A FEW SHORT STORIES
(Most are in need of some further development)
BY MICHAEL LAVERY
THE WEE FOLK
One fine, harvest day early in the century, Lord O'Ronald was taking his customary afternoon stroll around his estate. The sound of the reaper in the cornfield was music to his ears. The hum of industry always gave him a fine sense of satisfaction, as did the sight, presently revealed, of a long, orderly row of workers bending to lift the corn.
The estate lay in one of the more remote parts of Ireland; it bordered on marginal land which always seemed to present a challenge. Lord O'Ronald felt like a general commanding an outpost regiment. Across the frontier lay the threat of invasion by wild forces. He believed his best defence lay in untiring vigilance, order and industry. His well tilled acres, his tall trees with their singing birds, his neatly planted borders had a peculiar significance in contrast with the outer wild.
Lord O'Ronald had no patience with idlers. As he strolled around his field, he was pleased to see that everyone was working hard. The clear sky which foretold a stretch of fine weather, seemed to be on his side. If everyone kept at it, another rich harvest would be won. He halted in his rambling and rested his elbows on a five-barred gate to enjoy a pipe. The aroma of tobacco mingled with the heavy smell of meadowsweet and new-mown oats. The steady rhythm of the reaper provided a background to the short, sudden rushes of birdsong from the hedges.
At first, he scarcely noticed that a new stave had crept into the orchestra. Was it a thrush trying out a new melody? No, it was sweeter and wilder than the song of any thrush. It rose and trembled on the warm air for a moment, long enough for him to locate its origin in the open ground beyond his own tidy fence. A tumbledown stone wall ran across the barren slope of the hill. It was from behind that wall the music came. A frown of annoyance crossed Lord O'Ronald's face. Seamus again! He swung himself over the boundary fence and strode towards the wall. Sure enough, Seamus was crouched behind the wall. In his hand was the flute he had carved so cunningly from a length of boortree. Lord O'Ronald was in a fine tantrum.
"What are you doing?” he roared. "Don't you know that every pair of hands is needed in the field on a day like this?"
Seamus jumped to his feet, tucking his flute away in his ragged shirt. Though he came obediently, his face betrayed no alarm nor cowering humility. The cool, detached expression in his eyes maddened Lord O'Ronald.
"I'm getting sick of you," he roared, "you do nothing but idle around, dreaming and playing that infernal whistle. It's bad enough on an ordinary day. But in the middle of the harvest, it’s......it's......it’s intolerable! Just let me catch you once more......and......"
Seamus did not wait to hear more. He was off like the wind to join the harvest. O'Ronald sighed as he watched him leap nimbly over the fence and sprint across the stubble. Seventeen years old he was......all wiry strength and as fleet as a mountain goat. He could do the work of two heavy-limbed labourers, if he wanted to. It was a sore disappointment that he could not be induced to want to.
No one ever rightly knew who Seamus was, or where he had come from. He had been found one day seventeen years before, laughing and cooing to himself in a wicker basket, under the weeping willow on Lord O'Ronald's lawn. Since his parents could not be traced, O'Ronald had taken charge of him and placed him in the care of one of his cottiers, a kindly little woman who had lost her own son in infancy. She doted on the strange child, but her husband watched him grow with a jealous eye and, when she died, it was not long till he threw Seamus out of the cottage. Aged fourteen, he should have been able to a earn his keep, but since he worked only in fits and starts, he was tolerated rather than employed on the estate and had to do with a bed in the stables and a bite when and where he could find it.
