Under Church Hill

Vinyl Villain

2006-08-13T14:48:00.000-07:00

My fingers were sore from the string that held the bundles of records together as we walked down the hill to Vinyl Villains. They were pristine inside the tied up boxes and when the record shop guy turned the first one over in his hands he asked Sheona reverently if they were all like that. My own records were already binned, played to death and ripped to shreds but both sets were redundant without a player and with another baby on the way there was no room for old stuff to just lie about. She got £120 for her collection. As we walked back up the road and I wiped her tears away, they turned to pieces of silver in my hand

On throwing away an old copy of LOTR - blank verse

2006-06-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

One volume, binding all in paperback,
with spine of crisp and yellowed sellotape,
Its corners folded into cabbage leaves,
Not dog-ears, unless in some dreadful fight.

Redundant on now overloaded shelves,
Replaced by illustrated, Alan Lee’s.
Too tattered even yet to give away,
I turn it over in my hand and see,
A price that tells a story of its own,
One pound and pennies for five hundred sheaves,
Of day dreams and delight; for half a life-
time spent in lands whose air I’ll never breathe.

Then Aragorn strides out one final time,
Last chapters shift and flutter to the floor,
Bound for the black pit; the fellowship’s doom,
Beyond Grey Havens never to return.

LOTR stuff to throw away

2006-06-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

On throwing away an old copy of “The Lord of the Rings.”

One Volume, paperback
with spine of yellowed sellotape
Corners folded into cabbage leaves
Not dog-ears unless in some dreadful fight
Too tattered for the Shops
Of Charity to take and sell
Redundant on new overstocked shelves
Replaced by illustrated, Alan Lee’s.

I turn it over in my hand and see
The price that tells a story of its own
Pence and shillings for a thousand
Pages of delights and daydreams.
For half a lifetime lost in lands
Whose air I’ll never breathe.

Appendices shift and flutter to the floor
Aragorn strides out for the final time
Into the black pit and the fellowship’s
Doom without return.

Horror Box

2006-06-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

Rambly free verse unedited as yet

The horror box

I put my hand into the narrow
Circle of the hole
Grabbed by the writhing tentacles
of a demented squid
my arm is flayed in a frenzy of suckered hooks
My fingers crack between the jaws
Of the dull scissored beak
Crushed and severed digits fall
From one hand to the other
A hapless juggler in a circus of distress.

I put my nose up to the puckered hole
Slaughterhouse smells of blood, shit and rot
Marsh gas from intestinal swamps
Mingles with the lurking underwaft of
Stale piss, rotting nylon and sickly
Sweet pine of cheap air-freshener.
Olfactory meltdown,mucus streams
The sense of smell is replaced by
A dull ache and a caught breath

Involuntary reluctantly I taste the thing
Chitinous crawling creatures leave acid trails
Across my tongue the ripples of filth
wash Rancid milk and Bilious meat
a sandwich of mouldy bread
stuffed with the gag of fur and taint of metal.

Holding it before me it shrieks
A writhing mass of venomous metal
with scrabbling legs and glutinous slime
It stabs and slashes its way free
Repulsed and plunging to the floor
It skitters to the corner
A stain spreading in the gloom
Tendrils worming to the wardrobe
Poisons seep into my pores becoming part of me
Its remnants multiply within. Dividing,
Subdividing in a honeycomb
Of cryptic chaos and
Putrid birthing cells
Today’s shame is
Tomorrow’s horror.

Flying to Drumore

2006-06-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

It was a beast of a thing
my Dad's old car.
All wheels and engine
but small inside.
A tardis in reverse
with red brown leather seats
that stank of woodless pine and sweaty knees.

When we left the Little Chef
a rumble turned into a roar.
Flying to Drumore one hump at a time
in the goony bird express.
Seven hills, passing on single tracks
A last bridge seen too late
and flight both longer and less graceful
than the rest

The bubbling spring of coke welled up within
Spewing out geyser streams as I yelled stop!
My Father's Brylcreamed hair slicked back
and suddenly immersed
in the former contents of my sugar loaded mouth.

-------------------------
almost a true story,
I missed his head.

