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 Greatest Printing Story Ever Told. A Tale Of Perfection.

50. Just Say No: Write about the power you felt when you told someone no.


Celebrate!  Call the Jubilee year!  Forgive all debts and free all slaves!  This is my fiftieth writing post in fifty days.  At the beginning of the year I did not know whether I would reach this point.  Looking back I'm pleased with some of the writing I've posted.  I'm pleased too with a few things I haven't posted and with the way that words have been flowing sometimes.  I know I have a lot to learn, that there are plenty of aspects of writing about which I am totally clueless.  But I am pleased and can smile at my own words.  I have also been surprised by it all.  Surprised by the stories especially, but surprised too that I've attempted poems.

Above all I've been enjoying the process.  It's been a joy process.  And that, in the end, is the most important thing of all.

So let us celebrate gladly.  And let us humbly pray for each of the next three-hundred and fifteen days on which I plan to write again.  Hundreds more prompts to either use or ignore.  On some days, ignorance is bliss!

This story was basically free written.  I warn you now: It's 2900 words long.  I also warn you:  I did not know the ending of the story until I wrote the final sentences.  I was surprised to learn what happened.  Did not expect that!

Two happy print workers.  Image taken from here.

I worked my ass off to satisfy him.  Put in overtime nearly every day.  Took every training course going in order to become an expert.  Nearly broke my back.  At least it felt that way.  By the end of it I could do the job faster than anyone else, neater than anyone else, and with more of a smile than anyone else.  I was the life and soul of the factory as well as being employee of the month six times during that last year of hell.

It might seem like menial work to you but to me it was satisfyingly important.  Without me and my colleagues there wouldn't have been any product at all.  The whole company would have headed right up shit creek.  Blindfold.  In a leaky boat.  We're the ones who got that product out there, an important cog in a machine that would have been better oiled if only the boss had the foresight to add any oil at all.  He was a bit useless but I knew he wouldn't be there forever.  I admit it.  I do.  I didn't just do all that training for the love of my role on the factory floor.  I was looking for promotion.  Give him enough help, I thought, and maybe he'll choose me to replace him.  I hoped he would.

So I put my learning to good use.  Kept sending him memos.  Kept telling him what I thought should have been obvious.  If you tweak it here, add in this efficiency there, you'll get five, ten percent more productivity.  Sometimes he listened.  But I never got the credit even when I copied the entire factory into a couple of memos.  On purpose though of course I said it was an accident.  It didn't work.  Instead he publicly humiliated me by replying to everyone that I was an idiot with stupid ideas.  And he didn't make the changes even though half the factory could see that they would have saved the company thousands over the course of a year.  Not only that, the bastard demoted me.  I had stood on the second rung of the ladder.  Now I was at the bottom and it was only through the influence of a supervisor that I was reinstated to my previous post a couple of months later.

I loved my job.  It gave me a sense of peace to see it well done.  It was varied too.  It wasn't just one job, it was many.  Sometimes I'd be sticking address labels onto envelopes for a whole day and every time I placed one of those stickers I'd feel an electric tingle because I'd placed it exactly in the middle and perfectly straight.  I couldn't understand some of the other workers around me.  Especially the temps.  They were just shoddy.  Their labels could be centimetres off centre and at an angle that made me nervous.  To think, sometimes they would stick on an address more than five degrees from straight.  Why didn't they care?  I don't know.  How anyone wouldn't be ashamed of such messiness is beyond me.  Maybe they didn't get a thrill from a well placed label.  Maybe they just hadn't given it a try.  They were slow too.  At least compared to me.  And that's a very strange thing.  I took pride in being both neater and quicker.

After sticking in such a glorious manner I would fill the envelopes with whatever had been printed and needed sending.  Seal the envelope.  Straight.  That should be easy enough shouldn't it?  To seal an envelope in a perfectly straight way every single time.  It should.  Yet my colleagues were still able to bungle the process.  No wonder they smiled less than I did.  No wonder they moaned about how boring the job was.  If they took pride in doing it right they could have experienced regular bursts of those pleasant tingles.  Stupid people.

Other days I would have other tasks to complete.  Collating leaflets and papers.  I liked that one.  It wasn't my favourite though.  That honour is split in my mind between two specific tasks.  The first of these involved combining several sections of a catalogue, stapling them together, and then packing them correctly.  Ten catalogues in a bundle.  Then another bundle placed in the opposite direction.  That was an amazing week.  I spent nearly all of it using the stapling machine because I was the most efficient at it.  I was glad to do so.  My colleagues' task was to combine the sections and then pass them to me already sorted into tens.  My colleagues were bloody useless!  It's fortunate I was stapling and packing.  Alone.  Otherwise the whole job would have been wrong and perhaps the company would have gone bankrupt.

I saved the day again.  What I learned that week was that my colleagues couldn't count up to ten.  They had one task.  Just one.  To count all the way from one to ten.  Who were these people who couldn't even do that?  Idiots!  The bundles they passed me sometimes had eight or nine catalogues.  Sometimes eleven or twelve.  Just think of how awful it would have been if I hadn't recounted absolutely everything.  The boss would have been the laughing stock of the entire printing industry.  They would have probably cut his master printer's tie off at the annual dinner and dance and forced him to bathe in ink as a punishment.  Was he grateful to me?  No he wasn't.  The swine.

My other absolute favourite job I ever did was a folding job.  A machine had gone wrong elsewhere in the factory - easily avoidable if only the boss had listened to one of the public memos because I could see the disaster was coming and that the creasing machine would break.  So there we were with one-hundred thousand pieces of card that were meant to have machine made creases in.  Pieces of card with no creases.  So I and my shoddy, messy, quite frankly useless and should be sacked colleagues had to add all the creases into these bits of card.  Manually.  That was bliss for me I can tell you.  It took us nearly a month to finish the job.  A month of beautiful creases, perfect lines, wondrous love.  They all hated it of course, moaned about it and did a generally rubbish job.  I wish I could have got them to change.  Wish I could have convinced them that being even a single millimetre out was far too much.  Wish I could have taught them all how the job should be done.  Instead, all I could do was work, work, work on my own piles of card.  I gave everything to that job and when it was over I grieved.

There had to come a breaking point.  Not even I could keep up my pace of work forever with no reward.  Three years in and I was still folding, counting, sticking and I hadn't even been allowed to progress to the role of luggage label print coordinator.  A job with responsibility.  A job where I would have kept meticulous records and in which I am certain I would have improved efficiency by a total of seventy-six percent just by rearranging the order in which the different parts of the job were completed.  Even the stupidest of dolts should have been able to see it.  Three years of doing everything.  I could have run the whole company with my eyes closed.  I could have made us world leaders in printing, expanded the base of operations into the largest premises in the city and possibly even be given the contracts to print everything for Apple.  Waitrose too, and there were a few publishing houses I thought I'd be able to win over.  Start small and then buy out the Oxford University Press within three years.  It was doable.  I kept showing my boss how and he kept asking me to do the lowest of low jobs.  I enjoyed them of course but that wasn't the point.  I wanted more.  That's not a lot to ask for.  Not if you consider how brilliant I was.

During the course of the next two years I became increasingly dissatisfied.  More sticking.  Then a foreign evangelist decided he should send one of his stupid religious magazines to every single house in Britain.  Somehow or other my boss won the contract.  I think it was because my boss used to read those stupid religious magazines.  He had holy handkerchiefs on display in his office and on some days he replaced the music playing in the factory with rubbish songs in which they sang about how miserable life on earth was and to keep your chin up because heaven might be nice.  I don't think those days increased productivity.  My colleagues would grumble and agree with the first half of the sentiments of the song.  Yes, they would say, life is miserable isn't it?  All this folding and collating?  It's bloody miserable.  Enough about them.  The job is what's important.  Our team, with lots of temps drafted in all of whom were rubbish, had to stick an address label on each of thirty million envelopes, fill the envelopes, seal them and pile them neatly on pallets.

