David Hadley's Blog, page 191

Economics and Llama Theory

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Mesopotamia Cheesebender was arguably the 20th Century's greatest and most eloquent exponent of what later became known as Llama Theory, which is odd because it is a documented fact that Cheesebender not only had a fear of all animals that he regarded as 'excessively bushy' like sheep and llamas, the theory itself had very little to do with llamas.

The economic theory known as Llama Theory was a rather complex and obsessively detailed examination of the effect of government actions on the economy. Cheesebender's theory proved that no matter what they do, despite whatever political philosophy they follow – of right or left (or, as in the modern world, a hodgepodge of both) – the actions of a government could only ever completely screw any economy they were allowed to get their hands on. As Cheesebender himself said: 'Governments are much like a lonely llama-herder out watching his flock late at night and spotting a rather comely young llama'.

It is a well-known fact among political theorists that governments can only ever make things worse, and that the more government there is the worse everything gets. However, until Cheesebender's theory came along most economists had not paid that much attention to governments and the role they played in the economy. That is unless – of course - those economists were either paid as advisers by that government, in which case everything that government did turned out to be good for the economy, or if they were paid advisers of the opposition parties – who then discovered everything that government did was bad for the economy. This is why most people didn't pay that much attention to economists, especially those that couldn't get a job in government, or even opposition, and so became Marxists and therefore sported an over-excessive amount of facial hair for anyone to take them seriously as political or economic commentators.

Mr. Average

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I wasn't expecting any of this. After all, I'm probably just about as ordinary, as average, as it is possible to get. Middle-aged, medium height, medium build, medium hair, doing a mediocre run-of-the-mill job, I could be Mr. Average.

When I looked back, on the Thursday, and saw the same man I'd seen the last few days following me down the street back to work after my lunch hour, I began to wonder.

I mean, I wasn't imaging things. It was... I checked off in my mind... three days since I'd noticed him. He could have been following me for ages without me noticing. After all, when the weather was good enough, I liked to sit and eat my sandwiches in the park a few hundred yards down the road from the office. I like the fresh air, the water birds on the park pond and idly watching the women walking by.

Often, I'd sit there and read a book, nothing profound, I'm not trying to look clever, impress one of those women passing-by into chatting with me, or something like that. No, these are just thrillers, best sellers with gaudy covers and big bold title lettering. Mostly, though, I just like to sit and watch the time pass.

I first noticed him, hanging back, looking in one of the High Street shop windows when I glanced over my shoulder to check for traffic before crossing over to the office. I recognised his coat, a sort of summer lightweight parka, very much like one I used to own that I'd lost one holiday and never got around to replacing. It was the coat that first caught my attention, made me notice and remember him.

Then, when I saw him again, the next day and the day after that, following me, I remembered him. Initially, I just thought he must be someone who worked around here, one of the other offices, a local shop or something, and he took his lunch at the same time as me.

However, after a while I began to notice how odd it all was.

Then, today, Friday, he was standing at the entrance to the park as I came out, right next to the litterbin where I usually dump all the leftover papers and stuff from my lunch. I did the British thing and pretended not to notice him, but as I came away from the bin, dusting the crumbs off my hands, he came right up to me.

He gave a quick glance all around him and reached into his pocket as he closed in on me. It made me step back, but still he hurried towards me. This is it, I thought, preparing myself for a knife, a gun or some other sudden inexplicable violence. Even though he didn't look as though he had mental problems, it is hard to tell these days.

Instead, as I steeled myself for whatever he was going to do to me, he handed me this small neatly wrapped parcel, a few inches square, nodded once as if in confirmation of a job well done, then turned and strode away, not looking back once.

That small parcel is here, now, in front of me on my desk and here I sit - as I've been sitting for I don't know how long - wondering if I dare open it.

Thursday Poem: Drifting towards Dawn

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Drifting towards Dawn

Now in the stillness of the darkest hours
the time in hesitant small steps takes us
towards the dawn and all the day can bring
as we each drift towards the wakefulness
that leaves our dreams behind on pillows warm

and hollowed out by sleeping heads, a place
for dreams to take their rest. We leave them there
to go about our days. The dreams will wait
there for us to return to bed again.
The dreams will take us by the hand and lead

us to the sleep where possibilities
can bloom like spring awoken flowers blossom
and what we seek is sometimes found at last
even though there's a chance the night will pull
its darkness down to turn our dreams to nightmares.

The Haunted House

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When the moment came to move, we were hesitant, unsure. It is one thing to talk about things like that, easy to say we would all go, but when it came to it we seemed reluctant, especially as we'd all agreed there was no such things as ghosts, vampires and all that silly scary stuff we dismissed as 'kid's stuff'. We were – of course – little more than kids ourselves, which was probably why we were so dismissive of the 'kid's stuff', and – probably – why when it came down to it, we were still those selfsame kids ourselves inside… and still scared of all that scary stuff.

We stared up at the house, there across the open ground from where we were hiding in the bushes that had once been its hedges and other parts of its garden. It was strange, though, how the plants, weeds and other stuff seemed overgrown out here, away from the house, but seemed to die away the closer they got to the house. This meant there was a sort of border area a few yards wide where nothing grew close to the house at all. I had not noticed that before, but now, as we tried to find the courage within ourselves and within each other to cross those several yards of scrubby grass then the bare open area that lay between us and the house, I began to wonder.

