I may as well have my say regarding the furore over those two idiots on Radio 2 and apologise for those outside the U.K. who aren’t familiar with this, though you may well be since there’s the internet.
In my view, though many of us lampooned Mary Whitehouse, giving her a hard time and dismissing her as a crank who wanted to stifle free speech and “nanny” adults by deciding what is good for them when it comes to what they should see and hear, I thought and still think that she was a courageous and sensible woman who recognised what would happen if we allowed there to be unfettered, no holds barred, free rein to free speech. It wasn’t for nothing that my nickname at the blind school I attended was: “Mrs. Morals”. For I realised then that although there was much to commend the ‘60’s there was much to be sorry about too. I knew society had its feet on a slippery slope leading to the moral decline in almost every sphere of life from good manners to standards of decency both in public life and private life to the sexual immorality we have today and certainly I am aware that it’s not where something starts but where it will end which should concern us.
To give air time and a programme of his own, or more, to ghastly and vulgar individuals like Jonothan Ross only can and has ended in his grabbing hold of the BBC and dragging it where his mind and thoughts are – Down in the sewer with the stink, rats and rubbish. He cannot get his mind above his genetalia and finds it as easy to crack an non-vulgar joke as a fly does to crack an egg. He and this other apology for a star who supposedly passes for a comedian, namely Russell Brand have only been allowed to leave lewd and vulgar messages on an elderly man’s answer phone simply because we now need more and more outrageous and trashy stuff in order to become disgusted and shocked.
This puerile rubbish would never have been allowed past the hierarchy in the BBC years ago and comedians of worth and note such as Milligan, Hancock, Morecambe and Wise and many others would never have had to stoop to these depths in order to gain a laugh. I can remember the days when comedy was clever, as in the case of Norden and Muir and slightly naughty but funny all the same as in the case of Galton and Simpson whose talents spoke through their scripts and who left you feeling not as though you’d filled your ears with dross, thereby sullying your soul. Those people raised you up and made you think life was worth living whereas these loutish oafs have not only upset an elderly man and his granddaughter but also as I said, dragged the name and reputation of the BBC into the mud.
I’m all for free speech and don’t want a “Pollyanna” world in which everyone is pristine and crooks their little fingers while drinking out of dainty china teacups but neither do I want to live in a cultural litter bin or have the “smell” of one in my living-room.
I remember when I said my first swear word: “Damn” and I was hauled up to the teacher who said:
“The need to swear shows a lack of vocabulary and if you carry on you’ll graduate from ‘Damn’ to much nastier words”.
Of course I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t use harsher words than “damn” especially when I stub a toe or bump into an open cupboard door I’ve carelessly forgotten to close but though I didn’t understand it then, I get her point now. She was trying to make me achieve the best, show consideration for others by respecting them and knowing what may offend them and to this day I apologise if I swear in front of a very elderly person and never use obscene words in public. My short stories and longer ones not on the blog, do not contain obsceneties or explicit sex or violence and if the oafish Ross was on the BBC and offered me a thousand pound a minute to appear on his programme should I get well known as a writer, I’d refuse, such is my low opinion of the man and his drivel filled programmes.
People of my age and younger wring their hands and wonder why our young people have gone wrong and why we’re all grubbing around in an immoral vacuum and why drug addiction, alcoholism, crime and sexually transmitted diseases are on the increase and why the U.K. is in such a mess. Part of the answer has to be because we think anything goes and because we laud such dolts as the overpaid unimaginative broadcasters like Ross and Brand who have little regard for the sensibilities of other people both listeners and those they offend and whose privacy they invade and violate. If we’d listened to instead of laughed at Mary Whitehouse who we ridiculed because she foresaw just where our lapse in moral conduct would lead, then maybe those BBC people wouldn’t have had such a hard time deciding what to do about these oafs and their reputation as a decent public service broadcaster would be intact instead of in shredss. We’re where we are now because of what we didn’t do then and it doesn’t bode well for tomorrow when the children of today are the parents of the next generation. I never thought I’d say it, but I’m glad to have been brought up in a more disciplined and respectful age, even though I ridiculed my teachers and saw no harm in the odd: “Damn” or “bloody” for they helped me to differentiate between what may upset, offend and hurt other people and what is acceptable between consenting friends in private. You can never get out of the gutter iff someone doesn’t make you focus your eyes on the stars.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
ESME LEARNS TO FLY
Mrs. Trundle wondered why Mr. Trundle was walking in bear feet. “George has been round and chewed my slippers”, he complained. “Don’t worry darling,” she said: “I will make you some.” “Make me some”! He said. “What from”? “Those off cuts you have they will be lovely as carpet slippers. And the very big bit can be given to Esme as a carpet for her bed. Sally says she won’t sleep in her bed. So perhaps she’ll like a bit of your carpet.” “Well the little devil pretended to be a carpet once didn’t she and got taken home so perhaps she would like one”. He was wandering around trying to find a suitable plastic bag to cover his beard. It had grown so long now that he couldn’t walk without tripping on it. He wouldn’t have it trimmed because he said it was a home for little creatures and old food. He had two earwigs in it, one for each ear which stopped him hearing when Mrs. Trundle nagged him, some spiders, some of yesterday’s Sunday dinner, a couple of biscuits which he wasn’t supposed to have and a few other bits besides. Anyway he couldn’t find a bag so had to hold it out in front of him with one hand. He was annoyed with the dogs for trying to lick it and the spiders tickled him when the wind blew. There may even have been a drop of gravy from when he had to wear his steak and kidney pie hat after his pork pie hat was eaten. Anyway he didn’t like being without carpet slippers.
When he went off to work a little spider called Suzzie offered to spin a web so that his carpet offcuts could be made into slippers and joined up along the edges. Mrs. Trundle had the job done in a few minutes with Suzzie’s help and knew he’d be in a very good mood when he saw them. She took the other bigger bit of carpet round to Sally who put it in Esme’s box.
That night when Esme was sleeping, she felt the carpet rolling up round her. At first, as she was lifted into the air she was very frightened but then she loved the feeling of being in the air. However, once the carpet lowered itself down she was stuck on the ground unable to fly. Just then a family of Kestrels appeared saying: “Hullo Esme, we will teach you how to fly”. Esme was delighted and first she was told to watch the birds to see what they did. She looked at them stretching out their wings and fluffing out their feathers and told them she was too heavy. “Nonsense! Said the youngest kestrel who was only three. “All you have to do is flap your ears and raise your tail and say the magic word”. Esme unfurled her ears and said “dogragalabra” and up she went. She landed in Pockledown wood where she spent the night playing with the birds and swimming in a pond of enormous size. She chased swans and ducks which is naughty, and “borrowed” some food from them. She flew right over all the houses and shops which were closed and landed outside Mr. Trundle’s window, hitting her tail on the glass just as he’d got his beard comfortable. “Who is that”? He shouted and sprang to the window. “Woof”, said Esme whom he loved very much. He let her in and she licked all the bits out of his beard and cleaned it with a shampoo known as dog slobber. He did feel better and she invited him to sit on her back. “I’m far too heavy”, he said but she made him as she wanted to see if she could fly Sally to the shops when her feet were tired. He sat very gently on her back and held onto her ears. She took off and he saw everything from up on high and thought how good it was to be nearer the stars than he had ever been.
Then one of the kestrels appeared and told Esme what time it was. Dogs can only fly at night when it’s dark and now the sun was coming up. She lowered Mr. Trundle who crawled into bed and went home to Sally again who found her snoring on her new piece of carpet. “Isn’t Mr. Trundle kind”? She said as she tickled Esme behind her ears. “Yes. He is and this truly is a wonderful carpet”. “Well it’s the first time you’ve slept in your bed in all the years I’ve had you”. Little did Sally know Esme had flown in her carpet and not slept at all.
(The end).
When he went off to work a little spider called Suzzie offered to spin a web so that his carpet offcuts could be made into slippers and joined up along the edges. Mrs. Trundle had the job done in a few minutes with Suzzie’s help and knew he’d be in a very good mood when he saw them. She took the other bigger bit of carpet round to Sally who put it in Esme’s box.
That night when Esme was sleeping, she felt the carpet rolling up round her. At first, as she was lifted into the air she was very frightened but then she loved the feeling of being in the air. However, once the carpet lowered itself down she was stuck on the ground unable to fly. Just then a family of Kestrels appeared saying: “Hullo Esme, we will teach you how to fly”. Esme was delighted and first she was told to watch the birds to see what they did. She looked at them stretching out their wings and fluffing out their feathers and told them she was too heavy. “Nonsense! Said the youngest kestrel who was only three. “All you have to do is flap your ears and raise your tail and say the magic word”. Esme unfurled her ears and said “dogragalabra” and up she went. She landed in Pockledown wood where she spent the night playing with the birds and swimming in a pond of enormous size. She chased swans and ducks which is naughty, and “borrowed” some food from them. She flew right over all the houses and shops which were closed and landed outside Mr. Trundle’s window, hitting her tail on the glass just as he’d got his beard comfortable. “Who is that”? He shouted and sprang to the window. “Woof”, said Esme whom he loved very much. He let her in and she licked all the bits out of his beard and cleaned it with a shampoo known as dog slobber. He did feel better and she invited him to sit on her back. “I’m far too heavy”, he said but she made him as she wanted to see if she could fly Sally to the shops when her feet were tired. He sat very gently on her back and held onto her ears. She took off and he saw everything from up on high and thought how good it was to be nearer the stars than he had ever been.
Then one of the kestrels appeared and told Esme what time it was. Dogs can only fly at night when it’s dark and now the sun was coming up. She lowered Mr. Trundle who crawled into bed and went home to Sally again who found her snoring on her new piece of carpet. “Isn’t Mr. Trundle kind”? She said as she tickled Esme behind her ears. “Yes. He is and this truly is a wonderful carpet”. “Well it’s the first time you’ve slept in your bed in all the years I’ve had you”. Little did Sally know Esme had flown in her carpet and not slept at all.
(The end).
DILEMMA INSOLUABLE.
As David Carmichael regained consciousness a nurse was holding his hand. As soon as he realised where he was he became agitated, telling her he had to get out of the bed in which he lay otherwise there was no hope of saving the life of the girl he’d seen in his vision.
To Susan Savile, the little village of Pennington was paradise. A picturesque place with a few houses, church and a doctor’s surgery and beyond, the woods where she could take her Labrador walking. She’d become tired of London but not as Doctor Johnson would say tired of life. She was just sick of the rat race and the ever increasing speed of the big city which demanded you go faster and faster just to keep pace with your neighbour.
David had felt the aura just as he was closing his surgery and preparing to go on his morning rounds. Quickly he went to lie down on his couch and wait for the seizure to come and go. When he came round he jotted down the details of the dream he’d had while fitting. A dark haired girl, tall and big breasted was being driven off in a blue Volvo towards Pennington Woods and the man behind the wheel was someone well known to him – A loner by the name of Gordon Gill. Since his car accident two years ago David Carmichael had been prone to seizures. He had been prescribed medication for them by his neurologist and of course common sense dictated that he should take it but he was reluctant to do so for one very good reason. During his fits he saw things – Things which mainly concerned his patients. Often he could warn them not to pursue particular courses of action which may be dangerous for or disadvantageous to them and sometimes he was able to ring the police anonymously with tips about the whereabouts of murdered children or with descriptions of suspects in long unsolved criminal cases, all of whom had been shown to him in these prophetic visions experienced during his seizures. He never had any such visions during his normal dreaming state when asleep and knew that if he took his medication he wouldn’t be able to forewarn people or provide the police with their much needed information which they now took very seriously having at first considered him a crank and even a possible suspect in some of the cases he’d told them of. When Rita, his wife asked him if he’d taken his medication he always told her he had when in fact he’d flushed it down the lavatory. She regularly counted his pills arousing her suspicions. He always counselled his patients against throwing away their medication and here he was doing just that.
Gordon Gill wasn’t liked by the villagers. He never joined in any social events; hardly spoke to people when he saw them out and never if he could avoid it, made eye contact with them. He had nothing wrong with him but was just a loner who was disconcerting to be around. He still lived with his mother and had never married. She was now getting on in years and he looked after her and was according to all who knew them domineered by her. If and when he went to the village pub he only ever had one pint, never bought a drink for any of the other regulars and refused all offers from them. He was an “off cumden” as they called outsiders and knew he was not accepted but that suited him as he thought himself above them anyway – These yokels with their rough country ways. He had spotted another “off cumden” – Another outsider like himself and wanted to get to know her and reserved for her one of his rare smiles though his eyes remained cold when he smiled.
“You seem preoccupied today David”, said Rita as they sat together over lunch. He hoped she’d not notice that he’d had another seizure in his surgery. “Yes”, he said. “I’m trying to think where I saw someone who popped into the surgery today. She looked familiar and I’m sure we met before but can’t think where”. “Well new people always stand out in this village. I don’t know of anyone moving in or visiting and Mrs. Briggs at the post office who knows all the gen hasn’t told me of anyone new being around”. He didn’t dare tell her that he’d not seen her in real life but only in his vision. He knew for sure that he must find her because if he didn’t she would die.
Mabel Thorpe had just written the appointment down in the book for a Miss Susan Savile when David came back to do afternoon surgery. It had been a fairly busy day and he was glad that there was not much longer to go. His partner was on night duty tonight and he would be able to put his feet up afterwards and perhaps watch some TV. The first patient to come in for the evening surgery was her – The tall dark girl he’d seen in his vision. “I’ve come to see you Doctor Carmichael because I am suffering with my periods. I feel so tired and think they may be making me anaemic”. He could see by her nails and the state of her eyes that indeed her assumption was right and that she was indeed anaemic. He prescribed a course of iron tablets for her and some others to try and correct her period problems and was trying to work out a way of introducing the subject of the contents of his vision to this new patient who may well think he was crackers when he heard a terrible commotion in the street. Two cars had piled into one-another and the occupants were hurt. Susan, now with her prescription in her hand, hastily beat a retreat so he could attend to the people involved and never got to hear of his concerns for her safety.
Edna Gill was sulking again. This always happened when Gordon had a date. “I’ll not be late mother. You’ve got your radio and the papers and there’s the phone if you want to ring Auntie Maggie.” “Daresay she’ll be out. Everyone has the chance to go out ‘cept me. The radio’s rubbish. I expect I’ll have an early night and just as I’m dropping off to sleep you’ll come in, slamming the door and waking me up”. Gordon turned a deaf ear. She was so busy ranting on and trying to make him feel guilty that she never noticed the knife he’d taken from the kitchen drawer. She hardly answered him as he wished her a good night and told her not to wait up.
Washed and changed, Susan climbed easily into Gordon’s blue Volvo. They went to the cinema in the nearest town which was about five miles from the village. He’d held hands with her and had hardly concentrated on any of the film. She was thinking how everyone had got him wrong. He never tried to touch her or make a pass at her and neither did he make dirty remarks about the size of her breasts or how big she was. He wasn’t very friendly and chatty like the boys she’d known in London but he was gentlemanly in his own way. He’d insisted on paying for there seats and the ice creams in the interval and although he wasn’t a great conversationalist he said enough to make the silences less awkward than they might have been. As they walked arm in arm to his car afterwards she thought that it had been a pleasant enough evening on the whole.
David was dead dog tired. However there was something more he had to do. Because of the accident he had not told Susan about his concerns for her. She was new to the village and for this reason he couldn’t remember her address. He’d have to go to the surgery and look it up on the computer. “I won’t be long Rita”, he said. “I have just remembered something I have to do”. She looked perturbed and was just about to protest when she saw his retreating back as he went through the door. He was just about to cross the main road when he felt it again – The familiar aura which heralds a seizure. He knew he had about thirty seconds to get to a place of safety which in this case was the pavement on the other side of the road. He just got up the kerb when he went down.
Susan was almost asleep when she woke with a start. “Where are you taking me? This isn’t the road which leads to my house”. “No but it leads to where I want us to go. Surely you don’t think you are going to get home without you pay the debt you owe me. Nobody has something for nothing in this world and tonight you have just had a trip to the cinema and ice cream all courtesy of yours truly who now wants something in return – The only thing a woman is fit to give so I’ll just keep driving shall I”? As they got nearer and nearer to Pennington Woods the people became fewer in number. In fact Susan could see no houses now and nobody about. She wondered how she’d make a run for it when he stopped the car and wondered still more where there’d be to run to. Suddenly he stopped, produced a rope and blindfold, tied her and bound her eyes and then began driving again. Round and round he went like some dobby horse at the fair and then he stopped – She having little idea now where she may be. Finally he dragged her, feet first through the open door of the car, hauling her along the ground like some ungainly parcel. She felt herself bumping along the ground, her head banging up and down, her legs hurting as he held them in his hands. In one deft movement he let her feet go and landed on top of her. At first he lay motionless, breathing into her ear, and then he began to bite her face, sinking his teeth into her nose and upper lip. He tore out handfuls of her hair and beat her with his fists, finally tearing off her clothes and raping her. He then asked her if she’d like him to drive her home. Making as if to help her to her feet, he sought the knife he had brought, found it and stabbed her over fifty times until the life ebbed away from her body. Calmly then, his anger spent, he turned on his heel and strode back to his car and drove home to have the tirade he’d get from his mother.
The crowd had gathered round David Carmichael as he lay on the pavement. Into his mouth they forced an object in order to stop him biting his tongue or swallowing it. This is an erroneous thing to do and just leads to damage to the teeth. The ambulance came as he went into status epilepticus – A prolonged state of fitting without regaining consciousness. By the time he was tucked up in a hospital bed Susan Savile was already dead.
John Dixon knew who to look for in connection with her death. He’d had the anonymous tip off even before her death when the “seer” as he called him had revealed to him the vision he’d had in his last fit. When the police went to see Gill it was his mother who calmly led them into the kitchen saying: “There he is. He’s all yours”. John Dixon nearly had a heart attack as he stared up at the swollen and bloated face of their suspect, hanging from a beam in the ceiling while his mother set about making them both a cup of tea.
(The end).
To Susan Savile, the little village of Pennington was paradise. A picturesque place with a few houses, church and a doctor’s surgery and beyond, the woods where she could take her Labrador walking. She’d become tired of London but not as Doctor Johnson would say tired of life. She was just sick of the rat race and the ever increasing speed of the big city which demanded you go faster and faster just to keep pace with your neighbour.
David had felt the aura just as he was closing his surgery and preparing to go on his morning rounds. Quickly he went to lie down on his couch and wait for the seizure to come and go. When he came round he jotted down the details of the dream he’d had while fitting. A dark haired girl, tall and big breasted was being driven off in a blue Volvo towards Pennington Woods and the man behind the wheel was someone well known to him – A loner by the name of Gordon Gill. Since his car accident two years ago David Carmichael had been prone to seizures. He had been prescribed medication for them by his neurologist and of course common sense dictated that he should take it but he was reluctant to do so for one very good reason. During his fits he saw things – Things which mainly concerned his patients. Often he could warn them not to pursue particular courses of action which may be dangerous for or disadvantageous to them and sometimes he was able to ring the police anonymously with tips about the whereabouts of murdered children or with descriptions of suspects in long unsolved criminal cases, all of whom had been shown to him in these prophetic visions experienced during his seizures. He never had any such visions during his normal dreaming state when asleep and knew that if he took his medication he wouldn’t be able to forewarn people or provide the police with their much needed information which they now took very seriously having at first considered him a crank and even a possible suspect in some of the cases he’d told them of. When Rita, his wife asked him if he’d taken his medication he always told her he had when in fact he’d flushed it down the lavatory. She regularly counted his pills arousing her suspicions. He always counselled his patients against throwing away their medication and here he was doing just that.
