David Hadley's Blog, page 202

In the Dark of Morning

Then there are those mornings when the alarm drags us out of the night while it is still dark. We huddle tight against each other to keep the cold at bay while we try to hang on to those scraps of dreams that somehow promised a life better than this. A life where I did not have to leave you, lying there, while I went out to look for the morning and to see what new ordeals it had brought with it.

It seems there were once times when our mornings were bright and sunny and we were woken by bird song and sunlight streaming in through breeze-blown curtains. Days that brought us mornings where anything seemed possible and the day would not twist us and torment us with its new hard cruelties.

It seems every day now starts in darkness and in cold, creating journeys for us where we seek the light and the warmth. We wake knowing that each new morning takes us deeper into the cold and dark of the winter that looms in the darker shadows like some dread heavy beast with freezing talons that grab and will not let go until we are frozen to the core.

These dark mornings, though, give us no option but to stumble through them, looking for some sort of light, looking to see if we can find some way through to the bright sunny day that we know ought to be there waiting for us, and be ours for the taking.

The Disappearing

Sometimes it gets too hard to hold onto the world. Things lose their shape, become indistinct and their edges fade away. Sometimes whole areas of this world disappear. I have lost houses, streets, villages and even towns and cities sometimes. All just disappearing and leaving no trace. Sometimes the buildings disappear, leaving just roads that snake off into the distance leading from nowhere to nowhere. Sometimes the roads disappear too and leave just a landscape of emptiness that contains nothing but grass, trees and scrub right up to the horizon and beyond.

There are times too when the landscape itself disappears, leaving nothing, nothing at all. It is hard to describe the nothing that is left behind, because when we try to think of nothing we have to have something there that we can call nothing.

On the days, though, that everything disappears there is not even an absence – there is just nothing.

People disappear far too easily, as though they have stepped into another room. They are there and then – suddenly - they are gone. If they don't come back, then maybe I forget them. I don't know... I can't remember.

The other day there was a mirror – at least for a while – I looked into it and there was nothing there to stare back at me, just the reflection of the far wall and the painting that hangs there of some deserted empty landscape.

Then that was gone too.

Plumbing the Depths

Time was when there were things around that made it necessary to rub the upper thighs in a lascivious manner and speak of things involving baby oil and some of the more arcane sizes of tap washer.

Ah, but we were young then and plumbing seemed both exotic and daring. There were times when I lay awake in those long adolescent summer nights just imagining what it would be like to apply my adjustable wrench to you u-bend. I dreamt too of winter nights when I could spend evening after evening lagging your pipes.

My blowtorch got hot just thinking of your touch on my nuts and the first gentle probings of your spanner on them. I thought that one day, maybe one day, when we got to know each other better you would let me install a washing machine somewhere intimate and out-of-the-way.

Of course, when we met we talked of guttering, pipes and taps and strolled hand-in-hand along streets that seemed nothing but thinly-disguised water supply and drainage systems. Everywhere we looked there seemed to be nothing but plumbing and we wondered if we would ever be able to think of anything else again as your hand slowly caressed my standpipe.

The Minutiae of our Moments

There are times when it seems the very ring roads of our souls are as empty and deserted as any early Sunday morning car park that stretches forlornly around the DIY Megastores of our hearts. We wander through our thoughts and dreams like that lone wandering shopping trolley that has been left exposed and alone out far from the comfort of any trolley bay and the safety of the herd as they doze chained together, waiting for the unwary shoppers to attempt to capture one.

We have been here before, holding hands as we stroll along the canal towpath, watching the discarded shopping bags sailing by, blown by a wind that can find no home in the shattered factories and broken down empty warehouses of our lives.

There was a time when all this throbbed with life, with workers, shoppers, all giving the impression that they were going about purposeful lives that were o'er brimmed with meaning and direction.

