My New Grandson

I once saw a sticker on someone's car that said.
'If I'd known what being a granparent was like, I'd never have been a parent'.

I thought this was very amusing at the time. Now I know what it's like, at least the feelings you get as the mother of a daughter who is having a baby.

My daughter all through her pregnancy was so clued up on everything that was happening. When I had her 28 years ago I hadn't a clue really as to what to expect.

I know that I used to look at the bump and think 'how the hell is that going to come out!'

Anyway after a 3 day labour my grandson was finally born on Boxing Day to Saskia and Eddie. He is truly beautiful and know that I will be a very proud granny!

The Limelight

I've got this thing going at the moment in my head. New enquiries that make me think about me and my past.

Jon asked me remember a time today from my childhood that really stood out. What came to mind was when I was riding my trike. I must have been 6 or 7ish. I had one of those 3 wheel trikes that was blue and had red handlebars.

This particular memory I was riding the bike really hard into the wall at the end of the close. I remember wanting to come off it and have a really bad accident and break something. (I clearly wasn't hinking about the consequences and the pain of a broken limb - I just wanted it because nothing really exciting ever happened to me, always to others - I just wanted a bit of the limelight).

Just really Funny

I just watched this - it is really funny.

On the beach

I was walking today, the sun was sharp the sky was blue. A really clear day. I did my usual beach walk, which takes me under the railway line and up some steps onto the sea wall. A short waist high wall separates the railway line. It is a main railway line between Penzance on the far south west of England and the rest of the country, London, Glasgow.

An extrordinary piece of railway, built next to the sea and disappearing into cliff tunnels.

I had gone down the steps on my way back and onto the beach as the tide was out, walking along looking at the sea and the horizon, I stopped and turned to see an old 2nd world war bomber just hugging the coast, seemed near enough to touch, almost silent - very surreal.

It reminded me of a similar experience in south west France a while ago, when on holiday on that pencil thin stretch of coast that goes from the Girand estuary to Biaritz. It was near the Dune Du Pilat and although warm there was a mist and having climbed to the top of a sand Dune and starting to walk downwards, out of the mist loomed this huge plane, again a world war 2 bomber - just there hugging the coast.

It is amazing how time comes together.

Body Parts

I wrote this again as characterisation and a lesson in dialogue. The old man in the story was modelled on John Gielgud. I could see and hear him in the part, his manerisms and how he would say things. Again the theme was future and inspired by rising temperatures - something we Brits aren't used to. Well at least not consistently.

I often wondered on the ethics of modern technology, that now could so easily replace worn out body parts. It had created a demand. A whole industry had grown up around it. Clinics were springing up everywhere.

This one was sighted well away from anywhere. That was its charm, its bleak country setting. Acres of neatly trimmed grass, well watered, so it stood out brilliantly green against the rest of the dry September landscape.

From the windows of our canteen in the training centre across the plateau from the clinic, we could watch the daily deluge of people, coming and going – a continual pounding of feet. We students thought it funny. The walking wounded we called them, although strictly speaking this was not so. All clients who could walk were encouraged to leave on the day of their operation, to make room for those who needed more care; or who had more complicated dissections, amputations and insertions.

From a distance there was cartoon pathos to it. Real people though, some being helped, some with sticks, all forced into this slow moving stream by the narrow concrete paths that dissected the grass.

As a research student I was bound to do a tour of duty, unpaid and with little experience.

‘I’m reporting for duty,’ I said to a sickly looking man in a white coat.

He pointed me in the direction of the desk and said I should give my name, and a task would be allotted to me.

It was all a bit of a crush, with just as many clients arriving as leaving. The outside air temperature was touching forty-two degrees, and the stream of people was overwhelming. Always more so when it was hot as there was an increase in burns accidents and overheated organs. It was proving too much for some who were seen to be keeling over. In this unusual heat people needed shade of which there was none, and it was a long way back to the car park. Their prosthesis without adequate time for adjustment, were going sort of rubbery and wilting, like newly planted seedlings might.

A lot of it of course was just routine checks – people not risking the age of their parts – not wanting to suddenly find something had gone wrong.

Prevention is always better than cure. For years and years this theory had been practised in dentistry and ophthalmics, now with such advancements it was the turn of other vital parts, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, a quick check of the limbs, fingers and toes.

The brain was still a different matter. None of us had figured out a way of renewing that – not and keep a personal identity. We’d got as far as the doing bits like limb movements, seeing and hearing, and function of course, but it was how you saw, and heard; the abstract areas that we couldn’t come up with a solution for. How could you replace individual memory? Still we were working on this. Maybe I would be the lucky one and come up with some sort of downloading system, so that it could all be put back once the overhaul had taken place. This had other implications though; people could be made to live forever.

‘Blundell,’ I said to the woman at the desk.
‘That with two ll’s.’
‘Three actually,’ I said, trying to make light of her bland tone and the way she didn’t look at me. She threw me a look then through her rainbow irises.
‘Do you know how many people I’ve had to process today?’

