tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34023321323971928372024-02-21T06:13:03.364-08:00The Onion PatchWhere short stories and tall tales growLaura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-33200304889781231782014-12-19T03:24:00.000-08:002014-12-19T03:30:06.766-08:00The Travelling Yawn<style>
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</style> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bea yawned, a big wide extra-air-gulping yawn.</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Uncle Charlie. ‘I do believe
that’s my yawn!’ He peered at her closely. ‘You’ll have to do it again; I
didn’t quite see enough of it to be sure.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bea looked at him as if he were standing on his head wearing
his shoes on his hands. ‘Your yawn? It’s not. It’s my yawn. And I can’t do it
agaiiiiii Arhhhh.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Yes,’ said Uncle Charlie, nodding wisely. ‘One yawn very
often likes to follow another. They go about in pairs, you see. That second one
wasn’t <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>quite the same as the first one,‘
he added sadly. ‘But I am pretty sure…’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Uncle Charlie, you’re going to have to explain yourself,’ interrupted
Bea. ‘How can my yawn be your yawn?’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Uncle Charlie settled himself more comfortably into his
chair. (Bea was a little worried that this might turn out to be one of Uncle
Charlie’s Very Long Stories.) ‘You know that when one person yawns, another
person catches it, then the next person, and then the next?’ he said. ‘Well, in
that way yawns can travel around the world. And if you are very lucky, your original
yawn will come back to you. I myself always try to yawn in a new and
interesting way, so I recognise it when it returns.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bea still had a disbelieving look on her face, but Uncle
Charlie didn’t seem to notice. Dreamily, he continued;</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Once had a yawn that was gone three years before I caught
it again. It had taken on some strange characteristics, but I knew it just the
same. It must have travelled to some very exotic places.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Like when people go somewhere hot, and they come back with
a tan and a funny hat, but you still know it’s them?’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Precisely!’ said Uncle Charlie, looking pleased.
‘Oftentimes you’ll merely be passing on someone else’s yawn. But next time you
start a yawn all by yourself, send it off with a smile and a wave and bid it a
good journey.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Oh I will, said Bea. ‘I will.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And from that day to this, Bea has only lost eight original yawns.
Something of a record, she thinks.</span></span></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-88206944090552932382013-05-07T07:12:00.002-07:002013-05-07T07:38:59.063-07:00The Odd Couple<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
two dogs had lived next door to each other for three years.</span><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">One
was a bearded collie that loathed the colour red, the other was a red setter that
despised beards. This was the main reason that they had hated each other for
the first two years and eight months. There were other reasons, but minor in
comparison.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Things
changed when the owners of each dog fell in love and knocked down the fence
between their two gardens. This was a disaster for the dogs and as their owners
stared lovingly into each other’s eyes, the dogs growled and scowled and tried
to dig up each others’ bones, until a misunderstanding over who owned the stripy
rubber ball resulted in a bitten ear and a nasty graze.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘This
can’t go on,’ thought the setter. ‘And as the oldest, most elegant and by far
the most intelligent of us both, I shall be the one to make the first move
towards peace.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So
he trotted out into the garden and as the bearded collie looked up from the
hole he was digging in the setter’s favourite flowerbed, said in deep,
dignified tones:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Woof,
woofwoofwoof. Woof.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This
meant: ‘Look here, you. I’m going to the park in a minute and I’m going to run
about really fast and sniff trees. Would you care to join me?’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Ruff.
Ruff. Ruff ruff ruff ruff’ - ‘I too am going to the park. But if I do run about
really fast, it’ll be nothing to do with you. It’ll be because my owner throws
my brand new stripy rubber ball for me.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Suit
yourself, ‘ said the setter.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So
the setter and the collie ran all the way to the park, both trying to be first,
but without appearing to be together.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
setter sniffed a few trees, barked a bit then ran back. His owner hadn’t
noticed a thing, because she’d been too busy staring happily into her
neighbour’s eyes.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Hmm.’
thought the collie. ‘That really did look like fun. Perhaps if he asks me again
tomorrow, I’ll join in.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But
the next day came, and the setter didn’t ask.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Ruff?’
enquired the collie the next time they were at the park at the same time. ‘I’m
going to dig those leaves up and see what’s underneath. You coming?’ </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Nah,
said the setter haughtily.’ Did that yesterday. Boring.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
collie thought of something very rude under his breath and got a stern look
from his owner.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Oh
dear. Would they never be friends? What could possibly bring two dogs together,
united in joy with one common purpose? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">SQUIRREL!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdVlkjMOZLjFLdd8irwCpt5SLtJB7uGe-9ykHXSy1ocg7RV1KeKrOLer68leaPQGmKpRX07Nwhj2ElKeS4hfATnnLcR3-Ly0CNQa0xI_ut8eVxI6rIKJTWBWsSTZd7tp6rUiiHjXfaUQ/s1600/squirrel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdVlkjMOZLjFLdd8irwCpt5SLtJB7uGe-9ykHXSy1ocg7RV1KeKrOLer68leaPQGmKpRX07Nwhj2ElKeS4hfATnnLcR3-Ly0CNQa0xI_ut8eVxI6rIKJTWBWsSTZd7tp6rUiiHjXfaUQ/s200/squirrel.jpg" width="176" /></a><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Later,
panting with the glow of the chase, the setter glanced over at the collie. ‘Well
done, old chap. You really chased him up that tree.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
collie laughed modestly. ‘I couldn’t have done it without your help. The way
you sprinted over and barked – well – he knew he’d met a true professional all
right!’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And
they almost smiled at one another, just their owners concluded their first ever
argument and privately made plans to replace the fence.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-60305143546719161512013-03-28T11:21:00.004-07:002013-03-28T11:27:16.308-07:00Purple<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>An <span style="font-size: small;">e</span>xcerpt from The Colourist</i> </span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I
had to stand on tiptoe to see the paintings properly; all misty scenes of
mighty mountains and forests, precipitous slopes and jagged cliffs, but
populated by only one or two human figures, tiny in the landscape. They were
the lonely travellers, hermits sitting in their pavilions enclosed and subsumed
by the mountain walls, small and bold and very far away. The brush strokes were
fine sweeps of black, admirable in their self-assuredness and they carried
extraordinary energy in their colour. I could see the explosive burst of black
ink as it sprang form the artist’s pen across white paper, as sure in its
stroke as a skier headlong down slope. Each one was a whiplash curve that
seduced with endless possibilities – where would it end? And would you want to
follow it? </span></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">No
other colour could do this. Only purple, dark and sinuous, could convey a hint
of the same sensuality of not knowing, of being led and controlled.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">_____________________________________ </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPZVK5McPx7XjdMTH71v5We12x8e-cfT47bphq11AQ3j-e8a877umz2T0gPj8o4GWTpIvMh-EvJAZan80LNTBAEiFylJIru7uJo0VP8_KpPMeZFIFnnAuK1fLkvQxdF-Qn6zJULi15j8A/s1600/shades-of-purple.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPZVK5McPx7XjdMTH71v5We12x8e-cfT47bphq11AQ3j-e8a877umz2T0gPj8o4GWTpIvMh-EvJAZan80LNTBAEiFylJIru7uJo0VP8_KpPMeZFIFnnAuK1fLkvQxdF-Qn6zJULi15j8A/s200/shades-of-purple.png" width="200" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I
travelled on the underground to the hospital to be checked over after suffering
a spell of fainting. I was disturbed by the sour green smell of the hospital
waiting room, but reassured by the controlled chaos of doctors and nurses,
their hurried footsteps charting collision courses that never quite happened. The
doctor gave me iron tablets and told me to eat plenty of green vegetables. 'At
any other time, I'd prescribe red meat, too,' he said and asked if I had any
cravings. I smiled and said no, although privately I had a desire for dark
reddish purple, the colour and texture of an aubergine, and wondered in more
fantastical moments if that was what the child looked like; gently curved,<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>featureless, smooth.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> ___________________________</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> I
heard voices, then Anna, in the slightly dictatorial tones of a small practical
girl: 'Mummy is not well today because of purple.' And she closed the door.</span></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">'Anna?
