Truant Pen

Panda Slippers (#fridayflash)

2010-07-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

And then there was that time when we were late for church and Dad said everyone had to get in the car now, and Melody was still doing her hair because she fancied James the organist, but Dad said no, we're going now, and he made Melody get in the car wearing her Sunday best and her fluffy panda slippers. And she shouted at Dad all the way to church, and when we got there Dad told her she could stay in the car if she wanted, but no, she got out and strode into church ahead of us. "I'm sitting on my own," she shouted as she went in the church door, and she did, she walked up the aisle and sat on the front pew so Reverend Crawley could get the full benefit of seeing our father's cruelty. Mum was so embarrassed, but Dad said we all had to go in and act normal, which we tried our best, but then once we sat down Janie started crying because Melody wasn't sat with us, and Mum told her to hush, and then Reverend Crawley stood up at the front and welcomed everyone and said how nice it was that people nowadays feel comfortable coming to church just as they are, panda slippers and all. Mum blushed and Dad grinned, and we all knew that after church he'd get a good telling off. And he did, and that evening when we'd gone to bed there must have been a discussion because after that if Melody was late getting ready for church we'd just leave her behind at home.

Fallen Angels (#fridayflash)

2010-06-20T10:37:00.001-07:00

I once heard a story from a homeless man. He was raw with life and seemed believable. He said once a year fallen angels are forced to have their wings clipped or otherwise lose their immortality. Most of those who remember choose the operation on their wings. They all line up outside the surgery, some glugging bottles of whisky, others with prostitutes in tow to comfort them while their wings are cut to stubs. For miles you can hear the screams.

"I thought they could tell me what heaven is like," the homeless man said. "But none of them could remember."

Mark 10:22b ff. (apocryphal)

2010-06-11T04:38:00.000-07:00

2:00am.

Ruth wakes to buzzing - her cellphone vibrating on her bedside table.

It's Alfred J. Mackenzie Jr., her most profitable account holder, and the most demanding. He'd warned her he'd do this. She'd hoped he'd been joking. She picks up the phone.

"You woke me." No effort needed to sound pissed.

"Listen, Ruth," he says. "About that money transfer. I've changed my mind. You need to call it off."

Even at 2am, she can't resist a smug grin.

"You told me you'd do this," she says, "and you told me what to say: No."

She cuts the line and switches off her cell.

Immediately the house phone rings. She lets it ring off and listens to him speaking to her answering machine in the hallway.

"Ruth, pick up. I don't need this right now. Listen, I'll give you half the money. That's twenty billion, Ruth. You can keep twenty billion if you call off the transfer. You'll never need to work again..."

She waits to see what he'll say next.

"Look, bitch, just pick up the phone."

She climbs out of bed to cut the power to the phone. He's still talking.

"Ruth if you don't pick up right now I'll call all your clients. I'll make sure you never step foot in a bank again."

She picks up.

"Will you shut up, Mackenzie."

"No, now listen."

"No I'm not going to fucking listen. You listen. I don't know what that guru guy said to you, but ever since you met him you've lost the plot."

"I told you what he said. He said if I wanted to live forever, I should sell everything I owned and give the money to the poor."

"And instead of asking him if he needed a shrink, you actually decided to do it."

"Well, not exactly. I've changed my mind."

"Now you've sold everything and seen all those zeros in your bank account, you've changed your mind?"

"Look, Ruth, the intention was there."

"Right. And if I call it off for you, you meant what you said about the twenty billion?"

"Not exactly. I wanted you to come to the phone."

"And stupid me, I did."

Ruth slams the receiver down and pulls out the socket. She will not do his bidding any more. She will not call it off. She'd planned it all too well. Mackenzie had told her to be creative, and she had.

Tomorrow at 10am Eastern Time the amassed fortune of the illustrious Mackenzie family -- all forty two billion of it in single dollar bills -- would flutter from helicopters over the slums of Brazil and India, the hovels of China and Russia, and the plains of Africa.

She'd make sure it happened, especially now Mackenzie wanted to call it off. She'd give away all his money, every penny, even though he'd changed his mind. Did that mean he'd forfeited the reward of eternal life? She wasn't about to chase up the crazy guru to find out, but she hoped so. She'd tell Mackenzie that he had.

He could rot in hell.

Butterfly (#fridayflash)

2010-06-06T02:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamed I was a butterfly. I danced awkward on the breeze to a distant, fragile music, as delicate as my wings. I chased it, knowing it to be my destiny, knowing it could never be caught. When I awoke, I held the dream in my mind, but I could not recall the music. I only knew it had been sung by the voice that sings all things into being.

Breakfast Storm (#fridayflash)

2010-05-28T00:03:00.001-07:00

He’d left her sitting legs crossed at the dining table in her pink silk dressing gown, sipping a glass of orange juice, staring at his cold cup of coffee and wondering about the future of their marriage.

Leanne and Damien usually breakfasted together early, before the kids were up, because he had to leave for work by seven. It was an opportunity to spend time together. This morning had been no different, except he’d left earlier than usual, at her demand. They hadn’t argued, although now she wished they had. She’d been baiting him for an argument, she knew that, but instead he’d given her what she said she really wanted: the truth. He’d told his story, and now she understood him. Now she wished she hadn’t asked.

She’d gone upstairs to her bedroom, and was furiously applying her make-up. She told her self she was glad he was gone, glad she’d spoilt his happy mood

“Would you like some toast, love?” he’d asked. He even buttered it for her, and added her favourite, raspberry jam. He’d kissed her on the head as he placed the plate in front of her.

He was happy, so it seemed the right time to ask.

“Can we go on holiday by the sea this year?” she’d said.

He’d looked at her with his azure eyes, with his sad gentle eyes that were always bloodshot because he never slept well, and seeing the hurt, she knew she’d asked the wrong question. If she was honest with herself, she’d known it was the wrong question before she’d asked it. But living by the sea was her dream, and they had the money to do it. Damien had his own business. He could work from almost anywhere. But when she’d asked if they could move by the sea he’d snapped no, he liked the city. She decided then she’d at least try to live her dream for two weeks a year. She’d been pressing for them to holiday by the sea, instead of the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds made the other school mums jealous. But it didn’t have a beach.

Damien shook his head, not like he was saying no, but despairing, like he wanted to say “why did you have to ask again?”

She felt guilty for upsetting him, but she wouldn’t admit it. She folded her arms.

“Why not?” she asked.

“I’d prefer not to. Please don’t ask why.”

This was what she expected. He’d done this before, then started a story of a haunted cottage by the sea. It sounded like a bad dream to her, but he’d never finished the story. He’d mention the cottage, then he couldn’t go on.

She watched him stir his coffee in a swirling pattern, gripping the teaspoon too tight. She waited. Usually she’d nag him to tell her. But this time she waited. Her patience paid off.

“I shouldn’t have let her go,” he said.

Leanne tensed. Under the table, her foot was shaking. This was a new story. There was another woman. He’d never mentioned her before. He was holding his forehead in his hand, rubbing his temples, staring down at the table.

“You told me you were single,” she said. “You never said you were divorced. Is that why you don’t like holidays by the sea? They remind you of her?” Leanne was seething.

“Yes,” he said. “I mean, no. Yes, they remind me, yes, I was single when I met you.” He was nearly crying. “Will you listen Leanne? Will you let me finish?”

Leanne sat silent, her eyes glaring. It meant he could continue.

“She was called Hannah. When we were on holiday, we’d go swimming together in the sea everyday. It was our special thing. We both loved the sea. We’d go every year. We stayed in my favourite cottage, near the village where I grew up. Hannah liked me taking her there.

“One evening on our last holiday we were woken by the thunder. The rain was coming down in torrents. She wanted to go swimming in the storm.

