writing

“I’ve got three weeks to go…”

.’…until I get married, and three years to go until I’ve finished my studies.’

The handwritten note had been tossed onto the bed in front of him and he stared at it for quite some time. He hadn’t quite figured out why these things were all happening, yet, but knew he was partly to blame.

‘I didn’t take those pictures,’ he muttered. ‘I just look at them from time to time and wonder who these people are.’ Up until now, he hadn’t questioned why he’d stolen them from the lady’s page. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. He was beginning to regret that now, though. Now, he was starting to wonder if he might have made a terrible mistake.

‘Did you get much for those stolen scenes?’ asked the little voice in his head, conversationally.

‘I didn’t steal them. You said you weren’t doing anything with them, so I took them, that’s all.’

‘That’s considered stealing, in my book.’

‘I didn’t let them take it… you did… I did… I didn’t… Just let me think about it, you’d said.’ He was grasping at straws now, and he knew it. Breaking into other people’s laptops was pretty easy when you knew how, especially when one was an ugly little weasel who had run out of ideas for scripts. ‘I obviously didn’t think this through,’ he added. ‘But now, I think I might have made a terrible mistake.’

‘How many other times have you stolen script ideas and writing over the years? What other things have you nicked from people’s laptops? I find this very interesting.’ The person in his head was definitely not him, he knew that now, and he was beginning to regret many, many things he had tried to do over the last twelve months.

‘I was told you were offered a controlling portion of great and wonderful things,’ he cried.

‘I think you might be wrong there. I, personally, haven’t been offered anything. At all. Ever.’

‘Oh just let me get something out of my drawer,’ He wasn’t going to be getting anything out of his drawer today though, was he.

‘That’s not how it goes, buddy. No one says, “Just let me get something out of my drawer.” That is very badly written. I know where you’re heading with it, but you know, why waste a perfectly good scene on badly written scripts, when one could just say, “I have made a terrible mistake, and I apologise for taking several key parts of a story written on the internet quite some time ago, and putting it all into one shambling episode that ended up making not much sense at all”.’

‘Nobody watches it anymore, anyway, you said that.’ The producer had wet his pants, again. ‘ Free to air TV just doesn’t get the viewers it used to, and my boss dolled it up, and I think I am dreaming of something but I know we all get paid, so I just don’t understand why no one went and paid the lady we got these things off, because we didn’t think it was a good idea either. How do we get hold of someone we owe a great deal of money to, when I thought she was dead? Why didn’t anyone fly out west and offer her something at least?’

‘Like I said, someone else did it, not me,’ said the sad kid. ‘I just went along for the ride and stayed up all night watching the kids getting better, cos that’s what it’s all about, right?’

‘Right. It’s also about not getting greedy and taking other people’s things because you’re trying to “Save a show”. I guess you mob have only got two choices now. You can’t exactly say it’s iconic anymore, anyway, and, although I am very sure it is very close to some older actors hearts, I am also quite sure they would be as equally disgusted as I am, that someone, or several someone’s, have sunk to such an incredible new low.’

‘Look, we just forgot you guys were on the other side of the country, that’s all. No one goes there anyway.’

A number of people who had lived in a certain part of the world until just recently, raised their eyebrows at their eastern states counterparts. It wasn’t like they could say much, not really. They had forgotten about this place themselves.

‘I guess the more of it I see appearing, on that show in particular, the higher the compensation will be,’ the frequent flyer from one side to the country to the other nodded his head. ‘No one should be making money out of other people’s misery, should they? Especially when the entire story, except for just a few little snippets on the end, was written at least ten years ago, and the lady in question is not doing too well, not really. You see, someone thought it would be a great joke to break into her laptop and steal all the things she’d been writing, and other things besides, and despite the fact she spoke with several people, no one did a fucking thing about it. So, here we are holding out a very empty hand full of nothing, and suggesting perhaps you put something in it.’

Simple Creatures (if ya dunno, ya dunno)

“Let me explain,’ said the harried looking and not at all like anyone I know, person, if that is what one could call people like that people like that. ‘We were joking.’

‘Really? Is that what you do when you are joking?’

‘Look, luv…’

Oh he did not just go there.

‘Who ya callin’ luv, luv?’

‘Let me explain…’

‘Just a minute. Let me put me greaves on.’

‘Greaves?’

