Stories Left Untold. Best Forgotten. Then Wrote Down.

 

Spandax Waves & Bacon Bap Newsreels

5:45am. The older women heading to the beach for their morning surf, walk and then tea. Their days not numbered by the facile character of adventure and place but rooted, alive, growing, blooming. Someone else’s everyday for them an adventure worth holding onto. While their husbands’ stomachs grumble hoping they will be back in time to make their bacon baps and tea. They, the husbands, have a busy day planned of retelling the past, reading newspapers and solving the world’s problems. So, they will need all the energy they can get. Secretly, they will get scones, espresso w/brandy and cigar later. Now, what they really need is one more moment with her. Mainly because they can no longer sleep without her next and are tired having already had to solve the world’s problems yesterday.

 

Something for tomorrow

 

Cashier: “$42.17 mam”

Older lady: “I have $35.”

Cashier: (leaning close to the older woman to speak confidentially) “That’s close enough. whenever you can if you can.”

Cashier takes the difference from her wallet and completes the transaction.

The cashier starts to ring up the next order (me) as the older woman waves the bagger off pushing her kart of groceries towards the door. Halfway there she stops to talk to a friend.

A shopper unable to find another store associate approaches the register: “I thought these were on sale.”

Bagger (with a smile): “No, they were on the shelf.”

Cashier (responding to the customer ignoring her ever ‘helpful’ bagger.): “No, that was last week.”

Shopper: “Ok, hmmm. Well, I thought they were on sale.”

Shopper walks off to complete his shopping.

Bagger (to the cashier): “technically, last week they were in the warehouse.”

Cashier shakes her head and smiles.

Bagger beams. He knows his audience.

Cashier: (quietly to me) “Don’t worry (nodding to the older woman who is still talking to her friend) She is ok. But sometimes we old timers have to help each other reach tomorrow”

I smile, uncertain, but warmed by her concern not sure if I need speak.

Me: “It’s a lovely day outside.”

Cashier: “Yes, yes, even though it would be nice if it rained at night so each morning we could wake to everything fresh, new, washed clean and gleaming with hope.”

I nod. But think about how nice it is to walk in gentle rain.

A pause in the conversation: Me thinking about walking in the rain. The cashier wanting her moment of kindness to go on forgotten so it can stay as an act of the heart.

A customer joins the queue with a shopping kart holding 6 gigantic boxes of donuts.

There must be another sheriff's convention in town I joke to myself.

Cashier: (with a smile almost waking me from my thoughts) “I pray every year for it to rain at night so of course it rains during the day.”

I laugh.

Cashier: “Are you saving the coupons for the pans?”

Me: “No, thank you.”

I gather my sacks from the bagger and head to the door.

Money is nice to have but a friend with a kind heart is a treasure.

 

 

 

I Will Now

 

The children stand in a line wearing high-vis and as the train pulls away.

Children: “Good bye mister train, good bye mister train.”

Train: “toot, toot.”

They wave. There’s a ducky looking for scraps. Oh boy!

Teachers: “alright hold your partners hands. Back to class.”

Children: “can we have some ice cream first?”

Child (to me):”how come you didn’t get on the train?”

Me: “wrong train.”

Child: “alright, I guess that’s ok.”

Me: “good, good.”

Child: “are you going to have ice cream?”

Me: “definitely.”

Child: “cheers, I best be getting my teacher tends to get fussy. Have a nice day mister.”

 

 

 

 

Conversation Conducted

 

Train suddenly comes to a halt.

Inquiring passenger: “What happened?”

Conductor: “feller at the station probably in the middle of a cuppa tea and can’t be bothered or he wants to pretend like he’s got something to do.”

Passenger: “Right, Right.”

Conductor: “as long as he’s putting the kettle on then now for us now then that’s fine.”

Passenger: “ta”

Me: (to myself) “da” and finally a sense of humor I feel at home in.

 

 Early Pirate Explorations Philosophical Impact on the Development of Enlightenment Ideals:     The Cookie Poem

 

I am me

said the little boy to the girl eating cookies on the edge of the playground

taking an environmentally conscious bite she replied

I am me too

checking to see if he had brought a glass of milk

yesterday he had mash and bacon in his back pocket

thankfully, he had eaten the egg

no, I am me and you are you said the little boy

noticing the little girl was running out of cookies

trying to find a tangent that connected the separate conversations

the little girl asked can we both be me? There is one more cookie.

there was a point  when pirates lived on land thought the little boy

how could they not with wooden legs, blackened eyes, and shiny steal swords carried on their sides

also cookies get soggy out at sea

but metaphysical statements seemed more firm adrift

 

 

 

 

John

 

Having spent the first night freezing near the beach under heavy rain and gale force winds, soaked, shivering, again ignoring the rule of threes, I headed into land to look for a better camping spot hoping the sun would come out and the rain and wind would stop.

Next to a beautiful waterfall I found one and John.

John was a somewhat retired pharmaceutical executive living in Ireland who would spend his time wandering about on an old Honda motorbike camping in bus shelters or under the stars. Long forgotten the days he used to work in a building in Philadelphia where at the 30th floor you got off one elevator and onto another. When I admitted to, well attempting to, paying my bills by simple factory work. He smiled admitting to having done some of that in his time. His every day humanity, worn on his sleeve and in the quiet spots of his accent, reminded me there is a chance for everyone one, each of us, to have a little bit of humanity. We each don’t have to have our own it can be shared.

 

 

 Size doesn’t matter for an Irish man—I think that’s what she said.

 

Unbeknownst to me my flight from Dublin to Ronaldsway had a different size of carry on restriction then my previous flight. A kind older gentleman and his two compadres, whom had done their best to enjoy the duty free Guinness in Dublin’s airport, noticed my dilemma before I did. Kindly, while two preoccupied the attendant, the third directed me to hide the item in an empty seat. Airport security has nothing on a drunken Irishman. Well unless they are offering free drinks. That is.

 

 

How We Are

 

As I was wonderfully wandering (to match the glorious food) through the airport looking for my gate, I came across a little man—probably about eight—pushing a suitcase almost twice as tall as he. As my wont, I made a smartass comment. He sighed, shock his head and said “well, you know how women are.” I didn’t. But I didn’t tell him. Probably should have. Maybe he could have taught me a thing or two. His mom—a tall thin black supermodelish looking lady carrying a very kind face—revealing her native tongue, replied “Wei Wei” and laughed. Aww kids. Her response relieved my anxiety. One never knows how a parent will respond when you approach their child or for that matter how anyone will respond, understandably, nowadays and made me feel a little bit somewhat like a human. That was nice. We exchanged pleasantries and with my spirits buoyed by a little man making sure his mother and two younger sisters—he was a busy little guy—were being looked after. I left him to herding his womenfolk and went back to wonderfully wandering. 

  

In another life we worked for the mob.
 
We are the people from the old country. The place before here. Some say we have old souls. That we come from another time and carry the weight of a multitude of lives. The legends are kind. For we smile when we hear your scream. Laugh, when you beg. And just when you feel we might let you go. With a grin we cut your heart out. To see if it is real. And when we are done and the last drops of your blood spill out into the silver saucepan next to the pile of perfectly trimmed fingers, toes, nipples, and ears. We are barbarians, but we do have style. You will laugh for lack of a response. You thought you might enjoy this but we are writers and this, you must not forget.