TIME KEY

                                                                      

It was the last day of his trip, a mix of tours and treks which had sped by in an amazing five weeks.   Mark had made it to Teotihuacan, half a day before his bus was to leave for Mexico City.  He was spending a relaxed morning joking with the merchants as they set up to sell their wares in the quiet, tree lined square. 

One native bloke who had just arrived was probably a thief Mark decided.  In a questionable attempt at legitimacy the guy had thrown a tattered blanket over couple of planks at the edge of the market.   From behind a mask of sweaty black hair he nervously darted glances around.  Each item he placed as if hoping no one would recognise it.  Mark was attracted by the quality of the pieces but concerned by their questionable provenance.  As each treasure was released from the filthy back pack to be displayed on the blanket, the sunlight would glint off their metal and sparkle from the faceted stones.  Mark got the even clearer impression the ne’er-do-well was laying out stolen goods.  He decided to walk on by but the villain reached out with the lightening speed of a pickpocket and touched his arm.

“Ah special Mister”   he croaked in an almost theatrical aside, “I have a treasure especially for you. ”  He turned his hand and displayed a small Inca calendar disk firmly held between his black rimmed fingernails.

Mark had to consciously stop his jaw from dropping.  Ever since he was a kid he had been studying the Aztec’s predictions, their amazing calendars and celestial maps.  Here was a beautiful disc, better than any he had researched.  Without thinking he saw his hand extend and the golden treasure fall from the dirty claws into his palm.  The detail was exquisite, the clarity of the carving unbelievably crisp and clear. It rested on his skin, its weighty authenticity vibrating to the pulse of Mark’s being.  Mark could read many of the symbols and letters and knew it was an excellent representation of the ancient artifacts that he had devoted so much study to. 

“Mister, this is real one, Yes?” enquired the thief.  Mark tore his eyes off the disc to stare into the dark face of the man.  Stained teeth smiled under a broad nose separating two of the deepest, blackest eyes Mark had ever stared into. 

“It is a very good copy” Mark demurred, transferring the disc to his left hand to see its other side.  The relief was even more intricate and Mark was desperate to translate the message.

“Ah, no, Special Mister” the villain crooned.  “This is real one from the ancients.  It is for you, this real one is for you” “The ancients, they tell me give it to you this day.  You take now,  You must take now” 

Mark glanced again at the small golden plate as his brain interpreted part of a date.  It was sometime in this year.  Obviously a fake copy then, but looking again, the disk had the look, the weight of gold, so it may be worth the price of a souvenir.    Still captivated by the design Mark asked  “So how much to the ancients tell you they want for it?” He turned the piece over and bought it closer to study more of the detail. Fake or copy, it would still reveal some sort of story once he had time to translate it.  And it would give him something to do on the plane.

The villain did not reply.

Mark looked up to re-phrase his question, but, the villain was nowhere to be seen.  The tatty rug was piled in a dusty lump, the two planks kicked in dirt and the trinkets, in fact all evidence of the thief had disappeared.  Mark asked the stall holder behind him where the thief had gone and the stall holder said he’d left hours ago.  The disc was still in Mark’s palm, it felt wonderful, it felt real. But time had warped, Reality had shifted. Mark was standing in a busy marketplace.  People were dodging around him.  His bus was parked up and the driver was loading bags into its belly.  Mark regained his composure and rushed over to join his fellow passengers to the airport.

 Helen was relieved.  When you travel alone out of Mexico you never know who you will end up sharing the next nine hours of your life with.  He had introduced himself as Mark, he seemed nice, smelled well traveled, you now, bathed but not able to clean your clothes that well.  Not unpleasant, sort of musky masculine.  And he was interesting too.  Been trekking and had found an artifact, was researching it on the way home.  It looked gorgeous.  Gold.  Lots of little circles and shapes like birds and forks.  Anyway he was quiet and absorbed so she could read books and watch a movie without more than the occasional interruption.

“Jesus!  It’s today’s bloody date” was one such outburst which he followed with an apology and explanation of how the hieroglyphs translated into a wormhole or some such tosh.

“Fuck me!  We’ll be flying right over this place!”  was the final vocal interruption Mark made into to her reading.

As he sat there cross-referencing the coin and his book, occasionally peering over her to see out the window, he began to toss the coin thing between his hands .  It looked like it was getting hot. He sat back and put the coin on his book.  It began to fume and burn the cover.  Helen stared at the coin. it rose in the air. The man sitting behind Helen kicked her seat  “ Hey !  No smoking on the plane fuckwit!”  Helen spun around “Piss off, something really weird’s happening! “ As she turned back her nice smelling companion grabbed the coin and vanished. 

Helen screamed.  She has not traveled since.

It takes Two

Tour de Wetherby 

I know, I know, its good for us. Even if there are days when not everything goes to plan.

I am sure the guys who ride in the Tour de France have bad days too.

