As the poor got poorer, local councils were inspired to think about the optics of people dying alone in unheated homes during the chilly winters. Small grants enabled local organisations with free space to keep their heating on and invite local people to come in and warm up, sometimes offering soup and sandwiches as part of their welcome to the heat hub.
People certainly benefitted from the warmth, and they also met other people. For some this went no further than the chat and the bingo. For others it presented opportunities to establish some common ground: to build solidarity.
It’s been four o’clock forever here. An almost endless afternoon spinning off into the distance, only concluding when the skies darken, and rain falls like frozen droplets of spite on the bald patch at the crown of my head. If they named this spot “Ennui”, I would not be more surprised than I already am. So complete is its banality, it vies with “a rural bus stop” for the listless black hole Victor ludorum.
André Gide once said, “One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore.” Gide has clearly never set sail for Gowerton.
She’s a good egg, our Fi. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be suitable for the job. That’s why we allow her keep us. We are the keepers of the keepers.
We see everything. When we buzz around waggling to one another, we’re not only chasing nectar. We’re assessing the mental state of the people and communicating potential danger. Forget being a ‘fly on the wall.’ Flies don’t care. It’s the bees who watch, listen and help.
Take Ian Jones next door. He had a near-miss with death only last month. He was smoking a cigarette beside the azaleas in his front garden whilst I busied myself with the foxgloves. What’s dangerous about that, you ask, aside from the obvious? It’s true that the smoking will get him eventually, but that’s not the sort of thing we get involved in. On this occasion I could tell from his stance, the faraway look in his eyes, and the slightly acidic smell of his perspiration, that he was planning on this being his last cigarette before taking his own life. Well, those things and my complex assessment of his mood over recent weeks.
The president’s plane took off from Paris. He was going home. Before reaching the Atlantic, there was a huge explosion of lightning in the sky like Armageddon. It struck the plane, a wing caught fire, smoke was billowing everywhere.
‘Parachute! Parachute!’ the captain shouted. ‘Prepare the president for emergency exit.’
Two of the crew bundled him out of the toilet where he’d been tweeting.
‘Hey, what about my pants?’
‘Strap this on!’ one guy shouted.
‘Open exit door!’ said the second.
‘Release!’
The president, falling to earth, trouserless, looked up at the plane wreathed in fire. Next thing he knew his parachute was snagged on top of a metal tower, the heavens still electrically charged with tongues of lightning.
Sure, she loved him, but she just wasn’t in love with him if that began to make sense.
He looked down at his lap and blinked a little to hide the welling tears. Then rising without a word, he marched upstairs.
She knew he didn’t want her to follow, and she lingered there in his living room, knowing this was a heartless way to end the relationship but God, was there ever a right way? She plucked his housekey from her keychain and wondered if he’d return the key to her flat.
When she’d entered the church, she’d felt trapped. At the altar just one thought: I don’t want to marry. But it was too late. She couldn’t let the crowd down, nor Colin, her boyfriend since schooldays. She blamed herself for her negativity, swore her vows emptily, and walked out of the chapel on Colin’s arm displaying a forced smile to the many pairs of sugar-sweet eyes offering her love. But there was no love inside her and she left Colin six months later.
That was a decade ago. Here she was again, in a registry office, no ostentation, just the two of them and a witness. Did she love Tim? The question whispered gratingly, as the woman registrar studied her with, she fancied, laser-like insight.
“If yer want my opinion,” says Bill. He looks up at Alana, with his runtish face twisted into an intense expression.
“Frankly Bill, I don’t,” Alana interjects before he can launch into one of his tirades about the subject at hand, one of his favourites—why elves would be better employed getting some time in—and monopolise the conversation with tired but well-practised jeu de mots and superficially plausible conclusions that pay scant regard to any logical rigour.
Me ….“Wiktionary’s definition is ‘a person who teases, taunts, aggravates, angers’”.
As organiser and chair of the scrabble tournament Bryn bristled with self importance…. and incredulity.
“Translated from Norwegian! Come-on Charlie. You know the rules.”
Using a practised left hand to flick through the T’s of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, his right hand twisted first one greasy handle, then the other, of his handlebar moustache.
Liz sat drinking her oat milk latte, and seeing her reflection in the cafe window sighed. This is not how I imagined my retirement, my face all puffy and pale from the medications I had been prescribed. After an active job I had felt prepared for the future, but my body had other ideas it had decided. Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol had suddenly appeared, although I was told they had been on their radar for years!!
Having lost the ability to wear stilettos, I reluctantly admitted defeat and replaced them with sensible shoes. I loved my old shoes even kept my favourites, just in case, trying them on now and again but usually ended up going ass over tit .
Everyone said Christopher was in a good mood in the week leading up to the presentation. This sullen, moody boy, often muttering to himself now walked with a spring in his step, wore a smile on his lips and went so far as to ask people about their day.
Odd because, rarely in the three years working for the company did he speak in full sentences, usually making do with nasally monosyllabic grunts and somehow, he now spoke in full paragraphs with a happy tone.
