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

 

 

STORIES FROM RORY No. 9

 

SUBTRAFUGE

Captain Roberts had been keeping his eye on the sub’s diesel fuel gauge....almost half full.  He had safely arrived at the coastal drop-off point for the three Royal Marines he had been ordered to deliver at a Bell’s Cove just after midnight. They took to their inflatable dinghy and quietly rowed ashore, watched by Roberts through his telescope from the sub’s conning tower.  The men easily located the rock-lined coastal cave indicated on their map and settled in to rest up for their morning assignments.

Their goal was to infiltrate the seaside village of Dundalk and, dressed in the local, inconspicuous clothing they wore leaving the sub, blend in with the local county fair festivities scheduled for the weekend.  After each taking the pills which would keep them alert during the dangerous mission, they clambered over the coastal rocks and joined the early morning preparations for the fair events.  They helped in raising the two circus tents, earning them free passes to the carnival rides which would open at noon.

They would not take advantage of those free rides, however!  As the fair grounds began to fill, they walked into Dundalk and sought out their target’s house.  The map accurately led them to the house with a large family crest prominently displayed on the double garage next to the stone steps leading up to the house.  The Murray crest was  further confirmation that they had reached the correct house.  Spacing themselves 10 meters apart, they slowly walked up the forty-five steps until they reached a beautifully manicured garden framing the impressive three storey Victorian mansion. None of them knew their target’s family members but they must be very wealthy.  The Aston-Marin parked outside the Murray garage confirmed that.  They must have done something very bad for them to deserve what was coming!

The mission now dictated that they find the entrance to the house’s cellar, enter it and place the explosives they had carried in their back packs at the precise foundation points noted on the reverse side of their map.  There was no sound coming from the floors above so they surmised the Murray family was away for the weekend, as had been noted in their mission briefing.  But what about that handsome roadster down at the garage?  As they descended the steps and left they glanced back at the DB4, its British Racing Green bonnet glistening in the sun, and hoped that debris from the exploding house would not rain down and damage this wonderful example of British engineering.  They had to trust that the Murray family had done something terribly wrong to deserve this!  Government-sponsored terrorism against its own citizens.  “The greater good,” was how the mission briefing on the sub had put it.  Let’s hope so.

Chuck Wallace

In the Cellar

We had enjoyed a party in the Bulrush pub cellar. I must have passed out, and I woke with a start and a splitting headache. For some minutes I couldn’t fathom where I was. Then one cell in my brain began to work; ah, now I remember. I am alone here and everyone else has vanished, well, gone home, I supposed.

I climbed the steps up to the bar and Malcolm the pub manager greeted me.

“Wow, you look like hell. You seemed like you had hollow legs and kept drinking everything you could swallow. It was as if you were taking your last drink, and you drank everyone else under the table.”

I put my hand over my eyes as the light was blinding.

“Have you anything to take this headache away mate?” I asked.

“Paracetamol do?” He put some capsules on the bar-top with a glass of water.

“Thanks, mate,” I said, and I couldn’t wait for the tablets to kick in. Then I ran to the gents to be sick. I washed my face and hands and after a while I felt a bit better.

I parked myself on one of the WCs to pull myself together.

Looking around the sparkling wash room, I noticed something I’d not noticed before. It was a painting someone had worked hard on, and it was great work and extremely unusual.

It was a yellow submarine, and the artist had painted part of the layout of inside the sub. The artist had painted a speedo and a fuel gauge, also a map with an x to mark the spot with a pint of beer next to the x.

It made me wonder what the artist was trying to say and I thought I would ask Malcolm when I emerged from the wash room.

I came out of the gents and asked Malcolm about the Muriel on the wash-room wall. He chuckled as he explained the meaning of the yellow submarine.

“Well, the yellow submarine was all the rage when this artist came here to drink. It was sung by the Beatles and one of their greatest hits. The lads all used to sing this song when they’d had a few. They also would wind each other up and make up stories to tell their wives why they got home late in a drunken state.

“The fuel gauge was to alert them when they’d had one too many. The speedo was to represent how fast they could run away from their wives’ rolling pins, or frying pans.

“The map with the X next to the pint of beer is asking them a question.”

“So what is the question, Malc?”

“Do you love the beer more than your wife?”

He laughed again and mentioned that most of the lads would say, “I’ll settle for the beer, I know what kind of headache to expect from a pint, but not sure what sort of pain in the head I’ll get from her indoors.”

My memory fully refreshed, now I remembered my poor wife sitting at home, wringing her hands, wondering where I am.

