Growing Pains

Growing Pains

Having once been a symbol of female power, the snake finds herself hiding in a tree in the garden of Eden.   Adam and Eve are hanging out below having had a chat with the bloke with the beard from number seven who claims to be a God.   The snake knows is just another bloke hoping one day to rule the world, his aim being mainly to get revenge on his more intelligent wife who left him after discovering he was a bit of a narcissist.  The snake is thinking about how the world turns, how everything that goes around comes around.  The snake is a master of eating her own tail, or wrapping herself around a staff.  She is the master of symbols, a snake in the grass.

  The snake is finding the thought of Eden a bit boring. She has seen worse and better times, but cannot abide times that are nothing at all.  The snake thinks about going down and making some trouble between Adam and Eve, just for a laugh.  Other animals from the garden are passing by, stopping to chat.  ‘Oh get over yourself’, thinks the Snake as the Unicorn flicks its sparkling mane and shakes its tail at Eve, stomping a hoof.  

The snake brings out her fangs and yawns, jaws opening wide. She feels something shifting and is suddenly hungry after a long period without food.  The snake sees that Adam and Eve are alone now and thinks she might head down.   The snake has got an idea about how she can upset him from number seven but instead feels the urge to ripple her muscles and expand her beautiful body.  The snake moves up the tree and spends the afternoon shedding her old skin instead.  Down in the Garden, Adam and Eve notice him from number seven packing his bags and heading for the gate.

The Conker King

Every year that he could remember Walter Emmerson had set out at Autumn to start looking for conkers.  The Autumn was Walter’s favourite time of year.  He liked the colours, the softening of the harsh summer light, the smell of the turned fields and the sight of hay bales lying at rest on their bed of stubble.  He walked every day with his little dog, Fen, out to the edge of the village that he lived in up the lane and towards the woods which covered  the land for five miles or so in every direction.  Walt knew the woods extended for five miles in every direction because he had walked it all, first with his mother, then with his wife, then his children, now with Fen.  Every year since he could remember Walter Emmerson gathered conkers from Edgemead Woods, and he knew he would do it every year until he died.  He was getting old and wasn’t sure if he would make another Autumn.  Walter Emmerson had hope though.  It was why he still lived.  And he had a job.  It wasn’t a job you could retire from.

At the start of the season Walt would carefully and methodically start walking the woods, checking on the old trees, encouraging the new ones.  He would need the right conkers, harvested  at the right time, from the right trees.  His mother had taught him all he needed to know about what needed to be done, he was an Emmerson she said, and an Emmerson must know Edgemead Wood as if it were their own front room, the moss and bracken their chairs and sofas, the high leaf canopy their ceiling, the trees their friends, come to visit, filling up their home with the smell of mulch and grass and the overwhelming greeness of the outdoors.  Walter loved Edgemead.  Now that he had grown old, he was often bent and aching by the time he entered the wood, but by the time he left he always felt taller, more upright, his old man’s face brighter.  Together he and Fen would walk home with a spring in their step.   Walter’s window of opportunity was small, so he worked intensively, gathering the conkers into the cotton bag he brought along with him.  His great-great grandmother had sown the bag a long time ago.  The outside was embroidered with a large horse chestnut leaf sown in sparkling green thread that caught the light.  It had come from an ancient tree, his mother had said, one of the first.  From it came one of the first conkers, gathered eons ago by one of the first Emmersons.  Walter carried the bag like it was a crown.

Walter had a good eye for the right conkers.  His efforts had never failed.  He had never missed a season since the job became his and he would not miss a season now.  Walt felt that this year would be a good one, a bumper crop. Each shiny beauty that entered his bag was the dark mahogany of old furniture, the surface of each conker dense with the grain of the tree that waited inside it.  As Walt and Fen wandered through the woods the trees whispered their ancient song to them, urging them on, pushing them deeper into the emerald green.  Birds flitted from tree to tree, rounding their tiny black eyes on the man and the dog as they foraged along the tree roots.  Walter knew that a good conker was not one you picked from the tree, but one that you plucked from amongst the fallen.  The Horse Chestnut must give you the conker, you must not take it.  Walter had often seen huge green casings high up in the branches, which could only have held conkers of monstrous proportions but to take one was a sin and, although he was often tempted, Walter always abided by the rules.

