David Hadley's Blog, page 93

The Nature of Magic

That is the thing with magic: it is not exact, it is not precise. It is about taking nature and twisting it into shapes you control… or, in most cases, try to control. Some people, mostly those who do not think about it, assume there is some separation between the human and the rest of the natural world. They see our cities, our armies, our universities, our markets and our brothels and how all that is so different to the rest of this world. They assume – and invent religions to explain – how mankind and nature are two: separate and distinct.

For those of us who look further, peer a bit deeper, into the nature of this world though, there is a difference. Look closely and you can see how the human connects to, and intertwines with, the rest of the natural world. We are no images of gods set down here to have mastery over the natural world. We are part of it… and if there were any gods, then they are long gone or indifferent.

The magic lies there, in the natural world. There are strands, threads, a careful observer can see, then learn how to grasp. In time – and with practice – it is possible to weave those threads together and – in more time with more practice -learn how to weave a cloth from those strands to throw over the world.

A mere conjurer, a magician, touring the inns and courts to entertain the drunks and carousers can do tricks. They can throw a cloth over some mundane items, perform some stage chicanery and pull back the cloth to reveal some change…. A maiden’s silk handkerchief becomes a dove… or something like that. Some call such mere conjuring magic and it is – in a way – the magic of illusion and diversion. But true magic, real magic, lies in the weaving of a cloth that we – the real magicians – throw over the world to change it fundamentally. And that, my students – is the art, the magic, you are all here to learn.

 

Summer Sale – All Books 77p Each

Now the traditional British summer is here, no doubt you will want something to do while you wait for the traditional summer rains to drown the traditional summer wasps and it is safe once more to venture outside.

What better way to spend all that time than reading?

Consequently for the rest of the summer (providing it lasts more than another couple of days) I am offering ALL my Kindle books for 77p each.

That is all 17 of them for 77p each.

Get them here (UK) or here (US)

This includes: novels, a short story collection, a novella, some individual short stories, a fair dollop of humour collections (and the Little Frigging in the Wold books) and a couple of collections of poetry.

All for 77p each.

What is more, if you want to trek all the way over to Smashwords, there are a couple there – more to be added soon – that are available absolutely FREE.

The Domestic Front

Not that anyone was aware at the time, of course. After all, one does not like to ask, especially when she has that look in her eye. And she is standing within easy reach of some of the larger and more brutal of her kitchen utensils.

However, the UN peacekeeping force was deployed over by the toaster. So there was little chance of us discussing tactics until they had all finished their morning coffee, donned their blue helmets and headed out onto the patio.

There were rumours – as there always is in war – that overnight there had been some suspicious activity in next-door’s garden, near the fence. Although, our border patrols had assured us that the integrity of the early-warning trellising had not been compromised. Nevertheless, there have been reports from our undercover teenager in the enemy camp that next door are experimenting with chemical warfare and investigating growth-boosting composts and extra-strong plant food for their leylandi.

However, our own plans for a weeping willow countermeasure move on apace as well as the undermining of their front-line garden fence defences. Even so, the use of the ultimate deterrent has not been ruled out. Although, just where we could deploy the garden gnomes to best effect still is in some dispute. Hence the lady wife taking up her positing near the rolling-pin in preparation for our morning tactical briefing.

I took a firm grip on my spade as she unrolled the plans of our garden onto the kitchen table. I’m always nervous when the time comes for the big push. Going over the fence into enemy territory is not for the feint-hearted, even under cover of darkness. After all, the neighbours – curse them – are well-known for the power of their patio lights. However, if I were to sabotage their barbecue grill before their planned all-night party at the weekend, I would have to move fast. Especially when negotiating the deadly climbing roses they have positioned on their side of the fence to counter such commando raids against their decking.

Still, as they say, this is war and certain sacrifices must be made. Whilst not exactly quaking in my combat wellies, I knew that there was a chance I may not make it back to our side of the fence in one piece, considering the size of the neighbour’s dog. I was also worried that if captured I would not be able to keep the secret of our invasion plans for the post- barbecue morning, especially if they caught me, invited me in for drinks and began their interrogation.