“I said no, it was too late, I wanted to sleep. So she said she’d go on her own. I said no, she mustn’t.

“I should have insisted. I knew the legends, I’d learnt them as a child. There’s wisdom in the old legends. I told Hannah the legend: ‘On the day of the storm, one day a year, the sea spirits come to claim a human life. They come for a sacrifice.’ She laughed. She laughed, so I didn’t insist. Every day since I ask myself: Why didn’t I insist?”

Damien was crying now, but Leanne wouldn’t touch him. Her arms were still folded and she’d crossed her legs. He’d loved another woman. He still loved another woman.

He was too upset to stop. He needed to tell the story.

“She looked like a goddess as she stood on the beach, naked in the rain, her sodden hair blown wild by the violent winds. She looked fierce, ready for battle, ready to slaughter.

“When she dived into the waves, the winds roared with malevolent laughter, and I knew she was gone, I knew she’d never be back. But I didn’t believe my feelings. ‘Stop being so superstitious,’ I told myself.

“I watched at the window. I watched for an hour. Then I called the coastguard. They wouldn’t go out searching in the storm.

“She never returned. They searched for her body, but they never found it.”

“I was single when I met you Leanne. Widowed, single. Not divorced.”

Leanne was crying too now. Damien reached for her hand across the table, but she flinched and pulled away.

“Leanne?” he asked.

“Just go,” she said.

He reached for her hand again. “Leanne, please.”

“Just go.”

He’d left his coffee and his toast and gone upstairs to kiss the kids goodbye before he left.

“Goodbye Leanne,” he said after he’d put on his coat. The car keys jangled in his hand. His eyes were still moist and puffy.

She didn’t reply. She didn’t know how to. She stared at her orange juice, waiting for him to go.

Eventually, he gave up waiting for her to speak. The front door clicked shut. She wasn’t sure if he’d be back. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him back.

She checked the clock. In five minutes the kids would be up. She gulped her orange juice, slammed the empty glass down on the table, and stomped upstairs to put on her make-up.

Mid-life Reality (#fridayflash)

2010-05-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

Jason's dream of being famous didn't shatter in an instant. It crept away slowly through the years of performing in cheap taverns, meat-market nightclubs, and at friends' weddings. One particular night, not long after Jason's forty-seventh birthday, the final remnants of his dream slunk away as he slept, without fanfare.

Bibliophilia (#fridayflash)

2010-05-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

He slams the book down onto his desk and stares out the arched window, clasping a wrinkled hand over his forehead. The hum of cars driving past agitates him, like the wasps that buzz in his garden when he's trying to enjoy a tankard of cool beer. He'll need a beer soon. But first he grabs the book and throws it at the wall. Its pages crumple on impact, and it crashes to the floor.

"Bloody rubbish," he says.

He walks across to his kitchen, and takes a can of beer from the fridge, pouring it into his tankard. He swears to himself as he sips it. The beer calms him down.

When he's finished he picks up his wallet and walks out onto the street towards the bookshop. As always he goes the the secondhand section - a book that's been read must be worth reading - and chooses a title that attracts his attention. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

The girl at the counter never lets him pay full price.

"That's two-fifty," she says.

He hands over a fiver, and tells the shop assistant she must take the full three pounds. She gives him too much change, and he pretends not to notice.

Back at his flat, he scuttles upstairs, goes to straight to his study and sits at the desk. He holds the book tight to his chest, feeling its energy.

"This is the one," he tells himself.

He lifts the book to his face, breathing its aroma.

This is the one.

He flicks the pages with his fingertips, listening to their gentle click.

This will be the one.

With trembling hands he places the book on his desk and opens the cover.

As he begins to read, he stops shaking. The words meet his eyes and hold him, enchanted.

The Snarky Tree: A Parable (#fridayflash)

2010-05-07T06:51:00.000-07:00

No one knows who made the first snide remark, whether it was the roots or the trunk or the branches or the leaves. Common consensus blames it on the soil, although the soil vehemently denies this assertion.

The soil, it is said, grew weary of its lowly station, beneath all other things. In its insecurity, it began to assert its superiority. The soil, it is true, is intimate with the internal rhythms of the earth. Most soils in the world find delight in this intimacy. But the soil beneath the tree began to wonder what it was missing out on by being mere soil.

"Tsk," it whispered to itself one autumn. "I don't know why I waste my time beneath this tree listening to the noisy rustle of falling leaves, things of little consequence, when I could be beneath a great city, hearing the deeds of great men."

Thus the soil came to the conclusion that it was superior to the tree, and it began to pass its time thinking about how it could arrange a move to the city.

Roots, you may know, are sensitive, gentle beings, and when they overheard the musings of the soil, they were much affronted.

"What's the soil getting so high and mighty about?" the roots said to one another. "It may know the rhythm of the earth better than we can, but it certainly cannot sense the mood of things like we do. And it puts the nutrients it creates into such awkward places for us to reach, so we are forced to keep growing."

The roots became angry with the soil, and began to waste their days gossiping with one another about the soil’s rudeness.

The trunk, being connected with the roots, overheard their gossiping, and though it was slow of mind, it gradually understood that they were dissatisfied.

"Why are the roots complaining?" the trunk said. "They live in a warm bed of soil, and they are only there because they are weak and could not stand firm in the mighty winter winds as I do. They have no toughness or strength."

The branches overheard the words of the trunk and, understandably, they became annoyed.

"Why does the trunk think itself better because it is strong?” they asked one another. “We may not be strong but we have learned to taste the winds and to dance to their wishes. No one dances quite like us."

The leaves begged to differ. Not only did they believe themselves to be better dancers than the branches, but they were also the ones who had made friends with the light.

"Who do the branches think they are?" the leaves asked one another. "If we had not made friends with the light, we wouldn't be able to share with them the life light gives to us."

Eventually, after a year of bickering between the soil and the roots and the trunk and the branches and the leaves, autumn came again, and the leaves fell, as they did every year. And the soil complained again about the noisy inconsequential rustle the leaves made.

Winter passed and spring came, but no leaves grew on the tree.

Later that year, it died, and when the mighty winter winds arrived it fell to the ground of the forest with an empty thud.

Palimpsest (#fridayflash)

2010-04-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

He is standing in the sea, holding his sailing boat on a string, and jumping the waves of the incoming tide. He ignores his mother's shouts to come and join her on the promenade to have the sand washed off his feet .

I’m in my beach hut, knitting a christening gown for my granddaughter in Australia. Ann, my daughter, has lived there nearly fifteen years.

The sailing boat is wooden, painted blue, with a white sail. My son Danny had a red boat like that.

The boy lets go of the string. Despite the incoming tide, the boat floats away from him. He calls to his Mum, and she shouts for him to run after it.

I want to scream, but my throat tenses up. I can only see Danny. I see his body floating on the waves, and I hear Ann’s final words to me on the day she left.

“You’ve always blamed me for Danny’s death,” she said. “You always blamed me and hated me. So now I’m leaving you in peace.”

I was sat in this beach hut when Danny drowned, distracted by Ann crying. He let go of the string of his sailing boat, and followed it out to sea.

Ann refuses to come home, no matter how much I ask her to.

Suddenly the boy screams, a horrific scream, and he runs up the beach.

"Mummy, Mummy," he howls. "I'm burning, Mummy."

I hear her soothing him on the promenade behind the beach hut.

"It was a ghost," he says, "a swimming ghost. It burnt my leg"

"Let me see," she says, and "Ooh, that's red," and "Now, let's wash that under the tap."

She says it must have been a jellyfish. "Let's get you in the car," she says. He's still crying.

When they're gone, I walk down to the edge of sea. There are hundreds of jellyfish bobbing in the waves.

