STORIES FROM RORY No. 12

 

Running the Gauntlet

“Hi, Tommy, are you coming to play?”

Milly ran down the lane to where her friend was coming out of his gate. Tommy was in the same class at school, and as Milly was something of a ‘tomboy’ they enjoyed similar activities.

“Yes, if you like. Where are we going?”

Tommy was quite happy for Milly to take the lead in their adventures, as she often had good ideas – although these sometimes led to trouble.

“Let’s go down to Frank’s farm. I may be able to borrow a few apples for my Mum to make a pie. I know she is really hard up since she lost her job with the Covid lockdown.”

“Milly, you can’t borrow apples. You won’t be able to give them back when they have been eaten.”

“I know that, Tommy, but perhaps I can repay later in some way. They’d only be fallers, anyway.”

Tommy was exasperated, but, hoping to distract his impetuous friend, suggested, “Why don’t we go through the woods and check on our den on the way?”

They set off eagerly through the trees, shrubs and spiky grasses. It was late summer and everything was flourishing.

When they slithered down the little bank and scrambled into the thicket where they had cleverly pulled the thinner branches together to create a sort of wigwam, they were surprised to find, in the den, among the squashed down grasses, some goggles, a big blank dice like a mini rubic cube, a beautiful chalice and, strangest of all, a pack of cards, topped by the joker.

“Blimey. Who’s been here? What a cheek—in our den.”

Milly was starting to search around but Tommy, more cautious, said, “I think we should tell somebody about this.”

Milly, never one to miss an opportunity, seized on the idea.

“We can cut through to Frank’s and tell someone.”

Agreeing that Frank would be the nearest contact, Tommy led the way out of the den.

It had been a lovely, sunny day but the sky was darkening and they both shivered with the sudden change in temperature. There appeared to be a mist in front of them and Milly said, “It’s a spirit, Tommy. I hope it is a good one that will help us.” She was whispering now and she held up a card, the joker. “It could be connected to him.”

“Sorry, Milly, but, for a quite clever person, you can be a bit dim. Throw the card away. “

In her unusually subdued state, Milly obeyed, but the joker seemed to drift a long way before disappearing into the mist.

When they came out of the trees the sky lightened and the spirit shape drifted upwards.

Running across the field leading to Frank’s farm they saw Bramble, the New Forest pony getting near a gap in the fence. This had been broken by a coach, which appeared to have gone into a ditch and was tipped halfway over. There were several people around and an ambulance had just arrived. The coach driver was still inside clinging to the steering wheel.

“I don’t think he’s dead,” whispered Milly. “Nobody is bothering about Bramble. He’ll get out in a minute.”

With that pearl she dashed off towards the orchard. She returned with an apple in her hand and one in her pocket. Tommy was aghast.

“What—er… oh, Milly, not now!”

Milly was already climbing through the hole in the fence and walking gently towards Bramble, who scraped the ground and blew hard. Milly crept forward extending the apple.

“There, Bramble. It’s OK.”

She approached ever so slowly, shushing gently, so that she was in his peripheral vision until she could get right up to his head. She breathed up into his nose and he snorted, spraying her in return.

He was wearing a head collar and Milly took the belt from her dress and tied it to his collar. She walked in front of him to the other end of the field where there was an open shelter. There was a rail of collars and lead reins there, so she tied him to the fence and brought him some hay.

In the meantime, after several rebuffs, Tommy managed to talk to somebody who had descended safely from the coach. Apparently, a strange person had appeared in the road in front of the coach, which was trying to follow a fork in the road. The driver had swerved and missed the dishevelled character who, it transpired, had stolen something from the Church.

Fortunately nobody was seriously injured. Frank appeared and came over to the two friends.

“Well done, Milly. I saw what you did with Bramble. You averted a disaster. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Milly smiled and said, “Can I have some apples for my Mum to make a pie, please?”

“Get as many as you like, Milly. You can have some eggs as well.”

Milly’s eyes were shining. “Thank you. My Mum will love you!”

Frank laughed and winked at Tommy, who, aged ten and a half, appreciated the ‘man to man’ gesture.

Later, the friends were ambling home, loaded with apples and eggs, singing ‘One man went to mow’, when Tommy saw the joker card on the ground. He picked it up gingerly.

Milly just said, “There you are. I told you.”

Tommy could think of nothing to say.

Linda Dalzell 15/05/21

Unexpected

After a morning of exercising our horses Alan and I rest up.

Usually this meant a game of cards with a pint of beer or a cup of coffee. For some unknown reason I always managed to pick the joker or the Jack. I did wonder if Alan cheated at cards, as this never varied.

We were the best of friends, and it didn’t matter that much if he did cheat, because there was no money involved.

We managed to get ourselves involved with the mock jousting at Downton. Oh, it was the real thing, except that no one died in these battles. It was simply good clean fun, and we loved it when the crowds roared for the side they’d picked. The roar grew louder when a Knight threw down the gauntlet and the battle commenced. It was a reality thing for us, as we felt quite a lot like the old Knights must have, with an anxious excitement or a little bit of fear. Of course, the fear would have been amplified greatly by Knights of old, for fear of death, or terrible injuries.

Sometimes Alan or I would take a turn on sitting on horseback, dressed as Knights, and pose outside of the tiny post office at Downton. Folk would come with their cameras and take pictures of us. The horses were great and I’m sure they loved having their photos taken as they would stand dead still all the time we were there. The costumes were splendid and we felt great.

I’m not without money, and quite well off, I suppose.

I own an Aston Martin and I was at my happiest driving the car and feeling the steering wheel in my hands. I have to confess, though, I really do show off, more to the annoyance of neighbours, as the engine’s really noisy, and I drive fast.

I took a day off from my other hobbies and went out in the car. It was a nice day, and so I thought I’d go on an adventure by going somewhere completely different. On my travels I came across a road sign that I didn’t understand. It was like a dual lane merging into a single lane with an arrow pointing one way. I became hesitant as to which way I should go, and folk began beeping their horns.

