Bumpsadaisy

Donald was never in two minds about remaining neutral - having based a whole religion, as it were, upon balance and detachment: a passion, in short, for dispassion.

Until he met Daisy.  And she threw his caution to the wind - mainly because he fell in love with her, convinced that she was the most beautiful woman in the world and, certainly, more than he deserved.  Eventually, they became engaged to be married.

But the scales tipped and Daisy ran off with Donald's best friend.

(Published 'Purple Patch' 1997)

Threading The Night

I have a feeling, a strong feeling that the hallway is darker than yesterday and an even stronger feeling that tomorrow it will be darker still.

A door shuts elsewhere in the house, as I wait by the foot of the stairs, waiting to hear the patter of feet along the landing. I have waited so often, at this time of early evening, that I have almost forgotten the purpose of it all.

It’s very well and good having strong feelings about things: all my life, I have not exactly imposed my views on matters, but more or less waited for events to turn out the way I just knew they would - it comes to the same thing I suppose. But my Father used to wag his finger at me from behind his Times; and I, ceasing momentarily from staring at the armies of sparks marching at the back of the fire, would smile knowingly at him, at the same time as placing toasted slippers upon his curling toes.

Now, I’m older, of course, but Father’s not. I feel he’s still the same age, only a few years ahead of me now. Mother was a tall lady - and, if my memory serves me right, if she were standing here at the foot of the stairs like me, waiting, her head would almost reach the top of the landing.

But landings are peculiar places: lights flashing on and off as members of the family dodge in and out of each other’s rooms and, when the Great Clock chimes Midnight (the Father of the House plodding from the study to his bedroom), the unbroken darkness settles in for the duration. Then there are no landing-beacons (nor dinner gongs) to help them home in.

If it weren’t for my comings and goings, doings and undoings, not even mornings would bother to disturb the floating cities of dust.

So, I was positive I heard the pattering start from a distant part of the house at the closing of another door. It only took me a moment to take two breaths before I saw the tiny girl appear in the gloom at the head of the stairs. I could hardly see her open, innocent plate of a face ... and I knew I would only feel compassion if I actually could see the eyes. I’m certain, though, she will not come nearer, at least for a while, and a while is longer at this time of day than at any other.

“You’ve made it then?” I called up.

No answer, as I knew there would be no answer. There can only be questions towards the end of dusk.

“Are your little feet curled up like casters?” I called up again, without thinking.

#

She is a Singer ... and, inevitably, with a needle that can only make extremely long hemming stitches. My great great grandmothers treadle away in the rooms beyond the broom cupboards, and the machines they treadle are living extensions of their bones. They’re all around me now, the forebears of the house, Father made of even taller shadow than Mother.

The xvaif whom I call Little Bobbin does start to descend the stairs, her arms stretched out sideways like a trapeze-pole; and her voice gradually becomes clear … a thin piping tune that I believe to be only one remove from weeping.

I have a strong feeling that tomorrow the hallway will be emptier than today ... empty like utter darkness is.

(Published 'Fantasy & Terror' 1992)

The Thing of the Past
 

Every night, there was a monster in the road outside my house. I knew this because I was an insomniac and one night, upon impulse, I peered through my bedroom window. And there, dog-shaped in the gutter, was what I assumed to be a monster. It seemed the obvious thing to assume.

 

From time to time, the head reared on its neck and then flopped down again, as if it couldn’t be bothered to frighten anyone, even me.

 

Or was it too frightened itself to move?

 

So, every night since then, during those inevitable hours of sleeplessness, having had my fill of real dreams, I staggered over to the tattered curtains and, through a keyhole-shaped slit, fastened my cooling eyes upon that pulsing mound.

 

Each night a smidgeon larger than on the night before.

 

#

 

“Are you awake?”

 

Someone was making a hell of a row upon my bed­room door. I had fallen into a fitful sleep, which I usually managed to do Just before dawn.

 

“No! Go away!”

 

And whoever it was did.

 

The previous night had been the seventeenth time I had watched the monster. It was strange that I could recall the exact number of sightings, but not make comparisons of size between the first and the last of them - if, Indeed, it were the last sighting. Like all of life, finalities only emerge in retrospect. Middles unmea­sured. Beginnings often unanticipated and unrecognised.

 

That voice at the door began to haunt me. It was not familiar: a female one, but with undercurrents of masculine depth. Probably a passer-through. Squats are like that.

 

Eventually, I dragged my scrawny body from its pit. I frequently wish I could refer to myself without the use of the first person singular. I is so definitive. Makes escape impossible.

 

I needed breakfast. But the cupboard was noticeably bare. Whoever had disrupted my belated sleep had evidently filched a bellyful. And scarpered with it. With no bye or leave. In hindsight, the food must have been disappearing over a period and only today did I notice this since the cupboard was finally empty.

 

I needed a gulp of air. Tentatively, I opened the front door. Not even a tell-tale stain in the gutter where the monster had seeped its innards for most of the night.

 

The cleansing-cart came early to these parts during those most sleepful moments.

 

“Hey!”

 

On the other side of the road was that stranger who had earlier accosted my bedroom door. I waved curso­rily. I had been brought up to acknowledge people. Politeness bred to the very bottom bone.

 

He or she was crossing the road, apparently to have a talk with me close-up.

 

“Yes?” I asked, in the hope of getting at least one word in edgewise.

