I Was Baptised By Poseidon And It Was Wonderful Even Though He's Not Real

I admit it.  I'm into some shit that people would rightly call weird.  They'd say I'm off my head and have lost all sense of reason.

In the last week I've taken the strangeness to a new level.  A week ago today I was walking in the Derwent valley.  Taking a rest at the top of a hill - I'm not the fittest of individuals - I looked at the trees and was surprised to spot a wolf sitting in the branches.  Who wouldn't be surprised at this turn of events?  Since wolves aren't known for sitting in the branches high in trees.  And they're also not known for living in the Derwent valley or indeed anywhere else in the country.  Imagine the effect on my surprise when the wolf turned towards me, transformed into some kind of wild cat, and smiled at me for a while before wandering away through the branches of the trees.

I sat and pondered this for a while.  Then the branches shimmered and I saw in them the god Poseidon.  Yes.  Him.  The actual ancient sea god.  In a wood.  Not in the sea.  He stood there, complete with trident and crown and I accepted this turn of events.  I'd run out of space for surprise.  He looked at me for a while and then spoke, simply saying "Come, receive my gift."  I was disappointed because I didn't know how to come to him to receive a gift.  After a while he nodded at me and shimmered away.

I told a new friend this.  Explained how I'd encountered Poseidon.  Even though, quite obviously, he doesn't actually exist.  She said, "But he does exist.  I talk to him all the time."  Sometimes it's good to share things with people who turn out to be pleased you've found some sanity rather than wanting to reach for a new anti-psychotic medication to alleviate the hallucinations you keep having.

Two days ago I visited the sea.  I found a wonderful spot.  The tide was at its lowest point and many rocks were uncovered.  Lots of amazing rock pools.  Lots of space.  And no people.  I spent over an hour there before I had to leave to be somewhere else.  I'd have loved to stay longer and will return.  Well, nearly no people.  Two guys sat nearly 100 metres away near the cliff.  And at one point a guy with a towel wandered close before wandering off again.  To be honest I was hoping he would be someone so in tune with the needs of everyone that he was only there to give me a towel.  Unfortunately I remained towel-less and he towel-ful.

I sat close to the water.  As close as I could without being sprayed.  And I meditated for a while.  Opening my eyes I saw Poseidon again.  This seemed more normal.  While it may be abnormal to encounter a non-existent ancient god in person at least he was in the right place this time.  He spoke to me again.  We talked for a while and I cried out to Spirit in acceptance of life.

Image taken from here.

After a while things got physical.  I had to respond in action.  He said that he didn't want me to do this where the sea met the rocks because that would have been too dangerous.  But he pointed me to a rock pool behind where I sat.  A very deep rock pool full of life and the most perfect shade of blue-green you can imagine.  He told me to go and dip my hands and wrists into the water and feel its life.

I knelt by that pool, obedient.  Felt the water.  It was cold!  But brilliant and had I the right clothes and a towel it would, later, have been tempting to immerse myself in the pool.  Poseidon spoke again.  He told me to lean further out and pour the sea water over my head, to baptise myself into a new sense of Spirit.  He gave me the words to say.  I won't repeat them here.  Partly because they were for me and for that occasion.  Partly because many of them are lost.  I haven't been told to write a liturgy for others or to start a Poseidon Spirit cult.  Not yet anyway!

So with his help I baptised myself.

I then returned to the sea and stood on the one rock higher than the rest and watched the sea strike the shore below me.  I shouted into the sea.  I sang.  I prayed - mostly in Christian language because that's the language I have even though I don't have the doctrine to go with it.  When I call out "Come Holy Spirit" I'm in no way calling to the third person of a Trinitarian God who is what the Christians claim.  And yet the words are working for me.  If I say "Lord" or "God" or any of the other words or even "Baptism" I'm not saying them as you might find them in the Catholic Catechism.

Then Poseidon said to head to another pool.  Baptise myself in that one too.  And we sat together.  We might have shared a pot of tea had we had a pot to share.

Reluctantly I had to leave for an event.  I didn't want to.  I wanted to stay with the god.  With the rocks and the sea and watch as the tide continued to rise.  Feel the breeze.  Feel the sunlight.  Soak myself some more.  Meditate in that place of near total solitude.  Explore the rock pools.  Watch the seaweed forests rise up again.  But I had to leave.

I had a good time at that event.  A social occasion.  The new friend I mentioned was there and she was so pleased that I'd met Poseidon again.  There was talking.  A guided meditation based in part on opening up channels between chakras.  And we each drew cards from an animal tarot pack.  I drew the monkey and the raven.

So what do I say now about all this?

1.  I'm not going to call it weird any more.  I'm going to own it as my experience and say it is what it is.  Nobody else has to believe a word of it.  You can call it weird.  Call it whatever you like.  But I did meet Poseidon.  In some way or other.  Even if he isn't real.  Even if he is just a symbol, a story.  Stories are immensely powerful.  I met a philosopher a while ago who argued that stories are powerless and we should give them up for pure reason.  He was wrong.  That's my dogmatic statement for today.  He was wrong.

Perhaps when we tell the most powerful of stories they are real in that moment.  Perhaps I need to express what I might mean by real before I write a sentence like that.

2.  I love tarot cards.  I'd love to have more of them and to give myself the time to use them, to learn more about them.  Many of the sets contain seventy-eight works of art. The imagery is wonderful and the stories and interpretations are fascinating.

I don't believe that tarot or other ways of divination have any power in themselves whatsoever.  Whatever interpretation a book may give to the card drawn is of no use.  Except that we then, from our own wisdom and inner intuitive knowledge, bring power to it and learn what we may learn.  Or we bring our own ego and arrogance or shame to it and replace the truths with lies.  It can be hard to know the difference.

Still, I did enjoy drawing the monkey and then the raven.  Especially the raven.  It's kind of my animal.  Also the animal of the new friend as it happens.  And in claiming that I have new ways in which to look into my life and being and hopefully learn something.  It was interesting too at a writing workshop based on tarot this year to draw the devil followed by three sixes from the minor arcana.  The Devil.  666.   That was amusing.

3.  I don't believe Poseidon is real.  I don't believe any of the gods are real.  Not the god of the Christians, the many gods of the Hindus, and not the gods of the many religions that have passed into history.  My new friend says our belief brings them their existence.  Maybe that's so in a way.  The Hindus sometimes say they have a thousand gods, none of whom are divine.  I like that idea.  Pray to a god and the god is not reality.  The god is a powerful symbol though.  A personalised emanation.  A holder of a facet of reality.

Poseidon spoke to me.  That's a powerful thing.  Even though he's not real.  Speaking to unreal gods is powerful.  I was talking with a Discordian a while ago who said to me how it was amazing that many changes come from praying to a god he knows full well doesn't exist.  I presume he spoke of Eris.  Maybe it will be the same for me.

4.  I want to dig more deeply into all the things I will still habitually call weird.  I have friends who tell me how much tapping (EFT) helps them.  EFT is nonsense - but I'll try it one day.  I want to enter into considering the Sephiroth, run more into meditation, and learn of a whole load of different ways.  I want to explore energy work more.  I learned to balance chakras and auras as a teenager and I want to return to it and I don't give a damn whether or not science would ever tell me they're real things or whether they're just superb symbols that can be used for understanding, healing and realisation of truths and ideas.  I want more of the woo.  More of the nonsense.

5.  I say that while wishing to remain completely skeptical.  To keep my brain screwed in place and to call out fake therapies.  It's all well and good using the stories, the symbols, the cards and the gods to understand and grow.  But when they're marketed erroneously as curers of disease or packaged as the truth in themselves then everything changes and something that may be good becomes something that is intensely bad.

6.  I want to say it again.  Because I believe it.  Poseidon talked with me and led me through a baptism in sea water.  Even though he's not real.


And so I will return to the sea.  Perhaps Poseidon will be there again.  Perhaps not.  Perhaps I will only (only!) encounter the universe, nature, the surface of the deepest water.  That will be enough.  What more is needed?  Ancient gods are just an added bonus in the expression of life.

I began writing this text with a very different plan in mind.  I was going to speak out against woo.  Against all the rubbish people speak and sell and how dangerous some of it actually is.  Instead I've written something that most people would say is also woo, rubbish, nonsense.

They're right.  It is.  Because quite clearly I've been communing with a nonexistent deity.  It's nonsense.  You're right.  I could have been hallucinating accidentally.  Then more purposefully.  I understand that hallucinations are more common among autistic people and I've certainly hallucinated before in more scary, sometimes terrifying, ways.

