Flowerpot

Jimmy hugged the now empty flowerpot to his chest and crawled up the path. He fumbled with the key momentarily, but then collapsed gratefully through the front door into the hall. He lay there for a moment before finding the energy to kick the door and shut out the unforgiving night. He briefly contemplated the beckoning comfort of his bed, or even the sofa lurking in his peripheral vision. His aching, bruised body however had other ideas and the rug in the hall took on a hither to unrealised level of comfort.  He laid his head back and drifted in and out of a sleep that resembled unconsciousness.

He was aware of time passing but he couldn't be sure of how long he lay there, minutes, hours, days. Eventually something, a noise, a movement, caught his attention and his focus snapped back as the door suddenly swung inward and after a pause, a scream followed. Emilia his Slovakian housekeeper was hysterical; as he tried to calm her, he was aware of another strangled cry. It took him a moment to realise it was his own mangled voice.

Only when his neighbour  Mr Marshall, arrived did Emilia’s screams subside to sobs. She stayed weeping at his side until the ambulance crew arrived.  He let them cut off his clothes and remove his watch and the simple gold neck chain he wore, but refused to relinquish his grip on the flowerpot. He grimly, gripped consciousness and clutched it tightly to himself every time an attempt was made to remove it. For a while everything was chaos and noise. The ambulance staffs questions,  the ream of vital statistics being exchanged above him like a mathematically tennis match, Emilia’s hiccuping account to Tricia of how she had found him, more questions from the consultants which he mutely, failed to answer. He could hear them, but very little penetrated the darkness in his suffocating brain. “Irregular heart beat” and “lower than expected response rate” meant little against his sense of desolate isolation and atop the tightening noose of anxiety.

Eventually, a sort of quiet fell. The hubbub of intensive care became background noise as curtains were pulled, leaving him alone with only his sisters calm but concerned face looking down at him.

“Jamie?”  She asked.

Tricia was the only person who called him Jamie, to everyone else he was Jimmy or Mr Jacobs. Mr Jacobs, mild, timid even, English and Art teacher. He turned towards her and tried to keep her in focus, despite his swimming head, a result of tiredness, threadbare nerves and his not quite right heart.

“Jamie, please can I have the flowerpot?”

He clutched it closer and screwed his face up turning away from her.

“Jamie, Nat was bringing me the orchid, so it’s my flowerpot anyway.”

Hearing her name, hurt more than the cuts and bruises, more than his struggling heart or his crushed windpipe.

“Jamie, please.”

His sister held out one hand and gentle stroked his brow with the other. He looked into her worried eyes. It had been him and Tricia for as long as he could remember, they were intricately and irrevocable woven into one another’s lives. Siblings with little in common but who loved one another never-the-less. They were a team, always there for one another in times of need.  

“You know I loved Nat too” she said, her voice faltering.

He gentle nodded feeling the pull of the stitches on taut skin at the back of his head as he did so. Slowly, gingerly, he held the ceramic pot out and let her take it. The moment it left his hands he felt a release. He sunk back onto his pillows and before long, fell into a dreamless sleep.

He awoke to the sound of voices. He slowly opened his eyes and saw Tricia talking to broad, squat policeman, who now held the flowerpot, which was inside a plastic evidence bag.

“We are fairly sure it is the murder weapon, but we need DNA to confirm.”

“I don’t understand” said Tricia. Hugging herself defensively and staring at the floor.

“He’s such a gentle soul,” she went on “I just can’t begin to comprehend why, how” she trailed off.

“The things is” said the copper “and if you don’t mind me saying, it’s all rather odd. The thing is, we are pretty certain he killed her in self defense.”

Turn of Phrase

Just a little thing I wrote today.

“I’ve got the knees of a ten year old boy” she said.

We all giggled, she came out with some odd things sometimes.

“No, you haven’t, not compared to me” said Jen, hiking up her skirt, “can’t walk past the coffee table with out getting another bruise.”

A conversation ensued about who was the clumsiest. She looked, I’m not sure. Uptight maybe, unsure if she had said the wrong thing, but the jovial atmosphere and wine soon had her relaxing, if not joining in.

We got a cab together, back to hers. I was only a couple of streets away, so it made sense. She invited me in for a cup of coffee. I liked Aggie, she was strange, good strange, different and interesting. We headed inside and I filled her in on the complex relationships of the girls we’d been out with, the types of relationships bred in a mostly female work place. She smiled and asked questions and seems genuinely intrigued, keen to learn the social layout of her new workplace. I asked her what she had done before she had joined our team.