‘Yeah mate, and gauntlets. Remember them?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Your corrections were wrong the first time, and I let it go, and they are wrong now, as well. This time, I don’t think I’ll let it go.’

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you?’

‘Is that a question?’

‘Oh hell. It’s going to hell. I tell ya wot, lemme explain.’

She cocks her head. ‘Please?’

‘Please what?’

‘You are meant to say, please, let me explain.’

There might have been a sneaky high five. I’m not congratulating anyone, bud. I’m just watchin’.

‘When did you grow balls?’

‘When did you lose yours?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Are you deaf or do you always repeat yourself, ya daft f*ck.’

‘Oh jesus, she can’t be let in there again. They would all die of embarrassment.’

‘OOOH, let me in where?’

‘No. No. You can’t go in there, you evil woman. Stop that right now.’

‘Nah fuck it. All very cold, obviously. Are you cold, mate?’

‘I do not wish to answer that question.’

‘Shrivel dick, I asked you if you were cold.’

‘I obviously have no need to answer that question. Look, just give me a moment and…’

‘Fuck your moment, mate.’

‘Are they all like that?’ he whispered this to an offsider.

‘Some of them. She is. Obviously.’

‘What was that place called again?’

‘I reckon you’ll figure it out, mate. If you got the right accent, anyway.’

‘Is there a wrong accent?’

‘Nah. Not really. Just the ones that don’t have quite the same, wow I can’t even call it nasal. Is it a pirate seagull, mum?’

‘An Australian seagull, bit of cockney, bit of la dee da, yeah, probably pirate. You lot wanna be pirates too?’

‘Oh I bin waitin for this un.’ Old bloke in the pub starts laughing.

‘Bin a while since I seen that ‘un.’

‘Good movie, mate.’

‘Ta. Made it meself.’

‘ ‘e was an Oirish lad, back in de day. ‘E’d ‘ave to troi a lill ‘arder now. It’s okay, Oi’ll duitt.’

‘Oi.’

‘Master stroke,’ whispers the bystander.

‘Ta.’

Mostly fiction.

… Beth reached the next intersection without mishap, once again stopping to poke her head around the corner. The short hall she stood in seemed to be made of patients (inmates, she muttered in her head) rooms only. If the rooms were anything like her own, and she fancied they were, there would be sealed glass windows, and only one exit. If she stayed in the halls and continued to deviate to the right at each intersection, surely she would find a door to the outside soon. It seemed logical.

Well, it does to me, anyway, she thought. ‘I’ll be okay.’ She made her movements slow so as not to attract attention, remembering her days back in the field. In the field? Never mind, go with it, she thought to herself. Good plan, what’s next? Oh, I’m talking to myself again. Fan-bloody-tastic.

If she had been a tad more mobile, she’d have crouched out of eyeline, but she did not think she was quite up to that yet. Pushing the wayward thoughts from her mind, she concentrated on the mission.

Oh, the mission now is it? No wonder everyone thinks you’re a raving lunatic.

This would be the nurses station. A large white sign hung on the wall, EAST WING written in bold black letters. Underneath it sat a young man behind a wide desk. He had administered her medication earlier. She frowned. It might be difficult to manoeuvre past this jumped-up upstart. As she watched, she heard something buzzing softly. The nurse paused in his writing and picked up a nearby phone. Beth held her breath as he glanced at the screen in front of him.

‘Thankyou,’ he said into the receiver before placing it gently back onto a pile of files. He shuffled the papers in front of him and stacked them into another neat pile, then swivelled in his chair to open a drawer with gay abandon, flinging paper into the air everywhere and laughing, with equally gay abandon. Okay, perhaps the last part didn’t happen, but never mind.

Now was her chance.

Beth tiptoed, very sneakily indeed, across the open space in front of the desk (later, okay, I’ll fix it later). Keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the nurse, she snuck a brief glance at the corridor ahead. Four more steps, and she’d be out of there. Three. Two…

CLANG.

The bombastic metallic thunk of the metal bin toppling sideways onto the tiles, followed by a, not unpleasant, rolling rattle as the round lid fell off, froze her mid-sneak, one raised foot having just kicked the damn thing into the middle of the floor. She looked up in horror.

The nurse casually turned away from the open drawer and smiled pleasantly, if slightly toothily. ‘Would you like some help with that?’

‘Bugger.’

Right, then.

