David Hadley's Blog, page 116

To the Rescue

His name was Stormrider and he rode a steed called Betty. He came from the land of Steve on the far side of the mountain called Bert. He wore the flat cap and string vest of the warrior and was deadly with both the pea-shooter and castanets. There were rumours back in Steve that he’d once poemed a man to death with some of the most lethal stanzas ever deployed in a poem fight.

He saw the peasant, busy outside his hovel updating his Facebooke page. He drew back on Betty’s reins and cut her ignition. He wound down the driver-side window. ‘Any Princesses around here need rescuing, my good ma… woman?’

The peasant considered for a moment, wishing he… she had such a fine and fancy tractor as Betty. ‘Not really,’ he… she said. ‘Although, tell a lie, we do have one up the tower who does like a wandering knight such as yourself to rescue her from her knickers.’

Stormrider nodded sagely. ‘Right.’ He turned Betty’s key and the mighty engine coughed itself back into life. ‘So,’ he said, ‘this tower, where is it exactly.’

‘Well,’ the peasant said. ‘If I was you I wouldn’t start from here. ‘’Specially not as it is Wednesday.’

‘It is not Wednesday,’ Stormrider spoke with the authority of the true knight.

‘Isn’t it?’ The peasant glanced down at his… her laptop. ‘Bloody internet connection’s buggered again, I’ll have to get a witch in.’

‘Well?’ Stormbringer said.

‘I dunno… the witch said I should sacrifice a goat to the demons of the internet, but you know how messy that is and these are my best rags… well, my only rags and….’

‘No,’ Stormbringer said. ‘The Tower, where is it?’

‘Oh, just get on the ring road, just past the supermarket, you can’t miss it.’ The peasant pointed off into the distance. ‘Oh, can I clean your windscreen for you, while you wait for the lights to change?’ The peasant pulled an even dirtier and tattier scrap of rag from under her… his rags.

‘No, thanks… er… what lights?’

‘Bloody wizards, they said we’d have traffic lights, traffic calming measures, pelican crossings and all sorts…. You wouldn’t believe what it is like here at rush hour… sometimes we get as many as two or three travellers a week, what with them and the bullock carts delivering all the on-line shopping…. It’s chaos here sometimes, and I’ll tell you another thing, that Lord of the Manor, I could tell you some stori….’

Hastily, Stormbringer wound up his window, cutting off the peasant in mid-flow. He put Betty into gear and drove off to look for adventure and a princess needing rescue from her knickers. ‘All in a day’s work,’ he said as he steered Betty towards the ring road.

Doing Nothing

We sat there, letting time pass us by. It felt good not having to worry about the time going by. We did not have to be anywhere, we did not have to meet anyone and we did not have to do anything.

I looked at Charlie and she looked at me.

We smiled.

I made a small pile of sand with my bare foot, building it up with my toes. Charlie was watching some children further down the beach busy discussing the sandcastle they were creating while their parents sat in chairs nearby.

I looked across at the cliff at the side of the beach. I could see the outline of a path snaking its way up the cliff until it disappeared amongst the trees halfway up the cliff-side, then re-emerging up higher, beyond the tree line. I'd seen a few people go along the path from the beach and disappear into the trees, then minutes later appear on the path above the trees. The path apparently led to some sort of monument, or statue at the top of the cliff. I was beginning to wonder what it would be like to take the path, see the statue, or whatever it was, and see the view from up there.

'You're bored.' Charlie looked at me, sheltering her eyes under the palm of her hand.

I shrugged. 'I never really got the hang of doing nothing.'

'Why are we here then?'

'I thought you... you said we needed a break.'

Charlie shrugged this time. We'd known each other long enough to not need words. There were times, out on a job when we hardly ever spoke to each other. We were used to silences, maybe we were too used to them.

I glanced towards the cliff path.

'Do you want to go up there?' She'd seen where I was looking.

Turning to her, I also knew that she knew what I'd been thinking about where the path disappeared into the trees. She grinned, her tongue flicked between her lips. 'You think maybe somewhere along that path there is a quiet... secluded place?'

'I was wondering that, yes.' I could feel the arousal beginning.

Charlie noticed that too, she glanced up into my eyes from where she'd been looking down at my crotch.

She stood. 'Come on then,' she said. 'Let's go fuck.'

Here and There

Here and There

It takes time to get there.
It takes time to get here.

Distances are measured.
Time is measured.

These times are made of numbers.
Our lives are made of numbers.

Our days are numbered.
Life comes and life goes.

Time is here
then it is gone.

You are here.
You are there.

You are gone.

In the Time of Drought

Even then, it was not as we once hoped. The days were full of time that we used as though we had all the time in the world. We could let the minutes pour away into bucketfuls of hours and not have to worry that it would all one day run dry. We had rivers of years flowing past, we could dive into and swim through and out into a sun-filled valley where the bad times poured past us like springtime rains.

