THE LAST BALCONY (www.nemonymous.com)

THRENODY

by Clacton Writers' Group (July 2008)




The threnody hung in the still, early morning air like the earlier dawn mist. It crept, wraith-like, out of the dark, green forest to glisten on the clearing, seeming to react with the mournful cry of the lapwings as they wheeled and plunged like photo negatives in a breeze; the calls of the terns and oyster-catchers on the distant shore a sharp counterpoint.

The violin was clear and sharp but the vocals were growled, rough with age and abuse, their meaning both at once clear and indistinct. This was no celebration of life, but a pained acceptance of loss, of death, a howling at the moon, a railing against injustice.

I found him standing next to the main chimneystack, the only thing that the fire had not destroyed. Even now, despite the winds, despite the rain, the smell of smoke pervaded everything. From that point forever more I always associated the smell of burnt wood with death.

He had his back to me and I watched as both hands caressed the instrument to make it cry, to lend itself to his loss.

Beyond him, where the fence once stood, were two mounds of freshly dug soil; one for Sarah and a smaller one for Louisa. Around him lay the bloody, rotting corpses of his dogs and cattle, left where they perished.

I looked back at him, his shoulders flexing under the plaid shirt.

“Bill,” I said. “Bill.”

He didn’t stop. He continued to push his lament into the world like a difficult birth, but he did turn around.

His trousers were of some fur or hide, possibly moleskin or deer. His feet were encased in elk-skin boots. His long, grey hair and beard were matted. He was crying.

He was wearing their war-paint.

Well, not theirs, I suppose. Somehow he’d found the makings and painted his face the way they did. As I stepped closer I could see that on top of the colours the black streaks had been crafted using burnt wood. Apt, I suppose, that he would use the ruins of his home to prepare himself for the war of revenge.

I had to talk him out of it; he would never survive. But I guess that if I were him, I wouldn’t want to survive..

“Bill,” I said again, “Come on, give up on this. Come home with me. My Jenny’s got a stew bubbling on the fire and a bed made up ready for you.” I held out a hand, but his fingers were still doing their slow dance of death up and down the instrument. A single tear trickled down his cheek and he once more turned his back on me and faced the resting-place of the two he had loved most in all the world.

There would be no talking to him until the lament was finished. I walked across to a fallen tree and sat down, taking some tobacco from the tin in my pocket, and started to chew it.

It was hard to believe that Sarah and Louisa were no more. The daughter had been the image of her mother, both of them with heart-shaped faces, green eyes and so full of life. Little Louisa was never still; she never walked if she could run, dance or skip, and the words tumbled from her mouth in the same fashion. Whenever I came up from the valley to visit the family the house was always full of music and laughter. The contrast of the laughter with the sad lament that now spun its horror through the woods was nearly unbearable.

I wish I could move time on and to make it later, years or decades later. But I can’t. I sat and chewed as I listened to that unearthly sound and reflected on what he had lost and on what I still had.

I looked without seeing. Listened without hearing. Desperately needing the lament to end and desperate to persuade him to come home with me.

Without me thinking, my finger and thumb found the soggy mass of chewing tobacco that was clogged in the gap in my back teeth. I prised it away and threw the offending mush in the scrub. I don’t know how long I’d been chewing or sitting there. But when I looked to the west the sun was below the mountain tops and the day closing fast. I turned to face Bill.

He was standing looking at me. He raised his arm and, with a dismissive yank, he broke his instrument and threw it to the ground. While the action shocked me it was obviously cathartic for him. His face lifted to the heavens; his mouth opened and he screamed for all he was worth. Words that I’d not heard for years came tumbling out. Words and incantations that had been outlawed these 20 long years. Words that were only spoken softly among friends. Words that we never spoke aloud. Yet here he was, screaming them for all to hear. I couldn’t turn away. But I wanted to. The penalty for using the language was imprisonment and 50 lashes for a man. For a woman, it was death. You could lose everything if you were seen to be encouraging it. I had too much to lose. Yet, I’d known Bill all my life. I looked at the graves of his wife and daughter and knew that I couldn’t leave.

