It's story time again folks! Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin...
The Princess and the Spaceman
Once there was a princess who reigned in the kingdom of her father’s heart. Her hair was long and unnaturally blonde; her eyes, despite their laser treatment, a misty myopic blue. She was just seventeen and her name was Chardonnay.
Now this princess had yet to find a suitable suitor. Her hand had been asked for, and other parts of her body too, but her parents reminded her regularly to preserve the precious jewel of her chastity and she was discouraged from mixing with the commoner types of the town. Chardonnay had never met anyone she desired enough to defy their decrees…until the spaceman that is. His name was %!#@ (which conveniently in earth speech sounds just like Adam) and he arrived on a cold, clear winter’s evening. Many people were outside looking up at the sky at the time but although they saw the brilliant lights of his landing craft and heard the loud noises it made, not one of them thought it strange.
Adam had been sent to the edge of the frozen north but had been supplied with suitable cover to protect his new-made human skin and to blend in with the locals of his apparent age and class and gender. With layers of loose-fitting clothing and a loose-limbed stride he set off to see what life on earth would bring.
The spaceman joined the crowds now moving away from the field where they’d been congregated and spotted a group of young male humans looking similar to himself up ahead. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, and ‘I beg your pardon,’ as he pushed his way politely towards them. Most people ignored him but one or two turned round and looked at him as if he’d come from another planet. Soon he was shuffling along with his ostensible peers and joined them in entering a nearby hostelry. To begin with everyone thought he was with someone else but by the time all had imbibed a few glasses of chilled fizzy liquid to warm themselves up he seemed like a friend anyway.
The first thing the spaceman noticed about the princess was how small her garments were considering the inclement weather. He moved in closer to inspect her flesh in case it had some invisible insulating layer he ought to make notes about.
‘Oy!’ said Chardonnay’s protective older cousin Leila, pulling him back from the princess’s ample breasts.
Remembering about personal space Adam apologised, and he and the princess had time for a little chat before she had to go home to the castle. Despite the awkward start she liked this boy, she confided to Leila later, he was different somehow and his smile was out of this world.
The spaceman found a room in house with others studying the mysteries of human existence. He was supposed to report back to the mother ship each night while earthlings slept but his fellow scholars continued their own research into the early hours and he got quite behind with his work. On the plus side though, through the machinations of scheming Leila, the princess was able occasionally to spend an evening there.
The first time they were alone together Chardonnay was rather nervous. She tried to remember what her cousin had told her, but found concentration an effort. She closed her eyes for a while and her little pink tongue poked out between her lipsticked lips as if relieving the strain on her brain.
A magical thing happened while the spaceman watched the princess thinking - a bit of him began to grow! The growing part felt very good but he vaguely recalled there was something he could do to make it smaller again that would feel even better still. If only he had paid more attention in the pre-flight seminars!
‘I’m not quite sure what to do,’ Adam admitted, but before very long they managed to work it out together. After that they wanted to practise their new skills a lot and the princess told many fibs to the king and queen regarding her whereabouts throughout the weeks that followed.
Soon it was a special season on that part of the earth when everyone did much more shopping. One of the things Chardonnay bought was a pregnancy testing kit but with all the other shopping she had to do she didn’t get a chance to use it right away. And then she had to stay home with the rest of the royal family for a couple of days and do a lot of eating so she wasn’t able to see Adam. Before long after that, however, there were even more celebrations as the little planet had turned once more around its sun. It would be a good time to do the test and tell the spaceman, the princess thought - a new year, a new life, a new baby. She knew he’d be over the moon, and her parents too when they realised what a perfectly matched couple they were.
But tongues had been wagging in the town and rumours reached the queen that very evening that her daughter had not always been babysitting every time she said she had. Luckily for the princess, her mother was too busy putting on her festive regalia to find out all the details immediately but she communicated her views.
‘You will not see that boy!’ she screeched, and Chardonnay was made to stay home and really baby sit for her own little princely brother Dwayne on New Year’s Eve instead of meeting Adam.
There was nothing much on television so she flipped through the pages of a magazine until she came to a quiz entitled ‘How well do you know your man?’ Some of the questions were quite hard to answer and then there was adding up the score…
Absorbed in the challenge, Chardonnay forgot all about her thwarted plans and only realised it was midnight when the fireworks began outside. She looked out of the window making ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ noises. One rocket was different from the others coming up from behind the rooftops in a big ring of red coloured lights.
‘I haven’t seen one do that before,’ the princess thought, as she watched it rise up and up in the sky. ‘Now where did I put that kit thingy?’
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stories. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Refreshments
Today I'm grateful for the long long rain that started in the evening and carried on all night. Heavy drenching rain good for all the growing things that get so parched in the summer weather so many of us humans prefer. If only it would rain at night we say...and it did!
I'm grateful for a long long sleep and a lazy dozy morning in bed to follow and for rediscovering the book I'm reading which I have read before some years ago but forgotten the details of until I saw it in the hospice charity shop a week or two back. And the details are what makes it amazing. It's essentially a novel in that it's a made up story but the way of its telling is a joy for the deep observation yet light depiction of detail, the mindful celebration of the apparently mundane. I would not delude myself that I'm as talented a writer but there is a fragment of similarity here and there. We are of the same school though he has graduated with flying colours and I'm still on half days in the reception class but sometimes he mentions things that I have noted too and that's as refreshing as the rain when my out-of-school report card frequently mentions I must try harder to see things more 'normally'...if I'm not to be permanently suspended of course! The book's called 'if nobody speaks of remarkable things'...sums it up remarkably well!
I'm grateful for a long long sleep and a lazy dozy morning in bed to follow and for rediscovering the book I'm reading which I have read before some years ago but forgotten the details of until I saw it in the hospice charity shop a week or two back. And the details are what makes it amazing. It's essentially a novel in that it's a made up story but the way of its telling is a joy for the deep observation yet light depiction of detail, the mindful celebration of the apparently mundane. I would not delude myself that I'm as talented a writer but there is a fragment of similarity here and there. We are of the same school though he has graduated with flying colours and I'm still on half days in the reception class but sometimes he mentions things that I have noted too and that's as refreshing as the rain when my out-of-school report card frequently mentions I must try harder to see things more 'normally'...if I'm not to be permanently suspended of course! The book's called 'if nobody speaks of remarkable things'...sums it up remarkably well!
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
And the burdens thereof...
I feel a bit bad about all the whingeing today. I have so many reasons to be cheerful, things to be grateful for. For the slanting evening sun catching the buoys in the bay and making them glow so bright you wonder what on sea they can be, for comfort food in the freezer when I don't feel in the mood to cook. And for the home-coming relief of Eddie Izzard's humour. When I'm not whingeing or philosophising a lot of my thought processes are Izzard-esque. I used to have a friend similarly afflicted and spending time with him when we were both in that mood was like taking off your outdoor clothes and manners and curling up in a place of safety wearing comfy things.
Wanting more is merely the burden of dreams and schemes and circus crowds... Can I tempt you to an apposite story of mine perchance?
The Burden of Dreams
There was once a man who travelled the earth with a bundle of dreams too numerous for him to realise in all his nights and days. Although not large or heavy this burden was cumbersome and challenging to bear. It slowed his steps and directed him along a route littered with obstacles and distractions, outcomes and aftermath.