Even I have limits.  Thirty million.  And I broke.  I am not ashamed to admit it.  I broke.  We had pretty much finished the job and I'd made sure that each pallet was perfectly packed.  As neat as anything.  I'd had to make changes of course because nobody else could count to ten, let alone pack something neatly and with no sticking out edges.  Twenty-five thousand envelopes to each pallet.  One-hundred and twenty pallets.  And we were working on pallet one-hundred and seventeen.

Then the order came from the boss.  I'd already queried it when we were still working on the second pallet.  I had.  I'd done it and if he had listened then he would have saved his company.  I'd asked him a very simple question about the envelopes.  Any fool would have thought of it.   I said this:  "Shouldn't the envelopes each have a postage label as well as an address label?"  I'd received a reply too.  "Dear worker."  He didn't even call me by my name.  "You are only a level two packer.  Don't be so arrogant as to have any more ideas above your station.  Don't think you have the right to tell me what I should be doing.  Do it again and I'll have no choice but to end your contract with my illustrious"  Illustrious!  I ask you!  "company.  This is your first and final written warning."  I could have screamed.  I wanted to go right up to his office there and then and scream at him and try to knock some sense into his skull.  Physically if necessary.  I knew he was wrong.

So when that order came it was inevitable.  I remember the exact wording.  "When you have finished sticking address labels to envelopes I need you to start sticking postage labels on each of them.  This must be completed by the end of the week otherwise we will lose our contract and there will be consequences for each of you and possibly for the future of the company.  For the rest of the week I need each of you to work eighteen hour shifts in order to get as much done as you can.  As a reward, there will be a slice of chocolate cake provide for each of you every day next week and I will personally see to it that you each receive a signed copy of the evangelist's new book which will, I am sure, bless the soul of each one of you.  Thank you for your attention in this matter."

Enough was enough.  Why hadn't he listened?  I burst.  I stomped upstairs very loudly and walked into his office.  He was on the phone trying to apologise that there might be a delay.  He looked worried.  I got more and more angry as he talked and when he put the phone down I told him everything I thought of him, told him he shouldn't have been such a turd to me when I'd told him about the problem ages ago and had given him dozens and dozens of good ideas before and told him we would have easily finished the job if he had listened to me and how now we wouldn't finish it even if we all worked twenty-eight hours a day instead of eighteen and how I thought he was a rubbish boss and how I would be much better suited for his role.  I didn't shut up there of course.  I told him a lot more.  Reminded him of how he had demoted me for saying things that would have been good for his company.  Told him how much of my life I'd given to him, how much pride I'd taken in every job no matter how menial or repetitive.

And then I told him this:  "I will not undertake your massive shifts while you sit up here drinking coffee.  I'm not going to do it, not going to solve your problems for you.  I packed those pallets perfectly and worked more than anyone else.  I'm not doing it all again.  Find someone else to do it.  Promote me to a job where my intellect and training can be put to use.  At least let me use a bloody guillotine for one!  I don't want to see those bloody Christian junk mailings again.  Nobody wants to see them."

It felt wonderful.  Honestly, I had never felt more free as I did in those moments of shouting my head off at the boss.  The excitement of it all beat any electric tingles from sticking on labels.  This was living.  This was my future.  This was salvation to everything I was, a new beginning.  This would lead to a decent wage and a managerial post.  I just knew it.

My boss fired me on the spot and gave me five minutes to collect my bag and coat and leave the factory.  Said he would call the police if I didn't go.

I left.  I believed he would see his error and call me back.  I don't know why I believed that.  In retrospect I can see my belief was as crazy as some of the things the evangelist claimed to believe.  I'd been right, those moments were a new beginning.  It just wasn't as part of a printing company.

As for the company, it went belly up by the end of the year.  My boss failed to complete the contract for the evangelist.  The labels were crooked and a colleague I bumped into told me that nobody had been able to pack a pallet as neatly as I could.  Everything ran very late.  Just as I had predicted.  The evangelist wasn't forgiving.  My ex-boss stormed out of their meeting shouting that it didn't say that it didn't really matter if everyone got their crummy magazines a few weeks late.  The evangelist proved that he and Jesus didn't see eye to eye on things at all.  Because he sued the company for breach of contract.   He won the case, even preached against the dishonesty of the printing firm he'd hired.  But he used the magazines that we had packed and labelled anyway, getting another firm to finish the job for free in return for him promoting them across the globe.

The company was ruined.

And as a result of the posting of thirty-million evangelistic magazines this happened:

Fifty thousand copies were used to line cat litter trays.
The KLF reformed, gathered together eighty-nine thousand copies and burned them while dressed as lambs and carrying nine foot crucifixes.
Christians up and down the country rejoiced to receive such a righteous and holy piece of mail, briefly browse it, saw they had heard it all before, and chucked it away.
The total weight of paper recycled during a month increased.
People of other faiths complained to the government about some of the articles in the magazine.
The atheists of the internet laughed at everything they read and two memes went viral.
Friends of The Earth pointed out the cost to the environment of so much junk mail and began a campaign against all junk mail, with moderate success in the hearts and minds of the people but no success at all in reducing the amount of rubbish posted through letterboxes.

The evangelist was pleased.  He had done his duty and spread the good news.
Some people read the magazine and were impressed.
Some people thought about it.
Some considered doing something about it all and making changes in their lives.

A year later it was known that at least three people had been solidly converted through the work of the evangelist.  He featured the three on his television show, syndicated globally.  He was heard to say that if just one person had been saved it would have been worth it.

After another year two of the three had left the church.  One had become a well known speaker, touring the country visiting humanist and atheist groups.  He appeared on the BBC a few times.

The third person?  Well that was me.  Saved by grace and the weight of thirty-million labels.

I work for the evangelist now.  I'm head of the printing company God told him to establish on earth.  It was for printing that Christ set me free.




[2924 words]

A Short Story: Death In Camelot

49. Joke Poem: What did the wall say to the other wall? Meet ya at the corner! Hahaha.

Nope!  No way guv'nor, you ain't makin' me do it.  Garn with ya mister.  I'm no joker.

Instead there's this.  It is now 9.07am on a Wednesday morning.  I began writing this post less than an hour ago.  It's based on an exercise I found in a book after deciding that prompt 49 was not for me.  I won't tell you about the exercise though because that might spoil the story.  If indeed the story is anywhere near good enough to be spoiled.

This is the second image I've taken from one Python movie recently.  Perhaps I should watch it again soon and quote peasants, taunting Frenchmen, kings and knights again.  Because quoting Python doesn't ever annoy people!

King Arthur and his Knights, from this page.

On the good ship Camelot, Arthur found himself sitting on the king's chair.  It was just one of those things.  Not a divine right at all.  Rather, his name had been drawn first from the hat that evening so for one night, and one night only, Arthur would be King of the Britons and rule over the other diners at the restaurant.  Camelot had opened a couple of years previously and Arthur had dined there regularly, usually alone but sometimes with friends.  He liked the food.  The dishes were cheap, not too spicy, and the portion sizes were larger than average.  He liked the ambiance.  The woman who decided to deck out her restaurant as a mash up between Camelot and a cruise ship had to be some kind of genius.  Arthur had met her a couple of times and she said there was really nothing to it.  She just liked the Round Table stories and liked the luxuriousness of going on a cruise.  When she visited Camelot she always came dressed as Guinevere, but in a captain's hat.

Arthur surveyed his realm.  Five dozen happy diners.  Some alone, like him.  Four men on different tables.  Had they come out to escape from a woman or to meet one?  And one woman sat reading a book, waiting for her meal to arrive.  She looked lonely, sad too, and Arthur wondered for a moment whether to invite her to sit beside her at his right side.  She was very pretty and Arthur could see from the design on the cover of the book that it was one of his favourites.  Beautiful inside and out?