 

“Big news! The place is going under the hammer today.” He or she pointed at the squat whence I had just emerged. This was not exactly big news as bad. It foreboded the end of an era.

 

“How do you know?” I need not have worried about the allowances made by the stranger for normal conver­sation. In fact, the only reply to my question was a tap to his or her nose.

 

I shrugged. I had heard such stories before. People often delight in bringing bad news, even if the news isn’t true. Then, I recalled the bellyfuls of grub pilfered from my larder-cupboard.

 

“Hey! Did you pinch my food?”

 

The stranger smiled.

  

MUCH LATER:

I have forcibly dragged the cuplrit to my kitchen and prodded my longest finger as far down its throat as I could. What lies on the linoleum makes me think that there will not be an eighteenth sighting of the monster.

 

Sleepless nights are sure to be a thing of the past thankfully.

  

(Published ‘Carnal Chameleon’ 1993)

 

Baffle 40

Too many baffles make a log-jam in God’s filter.  Like an army of soldiers in a grave meant for one, raspberry spread as they claw ever deeper for their own share of the sandwich filling.

Chattering Waves
    

The evening strained to eke out the scorching afternoon.

The day-trip families abandoned the beach, leaving just

silence to recall the excited chatter of children - amid the

crumbling sandcastle souvenirs.

Yet not onIv silence. A solitary young woman was taking

photographs of the encroaching sea.

I felt so alone myself, I nearly asked her to talk to me - but that would have been cheating.

Eventually, she told me about herself, things, presumably,

she could only tell a stranger.

Then I murdered her with my bare hands to put a stop to

this never-ending life story.

I left the camera beside the body with the relentless

tides trapped within.

   published 'ramraid extraordinaire' 1996 

One Up

 

The building looked to me as if it had been there forever. The ridiculous thought was not that ridiculous, for just around the corner I had aeen a statue of King Arthur. “How did they know what he looked like?” 

The question drifted up into the sky like a skinless balloon of air. Evidently, I was not alone. The pavement was crammed with late shoppers. None of them paid any heed to me, but who can blame them, I was paying less heed to them, than I was to myself. My wife said I was a selfless man… or was it “selfish” she said? ... perhaps she meant more by ‘selfless’ than met the ear.

  I entered the swing doors. The commissionaire asked me what I was up to. He had taken one look at my garb and decided that I was a suspect. Once, I had been in a pub when a dog padded in through the open door and did his business on the beer-stained carpet. Today, I felt like that dog. 

My wife always used to tell me that I needed to stand up for myself. So I did. I divorced her. No grounds, they shouted. No need, I replied, pointing to the stuff she left on the pavements. I digress. 

The commissionaire looked askance when I said I had an appointment with the chairman of the company.

 “You have an appointment, sir?” he queried in his ex-serviceman voice, “can I have your name, please?” 

I cringed at the grease in his voice, as he riffled through a big black book on his high desk. 

“Course I know my own name. Why do you ask when it’s written in that book?”

I pointed towards the lists of appointers and appointees, ending with a name that looked half right from my upside down point of view. 

“Ms Ample Clavinty?” The commissionaire’s eyebrows had now disappeared up into his hair as his question mark drove deep trenches into the name he’d read from the page. 

“That’s me,” I said, raising my voice an octave or two.

  “Oh, is it, sir?” 

He was evidently a sarcastic bugger. He went on: “The next thing you’ll be telling me is that you’re Queen Guinevere!” 

I breathed in hard, audibly. I would stand no more nonsense from this jackanapes, I vowed. I looked at the chap’s chin, the opening for the mouth, the humourless eyes, the intensity of his self opinion. It seemed he had been standing guard in this reception area since time began.

I could not think of a rejoinder.  I left the same way as I had come in.

  

(published ‘Dig My Dogma’ 1989)

Baffle (34)

A bellow in my hard of hearing ear was a way to alert me to a beneficial secret.  The secret, you see, was an uncoded clouded Baffle.  Near stone deaf, too.

Baffle (15)
The inch inched nearer to an inch, ever a measure short or long of perfection. So tantalising, it seemed I'd died but my life was still incomplete.

THe Fanblade Fables

The links to the ten fanblade fables:

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/fanblade_one.htm

http://weirdmonger.mindsay.com/fanblade_two.mws

http://newdfl.bloghorn.com/114

http://expressblogs.com/blogs/index.php?cat=1077&blog_ID=Simonymous

http://free-blog-site.com/denemoniser/archive/2006/10/11/99398.aspx

index.blog?entry_id=1588221

http://free-blog-site.com/denemoniser/archive/2006/10/11/99378.aspx

http://www.seo-blog.org/432_newdfl/archive/68773_fanblade_eight.html

http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/2006/10/12/

http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2006/10/fanblade-9.html

http://weirdmonger.blogdrive.com/archive/190.html

http://simplon.blogspirit.com/archive/2006/10/14/hiver.html

Fanblade Fables (6)

A fable that has disappeared when it’s its time to be read and be absorbed and tested for truth or for life’s applicability is a fanblade fable. Yet when one can hear it sighing flickeringly in the background like Debussy injected straight into the vein, it becomes soon enough une jalousie sur le vent de la mer..

 

< Anything in French is a fable without even reading it! > thought Hiver Jawn, if he became a grown-up thinking back to when he was a child, and the sea was his real mother and his bedroom’s venetian blind a rattling that he never heard because it was always a rattling.