What I don’t know is if I can hold the enthusiasm for it that Kevin can. We are going out every morning, even on weekends, it has changed the daily routine. Made my days longer by at least an hour, and if I am to be honest, I object to having to try and follow his improving pace. But I have to admit I am feeling the benefit.

This morning is no different, I am roused from my sleep by a cheery, ‘Come on lazy lumps’ and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. I shake the sleep from my head and get myself a drink of water to clear the night’s paste from my mouth. The work day is hours from starting as I sit and listen to his plan for the route.

‘We’ll head off down the hill to the roundabout then right to the car park, then head through to the Harland way. It’s a good rise all the way to Spofforth, from there we’ll cut up to North Deighton and belt our way home. That’s about an hour's worth I’d reckon’

I smile and give my encouragement as I see how happy this plan makes him. At least it’s not too wet outside, the rain that pelted the windows last night has stopped and the wind is now a breeze which will not give too much resistance to our progress. Some mornings the chill is keen and I am very grateful for the team colours we wear. We do look the part and hopefully don’t qualify for the ‘all the gear but no idea’ brigade of the weekend wobblers we have to dodge around on our longer excursions.

There is a process to the set-off which has become a bit of a habit. I quite enjoy it as it is another aspect of our growing relationship and you just never really know everything about a person do you? The pattern goes, Kevin fastens his shoes and pulls on his headgear, gives me a kiss and lovingly adjusts my outfit. He turns on his flashing lights and mine, holds my face gently and says ‘do try to keep up with me lass’. Grinning cheekily he gives me another kiss and we set off.

He is stronger and his legs are longer than mine so he always gets a quicker start but I have my own advantage. I am lighter and I think, weight for weight, I have more leg strength and greater stamina. At least, I would never let him see if I tired before him. I can always have a bit of rest after he goes off to work if I need to.

We turn left out of the driveway and travel along the pavement until our legs warm up and we fall into a stride. I love the early mornings as the countryside is waking up, birds are starting to make their first noises and occasionally I get to see small furry animals scurry as we approach. It is amazing how much distance I lose to Kevin if I get too distracted so I do my best to focus on the job at hand, trying to keep up.

It happened as we were climbing West Lane into North Deighton. Kevin checked his watch and I heard him mutter something about time. He clicked a gear and pushed harder up the hill at the same time looking behind to check how close I was. As it happened I was just coming up beside him in response to his voice and he swerved a little. The big white car was not doing anything wrong but Kevin wasn’t looking so got a shock when he turned back to see it so close.

It wasn’t a bad fall, Kevin has had worse, but his cleat didn’t release quickly and I heard the bone crack. I am useless in a crisis and despite my comforting and attentions it was the driver of the car who saved the day for us. At the clinic Kevin emerged with a large plastic boot and a sheepish look.

That was a week ago and today we are standing outside Harewood House and the peloton is coming up the hill. I hear the cheers and smell the riders before I can see them. The anticipation and excitement overcomes me. I can’t help yapping and my tail is wagging out of control. Kevin picks me up and from my new vantage point we both cheer on the team riders as they dash by.

GJW.

The VOID - Space is just space.

The dark night wind cuts like glass through their winter coats and a scent of expectation exudes as the stalled throng shuffles in its place. They seem anxious to push forward on mass to fill the Void.

As we approach the swaying lines we hear the repeated relief of “At least it’s not raining”.

We are jostled to a place in one of many queues, each wavering line crawling slowly into the covered marshalling area. The huddled crowd is swathed by a glow leaking from creases in the carapace of the Void. The radiance pulses enticingly green, blue, pink and silver. The clean colours a contrast to the jaundiced street lights which hang over the broken paths and alleyways, channeling the crowds towards the Void.

As we inch forward openings come into sight, keepers of the Void are seen standing guard at the portals. They laser-scan the crowd and detect those with evil intent. Any person not properly authorised, those sad souls, are handed to henchmen who take them for hidden interrogations. The Void is not for all who make it here. One man and his partner stumble out into our midst after being neutralised by the authorities. She has stains streaming from her eyes and his face is ashen, they trudge leadenly back into the gloom of the city. The efficiency of the portal keepers is well matched to the fervour of those around us who are desperate to enter.

The cutting wind drives us forward and we find ourselves processed through a portal into the stark marshalling space.  Severely cut signs give directives of how to enter the Void.  Around us many of our co-journeyers are consuming substances to heighten or lessen the experiences they expect once within. Some are delaying their entry, but we are keen to progress, not however without our own stimulants, which we easily secure from a child dealing openly in the marshalling area.

We determine our access to the Void, it is slightly off to the left and, on going through its massive doors, we find ourselves not in the Void but within a high walled space. A corridor expanding up and out, encouraging us towards its end. The walls and floor are roughly cast in a powder grey blandness motivating us to leave its confines.

At the corridor’s end a vastness hits us with a shuddering vista.