And yet it isn't nonsense or just my head playing a trick.  Because as a symbol, as a path into understanding, Poseidon has been very powerful for me in the last week.  I call upon no one to believe in him.  He's not real.  I don't believe in him.  He's not real.  And yet I spoke with him and would happily do so again and I am happy to find meaning in the experience.

Hail Poseidon! (Unreal) God of the Sea! May I find whatever wisdom I need to draw from your story and from the waters you (don't) rule.

Hail Poseidon!

The Tale of Haycock The Rainbow Pony and the EHCP

The following is inspired by a writing prompt that was in itself inspired by words that exist somewhere on a piece of paper - an actual EHCP (Education Health and Care Plan).  Those words are "Haycock the Rainbow."  For the writing prompt a friend added the word "Pony."

Forty-eight hours later, in an afternoon free-writing burst following on from the prompt circulating in my head, this is the result.  A 2000 word children's tale.

A little of what a rainbow garden feels like

Haycock The Rainbow Pony

Haycock the Rainbow Pony knew she had a lovely life.

There was nothing she liked to do more than to frolic in her garden, planting new beds of flower seeds that would grow up to produce the most fabulous plants in the animal world.  They had stems of many colours and each stem would be topped with seven different flowers, one of each colour and one of each shape.

One plant might have a circular yellow flower, a triangular blue flower, and a shining diamond purple flower among its blossoms.

Another might have a beautiful green dodecahedron and a red rhombus and if Haycock was very fortunate it might display a fantastically rare indigo icosahedron.

Haycock the Rainbow Pony liked all the colours and shapes but she liked the indigo flowers the best.  It didn't matter what shape they were.  The colour still produced the warmest electric buzz in Haycock's head.

Sometimes the rainbow flower plant would produce more bell shaped blossoms than usual.  Then it would rain and the whole garden would chime out melodies and harmonies and the animals would raise their voices in joyful celebration.  Even the worms would wriggle out of their holes in the ground and sing thankful worm songs.

Haycock loved her garden.  She loved her house too and loved to sleep in her bed and dream of the next crop of flowers and how happy they would make the other ponies when she took them to the market.

Haycock was never going to get rich from her flower selling.  She didn't want to.  She had a little house but that was enough for her.  Haycock's reward was knowing that she was a good rainbow gardener.  Her second reward was seeing the smiles on the faces of the other ponies.

Haycock's life was everything she wanted it to be.  How could it not be?  She had enough for her needs and her work helped the other ponies have a happier life.  She thought she was probably the most fortunate rainbow pony in the whole land.  Every day she would wake up smelling the flowers and every night she would lay her head on the pillow and tuck her legs under her duvet and fall asleep in total contentment.

Until the horses came.

Three of them.

She was still in bed one morning when she heard them outside.  They were shouting.

"Come outside you pony.  Come and see what we're doing."

They didn't sound like they were doing anything to spread the love of rainbows.  Haycock quickly got out of bed and ran out of her door even without stopping to brush her teeth.

The three horses were in her garden.  In the flower beds.  Cantering up and down them.  They were neighing and laughing and looked like they were trying to kick every flower.  Haycock's garden was almost destroyed already.  Would there even be enough seeds to save?

Haycock shouted.  "STOP!  What do you think you are doing you horses?  Why are you in my garden?"

The horses stopped.  Glared at Haycock and shook their manes at her.  They walked up to Haycock and stood menacingly over her.

"Hello Haycock.  Horrid Haycock.  We're going to destroy your garden until there aren't any flowers left and then we're going to destroy it some more.  And you can't stop us."

Two of the horses went back to their trampling.  The other stuck his tongue out at Haycock and made a very rude noise.

"But why?" asked Haycock.

"Because we can," said the horse.  "We hate rainbows and we hate rainbow ponies even more.  Horses can't make rainbows so you shouldn't have them either.  Especially as you're just a little pony.  You're much less than a horse and we want to prove it to you so that you never try to be better than a horse again."

The horse joined its friends and they laughed even more.  Haycock watched as the bell flowers were smashed.  And then the last rare indigo icosahedron was trampled into the ground.  Haycock shouted and shouted for the horses to stop but they wouldn't.  And then she fell to her knees and cried.

"Ha ha," shouted one of the horses, "Look at the silly little pony.  It serves her right."

By lunchtime every rainbow plant had been destroyed.  The earth was a mess of fragments of colour.  There wouldn't be smiling ponies at the market that week.  There wouldn't be smiling ponies for a long time.  Perhaps there would never be smiling ponies again.

The horses gathered around Haycock.  One of them said, "We're going now.  I think there is a Shetland pony in the next valley who makes colourful lollipops.  We're going to break his lollipop factory.  You're just ponies.  Don't try to be colourful.  Because we're horses.  Better than you.  Don't forget it or we'll be back."

The three horses turned there backs on Haycock and trotted off, still laughing.

Haycock lay on the ground among the broken flowers.  She cried so much that she was still crying the next morning.  Then she slept on the earth until the rain woke her.  There were no bell flowers to chime out their melodies.  The worms appeared and they cried too when they saw the scene.

On the next day Haycock worked very hard.  She collected all the broken flowers.  She dug through all the beds.  She hunted and hunted.  There would be just enough seeds to start gardening again.  If the horses didn't return.  Haycock knew the horses were still out there.  By now they had probably destroyed the lollipop pony's tasty treats.  Maybe they would move on from there to other ponies.  Perhaps soon there might not be any colour left in pony land.

Haycock thought hard while she replanted the seeds.  She decided that while everything was growing she would try to stop the horses herself.  Make sure they never came back to pony land.

Haycock had a plan.  She would trot all the way to horse land.  Once there she would join the EHCP.  The Evil Horse Control Police.  Once she wore her very own shiny Sheriff badge she would call on the police horses to control the evil horses who had invaded pony land.  Haycock knew that if any horse was evil it was the three horses she had met.

What could be more evil than hurting ponies and trying to destroy all the pretty rainbow colours?  What indeed?

The next day Haycock left her home and garden in the safe hands of the three rainbow cats who lived nearby.  They promised to water the flowers on the days it didn't rain and to regularly chime any bell flowers that grew.

Haycock took plenty of food and water with her.  If she needed more she would just have to eat grass.  That was free in pony land.  She said goodbye to the cats and the worms came out to wave her goodbye.  Or at least, they wiggled her goodbye because they couldn't wave very well.

She trotted all that day and slept in a field under a full moon, chatting with the man in the moon until it was late.  He said that if he saw the horses being naughty he would try to do something to stop them.  He couldn't promise though because he lived a very long way away even though it looked like he was just there in the sky and because he only woke up at night when the horses were probably asleep.  Haycock thanked the man in the moon anyway.  He was a very optimistic man and cheered her up somewhat.

She trotted all the next day too.  And all the next.  Horse land was a long way away.  Finally she crossed the border and came to the big town, Hoofsville.  There were thousands of horses.  None of them were rainbow coloured.  All of them looked a bit sad.  Everyone stared at Haycock.  It was as if they had never seen a rainbow pony before.  It was almost as if they could hardly believe that a rainbow animal existed.

Haycock eventually arrived at the EHCP headquarters.  She walked into the building.  It was full of horses who looked even more grumpy than those outside.  She walked up to the main desk and rang the bell.

"Er.  Can I help you little pony?"

"Yes, you can.  I want to join the Evil Horse Control Police.  Then I have some evil horses who need to be controlled.  They're causing lots of harm back in pony land."

The mare constable behind the desk laughed.  "You?  YOU?  Ha, ha ha.  YOU!?  But you're not a horse.  You're a pony.  You can't join the EHCP or tell us which horses to control.  That's so funny.  Wait until I tell the sergeant."

The mare constable went off to find the sergeant.  He was a black stallion.  When he appeared, two hours later, it looked like he had almost been crying from laughing so much.

The stallion sergeant looked at Haycock and said, "It's true.  And on my watch too!  You're right constable.  This is the funniest thing ever.  A rainbow pony in EHCP headquarters.  Wanting to join."

"That's right sir," said Haycock.  "There are some evil horses in pony land and I want to join you and stop them."

"Stop them?  In pony land?  Why would we want to do that?  You're just ponies.  You don't matter.  You don't have any rights.  Why should you?  You're not horses.  And you look so stupid too.  Try to be better than us horses with your rainbows but you're worse.  You're hardly even equine.  So what if those horses are hurting you.  Good for them, that's what I say.  You deserve it the lot of you.  For being ponies.  Only horses are important you know.  Now go away.  Before I arrest you."