Now, though, we know that time will pass us by no matter how many electronic gadgets we use to store the minutiae of our moments and fill with appointments that merely pour through our days like sand though hourglasses.

Still, as they say, though… eh… you can't complain, can you?

Waiting for Something Interesting to Happen

Well, there you are, fancy seeing someone like you in a place like this. Makes me wonder what the world is coming to. Still, pull up an aardvark and rest your weary jodhpurs. It may take a while for anything that interesting to happen. These days it seems to take longer and longer to get anywhere near anything resembling a punch-line in these ramblings, let alone any kind of point or purpose.

Not like the good old days, eh?

Sometimes it seems that these things just ramble on for a while, maybe mentioning the penguins, or some out-of-date piece of popular culture that no-one under a certain age knows the wot of, as well as the use of archaic language and rather long-winded, and wandering, circumlocutions that, although seeing erudite, never really seem to amount to much of any great significance or import.

However, sometimes – just sometimes – there is a dull gem in amongst al the waffle and verbiage – that with a bit of polishing could refract some kind of light onto the issues of the day that would make you feel that your time here has not been entirely wasted....

Today, though, is not one of those days.

The Naked Unicyclist of fate

The naked unicyclist of fate is travelling from door to door of your hopes and memories, soliciting funds to finance the building of a sculpture representing all your failed dreams of a better life than this.

Meanwhile the small furry rodents of time are deserting all the sinking ships that were to take you across the seas of years into a future land you will now never see. Never will you even once feel the sands of its beaches under your bare feet.

Still, though, the mornings appear one after the other like the final demands for a life you never got around to using, leaving it with its windows curtained and its doors shut and bolted with all the future possibilities left piled under dust covers that you know you will never dare to lift again.

On the other hand, though, there are thousands upon thousands of web pages out there just waiting for you to alight upon them, so… what the hell, eh?

The Thing Falling out of the Sky Incident

'Then it came out of the sky like… like some kind of falling out of the sky thing…. And my first thought was something like… 'Bugger me; something has fallen out of the sky'!'

This scintillating description by bystander and eyewitness, Splunge Cheesestroker, of what later became known as The Thing Falling Out of the Sky Incident tells us all we need to know about that strange event that took place on June 23rd 1998 in a secluded woodland area just outside the exotic and mysterious West Midlands town of Walsall.

For several years, with so much mystery and secrecy surrounding the thing that had fallen out of the sky in the vicinity of Mr Cheesestroker, people began to suspect there must be some sort of cover-up and conspiracy.

Not long after the incident, the secluded woodland area was subjected to a painstaking search by conspiracy-theorists, alien investigators and paranormal detectives and many other such specialists in hoodwinking the gullible, all searching for an explanation of the mystery of that warm summer evening that could form the basis for a book, lecture tour or, even, a lucrative TV series.

Many investigators, quite naturally, suspected there must be a secret US base operating on British soil, either some place where the American armed forces were conducting covert – and quite possibly illegal – tests of some new ultra-secret weaponry, or were using the area as a forward base in their clandestine contacts with aliens.

The investigators soon dismissed the idea that there could be some kind of secret UK government facility in the area as there was absolutely no record of any UK government employee leaving a briefcase full of secret papers, a laptop, or memory stick contain full details about any such facility on public transport at any time in the recent past.

However, all that could be discovered - by even the most painstaking researchers - was a nearby naturist club, just yards from where Mr Cheesestroker had set up his bird-watching hide that fateful evening. Further investigations revealed that the naturist club had set aside an area for Frisbee games not far from the hide too.

However, most of the UFO investigators found that they became mysteriously hot and confused the closer they got to the Frisbee-playing area of the naturist club, with several of the investigators finding they needed to take a lie down, especially when the Naturist club's Under-30s Ladies Frisbee championship cup reached its later rounds.