"Danny," I whisper, looking out for his swimming ghost. I know he is listening. "Good boy, Danny."

Maternal Instinct (#fridayflash)

2010-04-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

Katie sat with her head in her arms, weeping.

"It's not meant to be like this," she said.

"Like what?" Doreen asked.

"Like this! For God's sake, Mum, look at me."

"You'll be okay. You just need some sleep to clear your head. Tomorrow you'll be fine with it."

Katie's sobs were louder than usual, but Doreen knew to stay calm. Katie often got like this immediately after sell-out gigs.

"Remember, Katie," she said, "it's your last chance."

"That's what you've always say. 'It's your last chance,' or, 'Just this one, to get on his good side,' or, 'It'll get you in the papers.' It's always just one, just one more, then I'll be there, you say. But every time, a few months later, there's another, and another."

"We don't always get what we want, you know."

"Well maybe I don't, but these men always do - and all because you tell me I should let them have it."

"You give them what they want, they give you what you want."

"But I don't want to be famous!"

"Yes you do. Katie, you do." Doreen kept her voice soft, like when she'd sing Katie to sleep as a baby. "You asked me to make you famous."

Katie shook her head.

"Only because you told me I should be," she said.

"Because I knew where it would take you. Look at what you've got Katie. A beautiful house - just like the one you always dreamed of. And Adam, such a gorgeous, faithful boyfriend. And millions of adoring fans."

"And I hate it all."

"Don't say that, Katie."

"I'll say what I like. I hate it. I feel so empty all the time. And it's all your fault."

"That's not fair. I've only ever done what you've asked me."

"What I've asked you? What have I asked of you? It's me whose only ever done what you've told me. And I'm not doing it any more. I will not cheat on Adam again. I don't even need a new record deal."

"You do, sweetie. You've got momentum. You've got the ride the wave. Keep soaring while you're flying high."

Katie stormed out of the dressing room slamming the door behind her.

Doreen smiled. It was nice to get a moment's peace. She knew Katie would listen in the end. Just like she always did.

Cadences of Grief (#fridayflash)

2010-04-18T06:17:00.000-07:00

No one had asked me before, not even Bettie, my wife, but when David, my grandson, said he wanted to know about the war for a school project, I could only remember one thing, and I began to cry. David apologised, and said not to worry. He'd find out what he needed from a textbook, or from Grandma. He went to see Grandma in the kitchen.

All I could remember was your limp and bloody body in my arms, and the music I heard as I held you.

I have heard it in my dreams all these years, and have woken up many mornings, knowing I have heard it, but forgetting its melody.

I hold you as you scream, raging against death, who is coming to take you. Blood is streaming from your body. You have no legs. Machine guns rattle, shell fire booms through the air. But as I hold you, all I can hear is music, the symphony we planned to write together. I see the melody in your contorted face.

After we buried you, dumping your body beside hundreds of others as a uniformed priest murmured a blessing, I tried to recall the music, but it was gone. The smell of rotting bodies and the twisted harmonies of men laughing and swearing in the trenches while a few of us stood solemn in the rain pushed it from my memory. The harder I tried to remember, the more the music faded.

Now I hear the music, our beautiful music. I see its streams of bright colours dancing in the air. You have come alongside death in his mission to call me home.

You are calling me to forsake this life, and I will not rage, as you did. You are calling me home, and I am coming, I am coming.

Even the Terrorists Go Christmas Shopping (#fridayflash)

2010-04-09T05:12:00.000-07:00

Leanne waited until the guard was across the other side of the visiting room to ask the question.

"Tell me why you did it, Tommy."

"Keep your voice down, okay?" He let go of her hands under the table. "As far as these lot are concerned, I'm pleading not guilty."

"I don't care what they're concerned. Tell me why you did it."

"I had no choice. It was my first operation. I needed to prove myself."

"No choice? No choice? You mean they told you to lay down our baby on a mattress stuffed with explosives?"

"Not as such, no."

"What then?"

"'Use your ingenuity, Tommy,' they said. I thought it was fucking ingenious. If only you hadn't told the squaddie to piss off when he asked to search the pram.

"I wanted to get on, for our one day together Christmas shopping. I didn't want to wake Jimmy up, to set him off crying."

"So you told the squaddie to piss off. Full marks to you for how to charm the British Army."

"How was I to know you were hiding anything?"

"How were you to know I wasn't? If you'd just have let him look in the pram, he'd have glanced inside to see if we were hiding an AK-47, and it would have all been great. He'd have let us go. You know that."

"If you hadn't been using our day out to smuggle your mate's bomb-making-kit into the city centre it wouldn't have mattered."

"Are you deaf? Watch my lips. I. Had. No. Choice. I joined up for you. 'Protect our community,' you said. 'Be a real man.' This was my first operation. No one gets caught on their first operation. I was a clean pair of hands. That's why they chose me."

"Well they could've chose someone else. I'm the one who's left to pick up the pieces. To do our son's first Christmas without his father."

"Boo hoo. And you think it's going to be all joy-to-the-world for me banged up in here?"

"I'm going now Tommy. Here's hoping you have a very Merry Christmas."

Her heels clicked as she walked towards the door.

He shouted as she left: "Will I see you in the New Year?"

She ignored him.

The guard walked back to Tommy's side of the visiting room and stood beside the table.

"Merry Christmas, mate," he said.

Why Wizards Need Therapy (#fridayflash)

2010-04-02T06:11:00.000-07:00

Extract from Pathos in Magickal Spells by H. R. White (London: Society for Alchemistic Researches, 1721 [censored 1722-1951])

[...]

XXI. We have established, dear reader, that Pathos, in addition to Rhetoric, Mineral, and Fire, is essential to the successful binding of any Magickal spell.

XXII. As a magician, you must learn to control Pathos, storing it inside yourself ready to channel into Magickal spells.

XXIII.Pathos should be stored discreetly and should not be shared with other magicians, nor with faeries.

XXIV. Spells cast at the moment Pathos first strikes are always more powerful.

XXV. Casting spells on the spur of the moment, however, is not to be advised, as you may regret the spell, thus necessitating you to wastefully expend Magickal energy reversing its enchantment.

XXVI. Beware, dear reader, of casting a spell in anger. Magickal spells cast in anger are the most powerful of all. Enchantments energised by freshly stoked anger can never be reversed or repelled.

XXVII. Magicians who persistently cast spells in anger are liable to be expelled from all Magickal Societies and to have their license to practice Magick revoked.

[...]

XLII. The powers of forgiveness hold no sway in the realm of Magick.

XLIII. Recall the 89th law of the Book of Magick: “The Council of Wizards knows neither mercy nor graciousness. Their memory is everlasting.”

XLIV. Therefore, spells cast with the Pathos of pity almost invariably fail. In the unlikely event of the Magick being successful, the binding of the enchantment will be weak.

XLV. Magicians who persistently cast spells out of pity will soon find their Magickal powers diminishing.

[...]

Living Hell 2 (#fridayflash)

2010-03-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

Offered: You will be the object of all desire. The love of any woman, of all women, will be yours. Any woman you choose will love you completely, will desire you with all her being. Any woman you bid into your company will be fully yours, to do everything you want with her. Each one of them will fulfill your every whim and fantasy. You will enjoy their bodies, their company, and their charm. Your magnetism and attractiveness to women will earn you great fame and riches. You will know, more than any man has ever known, what it is to be loved.

In return, I demand only your love. Every ounce of your love you must to surrender to me in perpetuity.

You will never be able to love, nurture, or cherish. You will never love any of the women who give you their full devotion. You will only be able to destroy, demolish, and break. You will hold all women in disdain. Every woman who keeps your company will depart from you wounded and broken. Vengeance, pain and misery will be yours to give in abundance.