The Electric Boy - A Terza Rima

2006-06-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

Its funny how childhood memories seem to come back once you start this creative writing lark.
The poem is based on an incident that I was told about as a child, at length, by my parents.
A boy who lived in our street (but whom I didn't know for some reason) climbed over the rails of the electricity sub-station
his older sister was there too and tried to pull him away from the machinery with a bit of fencing. He was, according to my Father, burned to a crisp.
I used to walk past that generator on the way to my Aunts and the hum of the wires was a very eery sound . Needless to say I gave it a wide berth.
I still have an image, which I didn't manage to work into the poem, of a black and white plastic ball, melted half to slag on top of one of the machines.
I think they left it there as a warning.

Poetry

2006-05-01T23:43:00.000-07:00

Up next is the dreaded poetry scetion of the course.
Sadly I don't like poetry very much . Maybe it was early exposure to Douglas Adam's Vogons that did it but everything I write is in that style.

Hey Ho..onward and downwards !

25 word short story - The Mayflies

2006-05-01T23:42:00.000-07:00

They met over morning coffee; by dinner they were in love; by supper their marriage was consummated; by dawn they’d died. So the mayflies dance.

Two versions of an encounter in WW2

2006-04-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

This story is prompted by a tutorial request to write to sequences telling the same story but from different viewpoints.
The seed was an encounter between a British and German soldier in WW2.

The Tommy's Tale

The first time I saw a real kraut was exactly ten seconds before I killed one. He was standing to attention, with his arms behind his back and a blindfold over his eyes. I was creeping, quietly, through an empty village in Northern France, four or five miles east of my proper drop point, when I looked round the corner. There he was, blindfolded, with his grey uniform jacket opened wide, showing off a white vest and the top of his pale Aryan chest. An officer stood five feet away from him, his jodhpurs flapping in the stiff breeze, pointing a pistol at his head. From the officer’s movements and puffing cheeks I guessed that he was shouting, but the wind caught every word and threw it down the road away from me.

Shoot the bastard officer first. The revenant of my drill Sergeant shouted in my ear and my arms raised my rifle without conscious thought. I sighted, took a breath, let it out and squeezed the trigger. A hole appeared below the officer’s right ear and he dropped like a theatre curtain to the ground.

‘Who’s a useless pansy now, Sergeant?’

I ran forward in a crouch from my position, ejecting the spent shell as I went. The other soldier had fallen to his knees. As I approached him, I could hear him talking to himself. Hellfire, hellfire. It seemed an odd thing for a kraut to say.

Moving closer, I saw that he was slim and tall, with an ill-fitting uniform. Below the strip of cloth that wound around his head, his pale cheeks were covered with the soft honey down of youth. He curled further and further forward until he toppled over, cracking his head on the ground. I reached down and put my hand on his shoulder, feeling sorry for him. Touching his ear with the outside of my hand I said,

‘It’s alright. It’s alright.’

He rolled on to his back and shouted at me.

‘Nine. Nine. Bitter she’s meek neek’

‘Shush, shush. Quiet down.’

I pulled his blindfold off and his blue eyes flitted wildly across my face, and then looked at my uniform. He scanned down between my legs and gave a look of calm bewilderment. Behind me, lay the body of the officer.

The youth gestured to me to untie his hands then flinched as I reached down to my belt and pulled out my bayonet.

I cut him free and he stretched his hands to my face then kissed me on both cheeks..

‘Tanker’ he said ‘Tanker’, and then kissed me again.

This time, I dropped my rifle and my bayonet and kissed him back.

The Hitler Youth

I stood to attention as Officer Gerhard prepared to carry out my summary execution. He had placed one of his own handkerchiefs across my eyes. It was a nice touch, I suppose, but perhaps it met his own needs more than mine.

When he chose me for his personal assistant, I had assumed it was because he liked me. I was not wrong. We had been corrupted by the rampant power of our overlords and become decadent in our desires.

He justified himself of course in those tender moments after he had used me, with passages of Greek philosophy and stories of Thebes, but all of that was forgotten when he found me with a French boy in my bed. He raged and railed, calling me a pervert and a traitor then made me sign a confession on the spot before dragging me out into the street to shoot me.

Tears ran down his cheeks as he bound my hands behind my back and covered up my eyes.

‘Goodbye’ he said.

‘F___ you, you hypocrite’ I would have spat if my mouth hadn’t been so dry.

That set him off. I heard him step backwards and then he started shouting again, but the wind came up and the blindfold covered my ears so that his angry words were lost on me.

I did hear the shot, but when I did not feel the bullet, I thought his nerve had gone.

