David Hadley's Blog, page 123

All It Ever Did Was Rain

The rain was falling, Glift was not surprised. The rain was always falling. Sometimes he thought it was amusing that this was the capital city of the Sun Empire, ruled by the Emperor of the Sun, and all it ever did was rain.

It was summer now, so – at least – the rain was warm, but this early in the morning the sky was dark, not the dull grey – or sometimes if you were lucky - the light grey of daytime. It was even darker here, down in the warren of tunnels, alleyways and twisting passages which merged the Old Kingdom's origin castle with the Emperor’s palace and the town, the city that had grown up around it.

Glift knew his way, knew where he was going, or at least he thought he did. This was the danger, though, of venturing into unfamiliar parts of the Warrens. The geography, even what could with a certain amount of optimism be called the architecture, could change from one year to the next as those who inhabited the area changed the shapes of the walls and structures.

There was no planning, no organisation and very little in the way of rule of law the further one travelled from the - relatively – civilised areas around the palace. But Glift had his sword, and he knew how to use it and he could still walk the stealthy walk of the assassin he used to be.

Even so, when he turned the corner, the gang was there waiting. Glift's hand tightened around the pommel of his sword and his feet took up a defensive stance as his eyes searched the gang and picked out its leader.

'My, my, what do we have here?' The big one in the centre said as all faces turned to him. 'Are you lost, rich man?'

The gang all drew swords and knives – five of them – and spread out as wide as the passageway allowed all creeping towards Glift as the rain poured down.

Beyond the Human

It began under the darkest skies of winter when it is almost possible to believe there is something out there beyond the human, beyond the natural. Of course, we were too old, too used to the way the world works to believe in such figments of the imagination as ghosts, werewolves, vampires, spirits, gods and demons.

But still....

There are times when the shadows grow deep and dark and the cold winds rattle against all that we believe is solid and strong. Times when we start to feel just how puny we are against the forces that lie beyond our control. There are times when the dark seethes with malevolence and we huddle against the light and the warm as the dark and the cold draws ever closer.

We could see it in each other's eyes, a feeling that we had made a mistake, moving here deep into the heart of the country, away from the bland safety of the city. It seemed funny that we'd escaped what we thought were the dangers of the city, only to find that this bucolic paradise was neither bucolic nor a paradise.

It was cold and damp, and just as noisy as the city, the wail of the sirens replaced by the cries of foxes and badgers. All going about business just as grisly as what those city sirens were a response to. Except the bodies I saw on my morning walks were not the human victims of robbery and murder, gangland fights, but small furry creatures that I could not identify or name. Only a spread of blood-splattered feathers across the path remained. Even Jeff our Labrador, a city boy himself, seemed nervous of the blood and gore we met every few days down on the paths along the meadow and into the woods. He looked back at me with sad eyes as though he too had nightmares that were coming true.

Still though as I breathed the clean air on those sharp frosty mornings I told myself it could only get better... but I was wrong.

The Dating Game

Well, as you know, people do not often utilise these items in such a fashion. At least, they do not on a first date and not in a small room with the curtains drawn whilst a choir sings a medley of late 1970s disco hits.

At least, not around these parts.

However, use of the egg-whisk on first dates, if only as a conversation piece, is a growing phenomenon. One the traditional media, in their increasing desperate bid to stay relevant, has latched onto in the hope of creating a lucrative moral panic. Consequently, there have been many lurid ‘investigative’ stories in the tabloids about so-called ‘egg-whisk parties. Events where – the tabloids claim – several teenagers of both sexes gather in small becurtained rooms, after having a whip-round to hire the choir, of course, and frankly display their own egg-whisks, often to members of the opposite sex.

There have also been stories in some of the more easily excitable tabloids about the shock and horror of children as young as 11 engaging in these practices. The tabloids claim that sometimes youngsters send explicit egg-whisk wielding pictures to one another on their mobile phones and social network sites. Contacted by these tabloids, the social media websites such as ArseBook, Twatchat, kNeeTremblr and Uninterest have all claimed they remove any overly-explicit pictures of egg-whisks whenever they come across them.

Of course, this has enabled those politicians who like to get on the media as often as they can – in the forlorn home that the public will take any interest in them – to set up campaigns to ban these activities. The campaigners hope to make egg-whisks only available to consenting adults in strictly licensed ‘Kitchen Clubs’. They claim these strictly licensed clubs will ensure the whisks are only used in to prepare egg-based recipes and not for what one MP called ‘ulterior purposes.’

Most ordinary people though expect the whole thing to blow over in a few weeks. Something soon forgotten alongside all the other shock and horrors on the media’s growing list of moral panics that were long over before they ever really began.

