This story was written as a submission for the Special LOVE edition publication on the WordBohemia web site.

http://wordbohemia.co.uk/            or             https://www.facebook.com/groups/wordbohemia/

The Flame

It is in my heart, at the centre of my knowing and being.

It loves, therefore it is.

It is at the now of every day

It is the first at the waking and the last at the sleeping.

It casts a true light without shadows and changes what I am

It has no knowing of the how of itself

It has a spirit that needs neither fuel nor air.

It will abide in my heart as long as there is breath in me.

It cannot be quenched by words or deeds,

It has a knowing of the spirit that transcends talking and doing.

It wants nothing but your love.

It is the flame that is my love for you.

This story was written as a response to a challenge on the WordBohemia web site.

http://wordbohemia.co.uk/            or             https://www.facebook.com/groups/wordbohemia/

The challenge was a photo of clouds.....


Clouds

Here in the desert in Western Australia we don’t get many clouds and even less rain, so when the clouds showed up in a pinky sort of turquoise sky, everyone stopped for a good look at them. They were the grey, puffy sort with the flat bottoms. The sort you could imagine scudding across the sky above the African plains before the rains of the wet season started.

                ‘You won’t get any rain out of them,’ I averred.

                ‘No,’ agreed Bruce, ‘and, if you did, it wouldn’t rain cats and dogs here in Cue, more like scorpions and flies.’

                ‘With maybe some dust thrown in.’

                ‘Yup, there’s always dust.’ said Bruce as we joined the queue in Cue.

*

There was only Mrs Brown and the vicar from St Martin’ sin front of me so it shouldn’t take long to get what I wanted. I could have them without gift wrapping, that would save a bit of time as I didn’t want to be late for the match at the snooker club.

                I tried not to listen to what they asked for, it was none of my business but what would a vicar be wanting at this time of night and why hadn’t he gone straight to the event horizon anyway instead of here at the five corner shop?

                ‘I’ll just take a sermon please Mr Patel,’ said the vicar irritably. I think he was a little cross with himself, which he wore on a silver chain, bouncing against his chest, with his belly shelfing enough to catch it if the chain broke and choked the monkey.

                ‘Mounted, reverend?’ asked the shop keeper.

                ‘Always, we don’t want to hide our lamp under a bushel do we?’

                ‘Err, whatever you say, that will be thirty five beatitudes please.’

                ‘Bless you my son,’

                ‘But I haven’t sneezed yet.’

                ‘Well, just keep it in your bushel until you need it then. Thank you, good night Mr Patel.’

The vicar stomped off up the hill to deliver his sermon on horseback.

*

                ‘Hello Mrs Brown, we haven’t seen you around here for a while have we? I hope you haven’t been disloyal and doing your shopping at Nouns-R-Us or up at that new gerunds place?’

                ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t do that, it’s just that I haven’t been too good lately so I’ve been making do with adverbs, just treating myself to the odd coincidence on Sundays.’

                ‘Only teasing Mrs Brown, what can I get you this evening?’

                ‘I’d like two wins and a coincidence please.’

                ‘Any special medium you prefer?’

                ‘No, it doesn’t have to be a medium, I don’t really do paranormal, just standard is fine.’

                ‘OK, I’ll just drop a little telepathy in the brown paper bag then, OK?’

                ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have said that, it’s really not necessary.’

                ‘I know, but I enjoy telekinesis, BBC2 mainly’

                ‘And what’s wrong with Emmerdale then?’

                ‘Well it’s not Corrie is it and it never has that nice prof Brian Cox in it.’

                ‘That’s because he’s a physicist.’

                ‘Could still leave BBC2 now and then couldn’t he, even if he is a necromancer. There’s no art blacker than Emmerdale to my mind.’

                ‘OK then, I’ll arrange it for you, but it will cost extra you know, plus VAT.’

                ‘That’s fine, just take it out of my paradocs’

                ‘OK, ’Night Mrs Brown.’

                ‘’Night Mr Patel, see you next week.’

*

It was now my turn but, before I had a chance to step up to the plate, a saucer landed just in front of me and demanded the cup that he had just one so where was it? Mr Patel had to admit that he had swatted it, thinking it was a fly. It was not one of the main characters in the story, just an extra…terrestrial. I knew then that I would have to charge him with cuppable homicide.