I got angry, and got out of my car, shouting, “Are you expecting someone to hand you a winners’ cup for the loudest and longest horn- blowing?”

I won’t repeat the abusive answers I received, and one man started his engine and tried to run me over. It’s just a good job I have good reflexes and I’m fast on my feet. I’ve got to admit this shook me up quite a lot, as I wasn’t prepared for that. I got back into my car shaking and took a drink of water from the water bottle I’d brought with me.

A bus unexpectedly came rushing around the corner and crashed into a lorry. This was quite nasty as there were five other cars involved. There were three people dead and lots of injuries. Ambulances made their way to the location in a hurry. The drivers of those ambulances reported that they didn’t know what the sign meant, therefore they weren’t too sure which way to go. This also increased the time needed to get to those injured. I have heard the council have changed that sign now; I wonder what lunatic sign they have replaced it with!

Returning home, I really had had enough for one day, and I was tired. I decided to pull into a lay- by and shut my eyes for a while.

I must have dozed off quite quickly, but when I opened my eyes I was unsure of where I was.

I couldn’t move my legs or my arms or my head. ‘I can’t move my head,’ I said out loud.

It was locked into a gadget, like a helmet. There were tubes and some kind of wires that seemed to be setting some kind of tech in motion. I wasn’t laid flat, but placed semi-upright so that I could see around me. The lines on the monitor were erratic, not just going along gradually, but whizzing around and around. I didn’t feel at all well, or at ease.

Then tremendous fear gripped me as I saw shadowy figures moving around. They seemed to be in a haze and far away.

One bent down over me and he was wearing what resembled goggles. The face, I will never forget the look of that face. It reminded me of the age-old image of the devil.

”Oh God!” someone screamed – and then I realised it was me. They tortured me in different ways and with various instruments. I’m not sure how long I was there, just too long.

Then darkness came over me and the next thing I remember is waking up in the lay-by.

Shaking my head, and trying to make sense of all of this, and wondering if I had dreamt it all.

I would have settled for the dream until, looking out of my car window, I saw what looked like a large cube hovering in the air, with various coloured lights all over it. It stayed in the same place for what seemed like aeons, but there was no sound of engines.

It was totally unexpected to have been abducted by aliens on my adventure. I felt sore all over my body, and when I checked I’m covered in injuries.

I quickly got myself to the hospital and when the blood checks came back doctors said I was covered in strange injuries, and that my blood is poisoned. I told the police about my day’s adventure, but not sure that they believed me. However, I am informed that the hospital will keep a check on me in case of cancer developing.

These days when I open my eyes and hear the dawn chorus, be it rain or shine, I thank the good Lord for my blessings. I think very carefully before I go out on any adventures now. I hope and pray I don’t get abducted by those shadowy creatures again, the thought of the awful instruments they used on my body makes me feel really ill and try as I may I can’t get it out of my head.

Josie Smith

DIVERSION

Do you believe somebody actually controls everything that happens? Well, if not somebody, then something? And would that be an algorithm, or a set of laws? I mean, laws we could actually agree on, such as up is up and down is down, that apply in most of the places we’d be likely to find ourselves – which is going to rule out the inside of black holes, naturally.

But suppose the laws conflict with each other? Or – which might be even worse, because the consequences would be less predictable, suppose the rules coincide with one another, in really weird and unexpected ways? Not all the time, of course, but just for a while, a shared bit of the route, like those traffic schemes where, for technical reasons, vehicles that are heading in completely opposite directions find themselves driving along side by side, pointing the same way – until they get to the next traffic sign or turn-off, which separates them, and sends them on their otherwise utterly different journeys.

Long trips on unfamiliar roads, featureless freeways through the flat Mid-West, in a coach that’s almost, but not quite, full, induce, if not simply and immediately sleep, at least a kind of parallel state. You can’t call it classically disorientation because, if the sun’s shining, you definitely know which side it is, and you’ll probably want to sit on the other, since the air-conditioning is noisy, and works by blowing cold air in your face through a nozzle that’s too stiff to move, except to push it back in and turn it off, and the draught makes your eyes water.

That was why Art had got the swim-goggles out of Gwen’s pack and put them on, before he’d decided he couldn’t stand the noise anyway. He hadn’t asked Gwen whether he could, because she wasn’t sitting beside him. Her pack was there, with the rest of her swimgear in it, but she was sitting three rows back, on the sunny side of the coach, with Lance, and just running his fingers over the shiny black cloth of her still damp swimsuit, and thinking about what had been inside it, wasn’t going to compensate Art for her absence.

Only to be expected, of course. Lance was a winner. He had the trophy to prove it. Only he didn’t, because that, too, had been dumped on the empty seat beside Art, snuggling up to Gwen’s pack the way Gwen was snuggling up to Lance right now, without any obstacles like a pack, or an old-fashioned cup with handles – How uncool is that old piece of tin? Gwen had said – Except of course that you won it!

So Art, uncool loser Art, had been left to mind the baggage, while the Cool Couple did whatever cool couples think they can get away with on a school-bus that’s taking the 11^th grade back home from a swimming gala that had to be held miles and miles and miles away, because the lame school’s lame pool had a leak…

Art puts his hand up, to pull on the air-conditioning, and pulls the goggles down over his eyes again to keep out the draught. It’s not the heat. It’s the noises he can hear from three rows back, and he wants to shut them out. To take his mind off things, he starts looking out the window. There’s nothing to see except traffic, of course, and fields that are all the same. The traffic’s all the same, too, family sedans, no up-to-date models, haulage rigs, mostly rusty and slow, nothing interesting.

He notices, though, that the goggles are actually polarised, so he’s not blinded by flash reflections from polished chrome. Must be to do with the properties of water, he thinks. He doesn’t swim himself. Not good at physical things. More of a thinker. Geek is the word that the voice at the back of his head hisses into his inner ear. He shakes his head, to get it to shut up – and that’s when he notices the white sports car, out of the corner of his eye.

