The Email

Honed in solitude, and far from any track, at a time when lifeless legs kept him exiled from the throng, his mind had moved where his limbs could not, through distant concepts and  landscapes travelled by imagination. Books, he reflected,  might inform you, but they never shout or pour you drinks. His was a distilled existence  spent in  self-reflection, slightly touched with bitterness.  Alright his time had given him insights few possess but at a cost. Always the cost. And yet, because there must be an ‘as yet’ the bitterness had borne this unexpected fruit. The website where rudeness finds a sanctuary grew beyond his wildest dreams.

Now he was free of encumbrance or commitment ,sitting in a mountain top hotel in Peru; looking at amazing scenery and sipping a cocktail from a tall and slender glass. The cherry on the stick just made him smile. What to do with that? He was not outgoing. Never would be. That brief foray into vulnerability all those years ago, as a faceless crippled junior in some  office, had taught him all he needed to know about that state of mind.

The softness of her needs and innocent gentle spirit had wrenched him from his solitude and bought him to a place of desperation where only manners saved your dignity. He paused and cleared his mind of unnecessary reflection, passing his gaze across the scenery. Touched by mist and with a purple hue its timeless beauty and indifference was cleansing to the soul. This was the world he understood. The physical incarnation of his mental state. He turned to check the emails on his phone.

The words were brief and to the point.  “Save Me”, was all they said,  and signed by Laura Cunningham ( nee Patten ). A name stored in his memory.

A month later, somewhat against his better judgement, and moved more by curiosity than interest he was in the lobby of a London hotel sitting with her , still recognisable but somehow different. They shook hands and then sat down. He asked her ”How have you been”. “How has your life been”.

Looking at him tanned and free now from his chair she lost the poise she struggled to retain. He seemed  kindly but detached from her marooned existence. In some ways there had been a role reversal. She moved her arms in desperation.  ”Oh Bill” she said, “I’ve been so  stupid”.  Words poured out of her in an unstoppable torrent. She marvelled at his health and mobility. The eyes before her were reflective.

Guarding his composure was a requirement. Perspective was everything. Remaining detached from events was more than a way of life. For him it was a fortress: a sanctuary against the vagaries of human intercourse. This one exception. This single cry now challenged his hard-won retreat, Dawn always renews our sense of beauty, he observed, but was it echoed in her eyes. She rushed around, trying to engage his interest, now more like a wilderness, seeking her rescuer. Something in her tears caught his attention. He asked himself a question. Was a there a  life based on hope or was this just chaos in a dress ?

Some Years after The Engagement

She raised her eyes to view her reflection in the mirror and studied the face before her. Still young and clean of line, but knowledge now marked her eyes. Experience, effort, putting on a brave face: they were present too.  A face of someone who knew more than they wished . The presumptions of her youth, like crumbling memorials had become curios, made notable by their naiveté. Doggedly she now realised that life was a walk uphill. Sometimes if you got lost, no one called you back. Resting was a pleasure saved for  death.

In music or through words she sometimes heard the tremors of adventure but not here.  Not in her life.Back then her image of men was of some hero, face like rock, challenging the elements. Fearless brave and short of speech.  Kind in that discrete way, centered, certain , in control. She glanced over at her husband, still lying in the bed. Not a captain on the ship of life. Not a member  of the crew. More a passenger: carried by events. A polite and blameless disappointment.  She raised her eyes to herself again. They  spoke of endurances, smiling despite the facts: a soul marooned in parody.

Her heart was pounding, memory filled with images and surprise. That day when she became engaged. Showing off her ring, laughing with her colleagues. And Bill, locked in his chair and anchored at his desk. Always kindly but impersonal, The first she’d asked for help and least demanding. That look in his eyes when he saw her ring. The sadness. the pride and loss. The closing of a door. Only for a moment. Possibly not there. It passed so fast it left some room for doubt. The look which lingered in her sleep. Her one engagement with the elements. Powerful and undefined.

