@athelstone
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Body of evidence.
It’s not as though this is the first body I’ve seen, and it’s not as though this is the first person I’ve killed. As a death it was unremarkable: quick, expected, and I imagine she knew nothing about it. A clean shot through the back of the head in mid-conversation. Only a few of my targets have been so lucky, but my intention was different. This time I was more concerned with the effect on me than on somebody else.
Looking at her now, I’m slowly coming to terms with that. It’s interesting. I’m aware of some things that I hadn’t considered before. The most obvious is that she was the person I would have liked to discuss the death with most of all. She would have understood—probably. She was in tune with my thoughts in a way that nobody else was. The next thing is ironic. We were discussing an old photograph of us as teenagers and she was in the middle of explaining something when she turned away, turning the picture into the light, and I took the opportunity.
On reflection, a mistake, because she is—was—the only person who could finish that explanation.
By far the strangest thing was the feeling that my world had got smaller. I’d anticipated this, but until she was sprawled there on the floor, I hadn’t fully understood it. While she was alive, she was like a universe of experience that impinged on mine. Because she had been close to me, I’d seen some of that universe and it had changed parts of mine. She had a hand in establishing the way I viewed the world. She had a part in my understanding of it.
In an instant that stopped. The transition happened quickly, it was nearly imperceptible, but the impact was huge.
People have always been objects to me. They’re just things that move around like dodgem cars. Brownian motion. Sometimes they speak to me, and I’ve learned to respond in ways that please them. I suspect that some of them, maybe all of them, hide a universe as huge as hers. I’ve tried all manner of ways to discover it and I’m certain that they reveal something as they die. I have yet to decipher what it is.
Has this been worthwhile?
That’s unclear. Maybe I should have started with Bobby or Kevin, people I’m not quite so close to because using her was an expensive trial. By and large I’m not pleased with how it went, but it will give me a lot to think about I suppose.
434 words including title
The original idea came from Harry Bingham on the WordCloud, who presented a bottle of something similar to Champagne as a prize each month. When it began to fall apart it was taken up by Wrathnar the Unreasonable (sans Champagne) and then by the winner of the competition each month.
It was adopted by the Den when the Cloud finally closed
John on holiday
John.
This is the strangest holiday ever. Chris should have been here. She even did all the bookings for us, and now I have to explain to everybody why it’s only me. The weather is perfect. Not too hot, not too cold. She’d have loved it—walking along the coast, looking down on the seabird colonies. Salt, warm seaweed on the narrow beach, that smell of the sea that tells you you’re home. There’s a stairway by the hotel that leads down to the sand. It’s fabulous but you can’t go far because cliffs jut out into the sea at either side. So I’m walking the coastal path.
People have said that it feels as though their loved ones are still around. They see them everywhere. I don’t. When I try to think of Chris, all I get is that sound, like a car door slamming only a hundred times louder as the van smashed into us. And the image of her held still by the airbag. When it deflated she looked so well, as though nothing was wrong. But she was dead.
So, no, I don’t see Chris. They told me that nobody would mind if I didn’t go, but I said that I needed a few days away, alone. Really I would have felt guilty to waste the effort she put into this holiday. Like a betrayal.
Who’s this?
Kevin.
Blimey, this old git won’t have a light. Bet I get his life story about how he used to smoke but gave up. If I’m really unlucky it’ll be all about how hard it was and how I shouldn’t smoke either. Looks the miserable sort. All gloomy-faced on a perfect day like this. Still, I’m gasping for a smoke. Nothing ventured and all that.
‘Got a light, mate?’
‘Oh,’ he says, and fumbles in his pocket. Would you Adam and Eve it? Only a box of Swan Vestas.
‘Here you go,’ he says. Well, don’t judge a book as the proverb puts it. ‘Look,’ he goes, ‘take a few. You don’t need the box; you can strike them on a stone or anything hard.’
‘Thanks mate.’