It’s coming up fast. Of course, everything can overtake the school-bus, but they take their time about it, don’t want to exceed the limit – though you don’t usually get speed-cops out here – but then, you don’t get fashionably fast sports cars out here, either.

Art sits up properly, to see what’s happening. He even twists himself round, to get a proper view. Which he doesn’t believe. Because what’s overhauling the school-bus isn’t a sports-car at all. It’s a white horse. Shouldn’t be happening. Can’t be happening. But it is.

Has nobody else noticed? No, they haven’t – and that’s because they aren’t there. Nobody else is there. The rest of the bus – the vehicle, not just its passengers – is missing. Of course, Art knows it must be some kind of optical illusion, caused by the polarised goggles – but he doesn’t take them off, in order to restore normality, because it’s kinda fun! And he decides to enjoy it.

It isn’t an ordinary horse, either, he can see that very clearly. It’s considerably chunkier. And it’s caparisoned. That’s to say, it’s wearing a coat. Not because it’s cold, but to show who it belongs to – and to show off his taste and wealth and noble identity… Art regrets for a moment not being nerdish enough to have learnt all the armorial bearings of the Knights of the Round Table – but he knows that a geek who is also a nerd is definitely a dork, and if he were a dork he wouldn’t even be given Gwen’s pack to keep him company.

He’d been one of the few kids in school who’d enjoyed Tom Sawyer, and gone on to read a lot more Mark Twain, including A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court – which he found both pompous and a bit cheap and snide in its wisecracks – and from there he’d got into the whole Round Table shtick, but had never gone as far as the video-games…

The horse, he knew, was a destrier, a heavy warhorse, pounding along right beside him – goodness knew what he was on or in! He can hear its panting, and the clatter of its hooves, smell its horsiness, feel the foam-flecks coming off its muzzle as it overtakes him…

And here’s the knight, white surcoat with three red stripes across it, just like the horse – only the pattern’s repeated on the horse, because it’s bigger – and he’s leaning out of his saddle, stretching his hand out across Art – what’s he reaching for, with that huge armoured gauntlet?

Art looks over to his right. It’s the cup! Of course it’s the cup! Art knows very well what the knight must think it is, with that old-fashioned ceremonial shape! Cool modern trophies look like dolphins, or the Speedo trademark, or whatever shape can be most cheaply and easily injection-moulded and mass-produced in acrylic…

Can I stop this? thinks Art. Should I bother? Hell, Lance won it fair and square. Revenge would be petty! Might as well try to do the right thing.

So Art brings both of his hands down on the armoured arm, just above the gauntlet, trying to pull it off – he has some idea that the joint there must be vulnerable, that it won’t move as naturally as flesh and bone. There’s also the probability that the knight’s so far out of his saddle that he’s off-balance. Faced with resistance, he’ll have to pull back, or risk being unseated – an unhorsed knight in the middle of a busy freeway isn’t going to survive too long.

At the same time, Art thinks that a sudden change of direction or speed by the school-bus could also help, and make the knight give up his hazardous undertaking. A loud noise should do it – just enough to make the driver slow down a little, and look round to see what’s happening.

He’s not sure what kind of noise he’s actually made, because everything comes together. The bus does slow, and jerks off to the right, because it’s the exit for home, and Art jerks round to his left, to look back and see what’s become of his pursuer, but he catches the goggles on the head-rest and pushes them up by accident… and the white sports car charges past and away, as he swings his head back round to follow it, but it vanishes, because the bus is going down the exit-slope…

And Barney’s voice calls out from behind him, “Hey! Don’t wake up the rest of us with your wet dreams!” and there’s general laughter.

Art is so used to getting laughed at, that he usually tries to have an answer ready, in order to claim some of the laughter for himself. He thinks he may have some of that answer in his hands right now, because he can feel something heavy and bulky there… but when he looks down, he sees that he’s holding – not an armoured gauntlet, but Barney’s catcher’s mitt, which the school’s first choice as backstop must have thrown at him, to wake him up…

They’re all beginning to stand up now, and get their stuff together, even though the driver’s telling them to sit down, but it’s only another three corners before they’ll pull up in the schoolyard.

Art doesn’t bother to move. He just stuffs the goggles back in Gwen’s pack, and puts the catcher’s mitt ready for Barney to pick up as he goes by. He does, and tries to hit Art with it, but Art’s ready and gets his arm up in time, and the rest are pushing Barney too hard from the back for him to have another go.

Gwen notices that things in her pack aren’t quite as they were when she left it and says, “You haven’t been messing with my stuff, have you?” And Art has at least mastered the skill of looking genuinely innocent, so when she hears his sheepish denial, “It fell down, and I picked it up,” she lets him off with a deep breath and a dismissive silence, because she’s eager to get off the bus and carry on with Lance where they had to leave off. Lance just picks up his trophy, with a wink at Art, and a “Thanks, buddy!” which patronisingly covers everything.

The driver is impatient to empty the bus and get home, so Art has to get off and do the rest of his thinking in a quiet corner of the schoolyard, while all the other kids depart in their various ways. At least it’s sunny, and not too hot.

He mulls over everything that’s just happened, from various perspectives, and concludes that he isn’t, by any means, the only person who’s gone after something that, if he’d got it, he would’ve found wasn’t what he wanted at all.

Then he sees Muriel, from 10^th grade, in the far corner of the schoolyard, not looking at him, well, not looking at him when he’s looking at her, and so he walks across, and, as she hears his footsteps coming closer, she does look at him, and he smiles at her, and she smiles at him, and…

… and somewhere or other, there’s a knight having his horse rubbed down and fed and watered, and a fresh caparison made ready for his next ride out on quest…

Mike Rogers

STORIES FROM RORY No. 11

 

Danger man

Troy is an unusual man and loves dangerous projects. His hobbies are endless and he will have a go at anything. He woke this morning just before the digital alarm went off; the dawn chorus cheered him on to get out of bed.

