David Hadley's Blog, page 88

Lady In Waiting

She was waiting. Sometimes it seemed as if waiting was her life, all she’d ever known. There were the long years of childhood, waiting to be a grown-up. Year after years of lessons and accomplishment, gaining all those skills and abilities a well-born young lady should possess to bring something beyond her good name to the marriage bargain.

Then there were the teenage years. When she was younger, the court-life seemed the height of sophistication and glamour to her, a time when she would be both young and grown-up. She discovered though, that the courtly feasts, dances and other entertainments were there mainly as a cover.  It was a place where men of all ages became emboldened by the wine and the occasion, wanting to take her youth for themselves. The only interest they had in fashionable gowns was what she would look like without it on, or – at the very least – how easy it was for them to get their wandering hands inside it.

After that came her wedding. She was fortunate that she’d met her groom – once – before the wedding. She remembered her wedding feast as another of those interminable eating, drinking and falling over on the dance floor events. Another time where – even as the new bride – she was not safe from those wandering hands.

Later, sitting up alone in the marriage bed, she’d begun to wish she’d given in to at least one of the drunken lechers. Especially when she learnt from her maid that her new husband had passed out in the bed of his current favourite stable-boy.

Now she’d been waiting for her husband to come home from the wars. She wondered if her years of waiting would now soon be over, at least when the carriage containing her husband’s coffin, at last, returned to his family home.

 

Celebrity Fads

Skinnydip Watercourse is these days probably the UK’s leading exponent of the celebrity fad. Once almost famous for playing a minor role in a daytime soap, Watercourse became a fixture on the celebrity panel-show circuit several years ago. This was after, famously, the Metropolitan Police’s Anti-Celebrity Squad caught her doing something undisclosed with a Swedish Plumber in the immediate vicinity of a malfunctioning washing machine. Of course, this is illegal under the EU’s long-standing Tabloid Cliché laws. Consequently, it resulted in Watercourse herself receiving a sentence of seventeen years on the notoriously harsh celebrity chat show circuit. There she had to perform hard labour by coming up with countless mildly-amusing anecdotes and coy references to her brush with the forces of law and order. When there she often utilised several innuendos about what she would do with any hunky plumbers in the live studio audience, if the show’s host dared bring a malfunctioning washing machine onto the stage.

This somewhat harsh sentence did rehabilitate Watercourse and made her into a putative celebrity. However, it was not all plain sailing for Watercourse. Mainly because her agent could not decide whether her audience demographic would prefer her to recover publicly from a drink or a drug ‘hell’. Especially so when the agent discovered to his horror that Watercourse did not like drinking and had a morbid fear of drugs. Apparently, this was due to an unfortunate childhood experience involving her pet guppy and a horse tranquilliser. An event she still will not speak of in any detail, despite her many years on the unforgiving chat show circuit and some very lucrative offers for a ‘tell-all’ exclusive from several tabloid newspapers.

However, Watercourse, much to her agent’s relief, had developed a serious Cornish pasty addiction. This is mainly because of spending so many years on the chat show circuit. A milieu where the open consumption of Cornish pasties is endemic in the dressing rooms and green rooms of most of the Western world’s TV studios.

Consequently, Watercourse had put on some weight. Fortunately, it was enough for her to become a regular in the ‘My Bikini Hell’ feature in the Sidebars Of Shame of most of the UK’s tabloid and celebrity websites.

Watercourse tearfully confessed she’d piled on an incredible 0.75 of a gram due to her pasty habit live on TV. She then swore that she would go on a diet to remove the stigma and horror of her weight gain ‘for my many fans who don’t deserve to see me like this.’

She went on to announce the release of a TV series, book, DVD, Diet Club sign-up website and other marketing opportunities. All these would give her many fans worldwide an opportunity to join her in her quest for the ultimate hot super-body. She added that the merchandise would all be available just in time for next Christmas. Just at the right time for her fans to make their New Me New Year’s Resolutions.

 

Memory Stones

The words themselves are just standing there in the desert. Describing nothing, they stand as monuments: separate, unconnected, devoid of meaning. I do not have the strength to dig them out of the wind-blown sand, to move them and make shapes out of them, shapes both pleasing and sensible.

I carve the shapes, the words, from the rocks I find as I wander the desert, leaving them where I find them. This desert – in the valley between the two hills – is now littered with the words I have carved, some almost buried by the wind-shifted sand. They stand like statues or monoliths, isolated from each other by the uneven rise and fall of the dunes at the valley sides.

Down there, on the plain, there are other carved stone words, left where I tried to arrange them, tried to find some meaning amongst them. I gave up on that a long time ago. The heat made it too hard to shift the heavy stones. The words lie where I last moved them, half-formed sentences and phrases – nothing more.

I used to want to form patterns, pleasing patterns, find meaning among these stones. But now, once they are carved, I leave them, feeling I have done enough.