Gordon Gill wasn’t liked by the villagers. He never joined in any social events; hardly spoke to people when he saw them out and never if he could avoid it, made eye contact with them. He had nothing wrong with him but was just a loner who was disconcerting to be around. He still lived with his mother and had never married. She was now getting on in years and he looked after her and was according to all who knew them domineered by her. If and when he went to the village pub he only ever had one pint, never bought a drink for any of the other regulars and refused all offers from them. He was an “off cumden” as they called outsiders and knew he was not accepted but that suited him as he thought himself above them anyway – These yokels with their rough country ways. He had spotted another “off cumden” – Another outsider like himself and wanted to get to know her and reserved for her one of his rare smiles though his eyes remained cold when he smiled.
“You seem preoccupied today David”, said Rita as they sat together over lunch. He hoped she’d not notice that he’d had another seizure in his surgery. “Yes”, he said. “I’m trying to think where I saw someone who popped into the surgery today. She looked familiar and I’m sure we met before but can’t think where”. “Well new people always stand out in this village. I don’t know of anyone moving in or visiting and Mrs. Briggs at the post office who knows all the gen hasn’t told me of anyone new being around”. He didn’t dare tell her that he’d not seen her in real life but only in his vision. He knew for sure that he must find her because if he didn’t she would die.
Mabel Thorpe had just written the appointment down in the book for a Miss Susan Savile when David came back to do afternoon surgery. It had been a fairly busy day and he was glad that there was not much longer to go. His partner was on night duty tonight and he would be able to put his feet up afterwards and perhaps watch some TV. The first patient to come in for the evening surgery was her – The tall dark girl he’d seen in his vision. “I’ve come to see you Doctor Carmichael because I am suffering with my periods. I feel so tired and think they may be making me anaemic”. He could see by her nails and the state of her eyes that indeed her assumption was right and that she was indeed anaemic. He prescribed a course of iron tablets for her and some others to try and correct her period problems and was trying to work out a way of introducing the subject of the contents of his vision to this new patient who may well think he was crackers when he heard a terrible commotion in the street. Two cars had piled into one-another and the occupants were hurt. Susan, now with her prescription in her hand, hastily beat a retreat so he could attend to the people involved and never got to hear of his concerns for her safety.
Edna Gill was sulking again. This always happened when Gordon had a date. “I’ll not be late mother. You’ve got your radio and the papers and there’s the phone if you want to ring Auntie Maggie.” “Daresay she’ll be out. Everyone has the chance to go out ‘cept me. The radio’s rubbish. I expect I’ll have an early night and just as I’m dropping off to sleep you’ll come in, slamming the door and waking me up”. Gordon turned a deaf ear. She was so busy ranting on and trying to make him feel guilty that she never noticed the knife he’d taken from the kitchen drawer. She hardly answered him as he wished her a good night and told her not to wait up.
Washed and changed, Susan climbed easily into Gordon’s blue Volvo. They went to the cinema in the nearest town which was about five miles from the village. He’d held hands with her and had hardly concentrated on any of the film. She was thinking how everyone had got him wrong. He never tried to touch her or make a pass at her and neither did he make dirty remarks about the size of her breasts or how big she was. He wasn’t very friendly and chatty like the boys she’d known in London but he was gentlemanly in his own way. He’d insisted on paying for there seats and the ice creams in the interval and although he wasn’t a great conversationalist he said enough to make the silences less awkward than they might have been. As they walked arm in arm to his car afterwards she thought that it had been a pleasant enough evening on the whole.
David was dead dog tired. However there was something more he had to do. Because of the accident he had not told Susan about his concerns for her. She was new to the village and for this reason he couldn’t remember her address. He’d have to go to the surgery and look it up on the computer. “I won’t be long Rita”, he said. “I have just remembered something I have to do”. She looked perturbed and was just about to protest when she saw his retreating back as he went through the door. He was just about to cross the main road when he felt it again – The familiar aura which heralds a seizure. He knew he had about thirty seconds to get to a place of safety which in this case was the pavement on the other side of the road. He just got up the kerb when he went down.
Susan was almost asleep when she woke with a start. “Where are you taking me? This isn’t the road which leads to my house”. “No but it leads to where I want us to go. Surely you don’t think you are going to get home without you pay the debt you owe me. Nobody has something for nothing in this world and tonight you have just had a trip to the cinema and ice cream all courtesy of yours truly who now wants something in return – The only thing a woman is fit to give so I’ll just keep driving shall I”? As they got nearer and nearer to Pennington Woods the people became fewer in number. In fact Susan could see no houses now and nobody about. She wondered how she’d make a run for it when he stopped the car and wondered still more where there’d be to run to. Suddenly he stopped, produced a rope and blindfold, tied her and bound her eyes and then began driving again. Round and round he went like some dobby horse at the fair and then he stopped – She having little idea now where she may be. Finally he dragged her, feet first through the open door of the car, hauling her along the ground like some ungainly parcel. She felt herself bumping along the ground, her head banging up and down, her legs hurting as he held them in his hands. In one deft movement he let her feet go and landed on top of her. At first he lay motionless, breathing into her ear, and then he began to bite her face, sinking his teeth into her nose and upper lip. He tore out handfuls of her hair and beat her with his fists, finally tearing off her clothes and raping her. He then asked her if she’d like him to drive her home. Making as if to help her to her feet, he sought the knife he had brought, found it and stabbed her over fifty times until the life ebbed away from her body. Calmly then, his anger spent, he turned on his heel and strode back to his car and drove home to have the tirade he’d get from his mother.
The crowd had gathered round David Carmichael as he lay on the pavement. Into his mouth they forced an object in order to stop him biting his tongue or swallowing it. This is an erroneous thing to do and just leads to damage to the teeth. The ambulance came as he went into status epilepticus – A prolonged state of fitting without regaining consciousness. By the time he was tucked up in a hospital bed Susan Savile was already dead.
John Dixon knew who to look for in connection with her death. He’d had the anonymous tip off even before her death when the “seer” as he called him had revealed to him the vision he’d had in his last fit. When the police went to see Gill it was his mother who calmly led them into the kitchen saying: “There he is. He’s all yours”. John Dixon nearly had a heart attack as he stared up at the swollen and bloated face of their suspect, hanging from a beam in the ceiling while his mother set about making them both a cup of tea.
(The end).
FEET OF CLAY.
It would be easy for me to forget how normal I am because either people treat me as if I am so very special or very different from themselves.
In order to remind me all I have to do is to think back to my school days and a girl whom I’ll call Jill and remember the day she was picked on by a group of girls including me.
I know now why people bully. I knew then that to do so was wrong. I also knew however that, though I was not top of the class it was recognised that I was reasonably bright even though I was also considered to be developmentally way behind other children even blind ones. There were other things I realised too, one of which was that my Catholic upbringing, together with my affection for my Nan and wish not to incur her disapproval meant I was unwilling to experiment sexually. This made me least likely to be the chosen girlfriend of any boy. For this reason I was self conscious, clumsy and awkward and while I fully understood, unlike one girl, that babies weren’t created as a result of a boy sticking his big toe in a girl’s belly button, I certainly didn’t know what they do today at far too young an age or even what they knew then as teenagers. My need to raise my profile with my peers when joke cracking didn’t work meant I willingly joined a group of other girls who for a reason I can’t recall now picked on poor Jill.
Jill had learning difficulties, residual sight and a placid temperament and I’d always got on with her till then. However this day, we broke her glasses which rendered her totally blind; damaged her radio; scratched her; hit her and made her cry. Eventually a teacher with a strong Liverpool accent, who stank of perfume and cats, appeared and told us off. She dispersed the group and comforted Jill but as I was slinking away she called out:
“And you, June x, I’m surprised at you”!
I was surprised at me as well. I realised then what I also know now and that is that I am thoroughly normal. Like everyone I like to be liked and feel insecure. I worry about what others think and about hurting them as I’ve said before and feel isolated and scarred by rejection. What I also learned then was that without a sound or an injury being caused to my body, I had fallen with a loud thud from the pedestal my grandmother had put me on. I didn’t dare go home and tell her what I’d done to Jill. Yes. Her adored blind granddaughter had feet of clay after all.
Maybe the next day or soon afterwards I sought Jill out and asked her forgiveness and whether I could once more be her friend. Without a moment’s hesitation and a magnanimity of spirit she readily agreed. Where were the questions like:
“Why did you join in”?
Or:
“How could you have? You were meant to be my friend”.
Where were the accusations of betrayal of trust and the wariness in case I should do it again and, something I didn’t think of at the time, where were Jill’s glasses?
I knew then that the fact that we all do wrong things is inescapable and part of the human condition but that does not mean we are just to accept it and not feel remorse for it. Instead we should strive all the harder to care for others worse off than ourselves and stand up for the weak and disadvantaged. It may cost us dear in terms of popularity and doing the right thing will never be easy but just because our feet of clay may cause us to slip in the mud, that’s no excuse for keeping our bottoms firmly on the fence.
I’d like to think that, being more intelligent than poor Jill, I have learned to cultivate the art of forgiveness and have honed it as finely as hers was but I’m afraid I haven’t. There are some people whose conduct I can’t forgive, either for what they’ve done to me or to those I know of but don’t know personally. Jill’s forgiving nature is every bit as valuable or perhaps more so than my intelligence. I only hope the world has not further wronged her and scarred it and washed it all away. I also hope that not only can I better learn to follow her example but also that I may have the moral strength never again to court popularity at the expense of the weak and vulnerable. One thing I know for sure is that it is much better to be respected by everyone than liked by everyone which may go some way to explaining why I’m so outspoken and intolerant of those who hurt the disadvantaged or exploit them.
In order to remind me all I have to do is to think back to my school days and a girl whom I’ll call Jill and remember the day she was picked on by a group of girls including me.
I know now why people bully. I knew then that to do so was wrong. I also knew however that, though I was not top of the class it was recognised that I was reasonably bright even though I was also considered to be developmentally way behind other children even blind ones. There were other things I realised too, one of which was that my Catholic upbringing, together with my affection for my Nan and wish not to incur her disapproval meant I was unwilling to experiment sexually. This made me least likely to be the chosen girlfriend of any boy. For this reason I was self conscious, clumsy and awkward and while I fully understood, unlike one girl, that babies weren’t created as a result of a boy sticking his big toe in a girl’s belly button, I certainly didn’t know what they do today at far too young an age or even what they knew then as teenagers. My need to raise my profile with my peers when joke cracking didn’t work meant I willingly joined a group of other girls who for a reason I can’t recall now picked on poor Jill.
Jill had learning difficulties, residual sight and a placid temperament and I’d always got on with her till then. However this day, we broke her glasses which rendered her totally blind; damaged her radio; scratched her; hit her and made her cry. Eventually a teacher with a strong Liverpool accent, who stank of perfume and cats, appeared and told us off. She dispersed the group and comforted Jill but as I was slinking away she called out:
“And you, June x, I’m surprised at you”!
I was surprised at me as well. I realised then what I also know now and that is that I am thoroughly normal. Like everyone I like to be liked and feel insecure. I worry about what others think and about hurting them as I’ve said before and feel isolated and scarred by rejection. What I also learned then was that without a sound or an injury being caused to my body, I had fallen with a loud thud from the pedestal my grandmother had put me on. I didn’t dare go home and tell her what I’d done to Jill. Yes. Her adored blind granddaughter had feet of clay after all.
Maybe the next day or soon afterwards I sought Jill out and asked her forgiveness and whether I could once more be her friend. Without a moment’s hesitation and a magnanimity of spirit she readily agreed. Where were the questions like:
“Why did you join in”?
Or:
“How could you have? You were meant to be my friend”.
Where were the accusations of betrayal of trust and the wariness in case I should do it again and, something I didn’t think of at the time, where were Jill’s glasses?
I knew then that the fact that we all do wrong things is inescapable and part of the human condition but that does not mean we are just to accept it and not feel remorse for it. Instead we should strive all the harder to care for others worse off than ourselves and stand up for the weak and disadvantaged. It may cost us dear in terms of popularity and doing the right thing will never be easy but just because our feet of clay may cause us to slip in the mud, that’s no excuse for keeping our bottoms firmly on the fence.
I’d like to think that, being more intelligent than poor Jill, I have learned to cultivate the art of forgiveness and have honed it as finely as hers was but I’m afraid I haven’t. There are some people whose conduct I can’t forgive, either for what they’ve done to me or to those I know of but don’t know personally. Jill’s forgiving nature is every bit as valuable or perhaps more so than my intelligence. I only hope the world has not further wronged her and scarred it and washed it all away. I also hope that not only can I better learn to follow her example but also that I may have the moral strength never again to court popularity at the expense of the weak and vulnerable. One thing I know for sure is that it is much better to be respected by everyone than liked by everyone which may go some way to explaining why I’m so outspoken and intolerant of those who hurt the disadvantaged or exploit them.
Friday, October 24, 2008
THESE ARE FOR YOU.
I shall always remember your last act of kindness. It was on the day you left me. I had been crying as I packed your things but you remained in the same placid and gentle mood as always. You had your breakfast and sat by your bags afterwards, trying in vain to examine their contents though I knew you were sure what lay within them. Salty tears mingled with the washing-up water as I cleared away the breakfast things. I chatted to you about inconsequential things as usual, hoping that I’d hear soon about how you were getting on. As usual, just like an overly attached child you followed me from place to place so as not to miss a word or a single falling tear.
You’d known for ages I wasn’t well. I wasn’t seriously ill but rather very inconvenienced. I sat about a lot nowadays and like many in such a position, began to reminisce and go back in time to happier times. At first I thought of the wedding cake I’d cut so many years ago and went back even further to the times when I was a child who played her time away on swings and see-saws till the fat boy who gave me the bumps scared me so much I refused to go on it with him any longer even though he’d promised not to do it again. I thought of the big chocolates which you can no longer get, with the rims round their edges. They came in cardboard tubes with silver foil wrapped round each one. I thought of my grandmother teaching me how to distinguish my coins – One from another and the “money” game we used to play. Maybe it was then that you came silently to my side and put your head on my knee and I realised that today was the day when you would be going on a journey of your own and without me for the first time in many years. I knew how mothers felt at school gates as they bade their children “farewell” and understood why it was that they cried. I put on the radio in order to distract me from my thoughts but of course it didn’t. I hardly remember anything about what the announcer said or the music played. With the callousness of the burning sun in the desert, the time ticked on relentlessly, punctuating the day with the half-hourly announcements made by my clever clock. I felt the nearness of you as your warmth mingled with mine as I knelt on the floor, your body pressed closely to mine and thought how I’d sometimes said a similar “goodbye” to others I’d loved so long ago. Their scents mingled with yours as memory shuffled the cards in the pack of my experiences and jumbled them up together, fanning them out in a different order now. Your sigh, gentle as any lover’s from the past calmed my racing brain as I wondered how I’d cope with the coming days and months without you and when and even if you may come home. Panic seized me as I wondered too what I would do if time ran out before this could be possible as it may do if I took too long to heal. The ache of loss – Of this and all the others I have suffered – Returned and then intensified anew until it became a pain almost beyond endurance.
The bell rang then. Excitedly you greeted our expected visitor. I offered him tea, done not only as this is the gesture of a good hostess but also so as to delay our time for parting. Too full for words I simply hadn’t the strength to wave my hand as you departed. Trusting as a child, how easily you went with him to his car. I bet you looked out of the window at all the passers-by. I bet you jumped out excitedly when you reached your destination. I knew whoever would take care of you would love you for how could they do otherwise? Then I remembered the long slow haul I had ahead of me to recover enough to have you back again and it was then that I remembered the little package you dropped at my feet on the morning that you left. When I opened it – Carefully in case I damaged the contents – I found within a pair of specially knitted mittens with tiny hard objects sewn into the thumbs and almost heard you saying in a series of barks which I had come to understand:
“These are for you. Be careful when you put them on”.
For peeping out through tiny knitted holes in each thumb were tiny little lenses.
“You’re going to need those while I’m away”.
I put them on and held my thumbs up to the world and, hey presto! What do you think happened? I know you’ll not believe me when you finally come home but I could actually open my hands and see!
You’d known for ages I wasn’t well. I wasn’t seriously ill but rather very inconvenienced. I sat about a lot nowadays and like many in such a position, began to reminisce and go back in time to happier times. At first I thought of the wedding cake I’d cut so many years ago and went back even further to the times when I was a child who played her time away on swings and see-saws till the fat boy who gave me the bumps scared me so much I refused to go on it with him any longer even though he’d promised not to do it again. I thought of the big chocolates which you can no longer get, with the rims round their edges. They came in cardboard tubes with silver foil wrapped round each one. I thought of my grandmother teaching me how to distinguish my coins – One from another and the “money” game we used to play. Maybe it was then that you came silently to my side and put your head on my knee and I realised that today was the day when you would be going on a journey of your own and without me for the first time in many years. I knew how mothers felt at school gates as they bade their children “farewell” and understood why it was that they cried. I put on the radio in order to distract me from my thoughts but of course it didn’t. I hardly remember anything about what the announcer said or the music played. With the callousness of the burning sun in the desert, the time ticked on relentlessly, punctuating the day with the half-hourly announcements made by my clever clock. I felt the nearness of you as your warmth mingled with mine as I knelt on the floor, your body pressed closely to mine and thought how I’d sometimes said a similar “goodbye” to others I’d loved so long ago. Their scents mingled with yours as memory shuffled the cards in the pack of my experiences and jumbled them up together, fanning them out in a different order now. Your sigh, gentle as any lover’s from the past calmed my racing brain as I wondered how I’d cope with the coming days and months without you and when and even if you may come home. Panic seized me as I wondered too what I would do if time ran out before this could be possible as it may do if I took too long to heal. The ache of loss – Of this and all the others I have suffered – Returned and then intensified anew until it became a pain almost beyond endurance.
The bell rang then. Excitedly you greeted our expected visitor. I offered him tea, done not only as this is the gesture of a good hostess but also so as to delay our time for parting. Too full for words I simply hadn’t the strength to wave my hand as you departed. Trusting as a child, how easily you went with him to his car. I bet you looked out of the window at all the passers-by. I bet you jumped out excitedly when you reached your destination. I knew whoever would take care of you would love you for how could they do otherwise? Then I remembered the long slow haul I had ahead of me to recover enough to have you back again and it was then that I remembered the little package you dropped at my feet on the morning that you left. When I opened it – Carefully in case I damaged the contents – I found within a pair of specially knitted mittens with tiny hard objects sewn into the thumbs and almost heard you saying in a series of barks which I had come to understand:
“These are for you. Be careful when you put them on”.