I could imagine her hopeless task, and even equate to her frustration, and her mind numbing concentration to her singular task of checking everyone in, and taking details and assessing people’s ability to walk, sit, stand – hold a conversation. She was a bit strange though; she had a little pointy chin that went into a series of non-conformist dimples as she spoke, a bit like orange peel – or even the dreaded cellulite, which thank goodness, was now a thing of the past. I guessed she was like this because her bottom lip didn’t fit her top one, and it seemed to control her chin in little spasms.

I withered under her sharpness though, and confessed that I didn’t know how many people she’d processed today, other than to say innocently enough, ‘must be lots.’
‘What is it for you,’ she said softening her tone a little and giving me a look up and down. ‘Internal or external – you look all right – breathing are you?’ This last remark wasn’t sarcasm.
‘No, no – I’m a research student. I’ve not come for surgery, just a turn of duty.’
‘Oh...right,’ she said, ‘give us your bag and put these on.’ She flung a pair of green overalls at me. ‘Go through those swing doors, you’ll find a wheely bin, it needs emptying – follow the signs to disposal.’

I suddenly wasn’t sure about this, feeling from the pit of my stomach a deep sense of foreboding, and even abandonment. I wanted to go home. I was happier reading books and conducting laboratory experiments, than having to deal with the products of our research – the nuts and bolts so to speak – the ‘hands on’ experience.

As I turned, clutching my overalls, I faced a great queue of sad faces – hundreds of eyes searching for atonement. I dared not look at any of the other parts. Somehow it wasn’t so funny at this distance.

I pushed through the doors, malleable ones that gave under my touch. When they closed they sealed me into a quiet space. It was also cool. Not so much a room as an enclosed piece of corridor, with another set of doors almost directly ahead.

I could see the wheely bin in front of me sitting quietly and unobtrusively by the wall, waiting for me to push it through the other doors. There was a neon sign with an arrow pointing straight up. It said, microsurgery – nothing about disposal.

I climbed into my overalls. They were big enough to pull over my sandals and up over my bare skinny brown legs, which I looked down on everyday. I was secretly saving for a new pair, not feeling at all satisfied with the shape of them. My new thinking was that it would be much cheaper and possibly quicker if there was a medical reason, something life threatening due to the risk of infection. I’d thought of serious sunburn. Great blisters that I could persuade to become septic, not being the self-mutilation type. Before I’d come out today, I’d been warned to cover them up – but what’s a warning to a person that has eighty percent of her life left. Especially a research student who knows what’s possible. For days I’d gleefully left them bare and fully exposed, but all that was happening, was they were just getting browner and browner, they’d never burn now. I’d probably have to try next year.

I didn’t know which way I had to go to disposal but had just noticed a set of buttons on the wall. I pushed the one that said disposal, and the sign lit up with two arrows, one going straight up, and the other pointing left.

I positioned myself behind the bin and took the brake off, thinking I couldn’t go wrong whichever way I took when the doors burst open, bending concavely in the middle – not so much opening as squeezing, and they closed together again with a satisfying thwack.

A tall man stood in my way, a very tall, very old man, with a grin on his face that showed a set of very even teeth. He was waving a wooden stick in the air.

‘Halt,’ he said, ‘don’t go anywhere with that bin.’
‘But I’ve been told to take it to disposal,’ I protested.
‘You may take it to disposal just as soon as I have done with it.’ The emphasis was on the I. He spoke very majestically and looked at me with his chin tilted upwards. His hair was grey and cut short, so it was spiky all over his head.

He pointed the stick directly at me and completely barred my way. I didn’t know what to do.
‘That bin,’ he said, ‘contains my leg.’ With a grand gesture he swept the stick around and tapped the side of the green plastic receptacle I was about to push.

‘Your leg,’ I said hesitantly. At reception I hadn’t asked what I was disposing of. A friend, who’d already done his tour, had warned me not to ask – that it was better not to know.
‘I’m very sorry about your leg, but I have to take this bin to disposal. Is there something else I can do for you?’ I enquired politely. I didn’t think he ought to be here at all, and thought he might have escaped from somewhere.

I could have bolted back through the doors behind me, but some obscure sense of righteousness made me think I could do more good by staying put. Maybe I could save the day, or the wheely bin, or both. Besides my choices were limited to the sickly man in the white coat or the woman at the desk who already had her work cut out. I reinstated the brake.

‘That leg and I have been together since I was a boy – I’m now ninety seven – don’t you think that’s a long time to be attached to a leg.’

I nodded sympathetically. ‘A very long time. But look on the bright side – you’ve probably got a brand spanking new one which will give you years of support.’

‘Don’t think I’m complaining, I’m very happy – look.’ He lifted his leg so that I could see. He was wearing shorts but until now the bin had obscured his bottom half.

I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle my gasp. Prosthesis were usually grown by first having your cells scanned, and the structures fed into the growing machine, then it was just a matter of exposing the stump, and a new one grew directly onto it. The time it took depended on the size of part you wanted. Because it grew from your cells, it came out perfectly like your old one, a bit newer looking, but definitely like your other one. His wasn’t.