Small price to pay, methinks, for all the women of your dreams.

Now, do we have a deal?

War Widow (#fridayflash)

2010-03-19T02:17:00.000-07:00

How dare you call me beautiful? Here I am, pregnant with a child I will only ever hate. His eyes will always remind me of his father's, of the man who shot my husband in the back as I watched, then pinned me to the floor, gun to my head. I hoped he'd pull the trigger once he'd taken his pleasure from me. Instead, he stood, zipped up his trousers and laughed, then howled and whooped as I screamed on the floor.

How dare you speak of lessons in suffering? Suffering has only one lesson: Those, like you, who speak of the "redemptive potential" of pain are morons. Did you hear that? Morons. Heartless, soulless, shallow morons.

How dare you say that God is on my side? What did God do for me? I, the vanquished foe, have no honour. Yes, I am vanquished. Yes, I am disgraced. You can keep your God of the oppressed.

How dare you say it was barbarous, what he did? Did you see his eyes? Did you? You do not know barbarity. How dare you speak of what you do not know.

How dare you take my voice? I have my own voice. I am not voiceless. Can you not hear me? I can speak for myself.

How dare you speak of making peace, as though you have a special calling? Let me tell you this: Without me, without my dead husband, without my bastard child, you would have no peace to make. We are the conflict, the raw materials you use to create peace. We do not want your peace. I will spit it in your face. It is too late for me, for us, for all of us that you pity, for all of us that inspire you.

Yes, you look at me with pity. You see me on your TV screen, and you look at me with pity. You philosophise with your friends as to how you might help. You feel bad for me. "That's terrible," you say. You, whose colleagues are researching how to improve upon the gun that killed my husband. "Mechanical Engineering," they call it. You, whose elected officials ensure the guns are sold. "Diplomacy" and "ensuring economic stability", they call it. You, who do not speak to judge.

How dare you speak of me? How dare you speak?

Bottled Tears (#fridayflash)

2010-03-12T00:29:00.000-08:00

Translated from the Elvish original by Professor S.C. Nieklot and Dr R. J. Siwel.

I am surrendering my love for you to the ocean. Through my tears, captured in this bottle, I have purged it from my soul. I hold it in my hands. It weighs heavy. My hands and arms ache as my soul ached.

The bottle, like me, is fragile. It could be smashed on the rocks at this very shore tomorrow. Sea water could leak in, taking it to the ocean's depths. It could wash up on an empty beach to be discovered by a human child. I know the risks. I know the tears will force their escape somehow. I am tempted to swallow them. Still, I will be strong. I will throw the bottle to the sea.

I know not where they will find release, nor whose heart shall be haunted with my sadness. I know I am not the only one to have done this, to have broken faery law and polluted the sea with my sorrow. Do you remember how you told me once you heard the anguish of the ocean in the waves crashing on the shore? Then, I pretended to listen to the waves as you told me to, I pretended to understand. Now, I hear it too. The sea only mourns.

I am placing my tears in the ocean for you to hear. All the energy we created and bound up within ourselves. Each wave of the ocean will be tinged with this darkness.

The only grief I feel is that this bitter liquid sparkles in the sunlight. You have torn my spirit into fragments. Some of them will always be yours. I am gifting these parts to the sea.

I am letting you go, but you will never, never be free. I have spoken the spell that ensures this is so. Should you return, you will be forever bound to the ocean. You will stand, despairing, on the shore, smelling heartache on the breeze, and listening for redemption songs in the desolate waves.

Should destiny dictate that this reaches you, you will know who I am.

X.

Living Hell (#fridayflash)

2010-03-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

Wanted: One human soul, to be held in perpetuity. Preferably male. Must desire wealth. Must blame the poor for their poverty. Must deny climate change. Must live in the suburbs and drive an SUV. Must demonstrate love for family by being the sole breadwinner. "Bread" in this case to include (for example) 42-inch plasma screen TV, three family cars, two iPhones, four MacBooks, an annual trip to Disney World, a Nintendo Wii, a kitchen and bathroom refurb every five years, and weekly shopping binges. Must send kids to college. Must spend at least 80 hours a week at work. Must take a maximum of three days vacation per year, all of them at Christmas. Must not demonstrate despair of this lifestyle by wasting money on golf, prostitutes, alcohol addiction, gambling, or fast cars. Preferably reads the Wall Street Journal. Must support the US military. Must oppose gun control. Preferably Republican, though Democrats will be considered. Must attend church every Sunday. Preferably believes in God. Must believe in America.

Will exchange for: Ignorant bliss, self-righteous attitude or early promotion. May consider trading all three for an immaculate example of the specifications.

Strange Kind of Friend (#fridayflash)

2010-02-26T02:04:00.001-08:00

During the winter of storms, the night came when Mimi couldn't cope any longer.

Every night it rained, and every night it kept Mimi awake. The wind pounded her bedroom window with torrents of water. Thunder shuddered in the skies. And when the rain stopped, the dripping started. Drip, drip, drip, from the branches of the tree in her garden. Drip, drip, drip, from her leaky gutter, down the side of her house.

This soft dripping sound was the one that made her most angry. She'd fall to sleep once the storm was over, but the moment she lost consciousness, the dripping called her back.

Tonight, Mimi's anger takes control. Before the rain stops and the dripping starts, her body tenses with the thought of how it will keep her awake. Anger explodes inside her, and she finds herself stomping downstairs, then outside, slamming the front door behind her.

She forgets her dressing gown and coat. Her anger has pushed her beyond these. She runs out across the grass, slips in the mud, and lands forward on her knees. She wants to scream, to rage, but at first all she can do is flinch at the cool touch of the rain on her skin, over her shoulders, down her back.

Though it is a shock, it also soothes her. She stands up again, letting the rain wash the mud off her legs. The water, running down her body and dripping from her hair, feels peaceful and cold.

Inside, she wraps herself in a warm, soft towel, gently stroking the raindrops off her legs.

Back in bed, sleep comes easily. She hears the rain as a friend now, singing her a lullaby, calling her to sleep.

Tortured Silence (#fridayflash)

2010-02-19T01:56:00.001-08:00

The sell-out, his face twisted with scars, risked his life to tell me of you.

He said, when he saw you last, my son, you had no fingernails. He said they'd taken them from you with pliers, one each day, except on the Sabbath.

He said when you slept beside him in the prison cell you shared, you yelped and convulsed.

He said your left arm was broken, snapped backwards at the elbow.

He said he could not tell me of your face.

I asked him how he knew, how he'd escaped. He shrugged. They'd let him go. He didn't know why.

"Sell-out," I hissed. He met the accusation with silence.

I asked about your eyes, your beautiful eyes, your father's eyes.

His shoulder slumped, defeated. He had risked his life to find me and tell me all he could, and he could not tell me this. Instead, he wept.

"Tell me," I screamed.

I had searched and waited years for news of you. But now the sell-out came with news, I was offended at his presence. Why was he here? Why not you?

I slapped him, and he took it. He stood and let me slap him and scream in his face how worthless he was to have given in while you, my son, held silence, while you remained broken and strong.

I slapped him with all the energy of my pain and worry, pent up with years of not knowing. I slapped him because I cannot hold your splintered body. I slapped him and punched him until I collapsed, sobbing.

With each slap I struck across his scarred cheeks I betrayed you. With each slap, I wanted him to explain. Why did you, my son, believe so fiercely? Where did you find such faith? Why couldn't you have sold-out too?

Samurai (#fridayflash)

2010-02-12T09:09:00.000-08:00

Sitting beside me, you say you feel alive. You say I am radiant. You ask me the secret to this energy.

It is no secret. You have this phrase already in English, "To take a man's life". But you say it in disgust, as though taking life were a bad thing.