We have entered the Void at its centre edge and we are drawn forward to peer down over a perfunctory barrier.  Ledges cascade away beneath us and some of our fellow travellers have already perched upon them. To ease our vertigo we hold each other and turn our backs to the drop. Looking up we see an equally endless rise of ledges and some hardy souls are perched around the very top of the Void. The surfaces here too are bereft of any feature or distraction from the palette of mute stone grey. Way above the ledges, the Void arcs ever higher where vision is lost amongst entangled black technologies.

We smile unsurely at each other, take a tight grip our youth-bought stimulants and begin the climb along to our vantage point. 

The vista before us is cavernous, immensely impressive and beyond our mundane comprehension of scale. We drink deeply from our chosen vials and our senses melt, relaxed and enhanced.

As the time draws closer for the event, organic flows take shape in the mass of bodies coursing onto the ledges. The crowds form an amorphous globulation, a life blood, streaming and pumping along the wider pathways before splitting, capillary-like into tracks between ledges where they pulse and fidget into place.

Eventually every tiny gap fronting the massive Void is occupied by a faceless homogenous wall of organisms exposing themselves as one to the inevitable.

There have been rumours as to what this Void can do, many have left it struck mute and unable to express, some made unable to process, but all carry defining experiences back into life. 

Some don’t survive. At least one has been already transported away as we gazed down from our eyrie.

Suddenly all  light drains away. The vast blackness assumes a fertile imagined eternity.  Surprised, the multitude gasps as one.  There is no echo. A faint glow seeps into the platform below and an impossible hush falls over our assembled riot.

Harbingers of sensation file into the Void under a muted sheen.  Some of the troop assemble behind strategically placed implements but most of this dark-suited infantry carry their own specific armaments, each crafted to shake anatomy and pierce all resonance. Closely following them, a regiment of black robed warriors move in to flank the backs of the infantry and form a double assault line through which retreat or penetration is impossible.

A piercing beam transports a black suited commander to an alter at the centre of the platform. Ignoring the multitude he commences to flail and to beat order into to the forces gathered before him.

On a flamboyant cue the Void is flooded with a guttural aural explosion.

There are cries from the crowd as if a pain has been inflicted among some.

The fidelity is achingly applied and the masses are subjugated. There is an entrancement being perpetrated here, a deception of reality driven past our minds. It is not possible that this vast space can provide such an individual attention.

Every soul is torn from a memory of what has gone before, a replacement of expectation, a corruption of past experience.

With masterful timing the commander averts a sensory crescendo and rests his troops in order to leave his alter.  The Void fills with appreciative sounds from the occupants of the ledges as if droplets are falling on glass. The commander heads to the platform edge and leads a sightless drone back to proudly display to the assembly.

Screams rise from sensitive females encircling the Void and the sound of a million pebbles crashing on parchment sweeps down from all the ledges. Interjections and whistles smatter the applause. The blind warrior smiles strangely and embarks manfully on his mission, immediately familiar but unrecognised. Clawing at memory and wrenching through emotions he delivers a devastating and unassailable assault. The Void is consumed in its entirety, engorged with an opulence that none could have anticipated. The unctuous fulfilment endures through the grandiose and reprieve until, satiated, exhausted and enthused, all expectations are exceeded. An ultimate salvo is unleashed with undeniable finality and the last farewells are made.

The platform is vacant, the multitudes drain away, and the Void, the cold, grey stone Void remains. The Void holds no memory, no pride, no remorse or regret. The Void is a void.

Food

It is a strangeness. People have such different attitudes to the importance of food. Some forget that food is required, others plan their entire day around meals and rituals of food. There are some who have convinced themselves they do not eat meat and equally there exist folk who cannot abide the presence of green in their diet. An Australian tribe of food evangelists promote eating every second day and fasting every other day. There are people who limit their food by quantifying the energy quotient of every morsel and deride the people who consume ever increasing portions or intensities of food. For every normalcy there is an aberration and for every reasoned action there is an irrational belief. We can be certain there is no common attitude to food, no universal consumption and no norm of appetite.

There are communities where people do not have choices around food. Places where today’s meal is the same as it was yesterday, and places where yesterday’s meal and today’s meal were non-existent. Environments are endured where a mouthful of food is come by only after a massive effort. Where a meal must be caught, scavenged or found. And there are those bountiful landscapes where appetites are satiated from the abundance all around.

Food, its sourcing preparation and consumption are at our core and our relationship to food is fundamental to our environment, it reflects our standing in society. An abundance of food drives an obsession for food and an absence of food drives an equal obsession. 

That the fixation we have on food is survival based is undeniable, but the fixation is rarely survival dependent. The human frame will function for over eight weeks without food but it seizes and malfunctions in hours without fluid. There are those of the humanities who live off barren ground and who wander content, to the observer they seem uncommonly happy. For those of us dependant on a copious volume and ready availability of sustenance this is incomprehensible. For them who thrive on so little I wonder if we seem debauched, ungrateful and grotesque in our sumptuously fat-fleshed bodies.

