David Hadley's Blog, page 139

Summer Again

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Those were the times. They became these memories that sustain these dull days as they pass almost indistinguishable from each other. The world grows darker, closer, what once was distance and possibility is now a mist-shrouded horizon, close enough almost to touch. There were distant hills out there, back in those sunnier days. The possibility of distance opened up the world and there was a chance of some new unknown land beyond those distant hills.

Now, though, those hills are gone, lost in the dark of the ever-increasing night or hidden behind the curtains of mist, fog and rain that make us huddle here, waiting.

We wait and we wonder if the summers will ever return to this land.

In the past, when we thought those old gods mattered, when we believed they had the power to change things, we would pray: beg and entreat, the gods to intercede and to bring back the summers to this, their chosen land.

We know now that this is no longer a chosen land: now the winters grow and spread to steal the rest of the year. We know the gods do not look down on us any longer – if they ever did.

We know we are alone here, in this cruel, cold world and we wonder if any of us – not just the old, frail ones will ever see a summer again.

Never Wrong

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It was not that obvious.... Something was wrong, that was obvious. Richard could tell there was something not quite right, but what that something was, he could not – yet, anyway - see it.

His days seemed much the same: up in the mornings, out to work, a workday passing slowly or quickly depending on what happened there, then home again and his usual evening routine of staying in or going out depending on Gemma’s moods and whims. It was not a bad life normally, about as glamorous and exciting as one of the more mundane fungal infections, but it was a life. A life, as Richard consoled himself, much better than so many of those he saw in the News each evening before switching off the day and going to bed.

It was not work that was wrong, it was not his home life that was wrong, it was not Gemma who was wrong – he’d known her long enough now to know that Gemma was never wrong, no matter what the evidence to the contrary.

Something was wrong though.

Richard didn’t know what was wrong, though, not until that day when he almost ran over the baby dragon as it scampered across the road in front of him. What he did not miss, or – rather – was not missed by, was the mounted and fully-armoured knight who jumped his massive warhorse over the bonnet of Richard’s car as he chased the dragon across the ring-road.

Richard just sat there - for what seemed like hours - staring at the ruined paintwork of his car bonnet where the horse’s heavy shoe had scraped over it, as – over and over again – he muttered ‘This is wrong, this is wrong.’ to himself.

Something for the Weekend - Free Kindle Humour: Choosing Headgear for Penguins

 

Choosing Headgear for Penguins

Available FREE for the next 5 days: here (UK) or here (US)

No doubt you have been wondering over the years about what is the most suitable hat for the various breeds of penguin: such as a deerstalker for the King penguins, or whether emperor penguins should wear a top hat.

Perhaps you have also wondered if Napoleon wore a basque under his uniform at the battle of Waterloo and the role that lingerie played in history.
Maybe you have long puzzled over the role of the Stilton cavalry in the English Cheese war.

Possibly you may have pondered who was The Greatest Prime Minister Great Britain Never Had, or who was The Fastest Jelly Baby Diversity Co-Ordinator In The West.

You could have even puzzled over The Fabled Lost Source of the Pork Scratching.

Choosing Headgear for Penguins is the book that answers all of these and many other questions you’ve never thought of asking as well as much, much more about such diverse topics as: Celebrity Extreme Gardening, Eroticism and the Intellectuals, People Staring At Walls, Raiders Of The Lost Car Park, The Latest Celebrity Sex Scandal, The UK’s Leading Adult Film Male Superstar and Weasel Defusing.

Available FREE for the next 5 days: here (UK) or here (US)

Some comments on David Hadley's humour pieces:

"Bloody Hilarious!"
"The hamsters of doom. Dammit, that's poetry. Well done"
"oh my god....I just about died laughing reading this...it's genius! Pure genius! Especially the bit about the fluffy particle...too funny."
"This made me laugh so much, tears came into my eyes...."
"I just sprayed barely masticated tomato all over my keyboard from laughing too hard"
"this really made me laugh. I shall never look at a cup of tea in the same way again."
"Brilliant! made me howl..."
"I think I just broke all my vital organs laughing"

Available FREE for the next 5 days: here (UK) or here ( US )

This Changes Everything

Afterwards, we just lay there together, side by side. It seemed odd, strange… weird even, that the world was still there; all around us as if nothing had changed. Yet, there we were lying together and everything about us; everything we knew and thought had changed.

I looked at her face and she opened her eyes and looked at me. She smiled, tentatively, as though she was not sure either.

I leant closer to her, kiss her lips. ‘Well,’ I said.

She laughed and snuggled down closer to me. ‘Indeed,’ she said and took my hand in hers.

The rest of the world carried on as if nothing had happened. We, though, would never be the same again.

‘You do realise,’ I said, not taking my eyes from hers. ‘That this changes everything.’

‘Yes.’ She nibbled her bottom lip. ‘But I don’t care.’

‘Well, in that sense, neither do I. I couldn’t be happier. But, well, you know that sooner or later we are going to have to get up, get dressed and go back out there?’

‘I still don’t care,’ she said. ‘All I want I have here with me, now.’ This time she kissed me, pushing me back onto my back as she climbed on top of me. ‘Now, she said. ‘What happens next?’

‘I think you know,’ I said.

She leant forward and kissed me. ‘Yes, I do,’ she said… and she did.

The Bargain of a Lifetime

It was not one of those things. For a start, it was a little too purple around the one flange and the grommets were all metric and not the traditional imperial that has been used to make the authentic those things since time immemorial, or at least since the invention of colour TV and the beginnings of BBC2.