You forget, in your Christian piety, that you kneel before the altar each Sunday and you take the life of your god. "Christ's body, given for you," the preacher says, and you take it. Greedily, you take it.

You forget, in your Christian piety, there is no morality. Only Yin and Yang. Only enemy and friend. Let me tell you this: I have taken the lives of many men. Their bodies given to me by the enemy. We are alike, you and I, we only take the life that is given to us.

This is why I am radiant. This is why you see life in my eyes.

I have taken it.

Digging Mud (3WW)

2010-02-10T06:25:00.000-08:00

I am here, digging mud, to salvage myself.

I think back to when I stood on the threshold of manhood, gazing into the horizons of possibility. I understood possibility then, and that is why I surrendered the opportunity to be fully alive. That is why I was afraid to stare death down. I wanted to hold on to possibility, not to look death in the eyes.

Instead of fighting in the war, I went undercover, ignored the draft letters. Dad helped me find a new home in the countryside as a farm-hand.

I ran from death, driven by thoughts of possibility, of all the paths my life could take, of everything I could be. But the moment I ran - it was an irreversible decision - I realised I had, by running, sabotaged possibility forever. My life would be dictated by fear.

Years later, whilst reading, my condemnation haunted me. It was not in the Bible, but in a tome of theology that I saw the truth of my decision, of what I had surrendered:

"A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine."^[1]

I trembled as I read those words. I would never know that moment, a moment I have since craved with all my being. To numb the craving, I drink. I drink to forget this: The one chance I had, young enough to fight, the one chance I had to be righteous, to face death with furious indifference and thus to know the lucid effervesence of life compacted into a single, abundant moment, I squandered.

In secret, on my computer, I watch the videos uploaded by suicide bombers, and I understand. Yes, I understand. I want to be them. I watch their eyes, absorbing their eager hunger for life, for a righteous death. They, on the threshold of manhood, know all the possibilities of life, and they have made their choice.

We have dug deep enough now. It is time to use our hands, the sensitive touch of our fingertips and gentle brushes to feel the skeleton and remove the dirt from its skull, its axe, and its warrior helmet with Viking horns.

They believe this was an ancient battlefield. I am here, digging mud with them, as a volunteer. I'm retired, I've got little else to do. They appreciate the help.

One day soon, I will be rotting in the ground too, in a church yard. Died in his sleep, they'll say.

Before I go, I had to see this warrior, to salvage him from the death I wish I had. There is life in him yet - I can feel it - how lucid and righteous he was when he died, stabbed through the heart.

Notes
[1] G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908).

Amichi the Thoughtful Monkey (#fridayflash)

2010-02-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

Amichi is a thinker. Snakes, he's figured out, turn on the charm and act like your best pal until you let them close enough to snap at you with their poisonous fangs. Elephants, Uzura the wise one aside, are boring conversationalists, but are good for a ride when your arms are tired from swinging branch to branch. Trees without leaves are vengeful, their branches liable to snap anytime you sit on them. Parrots, especially the blue and yellow ones, speak mostly nonsense. And monkeys, of course he knows this best, they live for the good times, and most days, for Amichi at least, is good times.

Sometimes, Amichi feels he isn't like the other monkeys. Yes, bananas are his favourite food, he finds tasteless jokes hilarious, and he loves treetop parties. But he also likes spending time alone, thinking.

"Monkeys don't think," Imja, his mother, always chides when she catches him staring into space. "Monkeys live."

Uzura the wise one is more encouraging. "A good thought is better than a good lunch," he says wisely, "and a good deed is best of all."

Also, Amichi is different because he feels bad when his monkey friends bully the smaller monkeys. He'd felt especially guilty when they'd played a practical joke on blind Dimitri, the most ancient elephant in the jungle, telling him to follow them because they had a special treat lined up, then ran away, leaving Dimitri lost and miles from his herd. He joins in when they throw stones at the hummingbirds because he doesn't want to be called a wussy, but he hates when a bird is hit, especially when it moans and struggles before it dies.

Today, Amichi is sitting alone in a tree by the river, watching the water and thinking. Under the water he notices a small fish struggling to swim against the flow of the river. He feels sorry for the little fish, and he works out that if he can climb onto the low branch, hold on with his tail, and reach down into the river, maybe he can help.

This is precarious. The branch over the river is leafless, and Amichi doesn't have the best balance when he dangles from his tail.

Amichi tries anyway, and he succeeds. He grabs the fish in his paw, climbs back along the branch, then puts the fish on the ground beside the river. At first it wriggles in grateful excitement, then it goes still. Amichi watches it sleep peacefully after its exhausting day of swimming against the current.

Amichi is delighted. Inside he feels glowing and proud. He has done a good deed, he has helped another animal, and not at small risk to himself. He is not like the other monkeys: rude, self-centred, obnoxious. He is a helpful monkey. Tonight, he will find Uzura and tell him what he did, and how good it feels.

The Tiger (#fridayflash)

2010-01-29T09:41:00.000-08:00

The workers at his factory call him the Tiger. He is proud they have chosen this name. It shows they fear him. It shows his methods work.

He prowls the factory floor with silent stealth, always taking his prey by surprise. Workers trapped in the vicious claws of his gaze know it is finished for them. He stands erect before his prey as they thrust themselves at his feet. "I have a family, another child on the way." The most desperate always say this - a new baby - as if mention of a child should arouse pity in him.

He laughs, a wicked rumble of a laugh that he knows is the reason for his nickname.

"I sleep only four hours a night so I can keep this factory running," he says. "And you have the audacity to feign tiredness in my presence."

He lets security do the real Tiger's work, to drag the workers away. Some are limp and resigned, some scream and kick. All are defeated. He serenades their exit with his savage laughter, making sure he is the one to bolt the factory door behind them.

These women and men whose livelihoods are destroyed - who, because they needed a moment's rest, must face the wrath of a jilted landlord, must hear their sleeping children moan in hunger - are left only with impotent power to curse the factory owner, invoking the demons and the saints to bring upon him misery and despair.

Unknown to them, their curses are fulfilled. The Tiger, divorced and childless, lives alone. His parents are dead. He is despised by his peers. His vices, prostitutes and whisky, augment his emptiness.

Most of all he hates the night-time.

In his dreams he is a boy. His friends have caught a kitten. With them, he ties a tin can to the kitten's tail. In the tin can, they secure a firecracker, then light it as they place the kitten on the ground.

The kitten looks at the tin can, fascinated by the hissing noise it makes. Then booming white light blinds the boy. When the light fades he is no longer a boy, but the kitten, fleeing. Terror pulses through his body. His friends are chasing him. "Run 'til you die, pussy!" they shout, then stop at the side of the road, laughing and whooping. He wants to stop too, to rest, but a dreadful noise chases him, the rattling that exploded earlier. He must run.

He spasms, collapsing in the road. The tarmac is cold against his body. He cannot sleep and he cannot move. The ground rumbles, bringing with it a roaring, monstrous white light. He knows it is a car. He knows he must get off the road. His body clenches.

In that moment he wakes. When the terror subsides enough for him to move, he sits up and checks the clock. It's quarter to two. Four hours he must lie awake now. Four hours until morning.

Night Work (#fridayflash)

2010-01-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

Benji slipped silently out of the bed.

She couldn't fault his attempt at stealth. He hadn't lifted the duvet and let in the draught of cold night air that used to make her shiver. He'd trodden carefully as he moved to the door, avoiding the creaking floorboard.

She listened for his next movements. He was making his way down the stairs, slowly, gripping the banister to support his weight and lighten his step.

"Just sleep," she told herself. "Sleep." She stole back her share of the duvet, flipped her pillow to the cool side, and focused on the white stars she saw when she closed her eyes, as the doctor had taught her.