‘It’s someone else’s,’ I gasped again.

His own biological leg was old and withered, white and hairless, with little muscle structure left, and was very saggy round his skinny knee. The other leg being held aloft was the leg of a young man, a body builder maybe. It was tanned and muscled with sheen to the skin. The thigh must have been the size of his waist; the top of it being squeezed inwards to fit the width of his hip, so it bulged exaggeratedly out from his body.

He put the leg down. ‘You look shocked my dear.’

‘But it’s not even remotely like your other one. Aren’t there some channels you can go through to complain? I’ll even help you. I hope you haven’t paid them yet...is this the reason you’re trying to find your old one?’

‘No, no, dear,’ he said, ‘you make it sound so terrible. They gave me a choice, but you see at my age cells are more reluctant to regenerate. I might have been here for hours, I can’t do with hanging around in a place like this for hours – there’s so much to do and so little time left to do it, besides this leg will be much more useful to me. Just think what I can do with it.’

‘What was wrong with your old leg?’

‘Got crushed.’

I glanced down at the bin. ‘How awful...how did it happen?’
‘Awful...yes, considering. It was one of those damn transport things, called them lorries in my day – god knows what you could call them these days? – Bloody great monsters. What on earth do people find to put in them? Houses I expect, no, no, whole bloody estates.’

He had the stage and my full attention, and then as he carried on I began to think about his brain. How an old man like this would be a perfect subject. I mean to say his memory banks must have been packed with information, and he could do with a bit of regeneration, and he’d already lived so long that maybe it didn’t matter if things went a little wrong – I mean how long had he got left anyway? Although I had to admit I wasn’t entirely happy with what I was thinking. Old he might have been, but that didn’t invalidate the rest of his life. You see when you are young you only think in terms of how much time you have left and what you can do with it, and that when you became old – you also became dispensable. I couldn’t conceive of being old myself, because I supposed that it wouldn’t happen, that by the time I’d reached this great age there would be enough advancement to never be old.

I wasn’t listening to him – he’d been talking the whole while, and I just came back to hear.
‘...I squashed myself against the wall, but it wasn’t enough. It went straight over my foot. Well you can imagine the pain, so I buckled, and the next wheel went over my leg.’

He stopped talking. I imagined it was the transport vehicle – the lorry – that had gone over his leg.

‘Why didn’t it go over both your legs?’ I looked at him sideways, I was sceptical that this had happened, it was plausible, but I’m surprised he didn’t die of shock, an old man like him, although he seemed terribly sprightly for his age.

‘Ahh,’ he said waving his finger around in front of his face with a little expression of glee.
‘That’s the clever bit, as I fell, I tucked the other one up behind me, so that I was sitting on it.’ At this point he was making little jerky movements with his hands and his head. I wasn’t sure what it was illustrating, but it was very entertaining. ‘I knew you see,’ he continued ‘that if I lost both legs together, I’d never be able to walk.’

It was a revelation to me that someone in that situation and that much pain could have the foresight to save the other leg.

‘Someone would have brought you here,’ I said, having some faith left in human kindness and sponsorship. Besides the idea that he’d walked straight here with one crushed leg, seemed absurd.

‘I don’t think I’d have got a lift, I don’t know anyone, and besides companies like this one, that offer direct to you warehouse prices, don’t make those kind of provisions, specially for old timers like me. There is a kind of pathos to all of this you see. All companies exist to make money, and like all products you pay for what you get. People will patronise places like this because you seem to get what other places are offering, but for half the cost, but of course you compromise and don’t get any of the frilly bits – the niceties that make you feel you’re being cared for.’

‘But at least people who can’t afford it can at least aspire to something.’

‘Oh, I agree…but my dear,’ he became very grave. ‘If affordability did not exist, the lorries wouldn’t have got so big, and I would still have my own leg. I would not have spent any money at all, and the money that I did spend I would not have needed, so I would not have had to worry about making it. Maybe then when I was younger, I could have spent the time more profitably enjoying myself, rather than making enough money to be able to afford to keep myself alive – and might I add, on my own two feet.’

I sighed. I spent all my time thinking I was doing a service to people.

‘What do you do my dear?’ He said, as if he read my mind.

I bit my lip, ‘I’m a research student,’ I replied, quite glumly. Then carried on in defence of what I did. ‘We’re always making new breakthroughs. I think it’s great that people can have the limbs they want, and new hearts and things, it helps people to live full normal lives – lives that would have been plagued by illness and death. Now children don’t lose their parents, and parents don’t lose their children, and there’s no pain and heartache and emptiness.’

I’d let go of the bin and had sunk to the floor with my back against the wall.