For when secured at his hip the cache of dreams would stir his loins and lead to liaisons with unsuitable lovers that caused him to lose his way. If carried in the pocket at his breast they roused his heart with passions and missions, the detours of crusades. And if borne on his shoulders they so bowed him down with the weight of infinite possibility he could barely move at all.
Even at night he could not rest for he lay with the bundle beneath his head and his mind would spin with visions and images of all that might yet be. Under a cloak of stars the traveller tossed and turned yearning for the oblivion of sleep, of dreams that dissolved with the dawn. Unable to name his destination or the significance of his fate, he only knew he must journey on to the place he where he was meant to be and could relinquish the burden.
A man with many dreams may seem as many different men. Even as he aged he could at times be taken for a boy, when but a stranger could appear as a friend. Women saw in him what they wanted to see - a romantic hero perhaps, a longed for son - and chided him when he failed to embody their cherished fantasies. Men assumed he was a brother-in-arms who would fight at their side with words or with weapons, no matter what side they were on, and when their expectations were not met could brand him a traitor or spy.
‘You are not who we thought you were,’ these people complained, ‘Why didn’t you tell us the truth?’ But truth is a shy and shape-shifting creature, not easily caught in a web of words, and it was not his purpose to turn their desires into reality.
Increasingly he found himself drawn to those who had abandoned hope, who had no use for the enchantment of dreams any more. Yet the ones with illness in their bodies mistook him for a healer come, while those with sickness in their souls would tend to believe him their saviour. Unwilling to accept the deception was in their hearts and not his hands, they blamed him for their errors of judgement and he had to move on once more. With back becoming stooped by time and misadventure as much as his burden, the man left the years behind him along with the people he could not please.
Late in the day with darkness deepening and a capricious wind carrying the signs of a storm, he came at last upon a house alone on the empty road. Just one dim lamp burned in a low small window and though a faded sign of welcome swung at the gate he wondered if the door would still be opened to those seeking sanctuary there. It was a long time before his knock was answered and he was on the verge of turning away, setting his face again to inclement weather, when he heard the sound of bolts sliding back and a shaft of light illuminated the rain. A woman appeared silhouetted in the doorway and when he asked for refuge from the night she beckoned him inside.
Still without speaking she motioned him to sit by the hearth, adding logs to the fire and setting a pot to warm. He watched her move around the shadowy room trying to work out who he was with this time and what complications would arise, what disappointments waited. Was she old with a heart that dwelt in the past or young with a mind that leapt to the future? Or was she in the prime of her life with a spirit full of aspirations he could not hope to fulfil?
But clues were hard to find and decipher. Weary and wary of assumptions he turned his attention to the meal she served him and kept the precious, pernicious bundle close to his feet should there be need of a hasty departure. The bowl was small but the food was good. He ate hungrily and she filled it again, tipping the pot as it was almost empty, cutting the last of the bread. Her silence mystified him until she explained with her hands that she had no voice, but by the lambent light of the fire the pair communicated as clearly as any can do who rely on conversation.
Through the longest, darkest night of the year the wind rattled the rusting latch of the door and hurled squalls of rain at the windows. Closely yet chastely, for warmth and for comfort, the wandering man and the silent woman lay together in the quilt-covered bed beside the dying embers. When dawn broke still the storm had not abated. He brought in the remaining wood from the store, she cooked the last of the food.
He wondered how she came to be so poorly prepared for winter, miles from other habitation and with such meagre supplies. But when he mentioned his concerns she merely smiled and shook her head. Touching her fingertips to her mouth, she unfurled them like a flower’s petals, reaching out her upturned palm to ask him to speak instead. As the hours passed he recounted stories from his travels, the places he had visited, the people he had met.
On the second day when all they had left was water from the well and the stub of a candle to burn they did not rise from the bed, sheltering side by side from the raging elements, the solitariness of their lives. Once again with that distinctive gesture she suggested he talk and haltingly at first he began to reveal the nature of the burden he had carried for so long. From time to time he glanced at her and watched her express that she was listening, encouraging him and understanding what he told her. But gradually her eyelids drooped and her breathing calmed and she slept as he talked on.
Eventually it seemed that all the words were spoken, all the tales were told, all the dreams he bore released. He felt at peace and it was a strange sensation to him. Reaching for his bundle he found it empty, just a fold of cloth on the floor. In wonder he turned to the woman beside him and saw that she had left the world and would not wake again.
A great sorrow welled within him but before tears came or he could cry out in anguish, exhausted, at last, he slept. He dreamed the woman was alive, awake and talking to him.
‘Come with me,’ said the woman who had no voice, ‘Abandon your body, the burden you bear.’
And he rose up through the crooked roof and the churning sky to the place where all is ever real and dreams have no dominion.
Wanting more is merely the burden of dreams and schemes and circus crowds... Can I tempt you to an apposite story of mine perchance?
The Burden of Dreams
There was once a man who travelled the earth with a bundle of dreams too numerous for him to realise in all his nights and days. Although not large or heavy this burden was cumbersome and challenging to bear. It slowed his steps and directed him along a route littered with obstacles and distractions, outcomes and aftermath.
For when secured at his hip the cache of dreams would stir his loins and lead to liaisons with unsuitable lovers that caused him to lose his way. If carried in the pocket at his breast they roused his heart with passions and missions, the detours of crusades. And if borne on his shoulders they so bowed him down with the weight of infinite possibility he could barely move at all.
Even at night he could not rest for he lay with the bundle beneath his head and his mind would spin with visions and images of all that might yet be. Under a cloak of stars the traveller tossed and turned yearning for the oblivion of sleep, of dreams that dissolved with the dawn. Unable to name his destination or the significance of his fate, he only knew he must journey on to the place he where he was meant to be and could relinquish the burden.
A man with many dreams may seem as many different men. Even as he aged he could at times be taken for a boy, when but a stranger could appear as a friend. Women saw in him what they wanted to see - a romantic hero perhaps, a longed for son - and chided him when he failed to embody their cherished fantasies. Men assumed he was a brother-in-arms who would fight at their side with words or with weapons, no matter what side they were on, and when their expectations were not met could brand him a traitor or spy.
‘You are not who we thought you were,’ these people complained, ‘Why didn’t you tell us the truth?’ But truth is a shy and shape-shifting creature, not easily caught in a web of words, and it was not his purpose to turn their desires into reality.
Increasingly he found himself drawn to those who had abandoned hope, who had no use for the enchantment of dreams any more. Yet the ones with illness in their bodies mistook him for a healer come, while those with sickness in their souls would tend to believe him their saviour. Unwilling to accept the deception was in their hearts and not his hands, they blamed him for their errors of judgement and he had to move on once more. With back becoming stooped by time and misadventure as much as his burden, the man left the years behind him along with the people he could not please.
Late in the day with darkness deepening and a capricious wind carrying the signs of a storm, he came at last upon a house alone on the empty road. Just one dim lamp burned in a low small window and though a faded sign of welcome swung at the gate he wondered if the door would still be opened to those seeking sanctuary there. It was a long time before his knock was answered and he was on the verge of turning away, setting his face again to inclement weather, when he heard the sound of bolts sliding back and a shaft of light illuminated the rain. A woman appeared silhouetted in the doorway and when he asked for refuge from the night she beckoned him inside.
Still without speaking she motioned him to sit by the hearth, adding logs to the fire and setting a pot to warm. He watched her move around the shadowy room trying to work out who he was with this time and what complications would arise, what disappointments waited. Was she old with a heart that dwelt in the past or young with a mind that leapt to the future? Or was she in the prime of her life with a spirit full of aspirations he could not hope to fulfil?