It wasn't enough.

Her body tensed as she heard the water pipes rumble, a soft hiss, barely piercing the silence. Had she imagined it? She chewed on her lip as she listened to the darkness.

The kitchen door clicked shut. He was coming back up. She pretended to be sleeping.

He slid back into bed, shaping his body to match hers, cautiously wrapping an arm around her stomach. His hand was cold, but she refused to flinch. He mustn't know he'd woken her.

Within moments she felt his warm, slow, sleeping breath on the nape of her neck. The tap downstairs dripped. Hadn't it?

She shut her eyes again, watched the white stars, matched her breathing to Benji's.

Drip.

She waited, minutes, to be sure she wouldn't wake him. She slipped silently out of bed, down to the kitchen.

No light needed. She watched the tap. No drip. But, yes, he'd left his mess. He'd left his water glass by the sink. Left it for the morning. He always did that.

She bit her lip again. "Freak," she told herself.

As she filled the washing up bowl with hot bubbles, then placed her hands in the water to clean the glass, the tension in her body began to calm. Once she'd washed, dried, and put away the glass, emptied the bowl, and wiped the sink, she'd be able to sleep.

Back upstairs, Benji was still sleeping. She held him, trying to take the relaxed energy of his sleep into her own body. Her eyes closed themselves. She saw the stars. The stars made shapes. She was dreaming. Wasn't she? She opened her eyes to check.

The tap downstairs dripped.

Hadn't it?

The Street Philosopher (#fridayflash)

2010-01-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

(The old people I work with tell me all kinds of stories. With Alf, when I mentioned I study philosophy, the conversation got round to the meaning of life.

"The only man I ever met who knew it was a homeless beggar," Alf said.

"What did he say it was?" I asked.

"Oh," said Alf, "he never got round to telling me." Alf's eyes sparkled. "But I'll tell you the story anyway.")

***

I saw him on my walk to school, standing on the street corner behind an empty table. It was his eyes I noticed first. Icy blue, cold like the winter air. He was staring blankly into space. Billows of steamy breath puffed out from his nostrils. His red knitted hat was fraying at the edges, his blue coat dirty and torn, a pocket falling off. He shuffled from foot to foot to keep warm.

On my way home from school he was still there.

"What're you staring at?" Mother asked, then looked over to see the man. "Come on," she said, trying to hurry me along. I stood there, transfixed.

"Alright, alright," Mother said. "Here, give him this." She opened her purse and handed me a thrupenny bit.

As the man saw me approach, his face broke out into a kindly smile. "You're my first customer of the day," he said. "What can I do you for?"

I held out the coin. He shook his head. "You couldn't buy nothing here with that," he said.

"What're you selling?" I asked, looking up and down the empty table.

He leaned forward. "Here, I'll tell you a secret." He looked around to check no-one was listening. "I'm selling the meaning of life. To one patron only."

He looked at me expectantly, then he gave me a wink.

"How much is it?" I asked.

"To you young sir, two pounds."

Two pounds would take me weeks of pocket money. I'd never managed to save that much.

But the meaning of life. I'd asked Dad about it before. "Tell me when you find out," he'd said, laughing. Mother had scolded me and told me to focus on more important things. "Like what?" I'd asked. "Like school, your education," she'd replied. So I took the question to school. Mrs. Walker said I would get out of the habit of asking such awkward questions in a decade or so. Then she had put "decade" into next week's spelling test because I'd asked what it meant. It seemed to me grown-ups didn't much care about the meaning of life. And yet here was a man offering it for sale.

As I stood there thinking, Mother came over and dragged me away.

"What took you so long?" she scolded. "I told you not to talk with him, just to give him the coin."

"But he knows the meaning of life."

"Oh does he now? Very good." She said "very good" in the same way she did when Dad said he was going out to the pub. She hated him going out, I could tell, but all she said was "very good".

The next day the man was gone. I asked Mother why.

"The police must have asked him to move on. They like to keep the town centre clean of beggars," she said.

I knew better. They must've moved him on, yes. But it wasn't because he was homeless. It was because grown-ups couldn't cope with having someone in their midst who threatened, at any moment, to explain the meaning of life.

Anyone Can Draw a Saltpot

2010-01-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

28th December 2009
Alan called me up yesterday. He invited me to L'Etoile, a swanky French place I've never been able to afford. "Only if you're paying," I said. He'd always been a rich bastard.

He was waiting for me when I arrived. "I'm Alain now," he said. I asked him to spell it. The waiter showed us to our table. Alain explained the menu to me and chose the wine.

With old friends, school friends especially, you always talk about the past. Then about girls. Occasionally the conversation turns to what you're up to now.

Alain's an artist. A world-travelling artist. Has been for two years. "You should show me your paintings sometime," I said. I was half-serious.

He looked confused. Offended. His tone was patronising. "I haven't painted anything yet," he said.

I tried to react as if this is normal. "Oh, why's that?" I asked.

"I haven't found anyone worthy of my effort to study and paint them," he said. "No one I have seen on this earth is beautiful or flawless enough."

What a weirdo.

2nd January 2010
Met Wes today at Harry's Tea Chest. He was already there when I turned up. "Coffee please," he said when I arrived. "Eight sugars." Some people never change.

Turns out he's an artist too.

As I sat down with my coffee - sugar free - and handed him his dentist's nightmare, he grabbed the salt pot from the side of the table and thumped it down in front of me.

"Draw it," he said. He took a biro and a sketch pad from his bag, and placed them next to the salt pot.

"I can't," I said. I pushed the pen back towards him.

He laughed. "Anyone can draw a salt pot."

"I can't."

"You can," he said. "Look."

I opened his notebook. Inside was page upon page of scribbled portraits. Before the last blank page was a sketch of me queuing to buy the coffees. The portraits were profoundly simple. They were all scrawled line drawings, yet in every portrait you could see something of the soul of the person being drawn.

Everyone Wes had drawn, he'd asked to draw a salt pot next to their portrait. I had to admit, all the drawings were alright. And all of them were as unique as the person who'd drawn them.

"Draw the salt," he said.

"Alright." I took the pen.

As I contemplated the outline of the salt pot, Wes explained his philosophy, the philosophy of his notebook.

"I draw everyone," he said. "Every café I visit, I buy a coffee and I draw someone."

"What if there's no one to draw?"

"There's always someone to draw. Even if it's the bored waitress. Everywhere I look, in everyone's face, there's art happening."

"Even the ugly bastards?"

"Especially the ugly bastards," he said. "They're the most beautiful."

Baboushka: A Fable for the Christmas Season, Part II (#fridayflash)

2009-12-24T00:03:00.000-08:00

This is Part II of a two-part Christmas fable. Read Part I here.

"Baboushka was a determined woman, and as wise as the astrologers. Although she hadn't the learning to interpret the skies, the significance of the new star was clear to her. It was the portent of great change in the affairs of humanity. And this change would come, the astrologers had said, by the birth of a child.

"She decided to spend the night tidying her home and packing for the journey. Tomorrow she would rest. Once evening came, she would go to Ashaba, the village elder, and ask to borrow his best camel. She would offer all her savings, small as they were, for this privilege. Then she would follow the star, and make haste to join the astrologers on their journey.

"So Baboushka, working the hardest she had in her life, tidied and cleaned her home, and packed the belongings she needed for the journey. By sunrise, she was exhausted. She took her breakfast, double-checked she'd packed her special gift for the child, then collapsed into bed.

"She woke long before sunset, and spent the afternoon bargaining with Ashaba. He would never give his best camel for the price she was offering, he said, and certainly not to a woman. Baboushka pressured and persuaded with all her determination. Eventually, he reluctantly agreed to loan her a camel, though the one he gave her was the oldest and the slowest in his flock. She took the camel home, loaded her bags onto its back, and waited for sunset.