He was a strange looking lad, with a pale face, melancholy eyes and tousled fair hair. He drifted about on his own, rarely speaking to anyone. He never seemed to belong to any company and the workers on the estate regarded him with a mixture of amazement and distrust. They liked to fool themselves that he was half-witted and, when they were all together and feeling brave, they would make him the butt of their jokes and derogatory remarks. Secretly, they were afraid of his strange silences and his melancholy eyes that could flash with sudden, disturbing intelligence. One day he had turned his fire on them:
"You think me a fool......but it is you who are the fools. You think that it is a wise thing to work from dawn to dusk, sweating your guts out to keep Lord O'Ronald living in luxury in his mansion. You pay in toil and sweat ten times over for your miserable little cottages and the poor bite you eat. You get pains from working out in all weathers. Hardly one of you has a warm coat or a pair of good boots to his feet."
This speech was greeted by a loud burst of laughter which maddened him. He fixed his compelling eyes on them and spoke in an even voice:
"There is more to life than work and sleep. You are so blind you do not see the beauty that is in the world for your enjoyment. It's not for the likes of you, you think. You are so deaf you do not hear the music. It has nothing to say to you. You are not people. You're just human spades and pitchforks. When you are done, you will be left out in the rain to rot and rust. As you lie under the hedge you will see nothing and hear nothing. You will only feel the damp rising in your bones."
He was silent after that. They did not attempt to tease him anymore but left him to his whittling of boortree flutes and to his strange, wild music. The music made them uneasy. There was something not right about it. Even on this hot afternoon, it sent a chill up the spine. They were relieved when the master had spotted him and put an end to it. As he joined them he could sense their thick, dumb satisfaction. He bent to work, a secret smile playing about his mouth.
Seamus did more work than two men that afternoon, yet not once did they see a drop of sweat on his brow, nor did his eyes lose their cool serenity. Come dusk, he walked from the field as a young man might to his work in the morning. As the others stumbled wearily home to their cottages, the night air was sweet with the sound of the strangest music they had yet heard. They heard it in their dreams, and Lord O'Ronald heard it, and turned and twisted uneasily in his fine feather bed.
Very early the next morning, Seamus rose and walked out of the stable yard and across the dewy lawn past the weeping willow, and down the long avenue where the trees stood rigid as sentries. At the bend he turned for a glance at the big, sleeping house and the warm stables where he had bedded down with his dear friends, the horses. His eyes were deep pools of sadness. As he turned and lifted them to the mountains they kindled with a new light. He strode forward into the morning haze and by the time the sun showed itself to the world, he was nothing but a tiny speck in the distance. By the time it was noon he was gone from them......for ever.
He walked and walked, maybe for hours, or days, or even weeks. Or was it for some measure of time not reckoned by clocks and calendars? The landscape grew wilder and lonelier. Every mile widened the gulf between him and his first seventeen years. It felt like the slow tearing of roots out of familiar soil. With every pang he experienced a mingled sense of loneliness and liberation. But there was no going back.
The narrow track rose into the mountains. When the last habitation dipped from sight, Seamus found himself alone in a vast wilderness. Night was coming and already the valleys and plains were blotted out by dense shadows. A sudden wind whipped up, cold rain began to fall. Horrible screeching sounds filled the air and fierce hands seemed to pluck at him. He clung to the rocks, trembling.
The wind dropped and dawn broke, silent and serene. He found himself on top of a high mountain. The sun rose in a clear, blue sky to disclose the most immense and beautiful panorama of hill and valley, field and forest that he had ever seen. His heart rose with a vast sense of freedom and lordship. He took out his flute and began to play and the joy of his music through the hills.
Seamus gradually accommodated himself to his isolation. His needs were simple. He discovered where the water sprang from the rock and where to find roots and berries to eat. He built himself a shelter to sleep. By day he would wander among the hills, playing his flute and listening for the echoes. At first, he was very happy but, as time passed, he grew lonely. A deep depression settled on him. The tunes he played were sad and despairing.
He had found one hardy tree springing from a cleft in the rock. One day he sat under this tree playing a melancholy tune. A slight breeze stirred the branches above him. Suddenly something fell at his feet. He started. It seemed like a living thing......a small snake perhaps. He picked it up to throw it from him. It was only a dry piece of wood......a strangely shaped piece......just like a little wooden man. He studied it thoughtfully.