‘And I agree with you,’ I said, ‘about affordability.’
‘You do?’ He looked surprised.
‘Yes – you see it in the graveyard.’
‘You do?’ He said again.
‘They’re all the same, the gravestones.’
‘They are?’
‘All the same size, the same distances apart, and even in some cases with the same wording, but with the name changed. As shoddy in life as one expected to be in death, all saying we can’t afford something different so lets just get something that will do. They’d have been better in a mass grave with one fine memorial celebrating their lives – there would be less to read, it would be more memorable, more heartrending, and more honest.’
‘You’re sure?’ He said, looking at me earnestly.
I looked back at him just as earnestly. ‘Yes, I said ‘I’m sure.’
‘Ahh,’ he said, ‘you are a thinking student.’

I felt rather proud of this, and as I sat preening my own ego, saw him move surreptitiously towards the bin. At least saw his feet get closer, one pale old foot, and one brown young foot.
I sprang to my feet mindful of my position.

‘What are you doing.’
‘Getting my leg,’ he said.
‘But you don’t need it anymore, you said you were happy with your new leg,’ I pleaded with him.
‘So happy I’ve asked them to do the other one, then my arms, and my chest and last but not least my bum...and the other twiddly bit in the front.’ The last was said with a little gesture of his hand as if to explain which bit he meant. ‘I shall be a new man,’ he finished with his arms outstretched thrusting his bony chest forward so that it appeared to fill out his thin short sleeved shirt with palm trees on. His face was pointing towards the ceiling, as if I should applaud him, and he would take a bow.

‘What if none of it matches,’ I said, bringing him back to earth.

‘Oh it will,’ he seemed quite confident. ‘They promised to match things as closely as possible. Unfortunately the owner of this new leg had a worse accident than mine, and the rest of him was so badly damaged that he didn’t recover.’

‘I expect they’ll grow things from the cells of the new leg anyway, so you’ll end up like the man that died.’

‘Yes..yes,’ he said quickly and tried to open the lid of the bin, but I slammed my hand down on top of it.

‘You can’t go in there, you shouldn’t even be here, and I don’t know what sort of contamination I’d be letting out. Your leg might be in there with lots of other things – things that might not be so recognisable.’ I shuddered at the thought.

He looked at me defiantly then pointed his stick at me again.
‘You’re a research student,’ he said quizzically, his chin in the air. I could see up his nostrils. Then suddenly he came very close to me and peered at me, his eyes now very wide showing me how blue and alive they still were.
‘I don’t suppose we could do a deal.’
I looked at him. I had to confess that in the short time of our acquaintance I’d grown rather fond of him.
‘What sort of a deal.’ I looked at him suspiciously. I thought him rather extraordinary. ‘Whisper to me,’ I said.
He smiled showing his perfect teeth, and leaned in closer to my ear. I had already begun to see the new man in him.
‘Whatever you do,’ he whispered, ‘do not lose your legs.’

I swallowed hard – how did he know? How did he know about my legs?

I stood back and let him open the lid of the bin. He knew what I was thinking, I couldn’t risk him saying about my legs, I might get stuck with them. Or did he know? If he didn’t it was a good guess. Suppose he’d said, don’t lose your nose, or your tits or something, but he didn’t, he chose my legs.

He poked inside the bin for a minute with his stick, then fiddled with his bare hands, while I pulled a face and hoped no one would come through the doors. Then he pulled it out and held it in the air. No, not his leg, but his sandal – a little worse for wear.

‘But it won’t fit anymore,’ I pointed out.
‘But,’ he said lifting his chin; ‘it is mine, and will be a good keepsake.’
Then he turned to me again and poked me in the chest with his stick – gently – not maliciously. ‘I think you do a splendid job my dear – splendid – splendid.’
‘How did you know about my legs?’
He lifted his finger. ‘Ah, my dear,’ he said, ‘the brain is only as old as your body, but the thoughts inside are as old as you want them to be.’

I frowned – my head whirring – trying to understand whether this was an answer to my question.

He turned and left, repeating splendid – splendid. It made me smile, and as the doors settled, made me think. It was one thing replacing parts that go wrong, quite another when your own bits are good enough. I would have to change tack – change the nature of my research – forget the brain. People should remain unique to the end. This could not be altered, and even regeneration would be dangerous. Best leave well alone. I had learned a lesson from an old man.

I knew of course that someone else would come up with some groundbreaking way of fiddling with the brain, in order to make us live longer and healthier, if it wasn’t me. Could I face that, allowing someone else to take the credit, and the fame and the money that would come with it? Then I remembered, I hadn’t done it yet – wasn’t even close, and neither was anyone else. Fortunately, for the time being, mans’ abstract brain remained a limitless puzzle. Unfortunately, the same too could have been said of personal ambition. That it was a limitless trait heavily disguised by the words: mans’ curiosity: his need to know; and separate from, his ability to think about the consequences of his knowledge.

I took the brake off the bin so that I could take it to disposal, to get rid of the bits that no one wanted anymore.

Quote of the Day

I picked this up as the quote of the day by Ellen Goodman.

"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."

Now the job is to get people out of work, or who have been made redundant recently, (quite a lot in the UK at the moment) back into this strange ritual!

