Eleven

 

Eleven Autumns have passed since, hand in hand, we kicked through fallen leaves along Park Street together, on our way home. The leaves look and feel the same, but they are different leaves. My hand is empty.

Parkstreet

Dirt

 

Despite the cold the detective attended the funeral. The mourners in almost uniform long black coats stark against the frosted green of the lawn, the steam of their breath cartoon captions of grief. 

Service complete, coffin lowered, the family stepped forward to collect a handful of dirt, drop it on the wooden lid, a shocking noise in the chill silence.

The detective observed the sister in law of the dead man, his brother's wife, as she rushed back to her handbag, removed a moist paper towel from a small plastic canister, rapidly cleansed her hand, like a guilty lover wiping away a lipstick kiss too quickly.

Parkstreet

Dedication

 

If I ever write a book I’ll make up an obscure dedication.

“For Derek, for always knowing when to warm a teapot and when to man the barricades.”

Then I’ll be compelled to write a story titled Teapots And Barricades, but not mention Derek in it at all.

And another story about Derek that doesn’t mention barricades, or teapots.

I’m dedicated to fiction. 

Parkstreet

To No Longer Whoosh

 If you’ve lost someone dear to you.

And I mean lost the dearest person to you in the whole world.

When I say I daydream of dying, reuniting, being two beams of pure energy and whooshing through the universe together, holding hands, even though we no longer have hands, and everything being beauty and wonder, you’ll know what I mean.

If you’ve lost the person you can’t imagine not talking with every day.

And I mean the only person you need to talk with because you’ve lost the only person.

You’ll know what I mean when I say we’ll whoosh until it feels right to no longer whoosh, then together become some other thing. 

You know what I mean. 

Parkstreet

For Jacqueline Elizabeth Scanlon, written through tears, twenty five years later.

The Seer

 

The seer, the great visionary, the one who could see when others could not, looked up into the night sky.

“There”, he said, pointing, “those stars, forming a rectangle, I shall call that The Television.”

“What is . . . telly virgin master?”

“Television. It won’t come for thousands of years, then it will come, and all will know it. The stars foretell it.”

“And will it be beautiful like the stars master?”

“It will be. The people who will appear on it shall be called stars, but they will shine more brightly than the stars themselves.”

“Such wonders master.”

“Indeed, such wonders, enough to make the stars themselves seem dim and distant. The Television will come and all will know it. The stars foretell it.”

Parkstreet

Ko-fi

Moai Love

 

A rare visit, grandparents from abroad. 

In the middle back seat, wedged between matriarchs, I watch my grandfather light a cigarette, see my father turn to look at him, and for one moment my father is staring at his father in law smoking in his car and at the same time staring out to sea from the cliffs of Rapa Nui for nine hundred years, then he is looking straight ahead through the windscreen again and I know that my father truly loves my mother.

Parkstreet 

Ko-fi

 

Dr. Frankenstein’s Bicycle

 

He's riding Dr Frankenstein's bicycle. He collected all the body parts from dead bicycles all over town, gave them the spark of life, created a transport abomination. The push bike seems to trudge along, each pedal push, a clumsy, unnatural step.

He's riding to the cemetery, to find fresh flowers to take to his girl. She finds his frugal ways comical and intriguing. Dr Frankenstein was a genius, so is her boyfriend, in his own way. She knows he is odd, but not evil or misguided. 

Her jewellery is all gold, salvaged from dumped electronics, hand made just for her. In her courtyard the water in the fountain is pumped by a battery that is fueled by a rickety wind generator. The windmill is noisy enough to overwhelm the relaxing trickle of the fountain. Life with him is never relaxing, always on the edge of a new creation.

He leans his bike against the rail on her front porch, pulls the string on the cuckoo clock doorbell he gave her for a birthday, hands her the flowers and kisses her gently. He knows how lucky he is. She understands him and didn't set the villagers with torches after him when he courted her.

He goes down on one knee, produces a furry box, shows her a ring as he asks for her hand. She notices that the ring is from a proper shop. He has tried to do the right thing, offer her a conventional proposal.

He will never understand why she said no. He rides away from her house on Dr Frankenstein's bicycle, trudging miserably through city streets, scaring the dogs and children, heading back towards the cemetery.

And now you are wondering, “did he go to the cemetery to make a new girlfriend?”. 

He did not. He went to sit quietly and reflect, to acknowledge that his life had been shattered, that he possessed the skills to build a new life out of the broken parts. 

Because he wasn’t a monster.

Parkstreet 

Ko-fi