In modern western life food idolatry has been raised to levels of presentation and nuance beyond the ability of the senses to absorb, flavour profiles are presented in ways so complex only the most genetically gifted could determine the subtlety of the dish. I wonder at the fixation we have developed for food. I wonder why celebrity is won from artistically searing a slaughtered protein or craftily chilling mammary excretions. There is the growing danger that the devoted will deify some proclaimed cook and the world will fight wars over taste sensations, textural preferences and methods of preparation.

Or perhaps that is what has already happened.

Once in Tokyo

A challenge was set to write 800 words on the topic ' lightbulb moment ' by ReadWave,



Sometimes you have to sweat the small stuff.

Six weeks of living in a foreign land. Six weeks of relying on secretaries and colleagues to help, direct and aid in the necessities of life outside the office.  Simple necessities like how to get to the office from the rented apartment, to differentiate between tooth polish and denture fixative, deodorant and tinea spray, and what is food.  Gai-jin is the Japanese word for foreigner. It means not of this world.  Max had never felt more welcomed and befriended anywhere in the world as he had been made to feel in Tokyo.  That is the way of Japan, for every expectation there is a direct contradiction.  A place unique in the world inhabited by a homogeneous and obedient population known as 'we Japanese'.
A delight to experience but for a man like Max it presented a challenge within which to assimilate.  He knew he could never be Nihon-jin but as he was to be here for three years he wanted to learn the language, the cultures, how to get around, do the simple things. Try and fit in, a bit.
His apartment was nice, with the correct height toilet, a western oven and stove, proper bath and shower, even a washer and dryer big enough for a family of ten.  There were Japanese design elements like the small tatami room with shoji panels.  There's a tokonoma in the hallway, it's a lighted alcove or sacred place for the display of seasonal or family tributes, shodo and ikebana.  It was this tokonoma that gave Max his challenge, a challenge he had been putting off since he moved in. 
Illuminating the alcove was a long fluorescent tube secreted behind a pelmet at the front of the opening so it lit the space without glare or shadow.  It was the only light for the hallway running from office, tatami room and bedrooms.   Trouble was, it flickered, annoyingly.  Max had decided that he was going to take on the solo and landmark challenge of buying a replacement from a local store. He had seen on his way to and from work, a small business run by a weathered man dressed in traditional tradesman attire of apron, balloon trousers and getta shoes but displaying a vast array of ultra modern lights and electrical accoutrements .  There was no chance the man would have any English language skills and that was the point.  Max's plan was to remove the tube, take it to this Japanese electrics man who smiled querulously at him as he passed by each morning and evening.  With a series of gestures and very limited language Max would explain he required an identical unit which did not flicker.   It wasn't much of an exercise in cultural bridge building but Max had decided it would be his start towards living independently.  He diligently practised the key words and phrases he had been coached in by his secretary who thought the whole thing most amusing but could not understand why he would not just ask her to get it fixed.  
He would do it this weekend.  The little electrics man was open every day and as far as Max could determine he lived in the shop, or above it. 
Saturday morning.  The planned time for the expedition.  Max woke with the familiar hangover from a Friday night out with colleagues and employees. Tokyo is nothing if not a Friday night town.  Brewed coffee and torn croissant consumed, Max showered, dressed and confronted the tokonoma.  Feeling behind the fascia Max determined the fluorescent tube was not only concealed at height but recessed and required an awkward approach, which may have been why the agent did not replace the tube on handover of the apartment.  It was of little moment to Max who was tall enough to reach and rotate the tube. 
It gave easily to a twist and released from the slotted ends of the mount allowing Max to lift it from the recess and rejoice at his minor but critical achievement.  The tube was very long, over a meter and a half and Max noticed it was a local manufacture with local identifying marks which he could not understand.  This was of little concern as Max had decided to take the tube to the store to ensure like for like.  That was key to the plan after all. 
Taking the tube to the foyer Max propped it against the entry alcove to reach for his coat.  The action nudged ever so gently the tube which followed the course of inevitable gravitational action punctuating the donning of Max's coat with a pop of released pressure as the glass tube disintegrated into a thousand tiny shards and a cloud of powered phosphorescence. 
Max collected the two metal terminal ends from the detritus, stared blankly and forlornly,,, and called his secretary.

What happens in Vegas ...

Phil sat in the shade of manicured imported palm trees and watched the irrigation stain leech towards the crisp edge of the artificial turf.  He is reviving in a place where value is relative, where worth is conceptual and where merit and morality have dollar equivalency. The streets and pavements are spotless, polished by the tyres and shoes of those entranced, entrenched and enticed. There is a cleanliness that impresses, an order, a photogenic neatness that pervades all images. A beauty of façade, a glimpsed obsolescence, a romantic nod to history but no regard for preservation. There is spectacle, encouragement and entreaty at every intersection along The Strip. 