"But ... but the evil horses.  They're evil.  Please stop them."

"No.  Go away rainbow pony.  And get your hair dyed brown on your way out of town.  Or I'll throw you into prison.  Constable.  Take the silly pony to the hair shop."

So Haycock was escorted out of the EHCP building by the constable who kept calling her stupid.  Poor Haycock.  She was dragged into the hair shop and wasn't allowed to leave until every single strand of her hair was a muddy brown colour.

"There.  That's better," said the constable.  "You almost look normal and acceptable now.  Except you're a pony.  Go back to pony land and don't come back.  Ever."

Haycock had to go back to pony land.  She had failed.  And she was a boring colour.  It would take months before her hair regrew in glorious colour again.  It was true.  Legally ponies had no rights.  They had all been taken by the horses.  It was unfair.  Desperately unfair.  Haycock had hoped to find help and support anyway but the unfairness of the system had obviously turned to hatred and spite.

Then it got worse.  Haycock had run out of food.  So she ate some grass from a field.  Grass isn't free in horse land.  Nothing is free.  Haycock was spotted and a horse shouted "Stop!  Thief!"  Haycock had to run as fast as she could and only just reached pony land without being caught and arrested for eating some grass.

Haycock walked home, crying all the way but thankful that she was able to eat without fear in pony land.  When she got home she had a cup of tea and then fell asleep on her bed, totally miserable and defeated.

The next day she looked at her garden.  She was able to smile a little when she saw that the new rainbow plants had begun to grow.  She had a shower.  Then another.  Then six more.  After eight showers she had managed to wash out some of the dismal brown hair dye.  She could just make out her rainbow colours under the brown when she looked in the mirror.

The cats visited her and brought her a tasty dinner.  The worms gathered round and said the most kind and sympathetic words they could think of.  And Haycock went back to bed.  She was still very sad.

The next morning she had an idea.  Perhaps, if the ponies worked together they could rid pony land of the three evil horses.  Perhaps they could go further.  As a collective they could fight against the oppression of the horses and gain rights for themselves.  Perhaps one day there would even be some kind of equality and no pony would ever have to worry about being a pony and the rainbow ponies could spread their colours without fear.  Perhaps it could be done.

So that's what happened.  Haycock gathered the ponies together.  They organised.  Became strong together.  Fought back against the three evil horses.  Defeated them.  And then fought back against the repressive system.  The horseiarchy was smashed.

Haycock the Rainbow Pony became a hero.  But that's a story for another time.

She didn't really mind about being a hero.  Once the victory had been won she went back to her garden.  Expanded it.  And spread rainbows not only in pony land but in horse land too.  Even the horses began to smile.  Haycock continued to fight when she had to.  But her reward was to see the creatures smile.



[2223 words]

Death And Life At Sea - A Continuation of A Fallen Life

Note: This post follows on immediately from yesterday's post.  You can find that under this link.

I have been told too that I should return to my private detective, whose first case was posted within the last week.  You can find that under this link.  I also want to continue the story about the stranger on my bed.  I posted the first part of that a few days ago.  You can find that under this link.  I also need to write about The Cafe of Stolen Dreams.  And I have a novel to write too.  So many possible writing projects.  When I began this blog two months ago my only project was to write from a prompt every day.  I am amazed how much has changed in just two months.

This is the first time one post on this blog has followed on from another.  I guess it won't be the last.  Here it is.  The second short chapter of a story.  It began with suicide.  Happy stuff!





I awoke to find myself in someone else's bed.  I could tell it wasn't mine.  The light was all wrong, the covers were too scratchy, and my own bed tended to stay still.  This one was rocking gently and I couldn't tell whether the movement was soothing or nauseating.  I opened my eyes to find a man staring down at me.  He had four long scars running down the length of his face.

"So you've woken up all by yourself.  You're in a strange room and a man like me is with you.  What do you do?"

"Hey, what?"

"What do you do?  Serious question."

"Er, er.  I ask you where I am."

"Is that the best you can do?  How disappointing.  I was rather hoping you might use some magic power to transport yourself onto the deck or that you might see how sinister I look and decide to engage me in mortal combat.  It's been a while since anyone did that.  But no.  Where am I?"  He asked the question with a sarcastic leer.

"Okay then.  Who are you?   And how did I get here?"

"Pulled you out of the water didn't I?  I am Captain Jonas and you're on my ship.  Saw your body floating out in the sea and thought you were dead.  Maybe you were.  But then you had a heartbeat so I stuck you in the spare bed for safekeeping.  Thought it up to you whether you live or die.  You seem to be having difficulties making that choice for yourself but don't let my face scare you, I'm a kind old fool and thought you should have another chance."

It all came back to me.  My suicide.  My miraculous resurrection on the rocks and how I had subsequently drowned.  Or maybe I hadn't.  I couldn't have drowned could I?  Not totally, because I was here now.

Jonas kept talking but I hardly took in the words.  Something about death and life and turning of wheels.  I looked around at the cabin.  It contained two other beds, both with the same rough grey fabric that covered me.  Decoration was sparse and the grey paint on the walls was disheartening.  The only break from the grey was two pictures hung next to the door.  The first was of a whale.  The other of a blue wizard's hat and at the bottom of the picture I could just see that it was being worn by someone.  I lay back on the bed.  Started to drift away into sleep.  Until Jonas said something that brought me back to full alertness.

"Your friend wasn't so lucky."

"Wha .. wha ... what friend?"

"That other woman who was with you.  Sorry to have to tell you.  She's dead.  Won't be coming back to life any time soon either.  Not with the state of her.  I really don't understand how these things work.  There she is, all puffy and her skin a total mess.  Looks like she's been sleeping with the fishes for days.  And there you are, all bright eyes and perky in the first mate's bunk, with your skin all smooth and gorgeous as if you had only been out for a quick dip.  Say, you're not related are you?  She's all puffed up and it's a very sorry sight but she looks a bit like you.  Stuck her down in the freezer until we get to a port if that's okay.  Don't tell me you were out with your family and lost them all.  Not that.  Oh, why must I be so insensitive all the time?"

I understood.  My corpse from the rocks had obviously washed out too and been picked up with me in some freak of currents.  The bloated flesh was odd but I guessed that stranger things had happened.  Somewhere.  At least once.

"Can I see her?"

"Later, later.  There's plenty of time for that.  We won't be in port for a day or two unless that changes.  First off you should eat.  Must be hungry after nearly drowning and all.  I've put out some clothes for you on the other bed.  Yes, yes, you're naked.  I've seen it all.  Too late.  But I don't care about any of that and don't suppose you want to stay that way.  They're not much to look at and won't fit well but they're better than nothing.  Can get a bit cold on deck too when the wind takes us."

"Thank you captain.  You're too good to me."

"Nonsense lass.  Nonsense.  It's nothing.  Shame about the other one though."

"Was it bad?  How broken is she?  How bad do her injuries look?"

"Injuries?  Oh my no.  No injuries.  You don't get injured in the sea unless something eats you or you get stung by jellyfish or electric eels or find yourself caught up in the propeller of an ocean liner."  He laughed heartily.  "Injuries indeed.  My, my, you do have some funny ideas about the sea don't you?!"

Maybe I didn't understand after all.

"Please, I need to see her.  Need to know.  I couldn't eat a thing without knowing."

"Calm yourself.  Calm yourself.  Get yourself dressed and I'll take you down there.  She's not going anywhere.  And then afterwards I'll tell you what's what and you can help me clean the net.  It'll do you good.  Otherwise you'll just be thinking about it.  Why you're alive and the other one is very, very dead."

He left me then.  I got out of the bed.  Examined my body.  Everything was where it should be and I had to admit my skin really was quite gorgeous and smooth.  Where it should be?  Not quite.  It should be smashed up on the rocks and then washed into the sea.  If indeed the waves dislodged my corpse from those spikes.  That's where I should be.  Quite dead.  But nothing had gone to plan since I jumped from the cliff.  Nothing much had gone to plan in the year before jumping.  Otherwise I guess I would never have wanted to die so much.

As I dressed into Jonas' clothes I reflected that, having died twice, I didn't want to do it again.  I wanted to live.  Find a future.  Turn from all those things which had gone wrong and forge something new.  New town.  New people.  New everything.  I could do it.  Why not?  If others could sort their lives out why not me?  I didn't know why I wasn't dead.  Twice.  A rush of gratitude coursed through me and I burst into tears.

