Sequential

The other day I went to the pharmacy, the old one on the block.. the one we used to go to.

Can you believe it, when I went there, the same old folks were there... after such a long time.

After such a long time, the same people serving behind the counter, maintaining the place, pleasing the customers, dancing with life.

I looked out that same old windowpane and what did I see?  That's right, nothing had changed!  After all this time, it was still there.  That view, the same people, not much altered, not much gained.  I looked and, although the view was the same, if not more beautiful, more scenic, more enticing than before, more fully grown, flourished and in bloom, there was also something different.  As I stared, and stared and wanted to stare more... I wanted to look again, for longer, forever, again and again.  I wanted to look out there for a long time!  The view, just suddenly disappeared.  Like an overcast shadow, the blind was dropped.  The same old man closed the view.  I couldn't work out why and in my astonishment I began to question loudly and harshly... 'Madam,' he informed me politely.  They will soon be closing up the view on this side of the building permanently, forever.  There is a new windowpane that will be installed on the other side of the building.  The view was lost, gone forever, like a part of the old pharmacy and its history, the foundation that began with it, would be without it and I was sure it would never quite be the same. 

Circle of Women

The women gathered together and it was, together, that they talked of lives that were lived...

For each of them, each women, they led a life and had a life to be lived, each one in their own home and within their own world.

There was Rebecca, Julie, Macey and Bobbie.  Each one of them had their own ideas, values, some without,  notions of the world how it should have been or is, how they would have it, and each one of them had their own set of problems... oh yeah, each one.  

They rubbed ideas off of one another and saw that they all had something to be grateful for and something that the other had, that frankly, they would not like to have. Together, all of them, had lives to live, things to be appreciative of, and others not, but overall they had lives, that they did live.  Together they would live aside one another and grow and develop and build friendships ... this one different to that one, this one doing it differently to that one, yet it didn't matter.  They would all live and grow, together, all of them, alongside one another, yes, with their different ideas and different ways of doing things.

They laughed, joked, drank tea, shared some similarities of the day and together, all of them, the women, they knew they were bonded and yoked in some ways, ways of life and living, that we all had to live.  All of us.

Summer and Winter

Summer is here and winter is coming, it is soon approaching...
For now the skyline touches the tops of the roofs of the local houses by evening and early morning with a golden fingertip of orange light.
The air is cool, crisp and fresh on the evening, at the end of the day, a hot day in early September whilst summer still lingers.  Tomorrow, the end of the week draws nearer and nearer and eventually, not too long off, the end of the year.
We live in a 'full' country where there is 'much' and we are well and we are young, still, believe it or not.
Life is full, busy, accumulating multiple schedules from this one and that - each one with their way, their own things to do, their own lot and their own dreams. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I tell you, will tell another tale and bring on a new day wherein all sorts of surprises await us and dreams lie in wait.  What did you do with your past years and what do you plan to do with the rest?

ART

1. The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination

THIS IS ART, AND WRITING IS ART... IT IS ART, EXACTLY THUS... CREATIVE, ARTFUL AND MAKING USE AND APPLICATION OF THE IMAGINATION AND EXPRESSION, AT TIMES EXAGGERATION.... ART IS ALSO DRAMATIC, EMOTIONAL AND EXPLICITLY EXPRESSIVE, NOT DEFINED AS DARK....

ART IS TO BE USED, EXPLORED, ENJOYED AND FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO PARTAKE IN ITS ART (FOR THEIR ENJOYMENT ONLY)... THE SKILL AND FUNCTION OF WEAVING WORDS, OR OTHER...

ART IS TO BE VALUED, TREASURED, APPRECIATED, PROLONGED AND ENJOYED BY US

A Meeting

The boy decided he had had enough.  He would soon have to make a decision about whether to stay or to go.  He looked one last time around the room and realised that he held no connection with anything around the room at all.  Nothing there held him to the place and there wasn't much that held sentimental value.

It was one of those cold London days when the sky looked as if it might turn black.  How odd the season had been with the weather following its own destiny from bright sunshine one day to jet black the next.  He thought for a moment about what he could have done differently and yet nothing came to mind.  It was as if he was living in a dark and dank prison cell whilst he had lived on this street and in these conditions.  