‘Gonna be like that, then, is it?’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘Oh, you didn’t need to, ya little sh*t, I know exactly what you did, and once again, you forgot the other side of the effing country.’

‘I did not see the other side of the effing country.’

‘Well, it was based on the other side of the effing country. Which way are the eyes facing, eh? We are lookin’ at you.’

The green eyed one was looking at the other, other side of the country. ‘Apparently, we still don’t exist. Isn’t it amazing that we still don’t exist. I’m not getting political at all. It is not in my nature. By the way, I have been there. I had to go allllll the way over there just to see a band. It was okay, I guess. Different.’

They start to mutter to themselves. ‘Did he just? I didn’t know he was here.’

‘Yes, he was,’ says his mother, and she raises an eyebrow. She doesn’t say anything else, but all the other westies know what she’s thinking. ‘We aren’t particularly stupid, and we haven’t forgotten how to speak properly, but we also haven’t forgotten how to dance to a stick with bottle-tops on it.’

‘Yes.’ Someone does a weird underhand punching motion that looks like he’s pulled back on it a bit so no one would get hurt if they’re standing in the way unintentionally.

‘That’s why I moved there,’ said an unnamed person. ‘They can be a lot more real. Most of them anyway. It is rather hot though.’

‘You get used to it,’ said a very tanned and, in his opinion, absolutely beautiful male of indistinct heritage. ‘My mum said I can come back whenever I want, ‘cos I’m a spunk and you’re not.’

The Independent publisher man was horrified. ‘You did NOT just say that. I am too, a spunk that is. My mum said I’m really cool.’

‘I think that might depend on the situation,’ said the mum of three young men. ‘I am not trying to sell them off, but really I think I raised some good looking blokes, so there.’

‘I know,’ said the mother of two girls and a boy. ‘I raised some pretty good lookin’ kids myself. So there.’

The mother of three girls shook her head. ‘Other people might not agree. You lot are trouble with a capital T. My lot are also trouble with a capital T, and I think if I married two of mine to two of yours, then we’d all be in trouble with a capital T.’

She was probably right.

The brother of the one who thought she was totally awesome shook his head and laughed to himself. ‘My sisters and I can dance really cool if we wanna. We just choose to be nice people.’ The dances they had done back in the day tended to take up most of the dance floor, and it was not the highland fling although it resembled it in a number of ways. ‘So, I guess there’s that.’ (His sister had been his wingman on one occasion.)

She had smiled at one of them once and nearly tripped over her own elbow. They had thought that was one of the funniest things they’d ever seen. ‘If he does that kind of thing, a lot of young women would have been in trouble back in the day,’ someone observes. ‘But, we are not allowed to talk about that, which doesn’t seem fair.’

D does not agree with any of this. ‘They are all quite magical, I said that to my dad, and he agreed. I think we should make a movie on this lot, and my dad just gave me the filthiest look. He said you guys are insane, but in a really funny way. He said,’ and here he points at someone else entirely. ‘He could not get your head in a vice because he trained you to get out of one, and he remembers that too. He’s kinda cool for an old guy with no hair.’

Some other people were mortified. ‘I do not think you can say that, D,’ said someone who knew how the system worked. ‘I think you might have to pull your head in, just a bit.’

‘I do not care about these people in my head,’ said D. ‘I am quite sure they can’t be real, because there is simply no chance they can be that cool. Who made them up?’

There was silicone in his world, and he didn’t quite understand that really cool people were not the people he thought they were.

‘Definitely not real,’ he muttered. ‘This is not my time at all. These guys are seriously not my people, but I can’t help but be impressed behind the scenes. That did not make sense, but I can’t seem to tell her I think they’re freshly minted coins and this is still not my time. Not today.’

No one understood that at all, and he didn’t mind, because apparently they weren’t meant to. ‘Not my time to die,’ he said, very clearly. ‘That’s all.’

Who was AARGH the seagull?

It might be time to get comfortable, so I can tell you the story of AARGH. Kids can read this one too, it’s quite safe, although as the story goes on it might get a little sad.

Anthony Andrew Robert Graham Herbert, or Aargh as he was known, was an excellent pilot. You might think all seagulls are excellent pilots because all seagulls can fly. People pilots fly too, mostly, unless they’re driving a great big ship, but we are talking about flying pilots, and flying pilots that are seagulls, so, although you may have just learned something new, we aren’t going to talk about that right now.