After two weeks of walking, Walter’s bag was full.  The new moon was here  and the time was  right for Walter to finish his job.  He took each conker out of the bag and laid it carefully on the kitchen table.  Using a tool that had designed himself, with a long wooden handle and a thin, sharp strong steel point with a needle-like eye at the end of it, he threaded a thin piece of leather through the first conker, then chose the next one carefully, and then the next and so on until he came to the last, the biggest, its brown exterior reflecting the light from the lamp under which he worked.  He called Fen to him and took the little dog up into his arms.  He switched off the lamp so that no light other than the pale shadows of the moon trickled into his kitchen.  Walt loved Fen, he had loved his mother, and his wife and his two pretty, brown eyed children.   It had to be done with what you loved best, and only in the years with the very best conkers, the biggest and brownest.  He kissed Fen on the head and then stuck his home made braddling hook through the dog’s eye, twisting it into Fen’s little brain  so fast  that there was barely even a struggle.  Walter stood up and carefully  put the crown of conkers on his head. Cradling Fen’s limp body in his arms and with blood dripping down his hands he turned his face towards the dark sky, his features transformed by the deep shadows cast by the conkers.  I am The Conker King,  Walter started up his sacred chant I am The Conker King, he whispered at first, his voice getting louder as he walked in a tight circle with Fen’s body held to his chest.  Tears settled in wet lines down his face as he felt his strength grow with each circle.  He was The Conker King, he Walt Emmerson, was the last and could never die. The dark trees demanded his sacrifice, the  tree spirits trapped inside the conkers spoke his name calling him out to the woods.  He crept along in the moonlight to the place where he had laid them all, the ones he loved, the ones that were his, and put his beloved pet amongst the bones so that he could live another year.

Into the Darkness

Into The Darkness

 Across the water there is an island, it’s shoreline edged with dark trees. In the winter the moon hangs above the island like a luminous dinner plate and in the summer the sun shines at the islands centre, casting long shadows. My Granny told me never to go to the island. All the grannies told all their grandchildren never to go there. It held something dark and evil. Best to stay on the mainland, where there were lights and people. When I was six Granny took me to the water’s edge and put the frighteners on me, squeezing my hand tight, and coughing her rattling cough, an Embassy No6 hanging from between her yellow fingers. She told me old stories, from when she was a girl, of beasties in the water and dead things living on the land. The stories made the hair on the back of my neck rise up, and tears come to my eyes so that I had to suck my thumb to keep them from falling. I was a child then, and believed in my Granny and all the things she said. But I was soon grown up, or considered myself to be and at 15 I wasn’t listening to anyone anymore. That summer, the summer I turned 16, a boy I knew had a little row boat called Jeanie Deans. He used it to row up and down the headland, showing off the muscles in his forearms, wearing an old Navy hat his dad had given him. I thought we were just mates, we used to hang around outside the village library and smoke fags together and talk about nothing but one night I let him kiss me and it felt dangerous and opened up a closed door to new things so we made a pact that he could kiss me some more - but only on the island, he said, pushing back his cap and winking at me. I was giddy at the thought of stepping out on that old forbidden land, so I agreed and we made a plan for the day after the Solstice, when the seasons would begin to turn. We wanted time to pass quicker. We wanted the night to come. It had been raining - light summer rain, the evening filled with petrichor. We launched the Jeanie Deans from the slip as the sun started to dip in the sky, took an oar each and began rowing together. At first we were just laughing and jostling for space on the boats narrow bench, pulling hard against the water, shoulder to shoulder. The ringing song of the eider ducks followed us as the shore receded. It took longer than we thought to get there. The sun was almost setting, sparking out long red bolts of light across the water. We were tired and thirsty when we finally pulled the boat up onto the islands narrow shore. We shared a bottle of coke I had stowed under the bench and the slippery, sugary liquid felt like nectar in my mouth and the boy and I kissed without thinking until the sun was behind the trees and casting long shadows across our bodies as we lay in the sand. Our chance of rowing back to the mainland was lost as the gloaming passed and the night fell down around us. Even though it was summer and the nights were still long the outline of the boat soon disappeared in the stillness and all we saw were lights flickering into life on the other side of the water. On the island the darkness was absolute. In the morning I had to row the boat back on my own, my clothes bloody and torn, shoes missing, my hair full of leaves. I sobbed and prayed as each oar hit the water. I prayed that the Kelpies would come and steal me away, that the Kraken would awake and sink the Jeanie Deans and take me down to Davy Jones’ Locker. I cursed the land and sea and air and all the saints of lost things and everything between me and the devil I had left on the island. The boy was gone, but I was bringing something back with me. Something that swan inside me, a black minnow of a thing, nestled in the folds of a red stream, growing darkly. Never go to the island my Granny had said. It is the place where dreams are ended and nightmares begin.

