On Being Drunk

Water has a million voices.

It splashes, pours, patters, flushes,

Babbles, roars, makes other noises.

Sometimes it gurgles; sometimes it rushes.

And sometimes water's in my glass,

And when I put it to my lip,

I can smell its ocean mass,

And if I'm feeling brave, I sip.

And then the water's moving through me,

Trickling, foaming, bubbling, sloshing,

I am become a river valley,

The water passes through me, frothing.

But soon the water will be gone,

And I'll be here, my valley dry.

All because I must cling on,

With water simply passing by.

But if I could just let go,

And travel down toward the sea,

And mingle there with melted snow,

And leave the solid body-me,

I'd soon rise up, evaporate,

And then I would become a cloud,

I'd thunder, drift and cumulate.

Oh, how I wish it were allowed!

'Cos if I could, I'd next be rain.

I'd slash and torrent, precipitate,

I could make buses aquaplane,

The floods and landslides I'd create!

But all too soon, I'd be scooped up,

And channelled fast to someone's tub,

And wash some hair or get brewed up,

Make up juice in someone's pub.

And in a chair, I'd find myself,

Really not the worse for wear,

For having touched an ocean shelf,

How nice, in fact, to be bodily there.

Yes, maybe life is not so dire,

My mind and body aren't so numb.

It's not to be water that I aspire,

It's just that aqueous momentum!

The Thrill of the Case – Part Five

Read part one, part two, part three or part four of The Thrill of the Case.

‘Forlorn’, thought Zagonella as she took another piece of shortbread from the packet and dunked it into the warm brown liquid in her cup, was easily the saddest word in the English language. First, it was the way it captured the exact moment when hope dissolved like a biscuit in a hot drink. ‘Crestfallen’, of course, attempted much the same trick but rather evoked the comic image of a cockerel’s crown flopping sideways. And then there was the sound of it, two falling notes, the second one longer and deeper and sadder even than the first as the devastation of a once shining dream was realised.

And forlorn had indeed been the expression on poor Everarck’s face after he’d told her in a state of great triumph and agitation about this dodgy-sounding start-up so-called Court, which she imagined being run out of a van with the engine constantly running, and then she’d told him what she thought of it.

‘A silly game for silly boys,’ is what she’d said in the face of his glistening hopefulness, which was in fact Everarck’s own face, ‘I told you already that you do all these things just because you care so much about what other people think of you, all because you have no idea what to think of yourself. You’re a clever man, Everarck, but you waste it. You waste it on stupid things like this.’

And then Everarck had looked forlorn, and she’d regretted every word just as much as she’d been convinced that each one was necessary before she’d said it.

What was it about ‘forlorn’ that made her so sad? As she wondered, another face came to her, one from long ago that she could remember looking up at, from a distance, on an old man, instead of a young one. There had been a man who had rushed to greet his wife and give her a hug out of the sheer pleasure of seeing her again, for the 16,000^th time in their long marriage, but who had forgotten – again – that she no longer took pleasure in these embraces.

With the benefit of years and studies in psychology, Zagonella understood that her grandmother felt betrayed by her grandfather’s forgetfulness, that she was always angry with him, and that even the odd moments when he recognised her without assistance were, to her, just as symptomatic of his disease as the moments when he didn’t. Even so, the memory of her grandmother standing bolt upright as her grandfather hugged her, and just that same transformation of happy anticipation to confusion to realisation to sadness like a snowflake melting in the palm of your hand; that memory, every time it came to her, was a bullet through the heart.

And here she was, working in this hospital which specialised in mental illnesses, trying to cure that bullet wound every day of her life. And there she was with this man, this half-man, half-boy, sweet and innocent, unworldly and talented, rudderless and impulsive. She loved him, and she could not wish she didn’t, but what was she supposed to think; what was she supposed to do when he presented her with this contract, its incomprehensible black on glaring white, and she’d snatched it from his hand and flicked back page after page until she got to the last and found his strange squiggly signature sitting at the bottom on its hard horizontal line? Just what, in the name of God, was she supposed to do?

Read part 6 of The Thrill of the Case.

The Sack of Dirt

Upon hearing that one would 'eat a peck of dirt before they die', a man purchased a large sack of earth, placed it in his wheelbarrow and carried it everywhere with him. Each day, he measured the contents to ensure that none had somehow escaped from the sack and got into his food. Each day, he confirmed that the sack remained full.

A year passed, and the sack was no emptier than when he'd bought it. He felt great elation that he, a simple man, had solved the problem of mortality so cheaply and so easily. He realised that, with this simple trick, he could live forever. He told no one of his discovery, but many noticed his beaming happiness as he went about his modest business.