He moved his gaze away from the woman, almost painfully, and watched the other diners.  Some in pairs, staring into each others' eyes as if fulfillment could be found behind their companion's faces.  Some in groups, boisterous, egging each other on to try the spicier options on the menu or laughing about whatever it was people laughed about.

Arthur ordered his food.  The most expensive dishes on the menu.  And why not?  It was restaurant rules that whoever was elected to sit in the king's chair could dine for free.  Tonight was the night for ordering something he had never ordered before, something he could never have justified to himself or his budget.  Tonight was the night for foregoing the house wine in favour of the champagne right at the bottom of the list.  Even though he didn't particularly like champagne.  Tonight was the night for that desert he had always thought about but never ordered.  Forget the calories.  Forget that dishes would be larger than Arthur's stomach.  Tonight was greed night.  Tonight was a celebration of freedom.

To begin with, a starter.  On the menu it was wittily called "Gawain And The Green Salad."  Arthur had never ordered it before.  While the green salad would have been cheap enough, he couldn't spare the money to purchase Gawain.  Gawain was an ever so special lobster.  When Gawain arrived before him Arthur stared at him.  The presentation was magnificent, so much more so than if he had stayed at home eating toast.

Just as he was about to set to work demolishing and devouring the innocent Gawain, there was a cry from across the restaurant.  Arthur looked across and, horrified, he saw that the lonely woman had fallen face down on her table.  The book was still open under her head.  What if the spine was damaged?  A couple of waiters were nudging her and Arthur could just hear one of them saying, "Madam, madam, wake yourself up, come on, wake up."  The two waiters talked quietly to each other and one rushed off.  A man on the next table said, too loudly, "Oh my God!  She's dead, isn't she?"

The restaurant manager rushed out from the kitchen and made an announcement.  "I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen but due to unfortunate circumstances I have made the decision to close the restaurant for tonight.  You won't have to pay for anything you've ordered of course and we look forward to seeing you here again soon."

Arthur was mortified.  He felt bad for the woman.  Of course he did.  But he also found he felt bad for himself.  He'd finally been chosen as king for the night and now he wasn't even going to eat Gawain, let alone drink the champagne or indulge in the richness of his chosen main course and dessert.  It might be years before he was chosen again.  It just wasn't fair at all.  Arthur stopped himself thinking about it.  He knew he shouldn't be feeling sorry for himself when some pretty young woman had died so suddenly.  He felt even more guilty when the manager drew him aside on his way out and informed him that when he next booked he could automatically be given a free meal to compensate him.  It was so good of the manager to think of these things at a time like this.

Later that night Arthur sat at home watching television.  He'd had a simple meal of toast and jam and that had been enough.  He wondered again about the dead woman.  Would it have made a difference if he had invited her to sit with him?  Perhaps not, and it wasn't worth thinking about because he could never know.

As Arthur was getting ready to go to bed, with a mouthful of toothpaste, the doorbell rang.  He nearly ignored it, not wanting to be disturbed so late.  But then it rang again and someone knocked very loudly too.  He opened the door, surprised to find two policemen waiting for him.

The first said, "Arthur Franklin?  Could we come inside for a chat please?  I'm afraid it is rather urgent.  We have some bad news."

Arthur led the two men into his lounge, sat on an armchair and offered them the sofa.  "What can I do for you?"

"There's no easy way to say this.  I'm very sorry to inform you that your wife has been murdered."

"My wife?  But I'm not married.  I'm a bachelor boy, just like Cliff."

"Oh yes sir?  Your home doesn't seem much like a bachelor pad to me sir."

The policemen explained how a young woman had died out of the blue in a local restaurant.  She wasn't carrying any identification but the manager said that she had entered that evening with a man who had been chosen to be king for the night, a man who hadn't invited the woman to sit with him.  He had been a regular customer but none of the staff knew who he was and he always paid cash.

It was the book that gave it away.  Inside was a full page plate sticker that read, "From the library of Arthur Franklin."  It gave an address too.

Something cracked in Arthur's mind.  He was sure he had been alone that night.  How had the woman come to have his favourite book?  He got up to check the shelves and sure enough it was gone.

That night he was arrested and later charged with the murder of his wife, Annabelle.  He was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years imprisonment.  Eight years into his sentence, after much therapy, he finally remembered the woman he had married and killed.

He remembered.  And he laughed at the memory.




[1227 words plus introduction]

Chasing The Sun To The Dwelling Of God On Eryri's Highest Peak

48. The Stars: Take inspiration from a night sky.

The 48th prompt is convenient.  It ties in with something said to me during a writers' workshop this morning.  I mentioned the experience I've written about here and it was suggested I could write about it.  It's not the only thing to come out of the workshop today.  There's a story to write - possibly even as a play if I can attempt a play eventually.  I've not written a play since I wrote something incredibly awful when I was about eight.  Perhaps it wasn't awful for an eight year old!  More than that, I free wrote another story which people there want me to submit to places and see if it can be published.  I have never submitted anything for possible publication before.  Someone was quite surprised I'd just written it - very, very quickly - during the workshop.  She said is was "bloody brilliant."  Direct quote.

Last night I had the worst panic attack I've had in a long while.  It was awful.  Lots of noises, tears, hyperventilation, and inside it was bad, bad, bad.  Briefly I wanted to stop.  To give up.  This morning it was only brute force of determination that got me out of the house.  Only force of will that got me to the workshop.  And even when I got into the cafe where it takes place I nearly turned round on seeing there were people there and I would have to cope with them.  But I am very glad indeed to have walked in and taken my place among them.  It's a safe space.  Supportive.  And in the writing we all just lift one another.  All criticism is constructive and all writing is encouraged.

It goes to show:  The worst of moments is just a moment.  The sun sets.  It rises again.  Every day.

Note.  This experience took place long before anyone was carrying mobile phones up Snowdon, and long before they would have got a signal from the summit.  You can get a signal now.  I once phoned my wife at work and asked her to phone our child's school to say I might be slightly late picking her up because I had gone for a short walk and accidentally climbed Snowdon.  As you do.

The photos below were taken when I was seven years old, the first time I walked up Snowdon, recovering from mumps at the time.  Looking at the photos of that day I find one thing to be true:  My parents' recollection of the cloud that day was highly exaggerated.  Looking at the photos I am amazed to discover that there was a good view through the clouds.

_________________________

Looking to Snowdon's summit from the Pyg Track

We arrived on that summit, we three, weary.  We had chased the sun as it fell.  Hoped to catch it on the mountain top, then release it to fall away beyond distant peaks.  From the small hostel in the pass we walked full stride, almost running to stand still against the heat of the shining disc as it sank away.  My legs protested but more so my lungs, unused to such a feat of endurance.  Led by that strange figure in his broken boots I looked at my own and wished they might become winged or enchanted with hundred league strides.  Heart pumped beyond the danger zone.  Lungs strained further than I believed they could.

And I followed.  Along a path I'd followed only once before, a small child trusting his parents to know the way as the clouds gathered, stealing the light in unseasonal cold intensity.  That day we had time to stop, see, surrender ourselves to beauty.  Above the lake we dined, a feast carried from our vehicle on the track below.  We smiled at the simplicity of our walk that day.  Smiled as we looked ahead to the summit, believed it close.   We made it and saw one small corner of the world spread before us, excitedly pointed to the lakes, towards where we knew the settlements of Gelert and Peris hid under the horizon hills.  Then the clouds closed upon us, casting their curtain on all we surveyed.

Yes, I followed the broken booted man, the frightening friend, fighting to keep up as his pace increased and the sun announced that we would not see her again.  I wanted to stop, breathe, cough up the bloody taste and lie on the earth, letting rock and grass swallow me into their elemental embrace.  I wanted more to continue, to witness the double, triple sunset, to reach the summit and sound my triumphant yawp so loud it would resonate across Wales and wake the fallen Bards to collaborate on a greater song.  Most of all I was proud.  I did not want to exhibit weakness, display the truth that I was less able than my companions.