And here he was,  miraculously walking after some operation and, it said., a brand new millionaire. He’d made some site,   ‘Candid Corner” . sold it on for millions and he was off to see the world. “Life” he said,” is an adventure and I will live it till I die.”

In Syria

Her face was like a river bed dried and cracked by unrelenting heat. Sitting there, beside the church on streets bleached white by sunlight, she made no statement, but still I felt I knew her. This other soul. This old soul who like a breeze drifts in and out of history. Light on comment, and asking no quarter from events, she raised her eyes to mine. A man who had no offering but coins, a nod: the corner of a smile.

A mother, sister, someone’s victim she’d reached a changeless time and space. I  felt the bustle of events fall away  as I looked on this life lived without a sense of pity. Acceptance was her only weapon Her wisdoms were like hidden treasures buried in her life. She knew what ‘Now’ meant. Lived in it for many years and silence was her only comment.

I watched her, looking for a response but I saw none. Her garb, black and medieval, offered few glimpses from her past. I searched in vain for understanding and then I saw it. Hardly larger than her palm. A small doll, dressed in faded clothes. A fragment of her history.

Child taken from her life? Husband lost in some forgotten war ? Who was I to guess. She lived on coins dropped in moments of empathy. These other lives, lived in other places pose questions I can’t answer. Some of this world we dream of as a village remains unmapped. Lost to public gaze where forgotten souls live out something called existence. Refugees from tyranny.

So now in Syria lives are torn from hope, driven from their village and drying in some barren camp . Sometime in a future I won’t see, you might find them sitting in a corner. Living on the fringes. Beggars without explanation. Victims of a man’s conceit.

“Candid Corner”

You may not have heard of it yet, but you surely will do. The new craze sweeping through the internet. ’Candid Corner’ is a platform where, by using anonymous names, you can be as honest or ‘candid’ as you like about the object of your venom. Some entries spring to mind. On the less interesting end of the scale ‘ Boadicea’  writes of ‘Mud Pie’, ” I hate him. HATE HIM. He is fat and smelly. Urg eewww”, about her loyal though  hygienically challenged husband. Further up the food chain of entries sits “I made his sandwich at lunchtime and put mashed up earthworms in it, with ketchup, he he he. Hope it chokes him” about a boss with overbearing self-importance. You get the idea.

So now, sitting in front of her computer screen while her husband was out at his weekly Fortune Telling gig, and writing under the name ‘Priscilla’ she wrote of ‘Stale Toast’, “He’s dull, dull dull, hopeless and can’t sing to save his life”. She stared at the screen for a while and then added a new comment. “He sucks the joy out of all who know him”. At last she smiled and felt a little better for venting. That was one of the secrets of the site’s success.

She was born Jemima Simmonds. A perfectly decent name, which allied to her attractive eyes, adequate figure and a reputation for tolerance always gained her enough friends and male attention to get her through the senior years of school and college, until she stumbled on Nigel Pratt. The secret should have been in the name but she was too young to realise it. Now, as well as being saddled with a serial incompetent, she was also known as Mrs Pratt, or ‘Pratty’ which did not nothing to help her  acquire ‘gravitas’ at the school where she worked.

Her whole being was filled with foreboding. Tomorrow morning, both she and Nigel were off to a weekend’s ‘Life-Coaching’ event which he had won in a raffle at work. He was filled with excitement at the prospect of this adventure to the extent that he failed to notice his wife’s growing sense of being trapped.

To be fair, which I always hate, the coach did not come with a glowing career pedigree. His latest masterpiece “The Wellspring of Hope” had just been rejected by the fifth publisher. A secret he was keeping from his wife. Still, it was not all bad. He had got this gig this weekend and a couple of new clients had replaced some of those who left him on a regular basis, normally disoriented by his non specific optimism.