Times like this were desperate and the strangling relationships he found himself in were the final knot that twisted his stomach into coils that seemed as if they would never unwind.  How ironic it had been that this was the first place he had met them, in this apartment block, and on that mild day in autumn.  The sun was neither hot nor cool, it was just autumnal sun.  A usual day that held no outstanding memories or extraordinary happenings.

It has been a Tuesday when the estate agent sought to show him around a couple of vacant apartments in the block.  He had been a strange fellow himself, the estate agent with a peculiar scent, and clothes that dated back to the 1920's.  He was a short man with an unusual confidence which he used when speaking rather loudly and assuredly, standing as close to his victim as possible.

It was unfortunate that he was one of those people who came across as not owning a toothbrush or if he did, his wife might have dipped it into the lavatory water.  In this case, it simply couldn't have just been the lav water, it must have been a swathe in urine.  On that Tuesday, he had seen them coming for a long time before they reached him and he found that he was staring.

It wasn't that he was transfixed or drawn, it was just that his head had paused in motion and would not move from that position.  His eyes settled on them and they would not remove themselves.  He did not know why and he still did not.  It was one of those fatal moments of life when things happen and frankly you have nothing to do with it at all.  There was no element of choice or decision making process.  It was just as it has been told, it was just like this.  

Cottage

The manicured English grounds were perfect in the low setting sun of the now wintry season as the end of the year approached.  In this light, and impeccable setting, the cottage stood.  There it stood, and had done so for many years before, behind the white stable door that led to its interior.  Once a writer's abode and now once again inhabited by another one.  The cottage, small and quaint, warmed by a log fire in the heart of it.

They had done it, they had caused it, they had set fire to what was now blazing and soaring in insurmountable flames - did they know, did they care, could they heal it... they could not and many would say would not. 

Yet here in the cottage, surrounded by the beautiful green lands, the horses, the fields, green houses and historic features... the setting set a pace for rare moments of tranquility and an opportunity for the lungs to open wide and inhale the crisp winter air.

The trip drew nearer and upon that bird they would soar to other heights.

One Room

The sky is out there, vast and hovering over the earth which narrows, almost zooming into focus.  There is the location, a particular spot on the map.  Not only a small village but an even narrower vision of a room in a home.  The person is there, sitting and busy, with a torch shining on the busyness. 

Wrestless, waiting and agonised in these hours.

Gaping, gawking and a kind of frantic sense about that is restless.

The largeness and otherliness of the Great Wide World zooms from such magnitude to this tiny space of existence in but One Room.

It is here that everything happens and must happen.  Yes, everything.

All kinds of things which constitute a daily existence, a weekly and even monthly.

All in One Room. 

Not like other people and even houses next door who enjoy a life in many rooms.

There isn't a lock on the door and yet it's as if the strictest system is hemming us in for life-long imprisonment.  There was no force involved and somehow our free will has brought us to hell.

The letters and choices that decided this place are... well, where are THEY even?

The album, we cannot do.

The photo frame, shattered.

The message book, an abandoned project.

There isn't anymore.

We are there.  One Room, not at the start, or end, or even in motion.

The windowsill is full.  Everything is full, tight, occupied and cluttered.

They have their place.  Each thing.

Organised chaos surrounds the One Room.  Our lives, spent in One Room.

Five months, it didn't take long.

See-saw, see-saw, 'which' door.

We go up and stars twinkle above our foreheads as if they might never go out and gently caress the brow... wanting to stay... wanting more... to brush the fringe of the human head with gentle, loving fingertips.

Wham, it flies down.  Thud.

The devil is there.  He is laughing.  And more.

He is eating into our flesh.

One Room.  How sweet you look today in your organised way of being... of being, re-assembled.

Tonight you are quiet, very, very quiet.

You know don't you.

The writing is there, written word after word, all over your mind.  A mind full of words.

The zoning in view from the top of the earth, the heavens, read them.

Slowly, they read and stop with a deep breath.  They are not confused, they are not shocked, they are saddened and frustrated.

A dim light shines, flickers, goes out, re-appears.  Sometimes it seems it never ever ever will.  Momentarily pervades the darkness.  The lingering dark goes on for... almost ever.

