked the fit out and the new board room. I am about to enquire whose desks had to be moved downstairs to accommodate the new floor plan when Dr. Richards interrupts our conversation.
I never liked Dr Richards, he rarely acknowledges me unless Sally directs him to include me. I hate doctors like him who see patients as inanimate objects of clinical fascination.
This time again he ignores me and asks Sally in a tone rather softer than his usual brusque manner,
‘Has there been any response tonight?’
Sally squeezes my hand tighter and I feel her warm kiss again on my forehead
‘No Doctor’ she says.
‘When you are ready then Mrs. West. Take as long as you want. The nurse will find me when you are.‘
Then he just leaves the room and I’m totally mystified.
I feel a tear fall on my cheek, and another one, suddenly Sally is crying great sobs and hugging me tight.
I can’t understand why she is upset.
She gasps and judders and asks me why I won’t fight.
She tells me she can’t go on and on and on every night talking to a vegetable wired up on a bed.
I have no idea what she is talking about, I want to get her to calm down and explain what she means.
But she doesn’t.
She lies quietly for ages next to me, sobbing occasionally.
Before I realise what is happening she sits up, takes a deep breath, kisses me on the lips and walks out without saying anything more.
I am stunned.
Almost immediately a nurse is beside my bed playing with some cords, I feel light headed and floating, it is such a comfortable place, and warm, I know there is something I should be upset about but, I can’t recall what it was, I just want to fall, deep, deep, asleep…………. . . . . . . . .
It is such a comfortable place. #2
Greg W ©.
Occasional notes from a pepper's bed
July 30, 2010.
This is such a comfortable place I find myself in now. The days and nights roll by, me and my brothers and sisters are all nicely cosseted in this wonderful translucent green orb. Sometimes it rains and every time, not too long after we have heard it pokking on the skin of the pod, we all get a wonderful sweet nectar which makes us all plump up a bit more. We really are all looking very well on it and happiness is everywhere.
August 12
I have noticed in recent days the pod starting to change to being a bit striped with yellow but today there are signs of deep red light filtering into us as we all huddle together at the top of the pod, getting closer to the nectar supply. We are all very thirsty and I think we are sucking too hard sometimes.
August 18
Nothing much has happened in the past week since the pod started to change colour but now we are bathed in an even red glow in the daytime and to be honest, things are getting a little bit uncomfortable. There seems to be less nectar coming and it’s sometimes very hot in here. I feel myself sort of drying out a little. The mist in the pod is thinning. One or two of my siblings have let go and lie un-fed below. We feel a bit sad about that but cling to our nectar supply.
August 22
A momentous day today. Quite catastrophic I think. There was a loud rumbling sound and lots of shaking, quite a few of my brothers were knocked off their nectar supply and they fell about, bumping into everyone else as the pod rolled around.
Almost immediately the shaking started, my supply of nectar, which had been getting less every day anyway, well it stopped. Just stopped. I panicked of course but I think I can survive if I stop trying to grow bigger than everyone else and sort of shut down, I’ll stop looking after my outer skin too, concentrate on saving my inside. I don’t get to think about how to do this much though because our pod is rolled and shaken with varying ferocity all the rest of the day.
August 27
I must have passed out. I am shocked to find my outer skin has dried off alarmingly, the pod is looking wrinkled and there is no mist or dew lining it’s inner walls any more.
WHAT IS THAT!?
A huge hard silver thing has pierced the pod. Horrible acrid dry air is rushing all around us. The hard silver thing is knocking us and scraping us all off our pod stem. I am ashamed to admit I pass out again.
August 28
Its so hot. I am suddenly aware I am lying out in the raw air, with a lot of us who I don’t recognise, I think I recognise one of my sisters nearby but I’m mistaken, she is horribly dried out and as gone a dark colour. A huge hot ball is throwing heat at us and I realise I’ll have to sacrifice my outer skin totally if I want to stay alive. I watch through the day as it goes slowly black and I retreat further within myself.
August 29
I have given up all hope now, late yesterday a huge warm soft thing pushed me around a bit and then a while later a different hard silver thing scooped me and a lot of others into a big hard cold silver box where we were left for ages. At least we are not under that huge hot ball anymore and I am feeling like if I could just get a little bit moist I might be able to recover.
August 30, 2010
That’s it for me then, this is my last entry. I‘m giving up, I’m closing down until I am sure the world still exists. The last straw has fallen on me I think. Today a not so big but still hard silver thing scooped me and about fifty others up and now we are all in some sort of airless clear pod, no mist, no nectar. I quit.
April 16, 2011.
It’s unbelievable. It is such a comfortable place I wake to find myself in. Without any conscious effort on my own behalf I find I have gained a new lease of life. I feel plump again and the old dry skin I remember has softened. I am in what I had always hoped to be in, a cool moist place. It’s very calm and dark and quiet. I try to get my bearings. At least now I am lying the right way up. But it is dark. I try to gather my thoughts, what do I want to do now? What do I want most? Easy. I want a drink, I want some nice light and rain, light is what I most want. After drink.
June , 2011
I am so sorry for not keeping in touch.
The past couple of months have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to make notes so I’ll try and catch you up now because I have made such a huge breakthrough!
So much has happened since I was dropped into that clear shiny pod then woke months later.
When I woke up I was parched. So parched. The first thing I had to figure out was how to get a drink. I was so surprised to find part of me, which I didn’t even know I had, it started to grow and as I watched it pushed out through my skin. I don’t think I could ever explain how amazed I was when it started to drink from the darkness around me and gave me some nectar.
Honestly, I just lay back and sucked up as much as I could for days. I am rather embarrassed to admit I have gone on to become a bit of a binge drinker over the period. Because of this I don’t recall a heck of a lot but I felt very different with a huge range of hard and soft things branching out everywhere from me and through which I happily sucked more and more in great gobs of wonderful nectar.
I actually got to a stage when I had just had far too much nectar. I was over satisfied but quite content. Then I remembered how I had once longed for some light and warmth. It was like I became immediatly obsessed. Light and Warmth, light and warmth, that was all I could think about. I had no idea how I could get light and warmth but one thing was sure, down wasn’t the way to go to find it. I had grown a big mess of hard and soft things that formed a mat beneath me so up was the only route. I had no idea how far up, nor how I could drag this mass of mating with me but as I said I was obsessed with light and warmth and I was now convinced up was the only way to go.
If I was pretty surprised to have grown nectar getting things before, you will never understand the feeling I got when a hard spike shot out of my head and proceeded over the course of a couple of days to push itself up through the dark.
Anyway, I stand here now, in full light, my top quite warm and my base busily sucking nectar. I have fun playing with the abundant source of nectar and I fill myself and slosh it around some new big green flat things that I have produced. I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now and I have finally discovered my purpose in life.
I’m pregnant.
Yes. Lots of pregnant. Popping out all over me. SO exciting!
I had thought the big pretty soft yellow things were gorgeous and I had loved the attention they bought me from all the flying jeweled things but pregnant, well pregnant is better than anything.
I have been quite lazy really just growing and plumping up my babies in the sun. I am rather bored now to be honest. It is such a comfortable place here that I have been lately a little slack in feeding the babies and I notice they are going a bit red on me.
Ooh! What is that I hear, a sort of rumbling is shaking the ground.. Hang on a minute, I’ll get back to you when I see what this huge motory wheel thing is going to do. It sounds exciting.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Can't they hear me screaming
Task: write something about the theme of alcohol.
September 22, 2010
Can’t they hear me screaming?
GregW ©
Oh shit, , another sunny day.
This is what people call a great summer.
Not for me though, I do better in the rain, snow is best. I am looking around. Mike and Shirley, the Jedi and Keith have all cleared off.
Bugger. They will have beat me to the best spots.
Wonder what time it is? Doesn’t really matter I suppose, I never do too well out of the morning rush hour, Shirley cleans up best for that but she’s more in your face and performing than I am. Pretty she is, but costs Mike a fortune to feed, I suppose it makes sense.
Anyway, what I need now is a clean sheet. My rag-arsed signs, there’s no denying it, are crap now. I have to write new material. The “Obama and I both want change" one’s fantastic but it’s gone out of date, it was good for me though. Problem is, other buggers knock them off if they are any good. Then there is no money in them.
I stare around all the junk laying about. Keith’s bedding looks promising, yeah, there’s a nice clean bit. Fantastic. Pen, where’s my felt pen. Right, what was that one.. … oh yeah. I space out the letters, “Let’s do Lunch, it’s your turn to pay.” That’ll catch them. Cardboard is hard to read off though , takes a lot of ink. But, Yeah, that looks okay.
I think the walking there is never as bad as the sitting. You can’t move or someone jumps your spot.
Could you help me out sir? I just need a quid for bus fare?
It looks like the Lloyds stairs are free. Fantastic. I do like this spot, you get to guilt out the bus and the bank people as they queue.
And stairs are always cool, especially in the middle, lots of people dodging around you. I’m squatted, my sign is propped, I’m catching glances and smiling.
“Hey thank you! See you at half one! Yeah!”