And of course there are the people, the genuine, the pleasant, the scammers, the criminal, the kind, the helpful, the cruel, the nice and the deceptive. Vegas is a desert oasis fought over by cowboys and Indians, miners and traders, a community built by enterprise and motivated by envy.

 Phil's chair was positioned away from the castellated wall to ensure it would not pierce the resin-covered styrofoam faux stonework . His mood was being slowly fuzzed by the iced yard of cocktail he'd half consumed.   The be-jewelled, be-feathered and near naked girls working the passing crowd for photo tips had started counting their money, removing their headgear and slipping on more comfortable flat shoes as they prepared to relinquish their spot to the Grand Canyon trip hawkers, pimps and ticket scammers.

The girls, Phil had decided after watching their smiles and nubile bodies, were sweet college kids who had sourced last season's showgirl costumes in order to display and pay their way in this place where money talks and more money talks more.  Phil felt in his pocket for the shrunken fold of dollars. Mostly singles for tips, a couple of twenties, one fifty and a fiver or two. He didn't have much to say in this place now.  After a year of saving and a bit of borrowing he landed into McCarren LVA  pumped, primed and eloquent. That was five lost days ago, four nights of high limit craps and blackjack, limo trips, sexed up nightclub visits and fancy restaurant meals for fun friends he didn't know. This morning he'd walked from the free tram, ignoring the $8 temptation of the air conditioned Deuce to bring him here where he could use a discount coupon to buy this watery cocktail.  He had three more days. He would be hungry by Thursday.

Vegas is a desert valley.  A dessert valley with ten trillion gallons of stored water. Vegas is happiness and fun. It is fake and there is nothing more real. Vegas is bright light and despair,  oblivion and world renown entertainment, fine food and homeless hunger. Vegas is dark and joyful. Vegas is underlying threat, unending optimism and omnipresent opportunity.

You need to be there for things to stay there. 

A Special Place

A special place is like any other place, almost exactly but not quite like a place that really exists.

In fact, a special place is just a place we attach an idealised memory to.

That is the problem with memory, our special places are different to how we remember them.  Even your own home is different from how you would describe it to another person.  I forget things about places.  I forget important things about unimportant places and I forget unimportant things about important places.   I have forgotten places altogether, until I see them again.  Then I wonder if the place has changed or if I have mis-remembered how it was.  Sometimes places are so different to what I remember that I don’t think I have been there before, then I recognise a feature and remember I have.  I am beginning to think there are no special places, just loosely recollected montages of  events we choose to remember happening and attach them around a bit of geography we choose to reconstruct. 

I do, like you do, have places I remember.  Although if I went back to the place I remember I could find it is in another country.  Like the mountain walk I did in Malaysia that actually happened in Indonesia, or the perfect waves I caught off Bombo that I actually rode at Gerroa. 

I also don’t remember the places people live in.  Well, I do remember the people and the places, but not always the right people in the right places.  This means I often think a person has a hobby or a preference that stems from a misplaced memory of a visit to their house or a meal I shared with them once. 
None of this is anything more than occasionally slightly awkward and most times conversations or circumstances correct my error before I embarrass myself.  But it does mean I no longer speak certainly about places I have been nor do I make recommendations of places to go.  I have given up introducing friends to people I know who I think live in places they are going to.    No good will come from that.  I am sure they would enjoy each other's company but only if the people are in fact living where I think they are.

 I put it all down to smart phones, earth maps, on-line diaries, social networking and linked address books.  Technologies that obviate our need for long term, detail or spatial memory.  Information is at a finger touch, names, addresses, birthday reminders for people you would never usually talk to. 
Or the memory dysfunction could be from the drugs and alcohol.

Last month I got a message from an old friend I worked with in Tokyo, an ex-pat Canadian I first met while working in Australia back in the '80’s. As a motivational speaker she now travels the world doing things and tells me, as a side issue, she is planning to get to a total of one hundred and one countries she will have visited.  I find that rather daunting, despite the fact it has taken her many years and mostly at the behest of clients.  She did send me the message during a rather less than enthralling visit to Romania. I mean, I can’t even recall all the towns and pubs I have seen in Yorkshire, granted they do have slightly samey grace to them, but recalling 101 countries? Why?  And how the hell do you differentiate the memories?  I got places in Malaysia and Indonesia confused…. How does one differentiate the Slavic and Ik-stan countries in a memory-bank of foods, paths, villages, cities and peoples?   Having said that, I do recall clearly the coffee we shared together in Manly, the sake she bought me in Ukai Toriyama, and the ales I repaid her with in Skipton so perhaps her brain has similar links, triggers or other aide-de-memoir for her other 98 countries.

I hear that travel broadens the mind but I do wonder just how broad a mind needs to be.  I of course can’t remember how many countries, meals and people I have seen, eaten and met but I guess every place, meal and person has probably left a trace memory.  Some strong, some fogged, some pleasant some painful, some clear memories but all grow vaguer over time unless regularly recollected.