Who was that, darling?'</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">'A
man. He came to take you away. I told him no.' Anna appeared in the doorway,
looking pleased. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Oh
Anna. That was the man I was going to see the film with. What did you say about
purple?'</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">'I
told him you weren't very well because of it,' she replied, matter-of-factly.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">'I
see.' The offending colour <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had</i> been
purple, the hard-bitten kind, but that seemed beside the point, it was just the
wrong colour on the wrong day and it had given me a headache. Sometimes colours
are simply too strident; they shout too loud, and like anyone trying to have a
quiet day, they can rattle the delicate bars of one's equilibrium. Purple often
causes me angst; it's a curious shade, an impostor, a fly-by-night, too
theatrical to be taken seriously. It's moody and bruised, and makes me feel
that way, too.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Shall
I get him back?’ she asked, concern written across her face, eyebrows high,
biting her lip.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘I’ll
look out of the window, see if he’s still there,’ I told her half-heartedly. He
wasn’t and I thought; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’m relieved</i>.
Perhaps I wasn’t ready. Perhaps purple was, this time, my friend.</span></span></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-3792406825141491832013-03-04T06:00:00.001-08:002013-03-04T06:05:19.339-08:00The duck’s tale – a memoir<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(I recommend reading this in your best Robert de Niro voice.)</b>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">Man, but I get so tired these days. It’s all I can do to get
my breath back during the day, have a little nap, read the headlines before
he’s back home from school and it begins all over again. I don’t how these
younger ones do it – ‘You were born old, mate,’ says that Monkey they call
Unkey, although he tells me his real name is Kev. “Don’t want to disappoint the
little fella though, do we, mate? If he wants to call me Unkey, then Unkey I
am.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbvweegbFhZvi5aRVHQ3m592KaY_GyP5wg4nRCzAYlk6CQxu1EfVUQG-K-pMvg4KYOE4L7OQJ8oEXXL9ACRpinL3Rq8MZ9IoxgXNYmj0WBvnNadXIUT3k54rL1HpoKK3JlEpcM0dkzGOU/s1600/IMG_4109.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbvweegbFhZvi5aRVHQ3m592KaY_GyP5wg4nRCzAYlk6CQxu1EfVUQG-K-pMvg4KYOE4L7OQJ8oEXXL9ACRpinL3Rq8MZ9IoxgXNYmj0WBvnNadXIUT3k54rL1HpoKK3JlEpcM0dkzGOU/s200/IMG_4109.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">I’ve long forgotten my real name. And I wish he’d stop
calling me mate. As the oldest one here, I’ve got a position to maintain.
Without respect, it all goes to pot. ‘You should write you memoirs, dear, ‘
says that lah-di-dah bear from the other bedroom, but I don’t know about that.
Memoirs? Load of self-important hoo-haa if you ask me. Who’d be interested in
the story of my life?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">You see, we’ve grown up together, me and the little guy. Yes,
hard as it is to believe, I was just a little guy myself when I arrived here.
Granted, I didn’t talk as much rubbish as he did in those early days, and I’ve
always been very careful about my…well, my toilet habits, but we’ve been though
a lot together. I’ve been lost and found, I’ve been sicked on, more times that
I care to remember frankly, but you get used to it in the end. I mean, that
Unkey guy, he’s never been sicked on, but then he’s never been near enough –
get what I mean?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">And that time I got my head stuck between the cross wires of
a fence – yeah, I still remember how that hurt – man, I had a headache for
weeks. He’d stuffed me in there then couldn’t get me out again. And the time
the car reversed over me…this wing’s never been the same since. I tell you,
it’s lucky I love the little guy so much because without the love, well, you
wonder whether you’d put up with any of it.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">There are perks, though, of course there are perks. I’ve
travelled, I’ve met some movers and shakers. That raggy sheep that come here
once? Remember her? Well, you’ll never believe who she belonged to. I’m a
discreet guy, so I’m not gonna start naming names, but seriously, she was rock
n roll royalty. And even she got left down the back of the sofa until the next
day, so you see, these things can happen to the best of us, you gotta remember
that.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">Well, will you look at that. See what I’ve done there? I’ve
gone and given you my memoirs after all, haven’t I? And you know what? It makes
me feel kinda young again – which is as well, cos I’ve just heard the front
door slam like the little guy’s angry with it, he’s pounding up those stairs
like he’s a bull. Deep breath and brace yourself, man. Five more hours to
bedtime.</span></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-36948553296167532452013-01-29T05:53:00.002-08:002013-01-29T06:06:19.132-08:00The Snowmen Cometh<style>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">(After reading advice
from the Environment Agency asking people to build snowmen to reduce flood
risk.)</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Something
odd happened this morning. When I drew back my curtains, there was a large and flustered-looking
snowman in the back garden. I hadn’t built it. The children hadn’t built it.
They didn’t seem as surprised as I was, and said perhaps it built itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGiIKBlZ4hxVMQp8JY8bUCN9hu_7pLLqrHlkXi0qQ8U42lL16LDpknxhoo18PaspmBLpzjGJteDkl632s6M4j1ObzqYmBx7GUwVJIH3-ngknDuUvpZPjwGV1EGeapaJJEWUH229006RUo/s1600/IMG_4207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGiIKBlZ4hxVMQp8JY8bUCN9hu_7pLLqrHlkXi0qQ8U42lL16LDpknxhoo18PaspmBLpzjGJteDkl632s6M4j1ObzqYmBx7GUwVJIH3-ngknDuUvpZPjwGV1EGeapaJJEWUH229006RUo/s200/IMG_4207.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Snowmen
can’t do that.’ I said. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘They
might,’ they said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘They
don’t because they haven’t got hands to build themselves with, until they’re
built.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I knew what I meant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
examined him after breakfast. I’m not what it was about him that looked
flustered, but he did. Something in the angle of his carrot nose, perhaps. A
startled expression in his sultana eyes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Maybe
he was in a hurry to get here,’ suggested my son, adjusting the snowman’s
scarf. It was very cold out in the garden.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
we walked to school that morning, there were two more snowmen, one with a
briefcase and one with a shopping bag, heading down towards the station,
although of course they weren’t actually moving.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘They
can’t walk,’ said my son in his matter-of-fact tone. ‘Because they haven’t got proper legs.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Maybe
they slide, slowly so we can’t see them. Like glaciers,’ said my daughter
thoughtfully and we stopped for a little while, just in case we might catch a
tiny movement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
was a little huddle of them at the bus stop. One was reading a newspaper and
looking pleased.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">‘He’s
probably glad about this weather,’ said my son.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
all looked at each other – ‘I didn’t know they could read…’ we said in unison
and laughed, our hot breath puffing the icy air. Clearly, there was a lot we
didn’t know about snowmen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Near
the school were many more snowmen with what I supposed were their children.
(Who else’s are they going to be?’ said my daughter. Good point, I thought.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
dropped my children at the school gates and walked home, wrapping my coat
tightly about me to keep the weather out. ‘Morning,’ said one of the snowmen,
walking a scruffy little snowdog. ‘Morning, I said then thought, did he really
just speak to me? But it was hard to tell, as he’d pulled his hat further down
over his face. Or maybe it had just slipped.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
snowmen stayed for a week, then it got warmer. Overnight, they were all
gone. But the garden and the path to school were strewn with carrots.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-47030174951636805732013-01-08T05:21:00.000-08:002013-01-08T05:30:08.959-08:00Pink<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Excerpts from The Colourist</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘I’ll leave you
to unpack, Miss Carmichael.’ Ellis withdrew himself and softly padded back the
way we’d come. He was a very quiet man, Ellis, and like his master, not much
given to small talk. One rarely heard him approach.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHUgZaWbluBQp_U_c6U8XpzfIuayBY9mrb1Xyt3xodPimK6SxVorCwLcL_xc4BVnmWS3pu174XtkzBSDOEdOeYESscQIyKyDly85Sltg818PdRfSIs5AJ2sBI8a13Fg2zMeCrnBCzWLg/s1600/Color_icon_pink_v2.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHUgZaWbluBQp_U_c6U8XpzfIuayBY9mrb1Xyt3xodPimK6SxVorCwLcL_xc4BVnmWS3pu174XtkzBSDOEdOeYESscQIyKyDly85Sltg818PdRfSIs5AJ2sBI8a13Fg2zMeCrnBCzWLg/s1600/Color_icon_pink_v2.svg.png" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Thank you!’ I
called after him, then flung my suitcase on the high, rather
unforgiving-looking bed. It creaked when I sat on it, but in a friendly,
well-used way. Someone had thoughtfully placed some gypsophilia on the dressing
table and now their tiny petals lay like a lace mat around the vase. The room
was furnished with cherry wood, the walls painted an old-fashioned, knowing
pink; full of face powder and gossip. I wondered if it had once been Nathan's
mother's own room, or some female relative before her, for its atmosphere was
heavy with the rustle of women. In one corner stood an armchair covered in pale
blue velvet which I quickly smothered with the coverlet from the bed, for as much
as I love the purr of velvet, it seemed so discordant in that flimsy colour that I couldn't feel comfortable until it was hidden. Velvet has to be dark, cloaked in the sort of colours that hold back storms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">We wandered from
room to room, Sylvia and I; she chattering about this and that until we found
ourselves in the small drawing room. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘That’s a pretty
dress you’re wearing tonight, Rosa. Is it new?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Not very, no.