"Sunset eventually arrived, but no matter how hard Baboushka looked, she could not see the star. Had she dreamed the visit of the wise men last night? Had the magical story of the astrologers enchanted her into seeing things? Like all people with a great calling, Baboushka doubted herself, but she knew she could not miss seeing this child if what the astrologers had said was true.

"So she set off without the star to guide her, following the direction out of the village she'd seen the astrologers leave.

"Day and night she travelled, but Baboushka never reached the wise men. She pushed her camel harder and faster than it had ever ridden before, but every village she arrived in, the wise men had already passed through.

"With the help of kind strangers who had met the astrologers on their journey, Baboushka arrived in Bethlehem, the village where the Christ-child was born. But by the time she discovered the precise place of his birth, the cave was empty."

"Why?" Artiom asked.

"The Christ-child's parents had fled to another country. Herod, the ruler of Bethlehem, heard that the newborn child would become a king. Herod was afraid for his throne and wanted to kill the child."

"Did Herod kill him?" Artiom gripped Grandmama's hand.

"No, Artiom, the child escaped safely. But Baboushka never found him to share her special gift."

"What did she do with it, Grandmama?"

"Baboushka didn't know the Christ-child had fled to another country. She searched all of Bethlehem for a newborn child, and left her gift with the first baby she found in case he was the Messiah. Then with hands weary from her journey, she stitched together another special gift, and searched for another child to share it with in case he or she was the Messiah.

"Still, today, Baboushka continues her search for the child. Every Advent, she rides Ashaba's camel across the whole world to search for the Christ-child, in case the Messiah has come to earth again.

"With each child she finds during her search, Baboushka is never sure whether he or she is the Messiah. So she leaves a gift for all children."

"For me too?" asked Artiom.

Grandmama smiled. "For you too, child."

"Does she think I'm the Messiah, God's special one?"

"Maybe she does," Grandmama replied.

"And what do you think, Grandmama?"

"Me?" Grandmama laughs. "I agree with Baboushka."

Baboushka: A Fable for the Christmas Season, Part I (#fridayflash)

2009-12-18T01:47:00.000-08:00

"Where do Christmas presents come from, Grandmama?" asked Artiom.

Artiom, at the grand age of four-and-three-quarters, knows already who brings the Christmas gifts to his home on a surprise night during Advent. But for Artiom, at the grand age of four-and-three-quarters, knowing is not enough. He needs to hear the story.

Grandmama, for her part, at the grand age of eighty seven, is old enough to know that a life is nothing more than its stories and memories. So though she has told Artiom the story twice this week already, she starts once more.

"It is Baboushka, child," Grandmama says. "Baboushka brings your presents."

Artiom has climbed onto her knee. "Why?" he asks.

"She brings you gifts in case you are God's chosen one, the Messiah."

"Why?" Artiom asks again. Grand-mamas need prompting. He knows this.

"Many centuries ago, long before even I was alive," Grandmama tells, "the Christ child, God's chosen one, was given to the world.

"This child was a king, though he was not born at a palace, but underground, in a cave where animals were kept. The birth of this Messiah would have been a forgotten secret but for a star. A bright star shone above the cave that night."

Wide-eyed, Artiom listens. Grandmama is on her way now.

"Astrologers, men who watch the skies, had seen the star many weeks before. As students of the skies, they knew the star signalled the birth of a great and noble king. So they sold all they had, except what they needed for the journey, packed their bags onto their camels, and followed the star. With the money they had made from selling their possessions, they bought gifts for this new born child.

"To follow the star, they travelled at night. During the daylight, they pitched their tents to eat, rest, and sleep, and to allow the beasts they travelled with to do the same. On occasion they passed through a village and were welcomed by the locals. Then they stayed at a home for a meal and a bed, in exchange for which they told story of their journey.

"In one such home they stayed with a lone woman, Baboushka. They slept little that day, because Baboushka, they discovered, was loved and cherished as a kindly aunt by the children of her village. The children frequently visited her home with their laughter and games.

"Baboushka was loved for her smile, and for her gentle, playful nature. It was said her eyes sparkled like a little girl's, and her laugh was as careless as the chirping of a sparrow.

"When they allowed her to, which was often, Baboushka joined in with the children's games. She never lost her temper and never scolded, not even when two impudent girls stole newly-sewed dresses from her workroom to try them on, then ruined the dresses by playing in the dust of the street while wearing them.

"Most of all, Baboushka was loved because of her special gifts. Each year, on every child's birthday, she would make them a trinket - a toy or a hat or a purse - with left-over materials from her dress-making. Always, these gifts met the child's unspoken desires.

"Now, when the astrologers arose from the little slumber they had managed that day, Baboushka shared with them her evening meal, and for their part, the astrologers told their story and showed Baboushka the star shining in the evening sky.

"Upon seeing the star, Baboushka proclaimed: 'Allow me, wise gentlemen, to join you on your journey to visit this noble child, whom you call the Prince of Peace. Let me come with you to bring my own gift.'

"The astrologers discussed Baboushka's proposal among themselves, and after only a little debate they decided she should join them, provided she could withstand the hardships of the journey.

"'I'm a tough woman,' she said. 'Give me a day to prepare my home, to tidy it for the weeks I will be gone, and to make arrangements with my neighbours for the time I am away.'

"But the astrologers said no, they must depart tonight to keep pace with the star. Baboushka must leave with them at once.

"Baboushka would not come. She needed to prepare her home. So, with heavy hearts, the astrologers thanked her for her hospitality and bid her farewell..."

This is Part I of a two part Christmas fable. Read Part II here.

The Proper Cure for Hiccups (3WW)

2009-12-16T10:11:00.000-08:00

It is a queer fact, well known among even casual readers of magical history, that hiccups are a sign of the afflicted having recently stood near the Bleak Place, the threshold between the human world and the Otherworld.

This is why children are more susceptible to hiccups that adults. Children, with their innate, uncorrupted knowledge of magical things, are more likely to believe in the truth of the Otherworld, and are thus more prone to infringe upon its boundaries.

A small number of children, the disappeared, have accidentally crossed the threshold. These are always the children of un-schooled, simple folk. So their parents, having no understanding of magical history and the ways of faeries, despair for their children. They despair because they do not know that human children are upheld as Royalty in the Otherworld. To faeries, children are Princes and Princesses. One child, much beloved by the faeries, was made their honorary King and was seated on his own specially constructed throne on the days of faery festivals.

Human children can only enter the Otherworld accidentally. No human being who has deliberately attempted to make the crossing has ever been successful. Faeries, on the other hand, can cross into the human world at will. Their path into the human world can either be direct - though this is difficult - or via a human host. When a human comes close to the Bleak Place, a waiting faery can fly across the threshold and into the human's mouth. If the faery manages to stay inside their host's mouth until the human leaves the threshold, then it has entered the human world.

The problem, of course, is that a human with a faery in his or her mouth will be afflicted with hiccups. The faery can only escape during a hiccup, or if their host receives a fright.

Ignorant human beings, not knowing the cause of hiccups, believe a drink of water to be the cure. This is a grave danger for faeries entering the human world. Water cures hiccups by choking the faery to death. Strong faeries can survive a good soaking, but many drown in this way.

The proper cure for hiccups is patience. The faery will escape eventually.

Holocaust Theology (#fridayflash)

2009-12-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

Everyday I teach the holocaust to bored, sleepy undergraduates. During a weekly seminar, postgraduates dispassionately debate the theological and psychological implications of the Shoah in the life and faith of the Jewish people.