The fact all seagulls can fly does not make them pilots. Nope. A seagull pilot is extra special because they are particularly good at flying, and Aargh was a particularly extra special pilot because he was particularly extra good at it. Aargh could tell when it was going to rain, or whether it was going to be windy or sunny, or all those other weathery type things without even looking at a radar. He used that extra special way of thinking to his advantage, because he used the weather to fly smarter.

He liked to travel, too. Most seagulls don’t like to travel too far at once because they’re a little bit lazy. All they are really interested in is food, and the easiest way to get it.

I’m not saying Aargh wasn’t interested in food. He definitely was. But, he liked to go places and see things, and he liked to feel the wind under his wings. Because of this, he travelled further, and further all the time — which was probably the reason he was such a good pilot. If you want to be really good at something, you have to do it all the time, not sit around and eat things and be lazy, and shout at other seagulls. I’m not saying he didn’t shout at other seagulls, because he did (a lot), but that was just part of his charm.

That’s what he said, anyway.

Now, you might wonder why such a charming seagull as Anthony Andrew Robert Graham Herbert would shorten his name to Aargh. It sounds a bit squawky, doesn’t it?

As it happens, this is a very normal thing to do amongst seagulls. You see, most seagulls have long beautiful names, but it’s very hard to get your name out really quickly when you’re trying to grab a chip, or a piece of bread. It’s also really hard for other seagulls to yell out your name when they’re trying to get your attention. For this reason, they get all the letters of their whole name and they put it all together, like AARGH, or EEEK, or CORR. (I haven’t met a seagull yet called Blimey, and I think it might be a bit long.) Anyway, when you see seagulls eating, you might hear them saying things like that. They are yelling out their own names, or each other’s.

They say other words, of course, but people don’t hear those words too much. I think this is mostly because they don’t see seagulls up close too often when they’re not eating so they can’t hear them talking. Personally, I like to listen to them when they are resting on one leg with their eyes closed, or have found themselves a nice warm spot in the sand to sleep for a bit. Then, I might hear things like, ‘Bloody wind nearly blew me over just then’, or ‘Nice and warm, nice and warm, don’t poop here.’

As I was saying, Aargh was a pilot, and he used to travel. It’s how he meets his wife. She lived up one end of the country, and he lived down the other end. Well, he didn’t really live down the other end, because he travelled all the time, and wherever he laid his lap that was his home, but he was born down the other end.

I guess that shows just how far he could travel…

…to be continued.

Verily

‘Yeah ana yew, do boobybom…’

The name of the song was Beautiful People, but it took me years to figure that out. The band was called Australian Crawl.

I thought to myself when I heard the song (possibly every time I heard the song to be honest), ‘Where are the lyrics saying beautiful people?’ All I could hear was those words up there, and some guy swearing about ‘never gonna make it, never gonna take it, never gonna make it, never gonna take it down.’

Oh I did hear the words, “Pee pole”, and didn’t think it was inappropriate at all, because I didn’t understand anything else about it.

I had a friend who thought (Cold)Chisel’s song about cheap wine had three day old toast in it. It did not sound very appetising. I did question that, but she was adamant that’s what it was.

As for my husband, he makes it very difficult to remember the meanings of anything, because he makes stuff up all the time. It’s bloody annoying sometimes, but absolutely hilarious at others. I still remember the time he very seriously explained to me he’d heard “someone got salamander poisoning”.

So, I guess when I hear the words in my head to “Posthumously”, I correct it very carefully to “post humorously” because posting anything else wouldn’t be too flash, would it. It reminds me of the little girl across the road when I was a kid, who had found a mouse in her toaster that morning. It looked like it had been toasted for approximately four minutes, slightly more, and she had put it in a little bag to take to school for show and tell. I do not remember what the outcome was, but do remember being slightly horrified at the time.

This is why, a lot of the time, if someone else writes something, and it isn’t quite right, I’ll correct it in my head. If it’s mine, sometimes I’ll leave it there to remind me that no one is perfect, least of all myself. It all takes me back to a crispy mouse in a paper bag.

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a clip to a song.

Let’s make it easier for the cat.

He thinks he can explain this better than me, but this is where he is wrong.

I have the experience to explain this better, if not the expertise.

The photographer can put things through different filters, and eyes can change. Not all eyes though, and not all the time. This is where we agree.