But I haven’t worn it often. You made me realise that I should make more of an
effort - you always look so elegant.’ I smiled at her. This was the sort of
conversation she liked. I wondered what was coming, for I was sure that our wanderings
were not prompted by after-dinner ennui. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Hmm, well I
try…But I do think you could wear a better colour; that green does make you
look a little flat, if you don’t mind me saying. You don’t, darling, do you? I
just want to help. Maybe a pink would do the trick, don’t you think?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I was going to
say something, then didn’t. I raised my eyebrows in what I hoped was a
non-committal but open gesture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I never wear
pink. Pink is like a house guest whose arrival has been much vaunted, but whom
one wishes would leave after a couple of hours. I find it too slippery and impossible
to capture; it sidles up to blue to create fuchsia, joins with orange to make
salmon, has an unhappy marriage with yellow to give a sickly sweet calamine
colour, nestles ingratiatingly with brown to make antique tea rose. It thinks
it is cleverer than it is. No wonder Sylvia liked it so much.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">She had paused
at the window and spun around to face me, our conversation about my choice of
dress forgotten. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">If you’re interested in the use of pink in art, this
might tickle those cones http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-painters-table-1973-philip-guston-1903803.html</span></i></span></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-52876549548359985582012-12-10T04:15:00.000-08:002012-12-10T04:15:02.847-08:00Baby Peanut
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When the baby
arrived, nobody had thought of a suitable name for her, so they wrapped her up
in blanket and called her Peanut.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBph05FdIvh8uB3j5jo0jql0QMP9MRQCmTwBZGAZyRc_E_AmOKYvw1OuvZQVYz1XhgxDQ00il0BwG3gRuVPlZcUexG83NW5E89pZje0k4DpFk7IHPNhMdrbXT5kCDPh2yQz-AOs5t29s/s1600/baby+peanut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBph05FdIvh8uB3j5jo0jql0QMP9MRQCmTwBZGAZyRc_E_AmOKYvw1OuvZQVYz1XhgxDQ00il0BwG3gRuVPlZcUexG83NW5E89pZje0k4DpFk7IHPNhMdrbXT5kCDPh2yQz-AOs5t29s/s200/baby+peanut.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">That was a bad
idea.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Peanut? Peanut?
Percy want peanut!’ shrieked the parrot, overcome with joy, for he loved peanuts
and they were a very rare treat.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It took them a
long time to make him understand that there were no peanuts to eat.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Peanut!
Peanut!’ yelled the monkey who sometimes liked to eat peanuts and sometimes
liked to throw them at the parrot. He was so delighted at the prospect that he
fell off the back of the sofa. When he understood that there would be no eating
or throwing, he stayed there and sulked for a whole day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Peanuts,
peanuts,’ said her brother and found some bowls and got himself dressed in his
party shirt and wizard’s cape, all by himself. Whenever the peanuts came out,
there was a party and he was not a boy to miss a party. When he discovered
there was to be no party, he took the monkey and the parrot and they had their
own party in the shed which was very loud and left a lot of clearing up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When Grandma
heard the word peanut she just kept saying, ‘oh yes please, thank you dear,’
until someone had to explain very loudly that it was a baby name, not a snack.
Then she looked rather cross and was heard to mutter, ‘What’s wrong with Jane?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The baby heard
her new name and liked it. ‘I’ve no idea what it means,’ she thought, ‘or
whether it even really suits me. Perhaps I’ll spend the rest of my life telling
people to use my middle name, or call me Pea, or Nut. But for now, it is a very
fine name indeed.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">They called her
Jane.</span></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-13181005793947009002012-11-27T04:44:00.002-08:002012-11-28T02:53:37.683-08:00Falling<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">What do I feel? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Yes, what <i>do</i> I
feel? What do I <i>feel</i>?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I feel my heels lift, my toes tighten. Whoa! Everything
screams, No no no no!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Yes, I say.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">There’s an upsurge of everything in my body that I hold
dear; heart, lungs, blood<span style="font-size: small;">, </span>brain. My ribcage is a cage around my skull. What else? Thoughts.
The things that go on inside me that don’t have a name. My soul, if you like.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Then air.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I am let go, finally, falling. I thought it would be faster
than this, and yet there’s a little gap of time in which everything catches up.
Perhaps I’m being pushed back, infinitesimally, by the force of a million exhalations
far below, keeping me buoyant, floating like a cloud.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Of course it can’t last. Thoughts whoosh – they really do
that - through me in a quite unnerving way, as if this, this falling, wasn’t
unnerving enough.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I see him, quite clearly, like he’s there beside me keeping
pace with my freefall; my father in his 1970s days; safari suit, cigarette,
dark hair long and side-burned. Waving goodbye from the car window, smiling
then saying something that I couldn’t hear because I was inside, behind glass
and he was outside. He would have known that, so maybe it wasn’t important, but
I would have liked to hear it anyway.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I see my first lover; the one I didn’t think mattered that
much, so I’m surprised she’s turned up. What was it she said? You’ll regret
this, you bastard. And perhaps I do now, adding it to the long list of other
things to regret: the Glastonbury I didn’t go to that was the best ever; the
two years wasted at the wrong university, the wife I’d had once, the job I was
offered in Japan that I didn’t take, because I...well, because I couldn’t be bothered.
And I regret my dad of course. What did he say to me, that last time?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">It’s not all regrets, of course. But I’ve left it too late
for anything else. Should have thought of this earlier, shouldn’t I? Before the
falling.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">There’s only enough time left to land, in one way or
another.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-81908858769882193102012-11-16T03:58:00.001-08:002012-11-27T04:45:50.898-08:00Yellow<style>
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</style> <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Excerp</i><span style="font-size: small;"><i>ts from The C<span style="font-size: small;">o</span>lourist</i></span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPs4y0sJTFAiG3laWiCCNzx51H6Xja9OAKc6ohbjZgTTSmdc-49Mw9J2ixfVaQpStP_q7g7sM3HfjE-trzA5xbDPkXMkXyocPPIL6LlLuw_e78t9f2UnY0_WGWGJtxe7fXmHc0g2vHjIM/s1600/Dulux+yellow+green.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPs4y0sJTFAiG3laWiCCNzx51H6Xja9OAKc6ohbjZgTTSmdc-49Mw9J2ixfVaQpStP_q7g7sM3HfjE-trzA5xbDPkXMkXyocPPIL6LlLuw_e78t9f2UnY0_WGWGJtxe7fXmHc0g2vHjIM/s1600/Dulux+yellow+green.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">Here, wedged in
between yellow and green, lies a vast array of hidden colours waiting to be
discovered, but with so few words available to describe them. Even fruit, </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">usually
generous with its naming does not have enough variations to adequately
categorise this part of the spectrum. Yellowgreen, such a young colour. It’s
the bud of a daffodil, </span>softly yielding if you press it, yet firm with nascent
life. If you could peek inside, just before it opened, and smell all those