Recollection, when prompted, is an amazing thing.  One night, must be over ten years ago, during a swank meal somewhere I can’t recall, my then boss made a passing comment about a posh restaurant in Mildura, because he knew I travelled down that way.  Yesterday my friend Jon who I met in the UK a couple of years ago and now lives in Adelaide messaged saying he was travelling through Mildura. How I remembered the name of the restaurant to recommend to him I will never know.  Go figure that for a place memory.  It was Steffano’s if you are interested, and I now know from Jon that Steffano has started a new kitchen in a Mildura Brewery, set up in the old cinema.  Now, its stuff like that I can guarantee you, if I am ever again travelling in New South Wales, on that road from Canberra, wanting a good meal, I will not recall one bit of this and I will stop and buy a burger at the shop next to the petrol station like I have every other time. 

It is this about special places I most abhor.  Not only are they just like any other place that may or may not exist but the special-ness is related to a memory not to the reality.
 Seffano’s restaurant from ten years ago may or may not still exist, Jon didn’t say, I am to this day unsure if the wave I caught was off which headland on the south coast of New South Wales or if I ever was with my Canadian friend drinking sake on a Japanese Mountain.  I do know I have caught many waves, been to the mountain many times, I have drunk many things, I have enjoyed the company of many friends in many of their special places and I intend to continue to do so.

Just don’t ask me to recommend special places, as while I have many special memories I would not want to mislead you to a place or a person that does not exist..

Inspiration

A task set for a June 2013 Leeds Savage Writers meet I did not make .

The bastard motivation of passion and obsession drove Stewart to his canvases.  The early morning had begun to leach a grey dullness from the chill summer night.  A thick palette board he’d left on the chair a few hours ago was taunting him with its gelled pigments smeared and globbed in vibrant discord.   Stained rags lay matted and stiff around the base of the easel and around the studio where they had been dropped onto the colour encrusted floorboards days, weeks and years ago.  The room was a complete chaos encasing another astounding work of focus, depth and clarity on canvas.  Similar pristine images shone from countless abandoned and partially complete canvases laid angularly against the walls, the furniture and nestling on the  piled detritus of the room.

What he called the studio was a front room upstairs, usually the main bedroom.  It was in one of the damp stone terraces crammed into the bleak back streets of Ayreshire, three down from a derelict pub and a bleak co-op.  It was the only room in the socially funded house that glimpsed the southern sky and could steal any benefit from daylight.  It had been Stewart’s retreat and sanctuary for 20 years.  Two decades of chasing perfection in his style of almost transparent oil painting. His works had developed over this time and become fantastical creations of layer upon layer of disparate images all interlinked and visible through each other.  Each layer held a story with related meaning and subtext to the greater story told by the finished work.  Painted transparent images laid one over each other like each were on a gossamer film.  Stewart knew he had developed an exquisite and deceptive technique that took the eye to depths of perspective and wonder.  He knew he had broken new ground, he knew he was doing something the art world would eventually recognise. This canvas, the one he’d titled ‘Inspiration’ was one of four in a series but he knew it would be this one that was going to make his name.

The Scottish Academy submission dates were three days away from closing and this work was complete, along with three lesser but related works.  Stewart cleared a space to prop them.  Working without the uncertainty of previous years he placed one beside the other and finally took the final piece off the easel to take it’s position next to the triptych.  The display was stunning, pleasing, fulfilling, a justification of dedication and a clear reflection of the faith and support Jillie had given him.  The four works were also an acknowledgement to the facility that Glenn had invested in him by providing a stipend, a goal and a contract for publication of his work in limited edition.

One never knows if an artist will become popular but Glenn had a better eye than most dealers when it came to commercialism of contemporary art.  He had a strong gut feel that Stewart’s unique style would tap a niche of collectors to be milked.  There was no way he could have known that six weeks after signing Stewart to his company that the Scottish Academy would award ‘Inspiration’ its highest praise and award.  There was no possible indication that from that endorsement the Savoy in London would offer Stewart the chance to be Artist in Residence for 2013.    Until 2012 The Savoy had not had an artist in residence since Claude Monet so the appointment of Stewart, a little known, no, an unknown Scottish painter had set the art critics into a spin.  Estelle Lovatt on the BBC  has been quoted to say Stewart was the one new artist for speculators to invest in for now and for the aesthetics of the future to marvel and comment on. 

Stewart had always known.

ITS A SECRET

Leeds Savage Writing task 10/7/13  ‘Secret’.  Each attendee was asked to write a real or fictional secret and swap it for someone else's secret.  I got the following one.

‘I am the only person in the world (as far as I know) who knows that another person is not as happy as they appear.  In fact they are very unhappy.  Telling anyone would hurt many.  So I keep it to myself and offer counsel.’

So my story went;

ITS A SECRET

‘I am the only person in the world (as far as I know) who knows that another person is not as happy as they appear.  In fact they are very unhappy.  Telling anyone would hurt many.  So I keep it to myself and offer counsel.’