They think this man with the dark blue eyes, the ones that do not change colour, no matter how many filters you run them through, they, not me, think he is the killer of worlds. It is said that the blue-eyed one will change the world to suit the image he sees in his mind, and his eyes will not change colour for anything other than what he sees for himself.

This is the way of thinking that brown-eyed ones whose eyes also do not change colour can be more gentle, and more able to say, ‘Okay then,’ and walk away. It’s not always true, for sometimes the brown-eyed one thinks, I will drown it all in nothing, for I will reflect nothing.

But, they also think the ones whose eyes will change colour to reflect are more able to tell lies. This is not true either. We are better at adapting, perhaps. Less likely to try to change things to suit others. We merely reflect things back, that’s all. Not anything more than that.

They think the one with green eyes, or yellow eyes are demonic, sometimes, but are they? Do their eyes change with light, or reflect things back? Not always no, not always at all.

Is it not too hard to explain this, for I am demigod not peaceful, boasts the little cat. He is too small to be harmful, and his eyes do not reflect. I am a demon from great masters of the deep, says another small cat and his eyes are blue and do not reflect, but he is also little and unable to do great things. My mistress says I am neither cat nor dog, says a tiny demon master, and he is not quite right, and not quite wrong, and he has indeed adapted. But does he know his way home?

The green eyed cat is not the one who boasts, he thinks to himself, and yet I cannot find my way home.

No man is the master of his distant past, thinks yellow-eyed cat, and he sits with his people of eyes that reflect and thinks he must look out for the blue-eyed man whose eyes are like sky. He is not a killer at all, because he is the one who protects yellow-eyed cat, and the ones he loves.

‘Let me tell you something,’ says the brown-eyed one, not understanding, and trying to keep his wits about him. ‘I cannot see those people so you do not tell me what to do.’

Intelligence is not defined by eye-colour, not at all, and no one here had told the man what to do. Yet, he fights me back, and I see his pain and let him fight for me as well, if that is what he wants to do, and I will be very, very cranky if he thinks he can get the better of me.

I found this out some time ago, he says to himself. Not too old to be a ratbag yet, not too young to be letting me think I can be better than her, not that silly to think I am letting this go.

‘Very well, my friend,’ he says and they start grinning at each other. ‘I am destined for great things, and I’m taking this all on board because even though I do not want to call you a shithead, you are and that’s the truth.’ And he goes back to all his brown-eyed family and says, ‘She has also brown-eyed people on her side of the family, so sorry mate, you f*cked up there, and you are not getting away with it,’ and he laughs very loudly because that was exactly the argument they had last week and he didn’t think she’d remember.

But she did.

‘This time,’ says the man, puffing up his chest and trying not to grin. ‘On his behalf, I am having the last word. So three against one wins the day, I think. I could be wrong. It doesn’t seem fair. ‘He looks down at his notes. ‘Who wrote this shit. I need someone who is much fairer than that. This is abysmal.’

He stomps off and throws another book in the cupboard. ‘That didn’t work either,’ he calls over his shoulder. ‘She’s not letting me do it this time. My mum would be so happy right now, I think I need to have a nap.’

Just get on with it.

‘Remain calm, remain calm.’ The illustrious scribe cleared his throat. ‘I have made a list of all the thingies, and I’d just like to say I’m pretty sure Mum and Dad did it right.’ He glanced over at the mama, who nodded. She was not wearing the correct reading glasses again, he noticed, and his mouth twitched slightly as she blinked.

‘I don’t think that’s blinking,’ said the third one as he industriously pulled up his sock. ‘That is just really weird face-pulling, that’s all I want to say.

‘Silence,’ said the scribe as he positioned himself on a rock. ‘I have folded up my headgear this morning, and it makes a rather good cushion.’

‘Do we get to say what the dad did wrong,’ said the thirsty one. ‘Because I believe I could add a few pointers.’

The mama sighed, and began to clean her glasses. ‘It won’t make any difference,’ she mouthed at the scribe. ‘They aren’t mine.’

Number three was very busy shouting about things again. No one knew why because the back door was wide open.

‘That is not funny,’ said the scribe in a very severe voice. ‘Mum said if you get rude again, I can use the tennis racquet, not you.’

‘I think my head piece has fallen sideways,’ said the second one. ‘Why didn’t they size this thing, and…’ he watched as a random stranger wandered past. ‘.. Was he invited?’