‘I’d give you the box, but I need them for the candle.’
Well, I don’t know what that means but any port as they say.
There’s somebody up at the chapel.
Father Mitchel.
Ah, there’s John, down on the path. I didn’t think he’d come. It’s a strange thing that his visit will double this chapel’s congregation, and him an atheist. Lighting a candle for Christine. So sad.
Such a beautiful woman. When she was a child, she lit up the Sunday School. That’s when we had decent numbers of course. I don’t suppose we’ll ever have them again. This place will go. It’s worth a great deal of money to the church—a house for some wealthy soul.
Poor John. He’ll miss her dreadfully. I wonder when, or if, he’ll realise that he was driving the van that hit her car.
500 words excluding title
Jill, the Den’s Activity Page posts extracts changes (replies, new topics etc) from the public sections of the Den. You replied directly to the Activity Page version of this thread – you can check by selecting “Activity” from the menu at the top of all the Den’s pages. It’s all still there, although you’ll need to scroll a *long* way as my original post on this thread, was copied to the Activity Page 4 months ago. Not sure why it showed up for you to reply to, but even after all these years there’s still a lot of the Den’s structure I haven’t looked into.
I’m glad to hear you are coming through the challenges too. In a way, a great deal of it is accepting what is going to be, and that doesn’t mean giving up on what’s possible, simply understanding what “possible” is. For instance, one of two people have encouraged me to “push on through” when I’m exhausted after very little exercise. I know it’s well meant, but it can be frustrating to explain that “pushing on through” is the last thing I should do, and actually could be 🙂
I’ve a feeling you know all this very well anyway!
Jill’s entry grabbed my attention straight away, because although my own childhood was a few years later, so much was the same. And yes, all the shops shut. In fact, almost everything shut on a Sunday apart from Church and Sunday School. “Hear the pennies dropping” for those who remember it. So much centred on the home back then. A wonderful piece that stirred so many memories.
Terrie’s rich and evocative writing is almost a hallmark. This piece is a classic example. She writes “I know I was lucky” with her idyllic childhood, and proceeds to tell us exactly why, with a gorgeous sequence of images of the wildlife, the countryside and how she reacted to it. It’s like a costume dotted with diamonds: The lightning, the hayloft, the bluebell-line wheatfield, and so many more, not forgetting the mole with its paws “paws, rough and hard, like cracked leather”.
Sandra’s piece is all about buttons and dress making and tailoring – oh, and annoying brothers. My mother mended and made. Is it still taught in schools? I would have liked to learn. I remember an old sweet tin full of buttons as well. There were some fascinating examples, probably from the C19th, that had been inherited. My favourites were like tiny glass paperweights. These went missing when my parents, both teachers, had a party of children back one afternoon. I forget what for, but villainy was obviously on at least one agenda. Sandra’s piece raises so many memories for me that I had put away for years. I loved it.
Libby’s story. I so much wanted to know more about this young girl’s life, the before and after of this snapshot – which is the mark of good writing. I assume she is in service. In a household where an Aga runs all day, the children of the family do not rise at dawn and top up the coal. But it seems like a happy household. She slept poorly, but has no complaints. She prefers rest to work, but she’s not alone there. And she does have time to snatch some rest and maybe dream about the young workman she saw yesterday. In amongst this is a machine that she feeds: an Aga. The detail of topping up its fuel, plainly stated, sets it as a functional item, not simply a historical artefact. The heart of the kitchen – maybe the household.
Honestly, on a different day and in a different mood, I could have picked any of these. But I have to pick one and today it’s Libby’s entry. Well done everybody and thank you all.
A brace of fabulous entries this month. Real life has struck at an awkward moment with silly demands on time. I hope you won’t mind too much If I pinch a day from the next comp. and post the results tomorrow evening. So sorry about that.
