David Hadley's Blog, page 118

Too Old for Those Dreams

Too Old for Those Dreams

I got there across wide-open fields
in early morning summer sunlight
when mists covered the dew grass.
When it was good, when I was young.

Now I grow older and this world
seems to grow too tired of me,
telling me I shall not dream again
and I am too old for that now.

But still those women come,
dancing through my dark nights
to take me by the hand once more
leading me out into that summer,

across the wide-open waiting fields
where morning mists cover the dew
and the day waits, there, just for us
to take and hold it close once again.

A Time When Worlds Were New

Once there was a time, long before this. A time when worlds like this were new and all things were possible. A time when the moments grew from one another, growing into strange shapes, strange structures and strange creatures.

I was there too, of course, shaping these growing possibilities into the shape of the world I wanted to make. Each morning, I would take the shape of the possible from the growing places, then twist them and turn them until I found the shape of the world I was looking for within them. Then I would let them grow on into that new shape.

Of course, I only suggested, formed, a tentative shape for the possible to grow into. I left the rest up to the various forces that were themselves growing into being to make this world grow out from a potential of an instant into millennia of growing and changing.

I remember the morning I found the shape of her waiting in the potential of the possible. It was not as if I created her, she just grew out of the formlessness I held in my shaping hands. It was as if my hands already knew the shape of her and the potential of the possible knew the shape of her too.

She grew there, in front of me, giving each of my new mornings a reason for being. Each day, I would hurry down to where she was growing out of the possible and I would sit back in wonder at what creation could make possible, make real, out of mere potential.

Of course, I never realised just how real she would turn out to be.

One morning I rushed down to look for her and she was gone. She'd grown and grown away from all that had created her, including me, and she gone off to discover just what was in this new world she'd found herself alive and free in.

Out of Distance and Circumstance

Possibility grew out of distance and circumstance. We moved away from all we knew into strange lands and strange times, looking for a place that could become a home. We had all lost so much, only memory remained, and memory, like the seasons fades away into loss... eventually. But these were still raw times; the memories of our loss burned and were sore.

There were some amongst us who had lost everything, except themselves. Lone survivors of families and the last of their name now, trudging through the winds and the blizzards. Alongside them, were those who still had remnants of family left, thinking they were the lucky ones, only to see those relatives fall and die by the wayside as we trudged on.

We were a weak and defeated people, making our stumbling way through hostile lands. Predators can smell fear, taste weakness on the wind. Not only animals: mountain lions, bears, wolves, but the wild humanity that prowls these thick forests too, the outlaws... they could sense we were easy pickings. Many of us died: taken in the night by animals, attacked at dawn by renegades, outlaws and slave traders. All eager for the easy pickings we – the weak – gave them.

It was a hard land and we too – eventually – learnt to be hard back, offering no mercy, no quarter. We became just as ruthless, just as savage as those that would prey upon us, but each day trudging ever onward, looking for that elusive place we could, one day, call home.

In the Parallels

The days passed as we moved on, further and further away from the familiar. It became apparent as we explored methodically, that the Parallels closest to what we still called Home Earth were different only in slight details. In some of the earliest Parallels, we could find no real differences. Perhaps the differences lay in something obscure like a slight variation in a species of beetle in the Amazon jungle or something like that, something none of our instruments – or any of us – could detect.

If it wasn't for our most useful instrument – the Parallel Worlds Detector – we would be hard-pressed to know whether we were on Home Earth or one of its nearby Parallels.

Soon though, the differences multiplied 'logarithmically,' as Sheena said, only half-joking. It did seem though the further we got from the familiar, the more unfamiliar it all got.

'Do you suppose,' Sheena said, some weeks into our journey. 'That ours... our home Earth is the real one, the one all the others are deviations from?'

'I doubt it,' I said. 'It was the old religions that saw Earth as the centre of the universe. We now know we are just one planet around one sun, one star among so many others. We know we are not the centre of the Universe, so why should we be the centre – if there is such a thing – of these parallel universes.'

Sheena nodded. 'Why then haven't we encountered any other travellers, explorers... scientists... like us coming the other way, from the other Parallels, then?'

A Significant Modern Artist

It is not all that often we get to see the full glory of Pointillist Etching’s full oeuvre in a major UK exhibition. This exhibition is a rare opportunity to encounter his most famous work Sardines – an opened tin of sardines placed at a precise 32 degrees from true north on a plain white dinner plate. As one critic said at its first public display, ‘this work is so profound in its unashamed exploration and condemnation of the lies of the Western military-industrial complex and their shabby moral vacuity’. This piece has not been on public view since its sale to a private collector for $456 million, three years ago.

However, the work displays the obvious technical skill of an artist of Etching’s calibre, whose 12 assistants worked tirelessly through the night to create this work. His team used a protractor and a laser – to make sure the sardine tin was at precisely the right angle to make his political point. The power of the political argument expressed through the work becomes so obvious to the discerning viewer, making the tickets to the exhibition a real bargain at only £1500 each.

On the Roads Ahead

It is never that clear, never so straightforward. These roads we walk on our journey - through this only life we will ever have - are full of twists and turns, forks in the road and crossroads that have no sign or indication where they will lead. We walk on, sometimes in company; sometimes alone, only ever knowing that one day, one of these roads we are walking along will come to a dead end.