The woman in white stands watching from the opposite hillside. Her dark hair and long flowing white dress fluttering like banners in the breeze. At her side, the black panther sits patiently, the pupils of its eyes slits against the bright sunlight.

I tried, once, to go to speak with the woman. As I climbed the hillside the panther stood and strained against its chain. I saw the woman’s hand tighten on the lead as she held up her other hand for me to stop. I knew she meant it, and I could hear the low purring growl of the panther as its pupils widened. I paused, then turned back. At the bottom of the hill, I turned again and looked back. The panther was sitting down once more, relaxed, and the woman was watching me carefully.

Twice every day another woman – totally hairless – and naked, except for a leather collar arrives. She carries a decanter of red wine and a glass on a silver tray to the woman in white. She waits, motionless, next to the black panther as the woman in white sips the wine. Only two glasses – always just two glasses. Then the hairless woman climbs sedately back over the brow of the hill and out of sight.

[Continues on Wattpad here]

The War Was Long Over

By then, the war was long over. The land itself had begun to heal. The grass reclaimed the ruins and the bodies turned to bones that time slowly buried. The battlefields were lost and then would have been forgotten had not the memories been so strong.

I limped around the field where both my sons had fallen. Their bodies were taken back to the Tower for interment in the catacombs long ago. Now they lay, there next to so many of those from our family who had died in too many wars. My wife, and their mother, both kneel there, day after day, as though waiting for them to return to their bodies, but they will never come back.

Me, I haunt this battlefield limping amongst the ghosts and the memories, searching for the moment, the instant, looking for that mistake I’d made that had taken my boys from me.

We thought we’d won the battle, that we’d won the war. But I see it in reflections where my dead eyes stare back at me. I see it in the eyes of my wife and the eyes of the mother of my sons. I see it in the eyes of all the wives and mothers waiting for boys and men who will never come home. Most of all, though, I see it in the eyes of those of us who live, survive, those of us who won the day and still feel as though we’ve lost everything.

 

Saving It All Up

I hadn’t seen one before. Not up close. Even though I knew I wanted one and I even felt like I needed one, I wasn’t sure why I wanted, needed, one.

Back at the shelter, those who had one often kept those of us without one at a distance. They called us singles and tended not to associate with us. The ones with one only socialised, out of work hours, with one another, or they’d just spend time alone with theirs in their rooms.

After all, they do cost a great deal of money. So, I assumed once you got one, you’d want to spend time with it. At least, you’d want to get your money’s worth from it.

Not only that, something so valuable and rare always arouses interest. Especially from those who don’t have one, for whatever reason. So, as I grew nearer, closer, to affording one of my own I began to understand why those who already have one keep them out of the reach of those of us without one.

You can see it every time you get something new, some new tool or new shirt, people come around to have a look, take a feel, and offer their opinions.

There are always those too, who will try to take what doesn’t belong to them. They are the worst. Those, and the ones who think that just because they don’t have something, then no-one else should have that thing either. They are the worst because they never see – never admit, especially to themselves – why someone else has something and they do not.

Someone else has that something, whatever it is, usually because they’ve worked for it, saved for it, strived for it, given up other things to get it. But the thieves and the jealous types do not see it this way. They think they are going without because the others have cheated them some way.

All I know is that I gave up drinking and gaming seven years ago to save for one.

So – at last – I’d got the money all saved. So, one day soon I was going out and I was going to buy myself a wife.

 

Watching Over Us All

There were times, back before these hollow skies, when we thought that up there, there were beings watching over us. We thought every wrong deed, every cruel action, or bad thought would bring punishment down upon us. We thought virtue would bring rewards, while kindness and compassion recorded and each noble action credited. We thought, at least for a while, there must be some great cosmic ledger held up there above us all, making sure good was rewarded and bad was punished.

No-one knew why we thought such a situation as absurd as it now seems. No-one ever questioned that life must have some reason, some purpose. Even if that reason and purpose was opaque to us. Part of some plan for the greater good of us all created and followed by our sky benefactors.

Then it all changed when our first rockets breached the atmosphere and discovered what was up there, above our heads.

At first, everyone was too stunned to make sense of it. Even the leaders of the religions who’d promised us all there were beings up there watching over us and judging all we do, could not make sense of it either.

There was, for a while, though, a consensus to steer clear of the ring of ancient satellites orbiting our home planet. We assumed they were still active and watching our every move. There were even some who expected some final day, some Armageddon, now we had discovered we had been watched all this time.

But nothing happened.

No-one detected any signals from the satellites, either down to the planet’s surface, or out into space. Slowly, carefully, space missions moved closer and closer to the satellites. Some people, if not all of us, expected that this would be the one act too far and some severe retribution would fall on us all.

But nothing happened.

Eventually a mission – after long debate – docked with one of these satellites. This confirmed it. The satellite, as were all the others, was dead, long dead. So no one was watching us after all.

It was then we began to look up into the sky, while telescopes peered far into space, in the search for where those satellites had come from so long ago. We wanted to know just why they’d watched us and why no one cared that they’d stopped working so long ago.