One Room.  You are warm.  The season is changing.  You once brought something so different, did I mention VERY.

Walls of colourless substance you have watched me for six and a half years.

I'm sure you are not proud today, not here, not now, One Room.

Do you remember?  Not even that helps.

One Room.

Notebook

This is a great notebook in which I can write anything I like.  It's not a notebook for a certain subject - it's just for any old dam thing.  It's great to spend time on the page - baby sleeps momentarily and I have accomplished much for the day.

The sun is out but this house is chilly.  There are new things, places, people and seasons.  Everything I once had and loved has now altered.  What a season.  A chapter closes and the current season continues to test us to the limit. 

We are dynamite - us humans - with the possiblity of detonation at any given point.  Only God truly knows us and only God is truly trustworthy. 

August.

A new month in which old things pass away and new things spring to life... Here we go.

The past is no longer and can never be.

The future is our hope, destiny and my gem.

The Face

The face looked at me, it glanced at and away.  At times the glance became a stare - one of those that drink in every detail.  It wasn't unnerving, it was more telling, of the face and myself, like looking into a stream and seeing your own reflection.  The face faced me and I saw me facing myself.

LETTERS TO FRANK

March

Fragments of memory and limescale collide. Moments, time and two parts forged together. The time was rotten like meat that had been forgotten for months. The horror of the bombshells like war in Germany – the horrific scenes of mutilated flesh and chambers of gas. The cruel intensity of suffocation and what a human body does not endure.

How can anyone give advice or know right from wrong – no man truly knows. No man truly knows himself nevermind another.

It is one day, and one day at a time only, that reflections start to submerge or at least dwindle into a fainter existence. Reflections of them all, not worth mentioning, for the pain they transport. Reflections of a short semester of life being ripped out and apart at points where raw flesh would be left. A reminder, or course, of the torment and agony of such an existence.

Unreliability like the worst sailor at sea, who never knew what it was to mature. How can they expect me to digest these things, to travel smoothly forwards on the path as if the wall of China had not just been destroyed. Frank you never did grow up, although you thought your mind an ageing man, what of the rest? Single kids are selfish, they say, and true to the saying, I’d say.

April

They didn’t tell me Frank, I mean, they didn’t tell me things would be like this. They didn’t tell me things would go this way. Did you know Frank? You did, didn’t you? I can’t believe you never told me – how could you Frank?

May

It’s Monday, who knows what the date is… near to a time of celebration on the calendar and this year I’m not even counting the days.

Nobody knows about the country I’m in, a far and distant land with unchartered waters and undiscovered zones.

You know, it’s not even about Ziola. It’s about the friction and the now terrible festering wounds. The puss is there, flowing and oozing, making the body gag.

None of this existed before I met THEM, and of course it is plural. A horrible little triangle. Oh Frank, I hate the triangle – don’t counsel me to return to it. Triangles don’t work in the natural. Tell me Frank, what do you honestly think?

Will you let me know, find out if Mava agrees – she always did have a great sensitivity for these things. It’s just that … now, it’s my life we’re talking about. My life that seems to have been blocked and stopped, like a clock that stops ticking. I don’t even think it’s the batteries, I think it’s broken, completely broken.

Can Mava fix that?

Really Frank you know me, and I think I just really love to be alone. Especially in comparison to what some ‘togetherness’ can constitute.

It’s me, you know Frank. Not some horrible person. Remember how we used to tallk for hours as the sun set over the coffee house. Life was eternal and the beginning. The days of ‘anything can be achieved,’ and ‘anything could be conquered.’

Now, well, I can’t even write it Frank nevermind say it. Of course my life is no longer my own and has been utterly ransacked. And I know how it goes – the honeymoon is pretense, a reeling in of an unsuspecting fish (a tadpole). The sharks have to bite at some point. They did never did relent from day one.

Frank, the worst of it is this: what never was my fault or problem (like baggage that isn’t yours), is all of a sudden, overnight on a train, all my fault… all blame, guilt and ‘responsibility’ at my door! Like Israel was born in a day – miraculous – I reaped a whirlwind and tragedy overnight.