“Oh this and that, all sorts really” she said as she poured the coffee into mugs. We moved through into the living room, the lighting was low and the space was packed with trinkets. Instead of taking a seat, she stood in front of the shelving unit which covered one, full wall of the room. She nodded towards the third shelf down.

“See” she said, turning to face me, looking for approval. I scanned the shelf for what she was showing me. Suddenly I saw it, the jar, almost directly in front of me, it was hard to discern what was suspended in the cloudy liquid, especially in low light, but the label gave me a fairly solid clue. It read ‘Jake, aged 10’.

Wilf and Fluffy

A short story I wrote, thought you might like to read it.

It was a dark and stormy night, no not that kind of dark and stormy, not the kind with big, billowing clouds and thunder that rumbles and growls like the voice of a god. The kind where the clouds rush headlong across the sky offering flashes of the moon above. The type where the thunder cracks and the lightning twists the shape of things as it lights them up. The type where the rain comes in squalls and the wind screams, whipping through every crack.
It was exactly the kind of night Wilfred was hoping for, even if he was going to harness power from the electricity outlet in the shed rather than try to shepherd a bolt of lightning. The mains were more reliable and far more manageable. Never-the-less there was a lot of symbolism to a night like tonight.
Wilfred Albert Chaos Treacle couldn’t help but appreciate the symbolism of the obliging weather conditions. Appreciating that sort of thing came naturally to a boy like Wilfred. He added the final element to the plasma solution on the workbench and examined it under the microscope. Everything seemed as he expected. He looked over at the now rather pitiful Fluffy, who no longer lived up to his name.
Wilf had so hoped to be able to have Fluffy back to his original state in time to waylay some of his brother’s grief at the loss of his pet. Alas whilst Wilf was still convinced his theory was sound, the practice was not as straight forward. It was the story of Wilf’s life really, he excelled when it came to the theory, but trying to apply what he knew to the real world, often tripped him up, on the occasion of Fluffy’s demise quite literally.
Wilf knew that if he could have just mastered the angle of lift, he could easily have achieved the world record for the greatest distance flown by a paper aeroplane. The way in which one launched the craft, was as important as the type of paper and accuracy of the folds used. Unfortunately whilst Wilfred knew what the movement should be, his body, as usual, would not co-operate. A subtle but powerful flick of the wrist translated into a peculiar type of body spasm, which had sent him careering into and over the coffee table and heavily down on to the living room floor, or to be more accurate Fluffy and then the floor.
It was hardly Wilf’s fault, but his brother didn’t see it that way and was inconsolable at the loss of his beloved Fluffy. The situation was not helped by the fact that this wasn’t the first time Olly has suffered at the hands of Wilf’s difficulties with the physical world.
“He’s always destroying my stuff” the distraught Olly had wailed to their Mum, “now he’s killed Fluffy, I don’t care if he can’t help it, it’s not fair, I hate him.”
Wilfred hadn’t even waited to be told; he’d taken himself off to his room and sat glumly on his bed. Poor Olly, Wilf’s brother did seem to bear the brunt of Wilf’s accident prone nature and it seemed the more Wilf tried to make things better, the worse they actually got.
Wilf had only been undertaking the paper aeroplane experiment because he had heard that if a record attempt was made, the previous record holders would be invited to watch and ensure fair play. The current joint holders of the record included Olly’s favourite American Football Quarterback James Mulhony. If Wilf could arrange a genuine record breaking attempt, Olly might get the chance to meet Mulhony and then Olly might forgive Wilf for the incident with the remote controlled Optimus Prime.
Wilf sat at his desk, the night of Fluffy’s death, thumbing through the molecular cell biology text book he had been reading before bed, when the idea struck him. In theory, he knew that there had to be a way to restart cellular regeneration, if he could figure that out he could reanimate Fluffy and Olly couldn’t be cross with him anymore. Moreover if Wilf worked on fixing the problem directly rather than creating a distraction from it, surely that would break the ever expanding mishap loop he and Olly seemed to be stuck in.