He turned again, away from me, away from his ruined house and the graves of his wife and daughter. He started walking slowly towards the mountains to a place we all feared to go. The light was fading fast. I could only hear the odd sound or two as the creatures of the day were preparing to take their rest, and those of the night preparing to stalk their prey. Bill had transformed himself into a beast of darkness. There would be no mercy.

In the stillness, I felt myself on the edge between the two worlds. Should I follow Bill or take the route back through the forest to the safety of the village. I decided on the latter, telling myself that perhaps I could get some of the villagers to go with me to rescue Bill before he became lost to us forever.

I found my kinsmen gathered together in the village. Some women were swaying and murmuring the lament for the dead, echoing the melancholy air played on the violin earlier. Others were saying prayers to ward off the evil spirits. The men stood in grim silence, their forms silhouetted by the light of the lanterns hanging from the doorways of the surrounding dwellings. All became silent as they saw me approach. They were waiting for me to speak.

“He has buried his family and gone to the mountains to take his revenge!” I shouted. “I didn’t know what to do.”

I did not mention the incantations. There was an atmosphere of disappointment at my failure to deal with my friend’s grief. But then Ric the Elder stepped forward. Deep, dark, bronzed, a blood-relation of Bill.

”There is nothing we can do tonight,” he said. “Let us meet again at first light and decide what to do. Bill may change his mind and turn back to us of his own accord tomorrow.”

I was surprised at his decision.

The villagers slowly and quietly walked back to their homes leaving me alone in the gloom. I felt the night closing in around me. I felt Bill’s desolation and utter aloneness envelop me. We had lost our music-maker to the sinister side. The song of the birds would not be able to compensate for our loss.

I eventually went home and slept fitfully, determined to stay awake to hear the first single note of birdsong that would show it was always darkest just before dawn.

My Jenny snored beside me, her snores so little characteristic of her open daytime face and delightful trill. In between my moments of sleep, I thought I heard Bill’s threnody again, pining like a theremin. This was no dream, because I never dreamed.

But then I was full awake. Jenny stood by the window. It was now fully dawn, its beginnings having passed me by.

“He’s come back,” she piped.

I poked a plug of tobacco into my mouth from the bedside table and approached the window to stand behind Jenny. I could see that Ric the Elder was framed by his own window twenty yards opposite our window. And there between Ric’s face and Jenny’s was bushy-legged Bill’s shadow, flanked by what I saw as two shining angels, one tall one short. I call them angels, but they may have been many things. It was like a mummer’s show, and its sweet music penetrated the window as if the dawn itself was golden sound.

As the two angels faded like burnt negatives, I saw that Bill’s shadow carried a new instrument, having earlier broken his old one. A harp in the shape of a bird.

“His soul is its own threnody,” whispered Jenny, hardly knowing what she meant and to whom she spoke.

I put my hands on Jenny’s shoulders and kissed her neck.

We both wondered whether this was the end of Bill’s presence among us? Had Bill already wreaked his revenge and, if so, how and on whom? And would the words needed to answer these questions result in 50 lashes for whomsoever used them? I was almost joking with myself, to clear my mind of too much mourning.

That was indeed the last time I saw any sign of Bill. I did in fact walk that day to where his house once stood and it was even bleaker than the day before .... because of the silence that was filled with my imaginings of the threnody. The blackened mess formed a scar on the landscape. I realised then that it was better to have an imaginary threnody than nothing at all. To be mourned by someone – in whatever way the mourner managed it – meant you were loved and cherished once. And I trusted Bill could feel the mourning himself, wherever he now was.

I thought of hermits. There was a rumour that one lived in the mountains at which I was now staring. People had glimpsed a wizened old man on the slopes now and again. Ric said it was probably a trick of the light. If this hermit did exist, no-one would mourn him when he died. No one would even care or know about it. That was the saddest thought of all. I shivered and took a look at the graves. I walked away, hoping that such an awful event would never happen to me. I know it was a selfish thought but everyone has those. I did also hope that Bill was still alive.