flowery juices, raw and acidic, they would be the colour of spring and
possibility. But it’s a sickly colour as well, bringing to mind infection and
nausea, and perhaps no one has ever liked it well enough to find a suitable
name.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: left; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDMVDXPzv71PQNsSCmtgehejPKzDiK2CaKqVwI-J9uO8Iir24X2CWbLJrhbpg4kQiTtzS6FtDIqi4V4U5qmqZwiYeA91e3Hujx2dPt0WZdqI1ZIyt8g0FVmMl0cLlCc6EQ6oj7MfpSh5Y/s1600/115_1560.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDMVDXPzv71PQNsSCmtgehejPKzDiK2CaKqVwI-J9uO8Iir24X2CWbLJrhbpg4kQiTtzS6FtDIqi4V4U5qmqZwiYeA91e3Hujx2dPt0WZdqI1ZIyt8g0FVmMl0cLlCc6EQ6oj7MfpSh5Y/s200/115_1560.JPG" width="200" /></a></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There was a
cramped corner of Marrakech made irresistible by particular colour that hung
from the rafters of the market house to dry – yellow; like the pollen as it
gathers on a bee's legs. It made me madly, light-headedly happy as it sang its
bright song and whirled away into the dark corners of the old city, reaching
out to touch the faces of the woman through their veils, smoothing the lines in
the old people's brows, playing with the children and twisting around their
legs like cats, making them laugh and jump about. How I loved it… though, just
as it’s said that pleasure comes with pain, the beauty of this yellow made all
the colours in the vicinity jostle for space and I had to focus my vision
otherwise it became tainted. Such is its demanding nature, casting spells that
dizzy the senses.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In Morocco, I
learnt that when the sufis put on their rags and forgo the material world for
the spiritual one, they undergo a 'green death', full of the positive
connotations of that most sublime colour and a gentle forerunner to their
physical death. But I shall have a yellow death, I think, the colour of the sun
and saffron, a blast of last light.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1FIYO8mRMLEg0EzCsj9rN4PoX_pNTktp7u-s-80VX_Oc7GoKFJxUNTTDraOC39c7GK1-idGHBagXBlDonj5qd7LvLDmMJdGwtajI0YYDNk1clmF0xKYU_LVdmztv1tiUVlxFUm66XILY/s1600/IMG_2111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1FIYO8mRMLEg0EzCsj9rN4PoX_pNTktp7u-s-80VX_Oc7GoKFJxUNTTDraOC39c7GK1-idGHBagXBlDonj5qd7LvLDmMJdGwtajI0YYDNk1clmF0xKYU_LVdmztv1tiUVlxFUm66XILY/s320/IMG_2111.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-46191983327360741062012-10-26T10:26:00.004-07:002012-11-16T04:05:05.428-08:00Orange<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMDrJSk0rEFz73KEePwzdpu2uW5FEstvgs5Kt5Up3loGNXoMq1yxySBAQ9oFdkhKDH_qxgdm2pyDZ4Hs42VS1ahBMJJExRiTRo3oXWa11lfkmYqN7nE86HpFjmkbzigSPRI8BmK5mQCQ4/s1600/132_3203.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMDrJSk0rEFz73KEePwzdpu2uW5FEstvgs5Kt5Up3loGNXoMq1yxySBAQ9oFdkhKDH_qxgdm2pyDZ4Hs42VS1ahBMJJExRiTRo3oXWa11lfkmYqN7nE86HpFjmkbzigSPRI8BmK5mQCQ4/s400/132_3203.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
<i>Excerpts from The Colourist</i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">Carefully I
arranged the paper-wrapped cones of spices on the scuffed dressing table and
poured some tepid water from a jug to try and remove the red stain. It was
stubborn and would require more scrubbing. I had cinnamon and turmeric,
paprika, rose petals and a bag of cloves. Mixed with a little water they’d make
intense but transient pigments. This is how I spent every spare minute;
unearthing new colours, coaxing them out of the mysterious substances from the
souk. Cinnamon and the turmeric; yes, there was a honeyed orange that I hadn’t
quite mastered but could see in my mind’s eye. Yesterday I’d created a quite
beautiful dusty yellow, like powdered sunshine. Nutmeg gave a rich melancholic
brown, paprika brought a drumroll of coral red. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">For a few blissful moments of
every day, I was able to let go of the fetid room and the braying aunt and lose
myself completely in their bright magic.</span></span></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtJBgFoaW2QsFx9mAVILv031IbcCNifGlmbl_xSIP4knVG2rf5wf0c7cP9EpoFoqOpW9GvcfWh0DbK7qWVf8RYI1VS0e0kNWGXx9pZE2PuZH8mESbkndsHvQ8AnWeibUIroc2_foZ0YbQ/s1600/IMG_3789.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtJBgFoaW2QsFx9mAVILv031IbcCNifGlmbl_xSIP4knVG2rf5wf0c7cP9EpoFoqOpW9GvcfWh0DbK7qWVf8RYI1VS0e0kNWGXx9pZE2PuZH8mESbkndsHvQ8AnWeibUIroc2_foZ0YbQ/s200/IMG_3789.JPG" width="200" /></a> I thought, as I
sat on a low divan plump with cushions in the rooftop garden of Mustafa Kamut’s
perfumed house, that I had never been anywhere so lovely in my life. Above my
head fluttered a rectangle of orange silk, strung across four pillars that
marked the edges of the roof. Narrow steps led down to the third floor, up and
down which trotted an endless succession of people bringing intricately carved
silver trays laden with delicacies, deftly placing each upon the round central
table and removing others so that the table was always full. They poured mint
tea from swan-necked copper teapots from high up, so the liquid caught the sun
and became a waterfall of gold. Spiced pastries, almond biscuits and little
rosewater cakes appeared, a procession of gazelles’ horns and sugar plums borne
high on ornate platters; far too much for three people, and I didn’t dare eat
until the men had. Two women sat in the background for a little while before
disappearing in a swirl of white down the stone steps and I didn’t see them
again. They were not introduced, although Xavier inclined his head toward them
in a similar fashion as M Kamut had done to me.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3NYgBnYZKptEiVKa_6I9ZG6j7jiPZ17ImmJVeq-LsQnjWNj8KSZX1LBVKjIoW7czQ_49rsToKioN6wq2i8hGF551S3rDZoZX2dcEdcJw21ZLNv0DU6mE9Vqo3bmdpa6hAv6GmFmB_UU/s1600/131_3169.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3NYgBnYZKptEiVKa_6I9ZG6j7jiPZ17ImmJVeq-LsQnjWNj8KSZX1LBVKjIoW7czQ_49rsToKioN6wq2i8hGF551S3rDZoZX2dcEdcJw21ZLNv0DU6mE9Vqo3bmdpa6hAv6GmFmB_UU/s320/131_3169.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> As the hours
rolled by and the endless stream of food did not abate, I had to keep myself
from slumping back on the divan and staring at the beautiful orange silk as it
billowed in the breeze that had sprung up as the afternoon drew on. The light
of the sun moved slowly across the canopy, intensifying the orange to white, so
bright it was impossible to regard. Its penumbra radiated out and deepened to a
more saturated effect near the edges. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">It’s such a
jubilant dance of a colour, orange. Give it time and you’ll see how rewarding
it can be. Said to stimulate appetite and activity, it lacks the aggression of
red and the hard stare of yellow. It reminds me of a welcome houseguest, the
sort that always brings a small gift and remembers to send a thank you card
afterwards. I felt full of health and cake and happy plans as I sat there on
the roof and let the inside of my mind be painted with a warm orange glow.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2dOQoDSMUF4xTLA9UkE04hLXfZK1-geKUozGBy3AJPGSrlEO9U_6wwBeznZ-CPWUO8nhkWXUFoqYwY0gHY92uWfqOSVMwdir10dO9JCn3umPZdHvnYwyDsSJTsMzuwZ22tw_Ddx-9IGM/s1600/IMG_3982.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2dOQoDSMUF4xTLA9UkE04hLXfZK1-geKUozGBy3AJPGSrlEO9U_6wwBeznZ-CPWUO8nhkWXUFoqYwY0gHY92uWfqOSVMwdir10dO9JCn3umPZdHvnYwyDsSJTsMzuwZ22tw_Ddx-9IGM/s400/IMG_3982.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-36366746715597076222012-10-23T11:39:00.005-07:002012-10-23T11:39:44.122-07:00The Astonishing Adventures of Malcolm Flood
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“….and when I ran out of razors I had to use sharpened
toothbrushes to kill my prey.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sid didn’t entirely believe <span style="font-size: small;">G</span>reat Uncle Malcolm’s tales of
when he was the sole mutineer on a cargo ship headed for Malacca, and was put
ashore on the unmapped island of Krakapu somewhere in the Indian Ocean.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘How come you had so many toothbrushes?’ he asked.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Great Uncle Malcolm looked at Sid with an
‘isn’t-that-obvious’ expression on his face. ‘Well, of course I had an inkling
that I’d be marooned, so I stole all my fellow’s toothbrushes the night before.