The next morning the car started at the first turn of the key, sending a fresh wave of dread through her veins. She had prayed for some mechanical breakdown to rescue her, but no. “But No” seemed to sum up her life. “I might have been promoted “But No”. Stevie Collins might have asked me out “But No”. Her gaze was now fixed on some indeterminate point ahead. Her blissful husband meanwhile, was warbling a series of tunes which forensic musicologists might have  identified as Abba’s greatest hits. He was more than happy. His ‘beautiful’ wife in the seat beside him. His car, lightly dusted with rust, moving steadily towards the weekend treat. A new beginning. A new chapter. What could be better. ‘Jems’; had been a bit quiet recently, and he was relying on this event to give her a bit of a pick me up. He raised the volume of his serenading to help improve the atmosphere in the car.

That evening, in the hotel, they all gathered in a circle at the bar while the coach gave them a brief, incomprehensible introduction to his approach. Finally he said. “Right , I’m going to go round the group and ask you, each in turn, what your ‘Wellspring of Hope” is ( he had bought some ‘cut-price’ self-printed copies of his book with him). What renews and refreshes your life?”. Lets start with you Nigel. regrettably, Nigel’s wellspring was already refreshed by a couple of vodkas making him a little more candid than normal.  “What is your ‘Wellspring of Hope’?” said the cheery lecturer. “Cuddling with my darling” said Nigel, grinning in a conspiratorial manner at his wife. Her face was impassive. “The wellspring of hope has run dry” she replied, ” at least as far as your concerned.”  The group tittered nervously. It was going to be a grand weekend.

Two Years, Two Hundred Posts

The strangest fact about Blogging is that no one, or very few people,  starts a Blog to read anyone else’s. That’s just a by-product of the process. I came to Blogging because I woke in the middle of the night a couple of years ago, and the brain whirred into life and started chucking  these thoughts round the room while I was meant to be sleeping. I realised I had really enjoyed the process and didn’t want to waste the thoughts so started a Blog the next morning.

But you know how it is. After a time, reading other people’s words, which starts as a suggested ‘marketing’ tool becomes addictive in its own right. That truth that ordinary people have the extraordinary within them is never more clearly demonstrated than in this medium. Lives led, from the outside, without apparent event are suddenly revealed, through some insight or circumstance to be powerful and noteworthy. When people write from the heart and from experience without apology, their words can take on the vigour of a masterpiece, and reading them becomes engrossing and absorbing. That has been my greatest discovery. Nothing is more powerful than sincerity.

I have a number of followers, most of whom are here by mistake or because they wanted to borrow a cup of sugar, but some have made contact and become friends with whom a genuine emotional contact has been made.

Anyway. I thought I’d do a little post to mark my reflections on the event, in between munching on my biscuit, which I will now resume doing

Uncontrolled Brawling at Anger Management Class

The Rev Nigel Windstay was a busy chap and liked to keep his fingers in as many pies as possible: not all of them cooked by his wife which irritated the hell out of her.  When she got especially annoyed  he would tell her to attend one of his Anger Management Classes which he ran at the village hall. She never did. Lucky.

Many things irritate me. Badly made toast, politicians with poorly chosen ties. Politicians with no ties. Politicians. Alright, you can see the list is never-ending and finally the Empress of the Living Room, otherwise known as Mavis, suggested I go to one of these  Anger Management Classes to see if I could learn to control my harrumphing, spluttering and general failure to be a good sport in the face of life’s whimsical irritations. I agreed under protest and a threat of sanctions including no breakfast on a Saturday morning.

The Vicar was not one of my favourite people. Not in any hard and fast way but his syrapy all-round goodness of manner, if not character,  was a feature I found hard to enjoy. I’m not sure he had ever forgotten my scoffing a pork pie on the quiet during one of his sermons. His subsequent sickening display of forgiveness and understanding was enough to waken the mass- murderer in the laziest of souls.

So there I was, sitting in the class, trying to keep my mind entertained by reminiscing over recent football results when the Rev slithered up to my chair and said, “Just breath deeply”. “Sorry Reverend”, said I, clinging to politeness. “Breath deeply and let your mind fill with the blue of the sky”. “It’s full of football results” I said, trying to keep him up to speed on my recent mental developement.  “Soar like a bird”.”Let the moment flow through you”. He seemed to be grinning at me with a quality of slack-jawed vacancy which would have tried the patience of a corpse.  “Let the sky lift your heart: soar above the clouds” he continued, determined to show no mercy to his most unlikely recruit.