In my early years of teaching I'd walk away from each class bitter. Bitter that the trauma and horror of it never penetrated.

Yet later, when trauma entered my office, I told her she deserved to fail.

She arrived unannounced, her eyes moist and red, rubbed raw at the edges. A newly-bought book under her arm. She placed it on my desk. Elie Wiesel's Night, a paperback copy, Oprah's Book Club edition.

"I can't read it. I just can't," she said, sobbing.

I handed her the box of Kleenex from my desk drawer.

She explained. "It's too much, too invasive. Horrific."

"Holocaust Theology is one of the most popular freshman courses on campus," I said. "Hundreds of students who apply are turned away. You're lucky to be here."

She was listening. I was getting through.

"In eleven years of this course running, you're the first to complain. The book report is fifty per cent of your grade. If you don't read it, I'll have to fail you."

She nodded softly, submissive.

Defiant.

She stood, leaving the book on my desk, and left the office.

Very Good Telly (#fridayflash)

2009-11-27T10:20:00.000-08:00

In Belfast there is a park, a beautiful park. And although in this part of the world rain and grey cloud are more typical than sunshine and blue sky, palm trees thrive in this park. Trees native to the land - beach, oak, pine, and horse chestnut - compliment their tropical cousins, and form the stalwart of the park's refreshing atmosphere. A parade of rose bushes, with wooden benches set between them, add colour and fragrance. During the summer, groups of university students sprawl themselves across the open grassy spaces. Some play frisbee, others football. Some chat in groups, others find their own space to read a book and absorb the warm sunshine. A traditional ice cream van provides refreshments.

Now, though, it is winter. The rose bushes are dark and bare, the colour of their twiggy branches merging to the onlooker with the mud beneath them. In this cold and wet season, the park's paths are only used as through-ways. No lovers wander the paths hand-in-hand, giggling at their special secret, and pausing to share kisses. No families use the park for a bike-ride, with the little ones on their little bikes following mother like ducklings. The only cyclists in the winter park zoom to work, slicing through the ice-cold air. Men and women in suits, under umbrellas, trot quickly along the pathways, heads down.

Only there is one who has learnt to see the world differently. For him, the emptiness of the winter park as an opportunity. The park, with its winding paths up and down steep hills, becomes his space, the place where he can come, determined, with gritted teeth, to remember that he is alive. This man is an immigrant, Chinese. He is a short man, whose wrinkled face reveals deep inner scars. The English words he speaks are few. He wears a green rain-jacket, hood up, and black jeans.

Each day in the winter months, he waits for his carer to leave for her next client, then dresses himself up in his outdoor clothes - a feat that takes him until late morning. Once he has wheeled himself to the park, his arms are sore. Parking his wheelchair beside a wooden bench, he lifts himself out, then shuffles himself to make the bench comfortable. He closes his eyes and journeys deep into his inner world, finding the place within himself that restores strength to his arms and revives the tension in his legs until they feel stiff with life.

When he returns from this inner world, he stands, moving slowly, leaning on the arm of the bench, his body shaking. Once upright, he grips one hand onto the handle of the wheelchair, and begins his walk, a full circuit of the park. For the trotting business-people, if they cared to walk this circuit, they would be finished in fifteen minutes. The giggling summertime lovers take half an hour. By the time the Chinese man has finished his circuit, nearly two hours have passed. Once finished, he collapses in his wheelchair, closes his eyes, and gasps on the icy winter air like a marathon runner crossing the finishing line. No one congratulates him. He wheels himself home.

The afternoon hours he passes by taking off his coat and shoes, cleaning his wheelchair, and climbing back into bed ready for when his carer arrives to bring him dinner.

By the time she arrives, he's watching the evening news. "Was there anything good on telly today?" she always asks when she brings in his meal.

"Yes," he replies, nodding enthusiastically. It's the one thing she says that he understands, and he knows how to respond.

"Very good telly. Very good."

Memories of Feet (#fridayflash)

2009-10-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

Sparkling crimson with high heels. Her going out pair, for when she wanted attention. Plain black leather, flat soles, for school. Only six months left, three more exams, and she'd be finished. Scruffy trainers she used to wear to walk the dog, the wrinkles in the old white leather scarred with dry mud.

All these Aileen is placing, slowly, gently, into a black plastic rubbish bag. All her daughter's shoes. Never to be worn again. Never to be seen again. Aileen holds each shoe still for a moment, recalling its story, before placing it in the bag. Her eyes are glazed to mask her pain, her face is smooth, expressionless, numb of feeling. Only her mouth, fallen open, betrays her horror.

Pale pink ballet shoes. Months of saving pocket money. Then a whole day shopping, choosing, trying on.

Never to be worn again.

Aileen's own shoes she takes from the hallway and hides them in her bedroom wardrobe.

Her daughter is coming home today, and before Aileen takes a taxi to the hospital to collect her, all the shoes - these memories of feet - must be gone.

Such are the scars of war.

A Room-full of Discarded Dreams (#fridayflash)

2009-09-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

If you have ever sat before your piano to set loose the dark melodies that haunt the dungeons of your inner life, you will know the magic consumes your fingers. The music seizes your mind, surges through your torso, and your fingers dance

Such is the magic consuming Susan's fingers as you watch her now, sitting before her mahogany piano. Her fingers dance to a mournful dirge, to a lullaby of grief, of barren, wasted years.

Listen carefully. Devote your ear to this melody, for woven into its minor harmonics are the stories of a broken life. Listen carefully, for this is the first dance of Susan's fingers in two decades. The music whispers the secrets of Susan's silent tears.

The melody flows from these tears, these transient gem-stones forged in the recesses of Susan's being. It flows from this small room's pale pink wallpaper, patterned with carousel horses and circus clowns. It flows from the empty white crib behind her, the room's centrepiece.

The cradle is empty but for a small, fraying teddy bear. The bear's fur is worn down to patches, its plastic eyes dull and lifeless.

The melody flows from this teddy bear too, and if you asked Susan why she is weeping, why this room is empty and decorated with circus clowns and carousel horses, why she has given over her fingers to the voices of grief, she would turn her eyes to this teddy, this nameless teddy.

There is healing in the setting free of demons, healing in the sound of mournful lullaby. Such healing that were you to take the teddy bear, and hold it before Susan with a look of compassionate wonder in your eyes, she would turn from the piano, dry her tears with a paper tissue, and tell you a story of which even her husband knows only fragments.

They'd chosen to live in this house because it was small, she'd say, much smaller than their previous home. There'd be no empty bedrooms. Only a study for her husband, and a music room for her piano. Nothing to remind her of the empty womb.

Susan found the teddy bear the day they'd moved in. She'd found it in this room, her music room. In the room had been an old, dusty wardrobe. The removal men said they'd take it away. They'd lifted it out, Susan watching, then laughed at the squashed teddy bear that dropped from behind it. "Throw it out for us, love," they'd said.

She'd followed them outside, watching them load the wardrobe into their van. When they'd pulled away, she ran back to the room, looking at the the teddy. It was lying on its side, curled up like a foetus.

It was only a small bear, the size of Susan's palm. Its fur was worn and fraying. Maybe a child lived here once, Susan thought. Maybe this was a child's room.

Susan knew, then. The teddy was a sign. She stood on holy ground. She'd taken off shoes and knelt before the bear, picking it up and pressing it to her face.

She'd get the room ready now, she'd decided. Pink wallpaper, it would be a girl, and a white crib.

She'd leave the piano in here, wouldn't play it until the baby came. Such was her fervour, such her belief in this sign, such her commitment. She'd sacrifice her dreams, her talents until the prophecy came to pass.

"Thank you, God," she'd whispered, clutching the bear to her lips. "Thank you, God." Its cotton skin was soft, stinking of child's bed.