A few months later, Ric knocked at my door.

“I found this in the forest,” he said. The bags under his eyes showed the many sleepless nights he had been having. He held out what looked like a harp. It was very dirty and the strings were torn. I thought of Bill but I didn’t say a thing as it was as if Ric could read my mind. We stood in silence for a while, mourning in symmetry. All you could hear was the sound of teeth chewing on tobacco. Jenny broke the silence:

“Apparently someone saw a man looking like Bill on the mountainside last week.”

I looked down at the instrument, expecting it to play of its own volition. Vaguely violin-shaped ... a broken heart.


THE ARCH

by Clacton Writers' Group (2008)


Sometimes I think of you, the way you were when I last saw you – standing under the laburnum arch, shafts of sun splintering the branches and kissing your hair into spun gold. I always try to hold my thought there, on the precise moment of parting; anything either side of that moment is too painful to contemplate. Yet always, always, my traitorous mind takes me to places I’d rather not go.

I wonder what happened to you after I left. Did you travel, as you always said you would? Did you become a new forces’ sweetheart, singing up suppers from West to East? Did your journeying take you to far-flung places, to smell the aromas of the markets in Cairo, to stand, dwarfed by the pyramids of Giza? Did you travel stormy waters and feel the spray on your face? Did you stand beneath scorching suns or whisper in the wind as the northern lights spun above you?

I wish I could have been with you, wherever your life has taken you. I wish I could have held your hand when you crossed the equator, felt your body beside me as we stood on top of table mountain and felt the warm wind in our hair, wiped the tears from your eyes weeping over the beauty that was Rome...

But it was not to be; I chose the lesser trodden path, the road that took me far away from you and to places I would preferred to have never gone. I have seen sights that have made me glad that you weren’t with me, wept my own tears over things that were far from beautiful.

And through it all I have never forgotten you. Not for one second.

I turn away from the television and notice that your image is still reflected in the broken mirror that’s the only adornment in this crap hotel room. I turn away. Seeing your fame and fortune and contrasting it to my surroundings is just too painful. I walk to the bed, slump down on it and grab the bottle of gut-rot that I’ve smuggled past the porters. They’d prefer it if I drank in the bar and paid their prices. I laugh. I can hardly afford the room let alone food or drink.

I up-end the bottle and swallow greedily. The liquid burns and burns without destroying any of the images or the possibilities that may have been. If you’d turned and called after me. If you’d given a hint of … I throw the bottle towards the bin. It falls and rolls. I’m not a wasteful fool. I’d made sure that I’d drained it before I made my grand gesture.

I walk to the TV and pull the plug from the wall. The image of you fades in reality. Yet in my mind’s eye I see you there on the carpet of fame. Surrounded by glamour, riches and the most powerful people in the world.

I pull back the sheets and evict the ‘roaches that are startled by the light and angry that I’m ejecting them. But it’s my bed. I paid my last few bucks for it. And I’m not sharing it, not unless they’re paying their share.

I reluctantly climb into bed and pull the covers up. But not too far, nowhere near my nose: the smell of the bedding leaves a lot to be desired. The contrast with your life would bring tears to my eyes. That is, if I had any left to shed.




Sometimes, strangely, I become you and you me – and then I think of a different you, the way you were when a different I last saw you.

I will never forget the anguish on your face as we said goodbye under the same laburnum arch. I am haunted by that moment. Oh why did you not come with me when I asked you to? We could have travelled the world together and seen all the places I longed to see, with you. Oh yes I went to Egypt, the Arctic, Italy, India, Africa and many other places. I have seen all the great wonders of the world as I told you I would. But there was something missing all the time. There was a hollowness inside me. You were not with me.

Then I wonder what happened to you after I left. Did you start your own business? I expect you are quite rich by now, and settled with a family. I feel inner pain thinking about the children we never had. I can visualise you in a skyscraper building in London, your office high up, over looking the city below. You will be sitting behind a huge mahogany desk. There will be a plush carpet underneath and the walls adorned with expensive original works of art. I can see your many minions rushing around to do your bidding. You will go home in the evening to a large house in a leafy part of Surrey where your family will be there to welcome you.