Me.  Seven years old.

We had walked together all day, making the most of a December sun, a clear sky, and unexpected warmth.  From an unknown point Ogwen's lake we had meandered, crossing frozen pools, laughing and singing.  We three alone in the wilds, unheard by men, only by the goddesses and spirits of the mountains, the deities of streams and cataracts, the djinn who dwelt under the scree face.  We headed into a guided gully, clambered, scrambled over fallen rocks, up the cliffs and reached Tryfan's ridge.

Later we encountered our first parents, Adam and Eve and bowed before them as they watched the seasons of Ogwen, oblivious to their first fault and the sin they brought to our world.  I climbed on Adam's head.  There was no cry of complaint.  Jumped to the head of Eve and she too remained silent.  No word was heard but I know, had I slipped, they would not have made a move to catch me before I fell to death.  I knew the death fall was their path.  It was not mine.  Not then.  Maybe they had touched me after all for seventy and seven days later I encountered the Second Adam and bowed before him too, willingly placing my head under his feet and pledging never to stand again.  Under his magnificence I forgot how to walk, unlearned my childlike running.

We three turned from our parents, pressed forward until we climbed the ridge of bristles, leaving the safety of its gully and hauling ourselves up the cliff face to reach another summit, still a third, large and small, the sisters Glydderau, wild witches both, not to be laughed at.  We ran from the witches, fast, fast, bare chested in the heat, cheering our own escape.  And so we three, the strange booted man, his beloved disciple, and I, arrived at that hostel.  They looked as though they had not begun to walk.  I looked the child of exhaustion.

Me and my brother. On the ascent.

The booted prophet spoke simple words.  Even I could understand the terms of the prophet.  "The sun will set on the summit ahead in one hour.  No more, no less.  Let us set forth, quicken our pace and witness the last embers of the Eryri day.  Come my loves and we shall be blessed."

As the route grew steeper we left path behind and set our faces to the face of the mountain.  I was left behind.  Could not keep the pace and the two walked away from the one.  I reached the summit but the sun had gone, the sky reddening, darkening to night.

We stood.  Three people.  Silent on Yr Wyddfa's peak.  Alone with each other.  Alone with the alone.  Watching as the colours flattened into grey and far to black.  As the influence of the great ruler of day waned, so we felt the imposition of the rule of the great light of night, Luna herself, full flown, grown bright above; daring to share space with a thousand lesser lights and the lives of the myth men.

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright.

Ten years previous, mother and child stood on the same spot.  Now, only the child remained, wonderstruck by all he witnessed.  If ever there was a night called holy, this was it.  And the silence, O the silence.  Lit up the world more perfectly than the lightning revelation.  Silence ruled and in that silence the child was reborn and grew, until murdered again by the discordant noise of civilisation.

We wished to stay we three.  Wished further that we could.  If we had known at daybreak what we knew at day's end we would have spent that December night nestled in concord close to heaven.  We couldn't stay.  We had no food.  No makeshift shelter, no bag to keep us warm.  And friends below awaited our coming.  To stay on Yr Wyddfa's pinnacle would be to inconvenience a hundred men, called upon to find us.  To stay would have brought a night of tears and the breaking both of friendships and promises.

So in darkness, in sadness, we turned from our solitude, our unity with creation, and set our path down the mountain trusting our steps to the moonlight.  As we descended we laughed together, fully aware we had experienced Godhead on the mountain top.  We had found Mount Zion where, it is said by some, God dwells in perpetual peace.

We believed such an experience would bind us together for all time.  How could it not?  I don't know.  Maybe you can say how three enlightened beings lost each other.  Maybe you can say too how they spurned enlightenment as soon as they reached the settlement of Peris.  Maybe you can say how they immediately set their hearts and minds back upon the earth.

I know the answer.  It's because, in the rapidly cooling night of December in Snowdonia, they could not resist something that has proved the downfall of many a potential Saint:

They bought ice creams!

Better To Be A Fool Than To Be Bound By That Christ

47. Light Switch: Write about coming out of the dark and seeing the light.

Again, this is completely free-written.

And they said unto Jesus, "You are the light of the world."


The day I found the truth was the day I died.
I turned to Christ and I learned from him
The wailing, the untruth and the lie.
He broke me on his cross and left me bleeding
While he rose up, pointed his jewel bearing finger,
And laughed at me contemptuously.
Christ bound me in chains of razor wire
Ripped the nails from my thumbs
Nailed ice fire into my palms
And thirty-nine times lashed me with accusations.
He squeezed all resistance from me
Made me his slave, wove his will over mine.
He told me that he stood in my place
When all the time I stood in his as he pressed
That thorn crown into my flesh until I could bear no more.
Then he pressed more and I cried out,
"Jesus save me.  Save me from you."
He just smiled and hammered the nails deeper,
Twisted the wires, though muscle and marrow,
Then ordered me to give up my life for him.
Not once.  No mercy from the man of sorrows.
He told me "Die each day for you are burdensome."
So I died, expired, and once more ceased to breathe.
And under the cruel tyranny of Jesus Christ's rule
I was stretched on the rack of heresy
And burned on the pyre of the witch.

Unexpectedly, the fool spoke on the street
Preached his sermon in majestic simplicity.
"The cross you hang on is not given by the Christ.
He who is your light is darker than the universe
Before ever matter exploded into form."
The fool spoke and I, agonised, writhing, bleeding,
Opened one ear to listen, saw with one half-seeing eye
The garish display of colour he wore in his garments
And how his words too broke richer than rainbows.
He held out his hand, beckoning me to his side
But I would not leave my Christ love behind
I could not leave my chains, dared not struggle lest
Even one wire tip broke my heart again.
The fool wept and walked away.

I cried too for he was a more beautiful being
Than the precious hatred person of Christ.
I yearned for him, longed to be like him,
Dressed in the eighteen shades of freedom.
There was no way for my Christ was the only way
No point in dreaming for the fool had moved on.
And all the time I made my many tears an act,
A pretense, convincing the blessed one that I wept
Always for him, never for myself.

By the time the fool returned to me,
Holding out his wrinkled hand once more
I tried to reach out my hand to his.
In that act my chains fell off and when
Our hands met I learned a more penetrating truth.
There never had been any chains.
He smiled broadly, full of extravagant compassion
Held me tight did not let go as I bled on his robes.
He never promised to heal me.
Never told me he would pay my way.
The fool encouraged me to become a fool
Just like he.  Then, to be more foolish still.

When I asked him who he was he told me.
"I am he who you may choose to call Jesus,
The fool who sets you free,
The wisdom who points you to light."
When I asked who it was who gave me a cross to bear
He told me this:
"He was Jesus too, but transfigured by men
Into religion's deathly shadow. He was death's witness."
Then he entreated me not to hold him any longer.
"Go out into the world and make fools," he said.
I went.  I came.  I stand before you now,
Fool among the wise, wise among the fools.

Falling Into Mud When Creating A Brand New Dying World

46. Dirty: Write a poem about getting covered in mud.

Let's just free write.  Starting ... not after I go and make a cup of tea ... right ... now!


Okay.  Free writing done.  You will notice that this is not a poem.  You will also notice that mud is not mentioned at all after the sixth sentence.  What I've written instead is part of setting the groundwork for part of a larger project.  By the end of this year I want to have written a novel.  As it stands I know the broad plot of the novel and have got it set down as an 8500 word story, written at speed so that I had something written.  I now have much work to do developing the world; it's history, culture, art, society, religion, government, and the place in which the society exists and how that might hold together totally coherently.  I have work to do developing characters and subplots too.  Only then can I actually sit down and write the first draft of the thing.