I waited for a moment, but my head swam and my legs trembled so much that I dropped to my knees.

Footsteps clattered along the road in front of me with the clicks and scuffs of a common soldier’s boot.

‘Help, Help’ I said

The footsteps closed right in to me and I expected to feel the sharp pain of a bullet or a bayonet. I curled forwards, making myself as small as I could, until my head cracked off the pavement. A strange voice said something I didn’t understand and a hand touched my shoulder. I rolled away from it, onto my back.

‘Please, Please don’t shoot me.’

The hand ripped away my blindfold and I looked into the face of an angel. Then I saw his khaki uniform and there on the ground behind him, was Officer Gerhard.

I worried at what he would do now, but tried to look friendly and gestured to him to cut my hands free. When his hand touched his bayonet hilt, my heart leapt and I fixed him with a pleading gaze. He cut me free and in my relief I kissed and thanked him. As he kissed me back, I wondered what was in his thoughts, but the sheer animal joy of living overtook me and I surrendered.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The overall title for this should be Brokeback Arnhem reallly .....

Prose in the form of a play

2006-04-17T02:13:00.000-07:00

Prompted by the line
“The dance, in a black leotard, did not much improve her robust figure, only her appetite”

The scene opens in a living/dining room of an ordinary semi-detached suburban home.
Bob is sitting on a sofa watching TV.
Jane enters, carrying a large plastic carrier bag.

Jane: Do you have the table set ?
Bob: Mm ? Oh, hello dear.
Jane: The table ? Oh never mind, they’ve put in chop sticks. I don’t know what you do when I’m out. I think you just waste your time, while I’m improving myself.

Jane sets the carrier bag down on the table and unloads a prodigious quantity of take away food.

Bob: We expecting company?
Jane: I’m starving. All this exercise makes me quite giddy if I don’t eat. Anyway, I need to keep my strength up if I’m going to master all these steps and leaps. Do you think the exercise is helping ?
Bob: Mmm. You do look a bit slimmer.

Jane takes off her jacket and twirls round clumsily.

Jane: Do you really think so? Sometimes I feel like an elephant, but this black leotard makes me feel like a swan.
Bob: Mmm. Yes.

Bob sits at the table

Bob: Better get tucked in before this gets cold, eh.

Notes: The main difference is this almost all show and no tell. Even more so than in a play, character is inferred by the reader rather than stated or acted out and setting is sketchy at best.

Clowning around.

2006-04-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

Ha Ha. Very funny my name's Bugs Bunny. Kids love it. I hate it. Shit. Nearly put my makeup on straight. Right then, get it sorted. Get the bastards later. Nail this one. Get the money. Come back. Kick ass. Move back in and hey presto. Clowny is the hero not the putz. She loves me. She loves me not. Sad eyes for Pierot. Not for me. Smiley face on. Sell those burgers. Sell those burgers. Do I look tired? Shit. I smell like I slept under a tree. Cos I did. Boom, boom. Focus, focus. Hair. Where’s my hair. Oh. On my head. Lovely. Green and fluffy like the bush I was born under. Or was that a wandering star? Who cares? The kids need their burgers, Mum and Dad need an hour's peace and I need my rent. Flowers. Up sleeve. Squeezy bulb. Better fill it. Right, got it . All set. No messing about. Well maybe some. It is my job. Wait, something’s missing. Nose! Bugger, that was close. Red or blue, red or blue. You choose. No, you choose. Ok blue. No, idiot ! Red. Ok all set. One hour and then I can go back to her. Get a real job, she said. Don’t come back until you’ve got one. Well, this is real. I’ll take some flowers, real flowers. And the rent. Then she’ll take me back. Failing that, maybe I should run off and join the circus.

Strawberry Hill

2006-04-01T11:51:00.000-08:00

Monday.

I went there last night again. It’s fantastic. Realer than real. Better than anything.

Bobby came too. It was his first time. When he saw it he nearly freaked. Crying and talking about Jesus. Like he’s got anything to do with it. Imagine if he’d stuck around. If he’d seen me with the Gog he’d have wigged out totally and then we’d all be in trouble.

I got in at four this morning. None heard me I think. It was beautiful. I could feel the sun shining on me. It was like I was still luminous. Sometimes when it’s so peaceful and the birds are singing it feels like you’re still there even though you’re back in reality.