He had to dig Fluffy up post-burial, and then bury him when Olly had seen the disturbed earth around the grave, and finally re-exhume him again, for once fortune had favoured Wilf and Mum had explained the disturbance as “foxes investigating”. After that Olly had stayed away from the grave, however Fluffy was no longer in the best state, his fur was matted with soil, his eyes were distinctly cloudy and due to careless digging on Wilf’s part, there was a bit of ear missing. None of that was enough to defer Wilf’s enthusiasm however. He pursued the hunt for exactly the right serum to revive the deceased Fluffy with unbridled enthusiasm. His confidence only took a knock, when three weeks after Fluffy had shuffled, or in this case suddenly dropped without warning from the mortal coil, he was replaced with Snuggles, a silky yet temperamentally bitey Chinchilla.
At first Wilf considered giving up on Project Fluffy, but his vigour was renewed when it occurred to him that given his luck there was every chance Snuggles was destined for the same fate as Fluffy. Also although Wilf’s mother could best be described as, a bit daft, even she wasn’t daft enough to allow Wilf to have his own pet. In theory Olly and Wilf shared the family pets, in reality Wilf was kept as far away from said creatures as possible, owing to what was known in the family as the Wilf effect. Fluffy was the first pet whose passing could be directly tied to Wilf, but there was a definite correlation between Wilf being left alone in the room with a pet and its subsequent demise. So if Wilf could bring Fluffy back it would mean he could keep a pet of his own, of course he would keep him in the shed. Wilf felt that Fluffy rejoining the family might be a bit much for his mother and brother to take, not least owing to a mysteriously missing back leg.
Another fork of lightning flashed across the turbulent sky. Wilf held his breath as he administered the serum in the correct proportions. As quickly and carefully as he could, he charged up the modified home made defibrillator. He had attached it to Fluffy at strategic locations, using the ECG dots he had liberated the last time the ambulance had come, the day of the disastrous cake. Once fully charged, he double checked the readings on the device, took a deep breath, closed his eyes and pushed the plunger hard.
He heard the little spit the contraption made as it discharged the energy built up inside it. Wilf kept his eyes closed, then he heard a faint cough, with his heart racing in excitement he opened his eyes and peered at the guinea pig on the table, he peered closer, he held his finger out in front of the creature’s nose, he poked at it gently with a pencil, he felt for a heart beat, nothing. Wilf flung the pencil across the room in frustration, accidentally knocking over and smashing a vial containing the last of the current batch of serum.
“Great!” he said out loud, to no-one in particular, “Now I’ll have to start from scratch.”
He sighed heavily and left the shed, carefully turning out the lights and locking the door behind him despite the fact he was in a huff.  That was the sort of boy Wilfred Albert Chaos Treacle was. As he closed up, he thought he heard a faint little cough, but one last glance around the shed revealed nothing untoward, so he headed off to bed, a head full of frustration and a heart full of disappointment.
He awoke the next morning and ruminated over his toast about what could have gone wrong. A good night’s sleep and the bright fresh morning, after the storm, had renewed his enthusiasm for the project. He whistled totally out of tune as he made his way down to the shed. He unlocked the door and was a little surprised not to see Fluffy on the workbench. He was sure he had left the experiment set up last night when he had dejectedly departed. The ECG dots were still on the table and it would be unlike him to have disconnected them without putting them away. He had locked the door and anyway neither Mum nor Olly would venture into his shed, let alone removed the rather decrypted looking Fluffy. Wilf hunted high and low, he even examined the perimeter of the shed for spaces foxes, or the like, might have got in. Eventually when he had exhausted all other options he was resigned to hunting further a field. He was about to head back to the house the check whether his Mum had been in the shed afterall, when out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw something fluffy and orangeish scuttle under the fence. He climbed up on the raised bed to look over into Mrs Cullins garden next door. There at the far side of her vegetable patch was something that look suspiciously like Fluffy, up and running about. Wilf nearly fell out of the flower bed in surprise. Mrs Cullins was pottering about the garden, so Wilf called out to her. Mrs Cullins turned slowly toward him, it took Wilf a moment to register something was amiss, but the groan the old, seemingly recently deceased, woman let out somewhat sealed the deal.
“Oh bugger” Wilf muttered, just as his Mother’s distant screams reached his ears.