For peeping out through tiny knitted holes in each thumb were tiny little lenses.
“You’re going to need those while I’m away”.
I put them on and held my thumbs up to the world and, hey presto! What do you think happened? I know you’ll not believe me when you finally come home but I could actually open my hands and see!
MARJORIE DORE.
She kept telling me that she had another friend – A little girl just like her that she could play with but I didn’t believe her. Then I saw them together and my heart ached.
“Look mummy! There she is! Over there by the window. We’ve been talking about dolls and things. She said she had lots of them when she was here”. “Yes dear. Now eat your tea. Each time you talk instead of eat you’re missing a mouthful”. “No I’m not! I’m just postponing it that’s all”. “Smart Alec! Just eat will you”. As if in a dream Natalie continued eating. Her eyes were on the garden as she did so. First she stared at her swing and then at the old apple tree as if she saw something I did not. “Stop dreaming or you’ll not have finished your meal by the time daddy comes home. He promised to take you to the park to make the most of the light summer night have you forgotten”? “No”, she said. I was amazed. For the first time my daughter had answered me in just one word. She was still staring out of the window when she started humming the nursery rhyme again about Marjorie Dore and Johny only earning a penny a day. She said that was when it first started. She was absent-mindedly humming the rhyme on her swing when the little girl first appeared. Dressed in old fashioned clothes, she had long hair which was done up in a bun. Natalie said she talked to her, laughed with and played games with her. The only trouble is I have never seen her. At first I just dismissed her tale as the product of an over-active imagination. I knew that in many ways Natalie was a lonely little girl. She wanted a little brother or sister but I could have no more children due to the complications I suffered at her birth. Bill said that I wasn’t to worry, that she’d grow out of it, but it’s three years now since she first started to see Marjorie. I don’t know what to do. I told Bill that she ought to see a child psychologist since it’s interfering with her education. The other children make fun of her because they’ve never seen this child either and think she’s odd. She hardly plays with them now, preferring the company of a non-existent child that nobody but she can see. She doesn’t accept that Marjorie isn’t real and I don’t accept that she could be a ghost. I’m becoming irritated by the whole thing. I can even hear Natalie laughing with this non-existent child in bed at night – Laughing and talking with her and my friends are beginning to label me as: “The mother of that funny kid”. It’s becoming embarrassing. “I know mummy doesn’t believe in you. If you’d only come to her, be real to her and talk to her. She’d have to believe in you then and she would know at last that I’m not making you up. Then we could play together openly. Why won’t you come to her, Marjorie? Why?” “I will, Natalie. When you come through the narrow gate I will. Then they’ll see us together but not now – Not yet.” “Where is the narrow gate and where does it lead to”? Asked Natalie. “Never mind that now. You just be happy while you can”. “I can’t be truly, truly happy because people don’t believe that you’re my friend and that you are real”. Suddenly, as Natalie looked up she noticed that Marjorie was gone. Whenever she was lonely, sad or in trouble, all she had to do was sing the rhyme about Marjorie Dore and she would appear to her again and comfort her. It always worked and never failed.
Bill took Natalie to the park where she happily played on the swings and the slide. She did not dare sing the rhyme in case her little friend would come and begin a conversation with her. Her father would then ask why she was smiling and she would tell him about Marjorie’s presence and this would invoke his anger. Like her mother he was now becoming irritated by the presence of her invisible friend.
For several weeks she neither saw nor heard the other child. She neither sang or thought of the rhyme and was beginning to think her little companion had forsaken her. Then one night she had a dream. Marjorie came and led her by the hand up a long dark ladder which was narrow and steep. At the top was a tiny door through which only the children pass. Beyond was a huge expanse of green with thousands and thousands of flowers. Then she woke with a start. She thought she heard Marjorie saying that this was heaven but woke with a jolt before she could be sure. In her fright she screamed and was soon soothed by her mother. At breakfast she explained that she’d seen heaven in a dream and was scolded for being wicked and talking of such things so never mentioned her dream again.
“Hullo Natalie, it’s been ages hasn’t it”? “Oh Marjorie! Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you”. “I have been making a place for you. I have been preparing the way so you can come and we can be sisters forever”. “But we’re sisters now”, cried Natalie in alarm. “No. Now we are only friends and it is draining my strength keep coming through to your side of the gate. For us to be real sisters you have to come to me through my side of the gate. You have to live here with me forever”. Natalie looked puzzled. “You mean never, never, never to return? You mean I must come and live in heaven?” “Yes that’s right”. “But that means I will die”. Natalie almost became hysterical as the realisation that she would never grow up to be a woman dawned on her. “No you won’t. I’m not dead am I? Only the body which is a casing which holds the soul dies and the soul lives forever and ever and ever”. “Is it frightening”? Natalie enquired timidly. “No not really. Anyway when you’ve been here for a bit you will have forgotten what it felt like. I can’t remember what it was like now”. The child then told her not to worry and that she must celebrate her tenth birthday before coming through the gate, just as Marjorie had done. For some months they never talked and once more Natalie almost forgot about her again, thinking that she’d abandoned her.
It was after Natalie died of meningitis that I was first to see them playing on the swing in the garden. At first the sight distressed me until I met someone who knew the history of the house in which we lived. Apparently a couple with one little girl had lived there and Just like us, the mother could have no more children but the child always longed, as Natalie had, for a brother or sister. The child was killed at a tragically young age after having prayed hard for the brother or sister that she was never to have. The story goes that once every so often she appears to another child in the village – Usually another little girl – The sightings last for about three years, after which time the child who has seen her dies.
I cannot say whether Natalie was the only child to have seen Marjorie, whether the story has been exaggerated over time or even whether any of it is true. What I can say is that I get enormous comfort from seeing them together, that I have longed for more than one daughter all my life and now in a funny sort of way I feel as if I have two and that now all I have to do is to hum the nursery rhyme about Marjorie Dore and there they are, as real as any living person is, standing at my side. I know one more thing too and that is as a result of these occurrences I have completely lost my fear of death.
“Look mummy! There she is! Over there by the window. We’ve been talking about dolls and things. She said she had lots of them when she was here”. “Yes dear. Now eat your tea. Each time you talk instead of eat you’re missing a mouthful”. “No I’m not! I’m just postponing it that’s all”. “Smart Alec! Just eat will you”. As if in a dream Natalie continued eating. Her eyes were on the garden as she did so. First she stared at her swing and then at the old apple tree as if she saw something I did not. “Stop dreaming or you’ll not have finished your meal by the time daddy comes home. He promised to take you to the park to make the most of the light summer night have you forgotten”? “No”, she said. I was amazed. For the first time my daughter had answered me in just one word. She was still staring out of the window when she started humming the nursery rhyme again about Marjorie Dore and Johny only earning a penny a day. She said that was when it first started. She was absent-mindedly humming the rhyme on her swing when the little girl first appeared. Dressed in old fashioned clothes, she had long hair which was done up in a bun. Natalie said she talked to her, laughed with and played games with her. The only trouble is I have never seen her. At first I just dismissed her tale as the product of an over-active imagination. I knew that in many ways Natalie was a lonely little girl. She wanted a little brother or sister but I could have no more children due to the complications I suffered at her birth. Bill said that I wasn’t to worry, that she’d grow out of it, but it’s three years now since she first started to see Marjorie. I don’t know what to do. I told Bill that she ought to see a child psychologist since it’s interfering with her education. The other children make fun of her because they’ve never seen this child either and think she’s odd. She hardly plays with them now, preferring the company of a non-existent child that nobody but she can see. She doesn’t accept that Marjorie isn’t real and I don’t accept that she could be a ghost. I’m becoming irritated by the whole thing. I can even hear Natalie laughing with this non-existent child in bed at night – Laughing and talking with her and my friends are beginning to label me as: “The mother of that funny kid”. It’s becoming embarrassing. “I know mummy doesn’t believe in you. If you’d only come to her, be real to her and talk to her. She’d have to believe in you then and she would know at last that I’m not making you up. Then we could play together openly. Why won’t you come to her, Marjorie? Why?” “I will, Natalie. When you come through the narrow gate I will. Then they’ll see us together but not now – Not yet.” “Where is the narrow gate and where does it lead to”? Asked Natalie. “Never mind that now. You just be happy while you can”. “I can’t be truly, truly happy because people don’t believe that you’re my friend and that you are real”. Suddenly, as Natalie looked up she noticed that Marjorie was gone. Whenever she was lonely, sad or in trouble, all she had to do was sing the rhyme about Marjorie Dore and she would appear to her again and comfort her. It always worked and never failed.
Bill took Natalie to the park where she happily played on the swings and the slide. She did not dare sing the rhyme in case her little friend would come and begin a conversation with her. Her father would then ask why she was smiling and she would tell him about Marjorie’s presence and this would invoke his anger. Like her mother he was now becoming irritated by the presence of her invisible friend.
For several weeks she neither saw nor heard the other child. She neither sang or thought of the rhyme and was beginning to think her little companion had forsaken her. Then one night she had a dream. Marjorie came and led her by the hand up a long dark ladder which was narrow and steep. At the top was a tiny door through which only the children pass. Beyond was a huge expanse of green with thousands and thousands of flowers. Then she woke with a start. She thought she heard Marjorie saying that this was heaven but woke with a jolt before she could be sure. In her fright she screamed and was soon soothed by her mother. At breakfast she explained that she’d seen heaven in a dream and was scolded for being wicked and talking of such things so never mentioned her dream again.
“Hullo Natalie, it’s been ages hasn’t it”? “Oh Marjorie! Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you”. “I have been making a place for you. I have been preparing the way so you can come and we can be sisters forever”. “But we’re sisters now”, cried Natalie in alarm. “No. Now we are only friends and it is draining my strength keep coming through to your side of the gate. For us to be real sisters you have to come to me through my side of the gate. You have to live here with me forever”. Natalie looked puzzled. “You mean never, never, never to return? You mean I must come and live in heaven?” “Yes that’s right”. “But that means I will die”. Natalie almost became hysterical as the realisation that she would never grow up to be a woman dawned on her. “No you won’t. I’m not dead am I? Only the body which is a casing which holds the soul dies and the soul lives forever and ever and ever”. “Is it frightening”? Natalie enquired timidly. “No not really. Anyway when you’ve been here for a bit you will have forgotten what it felt like. I can’t remember what it was like now”. The child then told her not to worry and that she must celebrate her tenth birthday before coming through the gate, just as Marjorie had done. For some months they never talked and once more Natalie almost forgot about her again, thinking that she’d abandoned her.
It was after Natalie died of meningitis that I was first to see them playing on the swing in the garden. At first the sight distressed me until I met someone who knew the history of the house in which we lived. Apparently a couple with one little girl had lived there and Just like us, the mother could have no more children but the child always longed, as Natalie had, for a brother or sister. The child was killed at a tragically young age after having prayed hard for the brother or sister that she was never to have. The story goes that once every so often she appears to another child in the village – Usually another little girl – The sightings last for about three years, after which time the child who has seen her dies.
I cannot say whether Natalie was the only child to have seen Marjorie, whether the story has been exaggerated over time or even whether any of it is true. What I can say is that I get enormous comfort from seeing them together, that I have longed for more than one daughter all my life and now in a funny sort of way I feel as if I have two and that now all I have to do is to hum the nursery rhyme about Marjorie Dore and there they are, as real as any living person is, standing at my side. I know one more thing too and that is as a result of these occurrences I have completely lost my fear of death.
WAITING FOR A TRAIN.
There had been no railway line or station at Upper Parkway for many years so why were three little children waiting for a train?
Jill Somers had told her three little children, Max Wendy and Ross to go out and get some fresh air. They were continuously bickering over who was going to choose the t.v. programmes, whose toys each was to play with and who should be the one to walk the dog. She thought that if they were to go and get some air not only would they run off their excess energy but also may make them more amenable to reason and less argumentative.
I had been born in Upper Parkway and longed to go back there to live. When I met Richard who worked on the underground I hoped he’d like to go there too. He did go there but not for long and not often. He showed the greatest reluctance to even think about ever living there. I couldn’t understand this since I knew it had beautiful scenery even though I couldn’t see it. Richard and I met on the underground. Being blind I have to have help sometimes when making my transition from one train to the other. He often helped me to do this and stood there holding my hand as we waited for my train to arrive. I hoped he’d one day ask me out, which he did eventually and rather liked him holding my hand. I no longer have to hope for the signal failure I used to hope for when we were waiting for my train, not now that we are married.
“Let’s play that game with the pennies”, said Wendy who had saved up her old pennies in order to throw them onto the tracks so they could be run over by the express. Ever the tomboy she was the one who loved adventure even when it was the dangerous and foolhardy sort. She had the attention span of a flea and hopped about like one too – Hopped around when she walked and hopped from one subject to another when she talked. The boys would trail after her and found it easier to do as she suggested when it came to getting into mischief. Now she had thrown all her pennies onto the track and watched the trains run over her pre decimal coins which were big and suited the purpose very well and she was now getting bored.
Duncan Jones was also bored. He’d been given another sedative by the Matron of his Nursing Home. He always referred to her as the Ward Sister in his more lucid moments but his more lucid moments were now getting less frequent as he was entering another stage of dementia. What was all too clear were the earlier days of his life – His childhood and time spent as a train driver. When he saw the vision of the tragedy in which he was an unwilling participant he became agitated and it was then that he needed the sedatives. These scenes had not dulled over the years and he could not stop them recurring over the decades to follow them first taking place. Before the onset of his illness he longed for release from these scenes – Longed for the end to the torment which played and replayed over and over and over again in his mind. Now even the dementia wasn’t blotting them out – Not yet at any rate.
Jill had given the children a basket and suggested to them that they might like to go blackberrying. Ross would soon taste his mother’s blackberry jam which he adored and even Max was now getting a bit bored with playing down by the railway line. They’d clapped and shouted under the bridge so they could hear the echo as they did so and yesterday they had stood on the bridge and thrown big stones onto the cars below, now they thought they all should do something sensible. Wendy however liked throwing things onto the line and playing dangerous games with the trains. She grabbed the basket from Max and threw it onto the line approximately three minutes before the express was due. The seconds felt like hours as they waited for the approach of the train. Then they heard the whistle, after that they felt the rush of air and the thunderous noise of the metalic lion as it roared into the station. Suddenly thinking of their mothers wrath at the loss of the basket which would soon be a mangled mess, Wendy jumped out in front of the train to retrieve it. She slipped and fell, reaching out a hand to save herself and connecting with the live rail. She died in an instant. In one single movement of united sibling love and protectiveness, her brothers leapt forward to try and drag her clear, not quite understanding at ages seven and five that it was already too late to save her. The train rattled into the station and rolled straight over them all mangling beyond recognition all three of their little bodies. The driver saw them and tried to apply his brakes but the time lag wasn’t enough to stop the train and spare their lives and stop their deaths and horrific injuries.
As we stood in the bar of the Parkway Arms, having a drink after visiting Richard’s sister, I distinctly heard the sound of a train whistle. Richard’s face was ashen so they told me as his eyes were fixed on the wall to our right. Out of the wall and across our path hurtled the 11.45 Parkway to London Express. It came out of the right-hand wall, straight out in front of us, running over three little bodies and a basket in the process, and disappeared into the left-hand wall. At last I understood Richard’s reluctance to return to Upper Parkway. The poor little children who died were his niece and nephews and the person he’d been to see was his only sister Jill.
Jill Somers had told her three little children, Max Wendy and Ross to go out and get some fresh air. They were continuously bickering over who was going to choose the t.v. programmes, whose toys each was to play with and who should be the one to walk the dog. She thought that if they were to go and get some air not only would they run off their excess energy but also may make them more amenable to reason and less argumentative.
I had been born in Upper Parkway and longed to go back there to live. When I met Richard who worked on the underground I hoped he’d like to go there too. He did go there but not for long and not often. He showed the greatest reluctance to even think about ever living there. I couldn’t understand this since I knew it had beautiful scenery even though I couldn’t see it. Richard and I met on the underground. Being blind I have to have help sometimes when making my transition from one train to the other. He often helped me to do this and stood there holding my hand as we waited for my train to arrive. I hoped he’d one day ask me out, which he did eventually and rather liked him holding my hand. I no longer have to hope for the signal failure I used to hope for when we were waiting for my train, not now that we are married.
“Let’s play that game with the pennies”, said Wendy who had saved up her old pennies in order to throw them onto the tracks so they could be run over by the express. Ever the tomboy she was the one who loved adventure even when it was the dangerous and foolhardy sort. She had the attention span of a flea and hopped about like one too – Hopped around when she walked and hopped from one subject to another when she talked. The boys would trail after her and found it easier to do as she suggested when it came to getting into mischief. Now she had thrown all her pennies onto the track and watched the trains run over her pre decimal coins which were big and suited the purpose very well and she was now getting bored.
Duncan Jones was also bored. He’d been given another sedative by the Matron of his Nursing Home. He always referred to her as the Ward Sister in his more lucid moments but his more lucid moments were now getting less frequent as he was entering another stage of dementia. What was all too clear were the earlier days of his life – His childhood and time spent as a train driver. When he saw the vision of the tragedy in which he was an unwilling participant he became agitated and it was then that he needed the sedatives. These scenes had not dulled over the years and he could not stop them recurring over the decades to follow them first taking place. Before the onset of his illness he longed for release from these scenes – Longed for the end to the torment which played and replayed over and over and over again in his mind. Now even the dementia wasn’t blotting them out – Not yet at any rate.
Jill had given the children a basket and suggested to them that they might like to go blackberrying. Ross would soon taste his mother’s blackberry jam which he adored and even Max was now getting a bit bored with playing down by the railway line. They’d clapped and shouted under the bridge so they could hear the echo as they did so and yesterday they had stood on the bridge and thrown big stones onto the cars below, now they thought they all should do something sensible. Wendy however liked throwing things onto the line and playing dangerous games with the trains. She grabbed the basket from Max and threw it onto the line approximately three minutes before the express was due. The seconds felt like hours as they waited for the approach of the train. Then they heard the whistle, after that they felt the rush of air and the thunderous noise of the metalic lion as it roared into the station. Suddenly thinking of their mothers wrath at the loss of the basket which would soon be a mangled mess, Wendy jumped out in front of the train to retrieve it. She slipped and fell, reaching out a hand to save herself and connecting with the live rail. She died in an instant. In one single movement of united sibling love and protectiveness, her brothers leapt forward to try and drag her clear, not quite understanding at ages seven and five that it was already too late to save her. The train rattled into the station and rolled straight over them all mangling beyond recognition all three of their little bodies. The driver saw them and tried to apply his brakes but the time lag wasn’t enough to stop the train and spare their lives and stop their deaths and horrific injuries.
As we stood in the bar of the Parkway Arms, having a drink after visiting Richard’s sister, I distinctly heard the sound of a train whistle. Richard’s face was ashen so they told me as his eyes were fixed on the wall to our right. Out of the wall and across our path hurtled the 11.45 Parkway to London Express. It came out of the right-hand wall, straight out in front of us, running over three little bodies and a basket in the process, and disappeared into the left-hand wall. At last I understood Richard’s reluctance to return to Upper Parkway. The poor little children who died were his niece and nephews and the person he’d been to see was his only sister Jill.