Feeling at Home

These were the dreams we once shared. They do not amount to that much with the years packed in boxes, waiting for time to come and take them away. It was a life I didn't really expect and, although Mary said she was happy, sometimes I saw her looking around herself, especially in the latter years, as though she was trying to make sense of how she'd got there.

I don't think I ever wanted to be anything: a doctor, train driver, or anything like that. I even knew quite young that I would never be a professional footballer, or any good at any of the other sports. A few years later, my dusty guitar with the broken top E string told me I'd never be a rock star either.

None of it bothered me that much. I went out to work and the promotions came, seemingly in arbitrary stages, until I wound up here sitting in the manager's chair. Somehow or other the company survived all the various recessions, booms and slumps and I prospered without really knowing what I was doing that kept the place going. In the end I put it down to just not making stupid mistakes.

Mary had a few jobs, none when the kids were young and all we could afford was a week maybe two in a caravan in Wales, then part-time jobs when she was older and we didn't need the money. I think she did it more for companionship, to get out from being alone with herself. Like I said before, sometimes I would see her just sitting there, her book forgotten in her lap; as if she was wondering how she'd ended up here.

Of course, I wanted to make it right for her, especially towards the end. But, like us finally getting a comfortable life and standard of living, I was too late. Not long after we'd moved in her, to this what Mary called 'our dream home' she was diagnosed and a few months later she was gone.

Now, all I know is I can't live here any more and I'm not sure if I will ever feel at home anywhere ever again without her.

The Following Morning

When I woke up a bright sun-shining morning, but – at the time – I didn't really notice the weather outside the casement because one of the women from the night before was sitting astride me. She was naked and holding my cock in one hand. Meanwhile the other woman still slept, naked and warm beside me.

What a fine way to start the day, I thought, despite my hangover.

Only for a moment, though.

Because next thing I knew, Gwenda, the one sitting astride me, had a knife in her other hand. A very sharp knife, because when I looked down, I saw a thin red line appear where she pressed the knife's edge against the base of my cock.

'Move, call out for your guards, or anything and I'll cut it off,' Gwenda said. 'I grew up on a farm, so I've done this before.'

I gulped, nodded and gulped again. Whenever I turned up back at his Keep, my father often said that one day my prick would get me into trouble. But I'd never expected that I'd get it into so much danger.

'Get up, Mo!' Gwenda kneed the sleeping woman in the back.

Mowena muttered and grumbled in her sleep as the other woman's knee rocked her back and forth beside me.

I thought about reaching up and grabbing that knife while Gwenda was distracted. But she just glanced up at me, giving my cock a firm squeeze. I forgot the idea, deciding instead to lie still and wait for a better opportunity.

Gwenda shifted position so she could stretch out her leg. She kicked Mowena off the bed.

Mowena landed on the floor with a loud thump and some very original curses. For a moment, I thought the guards outside my chamber would come in to discover the source of the noise. But then I remembered about all the noise the girls and I had made in the night and realised the guards would just laugh and joke amongst themselves about what was going on behind the closed door. That is, if they weren't busy with the women they'd taken to the inn's other bedrooms.

So, I decided to wait, as calm as I could be with a razor-sharp knife pressed against the root of my cock, and see what happened next.

So, I did.

Dancing Alone

Dancing Alone

We cannot share the moment.
we can only stand apart alone
at the edge of the dance floor,
watching each illusion of togetherness

as each dances alone, lost in a world
they create complete around themselves.
Every other dancer becomes a cipher
for all those dreams of discovery

and of something growing from this tune
and these strobing moments, into a lifetime
of new beginnings and the illusions
of romance that will never die
for as long as this song is playing.

The Seas of the Forgotten

There are times when there is nothing to say. The world goes on around us, but neither of us remark upon any of it. Time passes unacknowledged and we do not turn – as we used to do – towards each other to mark a moment taken out of the river of minutes that flow past us into the seas of the forgotten.

There were times when we would go together down to the river bank of time, taking handfuls of the sparkling moments to pour over each other. Then we’d go wading out to swim in the minutes that flowed past us. All washing away everything we regretted or wanted to forget until we could step out together onto the riverbank. Both just watching the minutes flow by as they became hours then days while we lay wrapped around each other as though nothing could ever part us.

These days, though, we both go down to that river alone. Each making sure the other is off somewhere else before we go to stand on the bank, watching the flood-swollen river tumble past, biting chunks out of the banks as it thunders past. Its minutes turned to hours in front of us. We stand watching the remains of our time slipping away. We both know that one day all too soon that river will wash us both away, each still alone as the river drags us both, helpless and lost, down to that sea where everything is forgotten.

