A Prisoner in the Land of Silence and Darkness

An immortal king trapped

Unable to move, unable to die.

He couldn’t see, hear, feel, smell or taste.

This was isolation in its purest form. Loneliness inescapable. No rescue, no relief, no companionship, no comfort, and no end.

How long had he been there? A million years, merely a week? Another agony was that in his sightless, soundless state, he could not even measure time.

He would never again know fresh air, a good meal or the touch of a warm hand.

*

“Make me immortal,” he yelled at the Djinn, and it granted his wish.

He gleefully drank down every poison, feeling no ill effects. He had his armed guards charge at him, and even the sharpest blade never pierced his skin.

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Home Sweet Home

You know there’s something seriously wrong when the police arrive at your door past midnight.  I guessed what it was at once.  He had finally done it.

I’d moved out of the family home when I was seventeen, and haven’t put a foot inside it since.  After years of wanting my father’s attention, I finally had it once I reached puberty.  It was the wrong sort of course, “our little secret” he used to call it.

Poor Mum, the things she had to put up with over the years.  She didn’t deserve any of it. She’d never told anybody of the mental and physical abuse she had been subjected to from ‘HIM.’  Even now I can’t call him ‘Dad’, he’s such a despicable human being.  Why she stood by him all these years I will never understand.

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A refuge in the storm

Of course, the forest was dark that night, in these sorts of stories it always is. But, even as I stumbled through the undergrowth, the wind whipping razor-sharp branches into my face like an enraged banshee, I couldn’t allow myself to slow.

There it was, by some miracle, a light up ahead. I almost physically stretched toward it, like a dying man in the desert offered a flask of water or, perhaps, to flip the analogy, a drowning man thrown a rope from a passing ship.

What it was, was hope. Lower case, yes, but hope nonetheless.

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Mam’s comforting hand

dead colliery horse lies in the dust

Dafydd scanned the dirty, black surroundings as he approached the colliery. Clouds of acrid dusty smoke belched from the tall chimney that covered the hillside. The pit head wheel rotated lowering colliers underground at the beginning of each shift. Dada and Dafydd, wearing their worn corduroy trousers and jackets, arrived promptly at the mine entrance.

       They reported to the office where the manager’s voice called out. “Bring him in Dai. Duw Dafydd, you’re starting work today. Are you looking forward to it?” Nervously he replied yes. Dafydd showed his anxiousness. Dada’s firm and comforting hand calmed him. “Steady bach, you’ll be fine”. They entered the cage and the door shutting unnerved Dafydd. The winding wheel clunked into life. His pulse quickened, his stomach churned, his palms and forehead became sweaty. The cage lowered. They were met below by Emlyn, a well-built giant whose face was covered in black dust.  

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Festival of fun!!!

Rock festival sufffers downpour - two people - male and female stand in the rain under an unbrella

Putting up the tent, Sam and Evie smiled at each other. They felt like naughty teenagers. It was to be their first music festival. Both in their forties, they had always wanted to go but life had always got in the way. With the twins off on a school trip for a week their time had come. The Hadfield music festival happened to fall at that time.

            They had booked a quiet field that overlooked the stage area and had showers and toilets. The weather looked fine, so excitement was bubbling. Wandering around the main area a cacophony of sound and smells assaulted their senses; so much choice and so many people. Although they did notice that a majority of the crowd were quite young, they were determined to enjoy the experience.

            The bands started playing, they wandered around getting a taste for each brand of music; some they enjoyed, others not so much. One of their favourite bands was due to play the next night, so they settled for a takeaway and returned to their tent for a reasonably early night.

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Cross

The summer city riots had spread to the rural north. The news eventually filtered through to the isolated mining village of Brookover. Its pit had long been closed, a sportswear assembly unit squatting on its corpse. It was the main employer for miles, the owners having brought in scores of Eastern Europeans on the minimum wage to toil there.