                Swatting flies soon becomes a habit with anyone who lives here in Cue. The town makes its living from exporting flies and dust by rail to Meekatharra and then on to Perth. You can’t see the flies because of the dust of course. The gold mines closed at the end of the war. A few men work at the Crosslands iron ore mine to the west. So iron or flies and dust just provide a living for this forgotten town of 328 people.

                ‘G’Day Bruce’ I said to Mr Patel as I arrested him.

                ‘Don’t you want to get your shopping done before you arrest me?’ he asked – always the salesman.

                ‘Ok, I’ll take an infundibulum then, I don’t want to be late for the barbie do I?’

                ‘D’ya want the chronosynclastic or the antediluvian model?’

                ‘I’ll take the chronos, don’t try and fob me off with one of those old models that don’t work during the Wet. Can you deliver it to the snooker hall for me?’

                ‘No worries, mate,’ said Mr Patel as he struggled with his sled dog.

                ‘Wooof,’ coughed the husky, who was feeling a little horse, as he lit a cigarette.

                ‘Could you throw in a paradox please, I don’t think Occam is on duty tonight?’

                ‘OK, mate, that’ll be twenty seven dollars but, of course, it will all be free.’

Excellent service I thought, right on cue.

                I looked out the door to see if Mrs Brown’s coincidence had turned up yet. She had. ‘How nice to see you Mrs Brown,’ said Lydia. ‘I havent seen you for years. I didn’t know you lived here, you were the last person I expected to meet. How is your daughter doing, I believe she went off to Perth to marry that nice miner? How long ago was that…?’

*

I walked up main street after dropping Bruce off at the sheriff’s office to be charged, he was getting a little dim. The snooker hall was on the left and the barbie was just being lit in the fire pit.

                That was my cue from the infundibulum, which had clearly done its job well, to join the queue to use the only available cue in Cue to take my shot before setting off down the pit to the barber queue for a burger, a cold tinnie and a short back and sides in the latest fashion.

END

Cue house lights and curtain.

               

This story was written as a response to a challenge on the WordBohemia web site.

http://wordbohemia.co.uk/            or             https://www.facebook.com/groups/wordbohemia/

The challenge was a photo of a station clock above a platform.....



The station

The station lies with its back to the river, wedged in between the buildings and roads. Sphinx-like it sprawls across the concrete desert as its blackened glass roof winks and glints in the morning sun. One end has many infibulating rails lines emerging, crossing and changing as they route the trains out to their different destinations. The other end terminates in a cliff of red brick. Behind this cliff the offices of the railway managers hide. ‘ This train terminates here,’ comes the voice from the loudspeaker system, what else would it do? Join the managers in their plush offices for a drink of tea or posh coffee in the senior manager’s rooms? Why is this move called a terminus? Do Penzantian people think of Paddington as their London  terminus, or terminator?

Why is a station called that when it is all about moving to another place? Stationary is the opposite to moving so why not call it a move to give a better idea of what it does?

Encyclopedia Ricardia

Move – n. A place for passengers to board and leave trains.

                I will call it ‘move’ throughout this story. The man pushes the broom along the platform of the move. It is early morning, the diesels stand waiting, their haze of blue power panting up through the morning sunlight to the soot- stained glass panels of the roof. It is the opposite to a cathedral, they have stained glass in the walls with a dark roof. The move is a temple to travel. The roof is supported on pillars, they are in compression so they must be made of cast iron – I think back to the metallurgy classes all those years ago. The crossing, horizontal tie rods are in tension, so they must be steel. Abraham Darby would have recognised the structures as he designed and made his Iron Bridge.

                The broom glides more easily across platforms 1 and 2. They have had the makeover, upgraded to a surface of French limestone.  It is Rocheret Jaune, an Early Cretaceous limestone that comes from Belley, near Lyon. Beautiful sections through fossil shells, especially high-spired gastropods, can be seen in places by looking down at the floor, not where you are going. Fossil watching in the Mouvre.

                I look at the panting beast of the diesel, crouched, waiting to unleash its power to speed the train through Old Oak Common then on to Penzance. I think back to the days of steam when a trip on a train always started with a walk to the engine to stand in awe looking at the Merchant Navy, West Country or Schools type of beast. Less power than a diesel, less efficient, dirtier but altogether better. Diesels have no soul, they don’t talk to you with the same language or have the BO of warm, escaping steam.