Rwanda

Rwanda, wow. I didn't really have an expectations before we arrived, but I also certainly did not expect what we got. Descending into Kigali International Airport and looking out across the hills and Valley's of Rwanda's capital city was like looking across what you would picture when you think of the residential enclaves of California's rich list.  Beautiful, green rolling hills, with well appointed homes dotted across them. Once you have disembarked and made your way through the remarkably efficient process of Rwandan immigration, you get your first look up view of Kigali. No, these are not the opulent homes of the rich and famous, but some how that is better than you imagined. There isn't that feeling that of class and social status attached to the beauty that surrounds you.
Driving through the Rwanda (which we did for 8 hrs) you quickly come to understand the term 'land of a thousand hills' is probably an understatement. The landscape undulates continuously, sometimes with a lazy, easy other times more dramatically. The fact the land is used makes it all the more spectacular, the scenery is a patch work of colour, so much space being used for growing, working, all connected and interlinked. Although making out a purposeful design was beyond me. It didn't matter though I was just content to drink it all in.
This is a place I have heard of so often connected with such horror, yet my experience is of beauty. It's given me a thirst to understand what Rwanda really is, it's history, it's people, it's story. 

Strawberry Milkshake

A short story based on a place, a colour and a drink provide via twitter suggestion. I hope you enjoy, comments welcome.

He watched her, leaning oh so casually on the railing, the wind whipping her hair around her face, the sunlight making it shine and glow so that she looked like she had a fuzzy halo encircling her. The day was warm despite the breeze. They’d come to the coast to escape the oppressive humidity that had taken hold. She’s laughed and danced along the shoreline with the other girls. She flicked her hair, smiled her big, warm, gap-toothed smile, shrieking with false terror as the waves lapped over her trainers when they got too close to the teasing waves. He skulked along behind with the other boys, grunting the odd syllable, chain smoking, trying to look cool and utterly unimpressed by everything.
The reality was oh so different.
He kept his coat on, not because he was too cool to bow to the weather, but because he wanted to be able to hide his blushes on those rare moments when she looked his way. He shuffled and mumbled not because he wanted to fit in and be another faceless sheep in the cultural herd, but because he was so enthralled by her that he couldn’t think of a single word to utter that was worthy of her. He kept his eyes to the ground not to disrespect his grumbling elders as they stumbled by, but in order to hide the fact that she was the only thing that held his attention, that he was utterly lost in her. Her curves and wiggles, her boundless energy, her every tiny movement and undulation, the glowing lustre of her skin, the waves of her hair. He loved her more than he could imagine loving anything, he loved everything about her.
He loved her despite the fact he had never spoken a single word to her, and now he was stood frozen to the spot, a trickle of cold, sticky strawberry milkshake running slowly down the back of his hand. He felt stupid, what had he been thinking, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. He always had a strawberry milkshake at the seaside, it seemed perfect to share that little nostalgic joy with her. He hadn’t thought about it though, he’d just been eager to make a connection. He should have asked her what she always did on a trip to the sea side, what her tradition was. He had thought he could break the silence with his gesture, finally bridge the gap between them and ease the anxiety growing inside him like an ever expanding balloon, making him want to pop. He swallowed drily, shaking at the three steps forward he needed to talk. Before he could pluck up the courage though she turned, spotted him. His blood turned to ice. With a flick of her hair she covered the distance between them.
“That for me Danny?” she asked the question, but didn’t wait for the response, scooping one of the shakes out of his hands and continuing, her whirling, twirling path across a sunny afternoon, pausing just long enough to call back “thanks”, flashing him that glorious, beautiful gap-toothed smile.

Since I can't fly

I run. People often find that weird. I get it, I get that it is weird. I still run and more importantly, I love it. 

I run to de-stress, to feel myself within my body, to be more present in the world I occupy, to dream without limits, to connect with where I am. 

I love the way running makes me think about my body, the way it focuses me on the bits that feel good and what isn't working properly. An ache here and a niggle there become focal points of discomfort when you are running. I know that if I can work through them and let them go when I run, then I can let whatever is causing them in real life go as well. 

I can dream, imagine, drift away more easily when I am running. My mind is free from all the distractions that usually derail my imagination, but I don't have enough energy to create the drama's and disaster scenarios that my brain usually concocts for me. Running feeds and frees my imagination and lets it fly.

I love being out in my environment, part of the world. I love the opportunity to be on my own enjoying the vast expanse of the sky above me, then ground beneath my feet. To smell the air and be a part of the seasons changing, to take a slower view of my world. To see the little touches people embellish their homes and gardens with, to experience part of their stories. 

So yes I get why people think I am weird, my two feet, trainers, heart racing whatever the weather, but it's my kind of weird and I like it. 

