#ideas

“Pull up a Cloud”

said the distant demon.

‘What, now? I’m doin’ ship.’ The Angel of downward mercy sat in a little green office and looked at her watch.

‘Yes, now, for God’s sake. I’m probably gonna go to bed soon, or something, I dunno.’

‘Fine, then.’ She pulled up a cloud. ‘What’re we lookin’ at?’

‘That up ‘imself charlatan up there in the Northern ’emisphere.’

‘Oh him. Yes, well, ya know. Doesn’t speak English. Kind of like me, sometimes, kind of like you too, I reckon. I feel like I might go off on a tangent, if ya don’t stop me.’ The Australian angel’s cloud started to float off, just a little bit. The, ah, British angel grabbed his hook and pulled it back towards him.

‘You’re floating off again.’

‘Yeah, I’ve got a habit. Possibly why I’m an angel.’

‘Good point. Anyway, see ‘im up there, the one who reckons he’s the real angel, just ‘cos he was on some show for… ‘ow long was it?’

‘Bloody long time, I reckon.’ The Australian angel rolled her eyes. ‘Reckon’s he’s some kind of Great and Wonderful regally appointed whatsit, or something. Wanted to be professional at one point, so I hear, but they wouldn’t let him. Heard that one, myself. Some Texas ranger and another bloke of indistinct heritage, but not really, said if they couldn’t laugh at stuff, they’d put him in a distinctly… anyway. He likes arsehats. Something about he couldn’t talk for a week, later on as well, but you know, that’s what happens when you’re talking waaaay too deep for someone who doesn’t usually sound like that.’

‘Are you in trouble,’ asked the “British” angel. ‘Hmmm?’

“Hmm?” Not really? Well, yes? No? Not right now? It’s the weekend. Everything knows nothing much happens on the weekend. It’s not the weekend where you are though, is it?’

‘It might not be yet, no.’ The Not-to-be-deterred “Jumped up wanker” of a “British angel” inspected his cloud. ‘There’s a hole in this bit. I’ll have to get it fixed after your thingy that’s coming up.’

‘Speaking of holes,’ said the Australian angel, grinning widely. There wasn’t a hole to be seen. ‘What are you sitting on, when you sit on your cloud?’

‘What do you meeeeean?’ asked the other angel suspiciously.

‘Asking for a friend. Just checking on something. You don’t mind me asking, do ya?’

‘Heroics will get you nowhere,’ the other angel replied testily. ‘Kindly remove your hands from my buttocks.’

‘Oh well done! Now… is that a front bum, or a back bum?’

‘You are in so much trouble now! Let me tell you about my great aunt Fanny!’

The angel who’d had a rug pulled out from him wandered up and sat on a distant cloud.

“Came over last week,” he said, very unconvincingly. “Maybe not. Maybe I came over last year. Goddammit, maybe I haven’t been there yet. I don’t understand you people!”

‘That’s what I thought,’ said the Australian angel. ‘I also thought you may have decided to, ya know, help out at some point, seeing as I asked a few times, but it appears that I’m not important enough.’

“I never said that!”

‘That’s true. You didn’t. Didn’t say much at all, ak-choo-ally. Oh well, never mind.’ The very small Australian angel started to putter away on her old-fashioned, slightly pink, slightly green, slightly orange, have-I-made-my-point yet, fluffy white cloud. ‘It’s only a little place, after all. Can’t fit too many passengers.’

The sound of distant sirens made her frown. ‘Just letting you know, it’s not getting any better around here. I think we could all do with a little help.’

So, Brother

Are you willing to travel back to the land before Oz?

Are you willing to learn of the differences and sameness?

Are you willing to survive in the wilderness and discover something older than you? Much older, yes, and the true giver of life, because that is where she begins.

Let it rain, but let it be gentle. A cleansing. A new beginning. The smell is slightly different here, but the outcome after your wandering will be your choice alone.

Time looks to Nature and slowly replies. He thinks through these things, and slowly replies.

‘I have not been kind,’ he says. ‘You are right. This story, although highly amusing and slightly terrifying, and I know you are not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, is the one we should be paying for. I realise, this time, an apology will not suffice. Lead the way.’

This One

There you are. There is your opposite. Listen to them chirp and repeat themselves. It won’t take long.

‘There he is.’

‘Is that him?’

‘Oh, I can’t tell how old he is.’

‘Who’s this? Is this the one?’

‘I can’t tell, I can’t tell.’

This is where we disagree. I don’t see this one like you/they see him. No, not at all.