Thursday

Shit. Lisa keeps looking at me like I’m on drugs. She stared at me over the breakfast table. Lucky I had long sleeves on. If she saw the bruises on my arms she’d tell Mom. Mom hasn’t noticed. She’s seen my grades and they’re all she cares about. She thinks I’m going to Harvard, but she’s in for a surprise when I stay here and take a job at the store.

I can’t leave here. If I leave here I won’t be able to get there and I can’t think about that. About never seeing her again. Miranda. Miranda. Miranda.

I wish I could write poetry. She’d like that. She’d smile if I gave her a poem and I want her to smile. I'm going back tonight. Bobby says he wants to come. Says he'll stay this time and not wig out. Says he's not stopped thinking about it since Monday. I guess it'll be ok.

Friday

Bobby’s gone. He ate something and he didn’t make it back in time. Shit. His Dad’s gonna die. It’s my fault. I knew he wasn’t listening. He didn’t follow the rules. This isn’t for kids. I have to go back and get him.

Maybe I should tell Lisa where I’m going. She’s young enough to understand. Or maybe not. Sometimes she’s more grown up than the rest of us.

I can’t tell the twins. They wouldn’t care. Too busy studying to be lawyers.

If I tell Mom, she’ll think she can fix it. She can’t. It’s not like she can buy Bobby’s Dad a new son. I have to go and get him. If I can’t bring him back, maybe I should stay there too. Miranda doesn’t want that though. Says she’ll never speak to me again if I don’t follow the rules. Maybe that’s because she wants Bobby instead of me. He’s with her and I’m not. It’s not fair. I’m the one who sorted out the Gog and that’s what she said she wanted.

Eyewitness. Bobby’s Dad

Simon came to my house on Friday. He seemed very upset. He said he and Bobby had gone somewhere together the other night and that Bobby had gotten stuck there. I asked him what he meant by that and he got very agitated. Said it was his fault. There was a girl involved. Miranda he said her name was. My Bobby’s never been in trouble before. We raised him a good Christian even if he is a bit slow sometimes. I always thought that Simon came from a good family but I guess kids of all kinds get caught up in drugs these days.

I asked him about that but he said no and got even more upset. Said I wouldn’t believe him anyway. I said I believed in a lot of things other folks don’t, like the blood of Christ and the Resurrection so he could tell me anything he wanted and get a fair hearing.

He said that was very kind and he calmed down a little. He said he was going to get Bobby back and if he couldn’t, well, if he couldn’t, I was to tell his family he’d tried real hard but there was a bigger reality out there than the one they knew about and he had to help his friend.

I trusted him I guess. He seemed sincere. A little shook up maybe, but a good kid at heart if I’m any judge.

He said not to follow him but I need to know where my Bobby is. He walked up towards Strawberry Hill. Bobby always liked the old stones up there so it didn’t surprise me.

Halfway up I guess I must’ve blinked because he disappeared right in front of me.

I thought the rapture might have come, but I heard a voice that didn’t make me think of heaven. Soft and beckoning maybe but more like a harlot than a holy virgin. I guess they’ll turn up when they’re finished with her or she’s finished with them. Maybe they’ll come back as men.

Two views of a castle

2006-03-19T04:23:00.000-08:00

The purpose of the exercise is broadly to describe a place or setting and alter that description according to the mood/circumstances of characters.
The suggestion is to describe a visit to a place where the protagonists feel unwell . The second attempt suggests it as a new home.
I'm not a big one for long descriptions so wrapped it up in a broadly parallel narrative.

The Castle - Version 1
At the end of a torturous journey through bleak grey hills lies an old castle. It stands in the cleft of two spurs of land, looming over the sea loch it commands. The dim light of the afternoon sun casts an insipid pink pall over the grubby white washed walls.
The kids tumble out of the car. Tim drags his toy sword out and tries to whack Samantha .The air is thick and heavy with the scent of flowers from the garden. Tim’s sword-strokes waft the overpowering smells into my face. My stomach lurches.
‘Let’s get inside’, I mutter through my hankie.
My husband stands gawping for a moment and the kids start to squabble.
‘Come on’ I say.
The great hall is full of dust and old junk. The famous ‘fairy flag’ is a tattered rag pressed behind yellowing glass.
My husband tugs my sleeve and drags me to the sick heart of this awful place. A guide is telling the ghastly history of the bottle dungeon. My son listens, rapt, and my daughter clutches my husband’s thigh. The walls of the room above it lurch and wriggle in the corners of my eyes. My already churning bowels threaten to expel. I trot and clench my way over worn carpets, past threadbare tapestries, until I find what I am looking for.
‘All these rooms’ I mutter, ‘but there’s never a toilet when you need one’.