There are things to see, things to do, though, along all these roads. It is just a matter of learning the art of looking; learning how to see. Our eyes track movement and they track colour. So often, though, we do not see what we notice, just things we pass by as we walk this latest road, looking for that turn to take us to some special place we have heard about.

There are so many tales, stories, myths and legends about the wonders that lie on the roads ahead. Sometimes there are those who run right off the end of the road they are travelling to reach for some wonder, some paradise, others have told them of at some weary traveller’s resting-place.

Others stand there, in the road, looking forward, looking back, peering over walls and under hedgerows. All looking for that one secret that will mean their road will never end, but it always does. Often while they were too busy looking elsewhere along the side of the road to see the end was here all along.

Never-Ending Winter

Never-Ending Winter

At times, it grows so cold and dark
as though the sun has given up
on this slow turning globe, a small

and insignificant blue world,
alone and lost against the distance
as though the universe has turned

its shoulder on us, leaving us here
in this a never-ending winter.
The days become half-night, so cold

and dark, all gone before they can
begin. We huddle close together
around forlorn and feeble fires,

in hope of heat, and warmth to bring
enlightenment, but now the flames
can only splutter and then die,

this dampness leaving only ash
and fading embers of the fires
that could have burnt so bright and hot.

Simplicities and Illusion

There was a time, or so we would like to think, when things were not so complicated. Eventually, we realise the simplicities of a more straightforward past are mostly illusions caused by the mind filtering out the awkward times that don't fit our golden memories. However, there is still this feeling there must have been a time better than this.

Of course, religions have taken such myths and – as usual – used them for their own ends, to speak of times before it was all ruined, of a Golden Age, of a time without sin and all such nonsenses. We would still like to believe in, even though we know such belief is only for those who look without seeing.

Marie knew too, that our own Golden Age was a creation of us looking back on certain selected instances. She still liked to think there had been a time when we were happier, even though happiness is such a nebulous concept, something that disappears like a magician's trick whenever you try to take hold of it. Nevertheless, she was still sure we were happy once.

Me? I don't know. I've never been that sure about happiness, what it is... or even if it is that desirable. Not that I prefer being unhappy, of course. Although, I suspect the puritan inside us all gets some sort of perverse pleasure from the denial of happiness, especially to those whom we believe have been dealt a better hand than us in this game of life.

Where I did agree with Marie was that you find happiness only when you do not realise it, discovered in retrospect when you look back. Trying to be happy in the future – to me, anyway – always seemed doomed to failure, as the future is something that lies always just beyond the grasp, something to reach for but never obtain. To me, happiness is in the places where you do not expect to find it, like a kiss in the middle of a rainstorm, or sunlight breaking free of a dull cloudy day. Moments, in other words, when the ordinary became – if only for an instant – extraordinary, like that smile Marie gave me after we kissed in the rain.

Political Funding

Anyway, until the public inquiry reports, there is not much that can be done. Although, obviously, until that report is published, members of the general public have been warned against too close a contact with any politician, either at a local or national level, without taking all the necessary precautions.

Obviously, as many politicians – if they have ever had anything resembling a proper job – have been either lawyers themselves, or have come into close contact with lawyers. Therefore, any ordinary person should make sure they do not allow the politician anywhere near their own money. All purses, wallets, piggy banks and under areas of mattresses should therefore be kept out of sight of any politicians you come into contact with. On no account should you share any bank account details with them. Especially in the politician breeding season during the pre-election stage, particularly if they sidle up to you and ask for a ‘donation’.

Scientists investigating the life-cycle of the politician and the best method of eradicating this menace from society believe that it is this ‘donation’ part of the politicians’ life-cycle that leads to their proliferation. Even people with strong stomachs naturally blanch at the thought of politicians breeding freely, especially out in the wild. Therefore, some scientists believe if these ‘donations’ can be cut off at source – by denying politicians access to money – then society can go a long way towards eradicating the menace of politics from our lives altogether.

Down to the Beach

All day, we walked along the coastal path, high above the sea far below. Once or twice, we'd thought about going down to the beach when we'd met paths that headed down that way. But we didn't have much time and we weren't sure if there would be any benefit. I pointed out too, that down there we would lose the height advantage we had. Up here we could see if there was anyone else about, any dangers.

'You worry too much,' Jacq said.

I looked at her. 'You should worry more.'

She didn't reply, just looked out at the distant horizon. The sea was blue, bluer than I remember it from before. I thought about saying something, but then I know that sometimes it was a mistake to remind Jacq about the before.

'Why?' she said after a while, after I'd thought she'd forgotten. 'Why should I worry?'

'Because you're a woman.'

'What...? You mean...?'

I nodded, not looking at her.

'A fate worse than death....' she laughed. 'You have a low opinion of your fellow man.'

'So, what do you expect? Nobility? Chivalry? The kindness of strangers?'

'Maybe.'

I made a noise and stood up. Sometimes I thought it was a mistake to care, especially about Jacq. I'd cared before and look where that had got me... nowhere.... Stuck out here on a coastal path with a woman I hardly knew and everyone that once defined me, made me who I used to be, lost and gone forever.

I stood watching the horizon. I felt rather than heard Jacq come up behind me. She took my hand.

I turned.

She smiled. 'Let's go down. Go for a swim. Let's pretend – if only for an hour or so none of that... the before... ever happened.'

I turned and I saw something in her eyes, a kind of pleading and I knew I still cared about her enough to try to make her happy – if only for a while - and so I said: 'Yes.'