“Most kind, I really thank you.”
And
“No, thanks, tried that , didn’t work for me. No really I’m fine right here. Look , I’m being polite please go , I’m not interested. Okay, I’ve tried to be nice but you and your condescending god can go root yourselves. Yeah look, now you are costing me lunch money, will you piss off! Great. ' Thank Christ for that “ I yell after him.
Bloody sanctimonious judgmental do-gooders.
“He was only trying to help you, you know.”
Yeah, well ,( I nudge my cap), he didn’t give me anything.
Then , Thank you madam, really, thank you.
And so the day goes on. I change my sign for the afternoon, this one reads “I am a Time Traveler and only need another 90p to buy a Flux Capacitor”
As usual it scores well for me right through until about sunset.
My last sign change is “bet you can’t hit my face with a 2 pound coin!’
It is worth the pain to get the results this one brings from the party crowd.
The walking is always better than the sitting. The girl at the checkout gives me the ignore as usual but at least now she doesn’t try and short change me.
Not after the last time.
I am still quite proud of that performance.
Anyway she still has her job. And I get what I want every night. A daily escape. Was a good day today so no cider for me. They are doing vodka litres at a couple of quid. I’m onto that. The walking is always better, the vodka is good company.
The junk laying around our sleeping places is looking worse.
Mike tells me it was Keith that has kicked the shit out of my stuff, spread it everywhere and tore up my signs.
The prick.
It was only one sheet of cardboard I took, how’d he even notice it was gone.?.
I’m half tanked and now I need to sort all my shit out. I’ll flatten the bastard if he shows himself. Aw shit. He’s trashed my best sign I can only just make out the words “I’ll bet you 2 quid…’ and he rest has thick muck smeared all over it, I spent ages on that. The bastard. Thank Christ I had a good day,
All sorted, and the bottle finished. not feeling, too bad, at all., .
I’ll do the Headrow tomorrow.
Bugger, another fine day, Mike is snoring with Shirley curled up on his pack. Keith hasn’t had the balls to come back. Miserable bastard. I’ve got a good mind to clear him out. It’s probably not worth it though, Live and let live.
The Headrow is heaving today, I got moved on too much but I’m doing okay I suppose. That same sweet girl gave me another fiver today, had a good smile from her too, she is a sweet thing. And the only sign I could use was the one, “Wife kidnapped, just need another 90p to meet ransom.” which has sort of been okay I guess.
I’m calling it early today. it’s Thursday.
Scotch is in the discount bin on Thursdays. Got to get there early.
I like scotch.
Fantastic, I wake up and finally it’s raining. Hope the bin outside The Light hasn’t been grabbed, big earner spot that, on a wet day.
Again I don’t mind the walk,
I get a couple of quid from an old dear on the bus stand, she’s a sweety.
Shit, Keith’s got the bin spot.
I’ll kick the prick in the balls if he doesn’t leave, the bastard. Yeah, he’s seen me coming. The weak tosser, he’s leaving, Just as well. It’s my wet spot. I smile a bit, sadly.
It’s the act of me cleaning the space next to the bin that makes her smile so I act it up, being more particular.
She’s got about another minute of her smoke left so if I time it right……
Okay I’m set up. I’ll unfold my new sign with a flourish and aim it at her.
She laughs and comes over, drops some coin in my cap and says,
“Try and keep dry.”
I check my sign. She smiles some more and says , that’s my advice. And she goes back inside to work.
The down side of this sign, “I’ll listen to all your advice for just 2 pounds” is that some dickheads think I mean it.
The sign was not a good earner today.
I’m wet and I’m not buying scotch tonight.
I have smiled at more people than I wanted to.
All I want to know is why they can’t hear me screaming.
September 22, 2010
Can’t they hear me screaming?
GregW ©
Oh shit, , another sunny day.
This is what people call a great summer.
Not for me though, I do better in the rain, snow is best. I am looking around. Mike and Shirley, the Jedi and Keith have all cleared off.
Bugger. They will have beat me to the best spots.
Wonder what time it is? Doesn’t really matter I suppose, I never do too well out of the morning rush hour, Shirley cleans up best for that but she’s more in your face and performing than I am. Pretty she is, but costs Mike a fortune to feed, I suppose it makes sense.
Anyway, what I need now is a clean sheet. My rag-arsed signs, there’s no denying it, are crap now. I have to write new material. The “Obama and I both want change" one’s fantastic but it’s gone out of date, it was good for me though. Problem is, other buggers knock them off if they are any good. Then there is no money in them.
I stare around all the junk laying about. Keith’s bedding looks promising, yeah, there’s a nice clean bit. Fantastic. Pen, where’s my felt pen. Right, what was that one.. … oh yeah. I space out the letters, “Let’s do Lunch, it’s your turn to pay.” That’ll catch them. Cardboard is hard to read off though , takes a lot of ink. But, Yeah, that looks okay.
I think the walking there is never as bad as the sitting. You can’t move or someone jumps your spot.
Could you help me out sir? I just need a quid for bus fare?
It looks like the Lloyds stairs are free. Fantastic. I do like this spot, you get to guilt out the bus and the bank people as they queue.
And stairs are always cool, especially in the middle, lots of people dodging around you. I’m squatted, my sign is propped, I’m catching glances and smiling.
“Hey thank you! See you at half one! Yeah!”
“Most kind, I really thank you.”
And
“No, thanks, tried that , didn’t work for me. No really I’m fine right here. Look , I’m being polite please go , I’m not interested. Okay, I’ve tried to be nice but you and your condescending god can go root yourselves. Yeah look, now you are costing me lunch money, will you piss off! Great. ' Thank Christ for that “ I yell after him.
Bloody sanctimonious judgmental do-gooders.
“He was only trying to help you, you know.”
Yeah, well ,( I nudge my cap), he didn’t give me anything.
Then , Thank you madam, really, thank you.
And so the day goes on. I change my sign for the afternoon, this one reads “I am a Time Traveler and only need another 90p to buy a Flux Capacitor”
As usual it scores well for me right through until about sunset.
My last sign change is “bet you can’t hit my face with a 2 pound coin!’
It is worth the pain to get the results this one brings from the party crowd.
The walking is always better than the sitting. The girl at the checkout gives me the ignore as usual but at least now she doesn’t try and short change me.
Not after the last time.
I am still quite proud of that performance.
Anyway she still has her job. And I get what I want every night. A daily escape. Was a good day today so no cider for me. They are doing vodka litres at a couple of quid. I’m onto that. The walking is always better, the vodka is good company.
The junk laying around our sleeping places is looking worse.
Mike tells me it was Keith that has kicked the shit out of my stuff, spread it everywhere and tore up my signs.
The prick.
It was only one sheet of cardboard I took, how’d he even notice it was gone.?.
I’m half tanked and now I need to sort all my shit out. I’ll flatten the bastard if he shows himself. Aw shit. He’s trashed my best sign I can only just make out the words “I’ll bet you 2 quid…’ and he rest has thick muck smeared all over it, I spent ages on that. The bastard. Thank Christ I had a good day,
All sorted, and the bottle finished. not feeling, too bad, at all., .
I’ll do the Headrow tomorrow.
Bugger, another fine day, Mike is snoring with Shirley curled up on his pack. Keith hasn’t had the balls to come back. Miserable bastard. I’ve got a good mind to clear him out. It’s probably not worth it though, Live and let live.
The Headrow is heaving today, I got moved on too much but I’m doing okay I suppose. That same sweet girl gave me another fiver today, had a good smile from her too, she is a sweet thing. And the only sign I could use was the one, “Wife kidnapped, just need another 90p to meet ransom.” which has sort of been okay I guess.
I’m calling it early today. it’s Thursday.
Scotch is in the discount bin on Thursdays. Got to get there early.
I like scotch.
Fantastic, I wake up and finally it’s raining. Hope the bin outside The Light hasn’t been grabbed, big earner spot that, on a wet day.
Again I don’t mind the walk,
I get a couple of quid from an old dear on the bus stand, she’s a sweety.
Shit, Keith’s got the bin spot.
I’ll kick the prick in the balls if he doesn’t leave, the bastard. Yeah, he’s seen me coming. The weak tosser, he’s leaving, Just as well. It’s my wet spot. I smile a bit, sadly.
It’s the act of me cleaning the space next to the bin that makes her smile so I act it up, being more particular.
She’s got about another minute of her smoke left so if I time it right……
Okay I’m set up. I’ll unfold my new sign with a flourish and aim it at her.
She laughs and comes over, drops some coin in my cap and says,
“Try and keep dry.”
I check my sign. She smiles some more and says , that’s my advice. And she goes back inside to work.
The down side of this sign, “I’ll listen to all your advice for just 2 pounds” is that some dickheads think I mean it.
The sign was not a good earner today.
I’m wet and I’m not buying scotch tonight.
I have smiled at more people than I wanted to.
All I want to know is why they can’t hear me screaming.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
An Investigation
Task for 8/9/10 Savage meeting
GregW ©
Something about a writers meeting.
Case: Investigating reports of public immoral activity.
