Magic Words

Brian held Hammy in both hands. Hammy was cold, unusually still. He wasn’t always active- during the day he’d roll into the sawdust shavings in the cage on the opposite side from where he’d leave the looped droppings. At night his rustling was quiet enough for Brian to get some sleep, as long as the wheel was kept oiled. But today he hadn’t emerged for his slice of apple, Hammy was dead.

It was quite cold in Brian’s room, and he nudged Hammy’s grey fur with his knuckle. Made the psp-pssp-psp noise which sometimes coaxed him out of the toilet rolls he’d hide in. Still nothing.

It upset him. Even though his mum had told him hamsters don’t live very long, he’d grown up with the familiar smells of the cage. Two whole years. He’d been only seven when he’d asked her what “dead” is, and had been rather confused with her talk of golden roads and clouds and angels and something about lovely feasts with roast beef and apple pie. He didn’t like beef. The chewy gristle gave him the chills.

Apple pie, though, that was something he could get into. The little family always had some leftovers after Sunday lunch, but he wasn’t allowed to have seconds. It would be put in the fridge for tomorrow’s supper, and he’d have to ask very nicely to get some. “What’s the magic word, Brian?” his mum would ask. “Abracadabra!” he’d reply as part of their ritual, and they’d all laugh.

Please. He knew the magic word was really supposed to be please, but he hardly ever saw his mum smile anymore, so the laughter was welcome. Ever since he’d gone to camp last year and his dad had moved out by the time Brian had come home (even though he’d moved back a week later), the house had become like his local library; whispered conversations that he couldn’t hear.

The camp had been awful. It had been his first time away from home, and the constant noise of the other kids had seemed intimidating. Then, on the last night, the teacher had told ghost stories. He hadn’t slept at all. He shuddered as he remembered one in particular, The Monkey’s Paw. How the old couple had used the mystical paw to wish their dead son back to life. And regretted it.

He shuddered again. Then paused. His mouth was open in surprise at a sudden thought.

He didn’t have a monkey’s paw but he did have another trick.

“Please” he whispered into Hammy’s ear.

Nothing happened.

“Please!” he called out, as if magic is made more so by volume.

Even less happened.

Brian shrugged. He’d go back to the pet man on his next birthday and get a tortoise. Tortoises can live a thousand years, he guessed.

He placed Hammy back in the safety of his cage and turned to pick up the library book he’d borrowed. It was quite a difficult one, but his mum had said that he should read out loud to help get the hang of new words.

“Taxidermy for beginners”, he read, and imagined himself wearing a magician’s cape.

*********************************************

This post was written as part of a tandem blogging exercise/experiment. Five other bloggers have used the same title as a prompt, and their work will go live at the same time as this. None of us have seen anyone else's posts yet, so each will take a unique angle on their blogs. Please take a look at their creative efforts at blogging 'Magic Words' and like, share and comment if you've enjoyed what you read, too!

Mandy Collins 

Dave Luis

Nick Frost 

Brett 'Fish' Anderson

Cath Jenkin

Revelations at Dawn

A low hoot woke him. The soldier didn’t open his eyes straight away, but listened to the creatures in the liquorice-black of the night, the owl and the crickets. The intensity of the sounds teased him, and, just for a second, he thought he could hear the earthworms sliding through the soil and the throb of his own pulse. The sounds of the countryside. Home.

He lay awhile thinking of his mother’s cooking, smelling the butter slipping in the pan as the breaking eggs whispered a quiet ssssh and rolled into fluffy mounds. The gammon being slapped onto the block in the honey his father had burgled from the hives just last week.

The soldier had been thinking about food a lot lately; daydreams that teased him with their attendant memories. He wondered what had happened to the boy he’d once been, hiding out in the woods and making a fire out of twigs,wrapping his two pork sausages in the square of foil he’d tucked into his pocket along with the penknife he was never without. Roasting them until the juices fizzed and the waiting was too much to bear.

He’d toyed with the idea of being a chef in some grand hotel, a sleight-of-hand genius plating creamy clouds of mashed potatoes under peppered steaks slick with sauce. Cajoling the waiters in his whites and, occasionally, murmuring his appreciation to the diners on the floor when they nodded their ecstasy at him. But the war had intervened. His kitchen dreams had faded even as the steam train burped him out at the port where he was hauled off to another country.