It's not only a novel though.  I have the most basic outline of a second novel in my head and need to flesh that out a little in preparation.  And I have ideas for a third.  Yep, it's a saga!  And then I have a plan to write a full handbook for a religion that exists within the world.  If ever these things get published I'd want to release it between the first and second novel.  Beyond the novels, as something for after the second or possibly third is released I have ideas for a series of shorter stories based within what I've created.

All of this arose out of a morning in the Writers' Cafe in which I was feeling pretty naff.  During a five minute writing time and with much anxiety coursing through me I wrote an idea for a plot.  108 words long.  I was grumpy about it and very apologetic for not writing what we had been asked to write but was told "That's a novel" and was questioned about whether my head was working a lot better than I was admitting to myself.  It turns out that it is a novel.  Or it will be.

What I've ended up free writing here is set within the world I've been creating in my head.  Or at least in one part of it.  Nothing that is here has anything much to do with the novel.  I've stopped part way through my story.  There is more to tell.  I know exactly how it develops.  I know exactly how it ends.  But there are secrets and I may be telling too many already.

This is not the story as it would finally be written.  This is ideas being thrown out into words.  A world being developed and a history being developed as I wrote.  This is a broad formulation of history not in any way a completed project.  I hate to admit it to myself, but this short story could be a novel too.  Aaargh!  So many novels to write!  Woo hoo!  It's going to be so much fun and could keep me living in another world in my head for years.

He couldn't help screaming.

In anguished terror to begin with until he overcame that fear of sinking too far; of the mud being too deep, too sticky to survive. Then joyfully, excitement building as he sank into the grey pool of mud.

Everything had been so sterile in the Tower.  No more grey than the wet dirt into which he had fallen.  But where the mud possessed life, possibility, the renewal of the rain, those grey walls had possessed only the possibility of another day, another year, another generation of sameness.  In his home everything had its place and no deviation had been allowed from the routines and rules.  The whole of humanity had become automatons living out a meaningless and perpetual existence where rules governed relationships.  In the Tower humanity had become precarious.  Resources were meagre and people believed that even by strictly enforcing regularity the supplies would dwindle.  The infrastructure would collapse, and with it the very structure of the tower which would fall.  To begin with only a few had seen how inevitable it all was.  The builders had attempted to create a closed system, a way for a few thousand people to survive the disaster that humans created.

From everything Jonas understood, much of which was rumour, there had once been billions of people fighting for their place on the planet.  A thousand viewpoints competing for power, for land and when things became difficult for food and water.  Inevitably competition led to war and, so the rumour went, it was during one war that the world became poisoned.  It was an accident.  Whatever side it was who invented the toxin had only meant for a limited effect.  Wipe out enough of the other side and victory was sure.  Nobody knew now who had created such a killing weapon.  Nobody knew what they were fighting over or what they might have hoped to gain by the deaths of other people.  Nobody cared.  It didn't matter any more.  And there wasn't a soul in the Tower who could even begin to understand what kind of a mind could think like that.

Survival.  That was the important thing.  And working in your place for the good of all.  Everyone knew that and each child was trained in the ways of protecting the Tower.  If the Tower fell, human life fell with it.

Over the course of fifty years the world became uninhabitable as the poisoning spread and developed, killing each person it encountered.  Nothing could be done to stop it.    The Tower had been a last attempt at survival.  And now it was falling.  To begin with only a few saw the changes, how here and there things weren't quite as they should be.  They had voiced their concerns but had been told to trust the Builders.  The Builders knew what they were doing.  They were all wise and had planned for every eventuality, creating the Tower to last forever in stable equilibrium.  If there were changes then obviously they were within the Builders' plans.  There was nothing to worry about.  Sure enough, the changes seemed to sort themselves out within a few years.  Everything was back to normal.

Only Tomas and Juli of the Second Citizenry had continue to speak worries.  They had been silenced then and stripped of their familial rank, being reduced to the Ninth.  Now they were hailed as visionaries.  They had seen that the changes had been a symptom of a wider collapse.  They had prophesied that nothing could carry on forever, not even the world itself.  They spoke of how the Tower was built on the premise that rules were eternal, that by following those rules a system would last forever with no damage to its inner or outer form.  They preached that the premise was false, that no system could ever be one hundred percent efficient, that there would be chaos and there would be loss.  That loss might not be noticeable for many hundreds of years.  In the case of something as massive as a star it might not be seen for many millions.  But nothing lasts forever.  Tomas and Juli taught that the Tower would fall and nobody listened.  They were called liars and heretics, malcontents and criminals.  Perhaps even in those names more seeds were sown.  Perhaps the condemnation changed minds more than the words of the preachers and so speeded up the collapse that was coming.

Two hundred years had passed since Tomas and Juli had been punished.  It had been the first incidence of crime and punishment in several generations.  Now they were hailed as the visionary heroes they were.  Over those years more changes had crept in.  Slowly.  Slowly.  So slowly that most people denied they were even taking place.

Attitudes changed in an hour.  That was the day the water stopped flowing.  Just for an hour.  It had never happened before.  It could never happen.  Equilibrium stated it was impossible.  And yet, for one hour, no water flowed.  All taps were empty and the fountain in the Great Garden was dry.  After what became known as the Hour of Thirst most people admitted that not everything was quite as it must have been on the day the Builders finally sealed the tower and saved the first thousands.  Since that day the water had not ceased to flow again but that single hour had been enough.

People were appointed to study the change and they discovered the truth.  The Tower was in decline.  After a ten year exhaustive study they had been able to plot a rate of collapse and proved mathematically that there was nothing whatsoever that could be done to save the last few thousand members of the human race.  It would take time though.  Many hundreds of years before the machines could no longer be maintained so well.  Hundreds more before that led to regular widescale shortages.  And perhaps another two centuries before the shortages led to the total starvation of the human race.

One thousand years.

And then the final burning of the human race would be extinguished.

For the first time since the creation of the Tower there was widespread disagreement.  The people remembered politics.  They remembered debate.  And three political parties came into being based on ideas of what, if anything, should be done about the impending extinction.

One party said there wasn't much point acting because a thousand years is a long time.  The next generations would surely work something out.  They wanted to carry on sustaining the tower as they always had because the problems could happily wait for their descendants.  The majority of people were part of this party.  Why act when someone else can?

A second party said there was no point trying to do anything.  If the Tower was going to fall then that was just the way things were and fighting the inevitable was foolish.  A few of these men and women committed suicide in the belief that there was no hope and no reason to carry on living just so the next thirty generations would lead on to the thirty-first and to a certain doom.  Why not just stop living now when it was pointless to continue?  Some carried on living as before, making no change to routine and to the regulated ways of Tower society.  They stoically set their faces to do what had always been necessary, in the full knowledge that the necessary wouldn't help.  A few tried to live wildly, beyond the means of the Tower, and some lived so wildly that their excesses had to be curbed by force for the sake of preserving what was left of the future.  The tale of how they were killed in righteous anger by members of the first party and of the subsequent total implementation of martial law does not need to be told here.

A third party asked a simple question:  Is there anything we can do to survive?  For a few years they proposed ideas of how to sustain the Tower further from within but it became clear that all such ideas were just chasing a moon that not only couldn't be caught but didn't exist at all.  It was obvious.  There was no hope in the Tower.  So the third party asked a second question:  Is there hope outside it?  What if we could bring resources from the planet into the Tower and use them to rescue ourselves.  Ambitious ideas and plans were stated and for a while hope began to rise that humanity could be saved.

That was before the coming of martial law.  The third party were silenced and talking of, or even thinking of looking outside the Tower in that poisoned world was made illegal.  More and more vigorously the first party maintained the status quo, to such an extent that they entirely stopped talking about how future generations would solve the problems of the Tower.  Not acting.  That was all that mattered.  Unless that acting was to punish any person who dared suggest that the law was wrong.