Location: Back room – Prince of Wales Hotel,
Mill Hill, Leeds UK.
Reporting officer: Inspector Max West,
Stationed: West Yorkshire, Leeds HQ
Date: September 8th, 2010.
Time: 19:47
Conditions: Light rain.
Upon arriving at the above address I gained entry via the front bar.
Being a Wednesday night the general premises was not busy and I counted three non-target individuals and two bar staff.
I ordered an orange juice and proceeded to the back room of the establishment. This room is not apparent from the public area and is served by the publican via a private bar, opening in such a way as to ensure no visible link is possible from the street or front bar.
On entering this back room, my arrival was briefly acknowledged by three of the 12 people gathered around a group of tables. The remaining 9 people were looking at one female as she bared and disported her sensuality while reciting lurid text in a north Yorkshire accent. A space was made available for me to be seated between a dark haired Caucasian female of some twenty years and a Caucasian male of slight stature whom I estimate to be aged mid 40’s both of whom welcomed me in non-local inflections.
It eventuated that these individuals and in fact all attendees represented themselves with aliases, obscuring their real identities. I have included full descriptions and my observed deviant tendencies of each individual in Addendum “A”
My initial observations were of a group enraptured by the performance underway at the time of my arrival. At the conclusion of the act there was a slight pause then the group began to stroke her shortcoming and caress the more sensitive parts, some attendees were more brutal and thrusting but eventually silence and a calm fell on the group. A shaved-headed, fit looking male called for the next display. A thickset male sitting at the darkest corner leaned back and commenced a shuddering erotic routine which faltered, gained orgasmic intensity and resulted after some minutes in the expected but no less surprising climactic conclusion. There were resultant gasps from some of the younger and perhaps more innocent members of the group, a few nervous chuckles and one or two nodding moans of complicity. A slight young girl offered her appreciation with an unusual use of her tongue and neatly encapsulated the experience. This extremely conclusive occurrence prompted the female sitting next to me to presumptively remove her cloak of respectability and, as I was able to closely observe, wantonly expose the method in which she had taken the pleasure and life from a male victim whose only crime at that time was, she reported in summary later, not agreeing with her continued attendance at these very meetings. Having displayed her delights with some nervousness she concluded her piece flushed of face and short of breath….A well nourished gent beside her fondled her uncertainty and cupped the ample presentation of her disclosed points in a misguided attempt of comfort, not surprisingly rebuffed.
It was at this tensely charged and socially more uncomfortable juncture that the shaved-headed male called time for a break in proceedings. On this announcement there was an unsightly tumbling of members frantically leaving the room to inhale substances and ingest mood and mind altering recipes.
I found myself left alone in the room with one of the group who tried to gain my private and total involvement in a one-on-one exposure that I find repugnant and unable to document to this day.
It was with great relief I escaped the clutches of this debauched disciple and after ordering another fruit drink I took a different seat as the group reformed. Slowly, an amusingly candid banter unfolded including discussions on finding suitably ignorant publicans with space for future meetings. It became apparent that these gatherings while regular were fraught with finding premises that would allow the group to grow, or as I suspect, to return.
The night continued after the discussion, as previously and in a similar a vein of moral corruption and sexual tension, but now the group was well fuelled with substances and were obviously and abundantly lubricated. To spare the public record and to allow some decency to remain in the court when this document is read, I will summarise by reporting briefly the things exposed between 20:30 and 22:30. These performances contained but were not in any way limited to the use of narcotics, Greco-roman dismemberment, necrophilia, blatant sacrilege and acts performed on small furry animals which I cannot cope with writing on this or any other page.
I conclude this report by recommending that further investigations of this group of savages should never again be forced on the employees of the West Yorkshire services. I fear other staff would suffer ultimate moral destruction and imminent corruption of all social sensibility. These horrors and exposure to raw human excess and depravity are best contained within obscure and robust walls.
My recommendation therefore:
1. Allow this harmless bunch of misfit writers to continue their aberrant mental wanderings and
2. support their readings and writings by offering them the requested government funding. That will ensure either the immediate demise of the movement or require a more publicly consumable product be produced.
Either outcome would equally serve the greater population of Leeds and West Yorkshire.
M. West, D.I., Leeds special branch, Grants and loans.
GregW ©
Something about a writers meeting.
Case: Investigating reports of public immoral activity.
Location: Back room – Prince of Wales Hotel,
Mill Hill, Leeds UK.
Reporting officer: Inspector Max West,
Stationed: West Yorkshire, Leeds HQ
Date: September 8th, 2010.
Time: 19:47
Conditions: Light rain.
Upon arriving at the above address I gained entry via the front bar.
Being a Wednesday night the general premises was not busy and I counted three non-target individuals and two bar staff.
I ordered an orange juice and proceeded to the back room of the establishment. This room is not apparent from the public area and is served by the publican via a private bar, opening in such a way as to ensure no visible link is possible from the street or front bar.
On entering this back room, my arrival was briefly acknowledged by three of the 12 people gathered around a group of tables. The remaining 9 people were looking at one female as she bared and disported her sensuality while reciting lurid text in a north Yorkshire accent. A space was made available for me to be seated between a dark haired Caucasian female of some twenty years and a Caucasian male of slight stature whom I estimate to be aged mid 40’s both of whom welcomed me in non-local inflections.
It eventuated that these individuals and in fact all attendees represented themselves with aliases, obscuring their real identities. I have included full descriptions and my observed deviant tendencies of each individual in Addendum “A”
My initial observations were of a group enraptured by the performance underway at the time of my arrival. At the conclusion of the act there was a slight pause then the group began to stroke her shortcoming and caress the more sensitive parts, some attendees were more brutal and thrusting but eventually silence and a calm fell on the group. A shaved-headed, fit looking male called for the next display. A thickset male sitting at the darkest corner leaned back and commenced a shuddering erotic routine which faltered, gained orgasmic intensity and resulted after some minutes in the expected but no less surprising climactic conclusion. There were resultant gasps from some of the younger and perhaps more innocent members of the group, a few nervous chuckles and one or two nodding moans of complicity. A slight young girl offered her appreciation with an unusual use of her tongue and neatly encapsulated the experience. This extremely conclusive occurrence prompted the female sitting next to me to presumptively remove her cloak of respectability and, as I was able to closely observe, wantonly expose the method in which she had taken the pleasure and life from a male victim whose only crime at that time was, she reported in summary later, not agreeing with her continued attendance at these very meetings. Having displayed her delights with some nervousness she concluded her piece flushed of face and short of breath….A well nourished gent beside her fondled her uncertainty and cupped the ample presentation of her disclosed points in a misguided attempt of comfort, not surprisingly rebuffed.
It was at this tensely charged and socially more uncomfortable juncture that the shaved-headed male called time for a break in proceedings. On this announcement there was an unsightly tumbling of members frantically leaving the room to inhale substances and ingest mood and mind altering recipes.
I found myself left alone in the room with one of the group who tried to gain my private and total involvement in a one-on-one exposure that I find repugnant and unable to document to this day.
It was with great relief I escaped the clutches of this debauched disciple and after ordering another fruit drink I took a different seat as the group reformed. Slowly, an amusingly candid banter unfolded including discussions on finding suitably ignorant publicans with space for future meetings. It became apparent that these gatherings while regular were fraught with finding premises that would allow the group to grow, or as I suspect, to return.
The night continued after the discussion, as previously and in a similar a vein of moral corruption and sexual tension, but now the group was well fuelled with substances and were obviously and abundantly lubricated. To spare the public record and to allow some decency to remain in the court when this document is read, I will summarise by reporting briefly the things exposed between 20:30 and 22:30. These performances contained but were not in any way limited to the use of narcotics, Greco-roman dismemberment, necrophilia, blatant sacrilege and acts performed on small furry animals which I cannot cope with writing on this or any other page.
I conclude this report by recommending that further investigations of this group of savages should never again be forced on the employees of the West Yorkshire services. I fear other staff would suffer ultimate moral destruction and imminent corruption of all social sensibility. These horrors and exposure to raw human excess and depravity are best contained within obscure and robust walls.
My recommendation therefore:
1. Allow this harmless bunch of misfit writers to continue their aberrant mental wanderings and
2. support their readings and writings by offering them the requested government funding. That will ensure either the immediate demise of the movement or require a more publicly consumable product be produced.
Either outcome would equally serve the greater population of Leeds and West Yorkshire.
M. West, D.I., Leeds special branch, Grants and loans.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
24 hour service
Task – something about a letter or related
GregW © 20/8/2010
24 hour service.
SHIT! Shit shit shit.
What the hell was that? Arrgh! My head!
It’s still bloody dark.
I fumble for the alarm, hit the snooze button, no, wasn’t the alarm.
Gawd, it’s 3:23.
I know it happens like this. You wake from a stupor convinced there’s a noise but not knowing if it was a dream or if someone’s breaking down the door.
I fall back onto my pillow, last night’s excess is sloshing through my brain.
It settles down into a thumping that I know will turn into a bloody good reason not to want daylight. Why do I do this to myself?