Altogether now

I will have been to four weddings by the end of this year. I have been to full on extravagant weddings and brilliantly budget weddings, all unique, all wonderful. The thing with all this union of couples is that my entire life is weddings. My frame of reference at the moment is all marriage and nuptials and two becoming one. My standard response to anything I like is "Ooo I could marry that", to someone doing something I like "Ooo I'll marry you for that", everything cool I see, "I'm having that at my wedding". Just for clarity I am not getting, or even remotely close to getting, married, unless polygamy is legalized in a rash government turnaround.

The things is, and don't tell anyone this, I'm not sure I am fussed about having a wedding. Don't get me wrong, I do want to find that one person to commit myself, and I would want to mark that commitment publicly. A wedding though, all the trimmings? The teenage girl in me wants it, the bling, the dress, the party, the chance to show everyone how its done. The practical side of me though says, what is the point, it is just a party, the marriage is the important part, the commitment to another person, that's what I need.

There has got to be something in it though, hasn't there? A tradition which started as a way of fathers being rid of the burden of their daughters, whilst giving another man the means to continue his line, has persisted for an estimated 4,000 years. Nor is it some sort of novelty tradition either, some 250,000 couples exchange vows per year in England and Wales alone.

So what is it, what is the draw, what is the magical power held by a wedding. I guess it is the same as powerful moments. The draw of a wedding is actually the same as that of a music concert, a festival, of comic-con (what do you mean transparent interests), it is the power of the shared human experience. It has been written about through history, wound into stories and tales through the ages, the power of something that draws a group together for the same purpose. There is magic in people sharing a moment. Maybe that is the point, the importance of a wedding, making that commitment in front of your friends and family really does have something to it, something that makes you stronger as a couple, more capable of facing what may come.

Perhaps the blessing of the group is the reason we are drawn to share our commitment with others. Perhaps I'll rethink and in the process let myself fantasize about a little bit of bling and that perfect white dress.

Gasp

It is almost inaudible, but still I worry that someone might have heard it. That tiny, sharp intake of breath, that moment where my brain makes me gasp out loud as it meander by another disaster scenario.

Ok, maybe disaster is a bit strong, but it feels like it, in that moment of anxiety that causes me so much distress it is too difficult to hold within my internally frame of reference, and a bit of it escapes.

Whether eligible as a disaster or not, that isn't normal is it? It's not right that my brain is making up random moments at which my life may take a turn for the worse and playing them out for me while I casually answer emails on sunny, yet chilly Monday in September. An unremarkable Monday.

Do other people suffer this type of affliction? Do other peoples brains casual plot out potential downfalls whilst they try to enjoy a cup of tea? Do other people have so little conscious control over this process of major incident planning that they end up involuntarily gasping out loud at the culmination of the projections their brains randomly decide to run? Or is it that I have been living with anxiety for so long, that I see these moments of grim clarity about the possible future, as daily brain hiccups that one lives with?

I should probably look into that, I’ll likely just have another cuppa and open unread email number 134. 

Let Them Eat Cake

Does being a grown up mean getting to decide that cake is an acceptable dinner? Green layer cake with white icing and green glitter no less. If it is the measure of adulthood then I am officially grown up. I ate the most enormous slice of crocodile cake today. I think I like being a grown up, cake is pretty awesome. So is staying up late and watching movies with your friends. Talking nonsense, putting the world to rights and generally being pretty awesome. 

Of course being a grown up also means washing the dishes when everyone has gone home. Realising you have run out of milk and are the only one who is going to rectify the situation. Having to unload the washing machine at midnight. 

Oh and checking all the doors are locked, turning off the lights and going upstairs in a calm and rational manner even though you have suddenly realised you are all alone and you are afraid of the dark. Doing all those things even though your over active imagination has just wondered how you would react if the next time you walk into the kitchen there is a face outside the window. Worse still how you will react if when you go to pull your bedroom curtains on the first floor, there is a face outside the window. It means being able to look in the mirror even though your brain has just added, "what if there is another face there". 

If being a grown-up means having to rationally deal with all those things, and not being grown up means not deciding cake is ok for dinner, but someone else will sooth the anxiety created by your over active brain, I choose not grown up. It is not a choice though is it. We have to grow up. Even if our brains want to make it as hard as possible for us to achieve that. 

I'm going to go and wrap myself in the duvet, for I am not as grown up as I'd like to have people believe, but I do know that duvets are the ultimate protection again all and every monster know to those of the imaginative persuasion.