But clues were hard to find and decipher. Weary and wary of assumptions he turned his attention to the meal she served him and kept the precious, pernicious bundle close to his feet should there be need of a hasty departure. The bowl was small but the food was good. He ate hungrily and she filled it again, tipping the pot as it was almost empty, cutting the last of the bread. Her silence mystified him until she explained with her hands that she had no voice, but by the lambent light of the fire the pair communicated as clearly as any can do who rely on conversation.
Through the longest, darkest night of the year the wind rattled the rusting latch of the door and hurled squalls of rain at the windows. Closely yet chastely, for warmth and for comfort, the wandering man and the silent woman lay together in the quilt-covered bed beside the dying embers. When dawn broke still the storm had not abated. He brought in the remaining wood from the store, she cooked the last of the food.
He wondered how she came to be so poorly prepared for winter, miles from other habitation and with such meagre supplies. But when he mentioned his concerns she merely smiled and shook her head. Touching her fingertips to her mouth, she unfurled them like a flower’s petals, reaching out her upturned palm to ask him to speak instead. As the hours passed he recounted stories from his travels, the places he had visited, the people he had met.
On the second day when all they had left was water from the well and the stub of a candle to burn they did not rise from the bed, sheltering side by side from the raging elements, the solitariness of their lives. Once again with that distinctive gesture she suggested he talk and haltingly at first he began to reveal the nature of the burden he had carried for so long. From time to time he glanced at her and watched her express that she was listening, encouraging him and understanding what he told her. But gradually her eyelids drooped and her breathing calmed and she slept as he talked on.
Eventually it seemed that all the words were spoken, all the tales were told, all the dreams he bore released. He felt at peace and it was a strange sensation to him. Reaching for his bundle he found it empty, just a fold of cloth on the floor. In wonder he turned to the woman beside him and saw that she had left the world and would not wake again.
A great sorrow welled within him but before tears came or he could cry out in anguish, exhausted, at last, he slept. He dreamed the woman was alive, awake and talking to him.
‘Come with me,’ said the woman who had no voice, ‘Abandon your body, the burden you bear.’
And he rose up through the crooked roof and the churning sky to the place where all is ever real and dreams have no dominion.
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Gratitude (Parts 1-3) and Peace of Cake (Part 2)
Here we are...antes de mediodia as promised though I suspect you are all off outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't!
My first thanks is for a lovely summer's day. In a way I wish it wasn't as I can't get anywhere I'd like to be but I love the fact that others will be having a grand day out somewhere even just in their own back gardens. Enjoy!
And I also give thanks for the people who are working so the aforementioned trippers and loungers can enjoy the day. All the people in the shops and cafes and petrol stations and hospitals and air traffic control...and domestic kitchens and power companies and media broadcasting stations for the stay at home souls...I could spend my whole day thinking of these individually couldn't I?
And for the fun I had learning Spanish...la lengua de mi corazon..even though I've forgotten so much of it now!
Peace of Cake (continued)
She inherited the house of course, the mortgage cleared a few years previously. There were two insurance policies that paid out handsomely and a comfortable little nest egg of savings. Callista had never spent a whole wage packet throughout her working life. Her bank balance had been very healthy before the accident; now she became a little richer day by day.
Her colleagues were sympathetic about her loss and made suggestions as to how she could spend her unaccompanied time, her accumulating money. Take in a lodger, they said, take a holiday, join a dating agency. But none of these ideas appealed. They were the only people left in Callista’s world yet remained unable to help her define her dreams, her plans, her hopes of happiness. When the prettiest girl in the office got married she declined to attend but was proud to make the wedding cake when requested. This poignantly romantic creation of fondant flowers and spun sugar lace was admired by all at the reception in a way that Callista was beginning to wonder if she, the producer, was ever going to be.
A few months later the work syndicate’s numbers came up on the lottery and while the others blew their shares on clothes and cruises, on cost price conservatories and cars they’d been coveting, Callista worked out she could live on her winnings for the next few years, and handed in her notice.
She had the ancient gas cooker ripped out and a sleek, state of the art, double oven Aga installed. It radiated a constant cosy glow and was always ready to cook - in much the same way as its owner. Now no one could notice or comment on what she ate, Callista gradually eliminated everything from her diet but the cakes and cookies and puddings she made. Nothing else was necessary for nourishment she decided. There was protein enough in the eggs and nuts and seeds she used, the dollops of cream or mascarpone cheese. Dried and fresh fruits would provide vitamins and minerals, and even a vegetable or two cropped up here and there, in pumpkin pie and marrow jam. And, of course, there was fat and sugar and carbohydrate aplenty.
She bought a computer and keyboard with extra large keys for her extra large fingertips and discovered the discretion of internet shopping. She found sites where she could order all her baking things, her toiletries and household needs, her hard to find plus size garments. It was soon after that she stopped going out - there seemed to be no point as so many things could be sent directly to her. Before long the only people she spoke to were delivery drivers and the occasional customer service advisor on the phone with a query regarding an order.
She exercised a little every day, bending down to fill or unload the dishwasher, chopping and kneading, creaming and folding, slow solid steps between range and kitchen table. When the narrow stairs became too much of a squeeze she had the old scullery turned into a wet room allowing ample space for ablutionary manoeuvre and invested in a wide and very sturdy sofa bed that she left made up in the living room to nap whenever she chose. Though her world was shrinking Callista grew, and grew contented too. The only thing missing from her life was someone with whom to share its sweetness. But all good things come to those who wait. Callista still believed her hero would come for her, inevitably, eventually. And eventually, sure enough, he did. Or rather they did because funnily enough long-awaited heroes sometimes, like buses, arrive in threes.
The first to arrive was the paramedic summoned on the advice of the Samaritans after a desperately breathless call when she thought she might be dying and had no one else to tell. She had collapsed on the bed by the time he arrived, the struggle to don a satin kimono in which to greet him proving too much of a challenge. Resourceful as his employment required, he found his way round to the unlocked kitchen door. Tenderly, respectfully, he coaxed the inadequate folds of the slippery garment over the mountainous folds of her flesh and helped her to her feet. No one had touched Callista’s skin for a very long time and her heartbeats skipped in a far more pleasant manner than they had done a few hours before.
Her second rescuer was the builder contracted by Social Services to dismantle part of the wall, for Callista, now larger even than the Aga, could leave no other way. She knew he was not the one she yearned for when he gobbled up her cherry topped Bakewells as indifferently as if they’d come from a packet, but she remembered him with fondness to the end of her days as the one who released her from her self satisfying confinement.
The third and most significant man to enter Callista’s life was a red haired reporter from the local newspaper who arrived at her hospital bedside the following morning hoping for a scoop on this human interest tale. Easing his ample buttocks onto an inadequate plastic chair he took out his notebook and began to ask gently probing questions. Callista was not really listening though.
‘Would you like a piece of cake?’ she whispered. For somehow she had managed to secrete amongst her voluminous nightclothes a Tupperware box containing remnants of her previous diet to supplement the Spartan nutritional regime now imposed on her.
‘Mmmm, carrot cake - my favourite!’ he exclaimed, suitably furtively, but smiling in moist mouthed anticipation at the butter cream coated slices.