But right now. Why am I awake?
Oh yeah, that noise. I try to remember what I heard, I try a sort of dull mental replay. Problem is, the thing I am using to remember with, well, it isn’t up to doing much.
The thumping in my head slows to a sick pulse. I move slightly to ease the pain. Nope. That doesn’t work.
I think it sounded like a crash or something.
Oh bugger! What if someone has broken into the place?. Shit.
I hold my breath and try and push every sense to my ears for super-human hearing .
All I hear is the smashing of my heart into my head.
Then a quick panic, was that a noise? No. That wasn’t a sound, I listen again, quiet for ages, not a creak, not a swish, not a tap, a rasp, nothing. Even the window-scraping branch outside hangs motionless.
Christ my head hurts, huge bloody ache. I feel like I’m going to pass out, oh, what is going on? My mouth gasps a breath. Oh,,, oh that’s better, god, I forgot to breathe, how smashed am I?
I relax back into my pillow, but that sound replays again and again in my mind, now I recognize it, I think.
I move my head and a flood of ache and nausea swells and stops me thinking.
I lay still, .
Breathing shallow, I convince myself there really are no more noises.
So what was that bloody noise, I’m sure I know it, it had a metallic, a double clunk sort of, it’s familliar, what is it? Something else too, a sound of something dropping, something light but stiff. Like a tea bag into a cup, or, an envelo..,,,, . A fucking Envelope! That was it. Some bastard has shot an envelope through my mail slot!
At 3 in the morning!
Dickhead.
Oh Christ my head!
What a relief though. A bloody letter, bugger me.
I feel a calm slowly descend through the ache behind my eyes.
I feel the softness of the pillow again. I do like my pillow. Nice pillow. nice p….
Who the fuck would be delivering a letter at 3am?
Hang on. Was it a letter or a firework? Can I smell a fuse?, petrol?
I almost sit up but the dumping of what feels like four tons of hot lead into my eyes drops me to motionless recovery. As I regain control from my torrent of pain, there is no fire, no petrol, nothing but my stale stench of booze, sweat and panic.
So it was just a letter I suppose.
Still, a letter, 3 oclock, a mystery, a puzzle,,,, a nice pillow, such a nice pillow.
Hang on, now I’m feeling ill….aawwhhaa…afloat on a sea ..No, no, … It’ll pass, don’t have to move. It’ll be alright, I’ll be fine. Oh god why do I do this to myself,
I reach out blind and scrabble through the mess on my side table, fingers feeling for some Rennies, nah, fags, no, condoms, oh, a beer, no, ashtray, ,,,oh bugger it, I’ll be okay. I’ll just lie here…. very still,, on my…. back…. and…. Szzs sczzsc ssnncczzsc.
Aw, my throat, cough, ca-ow!
What the?
Oh yeah.
Damn.
What time is it!? Daytime something. The clock, hm, 9:52. morning.
Which one I wonder,
Can, gotta go to the can, busting. Oh that’s not good. Sitting up – bad move. Gotta go though. Feet not working proper, bump doorway, bruised my shoulder, sit down for a pee, my head in my hands, elbows on knees . A horrible wave of internal sloshing passing through my body, this piss is taking ages, maybe I just doze off here for a little while.
My head falls off my hand and I jolt up, a jackhammer explodes into the back of my eyes. Oh gawd, none of this is good.
I drag the bathrobe from the hook, manage to wash my face and hands.
Now desperate for a coffee and a fag.
plod to the stairs and brace myself, step by cautious step down the banister.
And there it is, propped at an angle, it’s narrow edge on the floor, leaning back against the door.
For ever such a small while I look at it perplexed, a jet2 ticket folder. Hmmm. I’m debating if it’s worth the pain of reaching down.
Then a massive and sudden injection of adrenaline and recollection.
Stunned like a dear in headlights I stare , the ticket now resting there gruesomely. Mocking. I don’t want to look at it.
I can’t move, too many things are crashing together trying to find working bits in my brain.
Brain can’t cope.
Wedding.
Paris.
Airport an hour away,
no cab booked,
flight’s at 11:30 I think.
Oh shit. Shit shit shit shit .
(acknowledgement to Richard Curtis/4 weddings and a funeral script, opening scene.
I only noticed re-reading what I just wrote, how close it is to the beginning of that movie, funny the influences one absorbs)
GregW © 20/8/2010
24 hour service.
SHIT! Shit shit shit.
What the hell was that? Arrgh! My head!
It’s still bloody dark.
I fumble for the alarm, hit the snooze button, no, wasn’t the alarm.
Gawd, it’s 3:23.
I know it happens like this. You wake from a stupor convinced there’s a noise but not knowing if it was a dream or if someone’s breaking down the door.
I fall back onto my pillow, last night’s excess is sloshing through my brain.
It settles down into a thumping that I know will turn into a bloody good reason not to want daylight. Why do I do this to myself?
But right now. Why am I awake?
Oh yeah, that noise. I try to remember what I heard, I try a sort of dull mental replay. Problem is, the thing I am using to remember with, well, it isn’t up to doing much.
The thumping in my head slows to a sick pulse. I move slightly to ease the pain. Nope. That doesn’t work.
I think it sounded like a crash or something.
Oh bugger! What if someone has broken into the place?. Shit.
I hold my breath and try and push every sense to my ears for super-human hearing .
All I hear is the smashing of my heart into my head.
Then a quick panic, was that a noise? No. That wasn’t a sound, I listen again, quiet for ages, not a creak, not a swish, not a tap, a rasp, nothing. Even the window-scraping branch outside hangs motionless.
Christ my head hurts, huge bloody ache. I feel like I’m going to pass out, oh, what is going on? My mouth gasps a breath. Oh,,, oh that’s better, god, I forgot to breathe, how smashed am I?
I relax back into my pillow, but that sound replays again and again in my mind, now I recognize it, I think.
I move my head and a flood of ache and nausea swells and stops me thinking.
I lay still, .
Breathing shallow, I convince myself there really are no more noises.
So what was that bloody noise, I’m sure I know it, it had a metallic, a double clunk sort of, it’s familliar, what is it? Something else too, a sound of something dropping, something light but stiff. Like a tea bag into a cup, or, an envelo..,,,, . A fucking Envelope! That was it. Some bastard has shot an envelope through my mail slot!
At 3 in the morning!
Dickhead.
Oh Christ my head!
What a relief though. A bloody letter, bugger me.
I feel a calm slowly descend through the ache behind my eyes.
I feel the softness of the pillow again. I do like my pillow. Nice pillow. nice p….
Who the fuck would be delivering a letter at 3am?
Hang on. Was it a letter or a firework? Can I smell a fuse?, petrol?
I almost sit up but the dumping of what feels like four tons of hot lead into my eyes drops me to motionless recovery. As I regain control from my torrent of pain, there is no fire, no petrol, nothing but my stale stench of booze, sweat and panic.
So it was just a letter I suppose.
Still, a letter, 3 oclock, a mystery, a puzzle,,,, a nice pillow, such a nice pillow.
Hang on, now I’m feeling ill….aawwhhaa…afloat on a sea ..No, no, … It’ll pass, don’t have to move. It’ll be alright, I’ll be fine. Oh god why do I do this to myself,
I reach out blind and scrabble through the mess on my side table, fingers feeling for some Rennies, nah, fags, no, condoms, oh, a beer, no, ashtray, ,,,oh bugger it, I’ll be okay. I’ll just lie here…. very still,, on my…. back…. and…. Szzs sczzsc ssnncczzsc.
Aw, my throat, cough, ca-ow!
What the?
Oh yeah.
Damn.
What time is it!? Daytime something. The clock, hm, 9:52. morning.
Which one I wonder,
Can, gotta go to the can, busting. Oh that’s not good. Sitting up – bad move. Gotta go though. Feet not working proper, bump doorway, bruised my shoulder, sit down for a pee, my head in my hands, elbows on knees . A horrible wave of internal sloshing passing through my body, this piss is taking ages, maybe I just doze off here for a little while.
My head falls off my hand and I jolt up, a jackhammer explodes into the back of my eyes. Oh gawd, none of this is good.
I drag the bathrobe from the hook, manage to wash my face and hands.
Now desperate for a coffee and a fag.
plod to the stairs and brace myself, step by cautious step down the banister.
And there it is, propped at an angle, it’s narrow edge on the floor, leaning back against the door.
For ever such a small while I look at it perplexed, a jet2 ticket folder. Hmmm. I’m debating if it’s worth the pain of reaching down.
Then a massive and sudden injection of adrenaline and recollection.
Stunned like a dear in headlights I stare , the ticket now resting there gruesomely. Mocking. I don’t want to look at it.
I can’t move, too many things are crashing together trying to find working bits in my brain.
Brain can’t cope.
Wedding.
Paris.
Airport an hour away,
no cab booked,
flight’s at 11:30 I think.
Oh shit. Shit shit shit shit .
(acknowledgement to Richard Curtis/4 weddings and a funeral script, opening scene.