The Castle - Version 2
At the North end of the beautiful, misty, island of Skye, nestled in a sheltered bay, lies the fairytale castle of Dunvegan.
Its white walls have turned a pretty pink in the fading light of the afternoon sun.
Tim steps out of the car carrying his new toy claymore while his sister Samantha dances beside him. As he swishes his sword through the air, it sends me the scent of spring flowers from the fabulous gardens.
'Let’s get inside’, I say.
My husband stands, entranced, for a moment and the children chatter excitedly.
‘Come on’, I say.
The great hall is worthy of its name. Half filled with the bric-a-brac from eight centuries of occupation, it seems homey and lived in. My husband touches my arm and beckons me into the private drawing room.
‘The seat of my ancestors’ he says, leaning on a large leather chair.
He smiles at me, willing me to laugh at his daft joke, but all I can feel is pride. From the other room I hear our children laughing together. They’ve found the fairy flag, framed on the wall to preserve its delicate silks. Its blend of mystery, romance and adventure draws them together in their play.
I think I’m going to like this place.

Clifftop - a childhood memory

2006-03-16T23:57:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting on a gravely patch of scratched earth between two mounds of soft long grass. The seed heads sway in the wind, tickling my arms. Below me, the sea crashes noisily onto sharp grey rocks, sending up the smell of seaweed. I imagine the slick brown ribbons of weed with their ugly bubbles popping as I step on them. Not with bare feet though. Yuk ! The thought brings me back to reality and I can hear my mother calling my name. She sounds strange, her voice is higher than normal and I turn my head and shoulders round to look for her. I see her hair first as she crests the hillock betweens us. Her glasses have small sharp wings on the top corners of the lenses that make her look like an owl in my Puffin Book of British Birds.
She is walking down from the lighthouse that we were visiting before I got bored.
“Don’t move”, she shouts, then contradicts herself, “ Just come back from the edge, slowly”.
Her voice is strangled by the wind and I can feel the damp air tickle my cheeks as it rushes down the open collar of my thick red woollen jacket.
A gull squawks as it flies along the cliff face beneath my dangling feet .
I shuffle backwards over small sharp stones and soft rabbit droppings until I get my feet under me. I roll over onto my knees and stand.
As my mother shouts, “Bill, Bill, I’ve found him”, I walk towards her and into the worst row of my life.

Exercise 6.1 - Setting

2006-03-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

The bags of shopping are stacked in neat rows on the kitchen floor. Inside the walk-in cupboard by the door, a pristine mop stands to attention as if waiting for the intruders to be cleared away.

The kitchen is vast and without clutter. A person could get lost in the arctic desert of white appliances.

On the worktop, every object is precisely where it should be. The disposable gloves sit between the liquid soap and the bleach. Above them, on a simple hook, hangs a white bristled dish washing brush.

The polished marble top of the kitchen table sparkles in the sunlight that streams through the crystal clear windows. On the table, in a crumpled plastic pouch, lie the delivery receipt and a handwritten note on TESCO headed paper.

‘I’ve left the bags here as per instructions and trust the goods are to your satisfaction. If not, please contact me asap. Regards, Bill’

Perfect Recall - character monologue

2006-03-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

Perfect recall is as much a burden as a blessing. Especially if your parents have spotted your talent.

When my Dad used to ask me, ‘So what did you get up to last night’, it wasn’t like I could say ‘I don’t remember’. If I tried, he’d reply,

‘I find that a bit strange considering you still talk about that time Anna Flynn bit your arm when you were 2 years old. Don’t you? That’s why I’m pretty certain you’d remember if you kissed that boy last night or not’.
It’s amazing how often you die when you are a teenager. At least once a day, someone puts a dagger through your heart.