Nevertheless, the third party survived in secret, gathering in meetings in the lowest levels and creating secret signs to protect themselves.  They numbered only a few hundred who firmly believed in looking outside.  After some years they had formed a plan.  If one person could leave the Tower somehow, protected from the poisoned air, and if they could bring back something of use then surely everyone would have to listen to reason.

And so it was done.  On a low level, just where tower met the ground outside, an attempt was made.  Members of the party had moved together to one section.  Conditions were bad there and some had sacrificed handsome living quarters, preferring to live in squalor for the sake of the future.  The inner walls of the Tower were cut away until just one layer remained between the people inside and a certain death if the air flooded.  An airlock and pump was built and placed over that layer.  And a suit was developed too with powerful filters.  One man, and one man only, would enter the airlock, cut a hole in the outer wall and leave the Tower.  With the hope of the suit it was hoped they would not become the first person since the fall of civilisation to die from the toxin.

The mission was simple:  Find useful resources.  Bring them back.  Seal the breach in the wall and filter the airlock.  Then the third party would rise up and bring salvation and freedom.



[1760 words, plus 529 words to introduce and explain them.]

I Looked In The Mirror And Discovered That Hamsters Were Taking Over The World

45. Mirror, Mirror: What if you mirror started talking to you?


On Saturday I spent a few hours in a studio often used for dance classes.  One wall was a mirror.  It did not speak to me.

I have a mirrored wardrobe in my bedroom.  It took a while to get used to it.  It has not spoken to me.  I have spoken to my own reflection in that mirror, most profoundly when I arrived at the point at which I could accept myself as female.  I've also tried something that various new age proponents call hoʻoponopono.  They call it that but it doesn't bear much resemblance at all to hoʻoponopono as it exists within the cultures where it developed.  Simply put, these proponents will tell you to stand in front of the mirror and speak to your reflection and say "I love you.  I'm sorry.  Forgive me.  Thank you."  That's all.  Perhaps there is a psychological power in that.  But it has little to do with any traditional form of hoʻoponopono.  And they don't mention the teachings that led to that mantra - such as that you are responsible for everyone else's actions; if there is a problem it arises with you; everything is a projection from you; and you're trying to get to a point where you have no memories and no identity.  Which, in my very humble opinion, is all complete bo**ocks and on psychological and practical levels is very dangerous indeed.

Try telling the woman who has been raped that she is responsible for the actions of the rapist.

Try telling the abused child that they are responsibility for the actions of the abuser.

Try telling yourself that you are responsible for my actions, and those of both Donald Trump and the Dalai Lama.

It's nonsense.

Try telling yourself that you are responsible for the civil war in South Sudan.

It may not be a coincidence that when people gushingly tell you of the mantra they don't tell you about the source of the mantra.  More usually they'll say it's an ancient practice from Hawaii.  It isn't.  Don't believe them.  Both practices aim at forms of reconciliation and forgiveness and there is a historical link.  But to pretend that the mirror work is the ancient practice is like pretending that the religion of the Baha'i is the same as that practiced by Muslims two hundred years ago.

Nevertheless, look the mantra up and try it if you want.  People find it useful and you may too if you divorce it from the several modern hoʻoponopono teachings and theories that developed within the last fifty years.  To be reconciled with yourself and to love yourself are two wonderful achievements.

When we moved into our home I did not know whether I would be able to cope with having two large full length mirrors in my room.  I thought I might have to hang something from the ceiling in front of the mirrors so I couldn't see them.  Even now, six years on, I generally leave the wardrobe open.  One of the mirrored doors slides behind the other.  And the other is mainly covered with eight posters, each containing a pretty image and one phrase from the Lord's Prayer.  I don't pray that prayer but when I bought the posters it was still very important to me and the posters remain.  For now.

There was a time.  For much of my life.  I would not have slept in this room at all.  I would have refused.  Being in a room with mirrors was hard.  Sleeping with them was impossible.  I'd been building up.  In our previous house the bedroom had a dressing table with a mirror.  That took some getting used to.  The only other room I'd had to sleep in that contained a mirror facing the room was at college.  I used to cover the mirror at night.  Hang a blanket over it.

So I couldn't see in.

And they couldn't see out.

That was my great fear.  The world beyond the mirror.  The evil world beyond the mirror.  It was never a good place in my imagination and the people within were never savoury characters.  If I were to pass through the mirror I wouldn't find a curiouser and curiouser adventure like Alice.  I would find myself in a hell in which my own reflection would destroy me.

As I looked at my reflection, when I wasn't being sorrowful I was often being afraid.  My reflection never did anything out of the ordinary when I looked at it.  There were rules to my fear.  Reflections only had a life of their own when they were unobserved.  They were the Weeping Angels of the mirror universe.  At night they were independent.  Scheming.  Loathing the greater reality of our world and hating.  Hating.  Ugh!  I just looked at my mirror and shuddered.  Perhaps I should not be thinking of any of this.  Perhaps I will realise what I always thought I knew.  That there is life behind the looking glass.

I suspect I was always wary of mirrors and I know I spent a lot of time staring into the mirror in my parents' bedroom.  I didn't stare at myself much.  Just at the reflected world and I would try to analyse the angles and check for ways in which the reflection wasn't quite right.  But there is one man I can blame more than anyone else for turning my suspicion to terror and an unease that still persists more than thirty years after he screwed up my life.  He did it!  I'm not going to be a good hoʻoponopono practitioner and take responsibility for his actions or for the fact he wrote something so horrible and stuck it where it would take me completely by surprise.

That man was Gerald Durrell.

He of the nice animal stories.  He of the good zoo on Jersey.  He who told funny stories about his family.

It was Gerald Durrell who ruined me.

At the age of ten - and that's a rough figure - I borrowed another of his books from our local library.  That volume of hilarious stories is called The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium.  At the age of ten I found it very funny although I confess that I didn't quite understand why some of Marjorie's malapropisms were amusing - "She had an ablution."

I enjoyed myself immensely with that book.  Funny, funny, funny.  Get it.  Read it.   I was very glad I had chosen such a volume from the library.  But then everything changed.  I reached the final story.  It was called The Entrance and it wasn't about Gerald Durrell and the eccentricities of his life and the people around him.  It was fiction.  And it contained mirrors.

I do not want to tell you anything at all about the story.  I read it before (attempting to) going to sleep one night.  "I'm having so much fun, I'll just read the last story."  And I was completely terrified by it.  My little innocent mind wasn't used to reading such things and something clicked in my head by which I could never shake the feeling that at the very least the story was based on the truth of something sinister lurking behind the mirror.

Seriously.  Read it.  It's a brilliant story.   Hunt around enough and you'll find a free download online.

I was ruined.  In case the mirror spoke to me.  Or, not the mirror, but what the mirror contained.  My wife is a huge fan of the books of Gerald Durrell.  For many years I refused to let her own that book because of the memories it held for me.

Mirrors have stayed with me and they continue to stay with me.  During what may have been my first visit to the Writers' Cafe I wrote the beginnings of something about mirrors.  I'd planned to work with it today and see what could be created from a mirror that slowly shows not the protagonist's reflection but that of someone else.  I'd planned to work with it too after that cafe session.  One day it may happen.  What that day showed me more than anything was that while I haven't published things or found an audience of a size known only to the likes of J. K. Rowling I have a right to refer myself as a writer.  I found that I didn't feel out of place among the cafe people.  I'd assumed for years that I shouldn't go because "that's where the proper writers hang out."  I found instead that I should be there.  Maybe there are others who feel similarly about themselves and about creative pastimes.  Believe me, give it a go with whatever it is.  What I've found is that the kind of people who meet in such groups aren't the sort who turn round and say, "You're crap!  You're no artist.  Get out and don't darken our door again!"  They're encouraging and want to help each other in the creative process and in supporting each other in the highs and lows of creating a story or a picture or whatever it is.  While I'm sure they exist I haven't met anyone who doesn't simply enjoy it when other people want to create.

