Life is Magic

Posted on by under 2022, April 2022 - Magic

The house was like nothing she’d seen before. It smelled of biscuits and old tea; and looked like a half-buried cottage with just the top floor sticking out. This, it turned out, was an accurate description.

She’d been dropped at the end of the lane by a taciturn bus driver, who simply nodded at the lane when she asked for directions.

After walking for a mile, the lane ended, and the bramble shrouded garden began. At first her aunt’s cottage wasn’t visible, just a curl of wood-smoke from a chimney poking above the treetops. She headed towards it and arrived at the two up, three down-down-down to find her aunt leaning out of a window, shaking a large quilt covered in esoteric patterns.

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The One Time We Weren’t Wrong

Posted on by under 2022, March 2022 - Things aren't what they seem

It was really great to meet up again and surprising the way we fell into the old patterns of benign teasing. There was the indulgence of reminiscence and a lot of catching up on the water under the bridge. In some cases that seemed to be quite a deluge. Having said that, we were more or less up to date on relationships – break ups and reassemblies.

Four of us, who now sat in a city park, had been especially close and still shared an odd sense of humour. I have to admit some of our conversations tended to straddle the boundary of acceptability, but it was all part of the delight of storytelling about passers-by who were unaware of their part in our dramas.

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The Dilemma

Posted on by under 2022, March 2022 - Things aren't what they seem

Flowers twice in one month, that’s never happened before. I hear my voice thanking him profusely while my mind is warning me there’s something up.

I have never had any reason to doubt him before, but my gut seems to be playing a set of Tom-Toms. I ignore both of them and make dinner. It isn’t until the early hours of the morning, that my fears start up again. I tell myself I’m imagining things but find it really difficult to get back to sleep, with my mind constantly going over the same questions

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The Palimpsest Profiles

Posted on by under 2022, March 2022 - Things aren't what they seem

I curse my parents’ choice of Fatimah. A name, whether given at birth, self-ascribed or bestowed by mocking contemporaries is so entwined with identity. Change by deed poll seemed the only solution to the seemingly irremovable tags of “Fatty” and “Tatty.” Identifying a fitting substitution was the challenge.

But that was before my career as a Digital Modifier with the Palimpsest Foundation. Digital Falsifier would be a more accurate descriptor. The greatest perk of apprenticeship was learning the tools of the trade,- pixel manipulation, real-time video simulation, voice replication,-  from a true master. The downside was moving far from family to the glaring redness of the Foundation’s god-forsaken HQ in the Mohave Desert.

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To The Lighthouse

Posted on by under March 2022 - Things aren't what they seem

It was a good day for it. The sea glimpsed through bare branches was grey, but towards the lighthouse it shimmered beneath the southerly sun. A long walk to the pier but, yes, it had to be today.

            He walked along the prom crab-slow, a dignified figure, like a priest approaching the altar. These last few months exhaustion had been his companion when he woke up, his antagonist as the day wore on, and his tormentor in the evening hours before he collapsed into bed again.

Before him the distant lighthouse was like a stub of drawing chalk in a sandcastle, and the small houses in Mumbles fought for light amid the up-thrusting copses. He knew his end was approaching. Perhaps his feckless son would empty his house afterwards, perhaps the council would. None of it mattered any more. Just Jane. He didn’t want Jane left alone in the house after he’d passed.  

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Oh Dear

Posted on by under March 2022 - Things aren't what they seem
Gossiping women

Pushing through the door laden down with her weekly shop, Mavis waddled across to the nearest alcove. Time for a cuppa and teacake. The waitress looked across smiling, ”Your usual Mavis,” then nodded as she settled into the corner.

With her tea and teacake, she listened to the chatter from the other alcoves. Over the years she had heard so much local gossip which she shared with her close friends. Today would change everything.

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Attrition

Posted on by under 2022, March 2022 - Things aren't what they seem

Welcome to my blog. I’m Sarah, a theatre enthusiast and aspiring actor. Follow me as I explore the hype surrounding Attrition, the play everyone’s talking about.

If you haven’t heard of Attrition, where have you been? For those living under a rock, here’s a quick low-down. Attrition opens in the West End tomorrow and no-one knows who wrote it. The writer is known on Instagram simply as @TheMysteryPlaywright.

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Things aren’t what they seem

Posted on by under 2022, March 2022 - Things aren't what they seem

The Austerik Muminsim are an ancient race, who emerged from the quark aggregation taking place just millionths of a second after the big bang, so they aren’t exactly matter, but they really DO matter.

A lot.

They allowed nuclei to form, which also permitted everything else to happen, like stars and galaxies forming. So, it was a surprise when I was asked to meet them.

How do you “meet” an entity with no physical dimensions existing simultaneously in all places and times?

I got an invitation.

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The Serpent Eats its Tail

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth
Elderly couple in front of a Spanish Villa

The discussion always went round in circles like a serpent consuming its own tail. It was a tough problem, and becoming important that they found some solution, what with the cost of living crisis.

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Almost

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth

Billy Thomas and the boys met at the edge of the village. Maldwyn, the farmer, had promised them sixpence each if they cleared a field of potatoes. Armed with sandwiches and bottles of water they wandered up to the field. Maldwyn showed them how to do the job.

Toiling away, they split the field into sections and a competition started. Billy really wanted to win, so he was tugging each plant and throwing his catch into the wooden crate. As the day wore on, they were all tiring; time for a break. Laying against the wall petty rivalry and squabbling broke out, each convinced they would win. 

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What Counts as Wealth? 