I imagine that you’ve forgotten just how that feels, but I haven’t . All those black board screeching memories you hate. The ones that haunt you. The ones that flood into your brain when you are walking down the street or waiting for a bus. I carry them and all the otehr smaller one stha you've forgotten. They're with me all the time. They sit in my head like squabbling siblings in the back seat of the car. I feel like that poor kid in the 6^th sense. Except I don’t just see dead people. Most of them are still alive. Most of them have forgotten what I said when I was drunk and they were too. But I haven’t. Some of them know it. Some of them don’t look me in the eye anymore. Some of them don’t seem to care, but I wonder if they do. Sometimes I wish I could forget about it. But I can’t, can I?

A215 Exercise 5.2

2006-03-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

Jeremy was born to audit. His birthday was auspicious, 28^th of August 1961. A Virgo and an Ox. Detail loving and meticulous.

He started off in accounts, and that was fine for a while, but he needed to branch out. The numbers were too fleeting and the breadth of tasks was too constricting. So he made a list. He made a list and discovered that he loved it. A checklist freshly ticked. A procedure walked through. Checking it was done. Checking it was done right. Checking it was done right and the evidence to prove that was safely filed .

He loved his new job. He sat at his desk, smiling. He went to meetings, whistling. In his head he danced like Gene Kelly in the rain. His heart glowed with pride at the end of a project.

He enjoyed his work to an infectious degree. He audited without prejudice or malice. People liked him. He inspired them. He took such obvious joy in checking that they’d done it right that they did do it right just to see him smile. Sometimes they asked him what he was on. Sometimes they asked him if they could get some from their Doctors too. He’d just smile indulgently and ask them if they enjoyed their jobs. Not normally replied some, not ever replied others.

“Well I do”, replied Jeremy “and that’s the heart of it. Find something you enjoy doing and you’ll do it well”

But not everyone is as lucky as Jeremy, not everyone has the same auspicious start. Some of us just have to muddle through and make the best of what fate brings.

The Black Depressions

2006-03-08T17:01:00.000-08:00

Amended after some helpful comments from my fellows on A215.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The Black Depressions

Self consciousness
Turns To self doubt
Spirals down
Through fear to self loathing

People don’t like you
They look strangely at you
They talk about you
Behind your back
From the corner of your eye
You see them leering
And sneering
And worst of all laughing

It’s all about you
It’s all inside you
It spills out of you
In snaps and snarls it weakens you

Makes you brittle
Makes you crumble
Makes you fail

There’s no reason for it
No good comes of it
You must be mad to think it
But that’s just the point isn’t it
You feel you don't own it
But in some way you want it
Must get something out of it
Or why would you do it ?

You think you can’t help it
But you can control it
Just think your way through it
Calm down and get over it
You know you can do it

But you can’t
Because you’re down there
At the bottom of the well
In a big stinking hole
With no-one to hold
You’ve pushed them away
They’re no help anyway
But you want them to stay

A215 - Exercise 5.1

2006-03-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

As part of my OU CreativeWriting course there are some set exercises. This one asked for a character study based on a list of random artefacts owned by a single person.

The story is somewhat longer than 250 word limits suggested, but I was quite pleased with it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Geoff walked gingerly down the stairs. Old socks and half opened mail were strewn on the lower steps. He really needed to tidy the place up. It was probably starting to smell.

He checked his shirt as he buttoned it. It seemed ok.

“Ouch” he cursed as he tripped over the withered poinsettia on the lowest step.

“It’ll cheer the place up, dear” his Mother had said when she’d brought it round after Christmas. It just made the place look more depressing now.

It was nice, in a way, to know that she cared, but at 32 he thought it was a bad sign that she needed to cheer him up.

She wasn’t the only one who’d offered to help him get over Cindy, but he’d been hoping for rather more than the little bottle of herbal sleeping pills that Dolores had given to him. They’d spent a lovely afternoon drinking coffee together at the little café off the Edgeware Road. She’d talked about astrology and he’d offered to do a tarot reading for her. He liked his Tarot deck. It was in the old Swiss woodcut style. Classic rather than any of that new age rubbish. They helped him to organise his thoughts. Sometime he did readings for himself, but the outcomes followed his moods. He knew better than to take them seriously, but it was hardest when he allowed himself to hope.