On the way home I made up all sorts of excuses for being out all night. I gave a sigh of relief as I got through the door. Angela smiled and kissed me on the cheek.

“I’m so sorry love I should have rung to let you know I’d be late, and honestly, I never expected to be out all night,” I said, tongue in cheek.

“Oh don’t worry, Brian, Malcolm phoned me to let me know it was about to be an all-nighter, and so I had the girls over, and we had our own celebration. It was great, and we also got very tipsy.”

I guess that’s why I married Angela; she’s such a good sport.

I gave Malcolm a ring and thanked him for phoning our home.

Josephine Smith

TRADITION

The wind was cold. The tent did little to keep out the chill. It was new. The wind was old, and knew many more tricks. It came from miles and miles away, from lands that were still covered in snow, where the ground never thawed, not even in summer. Here, near the sea, in the country of the Pruzzen, there was mud again, just enough, not too much. That was why the Duke had ordered the campaign to begin afresh, the one he had reluctantly abandoned in the autumn rains. Gerd thought it was folly, but he was too young, his family too new and too poor, to have any influence in the councils, and now that the Duke’s brother had become leader of the German Order the Great Man could whistle up God on his side.

Which bit of God, Gerd wondered, was supposed to be fighting on their side? It couldn’t be the soft-eyed Son, who still had the wounds to show from His last encounter with soldiery; and it was unlikely to be the Bird, the Dove, who traditionally brought peace. It must be the Old Man, with the big beard, the one who liked smiting, and wasn’t always too careful who He smote. The one who claimed vengeance as His Own, and then deputed people to be His agents.

Like now. In a nice clean tent – well, it had been clean when they started – with a pennant on the top, and big black crosses round the sides, just the thing to scare the natives, when the Knights, or rather their servants, set up camp and these giant mushrooms looked as though they’d popped out of the ground overnight.

Gerd didn’t believe the natives were scared. He thought they were just being cautious, keeping out of sight, doing things that the Knights couldn’t see, wouldn’t see until it was too late. Stakes, for instance, concealed with brushwood, to spike the horses when they landed, after their over-confident riders urged them on to jump these negligible obstacles.

Gerd knew he wasn’t especially clever. He just kept his eyes open. He’d kept them open last time he was up here, as a page, rapidly promoted to squire, as the casualties rose, and squires had to be made knights. He hadn’t asked to come, not then, not now. His family had urged him, pushed him, forced him. They wanted better territory and more of it. One way to get that, of course, was to go to the Duke’s court and fawn on him – but to do that, you had to have money to start with, for the fine clothes and the rich presents, and (so they said) for the expensive perfumes that disposed the Duke especially well towards pretty young men. Gerd’s father had neither the money nor the manners for that road to acquiring land, nor, to his credit, did he wish his eldest son to become a courtier of that kind. A boor, thought Gerd, but an honest boor.

Gerd’s eyes were always open. Others might shut them in terror, or wilful ignorance, or prayer – he had watched them do that often enough, both here and at home – but he kept looking, and when he had the time, and thought it appropriate, he judged. But he waited with judgement, till he had enough knowledge, and even after he had made his judgement he still collected knowledge, because he knew that out of ignorance he might have judged wrong.

If his eyes were open now, though, it was because sleep fled him. He rose, and left the tent, with its other sleepers muttering, snorting, sprawling, twitching, and went to stalk his quarry. If sleep would not come of its own accord – and, in the circumstances, why should it? – then it had to be tracked down. So the hunter moved quietly through the flickering darkness.

The camp was never quiet, not completely.

Horses stirred, whinnied softly to one another – who could tell what they were saying? Ah, what a gift it would be, to know that! How language could link!

Men moved to and fro, errands, duties, perhaps even messages. Preparations for the morrow: checking the horses’ tack – many a rider had been lost by an unsound girth or a bent buckle; readying food; and bandages, to staunch wounds and bind up broken limbs. Swords and spears were sharpened, shafts tested for soundness. Archers kept their bows warm and dry beside them, some even caressed the flights of their arrows and murmured to them to fly straight, charms in old languages they took care that the priests should not hear.

The priests made their magic in their own tent, where the candles burnt all night before the altar, and incense wafted out through the flap to fight with all the other smells of the camp and lose. They sang, those priests, it was not a simple muttering in the tongue of holiness and charters and histories, but a quiet song that bemused and made spellbound with its repetitions.