The Door to her Dreams

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I opened the door from her dreams and walked into her world. She was ready, waiting for me. I told her all the stories she wanted to hear about the strange lands that lay over the hills and she showed me the lands of her bed and of her body, letting me explore all of her secret places and take all her treasures for myself.

I told her of the princesses of the strange lands, who had taken me to palaces and boudoirs, and of the rich merchant's daughters who had offered me all the treasure I could carry in return for telling them of places far beyond all they had ever known.

I told of the women of the road whose caravans had carried me, and my stories, down many a winding road and of the tales I told them by their campfires as the creeping night covered the world with its blankets. I told them of the creatures that haunt the night and its deepest shadows and what they will do to any woman foolish enough to venture from the road into the darkness of the forests. The women of the road knew of the shadows and of the dark and held themselves close to me, as I told them of the night and its creatures, and they held me close in their beds at night. Either in the caravans or underneath the stars as I learnt all the stories of their bodies and how to tell their stories too.

I told her all these things and I think she knew that one day too she would become one of my stories and I would be here in your bed, telling it all to you.

Never to return

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This is where the day will begin, spread out across the morning as though it belongs here. The night has folded its reluctant blankets from across the skies and gathered its long shadows back into itself. We are left here watching the colours return to all that surrounds us as they emerge out of the black of night through the grey mists of dawn.

We shiver and hold each other close. We have not spent a night alone like this before, far from the comfort of having others nearby. The city was a dangerous place, too dangerous for us to stay. Out here though, although safe from the city, we face new and unknown dangers.

We have each other and though that should reassure, it does not. Each of us is afraid to let the other out of our sight to disappear into all this that is strange and unknown surrounding us. There is danger out here; we can sense it. We do not know, though, what kind of danger it is. We cannot judge the moods of this place as we have come to understand the city and its rhythms. Out here, we are in danger and alone.

We could go back, back to the city, but back there we were in much more danger and much, much more alone.

Thursday Poem: The Routes of Rain

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The Routes of Rain

She saw the rain
and traced its route
on the windowpane,
thought she understood,

but turned back, away
turned her back
on the outside day
and all those streets

turned back to her room
and the world it held
all she needed could resume
now that she was alone

far away from the outside
that ripped her dreams apart
and left her hopes denied,
left them torn and muddy

out on that dirty street
that stood out there waiting,
for her to return in defeat,
ready to taste her hurt again.

Time Corridors

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Time twists and turns to create these corridors we stumble down in the dark and uncertainty of not knowing what is to come. The world twisted and turned in a way that physicists did not think was possible and left us to fall into this warping of time that meanders through all the histories of what was and what could have been and what may yet be.

None of us knows when one of these tunnels, corridors, will terminate itself and tumble us out into a strange place full of times we do not understand. We have come to recognise the signs though, the shivers and shakes, the tremors in the walls, floor and ceiling of the corridor before – minutes, sometimes hours – later it shatters and dissolves, leaving us anywhere in the world and any when in time.

At least, we can only presume it is Earth, if such a concept has any meaning any more.

Someone I met, about three tunnels ago, some sort of physicist, in a time when it was dangerous, fatal, to be a scientist, told me that the tunnels emerging, splitting and then dying where like earthquakes in time; Timequakes he called them.

Although, whatever you can them makes no difference. We walk these corridors waiting for them to break and spilt, then tumble us into a new time, wondering what that time will bring with it.

Christmas Shopping

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Anyway, if I just put this fetchingly holly-stencilled frying pan down for a moment, we can then see which way is actually true North and not the cheap imitation North you bought from that bloke you met down the pub.

I said at the time you can't trust any old compass directions, none at all without a badge of authenticity. Furthermore, if you are going to venture into a retail experience emporium at this time of the year then a reliable compass is vital.

We have all heard the tales of shoppers who got lost and disorientated by the way the supermarkets change the position of their goods at this time of year. This is not the seemingly random year-round relocation of random goods – often out of what seems like little more than sheer bloody-mindedness that we have to endure on a week-by-week basis. It is one of those special promotional times of year especially beloved by the retail sector. A time when they seem to believe any old tat becomes instantly desirable by bunging a picture of a bit of holy or a robin on it.

Apparently, it must work too, otherwise why would they keep doing it?

Don't answer that.

Something Fluid

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It was not something you could pin a name on; it evaded easy description and categorisation. Jade was not a woman who you could say loved you, even if you thought you loved her. She was evasive, but not in any devious kind of way. It was just that she was like trying to capture something fluid, like water or smoke, in your hands. Just when you thought you had her you would slowly, carefully, open your hands… only to find she was gone.

It was like that in the mornings. Woken by the sunlight of that summer creeping across the room, the curtains fluttering languid in the morning breeze, I would turn to her, only to find her gone.

She wouldn't be far away, but whenever you thought you had her, she would slip free. Often I would look up from where I lay with my head between her thighs to see her, eyes closed with one arm thrown across her face, and I knew she was not there in the bed with me, but off in some place only she knew the route to.

I knew too, that when she came, I would have to wait for her to come back to me from that far away place her orgasms took her to. She'd open her eyes, look down and smile at me as though she'd just arrived home from some long journey and was glad to see me there, waiting for her return.