I only noticed re-reading what I just wrote, how close it is to the beginning of that movie, funny the influences one absorbs)
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
an unlabeled data file
28 July 2010 Greg W. ©
Task: You are called from a party and someone hands you an unlabeled CD
The noise from the party muted as soon as the front door closed behind me. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness but I was quick to recognise the side-lights of the old Jag parked up in the drive. Matt was leaning nervously on the driver’s door, usual cigarette in hand and with the stupid scarf and flat cap he wore whenever he drove the old girl.
‘Why didn’t you come in, why call me out here ?’ I went to the front of the car, ‘Its freezing out here.’
“Nobody inside I want to spend my time with”. Matt replied. I resisted the urge to dispute, Matt’s attitude to the company had not been great recently, he didn’t do recession very well.
‘Yeah, okay. So what do you want with me then?’
‘You and me, we have a problem, a big one.' He was talking rapidly, like a panic. 'I’ve brought you all the month-end spreadsheets. One or two of your party mates in there have been sucking cash from our sales and our inventory accounts’
‘Bullshit!’ I sputtered. I didn't believe it, I might not be that good with admin but Matt is married to our accounting, so much so that I mostly leave him to it. ‘Who it is?’ I asked ‘And how much?’
‘No way that I can figure out who it is but it’s been happening for a long time and we are about 2 million down this year alone.' he raced on 'I've got no idea how many of the staff are involved but it’s not a one man act I can tell you that.’ Matt was really seething. He pleaded to me ‘You need to look at all these end-of-year summaries and let me know which items you approved and which ones you didn't. Even then, we’ll still have a huge job to figure it all out,,, took a long drag and continued ‘I’m going to call in the law and get the bastards, who ever they are.’ He smashed his hardly smoked cigarette out with his foot.
‘Whoa, hold on Matt. Couldn't it be a mistake or something?’ My mind was racing, I had personally recruited every one of our team and I couldn't believe any one of them would be ripping us off. ‘I mean, the guys are all on profit share, have been for years, we've been reporting accruals monthly, how could everyone have missed this?’
“It’s a systematic, bloody clever, well hidden rip-off. Matt spat out ‘While you have been schmoozing, and splashing payouts to all and sundry I have been slugging away trying to figure out why the end of year was out of whack’
His hands were shaking as he struggled to light another smoke. He was wearing his stupid driving gloves which made his whole smoking exercise clumsy as he fumbled with the pocket, smokes and lighter. He took a suck and went on, ‘I stumbled on it while I was matching receipts from our Munich exhibition last May. Its good, real good, You need to go through everything you approved back at least a couple of years to see how long this has been going on.”
With that he fumbled again in his jacket and handed me a flash drive. ‘Here take this, have a look at the things I've highlighted. Call me if you agreed to any of those draw-downs, I didn't, and I'm betting you haven’t.’
I looked at the drive. One bit of plastic, 8 gig of memory, untold agony. I turned the drive over and over in my fingers, I hate detail at the best of times and this was going to be hell. Worse, I knew Matt would be right and the fallout was going to be devastating.
I looked up to see Matt was getting back into his car.
‘Hey, where the fuck are you going? Come in and go through it with me, we need to sort this together!’
‘No way. I’m not walking through that bunch of bastards knowing any one of them is ripping me off. Call me when you've gone through it’. The big old engine roared into life and the tyres chirped as he shot backwards and took off up the street.
Shit! was all I could think as I watched his tail lights disappear.
I went back in, headed past the noise and into my study, shut the door and slipped the flash drive into my laptop.
The drive opened but there were no files. Shit! I re-booted and the drive opened again but no folders, no files, it was clean. I didn't understand. Matt was too sharp to have handed me a blank drive. I speed dialed Matt off my mobile and got a number unavailable message. For the next hour I tried every way I knew to reach him, he hadn't returned to the office, he wasn't at home, not at the gym, nowhere.
From then my actions are a blur, I closed down the party to huge protests. Said I had super urgent business to attend to, locked up the house and went out to see if I couldn't find Matt at any of his mates, I even scoured the local pubs. Not having any luck I went to our office, I turned the place over looking to see if he had left a copy of his files out. There was nothing. His desk was bare, he’d obviously taken his laptop with him, but he usually did that. I pulled open some client files but they were all in order and hadn't been recently searched through. There was no evidence anyone had been checking any hard copy records. Most strange, how could Matt be so sure of his facts if he hadn't cross-checked the files? It was making no sense. I kept trying to call Matt with no luck and eventually I drove back home.
Then things got even weirder, my front door was unlocked, I tentatively called out and walked into my foyer, all quiet, no one here, turning on lights room by room, nothing had been disturbed until I looked in my office. My laptop was on but the flash drive wasn't in the USB port. My brain went into overdrive, what is going on? Who would break in and only steal a blank flash drive? I dropped into my chair and sat, numb, trying to think.
I don’t know how long I had been sitting there when there was a thumping on the front door and a voice yelled out ‘Open up, police!’ I hadn't even reported the break in yet. That’s not what they wanted.
Detective Inspector Fielding presented me with a warrant for my arrest, cautioned me, and a uniformed sergeant bundled me into the back seat of a blacked out Volvo estate.
I didn't understand anything, I was sat in a bare room behind a table. I was accused of fraud, theft and a list of corporate violations longer than a phone book.
What I was slowly able to piece together during my interrogation is that the cops got a tip-off that I had been siphoning off shareholder profits and was about to leave the country. They slapped down on the table a first class ticket to Geneva made out in my name dated tomorrow morning. I was told a flash drive had been found with only my fingerprints on it which contained complete and damning records of bogus transactions going back three years, cash deposits made into a numbered off-shore bank account, falsified sales records and phony inventory orders.
I still didn't understand.
Then, suddenly it all clicked. 2007, the partnership had nearly collapsed. Matt and I were in fundamental disagreement on offering our employees profit share. There was nothing ever formally documented on Matt’s defeat, just the reduction in our joint share and despite our company thriving, I knew he had always sort of begrudged my victory over him. The bastard had copies of my house keys.
Shit. You think you know someone.
Well, he’d taken his time but he’s done one hell of a stitch up job on me.
I'm thinking he is on a flight to Geneva. First Class. How the hell am I going to get out of this?
Task: You are called from a party and someone hands you an unlabeled CD
The noise from the party muted as soon as the front door closed behind me. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness but I was quick to recognise the side-lights of the old Jag parked up in the drive. Matt was leaning nervously on the driver’s door, usual cigarette in hand and with the stupid scarf and flat cap he wore whenever he drove the old girl.
‘Why didn’t you come in, why call me out here ?’ I went to the front of the car, ‘Its freezing out here.’
“Nobody inside I want to spend my time with”. Matt replied. I resisted the urge to dispute, Matt’s attitude to the company had not been great recently, he didn’t do recession very well.
‘Yeah, okay. So what do you want with me then?’
‘You and me, we have a problem, a big one.' He was talking rapidly, like a panic. 'I’ve brought you all the month-end spreadsheets. One or two of your party mates in there have been sucking cash from our sales and our inventory accounts’
‘Bullshit!’ I sputtered. I didn't believe it, I might not be that good with admin but Matt is married to our accounting, so much so that I mostly leave him to it. ‘Who it is?’ I asked ‘And how much?’
‘No way that I can figure out who it is but it’s been happening for a long time and we are about 2 million down this year alone.' he raced on 'I've got no idea how many of the staff are involved but it’s not a one man act I can tell you that.’ Matt was really seething. He pleaded to me ‘You need to look at all these end-of-year summaries and let me know which items you approved and which ones you didn't. Even then, we’ll still have a huge job to figure it all out,,, took a long drag and continued ‘I’m going to call in the law and get the bastards, who ever they are.’ He smashed his hardly smoked cigarette out with his foot.
‘Whoa, hold on Matt. Couldn't it be a mistake or something?’ My mind was racing, I had personally recruited every one of our team and I couldn't believe any one of them would be ripping us off. ‘I mean, the guys are all on profit share, have been for years, we've been reporting accruals monthly, how could everyone have missed this?’
“It’s a systematic, bloody clever, well hidden rip-off. Matt spat out ‘While you have been schmoozing, and splashing payouts to all and sundry I have been slugging away trying to figure out why the end of year was out of whack’
His hands were shaking as he struggled to light another smoke. He was wearing his stupid driving gloves which made his whole smoking exercise clumsy as he fumbled with the pocket, smokes and lighter. He took a suck and went on, ‘I stumbled on it while I was matching receipts from our Munich exhibition last May. Its good, real good, You need to go through everything you approved back at least a couple of years to see how long this has been going on.”
With that he fumbled again in his jacket and handed me a flash drive. ‘Here take this, have a look at the things I've highlighted. Call me if you agreed to any of those draw-downs, I didn't, and I'm betting you haven’t.’
I looked at the drive. One bit of plastic, 8 gig of memory, untold agony. I turned the drive over and over in my fingers, I hate detail at the best of times and this was going to be hell. Worse, I knew Matt would be right and the fallout was going to be devastating.