Twenty minutes ago his clock radio alarm had gone off and in his morning stupor he’d knocked it off the bedside cabinet. It had fallen between the wooden backboard and the pale violet wall. If the sound had gone off he might have left it there, but the buzzer kept buzzing, louder and louder. He leaned over and reached down into the narrow space. His forearm scraped against the rough wooden edge of the cabinet as he yanked the clock up by its power cable. As he raised it up, the flickering red light of the clock picked out a shape among the dust that lined the skirting board. He switched off the noise and put his hand back into the gap. After a moment or two of fumbling he pulled up a length of silver chain and small heart-shaped locket. He held it in his hand for a moment, caught by surprise as the tears welled up and his body heaved in breath-wracking sobs.

The wave of feeling passed as quickly as it came. He washed and dressed and picked his way downstairs.

After breakfast, he chose a fresh pencil from the jar on his bureau, checked the battery on his new laptop was charged, picked up a fresh batch of business cards and packed them into his briefcase then left to catch the morning train.

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More Haiku

2006-03-07T08:12:00.000-08:00

Little girl watching
Cinderella on Tv
Tired but beautiful

chest heavy, breath tight
air goes in without effect
walking exhausting

Crinkled Black ink veins
Bark flecked with fungial moss
Dead tree standing still.

Reading Pile

2006-03-07T03:02:00.000-08:00

I guess most avid book readers have the same problem.. too many nice looking books and too few hours in the day .

My current 'to read' pile contains a few possible gems but a fair amount of so-so material (hence it's status as read later rather than read NOW)

Next up is
The Iron Council by China Mieville - a modern fantasy writer with a unique style.

Below that we have
Alistair Reynolds - Absolution Gap
John Courtney Grimwood - Effendi ; Stamping Butterflies ; Red Robe ; Remix
Richard Morgan - Broken Furies
Robin Hobb - MAd Ships Trilogy ; Fools Errand Trilogy
Iain M Banks - The Algebraist
Ken MacLeod - The Sky Road
Simon Scarrow - The Eagle and whatever (I don't think this is high on my list do you ?)
Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Havoc ; Sharpe's Escape
George Macdonald Fraser - Flahsman and the Tiger.
Michael Scott Rohan - Winter of the World (6 books ooops)
Dan Simmons - Illium ; Hard Freeze
Walter Jon Williams - Praxis
Neal Stephenson - Quicksilver
Robert Harris - Pompei
Robert Jordan - Crossroads of Twilight (I've all but given up on this series - will it never end ?)

Swamp Thing - The End (Fan fiction)

2006-03-06T16:05:00.000-08:00

For those unfamilair with DC's Swamp Thing...it would take too long to explain properly. Suffice to say he is part man, part earth elemental and the last time I read the comic, he had effectivley become the world -spirit.

This story imagines the last ever Swamp Thing tale and is presented for amusement only (ST is of course copyrighted by DC and was created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson).............

4 billion years have passed and the traveller returns. He spent long-short years travelling the narrow confines of the Milky Way , has seen the best and worst that the Andromedans could offer and visited the galaxy clusters in the constellation Virgo.

As he re-enters the solar system at near light speeds he carves a wake through space/time that shakes new Comets from the Oort cloud and judders the outer planets in their orbits.

He feels the pressure of the solar wind. It pummels his face and shoulders until he slows down sharply in a cascade of tachyons and bremsstrahlung radiation.

Within hours he passes the asteroid belt and reaches the inner circle of planets.

The sun is bloated.

Its face is fat and red. It’s middle has expanded to fill the orbit of venus.

The earth remains. Its atmosphere tattered. Its magnetosphere engulfed by the savage embrace of the sun.

And yet life clings.

In deep valleys between the feet and toes of glaciers.

In deep caverns below the desert at the waist of the world.

The travellers lands in the far north.

His old fortress is long gone.

He sculpts a new home from the ice. It is as elegant and intricate.

A snowflake born of the fire from his eyes.

Something quickens within the earth itself.

A consciousness re-awakened by the presence of sentience.

Glaciers rumble, their long road to the equator paused for a moment while the parliament of ice convenes.

Between them fungi, molds and mosses grow and spread.

The traveller hears his name whispered on the wind and on the wall of his lonely fortress a fairy ring of strange mushrooms grows. Spurting and puffing with ancient forms, it takes the shape of a man.

For the traveller , this interruption is at once welcome and a bore. The creature forms and moves with glacial slowness. Years seem to pass (though they are only minutes) before it opens its mouth and starts to speak.

“You missed them” “they’ve all gone” “ all of them” “Long ago” “Gone” “Gone” “Gone”.