Once I had composed myself I left the cabin and found myself in a simple galley kitchen.  Jonas was there.  He took one look at me and burst out laughing.  "I'm sorry.  You do look funny though.  Dwarfed by my clothes.  And grey really isn't your colour.  I'll find you something in a bit to hold up those trousers.  Can't have you having to hold them up yourself all the time, not that I care.  Come on, I'll take you down to the other one now."

He led me out onto the deck of the boat, helping me climb the steep ladder from the galley although I didn't really need assistance.  On the deck I saw several fishing nets and various equipment that I hardly understood.  There was a wooden building at the front that looked close to collapse. Inside I could see the top of a steering wheel.  And that was it.  Everything was painted in the same grey as the cabin.

Jonas opened a trapdoor that had blended perfectly with the deck.  "Get a move on," he said, "I don't know about you but I want my lunch and if we don't hurry it'll be dinner time already and we'll be wanting to turn the clocks for a ham sandwich."

We climbed down another ladder.  This time I was offered no assistance.  In the room below there were several large freezers.  They all had their doors open.  All were empty.  And in the middle of the room were two smaller chest freezers.  "One's for my food.  The other's for just in case," Jonas explained.  "Wouldn't want the just in cases to get mixed with my food would I?  Even so they nearly didn't give me the second one.  Took weeks of arguing.   Seriously though?  Would you want to keep your fish fingers in the same box as your human fingers."

He laughed again.  I didn't.

"Sorry.  I guess that joke was in bad taste.  She's in that one on the right.  I'm off now.  Make lunch for us while I still can.  And then you can tell me about yourself and I can fill in the gaps."

Jonas left and I opened the freezer.  Laid out flat inside was a human corpse.  Bloated, distended, discoloured by the water and by having been dead for a while.  I could still see her face though.  It was mine.  I looked closer and reached in to check.  There were no obvious wounds.  No breakages.  Nothing to show where I had been impaled or shattered on the rocks.  I realised with a start that this wasn't that corpse.

The miracle had happened again.  I really had drowned.  Days ago probably.  And this was my corpse.  Or at least my second corpse.  Somehow I stood here.  Alive.  While I also lay here frozen on a fishing boat with no fish.  Somewhere, presumably, there was another version of me.  I stared at myself a little longer.  Closed the freezer.  And sank to the floor, uncomprehending, not wanting to face the questions that would come.  Perhaps my death would become harder than my life ever was.


[1614 words]

Last Night I Woke To Find A Stranger Sitting On My Bed

During my post for yesterday I said that a story idea had popped into my head and that I would allow the story to be written at some point during the day.  This is that story.  It begins with someone waking up to find another someone sitting on their bed.  That is the only thing the story has in common with the ideas in my head this morning.

This is a first chapter.  Whether any more chapters are ever written is something I cannot know at this point.  I would like to write more.  Because at this point I don't know who either someone is.  While writing this neither of them told me the answer.  So don't write in and ask me to tell you.  I expect if I wrote more the answers would come.

Here it is.  Chapter one.  It has no title.  They haven't told me that either.

A picture of the end of my bed. Taken by a stranger.

I woke up in the night with a start to find her tickling my toes.

"Ah, there you are," she said with a look of relief on her face.  "I thought for a minute there you might be dead."

I backed away, fear and confusion combining in an unholy mess, and pressed my back up against the wall.  Pulled in my knees to my chest and stared at her.  Too scared to speak.  I wasn't in the habit of waking up to find a stranger sitting on my bed.

"Now, now, there's no need to worry yourself over me.  I'm not going to hurt you my dear."

At that I must have looked closer to terror because she said, "I shouldn't have said that should I?  That's what they say in fairy tales isn't it and then they eat you or kill you in some curious manner or imprison you or force you to work for them for a million years or trick you into sleeping for a hundred.  I must heartily apologise for my breach in positive language skills."

She looked at me and smiled warmly.  "Come my dear.  I did it again didn't I?  I can't help it.  You see I don't think they properly trained me for this job.  I was meant to gently raise you out of sleep or wait for you to wake up naturally.  But when I saw your eyes were closed and couldn't hear snoring sounds I didn't know what to do.  What if you had been dead?  They wouldn't have been pleased with me.  So I couldn't resist.  Anyway, your right foot was already exposed.  Tip time: If you keep your feet covered up you won't get so cold.  Where was I?  Any idea?"

I stared at her some more.  Began to relax a little.  She was a very strange stranger and her long blue hair was an awful mess of curls and knots.  She wore a dress made of purple bubble wrap and a mixture of rainbow colour bracelets all the way from her wrists to her elbows.  What she was doing on my bed was beyond my comprehension.  How she had got into my house was another question.  But I had to admit that it was probable she wasn't going to transform into a giant goblin and gobble me up whole or drag me into the kingdom of the gnomes.  Whoever she was, I didn't sense any danger.  Nevertheless I continued to stare at her silently.

"No idea.  I don't mind.  Sometimes it's better to have no idea.  Sometimes it's better just to take it all as it comes.  I myself lived without a clue for many years.  That wasn't my fault of course.  And it wasn't my choosing either.  It was an enchantment that did it and I never found out who enchanted me although I have my suspicions.  I know it wasn't a human so it can't have been you.  Not that you would have wanted to trap me in such a cruel way.  You hadn't even met me.  Unless of course I make some error so awful that you seek revenge and can find a time mistress to try to stop me being here in the first place.  Did you do that?  Oh, silly me."  She let out a big laugh as if it was the funniest thing in the whole world.  "You wouldn't know.  You haven't done it yet.  I'll tell you know though.  If you are going to be considering cursing me in the past there's no point.  It won't stop me.  Of course it won't.  I'm here anyway.  But it wasn't you.  I don't think.  I believe it was either one of Rose, Rose or Rose.  You probably don't know them because they don't live in your bedroom.  They're triplets.  Identical and their parents couldn't tell them apart so they all got given the same name.  It's ever so confusing.  Yes, I was enchanted.  Now I'm just enchanting as I'm sure you can tell.  Do you like my dress?  I made it myself.  I like purple.  I found the material blowing in the wind one day and had to carefully paint each individual bubble in a slightly different shade of purple.  It took ages.  And the enchantment was hard to break.  Not only was I clueless but my cluelessness reset itself every day.  That's why I was clueless for so many years.  But I'm not clueless now.  I have a clue.  Even if I did wake you so rudely and call you my dear.  I think I've explained myself properly now.  Any questions?"

I could hardly take in her story.  All that talk of revenge and spells was too much for me at half past three in the morning.  It might have been too much at half past three in the afternoon.  And as for her dress.  It was well crafted, I had to admit that to myself.  I wouldn't have thought a bubble wrap dress could ever fit so well.  Yet to my eyes there was only one shade of purple.  Struggling to make sense of her I managed to ask four questions.

"Just two.  For now.  Who are you?  And what are you doing here, sitting on my bed?  No, I take it back.  Another question.  I'm asking three not two  How did you get in?  I'm sure I locked the front door, the back door, all the windows and even the cat flap.  Are you a lock pick or something?"

She squealed and put her hands over her ears.  "Enough, enough.  Stop it right now.  That's four questions now.  I do wish you would stop changing your mind so abruptly.  It's very confusing and I'm not going to answer any questions if you carry on like that.  I'm sorry but that's just how it is."

To prove her point she stuck her fingers in her ears and started singing "La, la, la ..." loudly and without even a hint of a melody.  I wouldn't have even called it a series of notes.  I shook my head.  How rude.  To come and sit on my bed uninvited and not even answer any questions.  I could hardly believe it.  Trust me to get the one bedroom visitor who seemed to be a little unstable.  I changed that thought.  Her instability could have been much worse and she could have been concealing an unbreakable knife in that dress.  I could see she wasn't.  The whole thing was a little opaque.  Not transparent enough to reveal everything but the outfit didn't leave much to my imagination.

I leaned forward and gently touched her arm.  Looked at her with the kindest expression I could manage.  I think possibly my expression was mistaken for murderous because she closed her eyes and shouted "La, la, la, I'm not listening but I'm not allowed to leave."