I looked up to see Matt was getting back into his car.
‘Hey, where the fuck are you going? Come in and go through it with me, we need to sort this together!’
‘No way. I’m not walking through that bunch of bastards knowing any one of them is ripping me off. Call me when you've gone through it’. The big old engine roared into life and the tyres chirped as he shot backwards and took off up the street.
Shit! was all I could think as I watched his tail lights disappear.
I went back in, headed past the noise and into my study, shut the door and slipped the flash drive into my laptop.
The drive opened but there were no files. Shit! I re-booted and the drive opened again but no folders, no files, it was clean. I didn't understand. Matt was too sharp to have handed me a blank drive. I speed dialed Matt off my mobile and got a number unavailable message. For the next hour I tried every way I knew to reach him, he hadn't returned to the office, he wasn't at home, not at the gym, nowhere.
From then my actions are a blur, I closed down the party to huge protests. Said I had super urgent business to attend to, locked up the house and went out to see if I couldn't find Matt at any of his mates, I even scoured the local pubs. Not having any luck I went to our office, I turned the place over looking to see if he had left a copy of his files out. There was nothing. His desk was bare, he’d obviously taken his laptop with him, but he usually did that. I pulled open some client files but they were all in order and hadn't been recently searched through. There was no evidence anyone had been checking any hard copy records. Most strange, how could Matt be so sure of his facts if he hadn't cross-checked the files? It was making no sense. I kept trying to call Matt with no luck and eventually I drove back home.
Then things got even weirder, my front door was unlocked, I tentatively called out and walked into my foyer, all quiet, no one here, turning on lights room by room, nothing had been disturbed until I looked in my office. My laptop was on but the flash drive wasn't in the USB port. My brain went into overdrive, what is going on? Who would break in and only steal a blank flash drive? I dropped into my chair and sat, numb, trying to think.
I don’t know how long I had been sitting there when there was a thumping on the front door and a voice yelled out ‘Open up, police!’ I hadn't even reported the break in yet. That’s not what they wanted.
Detective Inspector Fielding presented me with a warrant for my arrest, cautioned me, and a uniformed sergeant bundled me into the back seat of a blacked out Volvo estate.
I didn't understand anything, I was sat in a bare room behind a table. I was accused of fraud, theft and a list of corporate violations longer than a phone book.
What I was slowly able to piece together during my interrogation is that the cops got a tip-off that I had been siphoning off shareholder profits and was about to leave the country. They slapped down on the table a first class ticket to Geneva made out in my name dated tomorrow morning. I was told a flash drive had been found with only my fingerprints on it which contained complete and damning records of bogus transactions going back three years, cash deposits made into a numbered off-shore bank account, falsified sales records and phony inventory orders.
I still didn't understand.
Then, suddenly it all clicked. 2007, the partnership had nearly collapsed. Matt and I were in fundamental disagreement on offering our employees profit share. There was nothing ever formally documented on Matt’s defeat, just the reduction in our joint share and despite our company thriving, I knew he had always sort of begrudged my victory over him. The bastard had copies of my house keys.
Shit. You think you know someone.
Well, he’d taken his time but he’s done one hell of a stitch up job on me.
I'm thinking he is on a flight to Geneva. First Class. How the hell am I going to get out of this?
Monday, July 12, 2010
Something about heat
A glow. That is what they call it, in polite society. That moist sheen on a woman warmed by the day or the day’s event.
Now she just lay there, ankles crossed and resting in the dappled shade pretending to be absorbed in what looked like some intellectual autobiography or a reference book, her open weave straw hat and sunglasses offering more fashion than function but I had to admit, all to great effect.
Arriving about an hour ago with a flourish of beach-towel and with an elegant removal of her flowing sundress she had, as intended, attracted the attention of every man and the envy of most women. I had seen this act played out at least once a day by pretentious ladies looking for more than a tan, but this one had a style, a worldliness, an aura if you would, that changed the focal point of the scenery around the pool. Perhaps it is just me, but dark red hair is always an attraction, her tresses waved thickly around lightly tanned shoulders and complimented what could be referred to as a coy sprinkling of freckles on her nose and cheeks.
When ordering her soda and bitters from me as I did my rounds she had removed her glasses, flashed impossibly white teeth between glossed lips and glanced enticingly at me with smoke-blue eyes. I'd responded with “Room number?” for the charge. A witty, urbane and worldly bit of repartee if ever there was one. “P, 3” she pouted in reply. That gave me pause for thought, hmm, a penthouse suite...nice. As I returned to the bar and started to mix her drink I watched as one of the hopeful responded to the bait. Tanned, toned and in well-cut shorts he saunter-strutted directly to his target and crouched smoothly, near but not too close. Class act I thought. Self-confidently he removed his sunglasses, gave a sexy smirk and mouthed a practiced phrase. A flash scan from her, a couple of deprecating words and a dismissive tone any of which alone would have made a polar bear shiver, were effective in convincing this tiddler that his embarrassing retreat was preferable to any continued attempt.
I placed her drink on the table with a vibration and she signed for it with ring-free fingers, long unpainted nails and one of those smiles that could feed a man for a week.
Four summers I have been doing this job, it does have it’s perks, but this one, this one for some reason I’d rather watch than win, she had raised the temptress role to an art form. Back behind the safety of my bar I noticed Sir Rodderick had taken up his usual place next to the taps.
‘Good Morning Rod’, I welcomed him, ‘your usual coffee and chaser this morning Sir?’ His affable nod and easy grin had become a familiar start to a very pleasant daily ritual between us.
As I prepared the coffee and measured the rum over ice he bought me up to date on the wreck dive he led yesterday. I did like Sir Rodderick, “call me Rod”. From the first year I met him, he had exemplified all that 'taking a few weeks off ' meant. He'd inherited a failing metals business when he was a lad of 19 and spent the next twenty five years or so working it into a global colossus which now employed thousands directly and indirectly around the world. His high public profile made escape from prying eyes almost impossible, but here, as Rod the scuba guy, he blended in and could relax.
In the small pause it took me to serve him his coffee and chaser, his attention had been grabbed by the shaking of a bright auburn mane as its owner discarded her hat, rose sinuously, stretched and strode to the pool, graciously sitting and floating her rather pleasant legs in the water. The recently acquired tan on Rod’s face did not disguise an increased flush of colour.
Glancing briefly back to me he said, “What do think of that then?”
‘Honestly? I think she’s a stunner. I wonder though…’ But before I could say anything more there was a devastating smile and a small wave directed like a missile towards Rod. The bloke visibly melted a little as he grinned stupidly and nodded in reply.
‘What do you wonder?’ he asked absently.
‘Um’ I said, suddenly protective of my favourite customer, ‘What I wonder is if she isn’t just a high society wannabe type looking for a rich target’.
This rather blunt inference got Rod to turn and face me ‘Oh really?’ what makes you say that?’
‘Well, a couple of things, look at her. Holiday makers don’t present themselves like that if they are just looking to relax by the pool’
‘And?’
‘And, she turned down the advances of at least one strong candidate already this morning so I'd say she’s looking for a big fish .’
Rod considered this for a second and settled back onto his seat. ‘Could be.' he mused and after a while of staring added dreamily, 'You know, to me, she could be a professor of Geology, relaxing after a couple of weeks working a dig in 100 degree temperatures, sweat pouring down her as she collects, records and processes ore samples. She's here with her boss who after many long months has finally won her as his lover…’
‘Gawd, you have theme fantasies don’t you Rod.!' ‘Spending too much time working on the mines huh?’
Rod looked wistful ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ another long stare and then, "What do you think if I went over just as a local dive bloke and tried my chances?'
‘Mate, no offence intended, but I have seen the ones she has thrown away, and , with the best will in the world I have to tell you, you don’t measure up well to the discards. I'm sure she’s after higher game than dive instructors’
It was hopeless suppose, I should have known better. The temptress timed it perfectly, a glance, the raised knee, a sashay back to her beach towel, raising the empty glass.
Rod's question was obvious, I had the lime slice ready and was almost pouring the soda by the time he asked me ‘What’s her drink today?’
With a pang in my heart I handed him the drink and watched as he headed off to his humiliation. I continued watching as she smiled at his approach, giggled as he gestured towards the bar and made diving actions, but then she reached up to embrace him with a familiarity born of a deeper understanding.
As if my embarrassment wasn’t sufficient, Rod’s return to pay for the drink by flashing his Penthouse 3 room key made my face so red I wanted to bury it in the ice trough.
Now she just lay there, ankles crossed and resting in the dappled shade pretending to be absorbed in what looked like some intellectual autobiography or a reference book, her open weave straw hat and sunglasses offering more fashion than function but I had to admit, all to great effect.
Arriving about an hour ago with a flourish of beach-towel and with an elegant removal of her flowing sundress she had, as intended, attracted the attention of every man and the envy of most women. I had seen this act played out at least once a day by pretentious ladies looking for more than a tan, but this one had a style, a worldliness, an aura if you would, that changed the focal point of the scenery around the pool. Perhaps it is just me, but dark red hair is always an attraction, her tresses waved thickly around lightly tanned shoulders and complimented what could be referred to as a coy sprinkling of freckles on her nose and cheeks.