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth

…”The health of our nation is dependent on the wealth of our nation.  The poorest of our society has had to endure great hardships …”

Kathleen gives the remote control button a vicious prod.

“Oi, I was watching that!”

She turns and gives her husband a look of disbelief.

“The last thing we need right now is some stuck up government speaker telling us what we can’t afford, I already know that.”

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Pumpkins

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth

            Smayle’s concrete grey face was a Niagara of perspiration. War was ongoing with the slugs and snails. He had three large dustbins on his plot, where he mulched food waste into fertiliser. Little burrowing creatures got in there sometimes, and partook of dinner. Birds, butterflies, and he didn’t know what, slipped under the netting around some of his raised beds. But none of them had inflicted damage on his most prized growth: his pumpkins. His wheelbarrow bulged with them, fat, comfortable, like the heads of yellow turbaned oriental aristocracy.

None of the other allotment holders grew them in such volume Once fully grown these mighty plumped fellows were allowed access to his house, just yards from the allotment gate. Sometimes there were so many, he believed they could practically march down there in military columns.

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Coming of Age

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth

1985

Gran and I fly together after dark. Our sparkling wings streak through the skies like shooting stars, lighting up the night.

‘Girls have secret powers,’ Gran says with that twinkle in her eye. It makes my heart flutter and the magic flow through my veins so fast I tingle all over.

First, we fly to the grave of Gran’s Gran. It’s overgrown and we pluck daisies that have sprung from the earth.

‘This one’s wisdom.’ She drops a daisy into the open bag beside the grave. ‘And this, hope. Then we have love, happiness, bravery and ambition.’

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Djerik and the Magic Mirror – a Child’s Fable

Posted on by under 2022, February 2022 - Wealth

Tourdor stole a secret recipe book from a brewer and set himself up as the kingdom’s best innkeeper. Without it, he could not enjoy the wealth to which he had become accustomed, so he stuck a notice on his door: “Wanted! Three stout fellows to guard my secret.”

An old man with a white beard approaches him.

“I will guard it.”

Tourdor says he wants a stronger man.

The man points a wand at a barrel and lifts it across the bar.

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The wrong sort of promise

Posted on by under 2022, January 2022 - The Promise

Will had always loved wood. He loved trees and sawdust and the curls of planed wood. The tools for wood working were endlessly fascinating; sharpened chisels, saws and delicate nails. Even the smells of wood were pleasurable, both timber being worked and wood rotting in country glades.

As his school reports, carefully preserved by his mother, attest Will was a student of broad abilities and his future was an open book that could fall open on a number of different pages. Will’s mother had her own set of expectations and was quietly confident that her son would attain well paid professional status in due course.

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Toilet Humour

Posted on by under 2022, January 2022 - The Promise
Teenage Male sitting on toilet thinking of Gorilla Glue

Just forgot.

Joe had not meant to leave the seat up again. He had promised Mam to mend his ways but talking it over afterwards with Geraint in the railway sidings had spawned a flow of subversive mycelial thoughts that spread and advanced each time he used the bathroom.

The rails were a comforting backdrop for the boys to try on the fit and suitability of new ideas before  integration into their developing adult identities. The clatter of rolling stock, honk of diesel horns and that special click as the point changes engaged oiled the process.

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Never Say Goodbye

Posted on by under 2022, January 2022 - The Promise

Do you remember when we made that promise, Dad? In the fading light of a summer’s evening, when you sat beside my bed and closed the book you’d been reading, leaning in to kiss me and wish me sweet dreams? Always that. Never goodnight. Definitely never goodbye.

You smelled of tea and biscuits. The beginnings of a beard peppered your chin, bristling against my cheek. Your beard was dark then. Not even a whisper of grey. Nothing like the creep of white that haunts your face now. Your skin in the glow of my bedside light was bright and flushed from a day’s work, and the comforting clatter of Mum washing up floated through the floorboards. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember the book. The Tiger Who Came to Tea.

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Caring

Posted on by under 2022, January 2022 - The Promise

A bell rang.   

‘It’s Linda, Mum,’ her son said. ‘With her husband, Jeff. They’re driving you to your brother’s.’

‘Linda?’

‘Hello, Aunt Violet.’ A woman at the door was kissing her.

‘She’s not been there in decades,’ her son said. ‘Good of Ronnie to deign to see her again, isn’t it?’

He was chuckling but the woman kept a straight face.

In the car the woman said, ‘It’s Uncle Ronnie’s sixtieth wedding anniversary.’

‘Anniversary? Is he married?’

‘To Betty. Remember Betty?’

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Double Trouble

Posted on by under 2022, January 2022 - The Promise

“I’ll get you Lewis! And that’s a promise.”

With his words still ringing in my ears, I hastily packed a suitcase. I just had to get away.

A new town, a fresh start, I could only hope.

I picked up a job quickly and began to settle down.  My jangled nerves were slowly uncurling with each passing day.

It took him six weeks to find me.

I awoke one morning to find a note on the doormat. Things started to spiral out of control.

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Distraction, Promise, and Genius

Posted on by under 2022, January 2022 - The Promise

“In my life,” Becca said to the class, concluding her written homework, “I have worn the masks of a wife, a poet, a teacher and a lover, but none of these can disguise, the empty space inside, where once lived a mother.”

The class was silent until the new boy, Bill Transom, flicked a piece of spittle-soaked paper at Rebecca. “Well, that was shit.”

Laughter erupted, and Becca flushed. She turned to Miss Jackson, who stood with her back to the class, studying a jogger crossing the boundary between the school playing fields and the village green. She turned to face Becca.

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