One has to ask someone knowing like Mava, how does one explain this and where in all the world’s libraries would an appropriate and soul-satisfying answer be located? The age-old question goes: what did one do so wrong?

Frank, you must reply without delay. For amongst the seething ----------, is great anguish. Tears as hot as flames and heartache as precise as the stabbing of a knife.

You have no idea how ‘easy’ some things are, Frank. Horrid things. People may say ‘how is this and that possible?’ And my answer Frank is, simply, easy. You’d be surprised how easy it is, how quick and how natural these things come to the natural soul.

I know for a fact today, Frank, that they await for me to sign up again to that which brings…

Dangling like a Christmas bauble in Spring

Fred is in the garden hacking away at the potato plant and they come flying off.

Fred has become incessant of late in wearing his green tracksuit bottoms all day.

Fred has taken to watching the most ludicrous serial comedy on Tuesday nights and he laughs himself sick when they perform the most usual of tasks on a daily basis.

At night, I'm sure Fred recalls the comedy in his sleep as he retells of events during his outspoken dreams.  Of course there are a million irritating habits that he brings. 

Fred thinks he's a 'forest' man.  He thinks he can talk about it as one who has had experience, he thinks he can meddle in the forest, and he thinks I see him as an expert in the field.  And guess what, I do not.  Fred knows nothing of the forest. 

Time

Wasted hours, precious time stolen and time goneby.
Tomorrow is almost here
Another day arrives
The time thief must steal no longer
For our time, you know, is almost up.

The Field

Early in the morning I could hear the horses softly crunching their hooves on the wet grass outside the window.  They were standing close to the fence that borders their field and lines the edge of the pathway at the end of the garden.  The foals leapt about and playfully tugged at each other whilst the adults walked serenely by and without any commotion.  The fresh and crisp country air marked the start of a new morning.

It had been an interesting time... the week before ... and the weeks before that.

And yet every day continued to march on to the next one that followed.

At times the mountains seem so incredibly high and perilous - the challenges that lie ahead of us, the drudgeries of life and the heartaches.  Then, all of a sudden, a new day dawns and the sunrise seems brighter than it has ever been before and it serves as a stark reminder of the infallibility of the Creator to surpass all that we know and think we know.

New Housewife in the South

And so a brand new record begins...

Late July, a new family is born and must live together - happily, together, and in peace.

Thirty-one, twenty-nine and nine. 

Each one with their own character, their own mind and their own experience of the world.

Routines established, a home set up, work routines to follow, higher purposes to achieve and oh - of course - time to write.  Then there is the rest of the world - the world that is in need of something else and is at war in some significant parts. 

Yet I'll be in the kitchen, using the hand mixer that matches the other kitchen appliances all dressed in creme, mixing in the cupcake bowl and staring out the window into an idyllically set garden - hopefully not wondering 'where have the roses gone?'

June Tunes

This was it, Ava was set to marry.

The weeks sped by and every day something was crossed off the list. For there was an exhaustive list of things to do and to accomplish all within a relatively short frame of time.

January to June had come and gone like winter to spring and then summer.

The time knew no constraints and no-one had control over it.

It would wind its own way around the months of the year and direct the calendar.

Who would have thought there were that many details to consider for a wedding?

One by one, she ticked them off slowly:-

Date, Venue, Theme, Layout, Booking, Invitations, Time, Guest List, Menu, Music, Photography, The Blessing, The Schedule, Dress, Hair, Car, Bridal Team, Kitchen Tea and on and on it seemed to go.

Just as it seemed to calm down, it would result in revealing itself as the calm before the storm...

where there was always something else to still do.

Rainbows

The month of May had passed on by and it would soon be the 1st of June.

It had been a learned path so far as the year continued at a pace and new elements of life beckoned Ava to branch out and alter many ways.

A myriad of colours spread across the rainbows that loomed on the horizon of what seemed to be a very new life. From one season to the next, and in fact, from one day to the next, the colours changed and so did purpose. The purpose of existence and the purpose of life.

One day a student.

Another day a tutor.

Things would certainly evolve and in their perfect timing, blossom to full potential.