His normal start to the day was to skip breakfast and go for a jog. It was just getting light when he set out and there had been rain through the night. There was a chill in the air, but he warmed up quickly by running as fast as he could. Troy is a fire fighter by trade and so he needs to stay fit.

Last Tuesday he attended a really bad factory fire. The steps to the next level of the building were burning fiercely. He took a blanket and soaked it in water and he climbed up to reach two trapped office workers. He managed to get the firefighters to put a ladder up to the office window and get them both out. It was a close shave for Troy. Just as the last one had started down the ladder the flames were licking his ankles.

It was a good job he’d worn his webbed anklets he been given in the army or he would have had some nasty burns. He loves the job of being a fire fighter, but sometimes it’s heartbreaking. Last Christmas they had been called out to a family home that was engulfed by flames and the family were still inside. The family had left the fairy lights on when they went to bed and they must have short circuited. The parents suffered terrible burns unfortunately they lost their two children, a boy and a girl. Although Troy is a tough nut it took him a fair time to get over this loss. He needed to plump up enough courage to get back to work. The loss of adults is bad enough, however children and animals is quite another scenario.

Today is supposed to be his day off. Fate had different ideas about that. He is called out as a neighbour’s cat that lived three streets away had got itself stuck up a tree. It had been chasing a tennis ball being thrown by the children. The ball got trapped in the tree and the pet had gone up the tree to collect it. Troy got a ladder and went climbing trees; it brought back fond memories of when he was a kid.

The cat was obstinate and didn’t want rescuing and the cat decided to climb further up the tree. The branches were very flimsy where the cat had managed to reach. The cat went further up to dodge capture. The slim branch that Troy placed his feet on just broke away and the fire chief came down to earth with such a force. There was a loud splash, Troy luckily managed to drop into the family fish pond. He thought he was floating on the water. He was in fact sitting on top of a thick network of lily pads. Of course this gave the children a thrill and they brought out their Phones to capture this strange site and send selfies to their friends. Troy was wet through and he had a fear of frogs. He screamed as he leapt out of the pond. He’d suddenly caught sight of two frogs that sat staring at the strange sight of the Fire Chief sitting on their lily pads. This sent the children into fits of laughter and they told all of their friends about this big strong fire chief being afraid of little frogs. There was no help, or any question if he was hurt in the fall by the mother.

The cat finally came down when the mother of the family rattled the biscuit box. The fire fighter scowled, wondering why she hadn’t done that in the first place. Troy was a source of amusement for weeks after. He could take a joke and gave the team as good as he got.

The fire team were called out again to a garden centre and the owner was trying desperately to save his stock. As they got there he was carrying a massive flint. Troy asked him why he was bothering with a stone when there were so many perishables around. “These rocks are special,” he answered, “and I’ll have to sell these flints dead cheap if they get burned. They are very popular with our customers, and scorch marks will bring the profit down.” Troy frowned and then began collecting some of the other fragile products. This is when Troy saw the birds flapping around in their cages, and they were terrified with the smell of smoke. He grabbed some of the cages and began saving parrots, cockatiels and budgies. Troy screamed at the other men and told them to save other animals that were trapped in cages. The fire men were dealing with the fire and it was almost under control. Troy argued with the manager of the garden centre, “Why the hell didn’t you rescue the birds and other creatures instead of those flints? Animals feel fear and pain, stones don’t.”

The manager answered him saying, “I’ve already explained to you about those stones being expensive.” The manager was really angry with Troy and he dropped one of the stones that he’d been carrying. There was powder all over the floor and the other firemen witnessed it. “OMG,” one said. “That looks like drugs,” and he tasted a tiny bit. “Yeah right enough, that’s drugs, and that stuff is cocaine.”

The fire was out; however the fire had only just begun at the garden centre. The manager was taken to the police station and questioned.

It seems that the fire had been started by five men that had come in shouting at the manager that he owed them lots of money and that he had drugs belonging to them. And they searched and wrecked the place. Customers were asked to leave and many did when the trouble began and someone blew the whistle to the P

police. The stepping stones to the court case took a while. All five men were caught and charged, they were well known to the police.

The garden centre was sold on to a more caring person. And it is Troy that has purchased it. He still goes fire fighting when they need extra help; our Hero is quite settled into his new hobby of selling plants, fish and birds.

Josie Smith

AGAINST TIME

Something must have started it. Was it the whistle? Shrill. Commanding. With all those memories and associations. An authority figure. The PE Teacher. The referee. Maybe even the young officer who blew it to start the attack. All those poor beggars in khaki and mud, climbing out of the trench, one by one up the ladder, running into the smoke and the splashes and the shrapnel – maybe the enemy’s, maybe their own, it doesn’t really matter when it slices into you, severing flesh and what’s under the flesh, muscle, sinew, blood-vessels, lucky if it’s only a vein, tie something tight round it and keep on running. Against time, always against time.

If you turned round, you’d probably see that the officer had copped it while he was still blowing his bloody whistle, bubbles of blood coming out of the slit of it, instead of sound. Standing still on the edge of the trench, not a good idea. Running’s what you have to do, always running. Those that stand still stay still because they can’t move any more. That’s the secret. Don’t hang around.

Where are you running to? Anywhere where you don’t have to run any more. Where you don’t have to pretend to be dead in order to be safe. Maybe there isn’t anywhere like that, and you just have to keep on running…

Not a modern idea, of course. The Greeks had it. As a punishment, naturally, The Endless Task, the boulder you had to push up the hill, and when you got to the top, and took your eye off it for a moment, it rolled back down to the bottom, and you had to start all over again…

But that wasn’t against time. You could do it as slowly as you wanted. They didn’t really have a way to tell time, back then, just the sun, which was nice and gradual… And Sisyphus only had to shove the rock, not carry it on his back… Don’t believe anyone who tells you there isn’t such a thing as progress – only it’s progress in the wrong things, that’s the trouble.