They will be jumping through more hoops than they can count, and I’m not the one to lay those hoops down.

The other one laughs out loud. ‘This is where we agree.’

It won’t be ‘kindly remove,’ at all, now will it.

‘Most definitely not,’ says an older version, who knows this well. ‘I can see the riots, almost. Not those types of riots,’ the friend adds quickly. ‘I see the other kind, the kind I had to deal with, simply from something just like this.’

Across the ocean and in the middle nods, neither sagely, nor thymely. ‘Oh, the poor chap,’ he says quietly, because what he’d picked up along the way had come there quite some time ago. ‘I didn’t think you’d let him down, and you did not. Not at all.’

He regrets this decision later, perhaps, but not right now. Very much right now, he whispers fiercely. What the hell was I thinking.

I’m sure he’s laughing on the inside, and I am likely correct, yet again, because I’m rather good at that.

‘But, who is it though?’ someone whispers. ‘Who is he?’

I will stand up and walk away, and leave them to it.

‘Made it myself,’ I say and high five the much taller one beside me. There is a conspiratorial wink.

‘My mum said that too.’

Just kidding.

What is a fairy tale?

‘Doing this properly or not, are we?’

My translation is too rough for you. You can’t do this thing and I cannot help you.

The small green frog has nestled himself within the zucchini bushes and frets about what he will do next to escape the cat.

Zucchini plant in our garden.

The cat is merely a small white and black moggie who considers himself a saviour to humans. He is rather proud of himself – which is very catlike and normal for cats.

‘Do I need saving from a frog,’ thinks the human. ‘There really are not enough of them around for me to be saved from them. Perhaps you should reconsider the circumstances of el cato.’

The circumstances of el cato were deliberately falsified by other human beings. We do not return to that horrible place. He thinks this often and it has been agreed the cat’s “mother” had been right all along. He sees a large and heavy ball by a wall, coloured to resemble waves on water or electricity (which are really quite similar). It was a pond the princess had been playing beside in the original story by the brothers Grimm or was that Hans Christian Anderson? This is the purpose of the frog and the “maid” – to share these stories with new thinking and similarities that show how the blending is done.

An old float repurposed as a garden ornament. It is very heavy as it has water inside and we are not sure how the water got in there.

The frog can hear this from under the large leaves of the zucchini plant. ‘What about me,’ he burps quietly to himself. ‘Do I need saving, or can I just dig myself a hole?’

There are many questions floating around in the small garden of the family. The frog suggests the people mama do not go out to the back fence because a kangaroo child is also listening in.

They have all watched the child of the small brown kangaroo follow his mother back and forth along the hot street. Some have seen how she gets stuck when a route she used one morning is blocked the following morning and she must feed her child by a fence with no openings she can discern. Some think they should be fed, although this is not the way of the kangaroo. All she needs to find her offspring (and here the frog would grin as his mouth is wide and the perfect shape to perform such an act) is some narrow-leaved plants with lovely sweet pieces that sit just under the soil.

‘That is all I need as well,’ thinks the frog. ‘Just some plants that are damp enough I can find some insects to eat. I am very good at hunting insects.’

‘How is the translation going,’ questions the female bird. ‘Am I getting this right again?’

‘Understanding and doing is not the… damn it,’ says the frog around an insect whose legs are long and crunchy. ‘Then count me as I jump, for I would rather be a bearer of good news.’

Pleading with me will not work, for I did not put him here.

Can we see him yet, though? Is he rounded and full with new information? Can he see the light of day? Must he always be such a pain in the arse, or will the mother realise he is dreaming again?

Does she even know my Hame, thinks the kangaroo child, for he has learnt at least one language other than his own in recent years.

The mother looks up from her position at the table. ‘They are spying,’ she thinks to herself, and she is right, for they have been trying to write with her this whole time.

They do not wish to be horrible, thinks the frog, but they do not know why she thinks they are friendly.

‘I do not believe she ever thought they were friendly,’ the cat yells from the back door. ‘Oh whoops, I didn’t realise it was open,’ he thinks as the person stares down at him with vague irritation. Ducking his head to apologise for his own small thinking, he clicks and clacks his way down a dark corridor to where he knows a large and comfortable sleeping place awaits. ‘This is the only place that is friendly, and this is where I am staying. These are my people, and I am a cat.’

He thinks loudly out the window and a kangaroo child is frightened by his noisiness. 

‘Bugger off, I said.’

The little beast is dumbfounded. How did such a big thought come out of such a small cat? The cat smiles to himself. He has been training with humans, and learnt how to borrow their voices to make his own thinking louder. He leaps onto the mattress and gazes at the man who talks in his sleep.