:-)

Ellen Goodman was an American journalist who quoted this in 1941 - strange that things don't seem to have changed.

Global Warming

I have no idea where these characters or ideas came from. However, looking at the process of writing a lot of it is based on characterisation rather than the story. I think sometimes I write from a stream of consciousness. Obviously the story was inspired by unusual sunshine in the years when we did have some hot sunny weather........

I sat on the step my legs astride but drawn up as a support for my elbows. My head rested between two clenched fists. I’d shut my eyes and tipped my face towards the sun, drinking it in.
Martha sat a little way off on the corner of the concrete rise. Her baggy old skirt billowing out over her knees. Her straggly grey hair lank on her shoulders.

‘He didn’t get nought for nought’ Martha trestled on.

The lightning had ripped through the field at the bottom creating a scorched mark through the corn stubble. The ferocity of the strike had been blamed on global warming, as had the wind that followed laying several trees flat.

‘He didn’t get nought for nought that boy,’ Martha cackled showing a mouthful of yellowing teeth, some missing. I was glad she was that far away – more than two large paces, otherwise her breath would have laid me flat. Martha was neither old nor stupid, but a product of global warming I supposed. Like the large pig with two tails in my next door neighbours garden.
Martha had arrived one night in a hailstorm wearing an old grey trenchcoat done up with a nappy pin, and she’d taken over my shed – just like that. She came to the door the next morning asking for a bucket of water to heat up for a cup of tea. ‘And a wash’ I said; not realising at the time that the lightning had brought her out of her hole. A little known makeshift shack nestled against the cool north facing wall of the old quarry. The ascending sheer cut stone harbouring ferns in the shade – a rare piece of land. The shack had been split wide open in the blast leaving the shelter more open than she cared for. Naturally it had displaced her, so she’d packed up her things and headed for the nearest available hideaway – my shed.

Curiously I’d just accepted her, but then things were strange now, at this time.

The “nought for nought that boy” was her son, who’d hanged himself at thirteen and she’d set light to his body believing him to be dead anyway. Burning him on a bonfire at the bottom of her garden.

‘We all gonna burn up anyway’ she said ‘burn in the hellfire’s of damnation.’ It was probably true I thought, as the sun burned a hole in my night-dress that I’d forgotten to take off. What was that about the righteous shall inherit the earth. Nothing righteous about Martha, or me for that matter.

She lifted her skirt sometimes to show me her fanny. She’d just lift her skirt and cackle, hiding her face with the thin floral print. She never wore underwear – not Martha, and she always revealed a disgusting caked up matt; she never washed either. Her scrawny mottled leathery thighs extended into these little squinty knock knees. I’d often wondered about her former body – the one that had pleased her husband.

I don’t know why she showed me like this? – And I’d stopped looking anyway. Sometimes when Martha sat on the ground with legs akimbo the cat would come sniffing round, and, with some encouragement from Martha, would wander in under her skirt. Then Martha would cackle and capture it under the cotton folds, pressing its warm fur against her. She held it tightly. I was never sure what kind of satisfaction she gained from this. Maybe memories of the warmth of her husband between her legs.

Martha was as dry as the rest of us now. Dry like the land.

When she’d done with the cat she’d let it go and it would escape in some sort of disorientated frenzy. Well who wouldn’t be in a frenzy pressed against Martha’s fanny?

The cat flopped in the shade of a large pot. She was now bald in places, the sun having singed off patches of her fur so she looked mangy. No more the sweet sensation against Martha’s erogenous zones, the cat was long past care, soon she’d turn on her back with her legs in the air and die.

The searing heat of the sun was now blistering my nose – but this always happened. I’d put a hat on, it shaded what was left of me. The sun didn’t bother Martha, its why she looked so old. The sun had tanned her skin till it was like leather, impervious to everything. She was swaying backwards and forwards humming to herself. A small pool appeared on the concrete, she’d peed herself again. It didn’t matter though it evaporated almost instantly.

‘It’s why you look so old Martha. It’s the sun.’ I pointed heavenward, she cackled.
‘Stupid bloody sun,’ she said.

‘They give you two minutes these days,’ I said to her, thinking she’d know.
‘Who’s they?’ She said, squinting at me.

‘Them on the telly – it used to be half hour, now it’s just two minutes.’

Two minutes of sun exposure before you fried. They’d even warned us against using oil because it sizzled. Hospitals were full of cooked bodies.

There aren’t any leaves on the trees either. The ground gets so dry around July that the leaves are shed in June. They come early though, around January when there’s some rain. It’s quite tropical. It monsoons. The rain just pours out of the sky and runs off the land swelling rivers and lakes. It disappears though just as quickly as it comes.

The farmer who owns the field at the bottom always sows his corn in January and collects the water for irrigation. The corn ripens before June, before the lightning and the hot winds. Then come August, it’s like this. The whole pattern has changed – people die in August.