I gave up and went to make two mugs of tea.  Leave her to her strange tantrum.  When I came back to the bedroom she was quiet.  Quiet and lying down.  Quiet and fast asleep cuddled up to my large teddy bear.  Great.  Now I couldn't go back to bed.  I put on my dressing gown and pulled a blanket from the cupboard.  Sat on my big bean bag and drank my tea.  Then I lay down and got as comfortable as I could without lying on my bed.  She could answer my questions in the morning and then I would see about lending her one of my own dresses.  My imagination may not have had to work hard but I had to work hard to not remember the outline of her breasts - and I confess I felt more than a little guilty for noticing them - or the way she smiled at me, or the fact that I would have loved to give her hair a good wash and then gently comb out all the knots, or the way I found all the odd things she said to be quite endearing.  Whoever she was, it didn't seem an altogether bad thing that she had appeared on my bed.

Presently I fell asleep.  I woke up with aches all through my back and bones.  I groaned as I turned to my side and remembered I was on the floor.  I could see from the clock by the bed that it was seven sixteen.  Quite respectable.  Then I remembered the stranger.  The stranger and her melodious voice and endearing giggle.  The stranger with her annoying habit of la, la la-ing.  I sat up and looked on the bed.

She was gone.

Perhaps I had dreamed the whole thing.  That seemed the most likely scenario.  A dream.  Far more likely than a blue, purple, rainbow girl coming through locked doors - and they were locked, I checked before breakfast - and rambling on about enchantments.  No.  Of course not.  She wasn't real.  Not real.  But vivid enough that I was able to fill two whole pages in my dream diary.  A new personal record.  I looked at the empty mug of tea.  I looked at the full mug.  I wondered why I had made two mugs but guessed I'd been sleepwalking.  I hadn't done that for a while.  Perhaps my dinner had made my head do funny things.  I wouldn't be buying that particular pie again.

Over breakfast I thought about my dream.  If all my dreams were similar I'd look forward to going to bed every night.  As long as I didn't end up sleeping on the floor.  She really had been quite pretty and had an amazing sparkle in her eyes and a cute way of playing with her bracelets while she talked, as if she was counting each of them in turn.  I decided that I would write up my dream.  Present it as a story.  So that's what I've done.

Tonight I will go to bed again.  Perhaps I will dream.  Perhaps I will dream of her.  Maybe she'll come and visit again and this time I won't be scared as I sleep and can find out who my brain thinks she might be.  Perhaps.  I can only hope.  I'm going to bed early tonight just in case.

I'll let you know.


[1696 words]

Two Short Pieces About Sunlight, Coffins, And The End of The World

Prompt 51: Sunrise/Sunset: It goes round and round.

Sunrise, looking towards Tynemouth

For today's post I've written two little pieces.  They're both a little strange.  If you read these posts regularly you'll be used to strange.  I'm not particularly happy with either piece.  The second was only written because I was unhappy with the first.

The first is spoken by a fictional subatomic particle.  It's similar to a photon in that it is light.  But it isn't a photon because photons do not behave in this way at all.  Not unless they're very special photons indeed.  Which they're not.

The second is about a very unfortunate man living a particularly unhappy life.  I think he deserves a full short story one day because such a character as this could be built up and played with and generally have a rotten time.

Sunshine.  Looking to Fleetwood from Knott End

From beginning to end I see it all.
I am there at the birth, animated into form
As the source of Being speaks, "Let there by light,"
And singularity breaks, bringing forth a universe.
I awaken at the first dawn, at the wellspring of life.
I take my first breath as one who lived before.
For ten million years I celebrated inside the great light
Where a billion like me played, dancing dervishes
Singing the hymn of praise to star cycles.
Cast out by fire I crossed the universe
Unhindered by time, sharing the expanse with
All the incarnations of myself and my path,
Until, swallowed by cold dust, I suffered.
Absorbed, caught in a particle and chained
Within time, within space, and held in the
Slow speed of the cosmic winds.
I waited.  Waited.  Waited again.
Close to death, restrained, but oh so patient.
Dust met dust met dust met dust.
Became a grain, a rock, an irresistable weight
And then, under gravity's command
We ignited again, reborn with new brothers.
My first breath would lead to my final death.
I saw the journey, lived it all at once and I
Screamed in the joy of a billion year instantaneousness.
I live in the new star, intimate in union with ourselves.
I live too on the new earth, alone to wait again.
I see the gap and travel between.
I land in the fire before the land ever was.
I exist as the burning, the birthing of the rocks
I sleep and wait and watch as life breathes form;
The single cell, greatest miracle of all,
The waters teeming with life inexplicable
Until it cannot be contained and must feel the air
And exult in the dry sight of a million days.
I see the giant lizards, I see the first flight,
The fall of creatures, over and over.
Until I see something new.  A new form, new race,
A creature brave enough to shape the earth
And deliberately light the flame rather than
Cower from volcano, lightning and the summer fire.
I see them learn language and take the earth as inheritance
And I am pleased by their tenacious curiosity. 
I run free again in the low lights they make.
I am the bright light in their atom splitting destructiveness.
Then they are gone.
Just one more brief interlude in an earth story.
I rest again, biding my time.  Freedom will return
As starlight blossoms into nova and in that moment
Of one hundred million years I will be everything and nothing
Before I die again in the cold slumber of extinguished starstuff.
I am there at the beginning.  I remain at the end.
I see it all in an eternal moment
The light of the world, purest illumination.
I see you too, witness every second of your life.
I know you as nothing, an irrelevant blip,
An infinitesimal ripple on the wave of universal history.
And yet. And yet your tiny uniqueness is
A greater fire than the star you orbit.
I am the light.
You are the light.
And we burn together.

Across a lake at night.

He was the butt of the joke.  Always.  They thought him perverse.  They hated him.  They wanted to be him.  They were jealous.  Angry.  Because he was different and they wanted every one of their kind to be the same.

He would get up in the morning dreading what he might find that day.  What cruel trick had they played on him?  There were rules of course.  They weren't allowed to kill one of their own and it wouldn't have been right to screw the lid of his coffin down as he slept.  But they had other ways to express their dislike of him. Sometimes they covered his face with jam as he slept.  Sometimes they put animals in the coffin with him.  He didn't mind the mice but once they had found a cat and put that inside.  The cat hadn't been healthy and had urinated, defecated and vomited on him in the night.  He had been forced to spend the whole day cleaning and disinfecting things and his pillow still smelled a bit of urine that night.  He hadn't been pleased at all and had left a strongly worded note for the others threatening to call in the exterminator.

Maybe if they would only get to know him they would find out that he was a lovely man.   Of course that was impossible.  That was the nature of his peculiar curse.  It was incredibly lonely.  He wanted to talk to them, share in their games of chess, five a side football, and torture.  The torture looked to be the most fun thing of all and it wasn't fair at all that he didn't ever get to torture people.  By the time he got up in the morning they had already finished.  Kidnapped a door-to-door evangelist or salesman or just grabbed some person from the path to the castle.  Which served them right for being stupid enough to be on the path at night.  Tied them up in the dungeon.  A bit of torture for fun.  And then death by exsanguination.  While the others were always careful to leave him a bottle of blood in the fridge he would have loved to participate in some of the delicious process of exsanguinating.  It just didn't taste the same cold.

Loneliness was the worst.  He tried to alleviate it by walking down to the village during the day but everyone there was ever so shallow.  They didn't even play chess and none of them owned a coffin!  And he always had to be careful not to talk too much about himself in case they cottoned on to the truth and thought of a novel method of killing him.  He found it impossible to build up a friendship with anyone in the village and ended up spending far too much time hunkered down over flagons of beer in the local bar.  Every now and again someone would invite him to play darts or billiards.  But never chess.  He had been a grand master once.  Before the curse.

He would head back to the castle in the evening sad and drunk.  Every day he looked at the others hoping that one of them would have woken early and he could have a conversation with them.  Or start a game of chess with a legend.  But each day he was disappointed.  The others were fast asleep.  Of course they were.  That was they nature of their blessing, so much the same as his curse yet so tragically different.

They had to sleep all day.  And he had to sleep all night.

His was the worst of all possible deaths.
He was the only sun loving vampire in the world.

The Cafe Of Stolen Dreams - A First Chapter Is Written

For my daily writing challenge I've been using the prompts given at thinkwritten.com.  The prompt for this day reads as follows:

34. Sounds: Sit outside for about an hour. Write down the sounds you hear.

It's the beginning of February.  It's Newcastle.  I'm rebelling today and refusing to sit outside for an hour holding a pen in hands that are getting far too cold to write anything.  I had to write my name and email address on a form a few nights ago after standing outside for an hour.  If anyone can read what I wrote it will be a great feat of understanding.