Vicky cut and pasted it to a word document, saved it to her desktop and grouped it with her selection from the raft of ‘Dear Dorothy’ letters and emails.  The magazine sucked out hundreds of notes to Dorothy from the angry, defeated, forlorn, lonely and heart-smashed members of its reader base.  Every week from now on a flood of painful confessions, ignorant questions, life-worn vitriol, adolescent whining and general moaning was going to land in Vicky’s inbox. Being Dorothy for one day a fortnight was just part of her loosely described journalist’s job.  She had to select five bits of correspondence that she thought would make fuel for interesting replies.

 The last Dorothy, her predecessor, Steve, a bald, fat 40-something Glaswegian used to carp on endlessly to her about the archaic tradition of magazine agony aunt columns.  Unlike Vicky who was on the celebrity watch team, he was the magazine’s sports reporter.  His Dorothy responses were in thinly veiled condescension or gave incongruous advice bordering on the incredulous.  The Dorothy column was becoming a parody under his hand.  Vicky couldn’t stand to think people might actually take Dear Dorothy’s advice and she had eventually summoned the courage to suggest that Phil have a word to Steve about CitiLife magazine’s long tradition of the Dear Dorothy column and the depth of its reader loyalty and trust.

Phil had smiled patronisingly at her saying Steve was the only schmuck he could get to write the shit and unless she wanted to take it from him she’d best shut the fuck up and get back to digging up celebrity gossip. 

That was a month ago, two issues of bile drenched Dorothy advices to the love-struck and life-wary readers of Citilife magazine.  Then, last Monday, Steve simply stopped coming to work, no phone call no letter of resignation, he just didn’t come in.  Phil had tried to contact him but no one knew where he’d gone.  Anyway that’s a police matter now, as far as Vicky knew Steve could have fallen in a canal or been shot by an enraged reader.  She didn’t much care, the Dorothy role had immediately fallen to her with Phil’s blessing of ‘Congratulations Dorothy, don’t let it distract you from your real job here.’    

And Vicky had taken to the fortnightly task with her usual commitment.  New Dorothy intended to become once again a voice of reason and comfort.  It was proving a good balance for Vicky, to escape the vapid world of celebrity and sit for a few hours with the thoughts and fears of real people with real problems.  Although this one was tempting her to do a ‘Dear Steve’-style reply.

For shit sake, who in this world thinks they have the sole right to solve global happiness?  Or.  What sort of person thinks they are responsible for judging the sincerity of happiness.  And.  Who the fuck said it was wrong for someone to project a happy demeanour?  Then again, Vicky considered, was this letter a diagnosis of self-depression?  Was it a deluded pre-suicide note?  Bugger it. Five muniutes. She had been thinking about this bloody letter for too long already. Pulling off her ‘Steve’ hat and slipping into ‘Dorothy’ she started to draft a response.

Dearest  Secret,

I know you are wanting to do the right thing. However, in this modern and fast paced world people develop their own methods to cope with life’s demands.  Projecting a pleasant persona is an effective and practical protection of self.  There is a benefit to acting happy in as much as it is a preferable state in society and one can achieve much with a pleasant demeanour.   There is also the happiness theory that you can make it if you fake it.  Every one of us faces challenges that others could see as either inconsequential or insurmountable.  We all have our own perspective.  I am sure the person you are offering counsel to values your relationship and I can only presume from your note that they have actually confessed their unhappiness to you.  People do rise and fall in contentment at times in their life due to events or bio-chemical changes.  You do sound like a caring person and if you do have the person’s confidence I suggest you keep your counsel, do not discuss this person’s emotive state with others and direct the person to seek professional advisors.  It does not fall to you to resolve the happiness of others.  You can be happy in yourself and you can care for others but we are each responsible for our own wellspring of contentment and the actions we need to drive our happiness must come from within.

Vicky was satisfied this was a pertinent Dorothy-like response, formatted it for edit and sent it through to publication.

The day before the print run Phil did his edit and published the following;

Dearest Secret,

I can only presume from your note that the person to whom you refer has actually confessed their unhappiness to you.  If not, then butt out.  I can tell you, people are more perceptive than you give them credit for, fake happiness sticks out like the proverbial. .  Have you not considered everyone pretends to be happier than they are?   It does not fall to you to resolve the happiness of others.  I agree with you on one thing you say, you shouldn’t discuss this person’s happiness with others and if you are intent on doing anything, you may suggest to the person they should seek professional help. Be prepared though, they may be told to stop talking to you.

Citi Life hits the streets every Monday, Vicky receives her copy via email 3 hours before the print run. 

Vicky didn’t go to work on Monday, when the police gained access later that week her phone was found on her bedside table.   

Balls

a short story about something to play with if you can't sleep



INSOMNIA

Its a word not a sentence they say, but to Jane it was a sentence, a complete sentence, a life sentence. 