THE LONG CASE CLOCK
The hands on the long case clock in the hall governed Martin’s life. In the end they brought him great sorrow.
As a small boy Martin was sickly. Although it’s true to say his illnesses were for the most part genuine it’s also true to say that many of them were either exaggerated or invented. He didn’t consciously make up illnesses in order to get out of going to school or some game he didn’t want to enter into with his friends but rather he thought he had them because that’s what his mother thought and encouraged him to believe.
Martin had a desperate need to adhere to routines. All of us like to stick as far as possible to our set ways of doing things but with him it was a matter of obsessional rather than normal behaviour. He hated being late for anything. His mother had told him that if he was on time he was showing politeness and that if he were early for something he was wasting his time but if he were late he was wasting the time of the person who was expecting him which amounted to rudeness. As he aged this maxim became his rigid rule of thumb which was to be obeyed without question or exception. He would glance at the clock in the hall which told him accurately what the time was or at one of the many other time pieces either worn about his person or dotted about his home. Then his problems multiplied and transformed themselves from obsessions with time and punctuality into checking that the doors were locked, windows closed and set number of paces paced between one room and another before he could leave the house. At first he thought that his wife Bryony had not noticed but she was under no illusions that his problems were mounting and amounting to the beginnings of a serious illness for which he would need help and that he would be more disabled without it than as a result of any other illness real or imagined which he may have had throughout his past life.
When she tried to talk to him about all this he denied there was a problem as many people from gamblers to alcoholics invariably do. Then she nagged him, telling him he ought to see a doctor. He eventually found that she had called him in, ostensibly to see one of their two children but really to have a look at him. “How are things with you these days”? Doctor Levy enquired. “Fine”, Martin said as he polished his glasses for the umpteenth time and excused himself to wash his hands after picking a paper clip up from the floor. The doctor was definitely hearing alarm bells in his head. He thought that Martin should see Doctor Klein, a psychiatrist. In the end and with much persuasion he agreed to do so.
There was much unravelling of his past and the feelings he had towards his mother’s over protectiveness and guilt at not taking his father’s symptoms seriously which in her eyes meant he died because she failed to see that he was undergoing a coronary. There was much talk of all the bullying he’d suffered at school because he was sensitive and delicate and didn’t like rough games or came to school wrapped up “Like a girl” as the boys put it. There was even more talk of all the imagined and real illnesses that Martin thought himself prey to and eventually an admission that, yes he did have a problem with time, obsessional behaviour and strict adherence to routine and terrible feelings of guilt when he let other people down or fell short of either their imagined or real or his real standards which were impossibly high. He attended group therapy sessions and was exposed to small amounts of his feared things and situations. For instance he was made to arrive late for an appointment with his psychiatrist – Just a matter of ten minutes or so – Also he was helped to reduce the number of checks he carried out at home on windows and doors and eventually life became more manageable which meant a better atmosphere at home and a more smoothly running household.
George, aged eleven had a vivid imagination. He told his mother that the long case clock in the hall was being silly and playing tricks. “Well it is very old now”, Bryony said to him. “Yeah I suppose it is. It even smells of the Winter Green oil that Nan used to use”. “Well there you are then”! His mother replied, reminding the child that she had died when he was six. The ticking of this clock, though comforting to many visitors to the house, was a source of irritation to Bryony who didn’t like it one little bit. She had planned to get rid of it and was wondering how she could broach the subject to her husband. She bought a bottle of wine and cooked a lovely supper for them all; even the children were allowed to stay up when she planned to introduce the possibility of getting rid of the clock. She knew there was less likely to be a scene if they were there. In the end, the second glass of wine having given her courage, she came straight out with it: “Martin, I think we ought to rid ourselves of that monstrosity in the hall. It is obvious you are now much better and I feel it is holding you back or at least it could do. I know it was your mum’s and that it is probably very valuable as an heirloom but health is more important than money and if you feel that bad about making money out of selling a treasured possession of your dead mother’s we can give the money to charity”. There she’d said it! All in one breath it came out like a cork from a bottle. He looked aghast at her and almost became angry but restrained himself, remembering George and Peter’s presence. “No dear. The clock stays. It sets the hall off a treat and looks grand. Besides as you say I’m a lot better now and just as some alcoholics like to have drink in the house so they can prove they can resist having it, I think it would be good to keep the clock so I can prove it doesn’t rule my life any longer. Besides that I have other time pieces which could take its place in that regard and it does remind me of mother. She would turn in her grave if I sold it”. He got up and turned on the TV, signalling that the discussion was at an end. Bryony however had other ideas and planned to auction it on the internet when he went into hospital to have a minor operation next week. When he came home she would present its absence to him as a Fait a Complis.
“’Bye Mum”, the children shouted as they ran for the bus. The house seemed alarmingly quiet as Bryony made coffee and waited for the computer to warm up. She thought she may give Nancy, her sister a ring. Nancy was due to come over from Ireland next week for a fortnight’s holiday. She loved Nancy so much. She often wished that she’d settle here for good. She was a lively bubbly sort of girl with Irish good looks and an Irish wit to match. She loved Ireland though, remarking on how lovely the scenery is and how Bryony was mad to leave it. However, the occasional trip to the big city was enough for her and one a year was sufficient to quell the wander lust in her. Besides she loved to see her nephews who were now growing into big strong boys. It hardly seemed a moment since they were babies and now here they were, eleven and nine respectively. She was sure that George would grow up to be a writer because of his vivid imagination. That’d be good she often thought to herself. Then the phone rang and she was jarred out of her reverie. “Must be Bry”, she said to herself as she hurried towards the phone.
Bryony sat on the stairs in the hall. Strangely, this was the best place for her mobile phone signal, goodness knew why. She glanced at the long case clock and knew it would not be long before Nancy went out to help their father on the farm. She pressed the buttons and heard the phone ring. The two girls were laughing together and giggling at the appalling jokes they were exchanging and the clock hands were moving. Then the clock itself seemed to move – To lean like the famous Italian tower, to tremble and to shake. Then a hand lengthened and strengthened. Eventually the clock had moved its position until it towered over the woman on the stairs. As it chimed ten, the big hand hit her as she tried to rise and flee upstairs, knocking her back down again as she rose. Then eventually it lowered itself down upon her, the whirring of its works in her ears and became a dead weight above the dead body which lay underneath. All Nancy heard at her end of the phone was the continuous chiming – Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty – It didn’t stop till it reached Bryony’s age – Forty-five, at which point the glass in the door shattered, the wood caught fire and the whole house went up in flames.
As a small boy Martin was sickly. Although it’s true to say his illnesses were for the most part genuine it’s also true to say that many of them were either exaggerated or invented. He didn’t consciously make up illnesses in order to get out of going to school or some game he didn’t want to enter into with his friends but rather he thought he had them because that’s what his mother thought and encouraged him to believe.
Martin had a desperate need to adhere to routines. All of us like to stick as far as possible to our set ways of doing things but with him it was a matter of obsessional rather than normal behaviour. He hated being late for anything. His mother had told him that if he was on time he was showing politeness and that if he were early for something he was wasting his time but if he were late he was wasting the time of the person who was expecting him which amounted to rudeness. As he aged this maxim became his rigid rule of thumb which was to be obeyed without question or exception. He would glance at the clock in the hall which told him accurately what the time was or at one of the many other time pieces either worn about his person or dotted about his home. Then his problems multiplied and transformed themselves from obsessions with time and punctuality into checking that the doors were locked, windows closed and set number of paces paced between one room and another before he could leave the house. At first he thought that his wife Bryony had not noticed but she was under no illusions that his problems were mounting and amounting to the beginnings of a serious illness for which he would need help and that he would be more disabled without it than as a result of any other illness real or imagined which he may have had throughout his past life.
When she tried to talk to him about all this he denied there was a problem as many people from gamblers to alcoholics invariably do. Then she nagged him, telling him he ought to see a doctor. He eventually found that she had called him in, ostensibly to see one of their two children but really to have a look at him. “How are things with you these days”? Doctor Levy enquired. “Fine”, Martin said as he polished his glasses for the umpteenth time and excused himself to wash his hands after picking a paper clip up from the floor. The doctor was definitely hearing alarm bells in his head. He thought that Martin should see Doctor Klein, a psychiatrist. In the end and with much persuasion he agreed to do so.
There was much unravelling of his past and the feelings he had towards his mother’s over protectiveness and guilt at not taking his father’s symptoms seriously which in her eyes meant he died because she failed to see that he was undergoing a coronary. There was much talk of all the bullying he’d suffered at school because he was sensitive and delicate and didn’t like rough games or came to school wrapped up “Like a girl” as the boys put it. There was even more talk of all the imagined and real illnesses that Martin thought himself prey to and eventually an admission that, yes he did have a problem with time, obsessional behaviour and strict adherence to routine and terrible feelings of guilt when he let other people down or fell short of either their imagined or real or his real standards which were impossibly high. He attended group therapy sessions and was exposed to small amounts of his feared things and situations. For instance he was made to arrive late for an appointment with his psychiatrist – Just a matter of ten minutes or so – Also he was helped to reduce the number of checks he carried out at home on windows and doors and eventually life became more manageable which meant a better atmosphere at home and a more smoothly running household.
George, aged eleven had a vivid imagination. He told his mother that the long case clock in the hall was being silly and playing tricks. “Well it is very old now”, Bryony said to him. “Yeah I suppose it is. It even smells of the Winter Green oil that Nan used to use”. “Well there you are then”! His mother replied, reminding the child that she had died when he was six. The ticking of this clock, though comforting to many visitors to the house, was a source of irritation to Bryony who didn’t like it one little bit. She had planned to get rid of it and was wondering how she could broach the subject to her husband. She bought a bottle of wine and cooked a lovely supper for them all; even the children were allowed to stay up when she planned to introduce the possibility of getting rid of the clock. She knew there was less likely to be a scene if they were there. In the end, the second glass of wine having given her courage, she came straight out with it: “Martin, I think we ought to rid ourselves of that monstrosity in the hall. It is obvious you are now much better and I feel it is holding you back or at least it could do. I know it was your mum’s and that it is probably very valuable as an heirloom but health is more important than money and if you feel that bad about making money out of selling a treasured possession of your dead mother’s we can give the money to charity”. There she’d said it! All in one breath it came out like a cork from a bottle. He looked aghast at her and almost became angry but restrained himself, remembering George and Peter’s presence. “No dear. The clock stays. It sets the hall off a treat and looks grand. Besides as you say I’m a lot better now and just as some alcoholics like to have drink in the house so they can prove they can resist having it, I think it would be good to keep the clock so I can prove it doesn’t rule my life any longer. Besides that I have other time pieces which could take its place in that regard and it does remind me of mother. She would turn in her grave if I sold it”. He got up and turned on the TV, signalling that the discussion was at an end. Bryony however had other ideas and planned to auction it on the internet when he went into hospital to have a minor operation next week. When he came home she would present its absence to him as a Fait a Complis.
“’Bye Mum”, the children shouted as they ran for the bus. The house seemed alarmingly quiet as Bryony made coffee and waited for the computer to warm up. She thought she may give Nancy, her sister a ring. Nancy was due to come over from Ireland next week for a fortnight’s holiday. She loved Nancy so much. She often wished that she’d settle here for good. She was a lively bubbly sort of girl with Irish good looks and an Irish wit to match. She loved Ireland though, remarking on how lovely the scenery is and how Bryony was mad to leave it. However, the occasional trip to the big city was enough for her and one a year was sufficient to quell the wander lust in her. Besides she loved to see her nephews who were now growing into big strong boys. It hardly seemed a moment since they were babies and now here they were, eleven and nine respectively. She was sure that George would grow up to be a writer because of his vivid imagination. That’d be good she often thought to herself. Then the phone rang and she was jarred out of her reverie. “Must be Bry”, she said to herself as she hurried towards the phone.
Bryony sat on the stairs in the hall. Strangely, this was the best place for her mobile phone signal, goodness knew why. She glanced at the long case clock and knew it would not be long before Nancy went out to help their father on the farm. She pressed the buttons and heard the phone ring. The two girls were laughing together and giggling at the appalling jokes they were exchanging and the clock hands were moving. Then the clock itself seemed to move – To lean like the famous Italian tower, to tremble and to shake. Then a hand lengthened and strengthened. Eventually the clock had moved its position until it towered over the woman on the stairs. As it chimed ten, the big hand hit her as she tried to rise and flee upstairs, knocking her back down again as she rose. Then eventually it lowered itself down upon her, the whirring of its works in her ears and became a dead weight above the dead body which lay underneath. All Nancy heard at her end of the phone was the continuous chiming – Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty – It didn’t stop till it reached Bryony’s age – Forty-five, at which point the glass in the door shattered, the wood caught fire and the whole house went up in flames.
THE GLASS DOOR.
“Sit up straight now Maud! Just look at you! All that soup running down your chin! We’ve got to make you a pretty girl now haven’t we? Never know who may be popping around here after I’ve gone home”. Maud gave Carmel a rye old smile. She knew nobody would be popping around but she was glad of that. All she wanted was peace and quiet so she could look at her old photos and play her 78’s. Carmel was lovely but she chattered on so much and Maud was no longer used to it. She loved to see Carmel – Well let’s face it she couldn’t do without her now – But somewhere in a little secret part of her she was glad when she went home. It was like going on holiday, Maud thought. At first you longed to go then longed to get back to the unequalled comfort of your own bed. “I’ll be in later to tuck you up”, Carmel said. “Snug as a bug in a rug”. She always said that to Maud as she left, as though she were talking to a child instead of an old woman of eighty-nine.
Maud had no relatives who “owned” her as Carmel said. Carmel was her home help. Of course she had become more than that. She had become her confidante, carer and friend. She wasn’t employed by Social Services but by Maud privately. She, Maud, had come into money when her husband died and took on this lively girl four years ago when she started to feel her age and realised that she could no longer manage by herself. Without help.
Carmel described herself as being from “across the water” and hadn’t lost her accent. She had the energy of a dynamo and the ability to talk and work at the same speed and time. Being close to home, the job suited her and when she went on holiday Maud went into a nursing home for respite care. She often cooked for: “Me owld lady”, as she affectionately referred to her and they got along well together. The cleaning she didn’t mind – Even down to dusting Maud’s innumerable China cats but what she really hated was shining up the glass door on Maud’s shower cabinet. For some irrational reason she was filled with an indescribable hatred for this glass door. She knew that in less than a day the door would not be spick and span as it was now but splashed and smeared again and the thought annoyed her intensely. She knew that all the other jobs would also need doing again so realised how silly it was to feel like this but some things were beyond explanation. Every time she saw it she had to fight the urge to put a fist through it or kick it off its hinges. Each day she cursed it and pulled faces at it as if it understood and could respond to her venom. Then she’d catch herself pulling a silly face in the shining, gleaming glass and say to herself: “God Carmel! You’re an eejit! It’s only an owld door!” At that point she’d look away, embarrassed at her silliness.
Old people get lonely sometimes as do all of us and that’s when they say things they perhaps shouldn’t. Carmel and Maud were growing very close and Maud started to take her more and more into her confidence. She had already shown her the masses of photos she had in her albums and all her jewellery. Carmel knew about her life as a young girl. Maud had been a dancer and had worked abroad. She’d lived in Italy and was well travelled. She loved the sea and animals of all descriptions but her favourite – The ones which captivated her heart above all others – Were cats. Her last pet cat Simpkin had died and she now felt that she was too old to have another one. Her arthritis was now very bad so she had to allow Carmel to dust her beloved ornaments, with which she now had to content herself and Carmel carried out this duty as though it were a labour of love. Only once did Maud get cross with her when she dropped one and broke its ear. However all was restored to peace and harmony when her boyfriend, Jimmy, stuck it back again with glue and did such a professional job that you couldn’t tell it had ever been damaged. “Ah! We all have little mishaps now and again”, she breezily told Maud who grudgingly agreed that this was so. Maud always said after one of their little spats: “What would I do without you? One day my dear you will be rewarded and I don’t mean in heaven. As you know I’m rich and nobody has been so faithful to me as you except Simpkin. He was more like a dog than a cat. Yes you will be well rewarded for having me as your cross in life”. “Wisht! Don’t be talkin’ like that! I don’t like to hear all this stuff about dyin’. You’ll outlive us all for you’ve the constitution of an ox!” Carmel was genuinely distressed to hear Maud talk of her inevitable death because she had grown fond of her and thought of her as a mother. Besides which she knew she’d be out of a job once Maud died. As I said the position suited her well and although Maud could be irrascible and tetchy sometimes, well you made allowances didn’t you? She was always generous and had a fund of amusing anecdotes and stories with which to brighten Carmel’s day.
It was in the spring that Maud started complaining of the pains. The doctor came and went, saying they were the result of old age and prescribing pain killers. Immediately after she’d gone Maud insisted Carmel throw them down the toilet saying: “What use will they be? I should go to hospital. I know it’s something serious – Must be at this age! I may have a malignancy”. “Ah no! Don’t be workin’ yourself up like that now! You look as bonny as ever. Besides the quack won’t be very pleased when she finds you’ve t’rown all your pills down the loo now will she? They don’t be inclined to take as much notice of you the second time if you don’t do as they say the first. That’s what I tell Jimmy after he is after goin’ with his back. He’s no sooner bin’ to the doc’s than he’s up the pub or doing the garden again. Ah! Men can be awful stupid sometimes! You don’t want to be folly’ing them now Maud”!
Maud and Carmel took their holidays apart and as usual missed each other greatly. Maud wouldn’t always admit it though, saying she was glad to get away from Carmel’s constant chat and her endless jolly smile. She let her have the spare key while she was gone so she could spring clean for her before she went away with Jimmy.
“Ah! There you are you owld bugger! I left you till last as usual! Couldn’t face you till now but when you’re done this time you’ll stay clean for the whole two weeks! Oh I could smash you so I could! I could put a brick right t’rough you! You’re the most god-awful t’ing I ever set me eyes on so you are and god forgive me!”
Six months after Maud’s return home she died from a stroke. Carmel was heartbroken. She cried for the best part of a couple of months and Jimmy was quite worried about her. Then she received what can only be termed the shock of her life. She was the sole beneficiary of Maud’s will. The house, money and jewels were hers and it was just as Maud said it would be. However there were certain conditions she had to agree to. Firstly she had to live in the house and run it as a cats’ home. She thought she could just about manage that. It was the second condition she found so unbearable. On no account was she to dismantle the shower unit and replace the glass door with a curtain. Maud had commented how lovely she kept it and how brightly she’d made it shine. In a private letter to Carmel she wrote: “Dear Carmel, thank you for all you’ve done for me. I trust you will enjoy living in the house and running it as a cats’ home just as much as I know how much you enjoyed polishing my glass door. You did it with such zeal that I’m sure you loved it best of all since you always saved it till last”. Carmel thought and said aloud to herself: “You owld bugger Maud! You know damned well I hated it! Ah well! I’ll just get the vinegar and newspaper”!