Today I am leaving the prompt behind.  One of my recent posts was about things which make me happy flappy.  While writing about the first of these I stumbled upon an idea and mentioned it in passing.  Most ideas just die away.  Some do not.  A title came to me:

The Cafe of Stolen Dreams.

This is a possible beginning to that story.  It's pretty freely written based on the first of some additional story fragments that have popped into my head without invitation.  It's not fully free written - Google is my friend when it comes to London street names.

 

Newcastle 29th January 2017

Before the dreams Charlotte had it all.  For thirty years she had been the golden girl.  Brilliantine.  Everything shone for her, seemingly without effort.  She had been blessed with the best of families and a top class education which she sailed through almost indecently brilliantly, earning a first class honours degree at nineteen.  Her instinctive social skills and rapport had allowed her to forge a life and career which was the envy of many.  Quickly ascending the ranks of the financial dealers she was able to buy a central London penthouse suite aged only twenty-seven.  She didn't want to settle down and get married but had enjoyed a string of boyfriends and girlfriends.  Sometimes both at the same time.

Life was pretty much as good as Charlotte had ever imagined it could be.  Until the dreams.

For as long as she could remember she had been blessed with excellent sleep.  She had never suffered a single night of insomnia.  When Charlotte's head hit the pillow that was it.  She would quickly drift away in tranquility, soothed by the shadows and the gentle hum of ambient noises.  Every morning she would wake refreshed.  Apart from that one time at university when she had agreed to try a psychedelic drug.  Just to see.  She had a bad reaction to it.  A nightmarish trip that she didn't like to remember even ten years later.  She told herself she would never try another drug.  Ever.

When the first dream surfaced Charlotte was more curious about it than anything else.  She couldn't ever remember dreaming before.  She knew from science that everyone dreams but science didn't match up with the evidence of her silent nights.  There was nothing.  Ever.  Not even a hint of missing a train, losing a tooth, or finding herself indulging in fantastic sex with someone she swore she didn't fancy.  She couldn't recall fragments of faces, places, incoherent plots, bright lights or big dreamscapes.  Her nights were marked out by a rich oblivion rather than rambling, sprawling narratives.  That was the way she liked it.  She preferred things the way she were and felt sorry for the dreamers when they talked about their dreams, good and bad supposedly but Charlotte reckoned they were all nonsense.  She didn't say so of course.  She knew better than to risk relationships over something so trivial as a nightmare.

On the evening before that first dream Charlotte had headed to the West End with friends.  She had seen Les Miserables nine times before.  So this would be her tenth trip to Queen's Theatre and to celebrate she had dressed up as Cosette and encouraged her friends to dress up too.  Jack had attempted a Jean Valjean costume but the others hadn't made any kind of effort which was a little disappointing.  Charlotte had hoped maybe they would begin a new custom of people attending Les Miserables in character to add to the excitement of the show.  After the show they had headed out for a couple of drinks at an experimental cocktail club.  Charlotte didn't drink often but when she did she liked the drinks to be spectacular, special, something to be a talking point the next day.  Nobody at work would want to discuss downing a pint of lager but an exotically named cocktail was worthy of a full description.

She arrived home that night feeling a little giddy.  Not drunk.  Just giddy.  She wondered whether she was getting ill.  Or whether something in one of her two cocktails - just two - had disagreed with her in some way.  She hoped it was the latter and that the effects would have totally worn off by morning.  She didn't like getting ill and having to miss work.  Especially not on a Friday when they could wear what they liked and when some of them went out to lunch.  That Friday she knew they were going to try a new place that opened on Moorgate a few weeks earlier.  One of the company directors had been talking about how stunning the food was and how the atmosphere and decor raised the restaurant out of the ranks of ordinary even though it didn't yet have a Michelin star.

Charlotte slept.  She dreamed.

She was back at the theatre.  On stage Les Miserables was approaching its rousing conclusion.  Charlotte was in the middle of the stalls enjoying the show for an eleventh time.  She was surprised to find herself without friends and wondered why she had gone to the theatre without company.  That wasn't enough to dampen her enthusiasm.  She was still standing and applauding and vowing to continue the revolutionary spirit.  Everyone who ever watched the play made some vow to themselves during the final song.  Nobody kept their vow.  It was only after the curtain fell that Charlotte noticed she was completely alone.  An audience of one.  A woman appeared, pushing a broom between the seats.  She told Charlotte to hurry up and leave before the doors were locked and warned her that getting trapped in the theatre would be a bad idea.

On the way out of the theatre Charlotte visited the toilet.  Afterwards, while washing her hands, she looked in the mirror.  She was dressed as Fantine, fallen on hard times, after it all went wrong and life killed the dream she dreamed.  Charlotte looked at herself.  The costume was incredibly realistic and she congratulated herself on having done such a good job.  Then she saw.  That really was her hair, not a wig.  And those weren't blacked out teeth, they really were missing.  Charlotte ran from the toilet and out of the theatre just as the man with the broom was locking the main doors.  He called after her "Don't you come back you ugly whore.  I'm going to have to fumigate the whole building now.  Sod off."  He kept shouting at her as she ran, across Shafesbury Avenue, narrowly avoiding being knocked down by a taxi whose driver slammed the brakes on and shouted, "What the hell do you think you're doing you witch?"  A group of rich city workers stood on Wardour Street pointing at her, laughing and jeering.

A woman on the corner of Gerrard Street cackled and stuck out her foot.  Charlotte fell.  As she picked herself up the woman said, "Backwards or forwards.  That's not the way."  Chinatown was lit with lanterns of all colours, turning night into a rainbow day.  Ahead of her, Charlotte could see a man leading an enormous dragon on a lead.  His face was covered with scars and his clothes were the colour of blood.  When he saw Charlotte he looked at her sadly and said, "I'm so sorry.  It's not my choice."  Then he let the dragon off the lead.  It charged at Charlotte, its mouth open wide revealing green-dirt teeth and a gangrenous tongue.  It caught her with one of its claws, its mouth clamped shut over Charlotte's head.  And she woke.

Prompt 26: Fleeing The Barbed Wire Arms Of False Love

26. Fear: What scares you a little? What do you feel when scared? How do you react?

I'm writing this after a writers' workshop.  There's homework!  Today's homework is to work up a story outline into a short story as soon as possible with a view to later turning it into a novel after building a world from the ground up.  Or the sky down, depending how it goes.  That's quite a lot of homework to come out of one morning.  Especially as there's another workshop tomorrow that will lead to new ideas unrelated to this morning's.  Yesterday I also signed up for five extra workshops over the next four months that I am only allowed to be at because I'm part of a marginalised community.  Several of them as it turns out.

Today I don't know what to write.  And that scares me a little.  It's Empty Page Syndrome, where the blankness stares back at you and in your mind you hear it jeer and tell you you're useless and that you won't ever have anything worthwhile to type or put on paper.  The empty page lies.  So I'm just going to write.  Starting ... now.

She called out to me from the mist.

"Clare, I know you're there.  I'll find you."

I was lost.  More lost than I'd ever been.  When I fled into the marsh the way had been clear, visibility perfect and I thought I would be able to cross without too much trouble.  Follow the high paths.  Jump across grassy humps as they rose from the water.  I convinced myself I wouldn't have to wade or get wet.  I could do it.  And over the marsh, safety.  Maybe.  Any hope was better than none.  Any place was better than the one I was running from.  And the marsh looked so inviting too.  Forget all the rumours, forget the nightmares people talked of.  It didn't look so bad from the hill as I ran and rolled, heart pounding, fearing that she would discover too soon that I'd gone, that she would find me and drag me back, punish me, and not allow me the little freedoms I'd worked so hard to gain.

Maybe half way across the marsh - although I had no way to tell with any certainty - the mists suddenly rolled in.  The clammy, claggy air reacted somehow with the water and by the great God I swear I've never had the displeasure of smelling anything worse.  I had to take off my top and wrap it round my nose and mouth but even then it was almost intolerable.  And in the mist I lost all sense of direction.  Couldn't tell at all.  I could have been headed right back the way I came and I wouldn't know until I reached the hill again and spied her mansion at the top.  It was only a matter of time until the mist cleared again but I had to keep going.  Fifty-fifty chance.  Freedom or her mansion.  One hundred-zero chance.  She would discover my escape and follow me into the marsh.  I couldn't stop.  Ran faster.  Faster.  And, jumping to the next hump of grass, I fell.  Broke my ankle.  Fuck it.  Hobbled through the stinking waters as best I could until I reached a path again and dragged myself onto it, pushing hard with my good leg.