Dear All,
Please note that this doesn’t have to be about an object. From the theme up there (points up) “an object, or an event, or a saying, or anything at all really that you remember as commonplace when you were young”
Thank you, Jill. I forgot to set a word limit, so I take your entry as “the bar” and set it now at 400 words.
Incidentally, I wanted to call the girl Aelfwin but I had trouble getting the A and e to combine into a proper “ash” at the start of the name. Then it occurred to me that a drunk Teabreak would be unlikely to remember that anyway, hence “Alwin, or something like that.” I think Alwin is still sometimes used as a female name, but I could probably have got away with Aelfwin. They’re both essentially the same name and I like the literal meaning “Elf friend”.
I confess I feel slightly guilty. I read Sandra’s entry and thought it was splendid. Then I sneak in at the end and…
Anyway, thank you for the prompt, Jill. The solstice was my 70th and I went from not thinking I’d make it, to writing a little story about it so that’s something.
Stonehenge
The moon has departed leaving an impenetrable night with a cold mist gently rising across the still fields around Amesbury. In the hedgerows around one expanse of grass, sparrows packed close are beginning to shift in their sleep. To the east of this field a steady gaze would be rewarded with the slightest bloom of purple in a world that is otherwise as black as newly laid tar.
From somewhere comes a faint, rhythmic sound.
Closing in on this sound, through the night, across the field, it gets louder.
The morning purple slowly changes to grey, then a hint of structure to appears. One of the structures is making the sound.
It’s snoring.
‘ERRNEUG!’
‘OW!’
Teabreak’s arms begin to wave to and fro, as though he is swimming. His head remains still, face pinned to the muddy grass.
‘What?’
‘Oh, my, God! Ow, ow, ow!’
He sits up and looks at the darkness.
‘Gordon Bennet. My head. What am I doing here?’
Then he remembers, slowly at first, then more rapidly. That bird in the pub.
***
Chubby, Trish, Dave, Shaz and him had piled into a car to drive up from the Smoke with tents and that, to see the sunrise at Stonehenge. Last summer solstice of the twentieth century. Shaz said it was special.
They’d gone to this pub nearby, the Antrobus Arms. Posh old place. Chubby wanted to play pool so they made up teams of couples leaving Teabreak as a spare egg in the full English.
‘Course they did!’
So he got chatting with this girl, who was all on her own, Alwin, or something like that. She was nice-looking. Mysterious. He told her what they were up to with the tents and the solstice. And he moaned a bit about being the extra bloke. But mainly it was a cool evening until Alwin said, ‘How about a stroll?’
And Teabreak said, ‘OK.’
He shouldn’t have, because he’d had seven pints and a couple of shots. And when the cold air hit him, that was more or less the last thing he remembered, except — did she say something weird, or did he imagine it? He thought she said, ‘Don’t worry about the solstice. You can have my seat.’
***
From the field, Teabreak decides to walk to the campsite which is on the outskirts of Amesbury. He guesses the direction and stumbles along heading north-west, right into the middle of Stonehenge, where, feeling sorry for himself he falls asleep.
‘Wake up Teabreak!’
It’s that Alwin girl’s voice. He looks around astonished. It’s rammed with all sorts of weirdos. But somehow the view directly ahead of him is clear. Where is she?
‘Don’t look for me. Look at the sun.’
He turns back just as the sun appear over the horizon. It washes over him. There really is something magical about it. Then the crowd of hippy types close in and the view disappears.
‘Next year drink less.’
But he doesn’t find her, and he never goes back.
499 excluding title
I’m not a huge fan of cosy crime, and I think that the television series of TTMC is rather better than the books, although only because the acting is good. However, there are many variations within that genre and I wouldn’t dismiss everything. The same goes for anthropomorphised animal stories. For instance, Charlotte’s Web and Animal Farm spring to mind as two of the best where it hardly matters that the protagonists aren’t human.
I’m off to listen to that review.