Gerd stood there in the darkness, at the back of the priests’ tent, wondering what they were singing, and what it had to do with the fury that would be unleashed when the dawn came. His younger brother, Erwin, with the twisted leg, was destined for the priesthood, or perhaps for the law – a chancellery official. Already he wrote a good round hand, and discoursed as easily in Latin as in his native tongue. Gerd’s father had had the wit to turn a disadvantage to an advantage. The younger would secure with the pen what the elder won with the sword.

But nothing was won yet, and the future was as dark and light-speckled as what lay around him.

He turned away from the quiet hum – like a bee-hive by night, he thought – towards the darker dark, where trees and bushes were even blacker silhouettes against the dark grey sky where no moon shone and a marching army of clouds obscured the stars.

Sentries were posted – but they were sparse and lax, because the wisdom was that the natives had fled, primitively thinking to oppose them in a pitched battle the next day. Gerd was far more cautious than that – but it meant that his mood, which was growing calmer with steady walking, as he crept up on his prey, sleep, did not need to be disturbed by challenge and answer.

He wondered, indeed, whether he had fallen asleep while walking, and missed a few score paces, for he found himself in a place that he had never seen before, though he had walked round the camp three times in the daylight, to understand the ground over which, if the worst came to the worst, the Duke’s army might have to retreat.

In front of him he saw an arbour of rowan-trees, with some of their winter berries still hanging shrivelled from the branches. They sheltered a kind of mound, a low hut roofed with branches and dried grass and moss and turves to make it waterproof. Perhaps, thought Gerd, its framework has been made from living rowan trees, bent over as saplings and rooted again. He noticed, though the wind blew still as keenly, that the trees around were motionless. A steady glow crept out of the round hole which served as the hut’s entrance, and Gerd could hear a low singing, just one voice, more mysterious and more melodious than the noise the priests made.

He stopped to listen. The sound drew him. Sleep beckoned. What he had hunted was there, waiting for him, tame, and welcoming. He lowered his head, and bent his knees, and shuffled into the cramped space.

Inside, it did not seem cramped at all. The embers in the stone-edged fire-pit glowed enough to show a face on the far side, its high, shiny cheek-bones, its glinting eyes. The rest of it was in shadow. Specks of light came back from points on indistinct objects around. Were they bones? Were they shiny metal, glass beads, stones, crystals, drops of water, tears of amber with something inside them? Gerd could not say. It did not seem important. There was a scent enfolding him, stroking his eyelids until they had to close.

But as his outer eyes closed, his inner ones opened. And his ears. He was not sure which language was being spoken, only that he understood it. During his first time in the land of the Pruzzen as a page he had had to do with the natives, buying food from farms, listening to conversations, trying to comprehend from gestures and laughter and frowns and shaken heads just what was being said. Then, before the Duke had determined on conquest and the Church on conversion, it had been possible to be friendly. The people then had thought that the strangers, with their angular tongue, might be more generous, more merciful, than the native nobility who spoke their own language and mostly used it to order them around and make demands. Time had proved them wrong.

Questions were asked, and Gerd gave answers, without knowing what words he used, but he knew what was being offered to him, and what he said in reply.

What he wanted to know about was the future. Not just his. Not just whether he would die in the battle to come, or survive and perhaps be rewarded. Those things he would find out for himself in due course. Knowing would change nothing. He wanted to know what would happen to his family. Not those he knew now. He could imagine their fates. His father would continue to be discontented and grumbling, constantly dissatisfied with his offspring, driving them on to further efforts, as he had been driven by his own father, as had been the case all the way back to the moment when one particularly brave, bold, lucky, foolish man had distinguished himself in battle and caught the eye of his lord for long enough to be given a title and some land. That was where it had all started. Gerd wanted to know – not where it would all finish, but where it would all go. Even if he perished before the next sunset, or Erwin became a priest without issue, Gerd knew that his father had already married a good little breeder to replace Erwin’s mother, who had died of the next child – a girl – what did you expect? And before the apoplexy took him – too much food, too much drink, too much anger – he would have done his best to sire a few more.

In his way, Gerd was pleased to think that there was something outside himself and beyond himself that would continue – and that was before he considered his uncles and cousins… And so he made his request… and found that the world around him had changed…

There were steps under his feet, going down, he heard the echo, a vast hall, and a gentle splash of water. Lights above – not torches – he looked back down towards the water – that, at least, he thought he understood, though not what he saw floating in it.

The vision swam before his eyes – the eyes of his descendant, far, far in the future – but it was Gerd’s eyes, looking out through them, that could not encompass what he saw.