I would have soared but there seemed to be a sudden constriction in my throat and a faint thundering noise between my ears as this warbling twit continued to coo nonsense in my ear. I’m not one for physco- babble but this passive aggressive mind control claptrap sometimes needs a ‘short sharp shock’ in the way of a swift uppercut in the region of the  voice projection equipment.

I thought of discussing this strategy with the Vicar, when my fist, taking pre-emptive action, moved smoothly, but at some speed, to the side of his face. Ok, the rest of my body tried to apologise  but the general commotion suggested that my words were having no effect. His Serene Eminence, the Reverend Nigel Windstay, stifled all conversation by clamping his teeth on the bicep region of the offending arm. His eyes, normally a pallid blue were now boiling over with emotions not seen since the bribery scandal at the beauty contest in 2008. He seemed to have morphed into a deep sea fish thing, and rational dialogue was no longer on the menu. Odd whimpering noises escaped from the side of his mouth and he was batting my chest with his well-manicured hands. My arm, thinly protected by a once clean shirt, was enduring recordable levels of discomfort, which I tried to mitigate by grabbing his throat with my other hand.

By now I was aware of people trying to pull us apart, and a of number of new visitors to the class, all dressed in blue and with a passion for blowing whistles. A quantity of water was emptied over our heads by a helpful member of the flower arranging class,  normally located in the next room.

Both of us were invited to spend a night in the cells, followed by a visit to the Magistrates Court. It would have been rude to refuse. On my return from the Court, which involved transferring a significant amount from my bank account into the local council coffers, I arrived back at our small home. My wife was reading the local paper. It was hard to miss the headlines. “Fight Breaks Out in Anger Management Class. Vicar on Remand. ” No chance of a cooked breakfast then !

Tea and Biscuits

I knew a lady , old  and  proud. Money was in short supply but from her dress and demeanor that would never show.  She never  complained . She had little but   her privacy and  guarded it closely. What her life had been and what it held was never disclosed. She saw no need to comment and everything about her said “Don’t touch”.  If I saw her, business only, tea was  offered in china cups and saucers but no biscuits. Seen in the street she would tip her head slightly but avoid all conversation. What lead her to that place I will never know. Had there been love or tragedy. I will never know. She never discussed her past. Pride kept her going . Like an iceberg only the tip was showing but she was not innately cold: only closed. But over time by not making any fuss I gained slight entrance to her world. She went to church but nothing more was said.  A biscuit appeared beside the tea. A daughter was mentioned but not in any detail. Her gaze became more quizzical but she never asked a question except about business. Her flat was tidy and uncluttered as you might expect, free of photographs or pictures in the main.

One day I had some music playing in my car. I loved the tune and hummed it as I drove. Felt it lift me from the everyday and gain that brief suspension we call peace. All to soon I had to stop park, but lost in thought I  hummed it as I walked. Her door swiftly opened as I knocked, catching me still humming the refrain. A faint expression passed across her face as she stepped aside to let me in her house. “You like music” she asked  as we sat down. “Yes, very much it’s one of my abiding passion”. She nodded and smiled a little bit, before she got her file from the desk. Tea was made and biscuits soon appeared. She looked at me and I felt an honoured guest. Things droned on and I made several notes and soon we were finished for the day. As I rose to go she said. “I’ve got something you might like”. I was surprised, of course, but just said. “Oh, that’s nice” and briefly she vanished from the room.

Returning she held a picture in her hand. She offered it to me but nothing more was said. Looking  I saw an old photograph black and white. It was a women dancing on a stage.  One arm raised and held above her face: she  looked quite beautiful. slim and full of grace.  I raised my eyes and saw her looking straight at me. “I was a ballet dancer in my youth.”. With that she grasped the album from my hand. Opened the door and stepped back to let me pass. “Thankyou” I said .” Thankyou” I said and left