Rotating the portion between his sausage shaped fingers, he gazed as if tasting it with his eyes before taking a dainty bite. Callista watched him chew and swallow, the flick of his tongue to capture a crumb that strayed onto the first of his chins. She savoured his sigh of satisfaction, unselfconsciously mirroring it with a blissful one of her own. All the ingredients were gathered together, the blending could begin. The emptiness of Callista’s soul was filling with peace at last.
My first thanks is for a lovely summer's day. In a way I wish it wasn't as I can't get anywhere I'd like to be but I love the fact that others will be having a grand day out somewhere even just in their own back gardens. Enjoy!
And I also give thanks for the people who are working so the aforementioned trippers and loungers can enjoy the day. All the people in the shops and cafes and petrol stations and hospitals and air traffic control...and domestic kitchens and power companies and media broadcasting stations for the stay at home souls...I could spend my whole day thinking of these individually couldn't I?
And for the fun I had learning Spanish...la lengua de mi corazon..even though I've forgotten so much of it now!
Peace of Cake (continued)
She inherited the house of course, the mortgage cleared a few years previously. There were two insurance policies that paid out handsomely and a comfortable little nest egg of savings. Callista had never spent a whole wage packet throughout her working life. Her bank balance had been very healthy before the accident; now she became a little richer day by day.
Her colleagues were sympathetic about her loss and made suggestions as to how she could spend her unaccompanied time, her accumulating money. Take in a lodger, they said, take a holiday, join a dating agency. But none of these ideas appealed. They were the only people left in Callista’s world yet remained unable to help her define her dreams, her plans, her hopes of happiness. When the prettiest girl in the office got married she declined to attend but was proud to make the wedding cake when requested. This poignantly romantic creation of fondant flowers and spun sugar lace was admired by all at the reception in a way that Callista was beginning to wonder if she, the producer, was ever going to be.
A few months later the work syndicate’s numbers came up on the lottery and while the others blew their shares on clothes and cruises, on cost price conservatories and cars they’d been coveting, Callista worked out she could live on her winnings for the next few years, and handed in her notice.
She had the ancient gas cooker ripped out and a sleek, state of the art, double oven Aga installed. It radiated a constant cosy glow and was always ready to cook - in much the same way as its owner. Now no one could notice or comment on what she ate, Callista gradually eliminated everything from her diet but the cakes and cookies and puddings she made. Nothing else was necessary for nourishment she decided. There was protein enough in the eggs and nuts and seeds she used, the dollops of cream or mascarpone cheese. Dried and fresh fruits would provide vitamins and minerals, and even a vegetable or two cropped up here and there, in pumpkin pie and marrow jam. And, of course, there was fat and sugar and carbohydrate aplenty.
She bought a computer and keyboard with extra large keys for her extra large fingertips and discovered the discretion of internet shopping. She found sites where she could order all her baking things, her toiletries and household needs, her hard to find plus size garments. It was soon after that she stopped going out - there seemed to be no point as so many things could be sent directly to her. Before long the only people she spoke to were delivery drivers and the occasional customer service advisor on the phone with a query regarding an order.
She exercised a little every day, bending down to fill or unload the dishwasher, chopping and kneading, creaming and folding, slow solid steps between range and kitchen table. When the narrow stairs became too much of a squeeze she had the old scullery turned into a wet room allowing ample space for ablutionary manoeuvre and invested in a wide and very sturdy sofa bed that she left made up in the living room to nap whenever she chose. Though her world was shrinking Callista grew, and grew contented too. The only thing missing from her life was someone with whom to share its sweetness. But all good things come to those who wait. Callista still believed her hero would come for her, inevitably, eventually. And eventually, sure enough, he did. Or rather they did because funnily enough long-awaited heroes sometimes, like buses, arrive in threes.
The first to arrive was the paramedic summoned on the advice of the Samaritans after a desperately breathless call when she thought she might be dying and had no one else to tell. She had collapsed on the bed by the time he arrived, the struggle to don a satin kimono in which to greet him proving too much of a challenge. Resourceful as his employment required, he found his way round to the unlocked kitchen door. Tenderly, respectfully, he coaxed the inadequate folds of the slippery garment over the mountainous folds of her flesh and helped her to her feet. No one had touched Callista’s skin for a very long time and her heartbeats skipped in a far more pleasant manner than they had done a few hours before.
Her second rescuer was the builder contracted by Social Services to dismantle part of the wall, for Callista, now larger even than the Aga, could leave no other way. She knew he was not the one she yearned for when he gobbled up her cherry topped Bakewells as indifferently as if they’d come from a packet, but she remembered him with fondness to the end of her days as the one who released her from her self satisfying confinement.
The third and most significant man to enter Callista’s life was a red haired reporter from the local newspaper who arrived at her hospital bedside the following morning hoping for a scoop on this human interest tale. Easing his ample buttocks onto an inadequate plastic chair he took out his notebook and began to ask gently probing questions. Callista was not really listening though.
‘Would you like a piece of cake?’ she whispered. For somehow she had managed to secrete amongst her voluminous nightclothes a Tupperware box containing remnants of her previous diet to supplement the Spartan nutritional regime now imposed on her.
‘Mmmm, carrot cake - my favourite!’ he exclaimed, suitably furtively, but smiling in moist mouthed anticipation at the butter cream coated slices.
Rotating the portion between his sausage shaped fingers, he gazed as if tasting it with his eyes before taking a dainty bite. Callista watched him chew and swallow, the flick of his tongue to capture a crumb that strayed onto the first of his chins. She savoured his sigh of satisfaction, unselfconsciously mirroring it with a blissful one of her own. All the ingredients were gathered together, the blending could begin. The emptiness of Callista’s soul was filling with peace at last.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Portion size (small)
Actually I’ve thought about it a bit more and I get it now I think...if you have husbands or wives or some other significant other and/or family members that are close physically and at heart, and maybe a ‘best mate’ or two that you have had for years, other people you know and see socially or communicate with virtually are ‘just friends’. It’s because I don’t have all the other bits the concept’s been puzzling me, I’ve been looking at the condiments and thinking ‘Which shall I eat first?’ while you lot are tucking into a three course meal, with some side dishes and maybe some garlic bread to share!
Anyway, enough already...Let’s lighten the mood here a little... Not all my stories (true and fictional) are deep and sad. This one is in memory of Colin (there really was a Colin!) and is the right size portion for a coffee break perhaps...
Duplicity
There was no doubting that Colin preferred men. The unpredictable emotional outbursts of women unsettled his composure, and youthful experiences taught him to eschew the charms of their softly curvaceous flesh.
Despite a predatory nature he had enjoyed several years’ comfortable liaison with an older gentleman who demanded little more than his handsome presence about the place and turned a tolerant eye to occasional unexplained absences.
Now, rather awkwardly, he found himself drawn to a new young neighbour. This man had misguidedly acquired himself a wife and offspring but the admiration was obviously mutual. In fact it was he who had initiated things by whistling softly over the garden fence to attract Colin’s attention as he sunned his still sleek body on the decking.
Colin had visited him more than once since then for some brief but sensuous pleasures. They had to be careful. The wife was suspicious and made it clear she believed his kind a health hazard to her brood.
Things came to a head one sultry summer’s evening when she arrived home to find Colin stretched out on the marital bed while her spouse took a much needed shower. He leapt to his feet but the screeching woman blocked the doorway and survival instinct rather than reason inspired him to make for the open window and the conservatory roof below.
It was an inelegant scrambling descent, Colin was not as agile as once he had been.