When the view cleared, everything was closer, much, much closer. He was enclosed – by what? No brick, no stone, no wood. Everything seemed to be made of metal, plates riveted together, when he could see where they joined. Smooth metal pipes ran everywhere, like the lead that was used in fountains, but shinier, harder… Men sat in chairs, chairs, too, made from metal. He paid no attention to the clothes they wore. Clothes always changed. No wonder in that. They stared at discs, with pointers that moved. Someone had told him once about such things – he had thought it a traveller’s tale – they could tell the time – time passed, whether it was told or not – others pointed the way for ships –

In his head, Gerd asked a question. He knew he had been granted his wish, but he hoped he could ask for something more. He thought about the best way to put it. Where am I? would not help. The answer would only be the name of a place, which he might or might not recognise. What is around me? There was a hesitation before the answer came, but when it did, he understood. Armour – Panzer. A vast suit of armour, with space in it for many men. Gerd began to imagine how such a vast creature might be made to move and stride over the landscape, dealing death and destruction wherever it went, and the men who worked it sat in safety…

He ventured another question: What am I doing? The answer almost had a chuckle in it – Hunting. He chanced a third question: Hunting what? The answer was not what he had expected: Ships – and the cargo and people they carry. There was a muffled roar, and a mighty blow struck the gigantic suit of armour in which he found himself. It lurched and slewed to the right, and began to tilt downwards. The quality of light in it changed, growing suddenly darker. The men were shouting and running to and fro. Only he – his descendant – stood still, and calm, amid the panic and chaos, though perhaps it was not that, but just a speedy response to danger.

His descendant’s eyes glanced down, and Gerd could see water rising round his feet. One of the dials with a pointer on flew off the wall, and a jet of water spurted out from the broken pipe to which it had been attached. Gerd’s descendant put his hand into a pocket and pulled out a tiny coloured tube, as long as the end-joint of his little finger, looked at it for an instant, then put it away, and joined his men – for surely he was their commander, his bearing, his sense of tradition, all bore that out – and with that, the vision ended.

Gerd came back to himself, drawing in deep breaths, as though he had been on the point of drowning, as though he had been under the water, which, he knew, he had been.

He shook his head, to clear it. He was back in the small hut, the embers had dulled, the scent had grown less, the eyes on the other side of the dying fire still looked at him, and a voice spoke in his head: You cannot change the future. Too many other people, too many other events will conspire to make it what it will be. Only your own next action is still in your hands.

Suddenly, the glow died. Choking smoke billowed up and drove him, staggering, from the hut. When he turned round again, still catching his breath, even the mound seemed to have sunk back into the earth. A sentry, who had just noticed him, called a challenge, and Gerd responded, and found himself walking back towards the camp.

The tent was as he had left it. His fellow-sleepers still lay in their unguarded attitudes, puffed, gurgled, burbled and threshed about them, offering him no help or guidance in his decision.

His imagination presented him with realities and possibilities. In a very short while, armoured men would ride down the Pruzzen, slaughtering all they could. Then, under the auspices of the Church, with its blessing, connivance, and direct involvement, the process of annexation and colonisation would begin: kill the men, rape the women, baptise and enslave the children, turning them into serfs, tied to land owned by people who refused to speak their language.

Some of the knights would die, that was sure, or be unhorsed and dragged off for ransom or torture. Were he not there at the end of the battle, they would assume that had been his fate, and, eventually, inform his father accordingly. (Somewhere there was a cleric who delighted in keeping lists, but always had too many to keep and too little time to do it, so was always behindhand with them.)

If Gerd wanted to hunt – and he did – he would sooner hunt animals than people or ships, and not in armour, either, so as to give the animals a fair chance to hunt him. There were woods here. When the battle was over, there would be plenty of game in them again, certainly enough to nourish a man with a good bow and good arrows and a good set of spears. The sword he would keep for other eventualities.

He strode to the weapons tent. The guard was nodding, but started at the intrusion. Gerd shushed him back to a drowsing sleep and took a handful of spears, the ones without knightly pennons, a stout longbow and a quiver of arrows.

The sky in the east had a silver edge to it by the time he reached the horse-lines.

“Scouting,” he whispered to the guard, as he unhitched a light palfrey and led it away to the clump of trees where he had already left his weapons, tied securely together, and a bundle of clothes in a blanket. It was spring, after all, and the wind had dropped at last, and before the autumn he should have found a place to make himself a shelter –

Perhaps he would tie together some rowan-trees…

Every tradition has to start somewhere.

Mike Rogers