“I got distracted” says the traveller sadly. “I came to say goodbye to the only place that ever felt like home. And it’s changed beyond reckoning”

The EarthThing shrugs “You were always more human than Kryptonian.”

There is a long pause before it goes on

“ No-one who leaves can ever really go home. Those of us who stay are changed or worse , we stay the same. Trapped forever in the ice of our own choices”

“It’s good that you came back Clark. Otherwise I would have slept and missed the ending”

“It could be months or even years away” says Superman.

“No” says the earththing.

“Look up”

Above them there is no real sky. The swollen sun fills the void with red.

At it’s heart a huge hole has appeared. A black pit in a fiery hell.

“The sun is drawing breath” says the EarthThing “When it exhales, the Earth will die and so will I”

“Come with me” says Superman “You’ve left before. The universe has many wonders”

“No” replies the EarthThing “I was too much Alec Holland then and did not know my place. I’ve slept for a long, long time, but still I’ve lived too long and seen too many triumphs and too many tragedies. I am beyond tired.”

“But what of you, no other creature has lived so long”.

“I have travelled far and fast. So fast, the years slipped by between the blinking of my eyes. I’ve seen much. But not everything. I wanted, once more at least, to see the Sun that first gave me my strength.”

“ It’s been good to meet a friend when all that I expected to see were ghosts and memories buried beneath the ice.”

They talk and reminisce of heroes and villains from the past. The EarthThing tells the tale of man and his successors. But it cannot last for long.

Doom hangs over them and far too soon the EarthThing senses a change in the Suns magnetosphere. It resonates with his remaining aura and causes pain or the closest feeling he can ascribe to it.

“It’s time” says the EarthThing. “Goodbye” and dissipates in a flurry of broken fungi. The moss and lichen fall into the snow.

“Goodbye”

As Superman leaves the earth he turns and looks below. Eyes the size of continents seem to look back at him. They twinkle in the red light of reflecting ice.

By the time he reaches the Asteroid belt, the hole in the sun has begun to invert. The magnetic pool, filled with burning hydrogen becomes a slingshot and flings it’s contents into the path of the Earth.

For an instant, the Earth is gone. Then it returns.

Its surface licked clean of features

All life extinguished.

All vestiges of humanity erased.

No earthly thing remains.

Currently Reading

2006-03-06T15:59:00.000-08:00

I'm nearing the end of Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything". It has a load of interesting info and is reasonably easy to read, but I am glad it is nearly finished. The subject matter is on the one hand very very interesting but also somewhat academic and dry; particulalrly in the latter half of the book where he examines the life sciences (physics, cosmology and geophysics were more my thing and it would seem remain so).

The Princess

2006-03-06T12:18:00.000-08:00

I recently read a poem about Princess Diana...sadly it didn't evoke the same memories in me as it did the author. All I could think of was the over-emotional response from a hysterical public fuelled by the cult of personality and the popular press/media.

Still it did prompt me to write a (admittedly not very good) poem in response.

The day Diana died
I though my luck was fried
No animosity
She meant nothing to me

My plans worked out alright
To Paris. Caught my flight
Without a further thought
For all the grief she'd wrought

Returned. I was ashamed
Marilyn had been renamed
We had a Queen of Hearts
It all had gone to far.

In all this false alarm
The British lost their calm.

Haiku

2006-02-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

Haiku, the terse prose writers perfect form of poetry....17 syllables in 5, 7, 5 formation.

Here are some of mine

1.

Red Wine glows inside

Warm satisfaction descends

As laughter rises.

In pastel blue skies

A thin cloud crosses the moon

Diana's arrow.

Powerless: No Strength

Powerless: No Voice, No Hope

Powerless: No Spark.

Soft marshmallows melt

Sweet sensations on my tongue

Pink ones, white ones, yum.

5.
Cold sparkling pavement

Clear cloudless sky above

Stars twinkling. Moonlight.

6.
Words are fragile things
Twisted by other voices
Their meanings obscured.

7.
Pink Cherry Blossom
Twigs bent by fragile beauty
Fall as gentle rain

Just for starters

2006-02-27T00:03:00.000-08:00

Aah, Breakfast blogging.
It's almost worth getting out of bed for, but not quite.
Sadly the call of real life and reesponsibilities does that instead.

The main purpose of this blog is to provide a scratch pad for stories and ideas that come up around my OU Creative writing course.

More later....