life – Page 14 – Afterwards

A thought…

It’s really not the end of the world. Unless of course it is.

A thought…

It’s really not the end of the world. Unless of course it is.

H is for Home

I have lived in a fair few places in my life.

I have lived in a fair few places in my life. Hull, Secunda, Mossel Bay, Grahamstown, Oudtshoorn, Knysna, Immingham, Barton-Upon-Humber, Sheffield, Sowerby Bridge, Brighouse and Halifax. Not the one in Nova Scotia. I think that’s all of them.

My instinct here is to explore the phrase that ‘home is where the heart is’, and looking back all of those places – perhaps with the exception of Hull (Which I left when I was 10) and Halifax (where I live now) – felt rather temporary. I have very few, though definitely some, memories that I look back upon with fondness, and try as I might I find myself hard pressed to remember the feeling of content I have where I live now.

Perhaps it is the stage in my life that I find myself at, the life I have made for myself and the physical surroundings that all together make my current home something different to everything that has gone before. It is not a fancy house by any means, only a small terrace in an average part of an average norther town but it is mine. Or ours, as I share it with my wife and children. It is the place that we have made our home for the last ten years and where the memories that mean the most to me have been made.

It is where I have watched my boys grow up, each room filled with magical memories of at least one of them covering it in vomit. It is the place where I have threatened to paint and put up shelves and trust me, I will get round to it I promise. When we are long gone somebody will pull up the carpets and see the large cock I drew on the wooden floors in the back bedroom.

We renovated it from top to bottom recently, and put everything we had into it to make it the place that we could spend the next decade though there is perhaps still not quite enough room for my comic collection. Oh, and don’t get me started on the collection of things at the bottom of the stairs up to the kids bedrooms.

It is about more than just the four of us though, it is the place where my wife and I have made new friends and welcomed them into our home and been so very grateful when they have eventually left because we do rather like the peace and quiet too.

When I go out I see so many people that I know from the community, and I feel like I belong here and am part of the community and proudly so.

I love where I live, the house I live in and the people I share it with and who knows, maybe we would have been happy in any of the myriad of places I have lived but to me this one is special.

Next time…I is for i-spy

Tales of Tinsel – Room 101

101 words with a twist thrown in just because…

Let’s do another month of M’s prompts shall we. 101 words allowed only. I know I said I was done with them. I lie.

Slowly Damien sneaked downstairs, not daring to breathe. He’d heard something, and he was convinced it was him! Christmas lights twinkled as he entered the room, his heart pounding, and there he saw a bearded, round bellied man silhouetted against the moonlight.

He had him!

“Sant…” he began to shout when suddenly he noticed two bodies lying unmoving on the floor. He knew from the matching reindeer slippers it was mum and dad.

The man stepped grinning from the darkness carrying a large sack and raised a gun with his free hand and pushed it into Damien’s chest.

“Merry Christmas kid…”

Photo courtesy of pixabay

Dripping with Drudgery

‘Tis the season to be jolly, tralalalalalalalala

Let’s do another month of M’s prompts shall we.

Slumped against the cold brick of the station wall Darryl pulled the ragged hood of his coat over his head and twisted open the lid of the bottle of white lightning cider gripped between his legs. It fizzed invitingly as escaped snowflakes danced on the biting breeze and he took a deep drink watching the masses pass by.

“Funny lot aren’t they” he said passing the bottle to a dirty faced, fair haired man sat next to him.

He took a drink and passed the bottle back, yellow fingers taking a cigarette from a crumpled packet. He pulled from his pocket. “Fun to watch though” he said struggling to light it, eventually resorting to pulling his jacket over his head to provide protection from the wind. “So many of them yet all so very alone.”

“Do you think they’ll ever be ready” Darryl asked the fair haired man as the snow started to fall more heavily.

“My Friend” he replied, a fat bottomed girl in a red coat dropping pennies into the cup at his feet. “Merry Christmas” he shouted as she scurried on her way.

“There are days when I think they are going to get it right but sadly each time they fall so very short.” He ran a sleeve under his nose and sniffed. It really was rather cold, next time he would have to ensure he had a warmer placement.