Despite staying near the naturist club's Frisbee area – as well as the beach-ball and badminton courts - well into the evening, none of the investigators seemed to notice anything unusual falling out of the sky. However, when interviewed about their experiences that night, none of the investigators was able to speak coherently, with one of them only able to repeat: 'bouncy, bouncy' in a strange far-away voice whilst staring off towards the Naturist Ladies' Under-30 Frisbee champion as she danced around the court to celebrate her victory.

Therefore, it seems that the mystery of that summer night, and just what it was that fell out of the sky in the near vicinity of Mr Cheesestroker may never be solved.

The Big Laugh Theory

Still, you have to laugh, don't you, even if it is only at the misfortunes of others. At least that way we get to feel some sort of distance from those very misfortunes. Almost as if the laughter is some charm or ritual that will prevent those same, or similar, things happening to us instead.

Laughter is an odd thing though.

Laughing at the world, and all its slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, shows a greater understanding of the world and its capricious fates and accidents than most – if not all – the philosophers and sages have managed. The world will never make sense and it will trick us, trip us and trap us in hundreds and thousands of ways as we stumble through our lives walking into walls and stepping on discarded garden rakes, as we fall down holes and get hit full in the face by the custard pies of slapstick happenstance.

By way of example, it is obvious that the hassles and tribulations of human sexuality really can only make sense through the use of bawdy humour, the peculiarities of desire and the weirdness of wants are often too absurd for anything but humour.

The dirty joke is what makes us human and makes us aware of the essential silliness and arbitrary absurdity of our existence.

The universe did start with a big bang, but it soon turned into one big joke.

Times When Time Was

Time doesn't hold on to us, hold us so close as we once believed. Time goes on around us while we wait here, wait for it all to begin. There was a time when time itself seemed to wait for us, as though each day would wait impatient on the other side of the curtains for us to be up and ready for the day to take us by the hand and lead us out into the green and possible of the new world the morning had found for us.

Back then it seemed as though it could be our world to take and shape around us as though we had all the time that world could contain ready at our fingertips. All just waiting for our single word of command to set the whole thing flowing around us.

These days though time seems distant, as though it no longer wants us, or needs us. It is off somewhere else taking someone else's young days to wait for them. Nowadays, time is sullen, distant, carrying on without us, not really acknowledging us, just passing by beyond our reach, beyond our ability to take the day and shape it.

The days seem to be over, these days, before we've even had a chance to acknowledge them, let alone take them into our hands and feel the weight of possibilities they contain.

Warning over Lack of Fruit and Vegetables in Children's Lunch-Boxes

Parents are failing to put enough fruit and vegetables into their children's school lunch-boxes, recycling experts have warned. As one recycling expert said:

The EU has imposed some rather stringent recycling quotas on the UK and unless we do things like putting fresh fruit and vegetables into children's school lunch-boxes, which – almost certainly – ensures they will never be eaten we will not meet those targets.

As almost everyone knows children will do their utmost to make sure that anything that may be perceived as 'good for them' in their lunch-boxes will remain totally untouched for as long as it is allowed to remain in the lunch-box. This is a good way for parents to use up any fruit and vegetables they may have bought – often in a fit of naïve optimism - by first storing them in the child's lunch- box and then, later, emptying out that untouched fruit and vegetables into the recycling bin.



An education spokesperson also pointed out that putting fruit and vegetables into a child's lunch-box could also have positive educational benefits:

As all adults - who've had to clean out a child's lunch-box - know, after a few weeks in a child's lunch-box all the fruit and vegetables in there will have become a very interesting science project and one that is bound to fascinate most children. Although, we do try to make science as uninteresting as possible because – as teachers – most of us know next to nothing about the subject, we feel that something like this could easily be passed off as a project for the pupils to undertake on their own.

Furthermore, as a Government spokesman pointed out:

All of us in this country must do our bit must make sure we meet all EU targets, unless the UK is to lose its place as the country most likely to enforce EU laws no matter how stupid, expensive, pointless or self-contradictory.