As for me, I’ve had my own success in a way. You may have seen me on television reporting on the train crash in Germany, the earthquake in Turkey, the flooding in India and the car bomb in the Philippines. I am off to Afghanistan next month. My name and face are becoming well known. But like many reporters, I remain essentially poor and depressed. My only riches are the riches I find in the job.

Behind the animated and earnest face you see on the television is a lonely and isolated soul, yearning to see you again and forever regretting that moment we parted.




“What’s stopping you coming with me?” Rivulets of tears cascaded down. The last few days had been very uneasy.

“Everything, my love. I can’t tell you why but the reason is tearing me apart.” Guilt was in his eyes.

Any other time she would have enjoyed the scenery but the beauty of the pergola in the sun’s gaze was marred by that moment. She could have sworn a waft of whisky had come her way. “Was he drunk?” she thought to herself.

“So I’m meant to be left guessing. Is that fair? How can you do this to me?” She was racking her brains as to when he had changed. They had been having fun a week ago when swimming in the sea. That was before they had met that man in the hotel. Perhaps he was something to do with this? The two men did go off together a lot, leaving her alone sunbathing. She found lying in the sun tedious but there was little she could do on her own.

“I agree it’s not fair but if you found out the reason it would destroy you. I have had no choice. I desperately wish it hadn’t happened.” He riffled his hand through his hair. “Look I must go. I can’t bear to be in this situation. Goodbye my love.” He stood there for a few moments as if drinking in the scene, pretending it was a different outcome.

“Goodbye.” Her voice had turned colder as anger took over. Then reality hit him, his face crumbling and he rushed away from the laburnum arch, his sweat mixing with his tears. She then had to turn away as she couldn’t bear to watch him go. She secretly wished he would change his mind and come back. Pride stopped her from calling after him.

It was as if the two of them already predicted their own future thoughts about this monumental parting-of-the-ways from under the arch ... deep regrets that lasted forever, as they wrote each of their diaries or journals year after year, amid otherwise busy lives. Neither of them could quite give the other one up or even surrender hope of meeting again. They should have written, in their journals, about a strange third person involved in the parting, but neither of them did. Was this third person a catalyst in the loss of each other? Or a ghost? Or the thing that joined two pillars to make an arch?




In the centre of the far eastern desert township was an arch that met their gaze as the reporter and the cameraman arrived in the TV Company’s jeep. They were parched, the engine spluttering after the long journey, the cameraman still hanging out of the window ready for what he hoped would be the news shot of the year. The arch was, of course, not at all like the laburnum one many years before. It was a ramshackle contraption made from lumber and scrap metal that didn’t, at first sight, seem to serve any useful purpose at all. A few kids played around and under it, before scampering over in beggar-mode towards the jeep.

As the jeep drove off, the reporter turned around in the jeep’s seat for a further look at the arch. The watery shimmer that the hot air created now showed a figure within its ‘embrasure’ (for want of a better word when coming to write a jounal later that night).

The figure in the arch was not a child; it was a tall, blurry blackness against the dipped rays of the baking sun, swaying like a human-shaped willow-tree in the wind. But there was no wind. And, upon looking again, in an attempt to by-pass any mirage-effects, there was no longer a figure.

The reporter took the jeep, together with the cameraman, back to the village the next day. Nothing had changed; the hot wind still blew, the sand still moved and, in the heat, the arch shimmered.

The two of them sat together in what little shade was available from the courtyard walls and buildings. It was a good two hours, nearly mid-day, before any movement broke the stillness. The pair shuffled slowly along on their buttocks, following the shade. Unaccountably reminding them of the time they had swum together in happier times. Then they were never thirsty.

A hundred eyes watched them, the street urchin hiding in the compound behind them, two goats wandering desultorily along the street, and occasionally they thought they’d glimpse a figure in a doorway.