Army food became his imagined foe.

The watery chicken stews would turn his stomach; the bread chunks were an awful imposter of the still-steaming loaves he remembered from home. He began getting ill shortly after every meal, clutching his belly until the spasms subsided. Each day was another front to conquer in the mess, and, towards the end, he’d felt himself losing the inward battle.

He’d been slightly incoherent when a platoon had found him limping alongside a horse pulling a cart full of onions. They weren’t too sure what to do with him until he began hurling the little papery orbs at them, railing against the war, the war, the war. A scuffle. Dragged back to the trenches in restraints.

Wartime is brutal. A court martial was convened in a dark burrow. The soldier, kneeling on the duckboards that didn’t keep the muddy pools from seeping into his blistered feet, confessed right away that he couldn’t stand the war anymore. He’d deserted. In fact, he even laughed as he said it, picturing the sickly sweet desserts he’d left behind along with his family. He’d desserted them. The Officer in Command had no other option, then: the soldier would have to be executed at dawn by firing squad.

                                     **************************

The owl’s hoot still echoing in his sleep-fuzzy head, he finally opened his eyes. There was no owl, but some sap nearby weeping his trauma into a balled-up trench coat. Sobbing his fear out in great gulps.

But the soldier wasn’t afraid. No, in the final silence of the night, when the air is coldest and the sun is still setting somewhere else, he was feeling alive for the first time in months.

As he was led towards a small clearing among trees splintered by shelling, he realised something. The only thing he’d ever really enjoyed in his life was a good meal. A well-executed one.

It was a flash of revelation brighter than the abrupt bark of the guns as the sky slipped into blues again, and he felt nothing other than the comforting warmth of his own blood oozing like syrup over his chest.

This post was written as part of a tandem blogging exercise/experiment. Five other bloggers have used the same title as a prompt, and their work will go live at the same time as this. None of us have seen anyone else's posts yet, so each will take a unique angle on their blogs. Please take a look at their creative efforts at blogging 'Revelations at Dawn' and like, share and comment if you've enjoyed what you read, too!

Mandy Collins 

Dave Luis

Nick Frost 

Brett 'Fish' Anderson

Cath Jenkin 

Art

This is a blogger challenge. We were given the word "art" as a starting point...


In around 1978 I remember a peculiar crisis. The Australian government had opted for a highly controversial option for the eradication of the rabbit population, myxomatosis.  Was essentially a virus which wiped out the feral rabbit population.
To a young child, as I was, killing rabbits was akin to putting a bullet to the Easter bunny.  Then Richard Adams penned his blistering exposure of the project. It didn’t seem that way- it was packaged as a novel about our small large-eared friends- Watership Down.
Being susceptible to emotive topics, I got attached. Pictured rabbits gasping their last in meadows. Their little flag tails twitching in the balmy summer sunsets. It didn’t help when Art Garfunkel released his song, Bright Eyes
. The best song about rabbit massacre ever written, it became the unlikely hit of that year.
And, for me, you say the word “art” and I can see Art Garfunkel with his wavy hair while my dad drives our car down a leafy lane in Cornwall. We were on holiday, heads full of ice creams and beach sand. We even skimmed past a car as it ran over a rabbit. As the furry creature cartwheeled into the bushes, I could hear Art harmonizing with himself.

How mad. These snapshots of life that stay with you.

For Bee

We used to tease Belinda and call her “all-about-me-Bee”, so she would have loved to see everyone here in her honour.

I met her at a nightclub we were working at when I was 18, and was slightly in awe of her, this enigmatic woman, with her dramatic eyeliner and vintage lace dresses. I was married to her sister and part of her family for so long that her family became my family. She was the catalyst for many gatherings, welcoming many people into her home for laughter and wine.

From Bee’s blog post about me:

“So, this has been going on for about 4 weeks now and to my great delight I discover that he’s like the brother I always wished I had. While I was growing up I yearned for a brother. Now in hindsight I am SO GLAD I didn’t have one. Sorry Scott no offence meant but you can be rather bitter and twisted at times.”

She was like a sister to me. A family member capable of making you feel loved even when insulting you.