On a small scale, my daughter gave me a voucher for a foraging/cooking day for 2, for my birthday last year, and I’d just booked a day in March when I got ill. When the company heard I was in hospital, they gave me a six month extension on the voucher for free, so that I could book when I was completely recovered. I thought that was really thoughtful and I don’t imagine many companies would do that.
On a larger scale, we were going to celebrate my 70th in June with a trip to Pompeii. I’m not likely to be recovered enough for that, but we may well think again when autumn approaches.
I have some blood tests booked to determine my iron dose, and a referal to a specialist to see what to do about the blood clots and whether the anticoagulants are just for now, or forever. All the time I was in hospital there was the infection and the other things. Now it’s looking very like the other things are all part of the infection. Amazing the havoc a bacteria that coexists quite happily, often inside us, can do when it turns up a slight variation.
Hi Libby, a very big relief. And thank you. I had another read through my discharge notes. I don’t think they’d seen somebody so ill with such a mixed bag of symptoms before (who hadn’t been in an accident). They took advice from the teams at Guildford, Reading, and Kings. There was a consensus to deal with the immediate emergency which was the E-coli infection and set the rest aside until I was stable. I think the latest test was only the first step in the second stage. I have no idea what comes next, although I’m fairly sure my GP will have me on iron tablets straight away.
But I’m out, at home, and happy about that!
Thanks Jill. Yes, it is a big relief.
I’ve been on blood thinners (apixaban) since I was admitted to hospital. My problem is that the hospital doctors didn’t share any plan for dealing with the existing clots which have blocked two major veins to the liver. I strongly suspect that they were anticipating a worse outcome from the endoscopy and intended to deal with the clots when they dealt with that.
But that’s an issue for tomorrow (literally) when I see my GP.
I hope that this is a footnote, although I forsee a few more tests from my GP.
Today I had the endoscopy which I believe some of the doctors in my hospital thought would show cancer. The symptoms were all lined up. There was even consistent evidence from CAT scans and other X-rays. To be fair to them, they never said that, though they always pointed it out to me as a distinct possibility. When they invited questions, and I asked about the liklihood it was always confirmed as something I should prepare for. Alternative causes of the symptoms were never discussed, or received a sceptical hearing.
There’s something of an omertà amongst hospital doctors. They like to appear, take pulses, listen to lungs, press bits of you to see if it hurts, and then with your mind in a whirl over all the activity, ask if you have any questions. ‘Feel free to ask me anything that occurs to you’ they say as they disappear leaving no direct route to contact them even if you could remember their name.
So it was with some trepidation that I went to the colonoscopy suite this morning. The gastroenterologist who saw me was a cheerful man, who was straightforward with me. ‘Is that gas and air doing anything for you? No? Don’t bother with it then.’ Afterwards he rushed up and straight away said, ‘That all looked fine. No trace of cancer, just a few benign polyps, and not very big either. You’re off the cancer path.’
Relief is an understatement. The very first doctor who ran through my symptoms with me said that he had to be fair, the possibility of my dying was in the mix, so I was reconciled to that outcome. But it was amazing to have it taken away.
That leaves my blood clots and anaemia to explain. And, hopefully fix. I have nothing more from the hospital, so it’s back to my GP later this week. The hospital doctors may be relaxed about leaving the clots where they are ( I think they felt it wouldn’t matter) but I’m not. I also don’t enjoy running out of breath after moving around for a few minutes, so that’s on my hit list.
I have things to do.
Caution: Stuart’s language isn’t for polite company. The anniversary was my 18th birthday, June 21 1974.
Stuart’s story
People call me Plug ‘cos they reckon I look like Plug from the Bash Street Kids I ain’t never seen him, so I don’t know. Stuart’s my real name, and I just done three months in nick for something I ain’t done. Possession with intent to supply. I’m lucky ‘cos the first two months they kept me in the Bill’s lockups where at least you get some peace and quiet. Then I got moved to Wandsworth where they just want you out as fast as poss, ‘cos they ain’t got no room. Sentenced to six—out in three.