Knew they’d come in handy for something.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘But…but, aren’t toothbrushes made of plastic? How could you
sharpen one?’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Made of wood in those days, m<span style="font-size: small;">y</span> boy, ‘ said Great Uncle
Malcolm dismissively. ‘All made of wood. Even the bristles.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Something was still not right. Aha! ‘How did you sharpen them
if you’d run out of razors?’ That, thought Sid, was the clincher. There could
be no return for Great Uncle Malcolm now.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Clever boy. You see, laid out m<span style="font-size: small;">y</span> last dead rat’s intestines
to dry in the sun – like catgut they were – then used the thread to whittle the
toothbrush handle. Got to have your wits about you when you’re marooned on a
desert island, you know.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hmm. ‘What year did you say this was, Uncle?’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">‘Well, yes, it would be 19…er..let’s see now, 1924, I
reckon. Or thereabouts.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sid slid away and googled Krakapu. Great Uncle Malcolm
didn’t know what Google was and only used the family laptop to rest his mug of
coffee on. ‘Krakapu, uninhabited island discovered and mapped in 1750 by the great explorer of
the Indian Ocean Lord Sir Captain Stanley Bl<span style="font-size: small;">i</span>theringto<span style="font-size: small;">n-Smether</span>s.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Just as I thought, muttered Sid. But he could hear Great Uncle
Malcolm chuckling to himself in the room next door and didn’t have the heart to
tell him. Instead, he googled ‘wooden toothbrush’. Just in case.</span></span></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-61629494107206271772012-10-18T04:58:00.003-07:002012-11-27T04:51:18.588-08:00Red<style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskmR5DsnOZIKNsgDm7ta64rnWh6X2jtlQ53VMWIj_8TZu8jWsDvWMpPnCEFpo0MoAis82pMB1T07avHLwDZG-d6FRd2VOXoIlC7Ax0URum1CJ1fVeGWYosVz5NpumGlGxeH1R9NnbahU/s1600/IMG_2431.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskmR5DsnOZIKNsgDm7ta64rnWh6X2jtlQ53VMWIj_8TZu8jWsDvWMpPnCEFpo0MoAis82pMB1T07avHLwDZG-d6FRd2VOXoIlC7Ax0URum1CJ1fVeGWYosVz5NpumGlGxeH1R9NnbahU/s200/IMG_2431.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Excerpts from The Colourist</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
…I continued my journey around
the garden. Ah, here I was on firmer territory with red, crimson, carmine and
scarlet; colours known and named, loved and hated in equal measure. What other
could encompass so many extremes? Love and blood, lust and murder, wealth and
whores, magic and anarchy. What a maelstrom of meanings! On sad days, I can
think of nothing more comforting than the glove-like grip of a red rose, velvet
warm. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 108.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvle51JKCW0dViKprnRSbT6Vh7Hwn2eZGkxWaqk6vWoFWD22ylBVp1fHLY6Xpdnztf0tr57JP4QAZi4Ua1-kNdaxhQ5GCFMpDRsw7kdGX4sJ6PEedo74xs_67K8ONxhrNfLBhOI6k7c0/s1600/RED.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvle51JKCW0dViKprnRSbT6Vh7Hwn2eZGkxWaqk6vWoFWD22ylBVp1fHLY6Xpdnztf0tr57JP4QAZi4Ua1-kNdaxhQ5GCFMpDRsw7kdGX4sJ6PEedo74xs_67K8ONxhrNfLBhOI6k7c0/s200/RED.jpg" width="183" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108.0pt;">
Colour-savvy warmongers used red
to stimulate feelings of anger before a battle, so soldiers literally ‘see red’
before they charge, swords held aloft, screaming their lungs dry. My mother
told me that the Maoris of New Zealand are able to separate red into over one
hundred different shades. Red and war are important, and variations of both
must be distinguished. </div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmv54d6pb2PPi1gfU-tQEZReZvrBqp6EvrZE1DWcY1LIs-NolWetEFm9uo3lTDJlKjdIUysMbzEThipR-FehMAiUhc7Pa3PHdr6gUk_mJdkYWWL2BS9b147WL81SuLhMNkM5qC-CyQaq0/s1600/IMG_3101.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmv54d6pb2PPi1gfU-tQEZReZvrBqp6EvrZE1DWcY1LIs-NolWetEFm9uo3lTDJlKjdIUysMbzEThipR-FehMAiUhc7Pa3PHdr6gUk_mJdkYWWL2BS9b147WL81SuLhMNkM5qC-CyQaq0/s200/IMG_3101.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
1952, it was. A telephone
ringing. My telephone, in the hallway of the house in Clapham. ‘Hello?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
‘Rosa? Rosa Carmichael? It’s
Francis Balmain.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
My heart missed a beat. ‘Is it
Nathan?’ Why else would Francis want to contact me?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
‘No, no. It’s not about Nathan. I
just…just wondered if you and your daughter would do me the honour of
accompanying me to tea next week? It has been a long time I know. I’d like to
see you again.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It seemed I was never to be rid
of Francis. He would always find me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
We arranged to meet at the Ritz
the following Tuesday. I spent an uncharacteristically long time getting ready
that day, and fussed over Anna’s dress and hair.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHKdUaTkc7-MaQiU9bzOvHxSzT8ST2-wJ2RjfYAsOcrZNC-0XH4eGeoaEBIeFyzVHdkfKH5EU_imbj0MWwXOjk87BgkJrE2woEhmMriJpRPPTuawHfwDYWyn8qH-Havrzo1U1k-V2SJ8Y/s1600/IMG_4080.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHKdUaTkc7-MaQiU9bzOvHxSzT8ST2-wJ2RjfYAsOcrZNC-0XH4eGeoaEBIeFyzVHdkfKH5EU_imbj0MWwXOjk87BgkJrE2woEhmMriJpRPPTuawHfwDYWyn8qH-Havrzo1U1k-V2SJ8Y/s200/IMG_4080.jpg" width="150" /></a>‘I can do it, mummy.’ She waved
me away with one hand. ‘Why are you nervous?’ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
‘I’m not nervous, darling. I
simply don’t know why he wants to see us, after all this time. Why now? And the
Ritz, for goodness sake. He always was something of a showman.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
‘Perhaps he just wants us to have
a nice time,’ suggested Anna. ‘Please don’t make me wear my hair up like that,
it makes me look like a little girl. And why are you wearing all red?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
‘It’s battledress today, darling.
One never knows, with Francis. Come along, or we’ll be late.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-5177869807696141572012-10-16T02:27:00.002-07:002012-10-16T05:13:05.148-07:00The Perils of Static<div class="MsoNormal">
A<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> circle of chairs stood in the middle of the attic. On the
chairs, or rather, hovering uncomfortably in the space where the chairs were,
sat a group of small, unhappy-looking ghosts. In their centre drifted a taller
ghost, its head tucked neatly under one arm, visibly cross.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘So, what happened last night? I hear it was a <i>very poor</i> haunting. Anyone want to
explain that to me?’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The ghosts shuffled miserably and looked at one another.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Come on, one of you. I’m waiting.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘It wasn’t our fault,’ mumbled a ghost who was wearing,
curiously, a Viking helmet.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Wasn’t our fault? <i>Wasn’t
our fault</i>? You are the Elite Haunting Corps! Trained in all types of
Spectral Appearances and Mysterious Happenings! You are in control AT ALL
TIMES!’ The small ghosts cowered beneath the terrifying prospect of their
Squadron Leader actually exploding with rage.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The small ghost, on the verge of tears, spluttered ‘But
there was a crowd of children there and they were having a sleepover and no one
told us that and they laughed at us and caught us in a big net then they rubbed
us on their pyjamas until we went static and then they stuck us on the ceiling
and we couldn’t move til morning until the static wore off and we had to get
out under the door and it all went wrong and…and…’ The small ghost wailed and
was comforted by his friends.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Oh dear oh dear oh dear. How very embarrassing. Static
cling, eh? Well, I have to say, that’s a new one on me. Static cling…’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">And then a strange thing happened. The Squadron Leader, who
had never been seen to smile before, let alone laugh, placed his head back on
his shoulders, gave a little twist to
secure it and began making a very strange noise that sounded like ‘Huhuhuh.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">One ghost nudged another: ‘He’s<i> </i>laughing.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘He’s laughing!’ shouted all the little ghosts together. And
down below, in the house, the people looked up from their dinner and said,
‘What is that noise? Funny, never heard it before. Must be the water pipes.’</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqgapeLCeI4DKNxY40-RzMdPTnMvQ3Ewevy_MCaFlH7klUzuEh61Seo5BZDALXHdI-nDWTgJFOnrkjgBGgdW3ztNYIFBpgvBCcV_22rp261eMD-2ODV5yzoseMd6V9LSu7Lpk4lS9eymA/s1600/Scan+122900002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqgapeLCeI4DKNxY40-RzMdPTnMvQ3Ewevy_MCaFlH7klUzuEh61Seo5BZDALXHdI-nDWTgJFOnrkjgBGgdW3ztNYIFBpgvBCcV_22rp261eMD-2ODV5yzoseMd6V9LSu7Lpk4lS9eymA/s320/Scan+122900002.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-74334375689279948342012-10-09T02:04:00.000-07:002012-10-16T02:01:05.517-07:00Missed boat<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> I lost track of how many times we <i>almost</i> met. Eight, perhaps. Or nine.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">My life was going through what we’ll call a difficult patch.