                The Penzance train is leaving Bristol. The driver, official title, motorman, checks around his darkened cab. Dials on the dash have a muted gleam, he leans on the dead man’s handle, notches up the throttle, checks the speed. Looks out the windscreen at the reds and greens of the signals. Heading to Reading, up to full speed insoulated from the outside, cosy in his cab – motorman’s trance setting in. Shakes himself awake, cannot sleep on this job – he is responsible for more than four hundred lives. 
             

A clatter of shutters opening from WH Smith – the news concession on the concourse. A bored woman starts heaving in the bound lumps of newsprint holding the ephemera of the day – so Kyleigh has a new hair style – so what.

                A submarine noses out of the door of the sandwich shop, they have found that cooking bacon and leaving the door open doubles sales of food and who doesn’t have a cup of coffee with their bacon sandwich. Manipulative huh? You betcha, everyone in the move is on the make!

                The derelicts cautiously raise their White Lightning hungover  heads from the seats at the edge of the concourse, the transport police having taken pity on them over this cold night and not moving them on until the morning commuter flood tide starts to rise.

                The first in train of the day edges cautiously in to its daytime home, the red terminating buffers reaching out their welcoming arms. It stops, doors open and the human cargo spills out, the first off running down the platform – to get to work early? Bankers, plonkers, graphic designers, girls in short skirts hurrying to their appointment with their computer screen, boys wearing their first suit, tie in pocket for later dressing. Across the concourse, down the steps, on to the waiting underground – no way to live, to earn a living. The train sits there, job done, all doors swinging open. The driver steps out of his cab with his airline pilot’s bag and walks along the platform to the back, now front of the train.He gets ready for the trip out to commuterland for the next load of human detritus. The train adjusts its psychology for the change in direction
.

                The sun gets brighter, glinting off the rails that go from these buffers in an unbroken line to Penzance, stretched and welded to their optimum equivalent expansion of 21 degrees Celcius – no fishplate joints now with their hypnotic rhythm.  Rails of steel, a compromise between soft toughness for strength and hard brittleness for minimal wear. How many sleepers between here and Penzance? A good question for a pub quiz.

                Ten minutes before lift off, the barriers open, the concourse people hurry through, clutching their tickets – some without, hoping to sneak through. The train has been cleaned, fuelled, maintained, washed – all overnight. Now it is ready, whistle, green flag, the clock ticks, it moves! All twelve coaches accelerate in a terrible symmetry, heading for Cornwall, grockles on the way to Penwith.

                Jed is sipping his third cup of coffee, he has been waiting for three hours, eager to meet the overnighter from far-off Penzance, eager to meet his love, eager to start the rest of his life, eager to start their life together.

                Chloé only left him three days ago, just enough time to visit ’ her-now-ex’ in Penzance to tell him, finally, that she will not be back. She has left him, she has found Jed, Jed has found Chloé, they have found each other, they will be together for ever – they are sure.

                He tries her number again, again no answer, is she asleep on the train, the ‘fone on silent?

                He finishes the coffee, tosses the paper, ‘this coffee may be hot’ tautological cup into the nearest empty bin, he transfers the bouquet to his coffee hand and checks the clock again. It hangs suspended from the roof. A cube with six faces, only four have clock faces. He reduces it step by step - cube, square, line, dot, nothing, he oxidises it to a tesseract – what is next? A tesseract has fourteen faces, an expensive clock for one more dimension. He has checked the Chloe train is on time, twenty three minutes to go, he finds it hard to cope now that the clock has slowed down. Another coffee – no, he is already jittery from the anticipation of seeing Chloé and the caffeine. The seconds tick by, the hands on the clock crawl to the train-in time.

                The Penzance train arrives – all the way from the cornubian granite of Cornwall.

                It tiptoes to the buffers and then stops and relaxes with a sigh. The doors open, the Kernow people debark and look around. Where is Chloé? Jed strains to look – there is a Chloé sized gap on the platform. He waits, no Chloé. He calls, no Chloé. He waits for another hour, no Chloé.

                He checks the date, 14^th February, no Chloé.

                He trudges home from the move, no Chloé

    He lives his life, without Chloé.