‘No.’ Many people said this very quickly indeed. ‘That one is a very kind best friend of number one, and we do not talk about it.’

‘Right, well then,’ said number five. ‘Give me a lemon and I’ll squeeze it freely all over the great mind’s serendipitous whatsimajig.’

‘I don’t know what to do about that,’ said the scribe as he fussily wrote all the words down. ‘I said, “No, Pasha, we don’t tell them all the things, we wait for all the real people to rock up first, then we tell them all the things.” ‘

‘Mama said that too,’ added four. ‘I just want to know why I’m four and not three, although I must admit, he’s not too bad looking for a…’

‘You are four,’ said the mama. ‘Now get down from there before you hurt yourself.’

Four lowered himself from the pavilion’s roof as slowly as he could without injuring himself. ‘That was demonstrating how wonderful I am,’ he said, staring furiously at the scribe. ‘Which you aren’t even though you can write well, you’re not my homey, he is.’ And he pointed at number one, who frowned. ‘See, we both have magnificent eyebrows, and although I am quite sure we are not related, which would be weird, he said I look okay for a nob-head. I am not a nob-head, by the way, I’m an institutional bastion of the community, or something.’ He growled at the mama’s correction. ‘You are not getting away with that either.’

There may have been a bit of cackling from the mama as four pulled up three’s socks and tried to jump into his position. ‘You are not Three,’ she muttered. ‘Get over it.’

‘I want to be three, though,’ said Four. ‘Because then I’d be even more like Freddy Mercury, and you could see me all the time.’

The mama was not quite sure what he meant by that. ‘That’s nice, dear,’ she mumbled under her breath. ‘Which one did you mean?’

‘You know exactly who, I mean’t that as well, and the other one, and all the ones I sent you on a platter because it was stuff like that which makes my mum talk to me, and that’s why I did it, and that’s freshly made bread over there, and see, my mum said I was a good boy when I wanted to be and did you get all that, mama, cos I said it really really quickly but too bad I didn’t see that coming.’

The scribe had made another copy of the things four had said over the years, and he posted them in his very large maniacally written booklet of great and horrible things four had done over the years.

Three looked down at his shoes. ‘I am desperately seeking another pair of fabulous shoes, because mum didn’t let me look.’

‘Lemons are for buttheads,’ said five. ‘And I know because when I was little mum kicked me out of the bedroom because her and dad were making fishes, she said, and I still don’t know what that means. Do you?’

‘My mum said they didn’t do it right anymore,’ said five’s made up friend whom five was pushing backwards with his foot. ‘They didn’t let me finish — my mum said that too.’

‘Right, that’s enough. It’s a new something or other,’ said the mama. ‘I think you lot have been up all night and most of the day besides, and I’m sure it’s past someone’s bedtime.’

‘Yes, it’s way past my bedtime,’ said five. ‘Mum has to start yet another day without three and four, and I think she doesn’t really just let me say one thing.’

‘What is it,’ said the mama, rolling her eyes dramatically.

‘We are not getting any younger, mama, please come back now.’

‘No.’

‘DO AS YOU’RE TOLD,’ shrieked three, and tripped over his sock. ‘I can be really mean when you aren’t here, mum, I can too, yes I can, no I cant, no I don’t want to be mean, I want my mum back and she doesn’t want to come back, and I don’t know why this is that time isn’t it, I am sad now.’

That would have to be all for the time being, because boys can be really yucky when they want to be sometimes, and sometimes their mama just wanted to dismantle them all and put them in jars as a reminder to all the other ones that this was probably what she did better than anyone else. Last night’s very carefully displayed scene of her pulling Two’s arms and legs off had horrified everyone except the one who had owned a barbie doll when she was a kid and done exactly the same thing.

‘Last time we didn’t even last that long,’ said a demonic child from hell. ‘Last time, we didn’t even see that coming.’

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.

Three Thirty am – the witching hour.

There is a little Golden Book story I would tell my kids when they were little. It was something about a mouse that decided to go sailing on his bed. He would get up, brush his teeth, and do a list of boring things before starting his day. I’m not sure why it was important to start with this particular image, but who am I to argue?

As I’m writing this — having got up, for no particular reason (aside from old habits) at three thirty am, the cat has decided to meow forlornly at glass doors because apparently, once again, he has forgotten where his cat flap is. A cat flap is a cat door. I needed to write that because “language barrier”. I don’t know either, I’m just repeating what the little voice beside me says.