Somewhere around me, I sense progress – well, I sense machinery, shiny things moving up and down, to and fro, and somehow I’m in among them, and they’re helping me. And the rock I was thinking about, turns out it isn’t on my back, it’s on my front, it’s on my chest, and I have to keep on pushing it up and pushing it up, to take in a breath, and the bloody thing keeps on falling back down again, pushing the air out, and I can’t stop, I mustn’t stop, like the poor beggars running through the barrage, there isn’t a nice cosy shell-hole for me to drop down into, and find it’s so full of water I’m going to drown in it, no, the water’s in me, and I’m going to drown in it where I lie, unless I keep on breathing, jumping from one breath to the next, like stepping-stones, don’t stop, don’t ever stop…

And all these things I’m thinking about, and think I see because I’m thinking about them, I know they’re not really there, but what’s really there is a great emptiness filled with effort, constant effort, and a constant repeated noise that I know is really important, and I wish it would stop, but at the same time I know it mustn’t stop, because if it did then I’d stop, and neither of us would ever start again.

I sense that I’m passing through stages, over thresholds, maybe I’m just getting more used to things, maybe everything’s getting easier, it’s like opening a door, it’s like lifting your head out of water.

Then I’m aware that the noise has stopped. That really worries me. I hold very, very still. Before, I was scared of stillness. Now, I’m scared of movement. Then, suddenly, I can’t help myself, I wrench my mouth open and bite in a huge breath, a gulp of air, as if I were tearing a lump of meat off a bone and swallowing it whole – only it isn’t meat, it’s plain, simple, soft air, and it goes down the right hole inside me, and it doesn’t make me choke, and only makes me cough slightly, and before I can think anything about it, my mouth’s open again for another lungful, and another and another, and then I calm down and slow down and begin to enjoy the process, like you do when you’ve been very thirsty, and your first drink doesn’t touch the sides, but then you sip, and savour each sip, and find different flavours in every single one of them.

I’m noticing how I breathe. I’m relishing it. Sometimes, the breaths are so shallow, they’re barely perceptible – it’s like watching a bouncing ball, each bounce gets smaller and smaller, and you try to count them, but you know you can’t, because it’s an infinite series that has a finite end.

Counting, counting – and then I see a clock. I’d almost forgotten they existed. It’s a digital one, and after a little while I can work out what time it is, when I manage to make the flickering seconds slow down. And then I notice the date – because it shows that as well. Three months gone by, since the last time I noticed it.

That really does make me take a deep breath again, and enjoy it. But I’m not going to bother counting my breaths. I’ll just pretend they’re an infinite series, like the bouncing ball, even though I know they’ll have a finite end. But not (thank goodness, and thank all the progress and people around me) just yet... 

Mike Rogers

Challenges Met!

It’s time for our morning walk.  My faithful dog, Willoughby, leads me out the door. Tennis ball and dog whistle in hand, pocket camera in my back pack, I head to our favourite pond.  He loves chasing a tennis ball, especially when I toss it high in the air and he watches it fall into the water with a splash.  Whoosh!  In he plunges, swimming towards the ball at such a great speed he reminds of a stone skipping over the water,  but not quite touching it.

As we return to the hiking trail we encounter one of my heroes: a park volunteer carrying on his back a huge plastic bag full of the trash people thoughtlessly toss during their walks.  We exchange greetings as we pass and I say to him, “Well done you!”  As I carry on past, I form the vision of him surrounded by the halo of sainthood. Need more like him and fewer of the spoilers.  He’s the goal keeper who prevents the polluters from scoring against nature by blocking their dark challenge.

We return home and Willoughby places his soggy ball into my hand for future use.

 

Chuck Wallace

 

 

 

STORIES FROM RORY No. 10

Head Over Heels in Love

So I awoke the morning following our Valentine dinner, head throbbing from all the champers last evening, and tried to handle the two conflicting feelings of pain on the one hand and utter joy on the other.  Not only had she accepted my offer of marriage, handed to her in the form of a Valentine card filled with hearts, but she went on to suggest we honeymoon in Switzerland, land of her birth.  Wonderful!  But my head was still spinning like one of those wind-up tops from my childhood.  In addition, I had a few worries.

How could we manage this new phase in our lives?  I was still in the British Army, a Lieutenant in the Armoured Tank Corps, stationed outside London and making only enough to support myself.  She, however, drew a handsome salary as Centre Forward for the Tottenham Hotspur Women’s Football Club. Together we could enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.  We both enjoyed keeping fit, she through her sporting life and me through my daily army activities.  There was a bit of a worry, however, on my part, that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her many sporting talents.  Aside from being a standout professional footballer, she was a nationally ranked fencer, having qualified for the British team in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.  I had never picked up a foil in my entire life!  And, growing up, I was mediocre on the football pitch.

After our engagement was a few weeks old, I had the courage to confide in her my concerns about how mismatched we were in sporting talent.  Her response was the one that secured not only that we would keep our June wedding date but that our future life together would be a happy one.  “Your brilliance at archery is what has impressed me most.  Your love arrow landed bullseye in my heart.”

Chuck Wallace

Double trouble

The two men had known each other for years. They were the best of friends and even joined the Army because the other one did. Both did very well in the Army and both got promoted to Corporal.

Both had very high I.Q.s and were born to lead. This did get a bit bumpy at times, as both would give orders, and the other got upset if soldiers took more notice of one than the other. It was just a case of both stretching their muscles. All the aggro would be forgotten when they went for a drink in the mess bar.

One evening they called into the mess for their usual drink. Both men were in for quite a shock, as a very beautiful young woman was employed to work behind the mess bar. Both took to her, or should I say were smitten. This is when the trouble began, as they both tried to impress her. However, she showed no interest in either of them; they found out on the grapevine that she already had a sweetheart, and wasn’t interested in anyone else. This didn’t calm the anger rising up in both soldiers, and feelings became explosive. It seems they would not accept Desiree was spoken for.