The Kitchen Cupboard - A Writer Writes 150 First Chapters

      Nadine first noticed it when she was reaching at the back of the cupboard under the sink for the carpet stain remover. She had always hated the under the sink cupboard - it was dark and cold and kind of mouldy but going near it made her feel powerless so she always just opened and shut the door quickly to get out what she wanted and managed to convince herself every time that the cupboard didn’t need cleaning or tidying. Basically she left the under the sink cupboard to its own devices
      Nadine had been married to her husband Ben for 32 years. Nadine had always considered it a good marriage, they had raised four children together, paid off their mortgage, settled down for a contented retirement and then Ben had decided he wanted ‘more’. Predictably enough the ‘more’ he had wanted was 26 and called Stella. Stella worked in the coffee shop on the corner. Apparently Ben was irresistible to Stella as Stella was to Ben. Ben had left to ‘Find Himself’. Nadine had actually laughed at him when he said that. ‘Find yourself?’ Nadine had asked, incredulous. She thought of all the times he had left the house to go to his job, whilst she had shut the front door behind him and walked back into the living room to find her youngest trying to shove Lego up his nose whilst the oldest was eating the Playdo pizza’s they had been making since half past six in the morning. Nadine imagined Ben stopping off for coffee on his way to work every day for twenty years until all the kids were grown and off having a life of their own and she could finally find a moment for ‘finding herself’. How was Ben ‘finding himself’ with Stella? He had shaved off his greying beard and bought a pair of slim fitting jeans. He started wearing a bright little scarf wrapped around his neck, hanging almost down to his navel like a deflated tyre. He said ‘Hi’ a word he once told her off for using because he considered it common.
      Nadine had walked to the coffee shop one day and looked through the window trying to decide which of the young, perty looking women inside was Stella. In the end she decided it didn’t matter. They were all Stella and none of them were Stella. It wasn’t their fault for being young and pretty. It wasn’t her fault for getting older. It was Ben’s fault for being so predictable and for suddenly deciding ‘Hi’ was an alright word to use. He left, telling her ‘He just wanted her to be happy’ because obviously, he was, with his new love, and endless, free cups of coffee, and his new apartment that was a converted warehouse in which the ‘open-plan living space’ was just amazing. ‘You’d love it, Nadine’ he had said.’Why not come round one day, Stella would love to meet you’. Nadine made Ben tell the children and they all phoned her, one after the other, to show their support and to scoff at what an arse their father was being ‘He’ll be back’ said Saul, her baby and staunchest supporter. Rachel had cried, Ruby had done a great deal of swearing and Rubin, her eldest had laughed out loud and called his dad ridiculous whilst asking in detail what Stella looked like. ‘I don’t know’ Nadine had said, ‘I haven’t met her.’ In time, she knew, her children would all go round to the apartment to visit their father and to meet Stella and then she would have to hear what she looked like and how she dressed, and whether they approved or not, whether they could be friends with her or not. Nadine hoped that wouldn’t happen too soon. She wanted to not know for as long as possible. She didn’t want to know what her husband’s taste in women was like. It had been her for 32 years. Nadine had thought she was the One, that Ben was her One.
     Nadine had set up her flower business when the kids started school. That’s how the family referred to it a ‘flower business’ but it was much more than that to Nadine. She had found an old shop for rent in between her home and the kid’s school, so that she could drop them off and pick them up and was nearby incase there was a crisis. Ben worked miles away, and wouldn’t have come back for the kids even if he needed to having once told Nadine that he didn’t have one of those ‘nambypamby’ jobs that let you take time off for parenting. The kids were her responsibility and if she wanted to work she would have to make sure that she could still be a Mom. Ben had said this casually, over the Sunday papers, when she had first mooted the idea of the flower shop. His response had been a little prickly she thought, as if he was terrified that his routine might change and he would be forced to accommodate the needs of others against his will.