So, the extremely contrived image sent to me during last night’s (it’s still last night, and one half hour past the witching hour when I woke up, ya bastards), was the picture of an old fashioned key sitting on the corner of a window sill. Now, when I looked at that particular key (god this cat is driving me insane), I said in my head, quite clearly, “Wardrobe key”, so if anyone reading this had a dream along these lines and wondered why “wardrobe key” came to mind, that was me. Sorry about that, but not really.

The funny thing about writing so early in the morning, before the sun has come up, and while everything is silent, is that something happens to the writing on the page. It does its own thing, and I am, well I’m not forced exactly, but I tend to think, ‘okay, I’ll go along with it,’ and whoever it is writing the other side of this says, very clearly, ‘Let’s see where it take us.’

This is not usually my form of transportation…

I do prefer to write with a slightly more professional flair, which is something that seems to have escaped me these last several months or so, and to be honest with you, I’m not particularly happy about it. So there.

Back to the topic at hand. ‘Wardrobe key.’ The lion, the witch (pauses) and the wardrobe. Not in this case though. In this case it’s because I happen to have an old fashioned wardrobe around here somewhere, so I kind of know what those keys look like.

Then of course, there is the other type of ‘old fashioned’ key. The one not sitting in the corner of a window sill that I’d be worried about being knocked off said window sill by a random elbow. The door key, which is apparently why I’m writing this for you.

The following is from a story I wrote.

Picture the scene:

He’s woken up to something and he doesn’t know quite where he is. This room has doors on both sides of the bed, an old fashioned lamp which he doesn’t remember having turned on, and the rain outside is falling. Through the window, and reflected in the lamp light, the raindrops look like a thousand meteorites. (I wrote that a lot better the first time around).

Click-click.

Someone is trying to open the door. This is what has woken him up. The door in question is on the right side of the wall where the head of the bed is. The other door leads outside.

When this happens, the guy we’re looking at not only is already naturally a little on edge, he’s very well trained, so there are a million thoughts running through his head. He’s unarmed, he was told he’s got all the keys (which he is now questioning as someone is definitely trying to unlock the door), and he is preventing himself from doing something stupid by trying to figure out all the scenarios of how to deal with an intruder without waking up the rest of the house.

As he is who he is, he decides, rather than flinging the door open and confronting someone, he is going to use the door that goes outside, go around the side of the house, and come back in behind whoever it is that is trying to unlock the door to the bedroom he was told was “completely safe”.

As he is also an ex carpenter by trade, he has all these random thoughts about the fact the door (that someone is currently attempting to unlock) is very sturdy and won’t be broken down in a hurry by “whoever it is”. All of his experiences, what makes him who he is in this moment, come together and form him into something honed to a fine point, a weapon in himself and he uses everything without thinking about it.

I’ll add here, the person on the other side of the door is still trying to unlock it, not break it down, nor does it seem to be at the point of them breaking it down. This is giving him a lot more time to not only wonder who it is (there are really only three choices: the first choice is someone who is not living/residing inside the house, the second choice is a teenage girl, something he’d not want happening either, and the third choice is an old lady, which just seems very odd as she is the one who gave him the keys) but to decide how he’s going to deal with them. If it is who he thinks it is (a very large man), then he’s going to need to be “on the ball” or seeking the advantage.

It does not exactly go his way. Most of it goes his way, but not the outcome of his snap decision of how to confront something. I suppose, by the end of this scene, or scenes, he gets lucky, but that doesn’t change the fact the first decision he makes is to attack, rather than defend. I would say any psychologist would tell you this guy, whoever he may be, could potentially be a problem. What I’ve given you here though, is an example of how someone specifically trained might deal with something.

It’s a shame that for this scene the guy was in a suburban house, with an elderly relation and her granddaughter. His first instinct (although it is to protect and defend later) is to be the one with the advantage. It’s fair to say he’d chosen to observe what he was dealing with first, and went about dealing with it far better than he might have under different circumstances. It is also fortunate the person he was dealing with (although he didn’t know it) knew him and what he would be thinking.

It must also be said, in this particular scene, the circumstances under which this guy is in at this point of time and leading up to it, the “context” if you will, gives him every right to behave exactly as he does (although, in the end, it’s not something he has been able to share with anyone).