Ava laughed as the mannequin in the study caught her attention - there was one way to go and she knew which way it was. She would know that the only way would be to 'write' and 'dance' her way through it all ...

Spring

Spring had arrived and everything began to bloom.
Agapanthus, Cherry Blossom, Dahlia, Hyacinth, Peony and Zinnia... all revelled in the new season and that is was their time to blossom.
The colours dazzled after the long, wintry season of grey and black.

SPRING
Today the sun shines for you
Tomorrow it may not
Look out the window pane
See, look, wait and watch
Does it rain?
One day the grass grows,
on another, it withers.
What will today bring?
Something better, as it's Spring.

Him

He smiled at her every time she glanced his way...

His muscles moved slowly up and down in his arm when he used them. It was the embrace that sat there, not going anywhere, like a question mark set forever at the end of a sentence. It was one she knew she wished to spend the rest of her life answering.

She was silent as her memories recollected fragments from each day - and each day a perfect day to recollect such valuable fragments. Alert, she knew in that moment of precision in her imgaination, that her heart was right. He was the most interesting person she had ever known.

Together, they sat, and looked into the other - as if heavy with wine - and drank uncontrollably of what was eternally nourishing.

Ava looked and she saw.

The way he used his notebooks, his scraps of paper abandoned everywhere... and this means, anywhere and everywhere. Sainsbury's packets would do the filing!

He had his ways, his artful ways, his moments of expression - even on his own face - and all of it... was utterly endearing.

Hermanus

Today the wind blew so that every leaf shook and the sky hung as it did every day.

There was nothing in particular that stood out on this day. The forest was quiet, there were not many walkers around nor dogs... the trees stood, the earth was there, the sky invisible in parts and the usual routes led her feet forward and through the hills.

It was that time of year when everyone anticipated a change in the seasons and the excitement of Easter loomed. It had been an extraordinary year already.

Hermanus had stepped in front of her, like an exquisite new horizon, and captivated Ava's world. He managed to walk multiple tight ropes at the same time, with artful skill, he unravelled the intricacies of yesterday.

Nobody walked like he did.

Nobody had his voice.

Nobody stared forward in his way, eyes clear and thoughtful.

Nobody had his mouth.

Hermanus loved to dance and Ava loved to laugh. Together, they emerged into that new season when the sky would lighten and the flowers try their best to emerge. It was only spring that would follow, and then the fullness of summer would be next.

Continuation of excerpt... It was time for war

Now, no matter how neighbouring parents tried to hide their children from the growing tensions, they could not. The children knew, they listened carefully to the messages within the conversations of parents talking to neighbours in hushed and strained tones. The children perceived the danger correctly and talked amongst themselves of what might be.

'War,' one small girl mouthed slowly to another as if an acidic taste grew in her mouth.

'What will it be like?' another asked knowing she would not get an answer.

'I don't want war,' the first girl stammered.

'I don't think it will be very nice,' the other said to her.

'No, we have no idea what this will mean Shea,' she said with downcast eyes as she accidentally dropped her floppy doll into a pool of mud.

She reached down and grabbed hold of her arm, snatching her back to rest again on her own chest. Across the way, the rowdy boys played together and roughed each other up. How long would they continue to play in the same way, was the thought that ran through every glance.

For now, the day went on as it always had done and the usual routines did not cease. It would not be long until a new dawn would break and something ferocious and ugly would step through the door, place a heavy-footed step into their territory like an intruder in the back yard - your yard. After all, it was not their yard, it was not their land, it was not their territory, it was not their home and it was not their children. For a child, the nightmares and ideas of war could not compensate for the understanding of why and how such a thing should or could ever develop out of the night.

From the night shadows, these events would emerge that would change the life of a child forever. They would be led away, with or without their toys and games that they knew so well and held dear. The ones they played every day of the week - on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and even Sundays. Board games, ball games, floppy dolls, hard dolls, dolls with big eyes and teddies with small eyes. Boys and their games, the ones they invented even - even these - they may not play any longer. Not where they were going, not with what they would be doing, not where they would be led. From one world to another, the children would be led away and not by a flute and a dance. It was by a soldier and a weapon that they would solemnly follow without a word, or melody or toy.