 

Free Kindle Book – How I Became The Fat Bloke & Other Stories

Free for the next five days:
How I Became The Fat Bloke
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How I Became the Fat Bloke and Other Stories is a collection of 19 short stories by David Hadley, including – in the title story – how one man realises what he had become while his attention was elsewhere. Socks – you should always be careful about who you let buy your socks for you, just in case they remember and you don’t. The Mystery of the Lupins – what happens when a woman wearing only a coat and carrying flowers turns up at your door. Barn – a nightmare that becomes a bit too real. Mermaid – the tale of a mystery woman and her daily ritual on the early-morning deserted beach and many more fascinating, memorable and involving stories.

 Free for the next five days:
How I Became The Fat Bloke
& Other Stories

 Available FREE for the Kindle here (UK) and here (US)

 

Not Into The Light

Not Into The Light

Our expectations are left hollowed out

Like the star-pitted sky. Our hands are cold

And numb as the deepest, darkest, winter night.

We look around for a light to lead us on.

A new direction we can take from here.

But there is nothing, only darkness holding

The deeper shadows that lie beyond the dark.

There’s no way back from here into the light

Of a new day. We only wait for the dawn

To take some pity upon us and lead

The way out into a world made light again.

The Greatest Explorer Of Our Time

Undoubtedly, the UK’s leading contemporary explorer is Lord Traipser Meandering. Meandering and his team of fellow adventurers have explored some of the most dangerous, out of the way places in the world. Not only that, they have also brought back plenty of evidence from those far-flung places, enabling us to learn a great deal about some of the most mysterious regions on Earth.

Just last week, Lord Meandering and the two other survivors of his party arrived back at base camp after what must be their most gruelling and dangerous feat of exploration so far.

Meandering and his team now go down in the record books. For they are the only explorers to enter an Ikea store and emerge less than three weeks later with only the item they originally went in there to buy. Unfortunately, they lost two members of the original team in tragic circumstances. One fell from the top of a bookcase into a wardrobe and never seen again. The other is believed lost under a sudden avalanche of mattresses during a freak unexpected January sale. This saw the entire team blown off course for several days by a rogue two for the price of one offer on a discontinued line of table lamps.

However, the discipline of the team paid off and they managed to get through the Ikea without further loss of life. On the way, they also discovered the mystical source of the meatballs, as well as producing the first accurate map of the fabled Land of the Sofas. A mysterious place rumoured to have some of the most comfortable sofas in the history of the world and all at reasonable prices.

Afterwards, the world’s media photographed and interviewed the jubilant survivors of the expedition in the Ikea car park. The team were brandishing the very bookcase they had entered that dangerous region to hunt for. Many had doubted if a mere five-man team, without specialised furnishing experience, could survive the hostile environment and come out without at least a set of unnecessary cut-price kitchen utensils. But, yet again, Lord Meandering and his team proved the doubters wrong.

However, that is not the end of Meandering’s thirst for exploration in the world’s most dangerous and uncharted regions. Only a few days after the great Ikea expedition was over, he was already talking of exploring the unmapped wasteland of his local shopping mall car park. Mainly to see if he could discover the whereabouts of a fabled Ford Galaxy last seen parked there back in the late 1990s.

The whole world wishes Lord Meandering and his team well in this new quest and we hope that one day soon that fabled car will be returned to civilisation once again.

 

Interceding

‘It’s for you.’

Albert opened one eye. ‘I was just….’ He waved a hand as if to convey some lofty thought process. ‘I was just thinking.’

‘Yes, I thought you were.’ His wife smiled. ‘I could hear the snores.’ She folded her arms. ‘Anyway, it’s for you.’

‘Who is it?’ Albert said. But she’d already walked away and he didn’t want to shout. He remembered what happened last time he’d tried shouting at his wife who was absolutely certain she wasn’t going deaf, no matter what he said… or more often, these days, shouted.

Albert got to his feet and made his way to the communicator.

‘Oh, it’s you.’ He spoke without much enthusiasm when he saw who wanted to speak to him.

‘Lord.’ The elaborately dressed man bowed obsequiously. There was just a hint in the elaborate gestures to suggest that he thought himself too grand for such displays, but only did them because his interlocutor expected them.

‘So, God-Botherer General Spiggings…. What can I do for you today?’ Albert settled in his throne of God and switched the communicator to manifest so Spiggings could see him. Albert had decided that manifesting himself to the mortals was so much better than all the other alternatives, especially after that misunderstanding with the burning bush.

‘Lord, I beg you to smite your enemies. The blasphemers are at it again.’

Albert sighed. ‘Oh, them… what are they doing now?’

‘They are taking your name in vain, oh, Lord. You must smite them… now!’

‘Must I?’

‘Oh, yes. It is written.’ The God-Botherer General thumped the holy book next to him with his fist, raising a cloud of dust. ‘It is your Holy Law!’

‘Oh.’ Albert sighed. He had the feeling it was going to be yet another of those days.