Seeing my concern, my wife opened the cake tin. ‘If you are captured,’ she said, using tongs to pass me the slice of cake, ‘eat this.’

I nodded, eyeing the cake.

‘One bite of that and you’ll not spill our secrets no matter how much they make you drink or how devious their questioning.’

‘Why?’

‘My mother made it.’

 

Now He Is Gone

It all comes to an end, eventually.

He was the one who showed us the way to go, revealing so many of this tired world’s secrets. He showed us there was still wonder in this world. So much left to see and do, even though this world has turned for all those billions of years.

He has gone now, lost to us. His ashes blow on the wind, taking him far away from us. He is gone, even though we hold those memories we have of him close, as if he was still here. We, the family no longer have him, but we have our memories of him, and of the stories he told us as we gathered at the end of the day around his fire.

He grew too old to work with us, too frail to spend time out where the work was done. But he never became a burden to us, not even in the hard times. Those stories he told were more valuable than crops or meat, or even the beer he needed to wet his throat as the stories curled around the fire’s smoke and lost on the breezes that blow.

He would tell us stories of storms and trials, heroes and legends and how the old gods failed us and were exiled from this land. Then he would look us all each in the eye, as he said this. His eyes burnt with conviction; the eyes of those who know what is really true. Saying we should never ever, when he was gone from us, allow those gods to return. For – as he said – the world is wondrous enough without them.

Although, without him to tell us such tales, the world does seem so much emptier these days.

 

The Far Shore

 The Far Shore

Now, look across the bay

to that far shore.

Now, open your hand

see the handful of sand you hold.

Now, let the sand sift

through your opening fingers.

Now, the sand is all gone,

turn and walk away.

Do not turn back to see

the mist as it descends

to hide that far shore.

For A Reason

 

‘Of course,’ the Emperor’s aide said, glancing across at his master and catching the subtle movement of an eyebrow. He sighed. ‘Of course,’ he repeated. ‘We in the court were very shocked to hear about your recent misadventure, High Sheriff.’

Glift tried to remember how to smile as his head nodded at the aide’s remarks. In Glift’s mind, an image of his favourite assassin’s blade slicing the aide’s throat wide open brought a bit more sincerity to his smile.

‘So, for the Emperor,’ the aide said, seeing the smile he was silent for a moment. ‘Where…? Oh, yes. For the Emperor, who is, of course, deeply concerned at your… er… misfortune, could you tell us what happened? How an Empire assasi… er… former assassin could be so overwhelmed… easily overwhelmed… by a few ruffians from the Warrens…?’ The aide relaxed his stance. There was also just a suggestion that one of the Emperor’s eyes flickered open for a moment.

Glift’s hand clenched by his side, in the place where the pommel of his sword would be if he was not in the Emperor’s presence. He glared at the aide. ‘There were too many of them.’

‘Too many? Too many for an assassin… a former assassin?’ The aide took a step back, looking away quickly as Glift made a quick move in his direction.

‘It was almost as if they were expecting me.’ Glift glided another step closer to the aide. ‘It was as if whoever it was who sent me, sent me there deliberately…’ Glift’s face was now less than a hand’s breadth from the face of the Aide. ‘Deliberately. Almost as if whoever sent me, sent me into a trap.’ Glift did not blink.

The aide blinked rapidly and swallowed twice before the words came to his lips. ‘I sent you there for a reason….’

‘I know that,’ Glift smiled at the Aide. ‘I’m just wondering what that reason was.’

 

I Folded the Night

I turned the night around her, making sheets of darkness fold over her nakedness. Then I took the light of stars to show her the path through the night, towards the dawn where I would wait to meet her.

She had to travel this folded night alone. Work her way through the maze of hours and darkness towards the dawn where I waited for her. We all have – sometimes in our lives – to walk the maze of the night alone. Only when we find our way through the lonely night do we come to understand what the light of the dawn means.