Over the next few months he was too busy to feel lonely or sad. He spent all the spare hours of daylight fashioning little figures from scraps of wood. He would take a day off now and then and scour the mountainsides for more materials for he did not want to use the wood of his own tree. He had acquired skill in whittling flute. Now he developed his skill to a fine art.
Each little figure was more lifelike than the previous one. He learnt how to make figures with moveable arms and legs and quite striking, facial features. He experimented with herbal dyes to colour their skin and their tufts of woolly hair gleaned from thorn hedges around the lower pasture. Occasionally he found scraps of rag which he dyed and fashioned into clothing. It was not long till he had a numerous family of wee folk to keep him company.
Seamus played merry tunes again. He longed to see his wee folk dancing. He collected delicate fibres and wove them into strings. With these he suspended the little figures from a low branch of his tree. He would sit up among the leaves and play his flute and work the strings with his bare feet so that the whole company danced on the ground below. Every evening there would be a dance, and, on moonlight nights, the dance would go on till past midnight. Neither he nor the wee folk wearied of this amusement.
One summer night two young cross-country hikers lost their way among the hills. Moonlight on strange rock formations cast eerie shadows. The stillness seemed to breathe. As in a dream, they stumbled on up the mountain track. Perhaps the view from the top would help them to fix their position, help them to locate the read to the hostel. It was a long, long trudge up the hill. They had not much breath for talking. They imagined they heard music. Then they were sure. Someone was playing a flute. Maybe somebody lived in this isolated place. Maybe they could rest till morning.
As they neared the mountain top, they saw the tree shimmering in the moonlight and casting its restless shadows across the stony space. It seemed to beckon them to come and rest. As they moved towards it, the tree broke into music. It was the strangest thing to hear that wild, sweet air coming from a lone tree. At close on midnight! The thought of fairies crossed both their minds. Without speaking, they dropped on their knees and began to crawl cautiously nearer. The whole air about them vibrated with the merry tune. With fast-beating hearts they moved slowly forward, their eyes riveted on the tree.
A strange sight rose before their tired eyes......a whole company of tiny people were dancing round a little fire of twigs in time to the music. Where the music came from was a mystery. It seemed to come from the tree itself, or from the ground at its roots. They crouched where they had halted and stared. The dancers stopped in their tracks and turned to stare them back. Then the music changed to an angry screech and the dancers began to stamp and gesticulate. They began to advance on the two young men. In the shadow of the tree, their faces appeared contorted with rage. They were a fearsome sight. The young men rose and hurried down the mountainside as though pursued by devils. The music changed to a malicious laugh.
None of their fellow-lodgers believed the young men's story. They tried it on the local people who shook their heads and were non-committal. Lord O'Ronald was a very old man by now. When the tale reached his ears, he sent for the two travellers and questioned them closely. He followed their answers very seriously as though he really believed every word.
The story was not forgotten after the strangers left. It grew with repetition. They joked about it but were secretly terrified of the mountain. Eventually, it became a test of courage for a young man to climb alone on a moonlight night as far as the tree. Many young men made this pilgrimage over the years. None ever again heard the music of the flute, nor saw the wee folk dancing. Seamus and they had vanished whence he came.
KELLY'S KINGDOM
Have you ever heard of King Kelly? Well he isn't actually a real royal at all. However, he is a very eccentric multi-millionaire and about 20 years ago, he bought himself an island in a remote part of Australasia which he turned into his own private country, with its own flag, national anthem, laws and currency etc. and to top it all off, he proclaimed himself king and absolute ruler.