I had the stuff on me. Ten blues. But what nobody believed was that was my usual for a night out. I think the judge believed me. That sentence was more like possession. The Bill was pissed off.
I came back to my squat and, I couldn’t hardly believe it. Nobby and Tracy from upstairs had kept my room for me. I owe them big time. As usual when I’ve been without, I swore off stuff, well, apart from a bit of blow that Tracy gave me as welcome back. I skinned up and watched Top of the Pops. But it’s kind of depressing. I quite like the Sparks thing. I never heard of them before. A right weird looking geezer on keyboard. I’m humming it now cos I didn’t catch many of the words apart from this town ain’t big enough for the both of us. Something about tigers as well. And I like Judy Teen. But, God, the top three made me just sad. Gary Glitter number one! Some American geezer whose name I can’t remember with this crappy song about streaking, and Showaddywaddy.
Nobby says that music’s gotta loosen up. He says it’s gotta be taken back by the kids. He says there’s a scene starting up on the Kings Road that’s gonna shake things up. He cut his hair short like a skinhead, and Tracy’s taken the darts out of their jeans so they’re straight now. Honestly, lookin’ at the charts, I can’t see it takin’ off. Nobby’s had his ears pierced as well. He looks a proper clown, but I didn’t say that. I said it was cool. At least he ain’t like that knob Gary who had an eagle tattooed on his cheek then grew this stupid beard which don’t quite hide it.
*
Fell asleep in front of the telly and woke up with the sun coming through the curtains. I asked Tracy where she got the blow, and she said she’d try and get some more, but she came back in the evening with just a little bit for me, and some H. She said she got some because she was curious. You don’t have to inject it. You can snort it like speed. She won’t get any more. I’d got my giro, so I paid her, and she gave me a little bit of H. Just to try like.
498 including title
Thanks for the kind wishes, Jill. I know you’ve had your own burden lately, and I was so pleased to hear things were going well. At the moment, progress is good. I’m not using crutches or a frame now around the house and I can make it upstairs 2 or 3 times a week for a shower, all approved by the health visitors. I still have anaemia and run out of breath quite quickly though. I can’t start treatment for that just yet, so I’ll have to put up with it.
Tests for the scary beast start with a long appointment on 11 May.
Thanks for all the kind wishes. Please don’t think me rude that I haven’t responded individually. I still find messaging quite an effort. Your words are very much appreciated.
Honestly, nobody wants to get ill and go to hospital, but I don’t regret having met the staff. From the cleaner who I talked to a lot, to the nurses who tirelessly carried horrible pots away without a single complaint, to the consultant who (I now see) was joking/hinting about discharge when she said, ‘We must get this catheter out, unless you use one at home.’ they were all cheerful and friendly.
Thank you for such a satisfactory February topic, Libby, and for your generous appraisal! I loved the other two entries; they could easily have won.
Teabreak in love
Maureen Chapman. No, tell a lie, it was Chaplain, like a vicar. Her name, I mean—she wasn’t like a vicar. Anyway, Maureen Chaplain was perfect from my ten-year-old point of view. But I’m getting all jumbled up about how to start, so I’ll take a breath. See, it really began when the Brazells moved out from next door and the Chaplains moved in.
It was the first day of the new term at school. The school wanted to see my foster parents about all the stuff I was supposed to have but didn’t. Brina was at work, so Larry had to go with me on the bus. God, he bloody hated that. He hated most things, but official things more than most, and official things to do with me most of all. So the bus was packed apart from this tiny space on a sideways seat next to this gorgeous girl. She had a school uniform on, our school, but she was loads older than me.
‘Get up there!’ Larry growls in front of everybody. ‘Go on, get yer arse in there.’
Bloody embarrassing, but I did what he said. She sort of wiggled a bit to give me more room, and I blushed as her leg rubbed against mine.