My frank and hilarious friend. She’s one of those rare people who spoke EXACTLY what was on her mind. It did have its downside… Ill-fated Spur trips where some hapless waiter would be sent back to the kitchen a dozen times to cater to Princess Bee’s demands. She expected service people to serve. Durrr!

But she was also a dreamer… someone who dreamed of being an artist… wait… a writer… wait… a OOH LOOK, A BUTTERFLY! (I think she coined that phrase).

And she WAS an artist and a writer. She loved to sketch and took pains at expressing her feelings in her writing. If a writer is someone whose writing affects the lives of others, then Bee was definitely one. I have met some of our online friends who speak with adoration for Bee and how she impacted their lives with her loving irreverence.

Here’s one incident that a blogger friend never forgot, from Cath Jenkin in Durban:

Perhaps my best memory of Bee, was one night, at some godawful hour, when I was sitting outside with friends under the stars and she texted to say "the stars are beautiful, right?" 

And I said "how did you know?"

And she replied: "Same stars, idiot".

She always just knew.

A read through some of her blog posts reveals something of her heart: She was a professional wrestler, wrestling with herself. Extreme giddy happiness, dark moments of soul searching. Spiritual but seeking. Restless but hopeful that everything would turn out for the best. She didn’t throw in the towel when things got tough, she threw it down and sunbathed on it, because her aim in life was to be happy, dammit!

Then Princess Bee had to share her tiara with another. SUDDENLY, she became Queen Bee, and Rhiannon her princess daughter. She became All about Rhi-Bee. This wonderful tiny family was filled with magic. There were fairy wings, tiaras and unicorns, and Bee transformed into one of the most remarkable moms I have known, and I am so proud of the amazing girl Rhiannon has become. She was a beloved aunt to my kids who have said they'll never forget her awesome Sunday roasts and the way she put Christmas celebrations together.

It would be unfair to pin Bee to any one life stage. All of her experiences made her who she was and you all contributed to her in one way or another. She invited us into her crazy world and gave us reason to stick around.

Belinda, we’ll miss your Fleetwood Mac, you, doing the dance of joy, French toast on Sunday mornings, raised eyebrows and raised glasses, your cackling laughter and your tralalas.

We’ll miss them, but we won’t forget them.

Occupy

There were crows circling the corpse at dawn. It was cool in the desert, and the sun took some time to shake off the flat chill of the night. The highway stretched like a red ribbon across the valley, and the roadkill waved a grotesque paw in the thin air. In the foothills a shadow fell as something picked up on the scent and lifted its head. Food. The hyena’s neck fur bristled. 

On the other side of the valley a hawk drifted, allowing the sun’s rays to heat up the blood in its veins. It appeared to be lazy as it hovered on the light updraft, but if you looked closely, you could see its eyes scanning the horizon. Lifting a wing, it turned to the left as it saw a patch of something promising in the distance. A brief rasping scream announced its intentions to the sand and stubby bushes and the wind ruffled its feathers as it accelerated.

A rare wind swept through the valley lifting swirls of dust skywards, echoing asthmatically through the caves and boulders of the hills.

The crows scattered as they caught sight of the hawk jetting between the dust clouds, leaving the corpse in the pursuit of something less desirable. On the other side of the road, the hyena padded with intent across the pebbles, its tongue lolling to one side.

The hyena came to the side of the road. There were scents here which rolled off its nose incorrectly. The dank reek of diesel was faint but discernible. The hawk was closing in. Tighter circles in the air proved its tension as it flexed its talons slightly.

Metres apart, the beast from the hills and the surgeon of the skies caught each other’s eyes. An  orange glint of possessiveness flashed  across each one’s face and a charge of lightning in the distance signalled for the race to start.

Utterly focussed, they swept down on the roadkill whose obscenely acrobatic pose was shifting in the breeze. A gust and the briefest of clouds puffed skywards as a truck slammed into the scene, scattering hawk feathers and hyena fur in a colourful explosion, air horn blasting into the desert’s void.

The truck only shifted slightly as it slipped into the distance again, leaving the warm bodies of the creatures; enemies in life, united in death.

Two black spots appeared above them. The crows watched as the foreign truck barrelled away, leaving the desert to the locals again. We belong here the most, they seemed to say, as they cawed  their mocking laughter and fell to eating the impromptu feast.