We did not ever think that river would dry up. We thought it would flow on past us, through our valley, forever.

Now, I walk this cracked dry riverbed alone, no longer waiting for rain that will not come again. I do not want the rains to come. Unless they come as floods to pour down and fill this empty valley from side to side, drowning all these memories of her running through thick green summer grass to dive into that river of time.

I cannot forget that boat that came one summer morning and took her away, sailing on down the river away from me. Leaving me here to watch the river dry up and die. Where the only rain that falls are a few solitary tears while I wait for the flood to come and drown me.

Inspiration and Interruption

'How is it going?' she said, coming into the room behind me.

I sat back in the chair, letting my hands fall from the keyboard. 'Not too well.'

'Oh, why not?' She put her hands on my shoulders.

'I just can't seem to get going.'

She peered past me, at the computer screen, kissing my check as her face brushed mine. 'What is it about?'

'It is about this writer who can't write any more.'

'But if he's a writer who can't write, is he still a writer?'

'I don't know. That was something I wanted to find out. But he can't do any more.'

'Oh, why not?'

'Because he keeps getting interrupted.'

'Oh?' she came around in front of me, pushing the keyboard out of the way and sitting on my desk in front of the monitor. Her legs hung down either side of where I sat.

I glanced down at her thighs and the point where they disappeared under her short denim skirt.

She peered back over her shoulder at the screen. 'Why does he keep getting interrupted, then?'

'Because this woman keeps coming into the room when he is writing and distracting him.

'Oh....' she looked at me and began unbuttoning a button on her blouse. Several were already unbuttoned and under this one I could see the lacy edges of a pale lilac bra. 'This woman... what does she do?' She unbuttoned the next button and began pulling her blouse out from where it tucked into her skirt.

'Just as he thinks he's got an idea, she comes in and starts undressing either him or herself.'

'Really?' she pulled off the blouse and dropped it in my lap. 'That doesn't sound very credible.'

'You'd be surprised,' I said. 'Reality is often stranger than fiction.'

The bra landed in my lap.

I let the blouse and the bra fall off my lap onto the floor.

Then, she slipped off the desk and onto my lap and....

Gingerbread

It was dangerous, we knew that, those paths through the dark woods have been in so many of the tales we'd heard as youngsters for us to be aware of the dangers.

We were older now, though, and we thought we were both brave and immune to danger.

Little did we know though, as we set off along the path, that things were changing.

We saw the girl ahead of us on the path. 'Hey, isn't that...?' Pete said, pointing to the girl.

'Don't be stupid – that's just a stor....' John peered up ahead at the girl.

I looked too, she was strolling along, carrying a basket and, yes, she did have a red cape with a red hood. She was – though – much older than we'd expect from the story; more of a young woman, more our age or a bit older, than a girl.

But she did look like the girl in the story, so I did the obvious thing and looked around for the cameras.

'What are you looking for?' John said. 'The big bad wolf?'

They all laughed.

'Git,' I said. 'Can't you see – it must be something they're filming. A film, TV or an advert or something like that.' I took a closer look at a suspicious-looking tree. 'Unless...?'

'Unless, what?' Pete sidled closer to see what I was looking at.

'Unless it is one of those prank TV shows... y'know they get this girl to piss about in the woods, pretend to attack her with a wolf or something. Then some unsuspecting twat comes along to rescue her and gets made to look like a tit on national TV... or YouTube... or something.'

Feeling smug, we watched the girl head off down the path. A few minutes later, we found a branch in the path and – on a whim – we turned to the left. Then a couple of minutes later we saw it.

'It's a fuckin' gingerbread house,' Pete said.

He was right it was and there was an old woman in the doorway, gesturing for us to step inside.

Government and Secret Service Conspiracy

Conspiracy theorists claim that new evidence is emerging that the British government and its secret services: MI5, MI6 and GCHQ all colluded together in a Top Secret operation back at the end of last year.

Various departments across the UK government had to appear to make substantial cuts in their budgets. It became apparent to those charged with oversight of the secret services that things could not go on as before in those services. As – almost – everyone knows the James Bond-esque myth of high living and dinner-jacketed casino trips with multibillionaire supervillains does not - at all – bear any resemblance the way the secret services actually operate. Their day-to-day business is more akin to endless surveillance from the disused flat above a rancid takeaway on a run down High Street. Still many politicians looking for media exposure on a select committee believed the secret services could make some substantial savings in their massive – but secret – budgets.

Therefore as a sop to the politicians and to discourage the media from finding out what they really spend the overtime budget on, the heads of the three services got to gather. They decided to see if they could give the illusion of making some economies.