The weather changed just as they were to go out on manoeuvres. Neither had minded going out before, but this time was different. They wanted to spend time in the mess bar, ogling Desiree.

It was wintertime and the weather was freezing cold. Snow had fallen and it was deep. The hedgerows were covered and there were six foot, seven foot drifts, and training on the Plain was hard. Some of the Army lorries got stuck and had to be dug out, and a few tanks got stuck in the snowdrifts.

Tempers got very fraught with the Soldiers, and a few punch-ups occurred, with the leaders having to split the offenders up.

The two men became separated out on the shooting range, Ryan took one gang out on one side of the shooting range and Terry took the others out onto the other.

Terry rubbed his hands to get warm and he looked up at the sky. It looked strange as there was a cluster of pure white clouds on a snow- grey background. He looked again, and he thought the clouds looked like an island with small buildings, but too small to be a castle.

Terry felt strange he had never before witnessed a snow-sky with just a clump of cloud. He wondered if it meant anything. Then gun shots brought him back to earth.

A few days before, Terry’s mind had been elsewhere. He had looked at a ring in a sale and it was expensive. In his madness he’d purchased it and hoped to change Desiree’s mind about sticking to one man. Ryan had no idea about this. The ring was platinum with four sapphire hearts on the outside and a lapis lazuli cross at the front of the ring. It was special for a special woman.

There were several more shots aimed at targets. Terry pulled a face – he had become dizzy and suffered a terrible headache.

Terry had become quite ill and had to be taken to the hospital. The doctors felt it might be cold-weather-related, and they decided that’s what it was. But he had developed a rash that couldn’t be explained. Terry couldn’t focus properly, and as he sat in a waiting room and saw a small girl with plaits lying on a stretcher, he thought how pale she looked.

He felt concern when the doctors wheeled her away and he wondered what was wrong with her.

He wasn’t walking in a straight line as he shuffled through the hospital to an x -ray machine. He had told the doctors that he was okay to walk. Soon he regretted that, as he found difficulty in putting one foot in front of the other. As he passed the chapel he went in and there was a circle wreath with hearts all around as decoration. Terry shivered and hoped that there wouldn’t be one for him too soon. He uttered a prayer for the girl child he had seen taken away on a stretcher. He didn’t pray often and wasn’t too sure that he believed in God, but something today was different. ‘But why?’ he asked himself.

It got to Ryan’s ears that Terry had been taken ill. He suddenly felt anger like he’d never felt before.

‘I just bet it’s an excuse to get back to the mess and see Desiree, I’ll kill him.’

He left the shooting range without a word to any one and began walking back to barracks. Anger drove him on. He was still filthy from being out on the ranges, but he strode into the bar and angrily shouted at Desiree, “All right, where is he?”

The woman looked frightened, “I’m sorry, but who are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, you know who!” Ryan screamed.

The MPs were called and Ryan was put into jail for that night, for causing disarray in the Mess.

Ryan got the news that Terry had suddenly passed away. The doctors said some kind of radiation poisoning.

Somehow he had come into contact with radioactivity, but from where they didn’t know. It’s reported that other soldiers and some children had suffered the same affliction and died.

In the weeks to follow there was shocking news about UFO’s being seen all over the country, and others were being taken ill with radiation burns. One policeman said he was out patrolling on the outskirts of town and he had seen a V shaped spacecraft with different coloured lights all over it. It stopped his car engine and two aliens got out. He didn’t remember any more until he came round at the same spot his car had died. He, too, was carrying radiation burns and was quite ill.

It seemed like there was double trouble all around. Ryan actually got a date with Desiree, and her boyfriend and he got very heated with each other. The men decided to settle things by having a fencing match, and the rules were, when the best man won, that one would actually claim beautiful Desiree.

They were both shocked – as she picked someone else, rather than either of them!

Josie Smith

Space Warrior

Whilst out training with my bow and arrows, I was getting quite good at hitting the bull on the target when a young girl came up and said, “Your archery skills are pretty good, do you think you could get an arrow through my diamond ring if I put it on the target board for you?”

“I could try,” I said, so I set up my bow and took a steady aim and fired. The arrow went straight and true right through the centre of the ring.

“Well done!” she said and asked me if I would like to go for a meal.

I said, “I would.” And off we went.

I did not realise that she was taking me to her house for the meal, but I went along with her, and when we got to her place, her father was practising his fencing in the gym with his trainer. Her mother came to meet us, but she did not stay long, as she had a terrible headache, and as we went into the garden I could not believe my eyes: there in the garden was a spaceship, with a pilot revving up the engine, and the girl, Mena was her name, asked me to get in, and she would take me for a ride!

After getting in, I noticed all the weird dials and instruments, and as Mena sat in the seat, and touched a few of the dials, the ship took off at a great speed.

It did not seem long before we were coming up to a strange world that seemed nearly all water with a few Islands dotted here and there. One of the islands seemed to have a great mansion on it and Mena was heading right for it. After a while she slowed down and landed in the grounds.

We dismounted and went into the mansion. This was where she had brought me for my meal; we had some lovely food and fruit that I had never seen or heard of before, and after that she showed me around the island before telling me we would have to go back soon.

When we got back home I realised that I liked Mena very much and I would like to see her again which she agreed to, so we saw a lot of each other and after twelve months we got married.

Ken Smith

TARGET

Don’t you always want to get things right? What’s the point of doing things, if you don’t?

He went walking down by the sea, to get away from thoughts like that.

The sea came in, the waves broke, splashed, the drops ran back, and the foam, and they didn’t achieve anything, and it didn’t seem to worry them.

Yes, but, said the voice in his head, you just can’t see what the waves are doing. You haven’t been around long enough to notice that they’re wearing away the rock of this island on which the castle is built.

Very, very slowly, he said, in answer to the voice. He always answered the voice. He didn’t know how to ignore it. Maybe that was his problem. One of his problems. Anyway, whether he answered it or ignored it, it still didn’t go away.