Martha’s up now doing her little dance, her rain dance she calls it. Her breasts flopping around under her baggy floral dress, her eyes still blue but narrowed now. She’s annoying me a bit, her shadow is dancing around and she’s strobing the sun. It’s not like the dappling of the trees if they had leaves on, its harsh and irritating. She’s chanting now and turning in circles. The pig next door is squealing.

Martha stops dancing. ‘Stop that bloody pig, from that noise,’ she hurls the abuse over the fence. ‘Can’t get into my stride with that racket,’ she tutts and looks put out.

‘Oh shut up yourself you silly old crone,’ comes the rough re-course.

I feel a little indignant that the fat old cow next door should call Martha names, but indignation isn’t enough. I ought to shoot the pig and put it out of its misery. Perhaps I should shoot Martha, but then Martha’s not stupid. This kind of bantering could go on all morning – when Martha gets a bee in her bonnet. Instead she turns on me and comes in close, a little too close for comfort. I lean back. She wags her finger.

‘Shouldn’t be allowed that squealing, poor creature out in this sun.’

‘Mutation’ I say – ‘its mutated. Besides pigs have got skin like you Martha.’ She squints one eye at me dragging the corners of her mouth down. She’s trying to focus on me. Then she pauses.
‘What people on the telly – who tells us it’s two minutes?’

‘The meteorological guys – the weathermen.’

‘Oh’ she says, moving away from me, looking at me with a frown. It’s funny how she suddenly thinks about things long after they’ve been said.

‘Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean, and so between the two of them they licked the platter clean,’ she sings in a high squeaky voice. It’s her favourite rhyme. It always makes me think of next door’s pig – perhaps that’s why Martha sings it? She lifts her dress and wiggles her scrawny bottom at me, I have to laugh and she cackles too shuffling off down the steps to the shed. I guessed she was going to siesta and dream about her dead husband, and her nought for nought son, and her once youthful body and her brilliant mind.

When I went down to the shed later with her bucket of water, she’d gone. Just cleared out. I sat down on the ground which was supposed to be grass, instead was dried earth like concrete. My nose felt hot again and I thought – shit. So I raced back to the house and got my hat, then returned to sit in vigil.

I saw the old garden trowel laying on the ground near the shed so I tried to dig a hole but the trowel bent. There was a thin blade of grass poking out of a crack – maybe Martha had peed there and left a smidgen of moisture. Then I caught a glimpse of my pink wobbly neighbour, and her pink wobbly husband sitting in the shade of an umbrella. Their pink wobbly pig mutation was there as well, and it all seemed pretty sickening that Martha had gone and left me in this desert where only cactus grow now. The corn field was bare, and soon the rain would come, then the lightning, then the wind, and then the sun again; and our exposure would be down to thirty seconds. The acceleration of geological evolution – the sea would soon be lapping at our toes.
The very next day the shed burnt down. I suspected my neighbours cigarette. The fat old bird may have had a twinge of conscience as she waddled down to the bottom of her garden in her flip flops, to ask me if there was anything she could do. I feebly threw a bucket of water at the glowing embers.

She folded her arms which caused the crease of her cleavage to extend to her chin. Her skin was pink, but in her fatness, impervious, like Martha’s. ‘I ‘ope the old crone weren’t in there?’ She said in her coarse voice, nodding her head in the direction of the pile of ashes, trying to sound concerned; but her stifled smile was righteous. God help us all, I thought, if she inherits the earth.

I think this is why Martha left, she knew that I was doomed and that my neighbour wasn't.
The fire had displaced some orange and green lizards which now scuttled around my feet. It was all right for them – they liked the heat, and I had too – once. I’d felt happiest viewing acres of dry landscape, when I could bask. But basking was out of the question now, and the lightning frightened me and I hated the wind; and I wanted to roam like Martha. To find somewhere where dryness wasn’t all consuming.

It was global warming that had taken hold with a hint of self destruction, and only the righteous would inherit the earth. Maybe we had to adapt like the seasons. Maybe Martha was a sign. Maybe I was righteous after all and would find someone else’s shed more comfortable than my own. Besides, I couldn’t stand the noise the pig made and knew Martha would make it rain somewhere.

Sam's Story

Sam's story was inspired curiously by Lyme Regis, it's qaintness and history. Part of the Jerassic coast and the film, the French Lieutenant 's Woman with Jeremy Iron's and Merryl Street. Seems a long time ago now. This was the only bit I could find on computer. Anything else written about Sam and Ginny was written on an old Amstrad back in the late 80's and I only have hard copy.............

The room smelt of incense, a strange smell mingling with the smoke of his cigarette. Music played softly, the kind that spans a generation with lilting musical rythmns and unanarchic voices. The kind that buries itself and is siblimly non disruptive. The curtains were drawn giving an illusion of softened atmospheres, in the transient half dark, half light. Sam’s breath quickened as he watched her remove her dress, pulling it upwards with slow redolent movements, swaying in time to the music revealing not her flesh as he had expected, but a silken petticoat which covered her breasts and fell just on the top of her thigh, it lifted slightly as she stretched her arms ever higher.