In the end, there was only area they could see where they could make substantial savings. If the three secret services got together and organised – rather than three separate ones - a joint staff Christmas party. Even then, at that initial planning stage several voices were raised in opposition to the idea. Especially if any bad publicity resulted in the almost inevitable punch up in the car park between the field agents of MI5 and MI6, with the GCHQ operatives standing on the sidelines screaming at both sides to leave it.

However, as the planning became more involved, it became clear that because of the numbers involved, the only suitable place to hold the event would be on an actual brewery’s premises.

It was at this point the politicians involved themselves in organising the event. They set up several committees to oversee the arrangements, a white paper and a budget oversight committee and a substantial allocation of funds.

Inevitably, the result was utter chaos with the event going massively over budget and – in the end – costing twelve times as much as the original separate Christmas parties would have done.

After the failed cover-up which resulted in the media feeding-frenzy that followed the discovery of this colossal waste of public money, there was no alternative but to order a public inquiry.

Eventually, the public inquiry into the whole fiasco came to the only possible conclusion. That is that the UK government is incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery - a result that came as no real surprise to anyone.

These Hands Can Touch

These Hands Can Touch

These hands can touch, but cannot describe,
these hands do not have the sensitivity
to describe, without the confirmation
that only seeing can ever bring.

Even though we move together
through the darkness of our night
to hold each other against the cold
as the winds blow outside these walls

as if they wanted to destroy everything
and turn our own small world to dust.
Just because we have turned our backs
on the night and the world waiting outside

to take these precious moments into our hands
and offer them to each other before the day
comes to take this, our only night, away
leaving us with nothing for these hands to hold.

Here Now

I remember her name and I remember the way she looked at me across that crowded room.

I waited and she came to me, eventually.

'Hello,' she said and smiled as I turned. 'I'm Claire.'

Hello, Claire.'

'Aren't you going to tell me your name?'

'You know it already, don't you?'

'Yes.'

'I saw you looking at me from over there.'

'Why didn't you come over?' She half-smiled, lowering her head to look up at me through half-closed eyes.

'I didn't need to. You’re here now.'

Claire glanced behind herself, but made no move away. 'So....' she said. 'I've read your poems.'

I nodded and she moved closer.

'I liked them.'

'Good.' I touched her arm, moving her away from the crowd.

'You don't say much.'

'No.'

'I could...' she waved her arm back towards the rest of the crowd.

'No,' I said. 'You've read the poems, there isn't much more to say....' I looked into her eyes. 'Is there?'

She shook her head.

'Take your knickers off,' I said.

'What!' She glanced around and then back at me.

'You heard.'

'Why?' she said, putting her glass down before checking we were out of sight.

'Why do you think?' I stood between her and the rest of the crowd.

A few seconds later, she placed some warm delicate material into my hand from behind.

I turned back to her, holding them to my nose and breathing deeply. I put them in my pocket.

She was wearing a long evening dress. My left hand was raising it up as my right hand was pressing, holding her crotch.

One the dress was up high enough my right hand slipped under it and I held her. She was already wet.

She looked up at me. 'You haven't even kissed me yet.'

'I know,' I said, and then, as my finger slipped inside her, I kissed her for the first time.

The Game of Takeaways

He stood tall and proud, surveying his kingdom. From there he could see his entire fish and chip shop from the counter to the doorway. Everything was gleaming clean, the chrome fittings shone like brightest silver and the tiled floor, still damp from mopping, reflected the sun shining in through the window. He was lord of his chip shop and everything was good.

Quitting the sanctuary of his place behind the counter, Bert strode over to the window. He looked out on the High Street before him. There were pizza takeaways, Chinese takeaways and Indian takeaways out there as well as two other fish and chips shops. All were potential threats to his realm and his place on the throne as King of the takeaways. Bert knew though that he, nor anyone else, could ever rest easy on that throne. There was always someone else out there waiting, wanting, scheming and planning to bring down the king so they instead could sit on that throne and dominate the High Street.

It had changed though in Bert’s lifetime. In his father’s day, when he sat on the throne, the takeaway realm was small indeed, just two fish and chip shops on the High Street and a host of other shops from a cobblers to a ladies’ hairstylist or two. All of them were gone now, even the supermarket and the ironmonger. All that remained were the takeaways, the charity shops and a betting office.

His kingdom was ravaged, war-torn. Still, though, the invaders came. There was talk of a Thai place opening soon, another one with free delivery. Bert turned from his window wondering if the days of the fish and chip shop were over. His own son ran an internet business these days and his hirelings wanted him to install a kebab machine.

Bert looked up at the sky above what was once a Woolworths shop. ‘Winter is coming,’ he said and turned back to care for his realm.