David Hadley's Blog, page 66

New Kindle Novel Out Now: What Dreams May Come

What Dreams May Come Available here (UK) or here (US) Special Low Launch Price: £0.99/$1.57 Dreams are dangerous things. After a mental collapse forces him to sell his software company, entrepreneur Stephen Parker retreats to the quiet coastal village of … Continue reading →

Yet Another Sports Doping Scandal

Until recently, Spigot Trimbleweasel was little known outside the rather arcane world of trilobite racing. All this changed a few weeks ago, when another doping scandal rocked the world of trilobite racing once again. Investigations discovered that Trimbleweasel and seven … Continue reading →

Vaguely Scientific-Sounding Bollocks

Isosceles Toadimplication is, of course, the world’s leading exponent of making vaguely scientific-sounding bollocks for the world’s media. Apparently, a great many, if not the majority, of consumers of the world’s media do like to see some vaguely scientific-sounding bollocks … Continue reading →

All-Nude Chicken Intriguing in the 21st Century

Towpath Pencileraser is probably this country’s leading star all-nude chicken intriguer. Many fans of the sport claim that they have not seen a woman with such a natural chicken-intriguing ability since the heyday of the legendary Nasturtium Cheeseincident. Famously, Cheeseincident … Continue reading →

A New Fashion Revolution

Pomegranate Hamsterdisestablishmentarianism is – probably – the UK’s newest fashion sensation. At the last London fashion show, she wowed audiences at the catwalk with a stunning display of items she called ‘clothes’. Many of the fashion journalists and commentators there … Continue reading →

Modern Visions

Modern Visions They had visions, dreams of modernity. A land of electricity and efficiency. Cold concrete towering over small lives About busy purposeful progress in streets So far below. Like insignificant creatures Of some nest crawling about the earth For … Continue reading →

Pointless Unnecessary Tat and its Origins

Audition Instantsoup is probably the UK’s leading designer of unnecessary tat. For a long time, throughout history unnecessary tat was never much of a seller. Such items as garlic ticklers, soup accelerators, melon disambiguation engines and beansprout socks were never … Continue reading →

The Dying City

It was a tired city, an old city. Some thought it was as old as the river that flowed through it, and sometimes over it. It hung there at the base of the mountains as though it had grown out … Continue reading →

She Stops

She Stops

She stops, her hunger unsatisfied

By all the goods on display.

Easy purchase for the empty soul.

She stops, her needs unsatisfied

By all the attention given

By many men eager to hold her name.

She stops, her desire unsatisfied

By all the hollow satisfactions offered

For her hungry mind to feed on.

She stops, her eyes searching

The bluest of endless skies

To watch a hawk flying free across the clouds.

She stops, she smiles at last

And turns again to face

The growing possibility of another new day.

 

Filed under: Environment, Events, Journeys, Moments, Monday poem, Mystery, Nature, Places, Poems, Poetry, Popular Culture, Possibilities, Secrets, Sky, Society, Time, Words Tagged: poem, poetry, words, writing

A Room of Her Own

It was another morning. She got out of bed reluctantly. There seemed little point now. Nothing changed.

At first, she had been frightened, curled up on the bed, shivering in fear, starting at each occasional slight noise from beyond the door. In those early days, she felt as though she did not sleep. She lay turned on her side her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them. She watched the sliver of sky she could just glimpse through the small barred window high on the wall, opposite the huge wooden door.

She was a prisoner she knew that. The door never opened. Her food and a jug of water appeared through a small slot on the bottom of the door. Later, the empty plate and jug were retrieved the same way. In the opposite corner to her bed, there was a stone pedestal with a hole.

The bed was the only furniture and she still wore the same, now-ragged, dress she’d been wearing as she scoured the woods for nuts, berries and anything else edible on that last free morning.

She didn’t know how long she’d been here; she’d lost count of the days. There had been a time, after nothing too bad had happened and the days of fear faded, when she thought discipline and routine would be the answer. She had tired of just lying on the bed.

For a few days she got up at dawn, ate and drank, then yelled through the door for some water to wash herself. A jug of water and a rag had appeared. It was cold, icy water, but enough to wash herself and her dress.

Then she’d spent time walking, exercising, trying to remember everything she could, to keep her mind alive and looking for ways to escape.

Those days passed too, without change and now she just waited for something to happen.

Then, one bright morning, when she could hear birds signing as the sky reddened into dawn, she got up from her bed, sensing something had changed.

She looked around in the early morning gloom. The floor was bare. There was no breakfast or washing jug and rag.

It took her a moment or two of staring at the door to realise it was open. She did not dare to believe her eyes at first. She had dreamt of that door opening one day. The day when she would solve the mystery of why she was taken, and who had taken her, when she stepped beyond that closed door.

Now that time had come, but she could not move from her bed. She knew she should get up, go to the door and see what lay beyond it, but she could not.

Filed under: Days, Environment, Events, Fantasy, Fear, Fiction, Fragments, Moments, Mystery, Places, Possibilities, Secrets, Stories, Time Tagged: fantasy, fiction, prisoner, writing