Of course, there are some who never walk the twisting corridors of the night, remembering nothing, except vague dreams of journeys undertaken through strange corridors, rooms, forests or cities and never arriving at any destination.

Unless they learn to break through the dreams into the world lying beyond and at an angle to this one, people never learn about the corridors of the night. Nor do they learn how the night can fold around them. Keeping them safe as they discover all the secrets inside the ancient rooms lying off these twisted corridors of the night.

So, there I stood in the dull orange dawn, watching the shadows retreating. Only knowing she would emerge out of the last, longest and darkest, corridor to be there with me. There she would let the folded blankets of the night fall from her as she rushed into my arms. Then, together, we could look back as the dawn flooded those corridors with its revealing light showing her all the secrets she could ever need.

 

Hand Grenade Juggling Considered As A Sport

Pogo Stiltoncheese is probably the UK’s leading exponent of the extreme sport known as grenade juggling. Although, most practitioners of such extreme sports usually have a career measured in minutes, if not seconds, Stiltoncheese has been thrilling audiences with her abilities, albeit it at a safe distance, for nearly two whole years, with only the loss of three fingers, two of them her own.

Consequently, despite stiff competition from several UK sportsmen and women who have recently taken up the sport, Stiltoncheese is still the UK’s champion. She is now looking for sponsorship from companies with an interest either in short-term personal accident insurance, or the resale of recently-detached body parts, to sponsor her as she competes to become the UK’s leading contender in the field. In particular, when Extreme Grenade Juggling becomes an officially-recognised sport at the next Olympic games in 2016 in Rio. That is, providing the Rio Olympic organisers can find the essential disused quarry close enough to the main Olympic areas, but out of shrapnel range, to stage the event.

Of course, since the invention of the grenade back in ancient times, right up until they became more common in warfare in the mid-19th century, the ability to juggle hand grenades has been an highly-prized ability in the armed forces. Albeit providing, of course, the juggler does remember to let go at the appropriate moment. Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on how close you are to the juggler at the time – it is a mistake that most grenade jugglers only ever make once in their careers.

However, Stiltoncheese herself, had an unconventional introduction to the sport. Usually competitors in this rather exacting discipline learn the art of grenade juggling in the armed forces. However, Stiltoncheese herself discovered what many regard as an innate ability to juggle dangerously explosive ordnance when, at the age of six, she came across her teenage brother’s discarded socks. Although, more volatile than a mere hand grenade, the teenager’s socks were not the sort of thing anyone would like to keep in their hands for an extended period, if at all. Thus did Stiltoncheese discover her innate juggling ability.

For most people, unless they discover with themselves a propensity towards juggling flaming batons or other suck dangerous materials, such an experience puts them off such activities for life. However, Stiltoncheese herself felt that such items did not go far enough, or satisfy her craving for juggling dangerous objects and materials that the early experience with those deadly socks engendered in her.

At around the age of ten, when out playing one day, digging holes in her grandparent’s garden, Stiltoncheese discovered an unexploded WWII hand grenade. She spent the rest of that afternoon learning how to juggle it, before having it taken from her by a very nervous army bomb disposal expert. This significant event established the direction of her future juggling career, from which she has never looked back.

We can only hope that, if she survives the qualifying competitions, and the necessarily rigorous training sessions, between now and Rio 2016, that Stiltoncheese will bring home gold for Britain at long last.

 

Written In The Sand

So many words heaped up here into these shapes. Sculptures left here in this desert and scoured by the wind. Each word carved out of an unwilling stone and then dragged here through these trudging dunes in the teeth of the unceasing wind. Then we place them here as though these heaps of carved words could signify something.

Back in the times of our ancestors, when words used to mean something, they would create new meaning through their sculptures. They used the words to say something they thought important, say something they thought mattered.

These days, though, we no longer look for meaning, either in the words themselves or what they say beyond themselves. We know we are not speaking to anyone. There is no-one out these to read these messages.