As he watched her he saw himself mimicking her movements, moving his hands up her long straight arms, in doing so moving his body against her silken form. When her head was free, but still captured by her arms, he kissed her lips bending her backwards, so that she like a willow and he with the force of the wind grew together. In his mind's eye he could see it all as she moved towards him, she leaned forward and breathed words at him which were so soft he did not hear; just caught the sweet sensation and felt the pulse within him, closing his eyes in order to stop the trance in which she had placed him. As she laid her kiss he clenched his jaw as the sensations of pleasure, desire and guilt fought for recognition. In one moment he had broken her spell, grabbing her arm he flung her with exemplary passion, and as she sprawled on the floor he pointed and screamed at her.

"You won't do this to me, I won't let you not this time, not ever again." He paused running his hands through his hair.
"D o n 't... d o...t h i s...t o...m e." He said slowly, staring ahead of him, not looking into her eyes. "I can't do this," he said more quietly. The moment had passed. She lay on her back, unafraid of his size and strength, his youth which so encapsulated his actions.
"Why," looking steadfastly at the ceiling.
"What am I doing to you." She wanted him to say it, so that she could be innocent and remain like an unwilling party, to deny herself of her own feelings.
"You will learn to hate me, and I in turn will hate you for it." He left not hearing her whisper, but heard her call his name.
"Sam." A beseeching cry. But like replacing a receiver on an unwelcome phonecall, Sam shut her out and continued walking.

Bliss, bliss, sweet bliss, the word wandered around his head as he sat with his eyes closed, and leaned against the bar. The whisky leaving a dry stinging sensation at the back of his throat. It was his fifth that evening, his sole intention to drink himself to oblivion.

"Watcha mate." A hand clapped onto Sam's shoulder like a stinging wound, the realisation of pain coming between his thoughts. Keith the tit man of suburbia had come between Sam's thoughts.
"What's this, drinking alone, must be a bird, nice tits has she, wife found out, eh!" Keith laughed and nudged him, winking in a stupid way. Sam looked through him. "Come on Sam, life's not that bad." Keith slurped his beer and the two men were silent. Sam bought himself another whisky. "Hey steady on man, how many of those have you had?" As Sam had fumbled in his pocket spilling his change on the floor.
"Leave it." He groaned as Keith stooped down to pick it up then handed it to him. Sam put it clumsily back in his pocket, and it fell again. Keith left it and looked at him.
"You coming down the club, we can pick up some tarts. You'll forget it."

Sam wouldn't forget it, wouldn't forget her. Sam didn't want a tart, didn't want his wife, just wanted Ginny, and all her seductive ways, and all her experience, but she didn't love him, not as he loved her.
"Look come down the club, bury your head in some tits, get your hand round some nice arse, come on." Keith was still talking. His beer went down in a few last gulps and he smacked his lips. "Come on...club."

Sam finished his whisky and followed him somewhat unsteadily, his unbuttoned overcoat swaying with him, his black hair sitting uneasily on his collar and the semblance of a shadow now darkening his jaw line. His rugged good looks would get him a tart as they had before, it would get Keith one too, as they had before.

Having reached the club Sam entered the dry smoky atmosphere, the sensation of heat was overwhelming as his overcoat felt heavy on his shoulders, but he did not take it off, instead he plunged his hands deep in his pockets and flopped into a seat in a dark corner. Keith went to the bar looking at Sam as though he expected more life from him. Sam lit a cigarette and left it drooping from the corner of his mouth, the smoke spiralling into his eyes, he lifted his head squinting as he tried to focus on the scene, his skin now wet with perspiration as the heat clung to him under his clothes.

It was dark and noisy with music and laughter. People moved around as if in slow motion, girls standing in groups sipping their drinks, moving their eyes from man to man clutching shoulder bags, wearing short skirts, cigarettes burning between their fingers. He found himself staring, she caught his eye pulling her skirt down, then turned away to speak. She looked again, this time a sneaky glance from her friend. Sam didn't have to try in this world, he just had to sit and look, but in Virginia's world he felt like a small spot on the horizon, not yet big enough to command attention.

Sam got up to command attention, he walked towards the bar the cigarette still hanging from his lips. As he walked past the girl his coat brushed her leg so slightly as only to cause a small change in temperature. She turned her heavily made up eyes following his dark shape. He looked at Keith who smiled.
"That's my boy, that's more like the Sam I know." Keith put his arm round Sam's shoulder and handed him his drink.
"Give them....what, five minutes. Then those two'll be over here." Keith turned his head slightly then leered as he turned his back to the bar and slurped his beer.