I lay there.  Had to rest.  No matter the consequences.  Adrenaline had kept me going.  No time to think.  No time to worry.  Now I stopped and a creeping dread fell on me.  My ankle screamed obscenities at me and I shivered from the cold.  My stomach began to knot and thoughts began to race, accusations against myself, wild imaginings born of the nightmare stories I'd heard.  And there was the very real spectre of her.  She would be looking for me by now.

"Oh Clare, damn you for attempting this so soon.  There would have been another chance and you might have been more prepared.  You foolish girl, and there probably isn't anything better out there, at least she fed you and now you'll have lost her trust.  You've made it worse Clare and now you'll never get away.  Idiot.  Stupid bloody idiot."

I knew I had to stand, no matter the pain, keep limping, oh crap Clare get up get up get up get up you can't stay there need to move get your ass in gear get your feet pounding the ground get on get on no don't cry you pathetic excuse for a girl get up or you don't deserve anything good.  Get Up!  NOW!  Why are you still sitting there?  You can do it yes you can move move move or she'll find you.

Still I sat there.  Paralysed by the torrent of thoughts, by a fear that seemed to steal all volition, all physical ability.  Just couldn't do it.  No point waiting for the mist to clear is there you silly Clare because then she'll spot you and drag you back and lock you in that room and it won't just be for six months this time.  It'll be forever.  Never let you out.

If it hadn't been for that voice I would have stayed there unable to win the mental battle.  That voice did it.

"Clare, I know you're there.  I'll find you."

Adrenaline pumping at a thousand percent overload.  I got to my feet.  It hurt so badly.  Putting weight on my left foot was like being stabbed with the Dagger of Lamboi but I refused to admit to the wounding.  What was a broken ankle compared to the hope of freedom?  I hobbled.  Limped.  And, refusing the pain, I walked along that path.

"You can't escape Clare.  Let's go back.  You know I love you."

I ran from the voice.  Forgetting pain.  Forgetting disorientation.  That voice told me where I should run.  Away.  That was all.  Away was safety.  Towards was back into her barbed wire arms.




That's enough.  I'm tired.  Not satisfied with the writing. 

I don't know who Clare is.  She's not me, the name is coincidence.  I don't know who the woman with the mansion is either.  When she first spoke I had no clue that she wasn't going to be a benevolent helper to a lost person.  I don't know how Clare came to be in the mansion, who else lives there, or who the story tellers were.  I don't know how long Clare was there, what she had to do in order to gain enough freedom to risk an escape attempt, or what the interior looks like.

In my head the exterior is similar to a mansion some friends lived in when I was growing up.   That mansion wasn't on a hill though.  I loved visiting them.  They had clubbed together with several other families to buy a place that was quite a wreck, each family living in one part of the building.  To begin with the visits were superb because we had freedom to run wherever we liked in the whole mansion.  After a time new walls were created and such freedom was impossible although by climbing into a tunnel in the cellars it was just possible to squeeze right through the building.  We loved our visits.  We loved the walks in the grounds and the forest beyond.  We loved playing in the ballroom and climbing to the top of the highest tower.  Everything was so much more exciting than living in a terraced house on a modern housing estate.

I have many questions about the above scene.  I assume that Clare escapes.  I assume too that there is some sort of revenge or justice in her future.  My questions are unlikely to be answered.  I have a novel to write for my homework.  This afternoon that seems a more pressing matter than fleeing those barbed wire arms.

The Spirit of the Cards. The Voice of the Dragon. The Madness of Josephine.

This 365 day challenge has reached day 11.  Here's the prompt for today.

Dragon: Envision a dragon. Do you battle him? Or is the dragon friendly? Use descriptive language.

I'm writing this in the silent room of the Literary and Philosophical Society Library.  I was reminded last night that the last time I wrote about a dragon it was a dragon who lived, according to the story, inside this library.  His mischief formed the bulk of a posts from the blog of my soft toy Blob Thing - a toy who hasn't managed to post at all this year.  His blog helped me greatly last year and I had a lot of fun writing it.  Sometimes he related events much as I remembered them.  Sometimes he related a quite different version of history.  And so it was when we came to write about his first visit to this library.  My idea was to write "Here's Blob at the library.  Here's something about the library."  Blob had very different ideas.   I derive great pleasure for the way that blog developed.  You'll find it at https://blobthing.blogspot.co.uk/  Look out for the library posts, for Blob's adventures in Bothal and Fleetwood.  The library post can be found here.

Here though it the writing for today.  I haven't really stuck to the prompt.  It is about a dragon.  What's come out of my head this morning flooded out from a small seed idea that came to me unexpectedly last night.  This is a story but it's really only the beginning of a story.  A first chapter.  What characters, places and events might follow?  I don't know.  I'd only find out if I continued to type.  As far as the future goes I know of one plot point only:  A dragon would be found.

I hope you find some enjoyment in this chapter of a life that isn't mine but which mirrors my own fascinations in many ways.

One thing also I know:  I need to start writing less.  This story is more than 2500 words long.  I can't keep that up every day.  I'm looking forward to prompt 14.  That will be a poem.  But I want to combine it with a simple art project too.

Dragon picture was found here.  Original source unknown

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They were crazy, the lot of them.

I mean, call me a skeptic if you wish but the more I sat with these people and listened to their ideas the crazier it all sounded.  Don't get me wrong.  I liked them.  Sharing a drink with them was a pleasure.  Sharing silent space with them was a thing of intricate beauty, a sacred wholeness shattered only by the sound of Josephine's bell announcing an end to the unexpected revelations that arise in quiet.

Such ideas they had.  A mish-mash of contradictions, dubious devices, debunked principles, and unscientific hogwash.  Astrology, energy healing, and a whole load of frauds they unwittingly and caringly committed.  Homeopathy.  Crystals.  Contacting the dead.  I didn't believe in any of it of course.  Some of them went so far as to believe that the moon was a spaceship built by aliens and they couldn't even begin to contemplate the science behind why we only see one side of our precious satellite.  Totally crazy, deluded, deceived.  Maybe they thought the same of me and prayed that one day I might see the light of a salt lamp or be thunderstruck by sound healing.  Even now, after all that's happened, I still think most of what they talk about verges on lunacy.

Yet I liked them and found their deception a thing of fascination in the same way as I'd find excitement in the rituals of an African tribe or the incantations and beliefs of indigenous Americans.  Each system contains much of beauty no matter how wrong it turns out to be.  The mad people I'd fallen in with though took every system and tried to combine them, simultaneously talking of an almost instant reincarnation and contacting your ancestors.  Believing both requires a colossal suspension of disbelief and yet they seemed to manage it without any difficulty.

Crazy people.  I enjoyed them.  Enjoyed the coffee mornings.  Enjoyed the way that each one of them tried to walk in the ways of love and light and peace, how they were more able to smile and laugh by the people I met elsewhere.  I'd even joined in with a few of their groups.  Lucy's introduction to shamanic journeying was quite a treat and when Graham led a gong bath I found the sounds surprisingly relaxing.  Not sure they cleared my spiritual energies in any way but they were pleasant at least.

It was Josephine who did it.  At the beginning of 2014 she announced that she was going to run a session about animals and she invited me to participate.  She said, "I think you'll enjoy this one and I think we're all going to profit and learn something good about ourselves."  I didn't really want to go.  It would be one more step into craziness.  But then Max went and bought me a ticket - it was only a fiver and there would be free lunch - and said it would be fun and Josephine told me it didn't matter that I didn't believe in it.  I could participate anyway and was welcome to laugh about it later.  I liked Josephine a lot.  Mad as a coot but I knew I could count on her for acceptance and hugs.  Max was nice too although he did talk a bit too much about what he called "esoteric Christianity" and about hidden messages in the Bible and how it all fitted into the Gnostics and their writings.  Sometimes he would get into little arguments with a woman called Dorothy who was almost a fundamentalist in her adherence to The Course in Miracles.  And I think Max fancies me a bit too although he would never say.