My long-term love had left, my career hadn’t shown any signs of movement for
some years now, my ailing father lived too far away from me, too near the sister
who was determined to look the other way. That was when I first heard about
her. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘You’ll love her. She’s completely your type. She’s really
funny – you’d get on like a house on fire.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Well, introduce me then,’ I said, smiling benevolently. I
held no faith in matchmaking but I admired Annie’s optimism in the face of
indifference so I humoured her.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘She’s travelling at the moment. But when she gets back,
I’ll arrange a dinner or something.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Dinner never happened. I forgot, Annie forgot. Then Dave, at a party in somebody’s garden
with a band playing and jugs of beer, said above the noise; ‘Hey, have you met Rebecca
yet? She’s supposed to be coming. Just your type. She’ll cheer you up. I’ll keep
an eye out for her, send her your way.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">But she didn’t turn up that day. Must have been ill or
something.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">At the pub: ‘You must meet Rebecca. She’s lovely. Stop you
moping around like a lost sheep.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">At the football: ‘Rebecca came last week, she’s such a
laugh. A girl who likes football, what more could you ask for? Gotta get you
two together.’</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB60cIb3xlu1wacnAzIInokoLrZZ3yJKRrXja_yGRp2Vn9f-xTebE1uWywCfQslxg_wblmGhFXYAz2pwgXLpOgsSTYNQTu_wLTUg8jdAIuftye9kqfaA89tTSX2Zi3XOn4VfODIbudLBg/s1600/IMG_1722.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB60cIb3xlu1wacnAzIInokoLrZZ3yJKRrXja_yGRp2Vn9f-xTebE1uWywCfQslxg_wblmGhFXYAz2pwgXLpOgsSTYNQTu_wLTUg8jdAIuftye9kqfaA89tTSX2Zi3XOn4VfODIbudLBg/s320/IMG_1722.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">At Annie’s baby’s christening: Well she was there,
apparently. But I wasn’t. Flu.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Finally, a year and a half later, I did meet her. And she
was funny, like everyone said. And lovely – beautiful - in fact. I couldn’t
take my eyes off her. We even had a brief chat about football. It was her wedding day. I was there, a
last-minute addition to the guest list as a substitute plus one, awkward in an ill-advised suit. And she was
there, smiling and waving and clutching her waterfall of flowers. </span></span></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-43224712172499942072012-10-04T06:47:00.001-07:002012-10-04T08:31:01.509-07:00An excerpt from The Colourist (a big book of a story!)<style>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Gifted with an extraordinary perception of colour, Rosa Carmichael looks back upon the events of her unusual life as assistant to a colourblind scientist, lover of a French soldier in Marrakech and mother to their daughter when he disappears. Now, at 88 years old, she feels the urgency of making sense of her past for her daughter's sake, unaware that it is about to catch up with her.</i><b> </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>CHAPTER ONE </b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Am I dead yet?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I open my eyes slowly. Bright light fills the room. God or sun? I’m not sure.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">And some early morning traffic noise, a thin yellow streak of birdsong. I wiggle an exploratory toe, feeling the rub of warm cotton. I doubt the afterlife affords such tangible sensations, so I must be lying in bed, my body barely disturbing the heavy white bed linen purchased from a Sicilian market trader many years ago. I remember his smoky breath as he leant too close and told me that these sheets would last a lifetime. Of course, this could have been a matter of days or months had I met with an unfortunate accident, but half a century later, here I am and here are the sheets. My room is pale: white walls; a white bed. Here and there are little collections of the colours I like together. It is a reassuring room; ordered, complete.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">A prolonged struggle to kick my way out from under the covers leaves me rather out of puff. I consider calling my daughter to tell her that I’m still alive, but she’s in such a state of denial about death that she’ll look at me in that way she has, then I'll be sad for making her sad. Instead, I pour a restorative nip of brandy for breakfast from the secret bottle that I keep badly hidden behind the tissues in my bedside table and, in dressing gown and slippers, ease myself into the armchair at the writing desk by the front window. The rays of a pale sun squint through the curtains, warming my skin as the brandy clears a path to my stomach. Its fumes send little pin-like shivers to my nose so I close my eyes and think of the task at hand. Perhaps I’ll begin today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">At eight o’clock my daughter gives her three tentative taps at the bedroom door, wary of what might lie within. ‘Hello!’ I call hoarsely and can sense the relief in her tread as she crosses the room with the bitter herbal concoction she makes me drink. I realise I’ve left the brandy bottle out, but she graciously fails to see it. She’s an old woman herself now and sometimes I selfishly worry that I’ll outlive her. This thought fills me with horror; surely, after all this preparation, I'll be released to meet my maker first? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I’ve been thinking about this a lot, of late. There’s nothing like impending death to necessitate the sorting out of one’s beliefs. I prefer to imagine we’re thrown together by cataclysm, a little big bang. Even simply pieced together by chance is better than being deliberated over, perhaps even recycled.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">We chat for a while about this and that and I try to avoid the tea, which is the colour of pondwater and has things floating in it. It’s Chinese and made from some ground-up vegetable matter, and I’ve long forgotten what benefits I might gain from it. Then Anna gets up from the foot of the bed where she has perched her spindly frame and leaves me the newspaper, neatly folded, the crossword already completed but still dusted with the smattering of rubbings-out. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaSgU9pfLZZcYGIXf5slUXI7OvXJrvrZs1BdzTTwx0iQxEBnqLjgPkMBUgebhNOu63b6C7rVkQIYFTusZziz1_eTBP9y6WnOvZjDIlOmoog_FOg6FlGxYjMImLj-Ov0qbVCLhV9NWmkCM/s1600/132_3281.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaSgU9pfLZZcYGIXf5slUXI7OvXJrvrZs1BdzTTwx0iQxEBnqLjgPkMBUgebhNOu63b6C7rVkQIYFTusZziz1_eTBP9y6WnOvZjDIlOmoog_FOg6FlGxYjMImLj-Ov0qbVCLhV9NWmkCM/s320/132_3281.JPG" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Mum?’ she hovers in the doorway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Yes darling?’ Although I know what she’s going to ask.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Are you going to start today?’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Perhaps,’ I smile, childishly wanting to keep my plans to myself, for now. She nods and closes the door behind her. I pour the tea down the sink and settle myself at my dressing table, shuffling my bony behind into the cushion. I reach for the letter, tucked away in the drawer, with its three sparsely-worded lines that have provoked the mind’s imaginings. No, I won’t read it again; instead I bring out a faded photo of a girl in huge trousers and a ghost of a white scarf, taken in a long-ago desert. I nod to her, as if to signal resolve. I haven’t a lot of time to waste.</span>Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-88719843973298611152012-09-11T03:05:00.003-07:002012-10-04T03:21:27.062-07:00The boy with a cone on his head<style>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The boy found a traffic cone. He picked it up and weighed it
in his hand – not too heavy, not too light. He looked around but it didn’t seem
to belong to anyone in particular, so he put it on his head and continued on
his way to the playground.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ONW_5MeJPb_L2A5eu0IMIBpinho3gymPjGTlurG_A-yn8PALBNfZngep3FkJixpvjZQGbDM94s5GAlbqqaskV4aaRIIyUZg477-TqqmFXFaDKylivKQo-2zULKM4MfTjsTBj8RkpeuM/s1600/1173007_traffic_cone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ONW_5MeJPb_L2A5eu0IMIBpinho3gymPjGTlurG_A-yn8PALBNfZngep3FkJixpvjZQGbDM94s5GAlbqqaskV4aaRIIyUZg477-TqqmFXFaDKylivKQo-2zULKM4MfTjsTBj8RkpeuM/s200/1173007_traffic_cone.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Along the way, past the shops on the High Street, he caught
a glimpse of himself in a window of a shop selling old clothes and bits of
crockery. The boy adjusted the angle of his cone and was pleased with the
effect; rather like a magician’s hat, he thought. Only more orange and white.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘I like your cone,’ said his friend Flo at the park.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘It’s not a cone, it’s a hat,’ he said frowning at her. She
obviously wasn’t looking at it properly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘OK,’ she said and scooted off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The boy walked around the playground a few times and saw
that people were staring at him in admiration. They were obviously the sort of
people who appreciated a good magician’s hat. He picked up a stick and broke it
in half to make a wand. That completed the picture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Flo came scooting back with some of her friends. One of them
was carrying a hula hoop.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Look!’ yelled Flo. ‘Alf’s got a cone on his head! Stand
still Alf, and we’ll see if we can hoop you!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The boy endured a few minutes of this before shouting at the
girls and stamping off. This was not how wizards were treated. Nobody hoopla-ed
Dumbledore. Or Gandalf.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">On the way home from the park, the boy put the cone back
where he found it. Someone else could have it. Magicians weren’t that great,
anyway.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-25187297396196194282012-05-15T06:26:00.002-07:002012-05-15T06:44:15.811-07:00The Room of Odd<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The rest of the house is perfectly normal, so you wouldn’t
suspect what lies at the end of the hallway. Everything in it is something
else. I’ve only been there once. When I asked if I could go again, I was told
that that would be impossible, like it had moved away or something. A room
can’t move itself out of a house, can it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The sofa is a giant pair of red lips. ‘Oh, I’ve seen those
before,’ scoffed a boy eating an ice cream, even though we were told not to
enter the room with food or drink. “There’s nothing new about a sofa like
this.” And to prove it, he sat down heavily in the middle of the lips.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There was a sucking noise and the boy disappeared. He wasn’t
eaten or anything gruesome like that; he was found later on the street. But his
ice cream had gone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The mirror was the cause of a lot of bruised heads. You
think it’s a window, because you can see out into the garden rather than back
into the room. But then you see yourself in it, in the garden and feel very
confused.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The table walks around on its stalky legs and rubs against
you like a cat. If you put something on it, it remains stock still until you
remove it, then it continues its journey to find something else to bear. The tea
cups and mugs drink whatever you put inside them, the cushions squeal if you so
much as touch them and the radio, an old-fashioned one that you don’t notice at
first, breaks into compositions of its own making. It doesn’t have a very
pleasant singing voice but you can’t turn it off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I wanted the lips-sofa to swallow me too, but it didn’t.