It came any time  that a weariness flooded over her and demanded she recline.  The very second she succumb and laid her head to rest, her mind would become a shattered mirror of recollections. Shards of thoughts , glinting images, ideas, solutions, problems flashed behind her closed eyes.  Her body would drench itself in a hot sweat of anxiety and cold shivers of fear. 

This was not normal for a normal person.  

But Jane was a normal person, as normal as anyone she knew, she fitted into society, had friends. 

The red leather sofa was reclined again tonight, the TV showing a drama repeat with the sound muted.  A smart side-table light stained the room with a dullness that softened edges and blurred the colours she had so carefully chosen.  The sofa had turned out to be Jane’s workbench.  It was intended as a place of comfort, of composure, a place she could fall to when there was a hope she may slip away without her brain ambushing her.   She saw the sofa though as her workbench for the simple reason she so often ended up working here. It was where she would be most nights, pecking at the laptop, prodding at an i-screen, social surfing, emailing, looking at stuff.  Sleep again, as usual, had once more failed to claim her mind.  Jane was considering her 2 bedrooms a complete waste of space.

As it turned out, this night was to be a night of inspiration as she had decided to use her keyboard to bore herself to sleep.  Just to keep writing stuff brainlessly on a blank word doc until her fingers paused, her eyes drooped and the screen dimmed.  It was a plan. She started …

“ It used to be the pounding at letter buttons, smashing inked keys into paper, now we are still clicking letter buttons and pushing digits around a screen, same old thing though, same way of data capture for, what, nearly two centuries?  Yeah, Wikywords says 1819 was the first practical    typewriter.  Wonder when keyboards standardised as qwerty keyboard.  This was done because typewriters used to have levers throwing type keys at paper.  Qwerty key order came about so that frequently used key levers didn’t jam as they swung past each other.  At least that is what I understand as the reason.  There was another theory, one that said some blokes changed the order to slow down female typers who were more proficient than the men. I don’t know about that, is typers a word?  Should be.  Typist sounds such a female term , or is that just me?

 I remember, later on, maybe in the 1970’s there were sort of golf ball type-heads, but they still got thrown against paper.  A carbon ribbon flew up and down between the paper and the type head.  The ribbon was textile, later a plastic film.  Copies were made by carbon paper being put between pages, the copies at the back got fuzzy.  Photocopiers didn’t happen till the late 70’s IBM had a thing called a CopierII . It was massive and used huge rolls of heat sensitive paper.  There was lots of paper.  Typewriter paper came in different thinness’s so more copies could be made.  Is that the right use for an apostrophe in thinness’s?  Spell-check, what a marvellous thing.  And thin carbon paper was more expensive.  Any errors were made in duplicate, triplicate and more.  Corrections were re-typed or pages thrown away, some machines had sticky tape so a backspace and retype would pull the plastic film letters off, didn’t fix the carbon copies though.  I can’t recall when   the carbon     paper     got         replaced by   pressure sensitive           duplicating paper but        the          back pages        still      got      blurry           an 

Hey that’s good.  Dozed off, clock says only for minutes though.  Where was I?  Oh yeah.  That’s all I’ve got about keyboards, but here I am still using one. Although predictive text, that’s nice.  As is punctuation correct, capital letter after a full stop, I rely on that.  Ive tried,  …  oh look it doesn’t recognise Ive for an apostrophe but it does for doesn’t . I’ve. Ive.  No it doesn’t learn … Voice recognition does learn, that’s getting so much better too, I use voice recognition a lot now, texting, I even use it to draft notes.  It is getting so good pretty soon we will be able to use it for most writing and form filling. That will be nice.  Then we could talk our texts, letters and emails into existence.  If the person receiving them had the same voice recognition thing they could hear them read out.  Maybe we could have a program that mimicked our voice tone.  It would be like text-talking to each other, or at each other.  But texting voice to voice would be like a machine solution that would allow us to have something I will call textversation  where we speak into a machine and almost immediately, or even immediately, the person could similarly reply.  I’d call it textiphone, or voicelink  or something like telephonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 

Oh, another nap. Twenty minutes that time.  I’m getting to think this may just catch on.  I wonder if anyone else goes to sleep while keyboarding.   I really hope voice to text to voice doesn’t,  ooh,  look that was  another auto apostrophe,  Ive, nope still hasn’t  learned, but it does know hasn’t has an apostrophe.  I must think of more apostrophised words…. Later though.  I wonder if touch screen and skype could be developed so you could feel the person you are talking to.  Oh my god, imagine porn sights then.  Have to develop some pretty impressive waterproofed touch-screen tech though.  Wet-wipe tolerant.  I would call it datafeel , or  smutversation.  No hang on, this isn’t working.  My brain’s going all mirror-shatter again.  I’m seeing talking appendages and orifices with dialogue pulsing under my handprint, hot skin throbbing to my touch                                     .”

Jane stopped writing and went to her bed, she had things to do there now and bed was the best place for it.