When ordering her soda and bitters from me as I did my rounds she had removed her glasses, flashed impossibly white teeth between glossed lips and glanced enticingly at me with smoke-blue eyes. I'd responded with “Room number?” for the charge. A witty, urbane and worldly bit of repartee if ever there was one. “P, 3” she pouted in reply. That gave me pause for thought, hmm, a penthouse suite...nice. As I returned to the bar and started to mix her drink I watched as one of the hopeful responded to the bait. Tanned, toned and in well-cut shorts he saunter-strutted directly to his target and crouched smoothly, near but not too close. Class act I thought. Self-confidently he removed his sunglasses, gave a sexy smirk and mouthed a practiced phrase. A flash scan from her, a couple of deprecating words and a dismissive tone any of which alone would have made a polar bear shiver, were effective in convincing this tiddler that his embarrassing retreat was preferable to any continued attempt.
I placed her drink on the table with a vibration and she signed for it with ring-free fingers, long unpainted nails and one of those smiles that could feed a man for a week.
Four summers I have been doing this job, it does have it’s perks, but this one, this one for some reason I’d rather watch than win, she had raised the temptress role to an art form. Back behind the safety of my bar I noticed Sir Rodderick had taken up his usual place next to the taps.
‘Good Morning Rod’, I welcomed him, ‘your usual coffee and chaser this morning Sir?’ His affable nod and easy grin had become a familiar start to a very pleasant daily ritual between us.
As I prepared the coffee and measured the rum over ice he bought me up to date on the wreck dive he led yesterday. I did like Sir Rodderick, “call me Rod”. From the first year I met him, he had exemplified all that 'taking a few weeks off ' meant. He'd inherited a failing metals business when he was a lad of 19 and spent the next twenty five years or so working it into a global colossus which now employed thousands directly and indirectly around the world. His high public profile made escape from prying eyes almost impossible, but here, as Rod the scuba guy, he blended in and could relax.
In the small pause it took me to serve him his coffee and chaser, his attention had been grabbed by the shaking of a bright auburn mane as its owner discarded her hat, rose sinuously, stretched and strode to the pool, graciously sitting and floating her rather pleasant legs in the water. The recently acquired tan on Rod’s face did not disguise an increased flush of colour.
Glancing briefly back to me he said, “What do think of that then?”
‘Honestly? I think she’s a stunner. I wonder though…’ But before I could say anything more there was a devastating smile and a small wave directed like a missile towards Rod. The bloke visibly melted a little as he grinned stupidly and nodded in reply.
‘What do you wonder?’ he asked absently.
‘Um’ I said, suddenly protective of my favourite customer, ‘What I wonder is if she isn’t just a high society wannabe type looking for a rich target’.
This rather blunt inference got Rod to turn and face me ‘Oh really?’ what makes you say that?’
‘Well, a couple of things, look at her. Holiday makers don’t present themselves like that if they are just looking to relax by the pool’
‘And?’
‘And, she turned down the advances of at least one strong candidate already this morning so I'd say she’s looking for a big fish .’
Rod considered this for a second and settled back onto his seat. ‘Could be.' he mused and after a while of staring added dreamily, 'You know, to me, she could be a professor of Geology, relaxing after a couple of weeks working a dig in 100 degree temperatures, sweat pouring down her as she collects, records and processes ore samples. She's here with her boss who after many long months has finally won her as his lover…’
‘Gawd, you have theme fantasies don’t you Rod.!' ‘Spending too much time working on the mines huh?’
Rod looked wistful ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ another long stare and then, "What do you think if I went over just as a local dive bloke and tried my chances?'
‘Mate, no offence intended, but I have seen the ones she has thrown away, and , with the best will in the world I have to tell you, you don’t measure up well to the discards. I'm sure she’s after higher game than dive instructors’
It was hopeless suppose, I should have known better. The temptress timed it perfectly, a glance, the raised knee, a sashay back to her beach towel, raising the empty glass.
Rod's question was obvious, I had the lime slice ready and was almost pouring the soda by the time he asked me ‘What’s her drink today?’
With a pang in my heart I handed him the drink and watched as he headed off to his humiliation. I continued watching as she smiled at his approach, giggled as he gestured towards the bar and made diving actions, but then she reached up to embrace him with a familiarity born of a deeper understanding.
As if my embarrassment wasn’t sufficient, Rod’s return to pay for the drink by flashing his Penthouse 3 room key made my face so red I wanted to bury it in the ice trough.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Anything about victory/winning.
June 20something 2010.
Winning Wednesdays.
Earnest lads bawl words, a bombast of alpha impression.
Intense girls tease with their décolletage of images.
Some practiced minds haunt those inspired.
The shy few now amazing the bold as
logic surrenders to dreams.
Pathos shields gravitas in
a meeting contrived
a room confined
a group unique,
they all blend.
Ideas unify.
fresh art
now
is.
fresh art
now
is.
Every 2nd Wednesday the group known as Leeds Savages meet to read works to a theme pre-arranged or special poems or 1000 word tales. the above describes the sense of the meet. It is not meant to look like a twat.
It may not be art but is it poetry?
Anything about Elvis or related
Greg W. 22/6/10
REMEMBERING ELVIS THROUGH THE FIRE.
The place; Faulconbridge, Latitude 33.61South, Longitude 149.8East. high in the mountain ranges 50 miles west of Sydney, Australia.
The year is 2001, the time a hot mid-afternoon at the end of December.
The scene is a heavily wooded ridge running away to the south and overlooking a network of densely forested valleys which drop sharply away hundreds of feet below. A typical summer day, clear blue sky, dry and hot, but this year, the fifth in a series of droughts, it was blistering. Midday temperature over 40 degrees, that’s 108 in old speak. Worse still, there had been short rains through Spring that year. These had done nothing to put water into the reservoirs but they had allowed the undergrowth to grow very thick, to dry off in the subsequent summer and to leave a huge bank of tinder-dry leaves and twigs spread thick over millions of acres.
The left-wing government had taken on the greenie lobby policy years ago to stop the back-burning of our land. Fire bans had been institutionalised, barbecues banned and jail terms issued to offenders. The world had got insane.
We were just four blokes, volunteer firefighters, trained locally in bushfire control and in recent times we had seen a lot of bad summer action.
For the last five hours Ian, Ross and I had been slashing, burning and felling our way along this forgotten fire track, with Steve trailing us in the tanker appliance mopping up any breakaways or spot fires. There was another team we could hear off in the distance, chain sawing and sweating through their own fire break with the calm panic that is the default when you work against a deadly and capricious foe like this.
We had all been trying for days to create a controlled fire break to slow the raging front. We want to protect the bush and its wildlife, but today, more critically perhaps, to save the homes, farms and towns in the fire's immediate path. Every time we had laid in a break but were forced to retreat, we had watched as the inferno again and again engulfed our mortal attempts to slow it.
The blast furnace that had begun as spotfire #39 was relentlessly decimating our horizon and its smoke and fly-ash was stinging our eyes. Ian turned his black-smeared face to me and shouted, pink lipped and bearded, that he was going to report in and get a status. I acknowledged him with a wave, turned and motioned for Steve to drive up. We could all do with a break.. I watched as Ross, within earshot of Ian’s conversation on the radio, started to pick up the tools and I guessed we were being closed down. Checking my surroundings, all was well and I gathered up my gear while I waited for them to walk back to me.
It turned out, Control had told Ian the wind was forecast to change and we were to back out asap and return to base. It had taken a couple of minutes for Ian and Ross to reach me and I wondered why Steve had not bought the truck up yet. The three of us set off carrying our gear back down the track only to hear Steve slowly grinding the starter in an attempt to get the truck to kick. I looked past him to see how our back-burn was going behind the truck. If Steve hadn’t been able to kill the breakouts because of the truck stalling… But the burn looked safe for now. I saw Ross glancing at the sky, he knew it would be anything but safe if the wind did turn on us. It was clear from our faces the same thought was with us all.
Time was now a most precious element to us. Ian radioed in the situation, Ross dived into the back of the truck to switch to the spare battery and I lifted the engine hatch. Steve told me there was loads of diesel and the gauges were all okay, the engine just wouldn’t kick. The calm panic rose a notch as we all worked flat out to solve the problem. It was Ian who made the call to Control with the news our tender was dead. We had half a tanker of water and one working auxiliary pump. Ross tested it was okay and the decision was made to stay with the tender and wait help. Silence fell uncomfortably between us as we looked at each other. I was thinking of a million different things and wondered how these three blokes would handle what could be either of two options; a full-on disaster, or a few days stressful wait for rescue. We each drank a bellyful of water, soaked the blankets and sorted through the gear we would need if we were still here when the fire front hit. The sounds from the other team had stopped and we figured they would have been recalled too, or they were driving the rough trails to come to our aid. Control had requested our radio silence while they coordinated our recovery and the equally urgent relocating of over 30 other teams.