Perhaps you have to be really annoying. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I wonder if it would swallow the radio? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art2/salvador-dali-mae-wests-lips-sofa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art2/salvador-dali-mae-wests-lips-sofa.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-39858292117312999112012-04-25T03:58:00.003-07:002012-04-25T03:58:51.758-07:00Uncle Kaspar<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
When I tell people that we share our house with a ghost,
their eyes widen and they usually gasp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But there’s a lot of weird stuff in my house, and the ghost is one of
the more normal things, in a way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
His name is Uncle Kaspar. He’s not my real uncle, but I’ve
known him such a long time he feels like one of the family. It took my dog
Green (I called him that because he’s green) a long time to like Uncle Kaspar
but now they’re really quite good friends. Uncle Kaspar has said that he would like
to take Green for a walk, but of course he can’t. Because if he leaves the
house in daylight he won’t exist anymore. It’s like that with ghosts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Uncle Kaspar doesn’t live in the attic, like other ghosts.
He can’t stand attics, he says. Full of spiders. There’s a lot that Uncle
Kaspar’s afraid of, which I think is funny, him being a ghost and all. Instead
he lives in the downstairs cupboard where the boiler is, because he says it’s a
fallacy that ghosts like cold damp places. When he was alive he spent quite a
lot of time in Africa and he got so used to the heat and sunshine that coming
back to England was hard to do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
When I have friends over, Uncle Kaspar likes to join in the
games. He says that being with young people makes him feel young again. We play
battleships and draughts. We play computer games and pool on my mini-billiards
table. When new people come to our house they can get scared of Uncle Kaspar
being a ghost, but once we’ve all sat down and had a drink and a biscuit and
Uncle Kaspar’s told them about good bits (like walking through walls) and the
bad bits (like not being able to eat the biscuits), they’re usually OK and we
can get on with the games.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
He’s very good at hide and seek.</div>Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-61429283592514393772012-04-18T03:23:00.002-07:002012-04-18T03:26:11.957-07:00The Floating Island<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Island of Marmura is small, round and flat, and that's why it's so easy to move.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But for as long as anyone who lives there can remember, it's bobbed around the North Sea, bumping into Scotland, then bumping into Ireland. When the islanders really want to move quickly, perhaps to avoid a huge wave, or a sharp rock, they grab their enormous paddles, gather along the beaches and all paddle together, as fast as they can, until they've propelled the island to a different part of the ocean, where they drop anchor and stay until the next huge wave comes along.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">That's the most important thing you need to know about Marmura. The other is that it is always raining.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">One particularly grey, drizzly day, a small boy said to his mother: 'Why it is never sunny here? I want to go somewhere sunny. We can move our island wherever we want, so why don't we just go somewhere else?'</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">At first his mother was shocked, then she thought about it, then she told her neighbour. At first the neighbour was shocked, then he thought about it, then he told his brother, and so on, until finally everyone on the island was in agreement; they were fed up with rain! They were going South!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Many days and nights passed, and the islanders' arms ached from so much paddling. The sea was wide and empty and they had not met another soul, but to their delight the rain had almost stopped. Then, on the fifth day, somewhere off Spain, they met another island, this one long and thin and rocky, being rowed by hundreds of small people wearing large hats.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">'We're heading North,' cried the other islanders in unison. 'It's far too hot where we come from, and it's always too dry. Where are you going?'</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">What a stroke of luck! The islanders swapped clothes, traded their umbrellas for suntan lotion and their firelighters for fans, bade each other farewell and bon voyage, and waved happily until each island was a tiny speck on the horizon before disappearing altogether.</span></div>Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-47191293900263687062012-03-13T05:44:00.012-07:002012-10-16T02:01:39.323-07:00Ladybird, ladybird<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I found a red ladybird with three perfect black spots on one side of its body, and two on the other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘You’re nice,’ I whispered to it, in case anyone heard me talking to a ladybird.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Thank you,’ said the ladybird in a tiny little voice I could barely hear.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A talking ladybird, I thought to myself. Now, there’s a thing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Can I ask you a question?’ I said to it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Fire away,’ replied the ladybird and crawled to the tip of my finger so we could converse more easily.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Why do you have three spots on one side of your body, and only two on the other?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘A good question,’ said the ladybird. I think she might have smiled at me, but it was hard to tell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Well done for being so observant. We ladybirds don’t live awfully long so we celebrate our birthdays every month rather than every year like you humans. And every month for our birthday we get a new spot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, you see, I have just turned five months old.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Congratulations,’ I said to the ladybird. ‘But what happens when you have no more room for black spots?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Well, to be honest, not many of us make it that far. No, don’t look sad. We are not meant to get too old. But there are a few who do, and they become black ladybirds with red spots.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I have seen them!’ I said, excited in spite of myself. ‘So those are very old ladybirds?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘Indeed they are,’ said my friend gravely. ‘They are our elders and we respect them greatly.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘And does the same thing happen with their red spots?’ I asked. ‘Do they start off with just one, then get another for every month until…until they have no more black left?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The ladybird looked at me. I think she had a perplexed expression on her face, but it was hard to tell. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">We both fell silent for a while. Then she waved one of her front legs in farewell, and flew off.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-30807192127036188452012-03-01T02:07:00.003-08:002012-03-13T06:23:35.589-07:00Arthur, the deluded lizard<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I am a lizard and my name is Arthur. In fact, I am very rare; the only known example of a Chromomorphic Lizard. That means I can change colour according to my surroundings. I am extremely clever.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I live in a pet shop that specialises in lizards. They come and they go, but I have been here the longest. On the label in front of my cage it says ‘Common Lizard’, but that is clearly a mistake because I am in no way common and they’ve missed off the bit about being able to change colour. None of the other lizards in the shop can do this, not even a tiny bit.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Look, look!’ I tell them on a bright day when the sun is shining. Carefully positioning myself with the window behind me, I squeeze my eyes shut and concentrate very hard. Then I turn blue - almost exactly the same colour as the sky. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Yeah, what?’ yawns the rather ill-educated skink from Cage Three.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘I am blue! As blue as the sky!’</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">There is a giggling sound and the gecko from Cage Two says, ‘Oh yes, so you are, Arthur. As blue as the sky.’ Then there is more giggling, as if they are trying to disguise their shrieks of delight.