“I think they could be quite great you know” Darryl said taking another drink. He coughed as he felt it trickle down inside him.

The fair haired man laughed. “You really do like them don’t you” he said drawing deep on the cigarette.

“Yes I do” Darryl replied. “They’re fun, creative, passionate, excitable, caring and…”

“And they’re violent and careless and selfish” the fair haired man interrupted.

Darryl sighed.

“I know I know“ he said picking up the cup and tipping out the coppers into his hand.

“How much did we make then” the fair haired man asked finishing the cigarette.

“One pound twenty” Darryl said, sadness etched across his face.

“And there you see my point exactly” the fair haired man said getting to his feet and dusting himself down. “All we need is a tenner, just a tenner and they’re in” he said sharply. “But they don’t care mate, not enough.”

Darryl put the change back in the cup and took another drink of the cider.

“I’m going to give it another ten minutes” he said rubbing his hands together against the cold. “I’m still on the clock and you never know, this could be the day.”

“Good luck” the fair haired man replied, “I will see you back in orbit, I really need a nice cup of tea.”

Thistles and Thorns

The things that hold us back…

Let’s do another month of M’s prompts shall we.

I’ve a tale I would tell, and it might do you well

To pay heed and perhaps give some thought

To the things that constrain and the things that we blame

And on which were eternally caught

They’re the things in our heads, that live under our beds

And that lurk when we wake late at night

Paralysed by the doubt and the voices that shout

they defeat when we just cannot fight

Or you think you’re no good and that one day you could

be redeemed if you just do not stray

so you live only just and you hope pray and trust

that divine you’ll be carried away

so we stop in our tracks and we always look back

never trying to push on ahead

and were tangled in thorns and our minds they get torn

cant make sense of the thoughts in our heads

and you’re lying there scared and your wholly ensnared

to the things you believe are the truth

now perhaps they are not but you’ve sadly forgot

how to look for a sign or some proof

Unencumbered you’d find that the world can be kind

and there’s joy to be found and much more

we can live, love and learn and eternity spurn

for there’s hope here and now, life galore

George and Alice

The old clock in the hall struck seven as George sat down at his writing table as he did every night.

Let’s do another month of M’s prompts shall we…this one is in response to the Weaving Words prompt.

The old clock in the hall struck seven as George sat down at his writing table as he did every night. He opened the drawer and took out the pen she had given him on their 25^th anniversary, then carefully took a sheet of the finest paper from a sheath and placed it on the desk in front of him.

He rolled the pen between his fingers and smiled as he read the inscription:

“My heart remains yours always.”

He pulled his chair to the desk, made himself comfortable and began to write.

My dearest Alice

Winter has come at last it seems, and the days grow shorter and we have had the first flakes of snow this evening. Fortunately I have a good store of wood this year, and the new people on the Henderson farm have assured me they have plenty to spare should I run short. They seem very nice, though I am not quite sure they are cut out for this life. Time will tell.

I took a walk by the river this morning, the air cold and crisp and the skies blue with the feintest whisper of cloud. Sadly the old bridge we built at Millers crossing has collapsed, and I fear age would insist that I am now well beyond repairing it.

Such memories it brought back and I remembered the yellow dress you wore the day we finished it. It seems like only yesterday, and the smile you wore with it remains with me to this day. As time passes it’s funny the things we remember and those we forget. The smallest details of our life together I still recall and yet major events now seem like a story told to me by someone else.

Sometimes I do wonder whether I have forgotten days we spent together, yet my heart remains full of those that are still so clear to me.

My heart remains yours always

George

Gently placing the pen on the desk George then folded the paper and placed it in an envelope that he pulled from the bottom drawer. Sealing it he then took a bundle of identical envelopes and slowly unknotted the string that bound them together.

Taking up the pen he wrote ‘Alice’ on the front and then bundled it with the others, refastening them together with the old coarse string and placing them back in the drawer.

He smiled as he stood from the desk, pushed the chair back in and turned out the light.

It had been a good day, she would have enjoyed it he thought smiling to himself as he climbed the stairs to bed.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks – Room 101

Saving the worst for last.