On safety’s side of the fence he paused. His companion was home and he needed a moment to restore his nonchalance before he entered the house. He sat on the decking and cleaned behind his ears with a paw, smoothing the fur on his flanks with his tongue before sauntering up to his six inch door.
Or how about something even more small and light? An amuse bouche? A mini meringue?
John Wyndham gave us triffid plants,
He also gave us kraken.
If you think I’ll rhyme with triffid plants,
You’re very much mistaken!
Anyway, enough already...Let’s lighten the mood here a little... Not all my stories (true and fictional) are deep and sad. This one is in memory of Colin (there really was a Colin!) and is the right size portion for a coffee break perhaps...
Duplicity
There was no doubting that Colin preferred men. The unpredictable emotional outbursts of women unsettled his composure, and youthful experiences taught him to eschew the charms of their softly curvaceous flesh.
Despite a predatory nature he had enjoyed several years’ comfortable liaison with an older gentleman who demanded little more than his handsome presence about the place and turned a tolerant eye to occasional unexplained absences.
Now, rather awkwardly, he found himself drawn to a new young neighbour. This man had misguidedly acquired himself a wife and offspring but the admiration was obviously mutual. In fact it was he who had initiated things by whistling softly over the garden fence to attract Colin’s attention as he sunned his still sleek body on the decking.
Colin had visited him more than once since then for some brief but sensuous pleasures. They had to be careful. The wife was suspicious and made it clear she believed his kind a health hazard to her brood.
Things came to a head one sultry summer’s evening when she arrived home to find Colin stretched out on the marital bed while her spouse took a much needed shower. He leapt to his feet but the screeching woman blocked the doorway and survival instinct rather than reason inspired him to make for the open window and the conservatory roof below.
It was an inelegant scrambling descent, Colin was not as agile as once he had been.
On safety’s side of the fence he paused. His companion was home and he needed a moment to restore his nonchalance before he entered the house. He sat on the decking and cleaned behind his ears with a paw, smoothing the fur on his flanks with his tongue before sauntering up to his six inch door.
Or how about something even more small and light? An amuse bouche? A mini meringue?
John Wyndham gave us triffid plants,
He also gave us kraken.
If you think I’ll rhyme with triffid plants,
You’re very much mistaken!
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Let me tell you a story #3
Hello again...may you be well, may you be happy, may you be at peace.
I’d better finish telling you the story of the story before my mind starts rambling off on something else. So...
A few days after I’d seen the results on the website I had to send off master copies on paper and disk and a mini bio to go in the back of the book and I sat back and awaited the proofs. I waited and waited, I emailed the editor and they explained they were having some delays but would be back in touch and a few years went by. This is not an exaggeration! In the meantime I wrote a few more stories in different styles and about different things and sent them to other competitions. Some no one but me ‘got’ at all, sometimes they were highly commended and once one was a runner up again and appeared in another anthology. When that happened I had more of an idea how the process worked and sent more emails and letters to the original people and made a phone call or two but to no avail...
Then last year out of the blue they wrote to us all and said the wheels were back in motion again and finally, finally we had our proofs and publication went ahead and now I have ‘two books on the shelf’, two books that is that have stories in by me that other people thought should be there, and that makes me smile every time I think of it! So this definitely worth including on here on a gratitude list but would be counterproductive and cheating to put in my list everyday...see the book that inspired the practice if you want further, more scientific explanations.
One of my book bios said I wanted to be a writer from the age of three when my grandmother taught me to read but had allowed my hands and mind to be distracted by other occupations in the intervening years. Writing in that sense meaning published fiction I suppose. But of course everyone who writes is a writer, and having studied English language at nit-picking navel gazing degree level recently, I accept and embrace the concept that any kind of language at all beyond the absolutely basic functional is creative language and ‘writing’ takes on many different forms. It absolutely fascinates me that lines and squiggles on a page (for example) or pixels on a screen can create emotion in the brain. How amazing is that?
I think I may write more on this later... ha ha!
I’d better finish telling you the story of the story before my mind starts rambling off on something else. So...
A few days after I’d seen the results on the website I had to send off master copies on paper and disk and a mini bio to go in the back of the book and I sat back and awaited the proofs. I waited and waited, I emailed the editor and they explained they were having some delays but would be back in touch and a few years went by. This is not an exaggeration! In the meantime I wrote a few more stories in different styles and about different things and sent them to other competitions. Some no one but me ‘got’ at all, sometimes they were highly commended and once one was a runner up again and appeared in another anthology. When that happened I had more of an idea how the process worked and sent more emails and letters to the original people and made a phone call or two but to no avail...
Then last year out of the blue they wrote to us all and said the wheels were back in motion again and finally, finally we had our proofs and publication went ahead and now I have ‘two books on the shelf’, two books that is that have stories in by me that other people thought should be there, and that makes me smile every time I think of it! So this definitely worth including on here on a gratitude list but would be counterproductive and cheating to put in my list everyday...see the book that inspired the practice if you want further, more scientific explanations.
One of my book bios said I wanted to be a writer from the age of three when my grandmother taught me to read but had allowed my hands and mind to be distracted by other occupations in the intervening years. Writing in that sense meaning published fiction I suppose. But of course everyone who writes is a writer, and having studied English language at nit-picking navel gazing degree level recently, I accept and embrace the concept that any kind of language at all beyond the absolutely basic functional is creative language and ‘writing’ takes on many different forms. It absolutely fascinates me that lines and squiggles on a page (for example) or pixels on a screen can create emotion in the brain. How amazing is that?
I think I may write more on this later... ha ha!
Monday, 20 June 2011
The Woman with no Fire of her Own
Well, here it is folks... I hope you enjoy!
The Woman with no Fire of her Own
Once, in a time and place not far from here, there lived a woman who did not fit. Her skin was the same colour as everyone else's and she had the correct number of senses and limbs. But when she opened her mouth the strangest sounds came out, for she was a seeker and speaker of truth, a kind not often found in her land. She asked questions that couldn't or shouldn't be answered, was honest when she should have lied.
Her own closest relations found this particularly disquieting for every evening while other families sat together encircling their campfires, they grouped themselves around a cold stone. No warm glow lit their faces or hearts and they did not share the stories of progress and prowess the rest of their tribe enjoyed, but only told tales of spite. They were embarrassed enough by their difficult daughter and to prevent her revealing this, their dark secret, they told her she came from a distant race and could not mix with her neighbours and peers.
Already shunned for her curious ways this isolated the girl even more. But the little child grew as children will do in spite of life's efforts to stunt them. She found joy in the sun and the moon and the stars of the sky and quickly learnt such lessons as girls of her culture were taught. Soon she could sing and she could sew, make sweet bread and sweeter still music, though she danced to a different tune.
When the time came for those of her generation to leave their homes and have adventures before adulthood claimed them, the young woman went wandering too. As was tradition the others were given a glowing ember from the family hearth so they could start fires of their own, but her parents, in keeping with the cold way they'd raised her, gave her only a small grey stone. She took her lute and her breadpan with her, her finest needles and threads. And most precious of all she took a hopeful heart that she would find the fire she belonged by, the people from whom she had come.
The road was long and the journey eventful. Sometimes she walked for a while with travellers going the same way, but they spoke the companionable language of being together that the young woman had yet to learn.
At last she came to a town on the coast to the south of the land and decided to rest for a time. By day she let the rays of the sun warm her body while the waves of the sea soothed her mind. But when night fell a chill crept into the air, so she took out her lute and carefully tuned it and then began to play.