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The rude skink says something that sounds like ‘Yeah, you a regular <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cam – ee – leon</i>’, but I have never heard of such a thing and anyway, that is not my name. I am a Chromomorphic Lizard, like I said. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">If a lady walks by in a red dress I will amaze my friends by matching her completely. “Hey everyone! Bet you can’t see me!’</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">A yellow lorry rumbling past outside in the street – no problem. Fresh sand in my cage – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arthur, where are you, where have you gone?</i> I expect my fellows are all wondering. ‘Try to find me!’ I call out to them. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">‘Oh really Arthur, do be quiet,’ says the gecko but I know she is impressed. I have not yet found a colour I cannot become, although I will confess I have a little difficulty with pink.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Yesterday someone bought the skink. I was glad to see him go. I don’t know why no one has bought me yet. Perhaps they can’t see me. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">It does have its disadvantages, you know.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-z4ciZ4evVkLyYAOIoNXiXjc4enql_Z083RCymj7Ox06WFCx_4o4ozfE4tIRRPyzn5YSqnPnrKw9n-LnEZexxt04XxifcHap2NfJ6h8CRLKrKWJcDO05ObfB3NKjTrVt0ZMBGCJhm8mY/s1600/chameleon-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-z4ciZ4evVkLyYAOIoNXiXjc4enql_Z083RCymj7Ox06WFCx_4o4ozfE4tIRRPyzn5YSqnPnrKw9n-LnEZexxt04XxifcHap2NfJ6h8CRLKrKWJcDO05ObfB3NKjTrVt0ZMBGCJhm8mY/s320/chameleon-5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> Arthur?</div>Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-33185395361044349742012-01-31T04:14:00.000-08:002012-01-31T04:14:42.656-08:00The Market of Amazing Things'You'll never believe what I saw today,' cried Leila, running into the house and throwing her bags on the table.<br />
<br />
'What did you see?' asked her brother. He was younger and busy drawing a monster with wings.<br />
<br />
'A crowd of ragged children, all staring at the ground.'<br />
<br />
'What's so special about that?'<br />
<br />
'On the ground was a tiny chameleon, no bigger than half your thumb, tottering on stiff legs like a robot lizard.'<br />
<br />
He frowned, looking up now. 'And you saw this in the market? All I ever see is meat and vegetables and fish.'<br />
<br />
'And I saw a man with nine trays of eggs, all perfectly intact.'<br />
<br />
'Oh, <i>I've</i> seen him. He sells them to the restaurants. But how does he get there, with all those eggs?'<br />
<br />
'On a bike.'<br />
<br />
'Then how does he carry them?'<br />
<br />
'On his head.'<br />
<br />
The monster with wings was forgotten. 'Tell me, tell me, what else have you seen?'<br />
<br />
'Let me think.' Leila chewed her lip. 'Oh yes! A man dressed in blue like the evening sky, who conjures a hen from under his robe. It's a different hen every day. And a million shiny silver birds, flying round and round the tree in the middle of the market, catching flies so quickly that the flies don't know anything about it until they're in the birds' stomachs. And…and…a cage full of bees, who never fly away through the bars even though they could easily fit.'<br />
<br />
Leila's brother looked sulky. 'I never see these things. You must go to a different market than the one mother sends me to. The only things in my market are meat and vegetables and fish.'<br />
<br />
'Well,' said Leila, taking his hand. 'Next time you go, see if the meat is as shiny as a red marble floor in a sultan's palace, and the fruit and vegetables are heaped into coloured pyramids, each one higher than the next, and the cones of spices smoke in the breeze like volcanoes, and the fish wear coats woven from sequins and their eyes reflect the sun. If you see these things then I think we can safely say it <i>is</i> the same market.'Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-54382513150859966472012-01-25T03:50:00.000-08:002012-01-25T03:50:20.088-08:00Aunt Mildew v the MudI have a friend called Bert. He likes:<br />
• Football<br />
• Saturdays<br />
• Grubbing around in the playground<br />
• Sliding on the kitchen floor on his knees<br />
• Trying to pick up stuff that he probably shouldn’t be trying to pick up.<br />
<br />
My friend Bert doesn’t like:<br />
• Washing his hands<br />
• Washing his face<br />
• Washing his feet<br />
• Baths<br />
<br />
This was all very well when his parents were around – they seemed to have quite a relaxed attitude to these things. But when they went away for a Special Birthday and Bert’s aunt came to stay, well. That was a different matter.<br />
<br />
She was there for four days but Bert said later it felt like four million years.<br />
<br />
Aunt Mildew likes:<br />
• Cleanliness<br />
• Tidiness<br />
• Things that smell nice<br />
• Baths<br />
<br />
Aunt Mildrew doesn’t like:<br />
• Dirty Bert<br />
<br />
By the time the four days were up, Bert was a different boy. His teeth sparkled like diamonds. His hair shone like gold. His face was just a face, unsmeared by mud and with no pen on it.<br />
<br />
Even his feet were so clean and fragrant that butterflies alighted on his toes, mistaking them for flowers.<br />
<br />
But Bert did not look happy. It took me a long time to recognise him. When I did, I threw some mud at him.<br />
<br />
Then he smiled.Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-44709889268887280192012-01-16T10:30:00.000-08:002012-01-16T10:43:22.672-08:00Small KingsKing Lucullus was young and rather reckless and had never done much ruling before. So when the old king his father died and he took over the reigning of the patch of grass and pebbles between the café and the fishing boats, people drew breath and wondered how it would go.<br />
<br />
At first Lucullus was very busy. He decided to have the pebbles moved to the left hand side of his kingdom, and some plants brought in the make the area around his palace look a bit nicer. But there were no plants in his lands, so he had to make a series of sneaky forays into his neighbour’s kingdom. King Pog, an older but definitely more fearless king, was away visiting his wife’s family on the other side of the main road, a journey of many weeks, so Lucullus took his chance and pinched four mighty sea cabbages and some thrift. He would have uprooted more grass as well – for Pog’s lands were greener than his own – but he heard rumour of the king’s return so made haste back to behind the café.<br />
<br />
When King Pog saw the devastation caused and the vast craters of soil across his once-beautiful kingdom, he was furious. ‘He could have just asked!’ he thundered. ‘Well, in that case, I will have his pebbles to line my Imperial Avenues! Bring me all the pebbles you can carry.’<br />
<br />
King Pog’s soldiers sighed and made a series of daring forays into King Lucullus’s lands to steal his pebbles. Lucullus was not away, he just didn’t notice, being young and reckless.<br />
<br />
And so, I am sorry to say, many years followed of the great to-ing and fro-ing of grass and soil and pebbles and little gravelly rocks and plants until both kingdoms looked pretty much as they had to begin with. But King Lucullus felt that he had worked the wilder and more reckless side to his nature out, and could now get down the business of ruling properly.Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3402332132397192837.post-49007876904510433342011-10-07T05:41:00.003-07:002011-10-07T06:12:17.081-07:00Ben the God of Lego<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh28vXivASro9V0yy9EEnSSuCNuvh0lwsRhdTNJ2g-A3QHoKtx6-FbzK82XOF3PTi0zvDWU-jMQ046JuWqHPUQDp92QqNRMpALAX5BV7mG-WuX6GtuCkpOKgzwghF5gEhSF11OVyQ_paZM/s1600/IMG_2804.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh28vXivASro9V0yy9EEnSSuCNuvh0lwsRhdTNJ2g-A3QHoKtx6-FbzK82XOF3PTi0zvDWU-jMQ046JuWqHPUQDp92QqNRMpALAX5BV7mG-WuX6GtuCkpOKgzwghF5gEhSF11OVyQ_paZM/s320/IMG_2804.JPG" /></a></div><br />
My friend Ben is brilliant. <br />
<br />
He only has to look into my box of Lego to come up with the best ideas for space ships, armed fighter jets, power-propelled underwater zoom subs. Even the names are his; I usually just make boats and cars and aeroplanes.<br />
<br />
The sound of rummaging and digging and scattering fills the house when Ben comes round to play. Last time we made an intergalactic star-station filled with sub-humanoid creatures and ectoplasm that was actually playdoh, but when Ben had twisted it into strange and wonderful shapes, I really believed it could be ectoplasm. He took apart my police helicopter and the dinosaur my sister had made to create the star-station pod walkways and a range of alien monsters that looked a bit like giant spiders.<br />
<br />
‘They look a bit like spiders,’ I said.<br />
<br />
‘They’re not spiders. They’re semi-anthropoid beings made of unidentified matter from the planet Clag. Pass me that boat; I want to make a Speeder Tank.’<br />
<br />
Just before Ben’s dad comes to collect him, we put all the Lego that Ben had made on display in my bedroom. Then, after he’s gone, I look at it and think; I wish I was as good at Lego as Ben. He’s brilliant.<br />
<br />
I wish he hadn’t broken up my police helicopter, though.Laura Darlinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03627560463555275032noreply@blogger.com0