Maud had no relatives who “owned” her as Carmel said. Carmel was her home help. Of course she had become more than that. She had become her confidante, carer and friend. She wasn’t employed by Social Services but by Maud privately. She, Maud, had come into money when her husband died and took on this lively girl four years ago when she started to feel her age and realised that she could no longer manage by herself. Without help.
Carmel described herself as being from “across the water” and hadn’t lost her accent. She had the energy of a dynamo and the ability to talk and work at the same speed and time. Being close to home, the job suited her and when she went on holiday Maud went into a nursing home for respite care. She often cooked for: “Me owld lady”, as she affectionately referred to her and they got along well together. The cleaning she didn’t mind – Even down to dusting Maud’s innumerable China cats but what she really hated was shining up the glass door on Maud’s shower cabinet. For some irrational reason she was filled with an indescribable hatred for this glass door. She knew that in less than a day the door would not be spick and span as it was now but splashed and smeared again and the thought annoyed her intensely. She knew that all the other jobs would also need doing again so realised how silly it was to feel like this but some things were beyond explanation. Every time she saw it she had to fight the urge to put a fist through it or kick it off its hinges. Each day she cursed it and pulled faces at it as if it understood and could respond to her venom. Then she’d catch herself pulling a silly face in the shining, gleaming glass and say to herself: “God Carmel! You’re an eejit! It’s only an owld door!” At that point she’d look away, embarrassed at her silliness.
Old people get lonely sometimes as do all of us and that’s when they say things they perhaps shouldn’t. Carmel and Maud were growing very close and Maud started to take her more and more into her confidence. She had already shown her the masses of photos she had in her albums and all her jewellery. Carmel knew about her life as a young girl. Maud had been a dancer and had worked abroad. She’d lived in Italy and was well travelled. She loved the sea and animals of all descriptions but her favourite – The ones which captivated her heart above all others – Were cats. Her last pet cat Simpkin had died and she now felt that she was too old to have another one. Her arthritis was now very bad so she had to allow Carmel to dust her beloved ornaments, with which she now had to content herself and Carmel carried out this duty as though it were a labour of love. Only once did Maud get cross with her when she dropped one and broke its ear. However all was restored to peace and harmony when her boyfriend, Jimmy, stuck it back again with glue and did such a professional job that you couldn’t tell it had ever been damaged. “Ah! We all have little mishaps now and again”, she breezily told Maud who grudgingly agreed that this was so. Maud always said after one of their little spats: “What would I do without you? One day my dear you will be rewarded and I don’t mean in heaven. As you know I’m rich and nobody has been so faithful to me as you except Simpkin. He was more like a dog than a cat. Yes you will be well rewarded for having me as your cross in life”. “Wisht! Don’t be talkin’ like that! I don’t like to hear all this stuff about dyin’. You’ll outlive us all for you’ve the constitution of an ox!” Carmel was genuinely distressed to hear Maud talk of her inevitable death because she had grown fond of her and thought of her as a mother. Besides which she knew she’d be out of a job once Maud died. As I said the position suited her well and although Maud could be irrascible and tetchy sometimes, well you made allowances didn’t you? She was always generous and had a fund of amusing anecdotes and stories with which to brighten Carmel’s day.
It was in the spring that Maud started complaining of the pains. The doctor came and went, saying they were the result of old age and prescribing pain killers. Immediately after she’d gone Maud insisted Carmel throw them down the toilet saying: “What use will they be? I should go to hospital. I know it’s something serious – Must be at this age! I may have a malignancy”. “Ah no! Don’t be workin’ yourself up like that now! You look as bonny as ever. Besides the quack won’t be very pleased when she finds you’ve t’rown all your pills down the loo now will she? They don’t be inclined to take as much notice of you the second time if you don’t do as they say the first. That’s what I tell Jimmy after he is after goin’ with his back. He’s no sooner bin’ to the doc’s than he’s up the pub or doing the garden again. Ah! Men can be awful stupid sometimes! You don’t want to be folly’ing them now Maud”!
Maud and Carmel took their holidays apart and as usual missed each other greatly. Maud wouldn’t always admit it though, saying she was glad to get away from Carmel’s constant chat and her endless jolly smile. She let her have the spare key while she was gone so she could spring clean for her before she went away with Jimmy.
“Ah! There you are you owld bugger! I left you till last as usual! Couldn’t face you till now but when you’re done this time you’ll stay clean for the whole two weeks! Oh I could smash you so I could! I could put a brick right t’rough you! You’re the most god-awful t’ing I ever set me eyes on so you are and god forgive me!”
Six months after Maud’s return home she died from a stroke. Carmel was heartbroken. She cried for the best part of a couple of months and Jimmy was quite worried about her. Then she received what can only be termed the shock of her life. She was the sole beneficiary of Maud’s will. The house, money and jewels were hers and it was just as Maud said it would be. However there were certain conditions she had to agree to. Firstly she had to live in the house and run it as a cats’ home. She thought she could just about manage that. It was the second condition she found so unbearable. On no account was she to dismantle the shower unit and replace the glass door with a curtain. Maud had commented how lovely she kept it and how brightly she’d made it shine. In a private letter to Carmel she wrote: “Dear Carmel, thank you for all you’ve done for me. I trust you will enjoy living in the house and running it as a cats’ home just as much as I know how much you enjoyed polishing my glass door. You did it with such zeal that I’m sure you loved it best of all since you always saved it till last”. Carmel thought and said aloud to herself: “You owld bugger Maud! You know damned well I hated it! Ah well! I’ll just get the vinegar and newspaper”!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
THE SHOES.
She hated the shoes – From the moment she saw them she knew that they would have to go.
Maureen couldn’t sleep. It was another muggy night in mid July. She was frightened of waking Alan. He’d been working hard lately and needed his rest. They were hoping to visit their only son in Canada in September of the following year and that cost money. At the moment they hadn’t got a bean. She was doing two jobs as it was and now, the way things were going, she would be too tired to properly cope with either of them.
It was the noise that had woken her as well as the heat. It was like someone banging about and was coming from the wardrobe. She knew if she told Alan about it he’d only say she was dreaming or imagining it so she kept quiet but the noise was definite enough. She’d only noticed it during the last couple of days and after she’d crept down to the kitchen and made tea, she sat trying to think exactly when it had started. Then she remembered. It started after Alan had brought home the shoes. They’d been given him by Brenda, his old friend’s widow. She said they were too good to give to the charity shop and as Alan was the same size asAndy he may as well have them.
“This is a lousy pub”, Andy commented to Alan when they had drunk their first pint. The seats were ripped, there was beer all over the floor and the staff were abrupt. “Yeah”, Alan agreed. “Let’s move on”. They were only a few yards down the street when Alan spotted two girls walking along. “They look nice”, he commented and made straight for the one with the long legs and nice tan. “Fancy jjoining me and my mate for a couple of drinks”? He asked hopefully. The girls looked wary. They weren’t used to being propositioned so forcefully and besides were on their way to see someone in hospital. “What’s your name anyway – Well I mean names really don’t I”? Maureen who was the less inhibited answered for both of them, telling them their names and shaking hands with the two men. Until then neither of the men had thought much about finding girls to go out with. They’d each been contented with heavy drinking sessions and going off on steam trains which was a passion they’d shared. Now though with these two suddenly appearing out of nowhere things looked as if they may be very different. Andy especially was very taken with the quieter girl who hardly said much and thought she may be nice just as a friend but didn’t want too much involvement all the same. Instead he thought of her as rather mysterious – A puzzle which he’d solve in his spare time which would be found only when he wasn’t off on steam railways with Alan. For Alan though he was truly smitten with the lovely Maureen and definitely wanted to get to know her better.
Maureen and Brenda had always been good friends. From infant school they were inseparable. Maureen was the more confident one in whose shadow Brenda walked. They were happy with that though and Brenda never felt herself to be domineered or kept down. Luckily their mothers got on really well too. Eventually as they grew they did everything together and to some extent even dressed alike though Brenda being much shorter looked a bit silly in some of the clothes Maureen war so looked for others which were a bit different but not too much so. They got jobs in the same places . Neither of them were particularly ambitious and didn’t like offices much. They were happier meeting the public and especially Maureen loved chatting to clients and smiling even at the most miserable ones which seemed to have the desired effect - To make them smile in return. Working had really brought Brenda out of her shell and her mother commented how much less shy she was now she had this job and had left school. Her mother felt rather sad then when she started to bring Andy home. He was quiet like she was and seemed to have eyes that looked right through you. His only interest seemed to be trains. He never talked about sport or politics, didn’t know much about what was going on in the world and had no hobbies but the steam trains. True he went for a drink with Alan but that was only at his suggestion and Brenda’s mother doubted he’d go anywhere by himself without Alan’s prompting. He worked at a shoe menders - His father’s in fact. She rather had the feeling he’d been forced into that and would rather have been doing something else – Probably on his beloved railway. Now Alan was a different kettle of fish. Cybil, Brenda’s mum, always hoped that her daughter would get involved with him. Now here was a man who would have been able to bring her out. He was lively and had plenty to say and was good looking – She thought rather like Clark Gable had been in his youth. He could wax lyrical on any subject and seemed to always have a funny joke to make everyone laugh if there was an awkward silence brewing in a conversation. He was interested in her funny hobbies too when they all visited her as a foursome. She loved the tarot cards and reading tea leaves not that there were many of those now since the advent of teabags.
Of course all four had a double wedding. It seemed that Brenda wanted to share her big day with Maureen who was equally anxious to do likewise. Maureen’s family were delighted to see that the girls were now settled. Her sister Anna was also married now and only Duncan was left without someone. He was Maureen’s older brother and was in and out of hospital a lot because of illness. In fact they were off to see him the night they first set eyes on the boys who really were the ones to set eyes on them. Cybil was very put out to find that Maureen was expecting and that her Brenda – Her only little girl wasn’t. As it turned out ?Andy was infertile – Another thing for which Cybil could dislike him. He was always very polite to her and very kind to Brenda. She even grew to love the railway almost as much as he did. She’d go on trips with him when Alan couldn’t because of commitments at home and again sometimes they’d all go as a foursome.
He’d bought the shoes just before Christmas. He’d liked them. During that winter what with the heavy rain, he had noticed that the soles and the uppers were separating a bit and thought how sad it was that nothing is made as well as it used to be. Probably enough glue hadn’t been used on them during their manufacture. Whatever the reason, he’d pop them into the shop tomorrow and get them mended. In a quiet moment he’d have time to see to them he was sure. Cybil was there again when he got home. He showed them off proudly to her, telling her what a fine bargain they were especially for someone who could repair the slight damage that there was to the soles. She sniffed and looked down her nose as usual and when he was in the bath he heard Brenda and her rowing over him again. He’d always known that she didn’t like him. However, he had long ceased to worry about it. As long as Brenda cared that was all that mattered and she did care. He was still friends with Alan and doted on Maureen’s baby whom he saw as a little niece really since he and Alan were almost like brothers they’d been friends for so long.
Brenda slammed out of the house, taking their dog for a walk. She always did this when annoyed with her mother. All was now quiet in the house as Cybil held each shoe in her hands. She seemed to be talking to them when Andy came down from the bathroom. She hastily dropped them when she heard the door opening, telling him she had indeed thought them nice. All she wanted now was to get an object of Maureen’s and her plan would be complete.
The next morning Brenda woke shivering with cold and coughing. Obviously she was in for a dose of something nasty. Dutifully Andy rose early in order to take the dog walking before he went to work. He could take him into the shop with him and knew his mother would have him. She lived in the flat above. He may as well wear the shoes while walking the dog and then take them into work on his feet instead of carrying them in a bag. He had a spare pair at his mother’s anyway. It was while crossing the fields with the dog that he first noticed it. The shoes seemed to be propelling him along – Sometimes against his will. Like someone with Parkinson’s disease he couldn’t always stop when he wanted to. He was fine when he took them off but he didn’t like to do that here because of the dew and wet leaves. They were now approaching the road. He called to Sam, the soppy old Labrador which trotted along chewing up a stick he’d found and put him on his lead. When he reached the road the lights were red. He tried to stop but the shoes wouldn’t let him. They kept on moving, moving out between the moving buses, moving out between the lorries and cars, darting in and out between the motor cycles until finally a bus knocked him down. He died later that day but amazingly, the shoes and the dog were intact.
It was Brenda who first heard the noise when she had them in her own wardrobe. They seemed restless as though they wanted to find someone. She hated to see them there and wondered why she had not had them buried with Andy. Then she thought that maybe they’d be “quieter” with Alan, his only friend. She gave them to Alan who brought them home but said nothing about the noises they made or the feeling that they were looking at her when she took out the laces and looked into the eyelets through which they were threaded. From the moment Maureen had them in her own wardrobe she hated them and knew she would have to get rid of them. Somehow she knew they would kill Alan if she didn’t. She formulated her plan while drinking her tea and waiting for the alarm to wake him. When she was alone and he was at work, she’d take them – Take them and dump them beside the tree in the middle of Parmaston Grove. She was sure that this would be the best thing to do. It was far enough away from their own home so that they’d not be traced. If anyone asked her why she was doing it she could say that she was grief stricken at the loss of her friend and was a little unbalanced. They’d be safe there. No way could she or would she give them to anyone else. These shoes were evil.
When Alan had gone to work she phoned in sick. Her old ladies at the sheltered housing complex where she worked as a home help would understand and that nice Head of the school where she also worked would sympathise too. She never took any time off she was so conscientious. Quietly she looked out of the car window to make sure nobody was looking. Then she saw that one man on a bicycle was coming past. She waited for him to go and then gently placed the shoes by the tree. As she was getting into her car she saw to her horror that the shoes were running after her. She only just managed to scramble into the car in time to drive away with the shoes in hot pursuit.
Just as Cybil was coming out of the local post office she saw them too. They’d just crossed the main road where a group of startled pedestrians and motorists were staring open mouthed at the sight of a pair of lone shoes running side by side along the road as if they were being chased by the devil himself. Suddenly and without warning Cybil fell to the floor with shock. Then the shoes came for her and began to batter her about the head and body. As if they contained the weight of a man, and crushed her ribs as they danced upon her and leapt on her chest. They broke her legs as they did their frenzied dance like the mad things they had become. Eventually the laces flicked out of their eyelets and wrapped themselves round her throat like coiling snakes. They squeezed and squeezed until all her life had ebbed away. I should know. I was the reporter on the story for the BBC news. As I picked them up once they had stopped their deadly dance I saw a face – A man’s face with a hammer in his hand cobbling the soles and the uppers back together.
(The end).
Maureen couldn’t sleep. It was another muggy night in mid July. She was frightened of waking Alan. He’d been working hard lately and needed his rest. They were hoping to visit their only son in Canada in September of the following year and that cost money. At the moment they hadn’t got a bean. She was doing two jobs as it was and now, the way things were going, she would be too tired to properly cope with either of them.
It was the noise that had woken her as well as the heat. It was like someone banging about and was coming from the wardrobe. She knew if she told Alan about it he’d only say she was dreaming or imagining it so she kept quiet but the noise was definite enough. She’d only noticed it during the last couple of days and after she’d crept down to the kitchen and made tea, she sat trying to think exactly when it had started. Then she remembered. It started after Alan had brought home the shoes. They’d been given him by Brenda, his old friend’s widow. She said they were too good to give to the charity shop and as Alan was the same size asAndy he may as well have them.
“This is a lousy pub”, Andy commented to Alan when they had drunk their first pint. The seats were ripped, there was beer all over the floor and the staff were abrupt. “Yeah”, Alan agreed. “Let’s move on”. They were only a few yards down the street when Alan spotted two girls walking along. “They look nice”, he commented and made straight for the one with the long legs and nice tan. “Fancy jjoining me and my mate for a couple of drinks”? He asked hopefully. The girls looked wary. They weren’t used to being propositioned so forcefully and besides were on their way to see someone in hospital. “What’s your name anyway – Well I mean names really don’t I”? Maureen who was the less inhibited answered for both of them, telling them their names and shaking hands with the two men. Until then neither of the men had thought much about finding girls to go out with. They’d each been contented with heavy drinking sessions and going off on steam trains which was a passion they’d shared. Now though with these two suddenly appearing out of nowhere things looked as if they may be very different. Andy especially was very taken with the quieter girl who hardly said much and thought she may be nice just as a friend but didn’t want too much involvement all the same. Instead he thought of her as rather mysterious – A puzzle which he’d solve in his spare time which would be found only when he wasn’t off on steam railways with Alan. For Alan though he was truly smitten with the lovely Maureen and definitely wanted to get to know her better.
Maureen and Brenda had always been good friends. From infant school they were inseparable. Maureen was the more confident one in whose shadow Brenda walked. They were happy with that though and Brenda never felt herself to be domineered or kept down. Luckily their mothers got on really well too. Eventually as they grew they did everything together and to some extent even dressed alike though Brenda being much shorter looked a bit silly in some of the clothes Maureen war so looked for others which were a bit different but not too much so. They got jobs in the same places . Neither of them were particularly ambitious and didn’t like offices much. They were happier meeting the public and especially Maureen loved chatting to clients and smiling even at the most miserable ones which seemed to have the desired effect - To make them smile in return. Working had really brought Brenda out of her shell and her mother commented how much less shy she was now she had this job and had left school. Her mother felt rather sad then when she started to bring Andy home. He was quiet like she was and seemed to have eyes that looked right through you. His only interest seemed to be trains. He never talked about sport or politics, didn’t know much about what was going on in the world and had no hobbies but the steam trains. True he went for a drink with Alan but that was only at his suggestion and Brenda’s mother doubted he’d go anywhere by himself without Alan’s prompting. He worked at a shoe menders - His father’s in fact. She rather had the feeling he’d been forced into that and would rather have been doing something else – Probably on his beloved railway. Now Alan was a different kettle of fish. Cybil, Brenda’s mum, always hoped that her daughter would get involved with him. Now here was a man who would have been able to bring her out. He was lively and had plenty to say and was good looking – She thought rather like Clark Gable had been in his youth. He could wax lyrical on any subject and seemed to always have a funny joke to make everyone laugh if there was an awkward silence brewing in a conversation. He was interested in her funny hobbies too when they all visited her as a foursome. She loved the tarot cards and reading tea leaves not that there were many of those now since the advent of teabags.
Of course all four had a double wedding. It seemed that Brenda wanted to share her big day with Maureen who was equally anxious to do likewise. Maureen’s family were delighted to see that the girls were now settled. Her sister Anna was also married now and only Duncan was left without someone. He was Maureen’s older brother and was in and out of hospital a lot because of illness. In fact they were off to see him the night they first set eyes on the boys who really were the ones to set eyes on them. Cybil was very put out to find that Maureen was expecting and that her Brenda – Her only little girl wasn’t. As it turned out ?Andy was infertile – Another thing for which Cybil could dislike him. He was always very polite to her and very kind to Brenda. She even grew to love the railway almost as much as he did. She’d go on trips with him when Alan couldn’t because of commitments at home and again sometimes they’d all go as a foursome.