A case in point for my life.  During the weekend I attended an introductory session for acting and theatre.  It was very introductory.  Lots of icebreakers, games, and some basic acting and improvisational games.  I was scared of that.  It crossed my Facebook wall as many things do for reasons I sometimes don't understand.  And there was the magic word.  "Free!"  I realised it looked like it might be fun and since it was free I could happily walk out if I couldn't cope.

I went anyway.  Believing I probably would have to walk out.  Believing that it wouldn't really be a good time.  And yet it was.  I fitted in.  Of the people there I'd spoken to one before, in a very different place.  Everyone else was a stranger.  It was one of those times when I find I can just throw myself into something and leave my head a little bit.  The games were fun.  The silly activities to break down barriers.  And the basic improvisation took me by surprise.  I was called upon to speak to the rest of the group as someone who was the world's leading expert on "Where the moon goes during the day."  An incredible amount of total garbage proceeded from my mouth taking in The Bible, Nazis, holographic emitters, the moon flying off at speed to hide behind the sun, and a plot to populate the world with 18 foot tall hamsters.  Total garbage!  But it was also funny garbage.  People laughed.  A lot.  Not at an idiot but at someone presenting material that amused them.

I hadn't thought I'd be able to cope.  Hadn't thought I would fit in.  There was even a totally safe space arranged that I would be able to run to on the same floor of the same building and I was quite prepared to run there.  Instead, there I was performing some utter nonsense and making people laugh.

Massive confidence boost.

My message is this.  If there are things you want to try, try them.  You may be very pleasantly surprised.

My second message is this.  If they go wrong, it doesn't matter.  Learn from it and either have another go or find something else to try.  If it goes wrong that doesn't mean you're not valid or somehow less than you were before.  I've tried things and they've gone very wrong.  I've tried things in the last couple of years and been totally crap at them.  It doesn't matter.  Not at all.

So chase your dream.  Enjoy yourself while you chase.  And if that dream doesn't work out, chase another until you find what brings you joy.

There will be further acting/drama/theatre sessions in the future.  The person running them hasn't got  a specific plan.  In a way he's just like I was at the session.   He doesn't know whether what he's trying to set up will flourish or fail.  But he is chasing.  And in the chasing there is life in abundance.  If I am able I will go along again and throw myself into whatever is presented to me there.  I look forward to it.  Who knows?  Perhaps this will be my second wonderful creative surprise of the year.  And it's only the middle of February.

I have departed from mirrors and yet somehow ended up in the room I mentioned in my first sentence.  I haven't followed the writing prompt or written the stories that my head would like to tell.  That's okay.  They're still there and they will wait with the fullness of patience.

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones But Words Are Bloody Painful

44. Insult: Write about being insulted.


In my last post I wrote that I was in a privileged position in that I have never been the victim of racial abuse.  Nobody has ever shouted at me in the street that I'm a white scumbag or told me to go back to my own country.  I'm fortunate to be white in the UK.

That doesn't mean I possess every privilege I could ever own.  Not at all.  I used to be able to claim almost the entire set and for much of my life I was pretty oblivious to the issues and failed to notice how fortunate I was - and still am.  But in the past four years I've lost some of my automatic privileges.  Things changed.  

Four years ago I would never have ticked the "do you have a disability" box.  Now I do and I will continue to count myself as disabled.  I've always had problems with mental health and with various social and practical skills.  It turned out that many of these were related to being autistic or to co-morbidities accompanying autism.  I'll have problems for life.  Blessings too.  Being disabled in this way is not a problem when I'm walking in the street.  Nobody stares at me or points or calls out for being autistic.  I'm lucky.  If I had Down Syndrome or had to use a wheelchair or had some other obvious physical characteristic to mark me out as different I would, from time to time, be openly insulted for it.  There are issues that have arisen now I tick that disability box but insults from random strangers are not among them.

I'm no stranger to being insulted though.  At this point someone will respond by saying, "Well we've all been insulted."  Of course we have!  It's true.  But some people always say things like that.  They probably say "All lives matter" too.  That's also true.  Obviously.  But usually in saying it we turn our backs on a very real problem.  Try to explain the depths of how difficult it is for me to get through with the problems autism gives me and inevitably there will be people who respond in such a way as to take a dump on disability by trying to make out everyone is the same.  Nobody would tell a person in a wheelchair, "Well we've all got tired and had to sit down sometimes."  Nobody would tell a blind woman, "Well many of us have to wear glasses."  But if you try to explain autism and you're not what people would label as "low functioning" then they tell you.  "Well we all get anxious sometimes."  "Well we all misunderstand people sometimes."  "Yes, it does get a bit noisy sometimes."  Save me from people who tell me that sometimes it's a bit noisy.  They tell you many other things too.  They remove your autism.  Try to make out you're just like them and that autism is just normal life.  It isn't.  It's difficult every single day.  Lots of people with mental health issues may get treated the same way.  The person with severe depression is told, "We all feel a bit blue sometimes, so just pull your socks up and get on with it."

When I was assessed for PIP the assessor nonchalantly dismissed all my problems with anxiety and all the struggles I have - even when I look serene to the world - in getting through each day and each encounter.  She said she had a few panic attacks once so there was no difference between me and her.  And I was in no position to get her to understand.  She might have had to carry a heavier weight than usual for a while.  But I carry a ten ton load pretty much all the time and because autism is a lifelong disability I'll be carrying a load for the rest of my life.  I make it look so easy.  Sometimes.  In effect when I was assessed for PIP the assessor removed autism from me and then assessed on the basis of me not being autistic.  That's not only an insult.  It's dangerous.  It's heartbreaking.  And quite probably it's illegal too.

That kind of thing, where the person with little or no problem tries to make out that they suffer and struggle as much as I do, is an insult.  It's a result of not listening to me, not understanding, and of whitewashing my truth and making it invisible.  But it's not what I want to write about this morning.

I want to write about being insulted in the street.  As you may know, in June 2013 I began the process of coming out as a transgender woman.  At the start of August of that year I legally changed my name.  Coming out changed a lot for me.  I lost some of my privileges.  I admit to a large extent I'd taken them for granted.  Perhaps for many of us it's only when we lose something that we realise how precious it was.  Joni Mitchell sang it didn't she?  "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?"

I'd spend my life living as a heterosexual.  A man.  Cisgender.

I possessed three big privileges.  And at a stroke I lost them.

And when I plucked up the confidence to dress outside as I wanted to dress the insults happened.  From strangers in the street.  Even in this city of welcome in which I live.

For a while it was constant.  Every single time I left the house alone wearing a skirt I would be verbally abused.  Every single time.  But I kept doing it.  To the abusers I looked like a bloke in a frock.  Fair enough.  I hadn't had any hair removal treatments.  [Oh God, the number of people who said to me "Why do you need it?  All women get some facial hair."]  I hadn't got any make up.  My hair hadn't grown out.  Man in a frock.  It wasn't true of course.  I was a woman in what is often defined as a man's body.  To the abusers a man in a frock is fair play to be abused either with laughter or much worse than that.  Outright hatred.

I hated the abuse.  Who wouldn't?  I was experiencing what others had talked about.  Race hate, disability hate.  But transgender hate instead.  And in the experiencing I am better able to understand at least some of what others suffer and how they feel when abused for being who they are.  I am glad of the insight brought by my own experience.

It was awful though.  To know that leaving the house carried the punishment of abuse.  It didn't matter that I could try to rationalise it and say, "I know I'm doing and being nothing wrong.  They're just ignorant/fearful/foolish and I shouldn't worry about them."  I told myself that all the time.  I was right.  But it was still awful.  It hurt.  There were times I didn't know how I was going to manage to continue to walk through the path of gender transition.