King Kelly is very keen for everyone to take his country seriously and he even made an unsuccessful application to join the UN. He is also so eager to populate his country with plenty of subjects, that if you are prepared to go and live in his kingdom, he'll generously pay all your travelling costs to get there and then provide you with plenty of pocket money to enjoy yourself while you are there. Needless to say, lots of people jump at the chance to go there. After all, it is a lovely, warm, sunny place with every possible free facility to help everyone to enjoy themselves to the full! However, there is one condition: his subjects have to play King Kelly's little games. For example, all his subjects are obliged to take on some role while they are there. Some become members of parliament or join his police force, secret service, armed forces, judiciary, civil service departments and every other body or institution that is functioning on the island. But nobody minds this because it takes up so little of their time and is such a small price to pay for such a fabulous, free, long-term holiday, full of extremely good fun.
A couple of years after King Kelly’s kingdom came into existence, my friend Bill Reynolds asked me if I would accompany him there. But I was in the middle of a very messy divorce and so I told him that I would follow him out later when I had sorted out my affairs. So, Bill applied to go and when he was granted a visa, he set off for King Kelly’s paradise island on his own.
I subsequently received letters from Bill and it was clear from these that he soon settled into the swing of things and in no time at all, he had lots of friends and was really enjoying himself. But the one thing that did puzzle him a bit was the fact that unlike all the others, he had not been assigned a job or function.
After a few weeks of lying around, Bill decided he'd go and have a really good look round the island. One of the places he saw in a remote corner of the island was the country’s military base, which wasn't actually much of a base at all, but rather a very small compound which housed one little shack and a khaki coloured land rover. Apparently, the sentry on the gate smiled and waved at Bill as he passed by.
Later that night, Bill was arrested by two laughing and joking policemen and in court the next day, he was charged with treason and of being a spy. The court case was a very light-hearted affair, with lots of merry banter going on and plenty of boozing. In fact, not only were all the jury members drunk, but so were the lawyers and the judge, whose wig kept falling down over his face.
Bill enjoyed it all immensely, even when he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to life in prison. Well anyway, they took him away to prison and locked him up in a tiny windowless cell and although he'd rather have been outside enjoying himself with all the others in the sun, he realised that for the sake of the joke and the enjoyment of the others, he'd probably have to stay there for a few days or so.
But he was wrong! The last thing I heard was that he has just served 17 years of his sentence and that his last application for parole was turned down by the King. In fact, the word is that he'll probably never be released, nor see the light of day again.
BLOW-INS BEWARE
My name is John and I live with about three hundred other people in a sleepy little village, which is well off the beaten track in a remote part of the country. Now although we all know that that there is a big wide world out there, the majority of us couldn't give two hoots about that fact, for we are more than happy with our own wee world. Furthermore, if there's one thing that none of can stand it is any ‘blow-in’ coming in from outside and telling us how to do things.
Now in case you do not know what we mean by the term ‘blow-in’, it is someone who comes from outside to live in our wee village and even if that person were to live with us for 50 years, we would still always regard them as being a ‘blow-in’. Luckily, we have been rarely troubled by ‘blow-ins’. However, there was one particular chap who arrived into our lives a few years ago and he created absolute mayhem.
It all started when one of the villagers called George (68) went and died suddenly, leaving his wife Marge feeling very lonely and upset. Now we all liked Marge, so we did our best to cheer her up. But no matter what we did, she just seemed to get more and more depressed and despondent. Furthermore, she kept saying that although she'd loved old George, she'd never be happy again until she’d found herself another man. However, she was a bit of a snob and as far as she was concerned, there was no eligible bachelor round our wee village who was good enough for her. So, she decided she'd have to venture out into the outside world to find somebody suitable and, as a result, she went on a world cruise.
We of course all thought that she was mad and that it was a complete waste of money, for we were sure she'd get nobody. For a start she was no spring chicken and didn't have the money or the looks etc that would attract the sort of person she was looking for. But we were all wrong, for eight weeks later she arrived back home with her new husband Randolph.