He’d bought the shoes just before Christmas. He’d liked them. During that winter what with the heavy rain, he had noticed that the soles and the uppers were separating a bit and thought how sad it was that nothing is made as well as it used to be. Probably enough glue hadn’t been used on them during their manufacture. Whatever the reason, he’d pop them into the shop tomorrow and get them mended. In a quiet moment he’d have time to see to them he was sure. Cybil was there again when he got home. He showed them off proudly to her, telling her what a fine bargain they were especially for someone who could repair the slight damage that there was to the soles. She sniffed and looked down her nose as usual and when he was in the bath he heard Brenda and her rowing over him again. He’d always known that she didn’t like him. However, he had long ceased to worry about it. As long as Brenda cared that was all that mattered and she did care. He was still friends with Alan and doted on Maureen’s baby whom he saw as a little niece really since he and Alan were almost like brothers they’d been friends for so long.
Brenda slammed out of the house, taking their dog for a walk. She always did this when annoyed with her mother. All was now quiet in the house as Cybil held each shoe in her hands. She seemed to be talking to them when Andy came down from the bathroom. She hastily dropped them when she heard the door opening, telling him she had indeed thought them nice. All she wanted now was to get an object of Maureen’s and her plan would be complete.
The next morning Brenda woke shivering with cold and coughing. Obviously she was in for a dose of something nasty. Dutifully Andy rose early in order to take the dog walking before he went to work. He could take him into the shop with him and knew his mother would have him. She lived in the flat above. He may as well wear the shoes while walking the dog and then take them into work on his feet instead of carrying them in a bag. He had a spare pair at his mother’s anyway. It was while crossing the fields with the dog that he first noticed it. The shoes seemed to be propelling him along – Sometimes against his will. Like someone with Parkinson’s disease he couldn’t always stop when he wanted to. He was fine when he took them off but he didn’t like to do that here because of the dew and wet leaves. They were now approaching the road. He called to Sam, the soppy old Labrador which trotted along chewing up a stick he’d found and put him on his lead. When he reached the road the lights were red. He tried to stop but the shoes wouldn’t let him. They kept on moving, moving out between the moving buses, moving out between the lorries and cars, darting in and out between the motor cycles until finally a bus knocked him down. He died later that day but amazingly, the shoes and the dog were intact.
It was Brenda who first heard the noise when she had them in her own wardrobe. They seemed restless as though they wanted to find someone. She hated to see them there and wondered why she had not had them buried with Andy. Then she thought that maybe they’d be “quieter” with Alan, his only friend. She gave them to Alan who brought them home but said nothing about the noises they made or the feeling that they were looking at her when she took out the laces and looked into the eyelets through which they were threaded. From the moment Maureen had them in her own wardrobe she hated them and knew she would have to get rid of them. Somehow she knew they would kill Alan if she didn’t. She formulated her plan while drinking her tea and waiting for the alarm to wake him. When she was alone and he was at work, she’d take them – Take them and dump them beside the tree in the middle of Parmaston Grove. She was sure that this would be the best thing to do. It was far enough away from their own home so that they’d not be traced. If anyone asked her why she was doing it she could say that she was grief stricken at the loss of her friend and was a little unbalanced. They’d be safe there. No way could she or would she give them to anyone else. These shoes were evil.
When Alan had gone to work she phoned in sick. Her old ladies at the sheltered housing complex where she worked as a home help would understand and that nice Head of the school where she also worked would sympathise too. She never took any time off she was so conscientious. Quietly she looked out of the car window to make sure nobody was looking. Then she saw that one man on a bicycle was coming past. She waited for him to go and then gently placed the shoes by the tree. As she was getting into her car she saw to her horror that the shoes were running after her. She only just managed to scramble into the car in time to drive away with the shoes in hot pursuit.
Just as Cybil was coming out of the local post office she saw them too. They’d just crossed the main road where a group of startled pedestrians and motorists were staring open mouthed at the sight of a pair of lone shoes running side by side along the road as if they were being chased by the devil himself. Suddenly and without warning Cybil fell to the floor with shock. Then the shoes came for her and began to batter her about the head and body. As if they contained the weight of a man, and crushed her ribs as they danced upon her and leapt on her chest. They broke her legs as they did their frenzied dance like the mad things they had become. Eventually the laces flicked out of their eyelets and wrapped themselves round her throat like coiling snakes. They squeezed and squeezed until all her life had ebbed away. I should know. I was the reporter on the story for the BBC news. As I picked them up once they had stopped their deadly dance I saw a face – A man’s face with a hammer in his hand cobbling the soles and the uppers back together.
(The end).
Friday, October 17, 2008
THE DANGERS OF POWER.
It says in the Bible that the love of money is the root of all evil but I think that it’s man’s love of power and his reluctance to relinquish it which causes most if not all the trouble in the world. Of course money is implicated in this since the powerless poor are kept so by their poverty while those with money can exert influence and do so to the detriment of all if their intentions are not honourable.
There seems to be an insatiable need for people to control others and this is done by everyone from church elders to overly authoritarian parents who exercise their power in the wrong way. It’s our lust for power which has caused wars, resulted in the abuse of children; those with mental illness and those with physical and sensory disabilities. It begins with very small children’s love (seemingly harmless and possibly done for the purposes of experimentation and done in ignorance)who find that by chopping worms in half and pulling the wings off flies gives them a sense of power over these smaller creatures. It ends with blustering statesmen strutting around and parading their authority like peacocks do for all the world to see, thinking they are impressing others while desperately trying to book a place for themselves in the annals of history, thereby gaining for themselves the immortality which is nobody’s to claim.
Men in religious sects (and it is usually men) claim to have direct instruction from God and manage to dupe millions of people into believing their claims to the point where these gullible and often lonely people are persuaded to give up the gift of life itself for the promise of a better world beyond the grave. I worry when I meet someone who wants to be a leader for it’s they who cause all the trouble even if they don’t set out to do so because their followers, often too scared or in awe of them to say anything, trail along blindly after them like automatons who have lost the power of thought.
I was recently involved with a religious sect for seven months and learned a lot. The wisdom of what they taught was in the main very sound but the psychological tactics used to manipulate people and all the contradictions that they uttered made me get out fast. So indoctrinated were their members that one who had just undergone a serious operation for cancer was back among them within two weeks and out with them trying to gain more converts. Of course I learned that the men at the top of the organisation are to be in a more privileged position than the rest of us after the great comeback of the compassionate carpenter and various people were encouraged to dissociate themselves from all former trappings associated with their past lives. There was no room for argument or debate when little scenes of pretend interactions between converts and would-be converts (played by actual converts) were acted out – All in the name of stifling debate or reasoned thought. I felt enormous guilt and fear when I broke free from these people at first, thinking that bad luck or worse would follow but also I felt enormous relief which is largely the emotion which persists to this day.
Had I not read “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen-eighty-four” and taken an interest in psychology, had I not been intelligent and strong minded, had I been desperately lonely and gullible, I’d have been dancing like a puppet on the string pulled by a secret group of unknown men in their little huddle, exercising their immorally obtained power over masses of people who en masse act like sheep. Doubtless such people, reading this will say I have been taken over by the devil who has infiltrated my mind and taken me far from God. All I have to say to that is that if you remove from the word “devil” its first letter, you end up with the word “evil” and absolute power in the hands of fallible men makes them evil, goes to their heads and as the Bible also says
“When man dominates man it is to his injury” and this is no less true of religious cults and sects than it is of politicians, presidents, army generals or those wielding power over disabled people. To remain free you need to be able to think for yourself and take responsibility for your own actions and conduct and when anyone seeks to stop you from exercising the power of thought then you must resist them with all the power at your disposal.
There seems to be an insatiable need for people to control others and this is done by everyone from church elders to overly authoritarian parents who exercise their power in the wrong way. It’s our lust for power which has caused wars, resulted in the abuse of children; those with mental illness and those with physical and sensory disabilities. It begins with very small children’s love (seemingly harmless and possibly done for the purposes of experimentation and done in ignorance)who find that by chopping worms in half and pulling the wings off flies gives them a sense of power over these smaller creatures. It ends with blustering statesmen strutting around and parading their authority like peacocks do for all the world to see, thinking they are impressing others while desperately trying to book a place for themselves in the annals of history, thereby gaining for themselves the immortality which is nobody’s to claim.
Men in religious sects (and it is usually men) claim to have direct instruction from God and manage to dupe millions of people into believing their claims to the point where these gullible and often lonely people are persuaded to give up the gift of life itself for the promise of a better world beyond the grave. I worry when I meet someone who wants to be a leader for it’s they who cause all the trouble even if they don’t set out to do so because their followers, often too scared or in awe of them to say anything, trail along blindly after them like automatons who have lost the power of thought.
I was recently involved with a religious sect for seven months and learned a lot. The wisdom of what they taught was in the main very sound but the psychological tactics used to manipulate people and all the contradictions that they uttered made me get out fast. So indoctrinated were their members that one who had just undergone a serious operation for cancer was back among them within two weeks and out with them trying to gain more converts. Of course I learned that the men at the top of the organisation are to be in a more privileged position than the rest of us after the great comeback of the compassionate carpenter and various people were encouraged to dissociate themselves from all former trappings associated with their past lives. There was no room for argument or debate when little scenes of pretend interactions between converts and would-be converts (played by actual converts) were acted out – All in the name of stifling debate or reasoned thought. I felt enormous guilt and fear when I broke free from these people at first, thinking that bad luck or worse would follow but also I felt enormous relief which is largely the emotion which persists to this day.
Had I not read “Animal Farm” and “Nineteen-eighty-four” and taken an interest in psychology, had I not been intelligent and strong minded, had I been desperately lonely and gullible, I’d have been dancing like a puppet on the string pulled by a secret group of unknown men in their little huddle, exercising their immorally obtained power over masses of people who en masse act like sheep. Doubtless such people, reading this will say I have been taken over by the devil who has infiltrated my mind and taken me far from God. All I have to say to that is that if you remove from the word “devil” its first letter, you end up with the word “evil” and absolute power in the hands of fallible men makes them evil, goes to their heads and as the Bible also says
“When man dominates man it is to his injury” and this is no less true of religious cults and sects than it is of politicians, presidents, army generals or those wielding power over disabled people. To remain free you need to be able to think for yourself and take responsibility for your own actions and conduct and when anyone seeks to stop you from exercising the power of thought then you must resist them with all the power at your disposal.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
LATE IN THE DAY.
“Ah! I’ve found it! There it is. The note that says to go and buy some more washing up liquid in case there’s another war. I wonder why I put it in the freezer? Never mind I’ve found it now”.
I’m exhausted. It took me forty-five minutes to get back from the shops. When I kept asking people where Chestnut Avenue was they looked at me as if I was off my chump. Who gives them permission to keep altering the road signs that’s what I’d like to know. Chestnut Avenue, Chestnut Avenue, I kept repeating it like a mantra. Then I met mrs. ‘’’Oh you know! She has the little black dog. She walked back with me and says this road is now called Lyme Avenue of all things! I must write it down before I forget. She asked me why I’d gone shopping in my slippers of all things! As if I’d ever do a silly thing like that! What was that road again? Chestnut Avenue wasn’t it? Ah! I used to live there with my mother and sisters. Funny that. Mother hasn’t been to see me for months. She used to come every week without fail, regular as clockwork she was. You can’t rely on people can you? You’d think though that your own mother would be the last person to let you down. Where did I put my pen? Oh here it is! In the washing up bowl. Those children must have been in again! Little tikes! No discipline! Well they don’t teach them properly now. We had to do our tables: Once two is two, two twos are four, four twos are ‘’’’’’ What’s the name of that road again? I know how to remember it. One-two buckle my shoe, three four, knock at the door, five six pick up sticks, six! Six! That’s it! Three twos are six! Four twos are eight! Who says I’m losing my memory! Of course I’m not!
I must remember to get the money ready for the milkman. He calls for it on Saturdays. It’s Saturday tomorrow. It was Saturday the day before yesterday. They never used to have two Saturdays in a week. I expect that’s the government or Europe. First they messed about with the money and then the weights and now they’re messing about with the time. Can’t leave anything be. Oh look! My slippers are all wet! There’s mud on them. Must have been when I went out to get the washing in.
Think I’ll make some tea. Oh I can’t. There is no tea. Tea tin’s full of those silly little things! Who do they think can be bothered breaking into those things to get the tea leaves out? Why does everything have to be wrapped up so stupidly? I threw them all out! Every last one of them went in the bin. Perhaps Mrs. ‘’’’’You know! What’s her name, she may have some proper tea. She didn’t. She gave me some more of those stupid things and told me they’re all like that now. “I know” I said. “Do you think I’m stupid”? She gave me a funny look, telling me she was going to ring Social Services and that I’m not safe to live here on my own. I don’t like them! They take people’s children away and look through your papers and pry into your affairs.
I must go and get some washing up liquid in case
there’s another war. Oh how I remember the war! Straight down in the shelter as soon as the siren sounded and not up again until the “all clear” sounded. They wanted me to have Shirley evacuated. I was not standing for that. I was right anyway. Oh she’s a fine girl! She came last week or was it the week before? Time goes so quickly. That lot in Parliament have speeded it up. Keep fiddling with the clocks. Can’t leavve anything alone. I must put my slippers to dry. I wonder how they got so wet? Sometimes my head feels as if it is full of cotton wool and little stones. When I try to think the little stones and cotton wool move about. Then my head starts to ache. I’m sure things used to be different before the stones began scraping together but I can’t think how. Mrs. Simmonds! That’s it! Mrs. Simmonds! That’s her name! She gets right narky if they leave out the d. That’s better! Ah I remember now! Who says my memory’s going!
Fancy that! I must have gone to bed with my clothes on! First time I’ve ever done that. I must go shopping after breakfast. I’ve just been out to the gate but I can’t remember which way to turn for the shops. Doesn’t it take a long time to get light these days? Well if I go now it will have got light by the time I get there surely. Did I have breakfast? No I didn’t! That’s why I can’t remember. My mother always says that your brain won’t function properly on an empty stomach. You should always have breakfast if you want to be at your best. Besides it stops you fainting in the middle of the morning. That coffee was horrible! It was the right colour but it didn’t taste like coffee. Now I know why! When I finally found my specs and held the jar up to the light it said: “g.r.a.v.y g.r.a.n.u.l.e.s” on it. Those little buggers have been in again and put gravy granules in my coffee jar. I can’t understand the parents of today.
I had to wait an hour for the shops to open. “You are an early bird, Ada”, said the chap in the baker’s. He looked a bit strange when I asked if he’d had a nice Christmas. He told me that Christmas wasn’t for another two months! Well why have they got those cards up in the news agent’s? I’ll ask mother when she comes. She does annoy me! You’d think she’d pop in and see me especially after all the years I spent going to see her, on buses in the pouring rain. She sent me back a letter I wrote to her the other day. It said: “Not known at this address” on it. If she’s moved why hasn’t she let me know where she’s gone? You’d think you’d be able to rely on your own mother! We used to have some wonderful times together. Poor but happy, that’s what we were. She used to tell me stories before I went to sleep. When I was frightened she used to come in and chase the ghosts away. We had a big black Labrador named Jet which she used to take with us over the fields. I can’t remember it raining as much as it does now. Rain’s got in here but not everywhere, only where I’m sitting. My clothes are wet! I’ve just been to the window but the pavements look dry. There must be a leak in here somewhere. I’ll have to ring Mr. Jarvis about it.
I never used to have this bedroom. They’ve moved all these people in here. I can’t quite remember when it was but I think it was just after I saw that beautiful sunset in my kitchen. A lovely big ring was glowing red, as if the sun really had come to earth. I touched it and burned my hand. I can still see the scar. I never knew you could burn your hand on the sun like that. They said it was the cooker ring but who’d be so stupid as to leave the cooker ring on with nothing on it? I want to go home. They tell me lies in here! For one thing they tell me my mother has been dead for over thirty years and that I am eighty-five. Impossible! I was only sixty last year and I should know. Shirley gave me a lovely cake and a party. She’s coming tomorrow. I shall ask her to get me out of here. Why should they keep me here? I haven’t done anything! The ceiling leaks here as well. All the stones and cotton wool are going round in my head! I asked where Albert was and why he hasn’t come home yet from the war. They said the war’s been over since 1945. I can’t take it all in! The staff here keep taking my things. Just the other day I lost a lovely blue cardigan. Then I saw one of them wearing an identical one to it. They think I don’t know what they’re up to but who’d be so stupid as to mislay a cardigan?
I’ve been standing at the gates waving to Shirley. She says I’m safer in here and that I can’t look after myself now. I’m sad to think I’ve had to leave my home. She told me that her father and I bought it off Mr. Jarvis years ago but I can’t remember now. My head’s more full of cotton wool than ever. The bits where I was a child though are so vivid. I can remember skinning my knees on the bark of a tree which I’d climbed just so I could get a glimpse of Eddie Pritchard who, years later, used to take me to the pictures but ask me what I’d had for breakfast yesterday or today and I’d be hard put to tell you.
It’s late in the day. I’ve just seen the sun go down behind the trees. I think tomorrow’s Saturday. Funny that! There never used to be more than one Saturday in a week. I must go out tomorrow and get some more washing up liquid in case there’s another war. Twenty pence should be enough surely. Aren’t the prices high! I shall write to mother again too. I’m so worried about her. Before I do though, I must have a little sleep.
I’m exhausted. It took me forty-five minutes to get back from the shops. When I kept asking people where Chestnut Avenue was they looked at me as if I was off my chump. Who gives them permission to keep altering the road signs that’s what I’d like to know. Chestnut Avenue, Chestnut Avenue, I kept repeating it like a mantra. Then I met mrs. ‘’’Oh you know! She has the little black dog. She walked back with me and says this road is now called Lyme Avenue of all things! I must write it down before I forget. She asked me why I’d gone shopping in my slippers of all things! As if I’d ever do a silly thing like that! What was that road again? Chestnut Avenue wasn’t it? Ah! I used to live there with my mother and sisters. Funny that. Mother hasn’t been to see me for months. She used to come every week without fail, regular as clockwork she was. You can’t rely on people can you? You’d think though that your own mother would be the last person to let you down. Where did I put my pen? Oh here it is! In the washing up bowl. Those children must have been in again! Little tikes! No discipline! Well they don’t teach them properly now. We had to do our tables: Once two is two, two twos are four, four twos are ‘’’’’’ What’s the name of that road again? I know how to remember it. One-two buckle my shoe, three four, knock at the door, five six pick up sticks, six! Six! That’s it! Three twos are six! Four twos are eight! Who says I’m losing my memory! Of course I’m not!
I must remember to get the money ready for the milkman. He calls for it on Saturdays. It’s Saturday tomorrow. It was Saturday the day before yesterday. They never used to have two Saturdays in a week. I expect that’s the government or Europe. First they messed about with the money and then the weights and now they’re messing about with the time. Can’t leave anything be. Oh look! My slippers are all wet! There’s mud on them. Must have been when I went out to get the washing in.
