It's amazing what different stories can come from the same images...
The Tower Mystery
It was time for me to take the dog for a walk, so picking up the lead I shouted Rex and putting on my coat opened the front door and set off.
On previous walks I had noticed a tower about a mile away, so, taking a look at the signpost. the arrow directed me To The High Tower, a path I had not taken before, so, thinking I will have a change, I set off towards this new landmark.
When I got to the door there was a large padlock locking the door but on closer inspection I noticed that it was not locked but just pushed together so being nosey I opened the door and stepped inside.
Looking around there was a table just inside with a thick book on it and on the front cover was a shooting star in gold leaf, opening the book there was a lot of mysterious writing and weird pictures, this fascinated me so I continued looking through it.
In the middle of the book there was a list of orders in English and the first order was to throw the dice, so I looked around for a dice and found it on the far side of the table, so throwing the dice it rolled onto a four, looking at rule number four it stated that I had to go through door number four.
I looked around and only found three doors on the ground floor so I started to climb the stairs. On the first landing were three more doors, so, finding door number four, I was a little cautious about opening the door so I looked through the keyhole and all I saw was a window on the far side of the room. Opening the door slowly, the sun was shining in through the window onto a small desk in the corner of the room, and going over to the desk I opened the drawer and found a toy plane and a letter. The letter read as follows:
To whoever finds this letter.
This plane belonged to my son who was kidnapped at the age of five and I have never seen him since, if any one finds him, give this plane to him, I am sure he will remember it.
I had a funny feeling inside, as I remembered the plane from when I was a young boy, and I thought I had lost it. I turned it over and on the underside of the plane was scratched into it “Norman” just as I had done when I was a child to let anyone know it was mine.
This was a perfect walk and I had a lot of work now to find out the truth of what I had found.
Ken Smith
Strange journey
Over breakfast we grumped about how tired we are. Vera my wife commented. “We need a holiday or at least a break of some sort.”
“You are so right love; I don’t think I can keep going much longer.”
Fashion is our trade and it had been manic the last two years. Because things were going so great and we were making so much money, we had decided not to go away.
We were comfortable and our dream house was our bolt-hole.
Vera loved her garden and spent as much free time as she could out there. I spent most of my time doing carpentry. I loved making toys and we put some into our clothes store for sale.
A family came in to purchase some of my toys, the children were delighted. The small boy wanted the plane I had made. I had made it so it could be hung from the ceiling, and the propellers moved.
The mother asked if I would make a special jewellery box for her daughter. I wrote down the specifics and she went away. I loved making that box and I was pleased with how it had turned out.
On the top I had carved a tower with birds and butterflies.
I also carved a book with pictures one of which was a unicorn. Children seem to love them. I carved a key hole in the front with a shooting star.
I had a small padlock which was just right for this box. I had some wood over and I thought it would be nice to make a dice for the boy. I also carved a direction arrow and made it on a small plinth so that it would turn.
The children came back to the store accompanied with their parents.
They gave me the money me for the work I had done. The small boy was pleased with his gifts and I gave him those items as they were not ordered.
The Daughter threw a tantrum as she wasn’t allowed to see her present. The mother had wanted this as a birthday present.
Wow, she raised the roof! And so I gave her a wooden necklace I had made.
I was glad when they left the store, she was so loud. I felt good though, as she was delighted with the wooden beads I had carved.
Like I said, we needed a break as my temper was almost at breaking point.
We got home and ordered tickets to go the Canary Islands.
Walking around a market my blood began to boil. There on one of the stalls was quite a collection of my wooden toys and among them were the beads and the plane those people had been given. Also the jewellery box was on display at a very high price.
Oh, believe me, I had a right go at the man running the store!
He then told me he had sent some of his friends to purchase a lot of the toys I had carved. I suppose I shouldn’t have lost my temper, but I hate being deceived.
I still make wooden toys; however, these days I charge a whole lot more money for them.
Josephine Smith
THE TOWER
He saw it from the plane, as they came in to land. One of those airports knocked up quickly for the tourist trade – so quickly, they hadn’t bothered to do the local consultations properly – they’d never have let them build one so close to an ancient monument in this country.
Such a small place altogether – and such a big plane. The queue didn’t seem to be getting any shorter. “Just going for a – ” he said to his wife, leaving open whether it was a walk or a fag or a –
Because it was sleepy and small and put up on the cheap, and the planes just came in and turned round and went back, there weren’t any proper fences. No one to challenge him. A couple of luggage handlers, sitting on boxes, handling not suitcases but a pack of cards and a bottle, waved at him – cheerily, not warning him, the way the jobsworths in his own country would have done.
There was a scent on the breeze, as he pushed through the long grass towards the tower. It was a scent he’d only ever smelt on his mum’s dressing-table. Lavender. On the hillside he could see a whole field of it.
He had to walk all the way round before he found the door – and then it was padlocked. So he went back, the way he always did, to his wife and his kid. The officials had gone – he was able to run straight through, and jump on the bus to town – and there were his wife and kid, with the luggage. “Headache,” he said, shaking it to prove it, and they left him alone.
All week, they went to the beach. He didn’t. He pleaded his eyes. He pleaded his skin. He wandered round the town. Dredged up his French from O-level, and those films he’d watched furtively when he was a teen. Sat in bars. Watched them play an incomprehensible game like ludo or snakes and ladders on a board that had big spiky teeth. Rattle-rattle-rattle went the dice, urging him to take a chance. He couldn’t see his future clearly. Like the drinks he drank – they looked clear to start with – and you added something else clear to them – water, that was all – and they went cloudy.
He went into a bookshop – not something he’d have done at home, but the streets were bare of people in the noonday heat, and he felt conspicuous, and it was cool, and inviting. His wife and kid had the sea for that, and the pool by the beach, but he didn’t swim. The smell of the books – it was age, and stone, and it reminded him of the tower – and there it was! A sepia photograph on a tattered dust-jacket. Of course, he bought it. And a dictionary, also old, also musty.
It gave him something to read, as they waited for the bus to the airport, as they waited to go through passport control, as they flew back to this country. He looked, of course, as they rose into the air, but the wind had changed, and they weren’t flying over the tower at all as they took off.
Back they went, him and the wife and the kid, to the little house in the street where all the other houses looked just the same.
But it wasn’t the same for him. He had a book. He had words, different words, unusual words, that he could roll around his mouth and savour like foreign food and practise quietly whenever he was alone – and he felt he was alone, even when he was with his family.
That book, he thought, is like a keyhole. I can look through it, and see things that I can’t yet get to. But I will.
Mike Rogers
Riverside Writers, 15.ii.2021, on the basis of Rory’s Story Cubes, as shown below:
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