‘This one continues to surprise me with these thoughts,’ says the wannabe demon of his large human counterpart. ‘Where is that frog again?’ He jumps off the bed.

The frog sneaks off with a plip and a plop to find himself a hole in the sand. He just wants to live another day and get some new ideas.

‘This one is too much for frogs,’ he thinks. ‘She doesn’t like me at all.’

He would be dumbfounded to know he was right.

A “recalibration” (retelling) of The Frog Prince, with dashes of Rapunzel. Spoken with Grimm determination in an Australian accent.

C.S Capewell.

‘Will You Dance with me, Cirro.’

Cirro glances up. His eyes are sharp and he takes in the person who is asking.

‘You are not supposed to ask me that. I am supposed to ask you.’

‘Well then.’ The one who has asked turns and begins to walk away. The one who has asked will sit down, and wait, if that is what is required. Perhaps, someone else will ask them to dance instead, or they will ask someone else.

Cirro leaps to his feet. ‘Wait.’ He does not grab the one who has asked him to dance by the arm, nor does he touch them, but they stop anyway, and turn to face him. ‘How do we do this dance,’ asks Cirro, because he was not the one who asked to dance in the first place, he is merely watching, and he has been watching for a long time.

‘I think you know,’ says the other person, and she smiles. ‘But I will show you anyway. Let us “expand” on this idea of one hundred and eighty degrees.’

Cirro begins to smile. He knows there are many things that are one hundred and eighty degrees, although some other people do not. ‘Do I turn my back on you now?’ he says.

‘Yes. And I will turn my back on you as well. This way, we are both facing outwards, and we are both at exactly one hundred and eighty degrees. Extend your arms, Cirro.’

Cirro extends his arms from his sides, and spreads his stance just enough so he is comfortable and strong. He feels the pressure of the other’s back against his, and knows the other is gazing out just as he is gazing out. What he does not see, the other one can see. This is the purpose, in this dance of one hundred and eighty degrees.

‘Now turn,’ says the other from behind him, and Cirro begins to turn.

‘Are we still at one hundred and eighty degrees,’ he asks politely.

‘I am, and you are. Despite our turning, we are both still at one hundred and eighty degrees. This is good.’

Cirro knows now that this is his friend. This one protects his back, just as he protects hers. This time, and by this person, he has not been asked to turn and face them, nor has he overstepped his mark. He has not gone to three hundred and sixty degrees, nor has he overstepped by five degrees. He is comfortable at one hundred and eighty degrees and knows his back is always protected, just as he protects the one who protects him.

‘Thank you,’ says Cirro.

‘And thank you,’ comes the reply.

And it is good.

To Simply be a Tree.

There is often the assumption when a child is given a part in a school play that if they are in the position of acting as a tree, it is simply to include that child in the experience of being onstage.

Think about this.

I know when I look at trees, they are not still or unmoving, unless there is no wind. They do not stay exactly the same colour, unless there is no sunlight or rain. They do not stay the same size unless they have been pulled from the ground.

One might get a particularly precocious child who may ask, ‘If I am a tree, then what kind of tree am I?’

The teacher may respond, ‘You are simply a tree.’

Simply a tree? What does this mean? How does one simply be a tree, when there are so many to choose from? But, the child, if they decide to be less argumentative than usual, may think to themselves, ‘Okay then, I am “simply a tree”.’ And they will look at a tree and see how its branches sway with a breeze, how its leaves may shiver and shake, how, depending on what type of tree it is in the child’s mind, it might lose a leaf occasionally or perhaps all at once.

The teacher, depending on how tired or not they are, may look upon this child and think to themselves, ‘This is a wonderful idea. Why have just one tree in my play, when I can have an entire grove of trees that change with the seasons, that give us the idea of light and movement, seasons and weather, simply by being trees. I can work with this. I will make this play both magical and realistic, simply by adding trees.’

Many years later, someone may come across this child or these children as adults and ask them, ‘Did you have experience in acting as a child?’ and the former child or children may answer with, ‘Yes, I was a tree in a school play once.’

It is the intelligent and thoughtful person who hears this response and may think to themselves, ‘This person played the part of a tree. I am really quite envious.’

‘How wonderful it must have been to be a tree,’ the person might respond.

Being a tree is a wonderful thing indeed. One may not use their voice as others use their voices. One may not be moving around as others move around, but one is still expressing things through movement, however small, and through language, however different.

All this from simply being a tree.