            The presence of the ‘foreigners’ was a grievance: Polish shops, strange languages in the market square. Their healthy diet marked out the incomers too. They were thin and fit, not paunchy and panting like some locals.

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A Darker Side of Life

‘Do you swear to never rat on any of us?’

‘I do.’

‘Do you swear on your mother’s life, you’re committed to the gang?’

‘I do’.

Harry just played along and said what was expected of him, it had all seemed like proper boy’s stuff until Adam pulled out his knife.

Harry’s lower lip started to tremble.

‘We won’t have any cry-babies,’ Adam stated as he used his penknife to initiate Harry into his gang.

Harry winced.

‘We’re blood brothers now, there’s no turning back,’ announced Adam.

Harry had thought that it would be fun to be accepted into a gang at his new school.  Now, after seeing the pleasure that inflicting pain gave Adam, he was beginning to have some doubts. 

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Cards on the table

It wasn’t so much that things had gone wrong, more that they were never right. So it was a great relief to get the metaphorical cards out and lay them, face down, on the table. Let us take a seat at this table, the better to understand the situation.

The first card to be turned up was Tom’s:  ‘ I’m so afraid of hurting you that I  tiptoe around things. I mean, I’d really love to play 5-a-side on a Saturday and have a few jars with the team afterwards. But it wouldn’t be fair to you, leaving you alone at the weekend.’

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A mother’s love

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.

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Commitment to the Cause

Light from the hallway shone through the glass of the door.  A signal to say it wasn’t safe.  She turned away straining to stay calm when time was running out.  The next place was easily a mile away.   Not too far in daylight, but in the dark and with what she carried under her cape it would be difficult.  Nudging the weight into a different position, she cautiously moved on, her arm numb.  The road was quiet, but sensing danger, she slid into the shadow of the wood.  It wasn’t much safer.  If she was caught it would be said that a woman alone at night was asking for trouble. 

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The Piano Killer strikes again

“I mean,” she said, “clearly there’s something not quite right here, something’s missing.”

DI Jenkins sighed and bit down a sharp retort. Of course there was something missing. In fact, there were a few things – eyes, fingers, liver, lungs, kidneys, and, possibly most disturbingly, the victim’s trousers. His dentures had also been removed and were in the middle of a damp stain on the carpet.

He was just grateful that whoever had done this had stopped the mutilation there. After all, he already had one young constable throwing up in the back garden, and his sergeant was looking a bit queasy too.

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Fly Away

Rose settled into her nest, another busy night, sighing as she turned to the others.

            Lily poked her head up: ‘Hard night Rose. You wouldn’t believe it. I had to rummage under the bed to find the tooth, all those dust bunnies’ bits of food. It was disgusting’.

            Marigold piped up: ‘Last time that happened to me there was a mouse there, eyeing me up.’ Gasps from the girls.

            Lily shuddered: ‘What did you do?’

            ‘Chucked a bit of biscuit at it, grabbed the tooth and scarpered.’

            Hyacinth joined in. ‘I had a fright not long ago when a dog came sniffing around sucked me halfway up his nostril. Thankfully it tickled his nose, he snorted and blew me across the room,’

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Holiday from Hell

I 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.”

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Missing bits

I wish I was more savvy. As a child, I could have joined more dots and avoided being completely gaslighted via the medium of song. These were supposed to be songs about real people who we were expected to feel sympathy for.  In part I blame the News Chronicle Book of Songs for providing the lyrics and not-too-challenging piano scores for not remotely accomplished teachers to aid our indoctrination.

Take  the ‘Skye Boat Song’: lovely tune, romantic story, you forgot to ask just what happened to Bonnie Prince Charlie and his devoted Flora once they arrived in Skye. He was a hero, fleeing the massacre on Culloden fields (or did he decide to give Culloden a miss that day?).