I did continue though, just like so many others.  I don't know a single transgender person who hasn't had to fight hard to become who they already were.  We should all be very proud of ourselves.

Three and a half years after legally changing my name things are different.  I haven't worn make up in over eighteen months but hair removal has made a big difference.  My hair grew.  Perhaps hormone treatments are making a difference to my face.  Perhaps not.  The biggest change to my outward manner has been confidence.  I walk proud in my womanhood now and can hardly imagine how I ever used to pretend otherwise.

I still get insulted in the street.  But it's rare now.  Mostly I "pass as a woman" or get stared at as people try to figure me out.  Passing through the fire has been worth everything.

I still get surprised by the good reactions sometimes.  In the autumn of last year I gathered my courage and joined a new women's choir.  The first time I'd ever intentionally entered a women only space.  I admit my initial surprise and continuing thankfulness.  Everyone there accepted me without a single question or second thought.  It's a wonderful place.  It's not always like that.  The second time I tried to join a women only group I was told by the organiser it wouldn't really be the right place for me as a transgender person and that I could well not be safe there.  I was banned from turning up at all.  Later she relented and said to come but it was too late.  There was no way I was going to bother with such a space.

People say things that still take me by surprise.  After forty years of living male - and thinking being trans made me a monster - it will probably take many years before I cease to be amazed at times.

A couple of weeks ago I was joking around with someone who knows I'm trans and who I know accepts me as woman.  It still caught me when she said words to the effect of "I could never fancy you anyway because I'm not a lesbian!"  Ignore that the sentence makes bisexuals invisible - she wouldn't do that except in joking around sentences.  I was so happy.  Her words just showed her total and complete acceptance of this woman with no doubt, no question, no hint of a worry.

When I am accepted like that it makes social transition worth more than gold and diamonds.

When I accept myself like that it makes inward transition a place of great peace.

Don't Tell Me The Ni****s Are Taking Over. Just don't.

Here's something about a place where we used to live.  I don't apologise for the language in this writing.  It does include the N word.  Several times.  It's a word I hate hearing.  Were I not in the privileged position of being a white person in the UK I'd hate hearing it even more because unless I was very lucky I'd have heard it used against myself, my friends, my family, and on many occasions.  "You ****ing N*****, get back to your own country."  That kind of thing.  I've heard it used to the faces of black people.  I've heard similar language used to other ethnic minorities.  I've seen Islamic women face verbal abuse from white scumbags and I've felt a mix of sorrow and shame.  But I can tell you this.  As a white person in England I've never been the victim of racial abuse.  In Tunisia we weren't racially abused.  In Korea we weren't racially abused either - though we did turn heads by virtue of our rarity in some of the places we walked.  I felt out of my depth, out of my culture a few times.  But I never felt unsafe.  I mention head turning in what follows.  It's not a product of racism, just of our brains' tendency to be attracted to whatever is out of the ordinary in our vision.

I have deliberately not named the town.  Originally I'd included it in the final line but I've blocked it out.  People who know my history well will know where I'm talking about.  When we lived there I heard the first line of this writing.  It was said to me by different people on quite a few occasions.  Those exact words.

Each time I inwardly cringed.  Each time I wanted to scream at the speaker of such offensive garbage.  Both racist and inaccurate.  I'm a gentle woman but I admit something in me wanted to throw the first punch.  Although, it would be an ineffectual hit.  To my shame I didn't argue.  Socially I didn't know how.

I am glad to say that an organisation of which I was a part when we lived in that town is now led by a black man and the people in that organisation welcomed him with open arms and love having him as boss.  When they were appointing him - a black outsider - people talked about how brave they and he were and how they didn't know if the town would ever really accept them for doing such a thing.

Perhaps in the years he has been there his presence, his visibility and his character may have done something to lessen the racism I saw too often.  Perhaps he's turned some minds and hearts to truth.  That black people  - and people of any colour - are just people.  Not creatures to be feared and insulted.

It's fifteen years since we left that town.  I hope the racism of the past is dying.  And I hope the town itself doesn't die.  Economically it's suffered greatly.  Wages are low.  Unemployment is high.  The population fell by more than three percent in ten years.  A redevelopment plan was unveiled ten years ago but when visiting last year I didn't see any sign of the plan becoming reality.  The football club is doing very well.  Maybe the town will recover too and thrive again.

The picture below was taken a year ago in Newcastle.  I'm the one holding the sign.  I find hugs very hard usually but I hugged many strangers that day.  It didn't matter who they were.  Some Muslims were running a stall nearby and they loved what we were doing, the light and happiness we were bringing.  They wouldn't hug us though because of a total respect for their own wives.

I include the photo because it was a contrasting day under Grey's Monument.  Before we arrived - we passed them as they left - a bunch of neo-Nazis were having a rally there.  Racists.  Full of hate.  Shouting lies to the people of Newcastle.  The writing below moans about the racism I encountered where we used to live.  This photo is here to stress that there is racism and there are racists everywhere in the United Kingdom.  Even in Newcastle Upon Tyne, City of Sanctuary.

"The niggers are taking over."
That's what they said,
Yeah, taking over.  Niggers everywhere.
Don't shoot me down for my language
I'm only reporting the facts.
Real truths, not the alternative facts those white folk believed.
Taking over?
Okay people, show me.
Show me these beautifully dark skinned human beings
You choose to damn with a word.
Take me out on the streets.
Point them out to me,
Show me how they have gained control of your town.
Or shut the hell up
And sod off with your racist talk that's so second nature
You don't even have to think about it.
Where are the black men on your streets?
Are there gangs of them in charge of the night?
In charge of the banks, the schools?
Do those you call niggers run the show here?
Demonstrate it to me if you can.
Or get real and never say such words to me again.
Look left, look right, up down main street.
It's as white as the snow field.
You might see a blackbird land briefly in the cold.
You might see a black person too,
Shopping.
Doing just the same as you.
In your town he might turn my head too.
Because he is rare.  An out of the ordinary.
With your own eyes you can see it.
You're safe.  They're not taking over here.
And if they were, so bloody what?
Why are you so damned afraid of them
When it's they who should be afraid of you,
White man, oppressor, part of the subjugating empires.
White man, whose casual racism is known by all
Who don't share your lack of melanin.
If anyone is scary it's you.
You don't believe your eyes? Well look at the numbers.
We looked up your town, your borough.
In statistics we tried to find the ones you call niggers.
Yeah, your borough is the domain of the white man.
Ninety-eight point eight percent white.
You're nearly a white utopia for frightened racists to run to.
And of the rest, where are your so-called niggers?
Where are the black people you give so much power to?
They're nowhere, almost.
Nought point one percent of your population is black.
In your town there are twenty-six black people.
Are you an idiot, a brainwashed fool to think
That twenty-six people are taking over your precious white land?
Enough of your crazy talk, white people.
Stop your hate, your language of abuse.
Why do you even use that word at all?
Is it a hatred, a sense of your white superiority?
Or it is a terrible misunderstanding, just a word to you?
Like the football fan who told me
"Yeah, we call 'em pakis and niggers but it's not racism."
Well comrade you'd better get it sorted out right now
Because you're twisting the knife they were stabbed with.Did you get your views Express delivery in the Mail?
Stop it with your fear.
Refuse to listen to those who created your terror.
Open your eyes, look around you and see.
Those twenty-six add beauty to your home
Because they are beautiful men and women of colour.
Embrace them, give them hugs and take them out for drinks.
The white men are leaving your town
Like rats from a sinking ship.
The numbers don't lie.
So grab the black people, the Asians.
Lift up anyone you see from a minority group and tell them
Bring your friends.  Bring your family.
Otherwise your town will die, rotten from the inside.
And you, white men of @@@@,
You will die in your racial ghetto.