I have reached the age where wraiths of the dearly departed,-siblings, parents, babies lost before birth, partners, friends,- slip unbidden into the monochrome days and restless nights. They dart and hide at vision’s edge, ever eluding the spotlight of full consciousness. Yet as the procedure progresses, notwithstanding this lack of clarity, they appear more substantial, more tangible, than the creature standing beside me on hind legs.
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I take a drag, the nicotine hit combined with the rush of seeing you again proving a heady concoction. My legs twitch with such an urgency to run that I fear they’ll carry me down the hill, unbidden, towards you. I force myself to remain seated, hidden from view.
You’re smoking now too, leaning against our tree, our connection as natural as thunder and lightning. I can’t believe you’re there. In the place we said we’d meet in twenty years’ time if things hadn’t worked out.
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My love for her echoes the unconditional love she has for me. She has watched me laugh and cry from the day I was born and made sure she raised me as a sensitive, loving person. There has always been respect for decisions I have made in life and she has corrected many mistakes I have made. Her guidance has made me a more rounded person. The commitment I have for her will always be there.
Continue readingI was on my way home at last, I’d been counting down the days to my return flight since I arrived. The ‘Call of the Wild’ was overexaggerated as far as I was concerned. I just could not wait for that blissful moment of sleeping in my own bed. As it turned out, Africa had different plans for me.
The airport tannoy crackled into life.
“The flight to Nairobi has been delayed.”
There was a groan from all the passengers.
“More information will follow.”
I looked down at my dust-encrusted attire, I really needed a shower; even I could smell how disgusting I was. I just hoped that we would be aboard the turbo prop soon.
“Today’s flight has been cancelled.”
Continue readingWednesday
“I still take her a cup of bed tea every morning and cook the evening meal and do all the cleaning…”
Chess looked at the blob-blank faces of his 2 drinking companions and raised a glass of Best.
“Since that first morning of our honeymoon….” Faces kindled in anticipation of the oft repeated salacious details to come. Except they didn’t.
“35 years I’ve done it. She just lies in bed all day.”
Deprived of oxygen, interest flickered then died. Disclosure time, Chess decided.
“Our sex life is dead. That’s why I’ve booked myself a flight to Bangkok. One way. After Friday you won’t see me till I’m fully re-trained.”
Eyes focussed, necks lengthened, ears strained, cheeks rosied. Gratified he continued but in a conspiratorial voice so low I could catch only occasional words –
“Jade Buddha, temples, lady-boys, kick boxing, massage parlours,” -plus “Ohs” and “Ahs” punctuated with laughter.
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I can’t finish the game on my tablet. Usually I rattle through Patience, but tonight I’m flustered and keep putting the cards in the wrong place.
My mind is at the pier where two fifteen-year-olds scan the stars. ‘Way things are progressing that might be you and me one day up there in a spacecraft, Jade,’ he says. I feel again my shuddering at the thought of darkness, of being eternally lost in the void.
There’s a clicking noise. The monitor’s coming on.
Continue readingThey say curiosity killed the cat, well my curiosity is well and truly dead. Here I am standing in a multi storey car park looking at a patch of wall with an orange stain on. The whole place stinks of human waste, petrol fumes and damp .What brought me here you may well ask.
Having lived a comfortable life with my grandparents, I quickly learned not to ask about my real parents. All they ever said that was they were dead to them. Years passed and, as with all things, the grandparents passed away. Now I was the owner of the house and with sufficient money to keep me in comfort, I set about making the place my own.
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We’re ‘familiar strangers’, you and me. Each morning, we board the 6.28 to Paddington at Swansea train station but never interact. Have you noticed me?
Familiar strangers don’t speak. If you wanted to double-check what the announcement just said, you’d ask that guy over there, who’s not a regular.
The reverse is true out of context. Say I saw you in a bar, you’d be more likely to talk to me than you would a perfect stranger.
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I wait in the car outside the home, waiting for the Lateral Flow Test result. Part of me wants it to be positive, as an excuse not to go in. I’m unlucky in my wish as I have the all clear. I climb out of the car wearily, taking as much time as possible. My mind and my conscience wrestle. I need to do this, but I don’t want to do it.
It’s more and more difficult every day. My mother’s dementia has taken away the parent I once knew. Her long-term memories come to the fore as her most recent dissolve within seconds. Conversations circle between us. It feels like we are both trapped in a revolving door.
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“Are we expecting more? Roger? OK. A few minutes.” No-one else arrives.
“Let’s start. I’m chairing. First, we introduce ourselves. Starting clockwise, give your name and a few words as to why you’re here. Then hands up whoever wants to speak. The topic this week, Mastering the Mountain. I’ll go first. I’m Reeta; been a regular for a year. My fear is meerkats. I call it Herpestidaephobia. That’s a made-up word actually,” she waits, weighing the effect, “but my therapist seems to like it.”
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Snow fell in clumps the night the Doctor rode into town, carpeting the cobblestone streets. It was as though God himself had poured clouds out of the sky to welcome him. Lit by a full moon, snowflakes gilded every surface and our stricken community glowed with hope.
He had come to save us.
No-one had visited since the plague had hit. And we were forbidden to leave, succumbing to the sickness one by one.
‘I am The Doctor!’ he said, tipping his hat to the gathering crowd.