So enthralled she was with making her music, that at first she didn't notice the beach filling up with other young girls and boys until the sounds of their revelry reached her ears and she ventured over to watch them. They were singing and dancing together around a huge fire, intoxicated by magical herbs from far off lands, wild rhythms and moonlight on water.
“If only I could join them,” the young woman sighed as she stood in the shadows, her lute in her hand. “If only I knew their tune.”
But then the circle widened and they beckoned her in and she stayed and played with them all summer long. She learnt the words that they spoke and the music that moved them and sampled the herbs that they lived by. Some made her light-headed, some light-hearted and some so light on her calloused feet that she danced beyond the dawn. And the most sacred of all brought a light to her mind's eye that burned brighter than any mere star could do and warmed her through to her soul.
“These are my people. At last I am home!” the young woman thought as she drifted into dreams.
But then the seasons changed and the mist rolled in, her lute buckled and would not play. The herb takers packed up their possessions and stamped out their fire and left her with no farewell. She sat on the beach alone again and pondered upon her fate.
“Why did this happen?” she questioned, “How am I here?”
“I was mistaken”, she reasoned, “They were not my people. ”
And she picked up her breadpan, her stone, her needles and threads and walked away to the hills of the west to search for her home once more.
She was much colder now that she had experienced fire, and much lonelier on her own. One evening she sat by her cold grey stone in the mouth of a cave hanging her head down and weeping. A young man passing heard her sorrow and saw her plight and built a fire for them both from his own glowing ember. The young woman took out her breadpan and made him sweet bread and they ate together side by side as the hills grew dark around them. Gazing up at the night sky she spotted a shower of brilliant shooting stars.
“Look, ”she whispered, turning to her companion. “What joy they bring to my heart!”
But he saw only a lithe body and an eager face and drew her down beside him. That night she discovered the warmth of physical love.
“This is my partner. At last I am home!” the young woman thought as she drifted into dreams.
Winter passed and they sheltered together through the storms and the rain and the snow. But as spring came the boy grew restless and bored, he didn't tend the fire as well as he should do and many times it was almost extinguished. One night as she slept he crept from the cave and made off to the valley below. The young girl awoke to a pile of cold ashes, her breadpan broken beside it. Alone again she sat by her stone and pondered upon her fate.
“Why did this happen?” she questioned, “How am I here?”
“I was mistaken,” she reasoned, “He was not my partner.”
Her heart was heavy without his beating beside it, but in her belly there grew a child. She picked up her stone and her needles and threads and wearily she journeyed down from the hills to the city that stood on the plains.
The first thing the young woman did when she got there was to take out her needles and embroider a shawl to wrap her baby in. When people saw the beautiful work she was doing they begged her to stitch and sew for them. Soon she could afford a comfortable tent of her own and rich customers brought her braziers of fire so she could embroider her fine coloured flowers for them by night as well as by day.
But when her baby was born she found she could no longer sew, for her hands were busy with him. Her patrons took their braziers and business away, her needles rusted and were spoiled.
“Never mind, my son,” she said, wrapping warm him in the silken shawl, “We have riches enough for now. “
“This is the one to whom I truly belong,” she thought, “At last I am home!”
And she laid him down beside her next to the cold grey stone as he drifted into dreams.
While he slept she sang to him, for songs were all she had left to share. And the sound of her voice and her words were so true that people came from all over the city and paid money to her to listen. Thus she was able to feed and clothe her child and pay others in time to teach him such lessons as boys of his culture were taught. Soon he could read and he could ride, make fine gardens and weapons of war, and he grew into a man.
When the time came for those of his generation to leave their homes and have adventures before adulthood claimed them she handed him a piece of grey stone.
“Son,” she said, “You know I am a woman with no fire of my own. This is all I have to give you.”
But the young man said, “Keep it, I have no need of your stone. I am the fruit of your womb but only half your child. I am going to find my father's tribe and the fires that I belong by.”
After he had gone the woman wept and pondered upon her fate.
“Why did this happen?” she questioned, “How am I here?”
“I was mistaken,” she reasoned, “He could not be like me.”
She was too old now for the sound of her sorrow to bring lovers to warm her. Her once true voice was cracked with tears, all her talents and treasures were gone. She sat alone by the cold grey stone outside her tent as the darkness grew around her.
“I have known the joy of the dance and the pleasure of passion,” she thought, “the fierce love of mother for child. But all these have been fleeting and their loss has been hard, what else can I seek that will bring me warmth and will stay with me forever?”
Gazing up at the night sky, she spotted a shower of brilliant shooting stars.
“Look,” she whispered to herself, “What joy they bring to my heart!”
But shooting stars shine only briefly and after a while she remembered the visions she'd seen on the sands of her youth with the herbs that had opened her mind. She yearned for the blazing white light that had burned so brightly it had warmed her through to her soul.
“Perhaps that is the one warmth that I can call mine,” she decided, “but its fire is the brightest of all. I must seek it now so the rest of my days can be lived within its glow.”
And she set off for the mountain that stood in the north to ask the wise man who lived there, and knew of such things, the path she should take to the light.
The road was steep and the journey was tiring, her ageing limbs ached as she climbed. But her heart was as hopeful as when she'd been a young girl and first set out to find the fire she belonged by, the people from whom she had come.
“At last,” she thought, “I am almost home!”
It was cold on the mountain top and she shivered in the shawl she'd made for her baby as she described to the wise man her quest. He had no fire to sit beside, no companions, no partner, nor sons, and yet he seemed warm and lit from within by a glow she recognised.
“Teach me the secret of seeing the light,” she asked, “so I can live without fire like you.”
“Alas,” said the sage with the greatest compassion, “what I have takes years of disciplined training. It's too late for you to start learning now. But the light is inside you and you will see it again once before you die - for everybody does so.”
The woman was devastated, she aged many years, all her youthful hope was gone.
“My life has been wasted,” she thought, “my dreams all in vain. May death come soon to release me!”
And she struggled painfully back down the mountain and made her way to the slow flowing river that wound through the east of the land.
The woman sat on its banks with her stone beside her and awaited her time to die. By day she watched the sunshine play on the water and when night fell she watched the moon and the stars as they moved across the sky. But none of these had brilliant enough a light to bring her the joy she was seeking.
One evening as a golden sunset filled the heavens, the chill of disappointment crept into her heart and she wrapped the shawl around her shoulders as she pondered on her fate.
“Why did this happen?” she questioned, “How am I here?”
“I have been mistaken many times,” she reasoned, “The people I thought were mine were not. The partner I thought was mine was not. The fruit of my womb that once shared my heart was only half my child. And all the time I yearned for their companionship was time I lost finding the light.”
“I shall never know warmth!” the woman cried in despair, “What use is a cold grey stone?”
And she picked it up and raised her arm to hurl it into the river and be rid of its curse for good. But her old fingers fumbled and lost their grip and it dropped down to the rock beneath her. As flint struck flint two sparks ignited and leapt to the fringe of her shawl. They glowed brightly then burst into flame. Soon the fine worked flowers began to smoulder and smoke but still the old woman didn't shrug off her shawl or shrink from the blaze that embraced her.
“This is my fire, “ she thought, “At last I am home!”
And she opened her mind to the inner light that warmed her through to her very soul............as she drifted into dreams.