As the years passed, he grew older and his hair went grey and his skin became wrinkly, but still the sack was full, so he didn't worry about death or mortality. In fact he remained blithe and generous for he could give away nothing of which there was not an infinitude.

After a few more years, he became sick and bed ridden. Friends and relatives visited to whom he cheerfully explained that this was temporary, and he'd soon get better. They admired his sense of humour and asked him if he had any last words. He responded by asking if a river had last words. No, it does not, he said, when they could not answer him. It goes down to the sea, rises into the clouds and falls again in the mountains. So the river is not in need of last words.

His friends continued to look dumbfounded, so he told them to go and inspect the sack of dirt in his wheelbarrow and tell him if it was at its limit of contents. They duly did so and reported that indeed the sack was full. There you go then, said the old man, I have not eaten my peck, and so I am not yet to die. But you are old and frail and lying in your death bed, they complained. Clearly your time has come.

No, I am not to die, he replied, beaming at them all, don't you see? They looked at his old, grey face, and still they did not know what to say. Imperturbed, he rested his eyes and there, still smiling, his breath grew fainter and fainter until, finally, there was none.

The man's funeral, testament to his spiritual and material generosity, was well-attended. In her eulogy, the minister, who had known him well, mentioned that the man had been known to carry a sack of dirt with him everywhere he went, that he'd believed that, while it remained full, he would never die, and that this was the secret of his happiness and his success.

Understanding at last this curious fact, the mourners had a statue of the man made, and now he stands on a plinth in the centre of the town. Every day, with the stone-hewn sack of dirt in his sculpted wheelbarrow, he smiles down on the people of that town. The tale of his happiness and kindness is passed down from generation to generation. And so it seems, that in the hearts of the townspeople who love him, he shall never die.

The Thrill of the Case – Part Four

Read part one, part two or part three of The Thrill of the Case.

Listen to this part of the story read by AI voice Mimic 3.

Everarck distributed the remainder of the e-mails without further incident. More than once he opened his mouth to ask about the Court of one of the array of thoughtful lonely officials abandoned in overlarge dusty offices around the building but, as HR Manager Octomus Dicks had somehow gotten loose from his office and was now snorting and evil-eyeing his way around the building, he decided to complete the task as efficiently as possible and then found a quiet place near the reception area to catch up on tasks he’d been avoiding for several days. As these did not elevate his impression of his own intellect, he contented himself by entering the records in rigorously pedantic detail in the most beautiful script he was capable of producing.

When Everarck got home, the hall telephone awaited him. A black triangular prism with round shiny buttons, its design was wholly predictable and yet Everarck could not help thinking it resembled the key to some deep space alien portal. He took off his jacket and baseball cap and put them on wall hooks that had always been there. He went to see if there was any mail propped next to the toaster. There was: a slender brown envelope, most likely a bill, and a stuffed-looking white packet that was undoubtedly junk mail. He didn’t touch either of them. The main news was that Zagonella had been here at some point. He hoped she’d slept.

Finally, there was nothing left to do except switch on the TV, access the world wide web with their dial-up service, read a newspaper, go for a walk, or check the answering machine. In short, give up, give up, give up, give up or let the consequences of his rash actions wash over him. He checked the answering machine. There were three messages, two of which were a couple of seconds of silence followed by a beep and then suddenly a voice was speaking in a slightly nasal voice that lingered over vowels, making it obvious the speaker was choosing her words with care.

‘Hello, this is Gerellia Noghan calling from the Court of Public Opinion. We received your message, Mr… Fanger. Thank you very much for getting in touch. I understand you’d like to apply for a law regarding… intellectual vanity of some kind, so that you can enter into a case with one of our professional advisors and work towards being acquitted of the charge. If I’ve understood correctly, call me back. My name’s Gerellia Noghan. You can call me on 01867 665 328. I’ll be here until about… 6 pm, maybe a little bit after that.’

‘Oh, God,’ he thought, ‘It’s only 5.37. I’ll have to do it.’

He sat down on the hall chair, an uncomfortable thing with a hard back. His knees jutted into the arc of the living room door, which he didn’t like, even though it was closed. He’d have to listen to the message again as he’d forgotten the number. The corner shop would close soon, and he needed cheese and bread, but that was no excuse either because the nearby Sunny’s didn’t close until 7. Sort out the road tax for Zagonella’s car? Fish the wedding invitation out from behind the fridge? No, it was no good. He’d have to call. He’d have to call. He looked at the phone and imagined picking up the receiver. Yep. There was no doubt about it. He’d have to call.

Read part 5 of The Thrill of the Case.