Why it began, no-one can remember. Some say the ancient ones wanted to speak to the gods. Others claim the first men were descendants of travellers of the dark skies. Travellers who passed between the stars looking for lands where they could begin again.

Of course, most of us do not believe in gods. After all, what god would inflict a land like this on its creation? The same goes for those star travellers who started a new world here. They would not want to inflict a life as harsh and unforgiving on their children or their children’s children.

All I know is that the first messages we have uncovered from underneath these burying sands are cries for help and pleas for rescue. I begin to wonder too if that is why we carry on, a longing for some escape from these harsh and deadly lands.

 

Socks

Socks

Martin could hear the sound of distant drawers from the bedroom upstairs, Sally opening them; noisily rummaging through them and then ramming them shut again.

“Socks! I said: socks!” Sally yelled down the stairs.

“Socks?” Martin replied walking across to the bottom of the stairs and looking up.

Sally appeared on the landing and stared back down at him, hands on her hips. “Yes, darling – socks. Is that too difficult for you to understand?”

Martin noticed she was clutching a pair of his underpants in one hand. “Well… frankly, yes. I mean… well, you’ve never mentioned socks before.”

“I did, once.” Sally said, sitting down on the top step, smoothing out then folding the pair of Martin’s underpants on her lap as she spoke. “Can you remember? It was that time we were on holiday… in that place… where was it? You know, where we had that ice-cream?”

Martin thought for a moment. “Oh, there! Er… thingy. What about it?”

“That was the place where you wanted to do it on the beach at midnight. We walked… well, you stumbled… I think you must have drunk most of that bottle of wine yourself…. Anyway, we got all the way down to the beach – it took us ages to cross that road, even at that time of the night. And then… then when we got there… when we got there… there was no bloody beach! The tide was right in, right up against the sea wall at the edge of the road. We would’ve had to strip off in the middle of the bloody dual-carriageway – or whatever they are called over there. You were in a really foul mood, and me – I couldn’t stop laughing… giggling. Maybe I’d had a bit too much to drink too and – of course – that made you even more of a miserable bastard than usual.”

“Anyway Sal….” Martin said abruptly, breaking her reverie. “What were we talking about?”

“Socks… I think.”

“Oh right.” Martin looked up at his wife. “But what has not finding my socks got to do with that holiday?”

“That was the time when you kept losing all your socks, can’t you remember?” She seemed surprised that Martin could not remember such a momentous event in their marriage. She shrugged, dismissing his puzzled frown. “I found them all on the last day, remember? They’d fallen down the back of the drawer in the hotel room. You know… for some reason I was never able to fathom… the drawers in that hotel room didn’t have proper backs on them. So whenever….”

“Yes, yes… right.” Martin interrupted, before she moved on to some other memory. “Listen Sal, I’ve got to…. y’know… I don’t want to get stuck in the rush hour traffic again?”

“Yes, sorry darling…. Right.” She stood up, showing him the now neatly folded underpants. “I think that is everything, apart from the socks, that is.”

A few minutes later, Martin knelt in front of his full suitcase, checking it was fastened securely. He picked it up, sighing at its weight. “Right then, I’m off. Sorry about the… well, the short notice. But y’know….”

Sally stepped forward, almost formally, to kiss him. “Yes, darling, it’s all right. Have a good trip and don’t forget to ring this time. At least, if only to let me know how long you’ll be gone.”

Martin glanced at his watch. Realising he was running late, he rushed to open the front door, turning to face Sally as he eased his case through it. “Yes. Right. Okay. Bye Sal. Kiss? Bye.” The door slammed behind him and Sally heard a final muffled “Bye” from behind the closed door.

“Hopeless.” Sally sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know how he’d manage without me…. Certainly wouldn’t have any socks, that’s for sure.” She picked up the phone as she sat down on the sofa, tucking her feet up under herself. She dialled the number without glancing at the buttons she was pressing.

“Hello… is that you?” she said when the phone was answered. “Yes, he’s just left….”

[Continues on Wattpad here)