Randolph was about the same age as herself, around 65, and he looked a very smart, tidy, sprightly sort of chap. Although we generally didn't like strangers coming in round our wee village, we treated him differently because of Marge. So instead of ignoring him as we would have done with any other newcomer, we all made an effort to be friendly.
At the start, he seemed okay to the most of us and a right decent sort of chap. Apparently, he'd been a captain in the army during the Second World War and that was why he was always so smartly dressed and walked head back, chest out, stomach in, left right, left right, left, right. But to be quite honest with you, I personally found him to be an awful bore right from the word go and with regard to his stories which implied that he'd won the war almost on his own, I knew that they were not true for I'd been in the army myself during the war and knew the score. Furthermore, it didn't help my attitude towards him when the snooty buffoon stopped talking to me when he learned that I had only been a lowly private. Well anyway, we put up with him because Marge seemed to like him and appeared very happy.
However, as time went by, we all got to detest him because he was one of these little twerps who can't keep their snout out of anything. As far as he was concerned, he always knew a better way of doing things, had an answer to everything, always wanted to be in charge and insisted on all rules, regulations and laws being obeyed down to the very last full stop. But what made matters worse was that it wasn't too long until he got tired of pottering about in the garden and reading the Telegraph every day etc and that is when he took instead to marching around the village, sticking his nose into everyone else's business. In fact, it wasn't too long until we'd nick-named him Captain Busybody.
Now in our wee village, we locals just liked to do things our own wee way and at our own pace. On top of that we didn't care what the rules and regulations said or if there was ever a better way of doing things or dealing with problems etc. So, we all took great exception to being lectured by Captain Busybody on how to do our gardening, house painting, window cleaning or whatever else we were up to, whenever he came marching along.
Furthermore, we certainly did not like his perpetual moaning and complaining either. Okay, so Tommy's old dog did do its business beside the lamp post every day, but there was no need for Captain Busybody to make a complaint to the Council or to report Sarah to the police for parking her car on the double yellow lines near his home or to write to the local planners objecting to Phil's application for planning permission for his extension etc. And by the way, I can tell you that the police and all the other various local council officials etc weren't too happy with him either and intensely disliked getting letters, visits or phone calls from him because at the end of the day, all they ever wanted was a quiet life, with as little hassle as possible, so they could read their newspapers, drink their tea, slip off home early and all that sort of thing.
As the months went by, we grew to absolutely hate Captain Busybody and the way he got so very upset by what he called 'people's anti-social behaviour' and also his never-ending lectures on dogs, litter, noise and all the locals' other sins. Every day in life, he'd march around our village with his clipboard, watching what everyone was up to and making notes and giving them orders if he was displeased about anything. What made it all the worse was the fact that although we all disliked him intensely, he had such an authoritarian way about him that the most of us ended up doing whatever he wanted.
But the last straw was when he managed to get himself elected on to the committee of our privately constituted village committee and somehow wangled himself into the post of chairman. You see there is an unwritten rule in our little village that makes it perfectly clear that no 'blow-in' should ever be allowed to sit on the committee. But somehow or another, Captain Busybody had succeeded in getting around this rule.
Needless to say, Captain Busybody immediately wanted to change this, that and the other and was forever berating us for not following the committee’s rules 100%. He also wasn't too happy about the fact that the 'kitty' was a bit short etc. Well anyway, we got that fed up with him that we all decided that that he'd have to go.
I remember it all so well. It was early one lovely, bright sunny day and everyone seemed to be in good cheer as they went about their business. Then Charlie and his road digging mates came round the corner with a JCB digger, plenty of shovels and a small roller and pulled up not too far from Marge's bungalow. Charlie and his men then proceeded to do a bit of measuring up etc, before starting digging up a hole in the road with the JCB. Needless to say, Captain Busybody was out like a flash with his damned clipboard, buzzing around like a bee, wanting to know what they were up to and if they had the appropriate planning permission and if so, whether they were doing the job properly and within no time at all, and as per usual, he had all our heads completely turned.