The sun’s power was waning when they got back in the jeep and drove back to their flea-pit of a hotel. Where they sang to their drinks.

Despite the absurdity of the quest the cameraman agreed and loaded his gear back into the jeep. They returned to the village around nine in the morning.

At midday someone offered them water. They saw no one else.

The following day no one offered them water and no one took any notice of them as the inhabitants went about their business in the heart of their war-torn country.

By the end of the following week the camels, cattle and sheep were back in the village. A market was held one morning. Food and water were shared along with chocolate, petrol and cigarettes.

Then it was gone.

They sat in the shade, waiting, camera at the ready.

The escort stopped outside the village and I saw you once more. You moved easily and they, like me, knew you’d see the arch and would not be able to resist it.

I have your death on film as the arch exploded in a sea of flame and acrid smoke. The Taliban made certain you would sing to only a heavenly choir now – no more troops.

Reporting restrictions will not be lifted. And no next of kin have owned up.

OUT OF TIME

by Clacton Writers' Group (July 2008)





In years to come when, or if, anyone asked, “Who was it who thought of the question?” no one would be able to provide the answer. There was no hint in their conversation that they were about to start sharing memories or recount embarrassing situations. But once the question had been asked it became the inevitable course for their inebriated talk. They would not remember the question had been asked in that drunken way so common during the latter stages of an evening in the “White Pelican”. That decidedly tricky yet innocent way in which really difficult questions are always asked. Asked as if the answer would not bring pain to the teller. So, it was asked and as alcohol had lowered their guards, they would answer the question, “When were you out of time?”

Pete decided to get his confession over and done with. He’d been so embarrassed by his situation at the time that these days he didn’t dwell on it any longer than necessary. In fact, to be honest, the story still held a whiff of shame so strong that it made him shudder whenever the incident flittered into his conscious. Hence his reluctance to recount it, however fleetingly – and so he never dwelt on the detail.

“It was soap box night at the Sup-up”. He set the scene before anyone else had time to draw breath. “We got 5 minutes. I’d done everything right. Got a great hook, the rational and I’d rehearsed in front of the mirror until I was word perfect. And it was good. I was passionate, serious and engaging. My subject was important, real and relevant to everyone. I asked the pertinent question: Why do 99 ice-cream cornets cost £1.20 when they should cost 99p or be called £1.20’s? I then went on to ask other associated questions which involved the mismatching of names and monetary amounts. It was the best theatrical performance of my life. But horror of horrors, I’d forgotten that it was ‘Time Voyager’ night as well. I realised at length that my audience was getting restless and low mumblings became loud protests. Many had travelled from different decades, and some from different centuries. It dawned on me that I was in the wrong time period for at least part of my audience, no matter what I’d said. I left the stage to the sound of jeers and confusion. I had also broken the rules and had run out of time and so couldn’t deliver my planned masterful finale. It was humiliating.”

“I was there,” Simon laughed. “You ought to have seen the face of the chap who had come all the way from the sixteenth century when Pete went on about the penny farthing bicycle. He thought he was facing an argument in favour of transubstantiation and hadn’t a clue what Pete was on about. It was the funniest thing I’d seen in a long time.”

“Well at least I know what transubstantiation means, unlike you, you moron!” Pete was getting annoyed, a not unusual occurrence when in his cups. “So lets hear your own embarrassing ‘Out of time’ moment. This should be interesting.”

Simon was beginning to look pale. He knew Pete’s temper of old. He tried to dredge up a suitable humiliating moment of his own which at least matched, or even surpassed the one his friend had just recounted. It was time for appeasement. He hit on the very thing. “Do you remember the time we were in Spain twenty years ago? I made a right fool of myself then. Talk about being ‘Out of time’!”

“Spain, you say? Tilting-at-Windmills, eh? Don Quixote, wasn’t it? A bit like fighting against giant clocks rather than wilndmills! All is out of kilter in Spain, anyway! Bull-fights being just an anachronistic echo of humanity’s brutal past. But do go on, Simon.”