Still, though, it was one of the better of those things that are cunningly-wrought imitations of those things (original version), apart from the fact that the serial number was expressed as an irrational number and the lid had a habit of working loose, especially on tight corners, or when used in the presence of defrocked clergy.

Once, though, it had been used in an attempt to break the World Standing Next to a Stockbroker Record (currently at 33 days, 5 hours and 17 minutes exactly) by a team of Norwegian amateurs and so - almost inevitably – some of the crimping had worked loose when the savage stockbroker had gone rogue and bitten the knees of both Norwegian contestants before it was cornered in the Oslo stock-exchange and put out of our misery by specially-trained Norwegian police sharpshooters.

However, one of the sniper's bullets ricocheted and put a slight dent in the leading edge but that could easily be re-tuned and painted over and no-one would be the wiser.

So, if you've ever wanted one of those things, but have been put off either by the cost of purchase or the annual stabling fees, now is your chance to put in a bid on what could so easily turn out to be the bargain of a lifetime.

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, but so often 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 in order 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 that the end was here.

All the Puddings of our Desires

Still, it is not always the case that the use of the lemon meringue between consenting adults should be regarded as something private, especially when the aforesaid pie is about to be used in an erotic context (or, even, contest) on the local byways or thoroughfares, especially on Tuesday afternoons, although for those in Ludlow or Skegness, Wednesday mornings should also be taken into consideration, especially during the one day of the British summer when all manner of folks could be out and about, staring in wonder at the lack of drizzle.

Still, though, there is a long tradition of pudding-based erotic activity in these fair to middling British isles, hence the well-known spotted dick and custard of long tradition, as well as the jam roly-poly. Everyone, too, knows just why the puritans banned the Christmas pudding, and – as we now know – it had nothing to do with the amount of alcohol poured into it and/or the diners about to take part in the ritual of the pudding as they divested themselves of enough clothing to make the whole matter something to remember during the long dull days of the remaining winter. After all, the British winter is the main motivating factor behind the invention of the television, that and wanting to get out of the necessity of holding a conversation with any visiting relatives.

However, all that is beside the point, but do remember if you are about to take your lemon meringue out into the highways and byways of his once-great nation for a spot of outdoor eroticism, always make sure you warm your spoon first.

Monday Poem: Seasons of Life

Seasons of Life

Expectation is the first warm day
when spring shrugs our coats off.
The pale bared skin of women
displaying hints of times to come
and the possibility of soft touching

as the evening shades into darkness
and we lie together wondering
why so much of this world
always lies so far out of reach,
especially on languid days

when it seems the heat
is too heavy to lift away
from the damp skin
and being too close binds us
together in ways beyond
all we ever expected

while we wait for the cooling breezes
that the darkness is sure to bring
as we turn away from each other
and wait for slow sleep to take us
on far journeys into colder times.

The Seas of the Night

All those dreams that sail by on the seas of the night and left in the port of the morning as we set out to stride into the heartland of day, leaving those dreams at the mercy of the tides of time and of memory.

She was one of those dreams I left behind as I made my way into the lands of my day.

I left her there to face the sea storms of time and face the battering by the winds of memory. I forgot about her as I went about exploring the hinterland of the day.

Later, as I drew closer to the shores of that night, though, I again began to smell her scent on the sea breezes the night brought down to where I stood on the dark shore, waiting for those dream boats to carry me far across the deep waters of the night. Those deep waters, where so many have been lost amongst the wreckage of their dreams as the night took them to itself, drowning them amongst the flotsam of their dreams, with the mermaids of the night leading them by the hand, dragging them down to those sunken cities from which no sailor of the night ever returns.

That night too, I saw her waving to me from the night ocean’s swell, waiting there for me to dive into my dreams and take the hand of my own mermaid, letting her sing to me her songs of drowning in the darkness as the deep night washed over me and I took her hand to dive deeper than I had ever dived before.

Long Live the King

It is a memory.

It is a dream.

Even now, after all these long bloody years, it still has the power to wake me –wide-eyed - with a scream almost falling from my lips.

The battle was over, we had won. I stood there, bloody sword in my hand, but still not entirely sure that I still lived. Then Lord Bernwick staggered across the bodies that lay all about me. He held his one upper arm, a bloodied rag wrapped around it, with his sword hand.

‘You are wounded, sir,’ I said.

‘This… it does not matter,’ he replied, dismissing it with a shake of his head. ‘Your… your father, sire… the king…’

I did not believe him, but still I followed him past the corpses, past those slowly becoming corpses as their screams faded and their blood spilled all around us as we walked. There were some already going through the dead and dying, looking for what could be found: money, jewellery, arms, armour – a battlefield is as wasteful of goods and chattels as it is of life and blood.

My father, the king, lay there; his men at arms gathered around him already with the air of those who mourn at a funeral. I could see that my father was no longer whole. He had been sliced, butchered. One leg was gone and there was little the Blood Priests could do to save him. Those that were not chanting rituals to the gods were drenched in the king’s blood as they laboured to save him, even though they knew it was all in vain and pointless.

I knelt and he smiled at me, a smile of agony, but still a smile. He was not a father who had smiled often and a king who had smiled less.

‘I’m glad to see you still live…,’ he said. ‘…unlike me. You, my son, are king now.’

Then he died; screaming in agony as his death, as his injuries, overpowered the feeble medicines the Blood Priests had administered to him.

When I stood again, I was king… and that was when the nightmares began.