     The shop was in an old part of town, squashed between a bakery and a hairdressers. When Nadine went to look at it she was charmed by the little fire place and the tiny cold little bathroom out the back with the original Victorian loo and the wood panelling along the walls and the high arched ceiling. She chose to ignore the pigeon droppings, the cracks in the plaster, the noisy plumbing, Nadine’s concept for the flower shop was very low-key. She wasn’t keen on designer flowers, or flowers that looked like they would die the minute they left the hot-house environment they had been grown in. Nadine’s love of flowers came from those she had helped her Grandma grow in the back of her huge old garde., As soon as Nadine was old enough her Grandma had taught her how to plant seeds, and pot-out and grow on. Nadine loved watching the flowers bloom that she had her Grandma had planted, and got great pleasure from what many considered to be the simplest of plants: marigolds and chrysanthemums, poppys geraniums and dahlias. It was these kinds of flowers that Nadine wanted to sell to the public. She saw them in big buckets outside her store, brightening up the pavement with their happy sunny colours. Inside the store, she would make tea and help her customers pick out blossoms for bouquets for their homes. Nadine found it easier than she thought to make her vision become a reality, and people loved her shop and she was always busy and always had time for her customers who became regulars who became friends. They first came just for a look, and maybe the odd plant or two, then some flowers for a sick friend, for their own homes and then for births,weddings, deaths.
     Nadine’s customers came back again and again not just for flowers, but for Nadine too, and conversation and a little company on a dull or lonely day. Nadine loved this side of her flower shop almost as much as loved arranging the big bunches of scented blooms in the buckets, or putting together bunches to say ‘thankyou’ or ‘get well soon’. After Ben left, Nadine continued to open her shop every day, even though sometimes she could hardly bring herself to get out of bed. The little flower shop’s customers kept on coming and Nadine’s stayed open. At the end of the day she sometimes found herself crying over a rose left on it’s own in a bucket, it’s head drooping, having failed to be picked out for a bouquet. Nadine always took these flowers home and put them in a vase by her bed. ‘Goodnight’ she would say to them, as she turned out the light. Sometimes, she thought she could hear them sighing
     On the day Nadine first noticed what was in the cupboard under her sink she had spilled red wine on the carpet in the living room and was in a panic looking for the stain remover. It was a Sunday, and Nadine, on her day off, had treated herself to a new book and a nice bottle of Merlot. She had filled the glass too much and sloshed it into the carpet as she raised it to her lips. It was her second, big glass. Nadine had cursed and got up. She was wearing her old pajamas. It was only three o'clock in the afternoon but for Nadine there were no rules on a Sunday. She went into the kitchen for the stain remover and as she opened the door to the cupboard under the sink a bright flash of light caught her eye. Just for a second, like the tip of a firefly moving in and out of the branches of the tree. Nadine dismissed it as a bit of high blood pressure and too much wine and went off with the stain remover, cleaned the slosh of the carpet and sat down again to her book.
     A couple of days later, whilst rinsing off her plate after a late dinner, Nadine was standing at the sink when she felt a warm comforting heat rising up her legs. Her first thought was ‘I’m having a stroke’. Since Ben left, Nadine had begun to nurture a fear that she would die and no one would know. Her children, busy with lives of their own, only phoned once a week, and although her customers might miss her, none of them had ever visited her house. She doubted they even knew where she lived. Nadine wasn’t sure why she feared this so much but the thought of lying unnoticed for weeks on the kitchen floor made her heart race. She bent down to feel her legs and then put her hands on the cupboard door. It was then that she realised that the heat originate from the cupboard and was not the result of some deep clot holding back the rising tide of her blood. The door was as warm as a fresh piece of toast. Around it a halo of light glowed gently. Nadine bent down and pressed her ear against the door and heard a low hum, much like the sound a far off swarm of bees might make. She put her hand on the handle and opened the door with the speed and commitment of a mother removing a plaster from a child’s knee but inside the cupboard was empty except for the usual cleaning materials and under the sink detritus. Nadine felt strangely disappointed. Maybe next time she would catch whatever it was that was haunting her cupboard.