Pete was pleased he had managed to find a chink in Simon’s armour, even before Simon himself had humiliated himself with the biggest self-inflicted chink of his own, namely that he had once addressed a whole army of Spaniards in Seville thinking they were English tourists, viz: “I don’t want to interrupt your holiday too long, but there is something you need to know about the Spanish.”

Simon had looked around surreptitiously to ensure no Spaniards were over-hearing him and continued:

“Spanish time travel is not like our time travel. No big jumps from decade to decade that our friend Pete talks about in the ‘White Pelican’. No vast shifts between generations. No star-travellers leap-frogging millennia. Spaniards just side-step between minutes or even seconds. There they are. Then they are gone. Then they are back, some clutching guinea-fowls, others straddling a couple of sovereign states simultaneously, yet others waving red capes. Spaniards need to shift real quick to dodge any bulls. Being ‘Out of Time’ puts them in danger of being gored...”

Pete laughed. But laughter soon died. Pete was astonished to see that Simon’s audience had suddenly disappeared. Only to appear almost immediately behind him, wheeling their arms relentlessly clockwise as they shuffled (rhythmically clicking and ticking) towards him.

Luckily, Simon managed to learn a lesson in body-strobing from the Spaniards and was able to focus this ability eventually by stabilising it back towards the Sup-up (ten years before it had changed its name to the ‘White Pelican’).

Soap-box night was in full swing and there were no memories of Spain as they hadn’t yet happened. But Simon, as he stood on the soap-box to deliver a new drunken tale, suddenly saw a girl at one of the tables and felt himself falling in deep deep love. This was Sylvia. He vowed to himself that if in future he went on holiday abroad, he’d be going with her, in preference to being accompanied by his old pal Pete.

“What about your confession, Sylvia?” asked Simon, hoping to get some juicy tit-bits to tease her with later (or earlier) when he knew her better (or worse). She had been twiddling her hair whilst Pete and Simon had been talking about their embarrassing ‘Out of Time’ moments. Sylvia just wanted to keep quiet and not have to enter into this particular conversation. She started to fiddle with a beer mat whilst staring at her white wine Spritzer.

“I haven’t got one,” she replied, hoping that was the end of it.

“Bet you have,” smiled Simon. “Come on, tell us.”

“Ok then but it’s a bit boring. I go to a line-dancing group as you know.”

“That’s embarrassing in itself,” Simon chuckled.

“One night they were playing ‘Boot Scooting Boogie’ and I had just brought some nice new cowboy boots. The problem was I was so busy admiring them that I forgot to do the ‘Kick, Ball Change’ step and Mavis tripped over me, crashing to the floor. She had to sit out for the rest of it, I felt awfully guilty as it wasn’t long ago that she had a hip replacement.”

“More like the ‘Kick, Fall Crash’,” Simon smirked.

“Stop interrupting me, Simon.” She wasn’t pleased with his constant teasing. “Anyway, I was in all of a flutter after that and completely out of time for the rest of the evening. Talk about stomping in the wrong direction. Mavis wasn’t the only casualty.”

Everyone was now laughing at the thought of Sylvia bowling down members of the local line-dancing group because she was out of time.

“What about Nathan? He hasn’t mentioned his moment yet.” Sylvia was determined that the attention was turned away from her. Nathan was a new or old target, she wasn’t sure which. She was getting really fed up with Simon. He used to go on holiday with her often at the beginning of their relationship but now he kept going off with Pete on time-travel trips and coming back drunk. She didn’t know when and where he was going to pop up next with his body-strobing.

“My worst one was quite some time ago,” said Nathan.

“Like you went … It happened when you were a lot younger?” questioned Pete.

“Or you went back a long way?” Simon, always quick to spot a second meaning, asked.

“Both. I was actually 19 and I went back to the mid-sixties.”

“2360?” Sylvia didn’t want to miss out.

“No, 1967 actually.”

The other three gasped aloud.

“19, and you went to the 20th century?”

“Were you drunk, or what?”

“What about the wars? They had lots of wars then. I know, I’ve studied that century. There were two world wars, a Fleet Name thingy, two break – no, gulf wars and … oh, it was awful.”