Think I’ll make some tea. Oh I can’t. There is no tea. Tea tin’s full of those silly little things! Who do they think can be bothered breaking into those things to get the tea leaves out? Why does everything have to be wrapped up so stupidly? I threw them all out! Every last one of them went in the bin. Perhaps Mrs. ‘’’’’You know! What’s her name, she may have some proper tea. She didn’t. She gave me some more of those stupid things and told me they’re all like that now. “I know” I said. “Do you think I’m stupid”? She gave me a funny look, telling me she was going to ring Social Services and that I’m not safe to live here on my own. I don’t like them! They take people’s children away and look through your papers and pry into your affairs.
I must go and get some washing up liquid in case
there’s another war. Oh how I remember the war! Straight down in the shelter as soon as the siren sounded and not up again until the “all clear” sounded. They wanted me to have Shirley evacuated. I was not standing for that. I was right anyway. Oh she’s a fine girl! She came last week or was it the week before? Time goes so quickly. That lot in Parliament have speeded it up. Keep fiddling with the clocks. Can’t leavve anything alone. I must put my slippers to dry. I wonder how they got so wet? Sometimes my head feels as if it is full of cotton wool and little stones. When I try to think the little stones and cotton wool move about. Then my head starts to ache. I’m sure things used to be different before the stones began scraping together but I can’t think how. Mrs. Simmonds! That’s it! Mrs. Simmonds! That’s her name! She gets right narky if they leave out the d. That’s better! Ah I remember now! Who says my memory’s going!
Fancy that! I must have gone to bed with my clothes on! First time I’ve ever done that. I must go shopping after breakfast. I’ve just been out to the gate but I can’t remember which way to turn for the shops. Doesn’t it take a long time to get light these days? Well if I go now it will have got light by the time I get there surely. Did I have breakfast? No I didn’t! That’s why I can’t remember. My mother always says that your brain won’t function properly on an empty stomach. You should always have breakfast if you want to be at your best. Besides it stops you fainting in the middle of the morning. That coffee was horrible! It was the right colour but it didn’t taste like coffee. Now I know why! When I finally found my specs and held the jar up to the light it said: “g.r.a.v.y g.r.a.n.u.l.e.s” on it. Those little buggers have been in again and put gravy granules in my coffee jar. I can’t understand the parents of today.
I had to wait an hour for the shops to open. “You are an early bird, Ada”, said the chap in the baker’s. He looked a bit strange when I asked if he’d had a nice Christmas. He told me that Christmas wasn’t for another two months! Well why have they got those cards up in the news agent’s? I’ll ask mother when she comes. She does annoy me! You’d think she’d pop in and see me especially after all the years I spent going to see her, on buses in the pouring rain. She sent me back a letter I wrote to her the other day. It said: “Not known at this address” on it. If she’s moved why hasn’t she let me know where she’s gone? You’d think you’d be able to rely on your own mother! We used to have some wonderful times together. Poor but happy, that’s what we were. She used to tell me stories before I went to sleep. When I was frightened she used to come in and chase the ghosts away. We had a big black Labrador named Jet which she used to take with us over the fields. I can’t remember it raining as much as it does now. Rain’s got in here but not everywhere, only where I’m sitting. My clothes are wet! I’ve just been to the window but the pavements look dry. There must be a leak in here somewhere. I’ll have to ring Mr. Jarvis about it.
I never used to have this bedroom. They’ve moved all these people in here. I can’t quite remember when it was but I think it was just after I saw that beautiful sunset in my kitchen. A lovely big ring was glowing red, as if the sun really had come to earth. I touched it and burned my hand. I can still see the scar. I never knew you could burn your hand on the sun like that. They said it was the cooker ring but who’d be so stupid as to leave the cooker ring on with nothing on it? I want to go home. They tell me lies in here! For one thing they tell me my mother has been dead for over thirty years and that I am eighty-five. Impossible! I was only sixty last year and I should know. Shirley gave me a lovely cake and a party. She’s coming tomorrow. I shall ask her to get me out of here. Why should they keep me here? I haven’t done anything! The ceiling leaks here as well. All the stones and cotton wool are going round in my head! I asked where Albert was and why he hasn’t come home yet from the war. They said the war’s been over since 1945. I can’t take it all in! The staff here keep taking my things. Just the other day I lost a lovely blue cardigan. Then I saw one of them wearing an identical one to it. They think I don’t know what they’re up to but who’d be so stupid as to mislay a cardigan?
I’ve been standing at the gates waving to Shirley. She says I’m safer in here and that I can’t look after myself now. I’m sad to think I’ve had to leave my home. She told me that her father and I bought it off Mr. Jarvis years ago but I can’t remember now. My head’s more full of cotton wool than ever. The bits where I was a child though are so vivid. I can remember skinning my knees on the bark of a tree which I’d climbed just so I could get a glimpse of Eddie Pritchard who, years later, used to take me to the pictures but ask me what I’d had for breakfast yesterday or today and I’d be hard put to tell you.
It’s late in the day. I’ve just seen the sun go down behind the trees. I think tomorrow’s Saturday. Funny that! There never used to be more than one Saturday in a week. I must go out tomorrow and get some more washing up liquid in case there’s another war. Twenty pence should be enough surely. Aren’t the prices high! I shall write to mother again too. I’m so worried about her. Before I do though, I must have a little sleep.
LET’S HAVE SOME CLOSURE HERE!
You know folks I’m getting paranoid!
Everywhere I’ve been throughout my life has closed after I’ve resided there. It all started with the hospital I was born in which was in a posh bit of L – K don’t you know
Rest assured I don’t live in K now and haven’t for a very long time. Now though I learn that many years ago the hospital closed. I can just hear all those N.H.S managers, doctors and nurses and even the other patients saying:
“Can’t risk another little brat like that one! Like a little skinned rabbit she was”.
True I was. I was only two pounds when born being in such a hurry to get here and that’s what started the trouble but we won’t go there will we? Then many years later after I left College, then in the wilds of S. it closed and was re-opened with a name change and is now to be found in H. I swear I heard the board of Governors saying:
“Best move in case we get another ‘un like that one. Caw blimey! She spent half her time in hospital having her back jumped on by physioterrorists and the other half listening to or broadcasting on the College radio station set up by a partially sighted guy who had his own transmitter. Never seen her do a stroke”.
After that came the hostel where I met my old man. Now that was on a famous carnival route and I used to hear it go by each year while I leapt about to the music only the procession passed before I got into my stride or fell over anyone’s feet. (Well if Stevie can do it why not me)? That place closed not long after I married and moved to C. I swear I heard the Trustees of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, who ran the place say:
“Right! Shut it! Everybody out. I mean she had a few blind dates here and look where it got her? Besides that there was too much frivolity in the place and too many corny jokes told. God forbid we get another like that one”.
I don’t think the landlords have any plans to shut down the last place I lived in so obviously I’d sobered down or up by then.
What’s that noise? Oh the post:
“We regret to inform you that we’re pulling down your block of flats tomorrow but I’ve heard park benches can be quite comfortable. Have a nice day”!
I say! Can I come and kip with you for a bit? I’m very respectable really – Clean and tidy and love great music and am a dab hand at baking pastry blind! What do you mean you only want the dog? Blimey! Even the dog’s left me!
“Come on! Here girl! (whistle whistle) Oh be like that then! Please yourself! All the more time for me to write rubbish for my blog”.
Everywhere I’ve been throughout my life has closed after I’ve resided there. It all started with the hospital I was born in which was in a posh bit of L – K don’t you know
Rest assured I don’t live in K now and haven’t for a very long time. Now though I learn that many years ago the hospital closed. I can just hear all those N.H.S managers, doctors and nurses and even the other patients saying:
“Can’t risk another little brat like that one! Like a little skinned rabbit she was”.
True I was. I was only two pounds when born being in such a hurry to get here and that’s what started the trouble but we won’t go there will we? Then many years later after I left College, then in the wilds of S. it closed and was re-opened with a name change and is now to be found in H. I swear I heard the board of Governors saying:
“Best move in case we get another ‘un like that one. Caw blimey! She spent half her time in hospital having her back jumped on by physioterrorists and the other half listening to or broadcasting on the College radio station set up by a partially sighted guy who had his own transmitter. Never seen her do a stroke”.
After that came the hostel where I met my old man. Now that was on a famous carnival route and I used to hear it go by each year while I leapt about to the music only the procession passed before I got into my stride or fell over anyone’s feet. (Well if Stevie can do it why not me)? That place closed not long after I married and moved to C. I swear I heard the Trustees of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, who ran the place say:
“Right! Shut it! Everybody out. I mean she had a few blind dates here and look where it got her? Besides that there was too much frivolity in the place and too many corny jokes told. God forbid we get another like that one”.
I don’t think the landlords have any plans to shut down the last place I lived in so obviously I’d sobered down or up by then.
What’s that noise? Oh the post:
“We regret to inform you that we’re pulling down your block of flats tomorrow but I’ve heard park benches can be quite comfortable. Have a nice day”!
I say! Can I come and kip with you for a bit? I’m very respectable really – Clean and tidy and love great music and am a dab hand at baking pastry blind! What do you mean you only want the dog? Blimey! Even the dog’s left me!
“Come on! Here girl! (whistle whistle) Oh be like that then! Please yourself! All the more time for me to write rubbish for my blog”.
Monday, October 13, 2008
KINDER ISLAND.
“I’m Abby. I’m seven-and-three-quarters. It’s very important not to leave out the three-quarters. When grown-ups say their age – Say forty-five – They stay forty-five till the very day they become forty-six. That can’t be right can it? After all you are forty-five and one day then forty-five and two days all the way up to forty-six. Me and my friends all ran away on the same day. Daniel who is ten-and-a-half and very strong rowed this boat with us all inside. A big storm blew us about and I thought we’d tip out but we didn’t. We stayed upright for miles and miles and miles! In the end there was no land only water. At first it was a bit frightening but then we got used to it until we eventually found this island that nobody wanted so we took it over. Since then loads more children have come to join us. Now there’s children here from every nation on earth. We don’t row much. We do fight sometimes but normally it’s about who’s going to look for food or keep a look-out at night when strange animals wander about. We don’t have many rules but one is never to let a quarrel go on into the next day. At first Daniel wanted to be our leader because he’s the eldest but we said ‘no’ because the older you are the less sensible you are. Sophie who is four is too young to be it so in the end they said I could be because I am sort of in the middle. After a bit though it will be another child’s turn who comes from another country because that’s fair. We will wait till the sun has gone up and down a thousand times before we change. Daniel is counting the times off with a pencil and a bit of paper.
We miss our parents a bit. Mine would be nice and kind if they were here but if they were then we’d have to let all the other grown-ups come too because that’s fair too and it was the grown-ups we were trying to get away from so that would be no good. Besides that not all children’s parents are kind are they? Another rule is that no grown-ups could come to the island and be allowed to stay because they say things and do the very, very opposite. Even my mum does that. For instance last Christmas after singing carols to celebrate Christ’s coming, mum refused to have Mrs. Pearce round because she’s old and smells a bit of wee. I smelled of wee when I was a baby but mum kept me every day that ever there was till I chose to run away. Mum says Mrs. Pearce is a bit morbid – Always talking about Mr. Pearce who’s in heaven now and that would make Christmas sad and it’s supposed to be jolly. I like her though and like going round to her house but mum says it’s dirty there and I shouldn’t. Our teacher, Mrs. Mossman, says the reason she’s morbid is because most of her future has gone into the past and she does not have much more left and that we should be kind to her. Jesus would have had her round though he might have told her to wash first. When mum caught me going into her house she told me off, saying it’s dirty but she can’t help that can she? If Christmas is the season of good will then surely we shouldn’t leave anyone out should we?
I miss going to school a bit and playing with my friend Sarah and playing in the playground. I forgot my skipping rope so thought I may get bored but I don’t as there are many big storms which stop it getting boring. We can watch the waves and then see the sun come back out. It’s always sunny here. If I’d remembered my rope then the sand would have flown up into my eyes I suppose and stung them. I do my tables sometimes – Well the ones I did before running away. I had started to learn to write though some of it is a bit squiggly. I even miss our head teacher, Miss Barker. She was always shouting at us and telling us off for running in the corridors. We’ve made a swing in the palm trees. It’s much nicer to land on the sand if we fall off than it would be to land on concrete or even that special stuff. I wish Sarah had run away too. How she can want to stay in the world as it is I’ll never know. Grown-ups’ quarrels last for ever and ever – Spreading to those who have nothing to do with them. Then if they can’t get their own way they drop bombs on other grown-ups and their children. Eventually they either kill each other or compromise so they may just as well do that in the first place. Different coloured people don’t like other people and then white people sit in the sun to become the same colour as those they hate and still find they are the same inside so how silly is that? Then black people who have been hurt want to hurt others too sometimes which is also silly and solves nothing.
I remember going to the doctor’s once with mum. There was a blind man there. Mum made us sit right over on the other side of the room even though there were two seats next to him. Doors were opening and closing everywhere around him and I worried that he wouldn’t know when his turn was to go in so just before it was our turn I ran up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and said: ‘your turn next’. Mum told me off for letting go of her hand, talking to strangers and she looked away from the man but I looked for a long time right into his broken eyes. I wondered why they didn’t work. He smiled when I touched him. It was the first time he’d smiled and his face changed from being like a frozen thing set in a mask to very like our own faces. I thought about him a lot – Even through the children’s programmes. I wondered how he got there by himself. Nobody could tell me because we don’t know anybody like that. Anyway if you decide to sit on purpose far away from someone you won’t get close enough to get to know them and then you can’t ask can you? Why do adults say to us that if we don’t ask we won’t learn and then tell us it’s rude to ask questions? Once I got told off for asking a woman her age but the first two things people ask me are: ‘how old are you’? And ‘what’s your name’. I decided to say it was rude of them to ask me those things and was told off again for being impolite. No wonder I ran away from the grown-up world. It’s so confusing and makes no sense.
Daniel and another Sarah have just lit a fire. I’ve caught loads of fish. I feel a bit sorry for them but I’m so hungry I’ve got to eat something. Ages ago we found some dates and figs but they don’t fill you up for long do they? We must look a bit bedraggled whatever that means. Daniel is now bear foot since he lost his socks. He put them in the sea to wash them and the tide took them away. We’ve just found out how to open this coconut so we can drink the milk that’s inside. It’s not like the milk we have at home. We’ve got used to it though just as we have got used to living without the television though Sophie misses the children’s programmes. Sometimes we act out the characters in the babies programmes and that comforts her”.
I hauled myself out of the water. I was soaked through and exhausted from swimming. I’d fallen in after losing my way and slipping on some rocks. I realised that if I didn’t keep swimming I would drown as the waters were closing over my head. I am not an experienced swimmer. Now and again I just floated on my back till I regained by breath. Goodness knows where I am. I can hear soft breathing far away but I dare not move in case I fall into the sea again.
“Who’s that! Who are you”? I started as I felt a little hand in mine. “It’s a grown-up! Go away! This is our island”. I sat up, relieved that this child spoke English. She knelt down on the sand beside me as I brushed sand out of my eyes. “Oh! Your eyes are broken”! She said. “Yes, well, they’re well and truly caput”, I agreed. “Your clothes are still a bit wet. You should take them off because if you don’t you’ll get rheumatism.” Where did she get that from? “I can’t undress in front of you. I’ve got a few scars and things you shouldn’t see”. “We wouldn’t mind those”, said the child. “Besides we can see through to the inside of you – Past the outer things which grown-ups hide behind”. I’ve always known that so it came as no surprise. I went to where the sun was shining and soon got dry as the temperature was high. As I started to walk the child suddenly and silently led me to a safe place to sit. Perched on a rock which protruded from the sand we began to talk some more. “I’m Abby”, the child said, “And I’m Sally”, I said. “What happened to your eyes”? She asked. “Oh them! Well I had an accident when I was a baby so I can’t remember it very well. I don’t remember the details because it was a long time ago”. “Were you a child when you got blind”? She asked. “Yes”, I said. I wondered what she was thinking as a long silence followed.
All at once I was surrounded by children – Some as young as four and others as old as ten. “This isn’t a place for grown-ups”, said one of them. They were all around me now, at my feet and sides and even leaning up against my back. It was then that Abby spoke to them: “This lady’s blind. We have to find out what she wants, where she came from how long she intends to stay and whether she will go back and tell other grown-ups where we are but we shouldn’t turn her away because Jesus said so. Clear those things out of the way – Those big rocks for instance – For it says that whoever puts a stumbling block in the path of a blind person would be better to have a mill stone hung round his neck”. After moving the rocks the children encircled me once more, sitting quiet and attentive. They asked me why I’d come. “I’ve lost my way. I’ve become so sick of the world, the way it’s run; the way people hurt and ignore those who’re different I wanted to run away. Only I got so hopelessly lost. Because I can’t see and I am not in a familiar place this means I ended up here. I wandered about so much that eventually I fell into the sea and the waters went right over my head. I thought I would drown and look! I’ve scratched my legs on rocks that were sticking up out of the water”. The children looked. One came to bathe the cuts with a palm leaf soaked in sea water. It stung a lot but I knew it would heal because of the salt. “What do you want with us?” Asked Abby. “I just want to stay with you till I feel better and until I can think properly about how to get out of the mess I’m in and get back to where I should be”.