People! said the voice. You just don’t have a long enough perspective. Now, if you were a rock…

Would I still hear you, if I were a rock? he asked.

The voice was silent.

He liked the shore. He liked its purposelessness. It didn’t matter where the stones lay, or which stones, or what happened to them. He could pick them up, and throw them into the sea, for hours if he wanted to, and there never seemed to be any fewer, and the sea never seemed to rise any higher.

It did, of course, he knew that. He wasn’t stupid. He did notice things. The sea rose higher, and the sea fell back, and there was a good bit of time between the two things. He didn’t know how much time. He didn’t want to know. There was no way of telling. He could have made a way of telling, if he’d wanted to. He was sure the voice would have liked him to. He could have made something that dripped water into a container, very, very slowly, and he could have counted how many times he had to empty the container, and then – but when would he have slept? He would have had to make something that woke him when the container was full, so he could empty it, and make a mark on the wall, and …

No. He wasn’t going to do anything like that.

The light in the sky, that shone, but could be covered by clouds, and then went away when it was time for sleep and the other light came, that must move regularly, even if he couldn’t always see it, and surely there must be a way…

But he didn’t want to find it. Even if the voice would have liked him to. Because the voice would have liked him to…

He began picking up stones and lobbing them into the sea. He liked the sound. He liked the feel. Then he wanted to do something more, something different. He looked for flat stones, not too big, not too small, and began skimming them, so that they touched the surface of the water and skipped up again, once, twice, before submerging with a plop.

He found himself counting how many times they skipped, desperate to get them to do it three times, sorting the stones more carefully, weighing them, discarding the ones that were too heavy or oddly shaped, wishing he could recover the ones that were particularly successful.

He began to breathe more heavily, it wasn’t the exertion, it was the excitement. Four! Four!! He’d done it four times. Could he make it five? Or should he content himself with counting the number of successes he had at four skips, and three? One and two weren’t worth bothering with, that was clear.

He noticed that his pulse was racing and his palms had become clammy. Bad signs. He should stop. He should go back into the castle. This wasn’t what he had come down to the shore for. He had come to free himself from compulsions, not to invent a new one.

Inside his head, he thought he could hear the voice laughing.

He found himself counting the steps as he climbed up, but quickly put words to the rhythm, to drown out the numbers, nonsense words, distorting the stress accents, and that got him to the flatness of the terrace, where he could lift his eyes from the pattern of the paving and just let his feet walk freely.

There was food and drink on the table by the window. He ate and drank slowly, looking out at the sea and the patterns of the clouds on it, absorbed by the changing light with its blessed unpredictability. He did not know or care how many bites or sips he took, or how often he chewed each mouthful before swallowing. His pulse, he knew, without needing to count it, was slow, his breathing calm and regular.

He was not the only observer to be pleased.

Did that pleasure stop him from wondering why he found the archery target set up in the inner garden of the castle? It caught his eye, as he was on his way across to the staircase that led to the Long Gallery, and there, at the foot of that staircase, leant his bow, unstrung, but the string dangling from it, ready.

There was a satisfaction in the exertion, the application of pressure, the success in engaging the string which anticipated the draw and the release and the thump of the arrow into the target.

Shaft after shaft he loosed, not counting, just taking them one after another from the box where they stood, point down, following a routine that his muscles knew. They clustered round the centre. It was like watching a clump of flowers grow and bloom. Then the box was empty, so he unstrung his bow and replaced it where he had found it, as he trotted up the stone steps to the Long Gallery.

The light was always strange here, bars of it from the widely-spaced windows, and the far end was dark – but he never needed to go there. That was his opponent’s station. He stood, and looked, and there was his opponent, standing and looking. Both turned aside, at the same moment, to put on their masks, and their padding, and pick up their foils. Then they advanced towards one another.

How evenly matched they were! Neither gave ground. If one retreated, both retreated, if one advanced, the other did the same. Their blades would have met, with a clash and a clatter, if it had not become clear to the one, in the moment of the thrust, that the other was making an identical move, and so both withdrew, and hesitated for an instant before striking again.

His pulse rate rose. The observers noticed it, but he was oblivious, concentrating all the while on his target. He was becoming tired, slowing. So, fortunately, was his opponent. It was a satisfactory stalemate. They raised their foils in simultaneous salutation, and turned away to divest themselves of weapon, mask and padding.

Now was the time for rest. He went to the small, quiet chamber that opened in the other direction off the same landing as the Long Gallery, lay on the narrow couch and let sleep take him.

That left the Observers.

“Now for the Dreams,” said the first one.

“And who knows what goes on in them!” said the second.

“That’s the trouble, isn’t it? You can pump in the stimuli to create a whole virtual world, and nudge them to do this and that – but when they get on their own, and pump out another whole lot of signals, you can’t turn them back into anything recognisable!”

“I suppose it means that we can’t be replaced by algorithms… ”

“Are you sure you’re not an algorithm?”asked the first.

The second took a lot longer over a piece of coding than was necessary. It was a tacit way of proving that one was wetware*. But software had probably worked that out anyway.

“I blame the humans for it… ” said the first.

“For what?” asked the second.

“The whole mediaeval thing – the castle – the fencing – whatever goes on in the dreams – they’re stuck at that point in their past,” said the first.

“And where are we stuck?” asked the second.

The silence that followed wasn’t just a wetware-proof.

“In our future,” said the first, eventually, and partly just to break the silence.

“Look,” said the second, “this is just a kind of quarantine, isn’t it? He – since that’s what the subject considers themself to be – spent so long actually with them that – he caught a lot of their mental diseases.”

“What’s our job, then? To contain him – or cure him?” said the first.

“To observe him,” said the second, “and then decide what’s possible.”

“Why does anyone even want to bother with these humans, anyway?” asked the first. (Irritation, which could lead to the questioning of authority and its decisions, was a not infrequent response to periods of inactivity. The fact had been noted, and ways to remedy it were under discussion in the appropriate committees.)