I happened to be free on the evening of the session so decided that I'd attend and see what manner of nonsense they would be playing with.  I'd been promised that we would all be helped to get in contact with our spirit guide animal.  And that sounded even more ridiculous than the usual spirit guide business of finding out that a native American or an Egyptian priest or Tibetan lama is watching over you.  An animal too?  I could only laugh at such a concept.  There wasn't some disembodied kangaroo bouncing along beside me keeping me safe.  No slug, snail or salamander was guiding me towards enlightenment.  It was going to be an entertaining evening watching all those very earnest and honest people try to contact a goose.

The evening didn't go quite as planned.  Not for me at least.  To begin with it was fine.  There were a dozen of us there, each looking forward to whatever soup Josephine had made for us.  There was some joking - a regular thing - that the soup would be the best part of the evening.  Before the session we sat with drinks and biscuits and chatted about the world, our days and about future events.  Someone was looking forward to an astrology group that was starting and I heard about a big speaker who was coming to the UFOlogy group the following week to talk about the secret battle between the reptilians and the ninth dimension Venusians and how that related to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.  Seriously.  That was the topic.  People really believe these things.  I suppose I shouldn't ridicule them too much.  After all, there are a few things I believe now that I never would have dreamed were real.

Once we had eventually finished our drinks - and I do think that the social side of these groups is almost more important to everyone than anything else - we gathered in the circle.  Josephine welcomed us and thanked us before giving a short introduction.  She said that during the evening we would, if we wished, be aided into finding our spirit animal.  Or one of our animals.  We could then take our animal as a symbol and apply it to our life.  Or, if we wished, we could be aided into contacting our animal so we would be able to call on our animal when we wished and know that we were not alone.  I didn't mind the symbol bit too much but all that calling business sounded very strange.  I thought I'd just watch that part, observe all the nice people entering more fully into delusion.

After that introduction we were invited to sit in silence and meditate for a while, calming ourselves and asking for the grace to be able to listen and receive whatever was meant for us that night.  Incense had been lit and the lights were dimmed.  It was so peaceful.  There's something very special about a shared silence, something that most people have forgotten about but yearn for.

Then the session began.  Very simply.  Josephine had a big set of cards.  On each one was a picture of an animal and the name of the animal too just in case you didn't know what a snake looked like.  I'd had a look through the cards when I arrived and some of the animals were a surprise to me.  I'd expected powerful animals and they were all there - lion, tiger, dolphin, eagle, scorpion, those sorts of beasts.  But others seemed disappointingly mundane.  I found a rabbit, a mouse, a sparrow, a jellyfish and even a goldfish.  Who would want to be guided by a goldfish?

We were invited to pass the cards round the circle.  We were told to hold the cards gently and to ask for light and for our animal to guide us.  To close our eyes and get used to the feel of the cards in our hand.  And then, when we felt the time was right, we should - using whatever method we liked except for throwing them on the floor - draw out one card, holding it to our heart and not looking at it until the circle was completed.  Afterwards we would, in turn, look at our cards and discuss what the symbolism of that animal might mean to us.  And then we would seek to meet our animals.  Josephine said we would be allowed to take our cards away with us too.

When the cards were passed to me I took them and held them and did as instructed, asked for my animal even though I didn't believe there was an animal to ask.  I was the atheist calling out to God in distress.  I was the brokenhearted singing a love song to an empty room.  I fiddled with those cards and actually tried to make it look like I was fiddling with intent.  I'm almost ashamed to admit that.  I put on a bit of a show, subtly, to people whose eyes were probably as closed as mine.

And then it happened.

I felt a tingling pass through my hands and down my fingers and a burning as I ran my fingers through the pack.  I heard a voice telling me to trust the burning, that it would lead me to my card.  Well I was so surprised that I nearly broke the one rule and threw the cards on the floor.  Managing to hold on I noticed that the burning was only there in one part of the pack so I pulled out those cards.  I then felt each one of them in turn.  They were all cool, the temperature you might expect a piece of laminated card to be.  Apart from one card which felt so hot that it was slightly painful to touch it.

I withdrew my card, placed it to my heart and passed on the pack to the next person.

Well that was strange.  What the hell had just happened?  Was there really something in this spirit animal nonsense?  I didn't see how there could be but I knew that something had just happened to me.  Unless my own head had invented it all.  That wasn't beyond the realms of psychological possibility.  "Yes," I thought, "That must be it."  I told myself it was so but was pretty disquieted as the cards continued round the circle and I decided that I'd like to move on to the soup there and then or better yet have stayed home.

After what seemed like hours the cards were back in Josephine's hands.  She didn't take a card - she said she already talked with her animals every day.  She invited us to discuss the experience of finding our card and I stayed silent.  Then the circle began again, the discovery of animals and explanation.  I was fourth in line.  The first person, whose name I didn't know, had drawn a squirrel.  Josephine took care to explain the card.  I confess that I didn't take any of it in.  It was clear that she knew her stuff, though it was stuff and nonsense.  "You're being watched over and aided by a dead squirrel."  I thought it ridiculous.  The second person drew the eagle card and was very pleased with it and the squirrel person admitted to being a little jealous.  The third person was Max and his card showed the image of a beetle.

Then it was my turn.  I turned over my card and I saw a fabulously well drawn picture of a black dragon breathing fire and flying over a mountain range.  "Just my luck," I said, "To get a mythological animal.  My guide doesn't even exist.  I'm surprised it's not a unicorn."

Josephine looked very surprised.  "But that's impossible," she said.  "Are you playing one of your fun tricks?  There isn't a dragon card.  Every card in this pack shows an animal that lives in Britain, one you could go and find.  There's no dragon.  I don't understand this at all."

I turned the card over again to be sure.  And Josephine was right.  The card didn't belong in the pack.  The design on the back was entirely different from that on the other cards and I could have sworn it moved slightly as I watched.

"Well I don't know how that got in there, I must apologise to you.  I'm so sorry."  She held out the pack to me and said, "Would you like to draw another card and have a real animal to guide you?  Think about it as we continue round the circle.  And keep that card anyway, that's fine."

As the circle continued, with an otter, a magpie, a grey seal and whatever animals followed on, I looked at my dragon card more closely.  When I turned the card over I thought that the dragon's head was more angled towards me than it had been.  He was magnificent and whoever had painted the image was very talented indeed.  Every scale seemed to shine through the laminate and the way the artist had brought out the colours in the flame was astonishing.  The mountains too seemed almost alive and I could nearly trick myself into believing I could smell the air and hear the water trickling along streams and gushing down waterfalls.  I could almost feel the earth under my bare feet and hear song birds and crickets.  And that dragon.  He seemed to be looking at me no matter which angle I looked at him from.  I've always been impressed by that artistic trick and was never able to master it myself.  All the faces I've tried painting seem to be staring out blankly in one direction.  Somehow I can't catch the vibrancy of the masters.

I turned the card over and over and each time front and back seemed subtly transformed.  The surface seemed to changed temperature and texture as I ran my fingers across it although I knew it was just that bare laminate on a sheet of card.  I closed my eyes to listen to how the textures felt and as I listened I heard a voice speaking to me and saying, "You will come to the mountains and there you will meet me.  Keep the card safe, it will guide you.  I am calling.  We have work to do."

The next voice I heard was Josephine's saying, "Would you like another card, or shall we move on?"  I agreed that we should move on.  I would keep this card and stick it on the shelf about the TV and each time I saw it I would be reminded at the tricks my head could play on me.  Josephine kept saying, "I honestly don't understand it at all.  You've got a mystery card.  I know you were just going to sit and watch the next bit so that's okay.  You wouldn't be able to contact a dragon anyway.  They've got lots of symbolic meaning but they're not real of course."  Spoken by a woman who believes she's in contact with aliens.

I sat and watched and looked at my dragon every now and again, happy that I'd have such a work of art to take away as a souvenir.  My stomach started to rumble and I began to think more of soup than spirit and found myself wondering whether it had stopped raining and which bus I would catch to get home.  Perhaps others were thinking about soup too.  I'd like to think it's not just me whose mind has such practical priorities.

Later we sat together and ate a most delicious tomato soup with onion and lots of garlic.  We talked about the evening, about the strangeness of my dragon, about all the other animals.  And we talked of soup too, of people's hopes that the traffic on the bridge would be better on the way home.  It was the highlight of the evening as we smiled and felt a closeness.  It seemed a shame to break up and go home but that time came.

Before leaving we closed the circle, as they say.  We stood and held hands.  A few words were said, silence was kept, and then Josephine ended the evening with a blessing.

In the silence I heard the voice again.  It simply said, "Remember me and come."



[2673 words.  After the picture.]