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Narrowly Missing Death

She heard a low rumbling as she walked along the cliff top. It sounded like thunder, but came from deep below, a guttural sound, almost like the Earth was groaning. There was a shudder and a loud crack as rock splintered. Grass twisted beneath her feet and the pathway crumbled to nothing. She stepped onto icy air, then she was falling; her backpack scraping against rock, its straps catching on roots and jagged stone. Wind snatched her hair. The sandy shore, littered with clumps of rock and jumbled shells, drew closer. She wondered if it was the last thing she would see.

When she was a child, she collected shells like treasure. She remembered a queen conch that she’d carried from a distant beach. Every time she wanted to hear the waves, she’d held it to her ear, comforted by the gentle swish. Her bedroom held shelves filled with glistening razor clams, ridged limpets, pretty cockleshells and periwinkles in different hues, olive-green, deep red, primrose yellow and delicate pink. Cockleshells were her favourites. She distracted herself from the drop, trying to remember every tiny detail of them; their delicate fan shape, the pattern of fine lines etched in burnt umber on their backs, and the smoothness of the inside where she liked to rub her thumb. If only she was safe in her childhood bedroom now, admiring the cockleshells and conjuring the roar and hiss of the sea with the conch shell.

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Hitting Home

The immediate situation facing us was frightening.  Dank weather summed up the predicament perfectly.  On the way to collect Melanie I knew with certainty that both our lives would dramatically change.  Whether we could endure the physical and mental anguish was questionable. Could we overcome such an event? It would test our  love for one another to the limit.

          I arrived near the entrance to the room but was afraid to enter.  What could I possibly say to her. Someone in authority caught sight of me and came to chat.  Her words were powerful and I felt more at ease. ‘Come in Mr Thomas, you’re both going to need all your strength to recover from this.  Melanie is extremely fragile at the moment but with time you will both get through the ordeal. It’s not going to be easy but  you can give each other great comfort and support’.  My hands trembled as I entered, palms sweating, eyes focusing on her.  She was dressed and ready to leave. Her face tearful with unhappiness. 

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Life’s little pleasures

A little cafe in the centre of a large park was popular with the locals for its friendly staff and cakes you could die for. Amongst the regulars was an elderly gentleman, always smartly dressed in shirt and tie, trousers with a crease you could slice bread with, his shoes shining, not a smudge on them. He would arrive promptly at 10am and leave at 2pm and was always popular with the more mature ladies. The staff would watch amused as he charmed them, the ladies simpering at his flattery.

            It was assumed that he was just lonely, enjoying the company. Over time the staff learned his name was Gerald and his wife had passed away some time ago. He had recently moved into a retirement complex. During the summer months he would sit on the bench outside talking to an old drunk, buying him a sandwich and drink. They would sit and chat for a while till the drunk disappeared off into the park. Wondering why he took the time, Gerald replied to his questioner that it could easily have been him .

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No more waiting

After long years of working on tedious and inconsequential office  tasks, Bob was still rather puzzled about the end purpose of his job. He realized that he was a cog, but it was much harder to grasp which wheels he was helping to turn. So when the all-staff email asking for volunteers for redundancy slid into his inbox, Bob was uncharacteristically jubilant. He was first to volunteer.

‘What am I waiting for?’ he mused, ‘even if the deal leaves me a bit shorter than usual, it’s a relief not to do another 200 years on the same treadmill with no prospects’

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Back from holiday

“Fantastic imagination your kid’s got,” the emergency plumber said. “Reminds me of my two when they were ‘is age. Always makin’ things up. Really convincin’ too, told our vicar that the people next door was wanted by the coppers! That took some explainin’, I tell you…”

I smiled, mostly to hide the grimace at the amount it had cost to get him out on a Sunday morning.

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The Stains of Life

Reticent is a good word to sum them both up. Not shy, not shy at all, yet in each you could sense a certain unwillingness to reveal more personal information than necessary.

When the pair, Ellie and James, arranged a meal out in a smart Italian restaurant, it was cause for some mirth and speculation amongst their small circle of friends.

‘He’s bound to slurp his spaghetti and get it all down his front,’ someone suggested.

And this wasn’t an outlandish idea, because James was well known to be rather clumsy.

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