A Nice Cup of Tea and its Geographical Implications

Eventually it was all sorted out. Unusually, in nowadays, it needed very few boxes ticked, the completion of almost no Impact Assessment Statements and caused little or no debate on the various social networks.

However, it did result in some slight bruising to an elbow and the total annihilation of several small countries. This – as none of us still alive here (by definition) do not live in any of those (former) countries, does mean that it counts as a success – more or less.

That is the nature of such experiments; certain drawbacks are always possible and must always be counted alongside the benefits. Obviously, the fact we managed to produce a very nice cup of tea from the whole enterprise does go someway towards its overall success. Making the loss of a handful of the smaller countries pale into insignificance when compared with the increased biscuit-dunking opportunities such a nice cup of tea offers to us all.

After all, geography has of late become far too complex. There are an increasing number of countries, appearing faster than we can reprint the maps, even with modern technology. Consequently, the loss of a few of them does make things a lot easier. If some of the side effects discovered afterwards are confirmed it will enable us to print over quite a large expanse of what are – for now – the blank areas on our maps with that good old stand-by of: Here Be Dragons.

We do have some idea of why such a nice cup of tea necessitated destroying a mere handful of the smaller counties. However, theorists have yet to explain just how the dragons manifested themselves in those selfsame areas.

Obviously, much more work needs to be done on the nature of reality. Especially how it all relates back to there central importance of making a nice cup of tea for the integrity of this universe (and – it now seems - a few other nearby universes as well).

Advertising Age

It was not what anyone expected, despite the intensive advertising campaign that had first irritated, then annoyed, then got on the tits of almost everyone in the country. Its constant repetition of an ear-bleedingly insidious jingle allied with the use of a cute cartoon character made it ubiquitous. Allying that with a catchphrase that had already spread out into everyday general discourse in – possibly – made it unavoidable in the most annoying way possible. It soon became impossible even to discuss the weather without some humourless tit shoehorning the catchphrase into the conversation in the forlorn hope of people taking it as witty, thus making them – in turn - hip to the zeitgeist.

Wars have started over less.

Still, though, despite the seeming ubiquity of the catchphrase and the way it was appearing all over the place, not much happened. Despite the cartoon character’s alleged endearing qualities and the advert winning all the awards they entered it for, the company behind the product still did not see any improvement in their market share. In fact, in-depth analysis of the figures revealed a loss of sales. The more the advert was shown, the more stuffed toys of their trade mark cartoon figure they sold, the more the catchphrase was discussed by dictionary compilers and professors of English on late-night news programmes, the less product was shifted.

All of which left the company with two options: they could either give up on the campaign, realising they were driving everyone in the country mad with this prolonged assault on everyone’s senses. Or, they could – as the increasingly desperate advertising agency implored, increase the intensity of the campaign and – thus – get even more attention. The latter would, the advertising agency decreed, eventually lead to more sales, if not total world-domination.

Of course, we all know what happened and why. After intense public lobbying, demonstrations and a change of government, action was taken. The new Prime Minister announced the introduction of the death penalty for anyone uttering the catchphrase, humming or whistling the jingle or found in the possession of one of the character fluffy toys.

Everyone agreed it was for the best.

Holding onto the Morning

Even then there were times when she seemed to hold the mornings in her hand as she slept, clutching them tight under the sheets, unwilling to let them escape out into freedom to create a new day around her.

She slept holding tight onto the sheets, keeping her mornings hidden away from those eyes she knew were watching her as she slept. Each one trying to find a way into her dreams to turn them into times of fear and dread. She knew all about the dark things that waited in the deepest, darkest parts of the night for her to let go. For her to leave a gap where they could worm their way in and rip all her bright butterfly dreams apart, leaving them torn and broken on her tear-wet pillow.

She knew about the darkness. She knew it would wait patiently. She knew she had to keep a tight grip on the tentative morning that could so easily slip out of her grasp and dissolve away into nothing, leaving her alone in the endless night. Waiting for those creatures that lurked, waiting, sharpening their teeth and their claws ready for when she let go of the morning.

They sent dark lovers to tempt her to let go of the sheets. To kick those sheets back to welcome the dark forms into her arms and between her open legs. Then wrapping herself around the darkness as it entered her, but she refused to even dream about the dark lovers. Instead, she preferred to run into some sun-dappled meadow with a new lover of the light, like her. One who would take her by the hand and lead her far away from the shadows to swim and wash away the darkness in some sun-rippled river.

Then, though, some new dark lover appeared. One who knew the secrets of the dark light she sometimes felt deep within her, calling to her. She knew he would be the one she could not resist should he reach out to take the morning from her easily-opening fingers.