‘Ere, you’re the Chapman girl, aint you?’ says Larry.
‘Chaplain,’ she says. ‘We’re next door.’
I thought about her on and off all day, and after school we went home on the same bus. I reckon it was then that I fell in love.
‘Sorry about Larry,’ I said. ‘The rude geezer I was with this morning.’
‘Larry?’ she says, ‘I thought he must be your grandad.
‘Foster dad. Anyway, sorry about him.’
She stood until the old girl pinning me in got off. Then she goes, ‘Budge up’, and parks herself next to me. Close to, she didn’t just look all wavy blonde hair and smooth skin, she smelled nice too.
‘You don’t have to apologise,’ she says. ‘We don’t get to choose.’
And then, like she was interested, and actually cared, she says, ‘How was school today?’
While I was stumbling a reply I thought, I hope she catches this bus with me tomorrow.
At home I said to Brina, ‘Have you met Maureen Chaplain from next door?’
Brina puts her hand on my head and smiles.
‘Oh, she’s pretty that one. Be careful my good boy.’
400 without title
Terrie, I had a tricky January but that’s no excuse. Sorry for missing a super monthly comp. Well done Libby, a really great entry. Well done all.
I know that feeling. I was also a government employee who found himself parcelled up and sold to the highest bidder, or at least the one that made the most empty promises and said the things that our betters at the high table wanted to hear. I recall now how our managers queued up to tell us what a good thing it was and, yes, they used that exact same mantra, ‘We’re all in this together.’ And how curious it was to see so many of them, almost without exception being unexpectedly found to be “vital” to the business of government and so retained instead of passing over to the massive US multi-national that swallowed the rest of us. And, of course, because of the fabulous work they had done in selling us off, their demonstration of skill “above and beyond” earned almost all of them promotions and bonuses.
Strange to see that, over the last few years, much of the work we did which we were told HAD to be privatised, because it was NOT CORE business, has quietly been taken back in house, because it is so much cheaper and far more efficient to have those who know the business doing the Information Technology for that business. It’s been done almost by subterfuge, with the establishment of private companies owned by government with civil servants as directors, so that it looks as though the work is still done by the private sector.
It’s a sad story, Richard. Some of the major cities are still well served by buses, but nationally and in rural areas the picture is not so good with some areas reduced to just a few buses a week or cut off altogether. And prices have soared everywhere. In my town, Stagecoach won the local bus contract with the promise of the “pulse” service, which would see a bus every ten minutes on all the arterial routes through the town. A few years down the line, with much wringing of hands and weasel words about fuel prices and the international scene, the pulse has been cancelled and a less-frequent through-town service has had its route adjusted to cover some of the stops. But not all. The push to privatise essential public services has very little to do with efficiency or the public good, but a lot to do with phenomenal personal greed and political ambition and prejudice.
Right, here we go.
Is there anybody who hasn’t had at least a small part in the production of a nativity play? Jill, that’s just how they go. A perfect evocation. And your story has a Christmas miracle as well – or was it a mischievous young actor?
Janette, I was there in that supermarket. No, really, I was actually there I think, barging past the shoppers and, worst of all, the personal shoppers with their massive trolleys parked right over the exact spot I needed to reach. Jona Lewie was diddle-diddle-dumming and I prayed it wouldn’t change to Wham!
Sandra, a snippet of reality and a view into the past. Really moving. Those memories that fade and change over the years but never really leave us. I very much enjoyed that.
Terrie, you made it! And you’ve blended a bit of this and a piece of that, some fact and some, well let’s not say fiction, let’s say imagination. The festivals of the old world may have been hijacked by the Romans as convenient dates, but it’s facinating to speculate on just what those old traditions meant.
As I said, I read all these last night, or rather, early this morning. I awarded each one first place at some point, but I have to make a decision. Terrie, take us into the next 12 months.
And a Very Happy New Year to us all!