     Nadine’s day’s carried on as usual, but her mind kept wandering back to light in the cupboard and what it might mean. Ben phoned a few times and she let the answer phone pick up. He wanted her to agree to sell the house as part of a separation agreement that he and Stella thought was ‘fair’. He had already frozen their joint bank account and Nadine could only be grateful that she had had the good sense to keep all her business accounts in her own name otherwise she was pretty sure he would have tried for the flower shop as well. Nadine’s chest felt tight whenever she got a new message from Ben. She loved her house, it contained all her memories of her children when they were small; their first steps, first words, triumphs and catastrophes. She had always imagined that she would die in that house, a happy old lady asleep in her chair. It was surprising how much she wanted to stay considering the house was now way too big for her and Ben was no longer in it but it was her home and it gave her comfort. Nadine did not want to move.
     One night Nadine lay awake worrying. Ben was getting frustrated at her lack of response and his answer phone messages had been more and more angry. Nadine knew what Ben was like, that he was stubborn and selfish and used to getting what he wanted. When they were together, Nadine had seen these things as strengths for they often worked in favour of the whole family as Ben got a promotion at his job, or got them a better deal on their mortgage, but now Ben was against her and was determined to get his own way. Nadine would have to speak to a lawyer and get some advice, something which she really didn’t want to do. Nadine felt bullied and a little afraid of the future. Every time she closed her eyes she saw herself walking away from her house and she was overcome with a feeling of sadness so strong that she would wake up with a start and feel tears running down her cheeks. In the dark, Nadine could hear every corner of the house, feel its old bones settle,be part of it’s breath. She got up, restless and walked barefoot across the landing and down the stairs into the kitchen. In the dark the house was filled with shadows but all of them were familiar, like the pattern on old, worn plates. At the door to the kitchen Nadine stopped. She could hear a low hum from coming under the kitchen sink. Behind the cupboard doors light was flooding out, illuminating the big oak kitchen tables and the row of mugs hanging on the dresser. Nadine’s breath caught in her throat as she tip-toed into the room. This time, she felt sure that she would catch it, whatever it was, before it disappeared again. With little steps Nadine made her way across the room, but as she got closer the door of the cupboard began to open. Light filled the room. Nadine covered her eyes and dropped down into a squat so that she could see where the light was coming from. The cupboard itself still held all the usual stuff, including the carpet stain remover, but seemed to be way deeper than it usually was. Nadine had to crawl a little way into it before she was able to see the bright sphere revolving at the back of the cupboard. It was floating in space and was the size of a tennis ball with a smooth bright surface. Revolving slowly the sphere was emitting wanted was pulling her eyes in its direction. She shielded her eyes and backed out of the cupboard to find herself once again on the familiar tiles of her kitchen floor. She hesitated for only a moment, before she bent her head again and went back in. Nadine lifted her head and looked directly at the Sphere, for she knew what it was and what it meant. She looked directly into it, the Aleph and at once saw all of humanity, the beauty and the evil, the past, present and future of humankind, all knowledge, all known things and the mysteries of the unknown became hers, and for one glorious moment Nadine experienced profound wonder and profound peace.
     It was Saul who found his mother, lying dead head first in the cupboard under the sink. Natural causes, said the coroner, but Saul had his doubts. How could a stroke or a heart attack have left his mother with such a look of beatific wonder on her face? And she looked so young, as if time had wiped all pain from her body and left fresh and invigorated like a faded bloom placed in a vase of sugar water. And what had she been looking for in the under sink cupboard? Her body was lying half in and half out as if she had been reaching for something right at the back, but all Saul found when he looked was the carpet stain remover and some other cleaning stuff. Nothing worth dying for, at least.