The Woman with no Fire of her Own
Once, in a time and place not far from here, there lived a woman who did not fit. Her skin was the same colour as everyone else's and she had the correct number of senses and limbs. But when she opened her mouth the strangest sounds came out, for she was a seeker and speaker of truth, a kind not often found in her land. She asked questions that couldn't or shouldn't be answered, was honest when she should have lied.
Her own closest relations found this particularly disquieting for every evening while other families sat together encircling their campfires, they grouped themselves around a cold stone. No warm glow lit their faces or hearts and they did not share the stories of progress and prowess the rest of their tribe enjoyed, but only told tales of spite. They were embarrassed enough by their difficult daughter and to prevent her revealing this, their dark secret, they told her she came from a distant race and could not mix with her neighbours and peers.
Already shunned for her curious ways this isolated the girl even more. But the little child grew as children will do in spite of life's efforts to stunt them. She found joy in the sun and the moon and the stars of the sky and quickly learnt such lessons as girls of her culture were taught. Soon she could sing and she could sew, make sweet bread and sweeter still music, though she danced to a different tune.
When the time came for those of her generation to leave their homes and have adventures before adulthood claimed them, the young woman went wandering too. As was tradition the others were given a glowing ember from the family hearth so they could start fires of their own, but her parents, in keeping with the cold way they'd raised her, gave her only a small grey stone. She took her lute and her breadpan with her, her finest needles and threads. And most precious of all she took a hopeful heart that she would find the fire she belonged by, the people from whom she had come.
The road was long and the journey eventful. Sometimes she walked for a while with travellers going the same way, but they spoke the companionable language of being together that the young woman had yet to learn.
At last she came to a town on the coast to the south of the land and decided to rest for a time. By day she let the rays of the sun warm her body while the waves of the sea soothed her mind. But when night fell a chill crept into the air, so she took out her lute and carefully tuned it and then began to play.
So enthralled she was with making her music, that at first she didn't notice the beach filling up with other young girls and boys until the sounds of their revelry reached her ears and she ventured over to watch them. They were singing and dancing together around a huge fire, intoxicated by magical herbs from far off lands, wild rhythms and moonlight on water.
“If only I could join them,” the young woman sighed as she stood in the shadows, her lute in her hand. “If only I knew their tune.”
But then the circle widened and they beckoned her in and she stayed and played with them all summer long. She learnt the words that they spoke and the music that moved them and sampled the herbs that they lived by. Some made her light-headed, some light-hearted and some so light on her calloused feet that she danced beyond the dawn. And the most sacred of all brought a light to her mind's eye that burned brighter than any mere star could do and warmed her through to her soul.
“These are my people. At last I am home!” the young woman thought as she drifted into dreams.
But then the seasons changed and the mist rolled in, her lute buckled and would not play. The herb takers packed up their possessions and stamped out their fire and left her with no farewell. She sat on the beach alone again and pondered upon her fate.
“Why did this happen?” she questioned, “How am I here?”
“I was mistaken”, she reasoned, “They were not my people. ”
And she picked up her breadpan, her stone, her needles and threads and walked away to the hills of the west to search for her home once more.
She was much colder now that she had experienced fire, and much lonelier on her own. One evening she sat by her cold grey stone in the mouth of a cave hanging her head down and weeping. A young man passing heard her sorrow and saw her plight and built a fire for them both from his own glowing ember. The young woman took out her breadpan and made him sweet bread and they ate together side by side as the hills grew dark around them. Gazing up at the night sky she spotted a shower of brilliant shooting stars.
“Look, ”she whispered, turning to her companion. “What joy they bring to my heart!”
But he saw only a lithe body and an eager face and drew her down beside him. That night she discovered the warmth of physical love.
“This is my partner. At last I am home!” the young woman thought as she drifted into dreams.
Winter passed and they sheltered together through the storms and the rain and the snow. But as spring came the boy grew restless and bored, he didn't tend the fire as well as he should do and many times it was almost extinguished. One night as she slept he crept from the cave and made off to the valley below. The young girl awoke to a pile of cold ashes, her breadpan broken beside it. Alone again she sat by her stone and pondered upon her fate.
“Why did this happen?” she questioned, “How am I here?”
“I was mistaken,” she reasoned, “He was not my partner.”
Her heart was heavy without his beating beside it, but in her belly there grew a child. She picked up her stone and her needles and threads and wearily she journeyed down from the hills to the city that stood on the plains.
The first thing the young woman did when she got there was to take out her needles and embroider a shawl to wrap her baby in. When people saw the beautiful work she was doing they begged her to stitch and sew for them. Soon she could afford a comfortable tent of her own and rich customers brought her braziers of fire so she could embroider her fine coloured flowers for them by night as well as by day.
But when her baby was born she found she could no longer sew, for her hands were busy with him. Her patrons took their braziers and business away, her needles rusted and were spoiled.
“Never mind, my son,” she said, wrapping warm him in the silken shawl, “We have riches enough for now. “
“This is the one to whom I truly belong,” she thought, “At last I am home!”
And she laid him down beside her next to the cold grey stone as he drifted into dreams.
While he slept she sang to him, for songs were all she had left to share. And the sound of her voice and her words were so true that people came from all over the city and paid money to her to listen. Thus she was able to feed and clothe her child and pay others in time to teach him such lessons as boys of his culture were taught. Soon he could read and he could ride, make fine gardens and weapons of war, and he grew into a man.
When the time came for those of his generation to leave their homes and have adventures before adulthood claimed them she handed him a piece of grey stone.
“Son,” she said, “You know I am a woman with no fire of my own. This is all I have to give you.”
But the young man said, “Keep it, I have no need of your stone. I am the fruit of your womb but only half your child. I am going to find my father's tribe and the fires that I belong by.”
After he had gone the woman wept and pondered upon her fate.
“Why did this happen?” she questioned, “How am I here?”
“I was mistaken,” she reasoned, “He could not be like me.”
She was too old now for the sound of her sorrow to bring lovers to warm her. Her once true voice was cracked with tears, all her talents and treasures were gone. She sat alone by the cold grey stone outside her tent as the darkness grew around her.
“I have known the joy of the dance and the pleasure of passion,” she thought, “the fierce love of mother for child. But all these have been fleeting and their loss has been hard, what else can I seek that will bring me warmth and will stay with me forever?”
Gazing up at the night sky, she spotted a shower of brilliant shooting stars.
“Look,” she whispered to herself, “What joy they bring to my heart!”
But shooting stars shine only briefly and after a while she remembered the visions she'd seen on the sands of her youth with the herbs that had opened her mind. She yearned for the blazing white light that had burned so brightly it had warmed her through to her soul.
“Perhaps that is the one warmth that I can call mine,” she decided, “but its fire is the brightest of all. I must seek it now so the rest of my days can be lived within its glow.”
And she set off for the mountain that stood in the north to ask the wise man who lived there, and knew of such things, the path she should take to the light.
The road was steep and the journey was tiring, her ageing limbs ached as she climbed. But her heart was as hopeful as when she'd been a young girl and first set out to find the fire she belonged by, the people from whom she had come.
“At last,” she thought, “I am almost home!”
It was cold on the mountain top and she shivered in the shawl she'd made for her baby as she described to the wise man her quest. He had no fire to sit beside, no companions, no partner, nor sons, and yet he seemed warm and lit from within by a glow she recognised.
“Teach me the secret of seeing the light,” she asked, “so I can live without fire like you.”