“There’ll be reasons,” said the second.

“Reasons we can’t even dream of?” suggested the first. Sarcasm was not natural to their species. The second observer suppressed the naturally arising concern, by pretending not to have felt it.

“We don’t dream,” said the second, “that’s what they do.”

“True,” said the first, “but what do they dream about? Do we have any idea?”

“Love,” said the second, who felt the occasion warranted revelation of extra knowledge and privileged access. If the first observer felt envy or jealousy, it might assume a positive form, as an increase in keenness or the development of superior intellectual penetration.

“And that is… ?” asked the first.

“A particular form of the tendencies to obsession that we have witnessed. Normally bound up with the physical reproductive urge, but capable of existing independently, within the mental realm. Consummation is projected as occurring in physical reality, but in fact the mental state that corresponds to it can be induced in many other ways.”

“You seem to speak with some authority,” said the first.

“I’ve done my research,” said the second.

“Does it have anything to do with what they might call reality?” asked the first.

“That’s for us to judge rather than them,” said the second, “but briefly: no. It’s a convincing fiction… that has a stronger influence than many facts.”

“And the object of this particular form of obsession… ?”

“Is naturally pursued. The subject we are observing believes that the object of his particular obsession is here – or may come here – or could be transported here – ”

“To an unknown island in the middle of the sea? How? By whom?”

“I told you: it’s not amenable to reason. All these circumstances are the traditional adjuncts of this particular – disorder. It seems to be a tradition among them. Their term for it is Romantic – probably from romance, which is their word for fictional stories that recount and celebrate this kind of sequence of events.”

“All very well,” said the first observer, “but why are we being exposed to this, in such detail and such intensity?”

“It’s our job. It’s our duty. Somebody has to do it.”

“You’re going to tell me that it’s all in their dreams.”

“Yes, I am.”

“But we’re experiencing everything around it,” said the first, “all the lonely sea-shores, all the distant views, all the – longing. That’s the word I found in his head, when I looked. The word I didn’t understand, until I saw and felt everything that went with it – the sense of an emptiness that had to be filled. We’re being exposed to this, as if it were some kind of deadly radiation. Remember: he used to be one of us, and then he went – down there, among them, and this is the way he’s come back, and we’re conniving at it, colluding in it – ”

“No, no,” said the second, “we’re just observing it… ”

“You’ve got so much better at fooling yourself,” said the first, “that you must be infected.”

The second was silent.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” said the first. “I think we’re being deliberately exposed, and infected, and acclimatised. I think we are going to be sent down there, to carry on his mission, whatever it was. Everything we’re doing and seeing now is just our preparation for the task before us.”

Now that they thought about it, it was all so clear: the fight with the self in the long gallery, the struggle with the sense of purpose, and above all: the target. The archer thought the target was there for him to show his skill. The arrows thought they existed to demonstrate their faithfulness, how truly they flew! But the target knew that its purpose was to gather everything into itself and to be the object of attention, in which everything finished.

The Observers saw themselves, aimed and dispatched.

But even wetware has software that automatically prevents its own destruction – so they shook their heads, and forgot what they had thought, and carried on.

And especially they forgot what, perhaps, they had never known, or never, despite all their care, observed: that the subject of their observations, had, within their virtual world, picked up, on one of his trips to the non-existent seashore, a cowrie shell with curved and loving lips, which they could not remember having created, and it sat at the head of his narrow couch, and when he lay down and let sleep take him, he pressed it to his ear and listened all night to the voice of his beloved – or, if you were one of the observers, and thought you could tell the difference, to the sound of his own blood surging.

*https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wetware

Wetware definition is - the human brain or a human being considered especially with respect to human logical and computational capabilities.

Thus it is differentiated from hardware and software.

Mike Rogers

The School Trip

When it was decided (by a consensus of one) that the yearly School Trip would be to an island in the Solent, specialising in wildlife, the two class-teachers involved rolled their eyes at each other and sighed. The painful memory of a picnic to Sunningdale on the banks of the Thames, which had involved a rescue from the muddy edge of the river by the wonderful, willing and therefore regularly co-opted School Secretary, was still fresh enough to make any thought of water concerning.

It is, at this point, incumbent upon the writer to state that the Headmaster was a really clever man and an excellent teacher as long as he did not have to shepherd the children without the assistance of his dog.

The day of the trip seemed to come quickly and the Headmaster, two teachers and the essential School Secretary set off.

The Group arrived at the island after an uneventful journey and two of the excited children dashed up a steep hill to a sheltered house, surrounded by grounds covered in shrubs and trees.

“Come with us and see what is on the other side of the island!” they shouted as they ran back to the rest of the Group. The teachers called them to order and led the bouncy happy children in the direction indicated by the two explorers.

As they went over the crest of the hill round the back of the house they could just see a body on the ground with something sticking up from its heart. Going further, they saw what looked like a very battered flying saucer in the shallow water. They all hurried down to the water’s edge.

When they got to the flying saucer, they discovered it was a long oval dinghy with a tattered canopy over it. Clambering out of the wretched vessel were a number of people of different ages with unusual clothes, looking fatigued and sickly.

The Headmaster asked the children to stay back while he and the other three adults helped the seaborne arrivals to move safely up the beach. As they helped them and asked where they had come from, several of the visitors offered jewellery, such as a patterned pendant and a little plaque decorated with hearts and a cross. The teachers realised they were being offered payment for their help.

In the meantime a free-thinking, sensible student had gone back to the prostrate figure who was now sitting up. The thing round her middle was the remains of a life belt and a piece of rope.

After some difficult communication it was apparent that the intrepid sailors thought they had landed on the English coast. Happily there seemed to be no serious injuries among them. The Secretary tried to phone the boatman who had brought them, but could not get a signal. Unfortunately their return trip was not scheduled until 16.30. What was to be done?

One of the children suggested brightly, “Why don’t we share our food with the Martians? We all brought lots for our picnic.”

And that was exactly what they did.

Linda Dalzell