It wasn’t long before our ‘stressful wait’ option became redundant, the air around us stopped moving, the leaves high in the trees hung limp and a few glowing ashes previously held aloft and harmless now started to fall from the sky into the valleys below. When you are in the middle of a horror of nature it all happens in slow motion. We watched the glowing embers fall into the dry undergrowth. Almost on cue the breeze began to rise from the valleys providing air for the embers. Wisps of smoke began to rise from a little smolderings here and there in the valley below. We waited to see if they would catch, hoping they would not. The fire front is still some ten miles away but these bloody embers have bought the enemy in full threat right to our feet. Ian calls in our s.o.s. and Ross and I set about rigging the tanker to shower itself with our remaining water. Jobs done we grab the blankets and head into the truck’s cab to await the inevitable. Sometimes this works, the fire rushes over the truck, the pump sprays and keeps the heat down and the truck wet, the blankets protect you from radiant heat, the front passes and the team gets out. Mostly though, everyone dies together in a burning metal box. We are not under any illusions or false hope here. On the good side, the truck was stopped in a cleared area so there wasn’t much fuel nearby, on the bad side, all the tracks would be closed by the ember fires within minutes. Rescue or escape was not going to happen.
As it turned out there was not much time for us to discuss the options, within a minute there was thick smoke all around us, Steve closed the vents in the cab and wound up his window, we each covered ourselves with our blanket, stage one. We looked out waiting for stage two when the air would gust in to feed the fire front as it shot up from the valley to take us. It’s a blur after that. I remember the truck being buffeted by rushing air, Ross starting the pump, Ian yelling to us to cover up, the sound of lightly falling water, the sudden darkness from black dense smoke all around, then an exploding orange world and all the air being sucked out of my lungs as the searing heat hit. I managed a gasp of oven-hot air and above the roar and the coughing of my mates I heard the thwop thwoping of a helicopter, the sound of a rain heavier than anything on earth but overriding all of that was the unimaginable, the wonderful, the beauty of light and coolness. I must have passed out of the world. Then, someone calling my name. I am rising into the sky, I see vaguely falling away below there is a clearing, in the middle a small truck surrounded by blackness and white clouds. I fade away.
It’s nearly ten years now. Helitankers are still being flown into Australia every summer to fight the bushfires.. The fires inevitably destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine bushland and kill millions of animals and a few equally innocent people. My burns are healed but my scars remain. I am bitter the bush is not being better managed, I am bitter successive governments fail to act intelligently, but I am eternally grateful to the crew of Elvis, the Erickson S64 Helitanker #N179AC, which dumped 2000 gallons of water on me and my mates, and to the support chopper that winched us up and back into the safety of our families.
REMEMBERING ELVIS THROUGH THE FIRE.
The place; Faulconbridge, Latitude 33.61South, Longitude 149.8East. high in the mountain ranges 50 miles west of Sydney, Australia.
The year is 2001, the time a hot mid-afternoon at the end of December.
The scene is a heavily wooded ridge running away to the south and overlooking a network of densely forested valleys which drop sharply away hundreds of feet below. A typical summer day, clear blue sky, dry and hot, but this year, the fifth in a series of droughts, it was blistering. Midday temperature over 40 degrees, that’s 108 in old speak. Worse still, there had been short rains through Spring that year. These had done nothing to put water into the reservoirs but they had allowed the undergrowth to grow very thick, to dry off in the subsequent summer and to leave a huge bank of tinder-dry leaves and twigs spread thick over millions of acres.
The left-wing government had taken on the greenie lobby policy years ago to stop the back-burning of our land. Fire bans had been institutionalised, barbecues banned and jail terms issued to offenders. The world had got insane.
We were just four blokes, volunteer firefighters, trained locally in bushfire control and in recent times we had seen a lot of bad summer action.
For the last five hours Ian, Ross and I had been slashing, burning and felling our way along this forgotten fire track, with Steve trailing us in the tanker appliance mopping up any breakaways or spot fires. There was another team we could hear off in the distance, chain sawing and sweating through their own fire break with the calm panic that is the default when you work against a deadly and capricious foe like this.
We had all been trying for days to create a controlled fire break to slow the raging front. We want to protect the bush and its wildlife, but today, more critically perhaps, to save the homes, farms and towns in the fire's immediate path. Every time we had laid in a break but were forced to retreat, we had watched as the inferno again and again engulfed our mortal attempts to slow it.
The blast furnace that had begun as spotfire #39 was relentlessly decimating our horizon and its smoke and fly-ash was stinging our eyes. Ian turned his black-smeared face to me and shouted, pink lipped and bearded, that he was going to report in and get a status. I acknowledged him with a wave, turned and motioned for Steve to drive up. We could all do with a break.. I watched as Ross, within earshot of Ian’s conversation on the radio, started to pick up the tools and I guessed we were being closed down. Checking my surroundings, all was well and I gathered up my gear while I waited for them to walk back to me.
It turned out, Control had told Ian the wind was forecast to change and we were to back out asap and return to base. It had taken a couple of minutes for Ian and Ross to reach me and I wondered why Steve had not bought the truck up yet. The three of us set off carrying our gear back down the track only to hear Steve slowly grinding the starter in an attempt to get the truck to kick. I looked past him to see how our back-burn was going behind the truck. If Steve hadn’t been able to kill the breakouts because of the truck stalling… But the burn looked safe for now. I saw Ross glancing at the sky, he knew it would be anything but safe if the wind did turn on us. It was clear from our faces the same thought was with us all.
Time was now a most precious element to us. Ian radioed in the situation, Ross dived into the back of the truck to switch to the spare battery and I lifted the engine hatch. Steve told me there was loads of diesel and the gauges were all okay, the engine just wouldn’t kick. The calm panic rose a notch as we all worked flat out to solve the problem. It was Ian who made the call to Control with the news our tender was dead. We had half a tanker of water and one working auxiliary pump. Ross tested it was okay and the decision was made to stay with the tender and wait help. Silence fell uncomfortably between us as we looked at each other. I was thinking of a million different things and wondered how these three blokes would handle what could be either of two options; a full-on disaster, or a few days stressful wait for rescue. We each drank a bellyful of water, soaked the blankets and sorted through the gear we would need if we were still here when the fire front hit. The sounds from the other team had stopped and we figured they would have been recalled too, or they were driving the rough trails to come to our aid. Control had requested our radio silence while they coordinated our recovery and the equally urgent relocating of over 30 other teams.
It wasn’t long before our ‘stressful wait’ option became redundant, the air around us stopped moving, the leaves high in the trees hung limp and a few glowing ashes previously held aloft and harmless now started to fall from the sky into the valleys below. When you are in the middle of a horror of nature it all happens in slow motion. We watched the glowing embers fall into the dry undergrowth. Almost on cue the breeze began to rise from the valleys providing air for the embers. Wisps of smoke began to rise from a little smolderings here and there in the valley below. We waited to see if they would catch, hoping they would not. The fire front is still some ten miles away but these bloody embers have bought the enemy in full threat right to our feet. Ian calls in our s.o.s. and Ross and I set about rigging the tanker to shower itself with our remaining water. Jobs done we grab the blankets and head into the truck’s cab to await the inevitable. Sometimes this works, the fire rushes over the truck, the pump sprays and keeps the heat down and the truck wet, the blankets protect you from radiant heat, the front passes and the team gets out. Mostly though, everyone dies together in a burning metal box. We are not under any illusions or false hope here. On the good side, the truck was stopped in a cleared area so there wasn’t much fuel nearby, on the bad side, all the tracks would be closed by the ember fires within minutes. Rescue or escape was not going to happen.
As it turned out there was not much time for us to discuss the options, within a minute there was thick smoke all around us, Steve closed the vents in the cab and wound up his window, we each covered ourselves with our blanket, stage one. We looked out waiting for stage two when the air would gust in to feed the fire front as it shot up from the valley to take us. It’s a blur after that. I remember the truck being buffeted by rushing air, Ross starting the pump, Ian yelling to us to cover up, the sound of lightly falling water, the sudden darkness from black dense smoke all around, then an exploding orange world and all the air being sucked out of my lungs as the searing heat hit. I managed a gasp of oven-hot air and above the roar and the coughing of my mates I heard the thwop thwoping of a helicopter, the sound of a rain heavier than anything on earth but overriding all of that was the unimaginable, the wonderful, the beauty of light and coolness. I must have passed out of the world. Then, someone calling my name. I am rising into the sky, I see vaguely falling away below there is a clearing, in the middle a small truck surrounded by blackness and white clouds. I fade away.
It’s nearly ten years now. Helitankers are still being flown into Australia every summer to fight the bushfires.. The fires inevitably destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of pristine bushland and kill millions of animals and a few equally innocent people. My burns are healed but my scars remain. I am bitter the bush is not being better managed, I am bitter successive governments fail to act intelligently, but I am eternally grateful to the crew of Elvis, the Erickson S64 Helitanker #N179AC, which dumped 2000 gallons of water on me and my mates, and to the support chopper that winched us up and back into the safety of our families.
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