Avril Morgan, a slender woman with a handsome face, opened her front door in anticipation of her little totem pole. She was greeted by a man dragging a large coffin-shaped tree trunk up the garden path Her jaw fell, it was supposed to be six inches, not six foot
Huffing and puffing the red-faced driver arrived, delivery sheet in hand, thrusting it in her face.
“There must be some kind of mistake,” Avril’s voice quavered.
No mistake and I’m not taking it back; sign here. “
After she signed on the dotted line, the driver made a quick exit.
What the heck do I do with it now. Adrian is going to go mad.
Tobermory held his daughter’s hand as they walked along the corridor, their footsteps echoing from the stone walls. He sensed her looking up and gave her a little squeeze.
“Don’t worry, daddy,” Eleanor said, “I’ll be okay.”
“I know, Pumpkin,” he said, displaying a sad smile. “We’ll all be okay.”
“Did you bring Flibut?”
Tobermory pulled the stuffed, one-eared camel from his bag. “Yes, he’s here.”
“Because I couldn’t go without Flibut.”
He looked down at her earnest features, a pixie face in a halo of red curls. Just five years old, he thought, how could there be a god?
He could have scooped her up right there and bounded back down the corridor. But he knew the guards would pick him off before they got out. And a stranger would make the long walk with her.
It isn’t hard to ruin the life of a thirteen year old. I seem to do it all the time. Take yesterday:
‘Mum, you are ruining my life. Everybody has an iPhone. You need it to look things up in class and to talk to people. I’m completely humiliated without one. Who knows what people are saying about me?…’
‘I accept that your life is in tatters, and I’m sorry for you. But in 20 years you will come and find me, throw your arms around my neck, and thank me. You will be able to think without the help of influencers and you will not have a repeating backdrop of porn movies and pile-ons to spoil your dreams.’
This morning, my algae soup tasted even blander than usual. Lifeless. Flavourless. Purposeless.
“Seems familiar,” I mused, granting myself a rare indulgence – not washing the bowl. Why bother? It joined the stack of unwashed dishes, each marking days of the same hollow thought.
Outside my house, I stood before the only soul who would have cared. She would have made me wash up; she made me a better man. Kneeling, I placed a small metal flower upon her makeshift grave. Its subtle blue hue was a stark contrast to this monochrome underground world of dirt and metal.
Colonel Halcro considered the relative merits of the two options. “Accommodations comfortable and elegant, the surrounding countryside abounding with objects of antiquarian interest.” That descriptor would appeal to his lady-wife. His own preference was Flett’s Private Board and Lodgings, “reasonable rates, on-site availability of books for shooting and fishing, guns for hire, the Dog-Cart available for resident parties, refreshments good and cheap, and the plentiful supply of firewood.” The decision was made. Susan was a reasonable soul, hardened by the realities for military wives returned from the colonies. If Halcro was contented, she could almost persuade herself that she was. If both, then no contest. She envisaged a restful week together but apart, the short Scottish days, Halcro up to his thighs in waders, casting into the Sound, or lining up his sights for the grouse, whilst she, intrepid amateur female archaeologist, continued in the Dog Cart to the fossil site, pointing trowel and extractor hammer in hand. Cosy evenings before the blazing fire in the panelled drawing room would follow, then later maybe a rekindling of the passionate nights of their early marriage.
The wind bayed relentlessly as it had for the last three days. It forced its way through the cracks and crevices to send darts of ice through the cottage.
Megan huddled under the blankets cuddling up to her siblings on their pallet in the rafters. Her grandfather lay shivering on his bed in the alcove besides the hearth. Their fire burnt low as the peat was running out. They would soon be dependent on the droppings of the animals in the byre.
Mother and father spent most of the day trying to clear a way through the snow to provide water for the animals before the water froze over again. Desperation was etched in their faces. They would have to slaughter some of the animals if the snow did not stop soon, something they could ill afford as they kept food on their table .
Just give up, mun, person and writer and all and sundry between the two. You, it, this, you’re inadequate, selfish. I lurch right to the queue for the Food Bank at the back of St. Anthony’s, straight across the dual-carriageway to the Gospel Hall Foodbank. And, let me say, unlike the ‘reality’ twittering of commentators false and knowing usually, but tossed in not at all accidentally or innocently, for their and not our benefits, actually mate it is at max 2 plastic bags of tinned food and some toilet rolls once a week. It is not every day. It is but once a week. First, humiliate yourself asking at the dole office for a written piece of paper saying you are useless before you are sanctioned to stand in line.
‘Fuck, Why in hell do we take this?’
‘Totally right. The UK is one of the richest countries in the whole world. I don’t understand. What happened to a caring local community? The welfare state used to step in.’
‘The post industrial, gig economy, zero- hours neoliberalism of the UK. Gov. com. is what happened. Doesn’t need mass workers. We are redundant. The UK is London, its money-markets, its £200.00 expense-account lunches and bonuses and all in thrall to the relentless burning up of the planet’.
Red and gold, green and yellow. Riotous explosions of colour, searing through the night skies against a backdrop of the universe.
“They’re beautiful, Momma,” she whispers, bundled up in her best winter coat, with mittens keeping her fingers warm, holding hands and staring in wonder.
“I know, baby,” I say, checking my comm bracelet, anxiety spiking. It’s linked to his.
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