“It will mean sharing our food with her and trusting her not to tell on us if she ever goes away”, one of them said. They thought I was asleep but I wasn’t and I could hear them in conference. “If we send her away and make her an outsider where can she go”? Abby asked Daniel and Richard who were all for turning me out. “She could be useful”, Daniel conceded. “She could reach up to the higher tree branches and pick fruit for us. She could teach us things she knows like maths and history and tell us stories.” “She has lived longer”, Abby said: “That means she has been an outsider in the grown-up world longer and has been hurt more often. If we turn her away then we are no better than the grown-ups we came to get away from and we ran away because we didn’t like how they did things. We want our world to be different from theirs. That’s the whole point. Besides she looks poorly – Kind of sad too”, said Abby. “We must vote”, said Abby in a very important voice. I’d have given anything to see how many little hands went up. “We’ll tell her the good news in the morning and make it clear that this is our world and that no grown-up – Not even a blind one – Can ever tell us what to do”. Soon I heard running footsteps in the sand and called: “Abby”, who came running at the sound of my voice. “Did you hear all that?” she asked. “Yes”, I replied. “We thought you were sleeping.” “I will soon but I couldn’t till I knew you weren’t going to turn me away”, I said. “As long as you remember that you can never be in charge or tell us what to do and that this is our world you will be safe”, she said. “I notice none of you said I’d be a burden”. “Burdens are things”, said Abby. “Burdens are things not people”, she said with feeling. Then in a much gentler voice she said: “Open your arms”. I did and she came gently into them and both of us snuggled up to sleep
The next day we picked fruit and played games. I told them stories which have been stored up in my head for ages. Then Daniel, who’d not wanted me to stay, appeared with a present – A long piece of bamboo – Saying: “Here you are! Broken-eyed people carry these don’t they”? “Yes,” I said. “I had one but I had to let go of it when I fell into the sea otherwise I’d have drowned as I couldn’t hold on to it and swim at the same time”. “Well you’ve got another one now”, he commented. I was beginning to think it would do nicely but as it happened I didn’t need to use it much since as soon as I got up to move, little hands were there to guide me to where I wanted to be. Had another adult been present then surely they would have thought this a moving sight and would have had much to learn about the naturalness in these little children’s behaviour and the warmth emanating from their souls. From the very first moment of my arrival here I have never felt incongruous or unwanted by these children. Those who are afraid of the darkness come to me for comfort, knowing I won’t laugh at them or turn them away, thinking them silly. I have an honest, unadulterated picture of the world as seen from their perspective and through their eyes. What struck me most forcibly was the paradox of their having immature emotions, yet a wisdom far beyond both their and my years. I was amazed at how quickly they could change from almost being grown up themselves back into the little children which they still were
A ship was spotted. Abby suggested putting the fire out so we’d not be visible to its crew. We huddled together, frightened of discovery and yet in my case longing for it since I could envisage a time when survival would become difficult. “Abby”, I said, “In a way it would be good to be found. After all one day we will all have to go back to the real world because we won’t be able to cope here indefinitely”. “Why can’t you enjoy today without worrying about tomorrow”? She asked simply. “Because I have experience which enables me to think ahead and look ahead”, I answered. “Experience also made you want to run away in the first place”, she reminded me. That night a terrible storm raged. The wind and the rain were so fierce as to frighten me. The children and I all stayed close for safety’s sake. The log cabin which Daniel and Richard made blew down and some of the trees were uprooted. The children were stunned into a silence beyond tears and were shocked by the devastation. After some considerable time the log cabin was rebuilt. One of the children asked me: “Why is nature cruel”? I explained that I thought it was indifferent as opposed to cruel and that man continually upsets its balance by burning fossil fuels, needlessly felling trees and wasting energy. The next question was: “Why are adults cruel”? My answer was much the same. We are cruel when we become indifferent to another person’s needs, when we think that those who’re different are inferior and when we depersonalise people. We are cruel when we think people incapable of needing and giving love and that our rights are their privileges and that they do not merit respect. After I’d explained it more simply Abby asked: “Is it when we lose our way and ask people to do as we say and not as we do and when we don’t do as we say they should”? “Yes”, I said. I couldn’t have put it better myself. When the other children slept she said: “I’m glad you’re here”. Then with a voice breaking with emotion she said: “I miss my mummy and daddy”. She didn’t want anyone else to see her cry so I held her, telling her it would be our secret.
“How will we know when it’s our birthdays”? She asked. “Well since we have no watches or calendars we will just have to wait till we feel like having a big giant birthday for all of us and for Christmas we can have a separate one for Jesus,” I suggested. When we had our giant parties a greedy child ate more bananas than the others and was required to go to the naughty rock for a while but was allowed to come back when he apologised and before the night fell. Abby found it hard to forgive him since he’d taken them unbeknownst to me but I said forgiveness should come after an apology and if the person is truly sorry and resolves not to repeat his misdemeanours.
“What’s it like to be blind”? This question was repeated over and over again by the children who seemed to have a fascination with the subject. For all my language skills I found it hard to convey it to them. “Are you in the dark”? They asked. “To be in the dark you have to be in the light and I’m not in either. It’s like being in a nothingness”, I said. Since we were on an island I told them it was like being on an island of blindness, disconnected from the mainland of sight and some seemed to grasp this concept. I said it could be frightening but that one gets used to it. “Did you go to special school”? Abby asked. “Yes”. I said. “Then why aren’t you treated as if you’re special and not as if you’re different and if people insist on treating you as if you’re different then why don’t they call it different school”? “A good question”. I thought. The children described things like sunsets and trees and although I still can’t imagine them as I’ve not seen them they took so much trouble that I was deeply moved by their thoughtfulness. They made no assumptions about whether I was extra clever, a retard or had compensatory senses but rather accepted me as I am and liked me and I loved them for it.
Warm sun woke me on the day on which I left them. A helicopter circled overhead and spotted us. I was glad they realised I couldn’t have betrayed them since I was still with them when we were found. TV. cameras were everywhere and the precious place known only to and loved by children was no longer a private secret but known and violated by the adult world. Other aircraft landed to take us off and return us to our respective homes. Abby sat beside me all the way home and was eventually greeted, like many others, by crying parents who were relieved to see their children safe and well if a little thinner. Abby asked me on the way home as she sat beside me: “Since we ran away from the world because we didn’t like it, how can we change it when we haven’t got any power”? I told her: “Always keep in touch with the child within yourself. Hold to the values you have now and make no outsiders your enemies. Always remember why you ran away and remember the teachings of Jesus and adhere to them even when it goes against your self interest and even though you will fail. If enough people make a little difference then it will become a big difference and that will change the world.” As we neared our journey’s end I told the children it was a privilege to know them and to have been a part of their world. I told them, as I tell you now, that I believe that the smaller you are, the nearer you are to the very heart and essence of god. I told them: “I am humbled to have been part of your lives and sad to have to return to a world into which I do not fit and feel I do not belong”. Abby and Sophie got hold of a hand each in order to help me down the aircraft steps. Her final words to me were: “I Love you sally, you’re not blind at all”. Now my voice was the one breaking with emotion as I said: “I love you too, all of you”. With that and with Daniel’s bamboo cane, I made my way home alone.
(The end).
We miss our parents a bit. Mine would be nice and kind if they were here but if they were then we’d have to let all the other grown-ups come too because that’s fair too and it was the grown-ups we were trying to get away from so that would be no good. Besides that not all children’s parents are kind are they? Another rule is that no grown-ups could come to the island and be allowed to stay because they say things and do the very, very opposite. Even my mum does that. For instance last Christmas after singing carols to celebrate Christ’s coming, mum refused to have Mrs. Pearce round because she’s old and smells a bit of wee. I smelled of wee when I was a baby but mum kept me every day that ever there was till I chose to run away. Mum says Mrs. Pearce is a bit morbid – Always talking about Mr. Pearce who’s in heaven now and that would make Christmas sad and it’s supposed to be jolly. I like her though and like going round to her house but mum says it’s dirty there and I shouldn’t. Our teacher, Mrs. Mossman, says the reason she’s morbid is because most of her future has gone into the past and she does not have much more left and that we should be kind to her. Jesus would have had her round though he might have told her to wash first. When mum caught me going into her house she told me off, saying it’s dirty but she can’t help that can she? If Christmas is the season of good will then surely we shouldn’t leave anyone out should we?
I miss going to school a bit and playing with my friend Sarah and playing in the playground. I forgot my skipping rope so thought I may get bored but I don’t as there are many big storms which stop it getting boring. We can watch the waves and then see the sun come back out. It’s always sunny here. If I’d remembered my rope then the sand would have flown up into my eyes I suppose and stung them. I do my tables sometimes – Well the ones I did before running away. I had started to learn to write though some of it is a bit squiggly. I even miss our head teacher, Miss Barker. She was always shouting at us and telling us off for running in the corridors. We’ve made a swing in the palm trees. It’s much nicer to land on the sand if we fall off than it would be to land on concrete or even that special stuff. I wish Sarah had run away too. How she can want to stay in the world as it is I’ll never know. Grown-ups’ quarrels last for ever and ever – Spreading to those who have nothing to do with them. Then if they can’t get their own way they drop bombs on other grown-ups and their children. Eventually they either kill each other or compromise so they may just as well do that in the first place. Different coloured people don’t like other people and then white people sit in the sun to become the same colour as those they hate and still find they are the same inside so how silly is that? Then black people who have been hurt want to hurt others too sometimes which is also silly and solves nothing.
I remember going to the doctor’s once with mum. There was a blind man there. Mum made us sit right over on the other side of the room even though there were two seats next to him. Doors were opening and closing everywhere around him and I worried that he wouldn’t know when his turn was to go in so just before it was our turn I ran up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and said: ‘your turn next’. Mum told me off for letting go of her hand, talking to strangers and she looked away from the man but I looked for a long time right into his broken eyes. I wondered why they didn’t work. He smiled when I touched him. It was the first time he’d smiled and his face changed from being like a frozen thing set in a mask to very like our own faces. I thought about him a lot – Even through the children’s programmes. I wondered how he got there by himself. Nobody could tell me because we don’t know anybody like that. Anyway if you decide to sit on purpose far away from someone you won’t get close enough to get to know them and then you can’t ask can you? Why do adults say to us that if we don’t ask we won’t learn and then tell us it’s rude to ask questions? Once I got told off for asking a woman her age but the first two things people ask me are: ‘how old are you’? And ‘what’s your name’. I decided to say it was rude of them to ask me those things and was told off again for being impolite. No wonder I ran away from the grown-up world. It’s so confusing and makes no sense.
Daniel and another Sarah have just lit a fire. I’ve caught loads of fish. I feel a bit sorry for them but I’m so hungry I’ve got to eat something. Ages ago we found some dates and figs but they don’t fill you up for long do they? We must look a bit bedraggled whatever that means. Daniel is now bear foot since he lost his socks. He put them in the sea to wash them and the tide took them away. We’ve just found out how to open this coconut so we can drink the milk that’s inside. It’s not like the milk we have at home. We’ve got used to it though just as we have got used to living without the television though Sophie misses the children’s programmes. Sometimes we act out the characters in the babies programmes and that comforts her”.
I hauled myself out of the water. I was soaked through and exhausted from swimming. I’d fallen in after losing my way and slipping on some rocks. I realised that if I didn’t keep swimming I would drown as the waters were closing over my head. I am not an experienced swimmer. Now and again I just floated on my back till I regained by breath. Goodness knows where I am. I can hear soft breathing far away but I dare not move in case I fall into the sea again.
“Who’s that! Who are you”? I started as I felt a little hand in mine. “It’s a grown-up! Go away! This is our island”. I sat up, relieved that this child spoke English. She knelt down on the sand beside me as I brushed sand out of my eyes. “Oh! Your eyes are broken”! She said. “Yes, well, they’re well and truly caput”, I agreed. “Your clothes are still a bit wet. You should take them off because if you don’t you’ll get rheumatism.” Where did she get that from? “I can’t undress in front of you. I’ve got a few scars and things you shouldn’t see”. “We wouldn’t mind those”, said the child. “Besides we can see through to the inside of you – Past the outer things which grown-ups hide behind”. I’ve always known that so it came as no surprise. I went to where the sun was shining and soon got dry as the temperature was high. As I started to walk the child suddenly and silently led me to a safe place to sit. Perched on a rock which protruded from the sand we began to talk some more. “I’m Abby”, the child said, “And I’m Sally”, I said. “What happened to your eyes”? She asked. “Oh them! Well I had an accident when I was a baby so I can’t remember it very well. I don’t remember the details because it was a long time ago”. “Were you a child when you got blind”? She asked. “Yes”, I said. I wondered what she was thinking as a long silence followed.
All at once I was surrounded by children – Some as young as four and others as old as ten. “This isn’t a place for grown-ups”, said one of them. They were all around me now, at my feet and sides and even leaning up against my back. It was then that Abby spoke to them: “This lady’s blind. We have to find out what she wants, where she came from how long she intends to stay and whether she will go back and tell other grown-ups where we are but we shouldn’t turn her away because Jesus said so. Clear those things out of the way – Those big rocks for instance – For it says that whoever puts a stumbling block in the path of a blind person would be better to have a mill stone hung round his neck”. After moving the rocks the children encircled me once more, sitting quiet and attentive. They asked me why I’d come. “I’ve lost my way. I’ve become so sick of the world, the way it’s run; the way people hurt and ignore those who’re different I wanted to run away. Only I got so hopelessly lost. Because I can’t see and I am not in a familiar place this means I ended up here. I wandered about so much that eventually I fell into the sea and the waters went right over my head. I thought I would drown and look! I’ve scratched my legs on rocks that were sticking up out of the water”. The children looked. One came to bathe the cuts with a palm leaf soaked in sea water. It stung a lot but I knew it would heal because of the salt. “What do you want with us?” Asked Abby. “I just want to stay with you till I feel better and until I can think properly about how to get out of the mess I’m in and get back to where I should be”.
“It will mean sharing our food with her and trusting her not to tell on us if she ever goes away”, one of them said. They thought I was asleep but I wasn’t and I could hear them in conference. “If we send her away and make her an outsider where can she go”? Abby asked Daniel and Richard who were all for turning me out. “She could be useful”, Daniel conceded. “She could reach up to the higher tree branches and pick fruit for us. She could teach us things she knows like maths and history and tell us stories.” “She has lived longer”, Abby said: “That means she has been an outsider in the grown-up world longer and has been hurt more often. If we turn her away then we are no better than the grown-ups we came to get away from and we ran away because we didn’t like how they did things. We want our world to be different from theirs. That’s the whole point. Besides she looks poorly – Kind of sad too”, said Abby. “We must vote”, said Abby in a very important voice. I’d have given anything to see how many little hands went up. “We’ll tell her the good news in the morning and make it clear that this is our world and that no grown-up – Not even a blind one – Can ever tell us what to do”. Soon I heard running footsteps in the sand and called: “Abby”, who came running at the sound of my voice. “Did you hear all that?” she asked. “Yes”, I replied. “We thought you were sleeping.” “I will soon but I couldn’t till I knew you weren’t going to turn me away”, I said. “As long as you remember that you can never be in charge or tell us what to do and that this is our world you will be safe”, she said. “I notice none of you said I’d be a burden”. “Burdens are things”, said Abby. “Burdens are things not people”, she said with feeling. Then in a much gentler voice she said: “Open your arms”. I did and she came gently into them and both of us snuggled up to sleep
The next day we picked fruit and played games. I told them stories which have been stored up in my head for ages. Then Daniel, who’d not wanted me to stay, appeared with a present – A long piece of bamboo – Saying: “Here you are! Broken-eyed people carry these don’t they”? “Yes,” I said. “I had one but I had to let go of it when I fell into the sea otherwise I’d have drowned as I couldn’t hold on to it and swim at the same time”. “Well you’ve got another one now”, he commented. I was beginning to think it would do nicely but as it happened I didn’t need to use it much since as soon as I got up to move, little hands were there to guide me to where I wanted to be. Had another adult been present then surely they would have thought this a moving sight and would have had much to learn about the naturalness in these little children’s behaviour and the warmth emanating from their souls. From the very first moment of my arrival here I have never felt incongruous or unwanted by these children. Those who are afraid of the darkness come to me for comfort, knowing I won’t laugh at them or turn them away, thinking them silly. I have an honest, unadulterated picture of the world as seen from their perspective and through their eyes. What struck me most forcibly was the paradox of their having immature emotions, yet a wisdom far beyond both their and my years. I was amazed at how quickly they could change from almost being grown up themselves back into the little children which they still were
A ship was spotted. Abby suggested putting the fire out so we’d not be visible to its crew. We huddled together, frightened of discovery and yet in my case longing for it since I could envisage a time when survival would become difficult. “Abby”, I said, “In a way it would be good to be found. After all one day we will all have to go back to the real world because we won’t be able to cope here indefinitely”. “Why can’t you enjoy today without worrying about tomorrow”? She asked simply. “Because I have experience which enables me to think ahead and look ahead”, I answered. “Experience also made you want to run away in the first place”, she reminded me. That night a terrible storm raged. The wind and the rain were so fierce as to frighten me. The children and I all stayed close for safety’s sake. The log cabin which Daniel and Richard made blew down and some of the trees were uprooted. The children were stunned into a silence beyond tears and were shocked by the devastation. After some considerable time the log cabin was rebuilt. One of the children asked me: “Why is nature cruel”? I explained that I thought it was indifferent as opposed to cruel and that man continually upsets its balance by burning fossil fuels, needlessly felling trees and wasting energy. The next question was: “Why are adults cruel”? My answer was much the same. We are cruel when we become indifferent to another person’s needs, when we think that those who’re different are inferior and when we depersonalise people. We are cruel when we think people incapable of needing and giving love and that our rights are their privileges and that they do not merit respect. After I’d explained it more simply Abby asked: “Is it when we lose our way and ask people to do as we say and not as we do and when we don’t do as we say they should”? “Yes”, I said. I couldn’t have put it better myself. When the other children slept she said: “I’m glad you’re here”. Then with a voice breaking with emotion she said: “I miss my mummy and daddy”. She didn’t want anyone else to see her cry so I held her, telling her it would be our secret.
“How will we know when it’s our birthdays”? She asked. “Well since we have no watches or calendars we will just have to wait till we feel like having a big giant birthday for all of us and for Christmas we can have a separate one for Jesus,” I suggested. When we had our giant parties a greedy child ate more bananas than the others and was required to go to the naughty rock for a while but was allowed to come back when he apologised and before the night fell. Abby found it hard to forgive him since he’d taken them unbeknownst to me but I said forgiveness should come after an apology and if the person is truly sorry and resolves not to repeat his misdemeanours.
“What’s it like to be blind”? This question was repeated over and over again by the children who seemed to have a fascination with the subject. For all my language skills I found it hard to convey it to them. “Are you in the dark”? They asked. “To be in the dark you have to be in the light and I’m not in either. It’s like being in a nothingness”, I said. Since we were on an island I told them it was like being on an island of blindness, disconnected from the mainland of sight and some seemed to grasp this concept. I said it could be frightening but that one gets used to it. “Did you go to special school”? Abby asked. “Yes”. I said. “Then why aren’t you treated as if you’re special and not as if you’re different and if people insist on treating you as if you’re different then why don’t they call it different school”? “A good question”. I thought. The children described things like sunsets and trees and although I still can’t imagine them as I’ve not seen them they took so much trouble that I was deeply moved by their thoughtfulness. They made no assumptions about whether I was extra clever, a retard or had compensatory senses but rather accepted me as I am and liked me and I loved them for it.
Warm sun woke me on the day on which I left them. A helicopter circled overhead and spotted us. I was glad they realised I couldn’t have betrayed them since I was still with them when we were found. TV. cameras were everywhere and the precious place known only to and loved by children was no longer a private secret but known and violated by the adult world. Other aircraft landed to take us off and return us to our respective homes. Abby sat beside me all the way home and was eventually greeted, like many others, by crying parents who were relieved to see their children safe and well if a little thinner. Abby asked me on the way home as she sat beside me: “Since we ran away from the world because we didn’t like it, how can we change it when we haven’t got any power”? I told her: “Always keep in touch with the child within yourself. Hold to the values you have now and make no outsiders your enemies. Always remember why you ran away and remember the teachings of Jesus and adhere to them even when it goes against your self interest and even though you will fail. If enough people make a little difference then it will become a big difference and that will change the world.” As we neared our journey’s end I told the children it was a privilege to know them and to have been a part of their world. I told them, as I tell you now, that I believe that the smaller you are, the nearer you are to the very heart and essence of god. I told them: “I am humbled to have been part of your lives and sad to have to return to a world into which I do not fit and feel I do not belong”. Abby and Sophie got hold of a hand each in order to help me down the aircraft steps. Her final words to me were: “I Love you sally, you’re not blind at all”. Now my voice was the one breaking with emotion as I said: “I love you too, all of you”. With that and with Daniel’s bamboo cane, I made my way home alone.
(The end).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)