“Load of bollocks,” said Nathan, “1967 was called the ‘Summer of Love’ and if it wasn’t for the people then this world would be a far worse place. They changed the world in the twentieth century.”

“If I wanted bloody history,” said Simon, “I’d go back myself and find out.”

“Why don’t you? I’ll come with you,” Nathan, normally non-confrontational, challenged.

“Not interested that much.” Simon realised he’d been caught out and, worst of all, a quick glance at Sylvia and he knew she’d just changed her opinion of him – downwards.

“I wanna know what happened. Why don’t you two give your mouths a rest and let Nathan excercise his, ‘specially you, Sylvia, you wanted to know … or was that so you didn’t have to explain your ‘Out of Time’ any more?”

Simon was about to protest, but one look at Pete and he shut up.

“Well, it was in a country called America and I got involved in some sort of youth movement.”

“Like the cadets?” interrupted Pete.

“No. There was a lot of political revolution coming from the youth.”

“See, told you that it was warmongering.” Pete scowled at Sylvia, who snuggled up to Simon.

“It was just, well, no one knew they were changing things. It was after those two big wars you spoke of but before Vietnam, I think. Anyway, the young people started taking over the music world and all sorts of things were said and protested over. You had to be there to understand.”

“And you were,” said Pete. “So what’s this ‘Out of Time’ thing of yours?”

“Well, it happened when I went to this big music festival called Woodstock.”

“Ah,” interrupted Pete. “I know all about that, some farmer’s field in rural America hosted loads of the top musicians of the day and four businessmen arranged what turned out to be the biggest musical event of the century. They...”

“Who’s telling this? You or me?” Nathan asked coldly.

Pete looked sheepish. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Go on.”

“Pete’s right,” Nathan admitted. “Woodstock was one of the major events of the 20th century, certainly in the music world. I think most of us who were there recognised that even then. It was a turning point; a point where it became obvious that a quarter of a million people could live in harmony. For three days at least.”

“And the happy-drugs helped,” muttered Pete.

Nathan shot him a glance. “Anyway,” he continued, “I’d only just arrived there and, unlike Pete, I hadn’t studied the century.”

“That’s why you didn’t know that America entered the Vietnam war in 1965,” commented Pete,

“No, you’re right, Pete, I didn’t. Although, come to think of it, that makes sense, given some of the music that was played at Woodstock, especially Country Joe McDonald.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I digress. The thing is I didn’t know how to act or anything. My clothes were all wrong, although the crowd was so friendly nobody took the piss or anything. In fact the guy standing next to me turned to me, looked me up and down, took a cylindrical straw shaped thing from his mouth and handed it to me. ‘Look like you could do with this, man,’ he said. I took it from him, noted lots of them had got similar things in their mouths and thought it was something to eat. So I put it in my mouth.”

There was a silence as they all looked at him, waiting for the punch-line,

“Then I screamed,” he said.

Pete burst out laughing. “It burnt your mouth,” he said. “It was a cigarette.”

Nathan nodded. “That’s right. I’d never seen one before, of course. It was alight and it burned the same way that flames do.”

“So what happened?” asked Sylvia. “Did your new friends laugh at you?”

“No, they were very kind. One of them gave me a drink in a can and that cooled my mouth. Then they gave me another of those cylindrical things and I watched what they did with them and copied them. In no time at all my mouth had stopped hurting – well, at least, I think it did. I really don’t remember much until I got back here.”

“That proves it,” said Pete.

“Proves what?” Nathan wanted to know.

“Proves you were there,” Pete told him. “They say that if you can remember the Sixties then you weren’t really part of it, so presumably if you can’t remember them then you were there!” He slapped Nathan on the back. “Well done, mate.”

The words continued strobing out of time, as the famous thunderstorm approached the 99 towers shimmering at the edge of migraine. Or were they windmills?






comments (1)



1. Weirdmonger left...
Sunday, 20 July 2008 4:08 pm
Above written by six people.