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She’s at it again, using her allure to get people to do things for her. I watch jealously from my bric-à-brac jumble sale stall. I had spent the last half an hour carrying heavy bags from my car. Now, she strolls in, followed by a team of eager pleasers hauling all her boxes. I really hate her sometimes.
Angela, five foot eight and with an effervescent personality and curly blond locks. I understand what the entire male population sees in her, but what I don’t get is why she is able to bewitch the female population as well. That doesn’t include me, of course. I’m immune to her charms.
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Reluctantly I made my way to bed. I ask you, bed at 8.00 at my age, how archaic is that? My mother believed in the outdated style of nurturing, feed, bath and bed. My sister tried to reason with her, explaining that that was meant for infants, not young people of our ages. That was the last time I ever protested at having to go to bed, listen carefully and I’ll let you in on my eternal secret.
That night I drifted off to sleep quickly, a wonderful sense of peace washed over me as I realised that I was leaving my body and slowly floating, towards another dimension. Soon I approached the impressive entrance marked “visitors only”. I glided calmly through the gates and was reassured by a silent and gleaming white world full of serene souls where all communication was done by a sophisticated means of telepathy. As I navigated around my new world, I saw that the central square was where souls went to find answers from the wise and knowledgeable. Elders to our worldly problems. Eventually I was brave enough to approach them and unburden the secret of my sister Gails’ behaviour, only to be told that it was too late. She was obsessed with fire, given the chance she would set fire to anything. Matches, lighters all had to be hidden from her, which was very difficult because both my parents were regular smokers. Gail was a very sad and confused soul, resenting me. I was the youngest child and her nemesis; she was constantly accusing me of stealing our parents love and attention.
Continue readinga tale foretold. ‘The crowd’s on the pitch. They think it’s all over. It is now.’
Touch, a so missing after trauma, so they tell us, and so I must consider you know don’t you too my mind latched on to but was it ever anything else. and indeed There is something to be said that our contemporary lives invest too much into being ‘happy,, by showering ourselves with happy smiles and emojis that become addictive self smugness of, of well of loony-bin Reality Shows for a start, making us believe that is all there is to life. and STOP us imagining alternatives. and well is writing and engaging with it – literary fiction that is – does this. So, am I here writing this to resolve and maybe dissolve lies I have told myself.? Can I then ‘face up.’, create my and your better life. Give us integrity, enabling skills, perhaps like literary devices, eh Joe?
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It will be a parting gift. Something to remind him of “us.”
Clouds skid across the darkening September sky, nudged along by an insistent wind. “It’s time,” it seems to hiss as it whistles around the rooftops.
The swallows have heard it too. They gather on the telephone line overhead, their slit-throats lined up and their tails criss-crossing in different directions like scissors, ready to cut ties.
It’s a time for bursting out of the summer haze into vivid autumn colour and activity. A time for new starts and sowing seeds. I prepare the soil, loosening and enriching it.
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Thursday the 21st of April, my 6th birthday. A day indelibly etched on my brain. It was the day that I received 2 tickets to go to the circus with my friend Susan.
On the morning of that momentous day I was bubbling with anticipation at what my gift would be. My curiosity was soon satisfied when I opened my birthday card and discovered the tickets.
That was the beginning of an arduous but long and exciting journey that led me all over the world.
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It’s hard to savour every moment when everyone is fussing so much. Honestly, did half the ward of nurses really need to come? They buzz around me like polyester flies.
My daughter adjusts the deckchair, almost tipping me over in the process, asking me again and again if I’m ok.
‘The tide’s coming in, Mum, so you can’t stay here long. Are you sure you don’t want me to sit with you?’
I sigh. ‘I’m fine. You can leave me now.’
‘We’ll just be over there, ok?’
I nod, too tired to reply.
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I worked hard in school but had few friends. When my classmates were out playing, I was busy working on my school projects or revising. My only friends were the librarians who would guide me to the books needed to help me in my revision. They taught me to use the computers and how to research for my projects.
My parents supported me in my attempts to do well in school, but through no fault of their own, both being badly disabled, there was no money to finance extras. My uniform came from the schools’ seconds’ shop. Because of this I was the outsider. Sometimes I lay in bed dreaming that one day I would be able to afford the expensive shoes and matching bags that Margaret Ford, one of the most popular girls in my class, sported. Along with her highlighted hair and manicured nails, she had everything, beauty, brains and personality.
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We had a game where we would set up prompts and build stories together, sometimes wild, crazy stories. ‘It could so easily have been me….’ was one opener and
complicated, fantasy travel plans was another favourite. It made us laugh, and the dafter, the better. In fact we enjoyed doing most things together and even doing nothing together was better than doing nothing separately.
The ‘easily have been me’ one was a rich vat of story opportunities. We often returned to it.
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Yet another interview, let’s hope I get the job this time. I think this is the eighth or ninth job I’ve gone for. OK, I know I wasn’t qualified for some like the nanny’s job, but they could have given me a chance.
Why do they always keep you waiting? Sometimes I think they do it on purpose just to make you nervous, but today I’ve taken one of my mother’s diazepam, so I’m not fazed. The other two waiting look very la-di-da but a little nervous. One keeps dashing back and forth to the loo, while the other one is twisting her hands. You’d think she was on her way to the gallows. I think they have realised that I’m the obvious choice.
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