“Alas,” said the sage with the greatest compassion, “what I have takes years of disciplined training. It's too late for you to start learning now. But the light is inside you and you will see it again once before you die - for everybody does so.”
The woman was devastated, she aged many years, all her youthful hope was gone.
“My life has been wasted,” she thought, “my dreams all in vain. May death come soon to release me!”
And she struggled painfully back down the mountain and made her way to the slow flowing river that wound through the east of the land.
The woman sat on its banks with her stone beside her and awaited her time to die. By day she watched the sunshine play on the water and when night fell she watched the moon and the stars as they moved across the sky. But none of these had brilliant enough a light to bring her the joy she was seeking.
One evening as a golden sunset filled the heavens, the chill of disappointment crept into her heart and she wrapped the shawl around her shoulders as she pondered on her fate.
“Why did this happen?” she questioned, “How am I here?”
“I have been mistaken many times,” she reasoned, “The people I thought were mine were not. The partner I thought was mine was not. The fruit of my womb that once shared my heart was only half my child. And all the time I yearned for their companionship was time I lost finding the light.”
“I shall never know warmth!” the woman cried in despair, “What use is a cold grey stone?”
And she picked it up and raised her arm to hurl it into the river and be rid of its curse for good. But her old fingers fumbled and lost their grip and it dropped down to the rock beneath her. As flint struck flint two sparks ignited and leapt to the fringe of her shawl. They glowed brightly then burst into flame. Soon the fine worked flowers began to smoulder and smoke but still the old woman didn't shrug off her shawl or shrink from the blaze that embraced her.
“This is my fire, “ she thought, “At last I am home!”
And she opened her mind to the inner light that warmed her through to her very soul............as she drifted into dreams.
Let me tell you a story #2
Well, I paid my fee and made the deadline for the short story competition and waited for the day they’d publish the results on the site. The top placed entries were to receive a cash prize but all the runners up were also to be published in an anthology and my vanity could think of no greater delight! But there was some hold up somewhere in the process and I had to log in over and over again until finally the page had changed and there was a the list of the winning stories in descending order right down through Runners Up to Highly Commended who, despite their ‘honourable mention’ would not be in the book.
I scanned down the list in frantic hope and anticipation...mine wasn’t first...or second... or third...but The Woman with No Fire of her Own was in the list of Runners up and it would be in the anthology! It would be in a real printed book that people could buy because people I didn’t know had read it and thought it was good enough, not to be kind, not to boost my ego or get into my own good books but because they thought it had merit. I went round with a stupid smile on my face for days...
This is not the end of the story of the story by a long way but I’m wondering if you’d like to read the story itself now? There have been a few adjustments over the years and the word count has extended a little from the original Richard and Judy version but the essence of it is unchanged and I’ll see if I can find a copy to copy on here for my next post later today...
I scanned down the list in frantic hope and anticipation...mine wasn’t first...or second... or third...but The Woman with No Fire of her Own was in the list of Runners up and it would be in the anthology! It would be in a real printed book that people could buy because people I didn’t know had read it and thought it was good enough, not to be kind, not to boost my ego or get into my own good books but because they thought it had merit. I went round with a stupid smile on my face for days...
This is not the end of the story of the story by a long way but I’m wondering if you’d like to read the story itself now? There have been a few adjustments over the years and the word count has extended a little from the original Richard and Judy version but the essence of it is unchanged and I’ll see if I can find a copy to copy on here for my next post later today...
Let me tell you a story #1
I haven’t been as feeling as upbeat the last few days as I’d have liked and that makes it hard to write on here as its supposed to be about recording and sharing joy.
So, I thought as most of you are strangers and you don’t know much about my life until it came to this I’d share a story about a story I once wrote which has a touch of the feelgood factor. It’ll be in instalments so my hands and your heads don’t get tired but then the best stories are...
I was living alone and isolated in a tiny one room flat after some less than successful life changes I’d made when I heard on the Richard and Judy show that they were having a short story competition. I fancy myself as having a bit of a way with words and I thought this might be a way to turn my life around for the better but I couldn’t think what to write...The word limit was only 1000 words and that’s shorter than a newsy letter so that was a challenge too and inspiration wouldn’t come.
After the competition had been running for a week or two they were reading out extracts of some of the entries they’d had so far and saying basically why they didn’t like them. There emphasis was write about what you know and hinted about the kind of things they thought we would know about...just ordinary things to do with an ordinary British family life...but I was devastated as it brought it home to me how far mine had diverged from anything the general public would consider normal for an intelligent middle aged woman. And looking back it seemed that all I’d ever really known was about not fitting the mould and being an outsider...
So I decided to write about that... and the story was called The Woman with no Fire of her Own.
And I sent it off so sure that it had something special in it and it would change my life...and never heard anything more again! And I decided that I was totally wrong and I really couldn’t write and put the thing away and forgot pretty much all about it...
A few years later things had looked up a little, I had a flat with a tiny separate kitchen and bathroom and had reconnected with a friend from a few years earlier. I can’t remember why exactly, whether I’d been talking about being a misfit or about being a ‘failed’ writer but I emailed him a copy of the story. And he raved about it. He’d done a bit of work as a story teller so I felt maybe he wasn’t just being kind, and his reaction was so positive that I gave a printed copy of it to another man friend and he too said it was great. He actually said it made him cry and he wasn’t a man given to expressing emotion so this was high praise indeed...
So then I felt a bit more positive about the little tale and it’s telling and showed a few more people and they were quite positive too. And eventually I was persuaded to enter it in another competition...
So, I thought as most of you are strangers and you don’t know much about my life until it came to this I’d share a story about a story I once wrote which has a touch of the feelgood factor. It’ll be in instalments so my hands and your heads don’t get tired but then the best stories are...
I was living alone and isolated in a tiny one room flat after some less than successful life changes I’d made when I heard on the Richard and Judy show that they were having a short story competition. I fancy myself as having a bit of a way with words and I thought this might be a way to turn my life around for the better but I couldn’t think what to write...The word limit was only 1000 words and that’s shorter than a newsy letter so that was a challenge too and inspiration wouldn’t come.
After the competition had been running for a week or two they were reading out extracts of some of the entries they’d had so far and saying basically why they didn’t like them. There emphasis was write about what you know and hinted about the kind of things they thought we would know about...just ordinary things to do with an ordinary British family life...but I was devastated as it brought it home to me how far mine had diverged from anything the general public would consider normal for an intelligent middle aged woman. And looking back it seemed that all I’d ever really known was about not fitting the mould and being an outsider...
So I decided to write about that... and the story was called The Woman with no Fire of her Own.
And I sent it off so sure that it had something special in it and it would change my life...and never heard anything more again! And I decided that I was totally wrong and I really couldn’t write and put the thing away and forgot pretty much all about it...
A few years later things had looked up a little, I had a flat with a tiny separate kitchen and bathroom and had reconnected with a friend from a few years earlier. I can’t remember why exactly, whether I’d been talking about being a misfit or about being a ‘failed’ writer but I emailed him a copy of the story. And he raved about it. He’d done a bit of work as a story teller so I felt maybe he wasn’t just being kind, and his reaction was so positive that I gave a printed copy of it to another man friend and he too said it was great. He actually said it made him cry and he wasn’t a man given to expressing emotion so this was high praise indeed...
So then I felt a bit more positive about the little tale and it’s telling and showed a few more people and they were quite positive too. And eventually I was persuaded to enter it in another competition...
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