Sam had his back to the girls and fingered his glass, his stooped shape pensive as the girl focused on him. Her friend nudged her.
"He's nice, shall we go and get another drink." Her friend smiled at her, she shrugged and thought about it.
"Don't know." She replied, "he looks a bit moody, bit sort of dark."
"I don't know, he looks like one of those models, y'know the dark sort that are always kissing girls and holding them tight like their having sex all the time," She nudged her, "could be your lucky night, come on we've got nothing to lose." Just as Keith had predicted the girls went to the bar.
"Scuse me dahlin." He said. "Would you like me and my friend to get those for you, what will it be."
"Oh thanks very much, I'll have a Bacardi and coke, what about you Veronica." Veronica looked a little embarrassed and asked for a gin and orange. Sam didn't move. The two girls stood close to Keith who bantered on about gorgeous legs and pop music. Veronica stood behind Sam who still hadn't moved so she went to the bar the other side of him, to get away from Keith, who she thought a lurid piece of work. She was quiet for a minute while she stole glances at Sam. Presently she spoke.
"Is your friend always like this." Sam turned to look at her, he smiled half heartedly. Sam was more sober now as the pointlessness of him being there had just begun to dawn on him. He didn't like Keith either and wished he was in his own bed, but felt the pointlessness of that as well. Virginia had so confused his thoughts. He wanted her so badly and yet could not overcome his mistrust of her, could not feel anything but used by her. As though he were part of some intrigue unwittingly stepping in the way being trampled underfoot. She was ten years older, married, what was his role in her life? The girl was looking at his face, waiting. for an answer.
"Yes, usually."
Veronica shuddered and looked beseechingly at her friend.
"I don't think I'll come, I'll get a taxi home." Sam looked at her.
"Why don't we go, we can talk if you like."
"I don't know," she said hesitating.
"Come on Veronica," said her friend, "come on it'll be fun." Veronica agreed and they left the club. They all walked. Keith was loud and abusive, and Veronica's friend giggled a lot. Sam and Veronica were silent.

The room became smoky as the four drank and smoked. A heady euphoria had again returned to Sam who half lay, half sat on the sofa. Veronica who was now more drunk than sober rested against him, and she giggled with her speaking, and fingered his shirt buttons. Keith and the other girl had disappeared. Sam with his eyes closed felt her pulling at his overcoat.
"Come on, don't you ever take this thing off." Veronica helped him off with it, he laughed too at the absurdity of it all. He looked briefly at her seeing her beautiful eyes laying secreted below the make-up.
"You know," he said, "you have beautiful eyes." Her body was warm and yielding. Sam knew this world, the world of non commitment where he could gain security from the moment. He kissed her long and hard forcing himself on top of her. Within minutes he was inside her and with his eyes shut, inside Virginia. It was an overwhelming release to take her to oblivion, only on opening his eyes, he was on top of Veronica. He now lay inert, as she did, not yet understanding that in that brief minute Sam had satisfied himself with her body, her panties still around one leg. Her make-up was smudged as she realised it was all over, and her time would never arrive. He moved away from her and zipped his jeans. She started to sob. Sam was unsure of what he felt, but there was compassion. He knelt beside her.
"Look, don't cry, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you." He could do no more, her crying had become a noise in his head. He grabbed his coat and opened the bedroom door, to reveal the sight of Keith's naked backside. Keith turned his head round.
"What's the matter mate, can't you see I'm busy."
"We've got to go, come on we've got to go." Sam was urgent. He strode forward and grabbed Keith's arm. "Come on, get your clothes." Keith tried to shrug him off.
"Go away man, go without me." Keith continued determined not to lose this girl, who was now struggling to get up. "Stay down bitch." Keith was now struggling with the girl as Sam grabbed him again and forced him to a sitting position. Keith hit out, but Sam caught him square in the mouth. The girl screamed grabbing the sheets about her she raced passed Sam to the comfort of Veronica who was standing in the doorway. Sam went in again punching, leaving Keith sprawled on the floor, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. Then as he had done with Virginia earlier, he left without a word, or a glance backwards.

In the cold dark streets he felt more collected, he could breath again. He came across a tramp sitting in a doorway and sat down next to him.
"Jesus Christ, I hit him, I really walloped him." Sam spoke as though to himself.
"They always want you to do it to them, these girls. They mince around in their short skirts, and all that make-up. It's all they want. Then when you can't control yourself, they get upset. They only want for themselves, just as I do, only they're different, can't do it as easily. Then you see it happening, you see how absurd it all is, witness it in all its disgusting state. That's why I hit him...because I saw myself and it disgusted me." Sam fell silent. The tramp unable to speak gently patted him on the back as Sam buried his head in his hands. A light rain began to fall making the quiet cobbled street glint orange in the street light.

"You'd best be getting home sonny, it'll get cold soon. Ain't no use you getting fucking cold, don't you go getting fucked up over no girl. You go 'ome, out this fucking rain."

Sam walked on down the street, his hair beginning to hang in wet clumps, dripping down his neck. He turned his collar up and hugged himself as he turned the corner of his home street. His wife would be in bed quite used to Sam's late returns. She never dreamed of his real nature. She was a sweet girl, trusting him because if she didn't, she may lose him to another.

He showered before climbing into her bed. She stirred murmuring to him about having a nice time.