Well anyway, while all this was going on, the JCB was digging deeper and deeper until at last there was a right good hole there and Charlie told the boyo to turn off the JCB. Everyone then proceeded to gather round to look down into the hole, including Captain Busybody who was of course in the front row. It was then that Charlie looked at me enquiringly. So, I put him on hold so to speak while I proceeded to look enquiringly at each of the other village committee members in turn. Then when each one of them had nodded at me surreptitiously, I looked back at Charlie and gave him the nod.
Charlie quietly told the boyo to start up the JCB again and rev her up good and loud. Then this hand came through the throng of people round the hole and Captain Busybody received a nice firm prod in the back and down into the hole he went. Funnily enough, although there were lots of folk about, nobody saw a thing and what with the noise of the JCB, nobody heard any shouts for help or anything like that either. The other unusual thing was that whereas Charlie's men normally only had two speeds - slow and dead slow - that day they picked up their shovels and I have to tell you, I have never men work so hard to fill in a hole so quickly. Next thing I knew the roller was in action and within no time, you'd hardly have known that there'd ever been a hole there at all.
However, when the job was done and we were all smiling contentedly at each other, I happened to glance up towards Marge’s home and to my horror I noticed she was standing at her sitting room window, looking down the road towards us. I cursed out aloud for I knew she must have seen the whole thing and that we'd all be for the high jump if I didn't do something about it toute suite. So panic-stricken, I ran like hell up to her bungalow to try and persuade her not to ring the police. However, when she answered the door, I was more than taken aback for she did so with a big smile.
"Good morning John," she said cheerily to me, "how can I help you?" Well, I was so confused that I hardly knew what to say next.
"You haven't been watching the road-works, have you?" was all I was fit to blurt out. She shook her head from side to side.
"No," she replied with a grin, "it's such a nice bright day that the sun was getting in my eyes and I couldn't see a thing."
When I left her twenty minutes later after a chat and a nice cup of tea, I was one very relieved man. But what made it all even better was the fact, that for some peculiar reason, Marge never reported Captain Busybody as missing. Furthermore, she never ever mentioned his name again.
But let this story be a warning to anyone else who has any notion about coming to live in our wee village. The simple fact of the matter is that we don't like 'blow-ins' round here. You see our message to ‘blow-ins’ has been and always will be: ‘We got on damned well before you arrived, and we'll get on damned well after you’ve gone!’
HOTEL DL
Have you ever been to the Hotel DL? Well, if you haven't, then I recommend that you should go, for as far as I am concerned, it is one of the most fantastic hotels around. Mind you it's not cheap, but even so, if you do decide to follow my advice and stay there, then I can assure you that you'll have a great time, a time that you'll never forget for as long as you live.
First of all, it’s an absolutely magnificent place, which is set in its own very extensive grounds, away off the beaten track, in a beautiful, secluded area of the country. Not only that, but it is very modern and incredibly luxurious. But the thing that really sets it apart from any other hotel is the very unique and exclusive service that it provides.
Now you may think that DL is a strange name to give a hotel, but this does give a clue about the service that the hotel provides. You see the letters ‘DL' actually stand for 'Dream Land' and what they try to achieve there is make people's dreams and fantasies come true. So, if you know of someone who has a dream that you would like to bring to life for them, just send them to the ‘DL’ hotel for a few days and the people there will go to amazing lengths to try and make it all come true for them.
For example if your husband has this fantasy about being a military commander in charge of a big battle and you'd like to give him a lovely surprise, you could arrange for him to go to the 'DL', where they'll kit him out in an appropriate military uniform, provide him with officers, men and military equipment etc and arrange for the 'PM' and the 'Queen' to beg him to save the country by winning a battle against an enemy, whom the hotel would also provide.
Or say your wife has always had this dream about becoming a world famous super-model, the people at the DL would go to extraordinary lengths to set up a ‘Paris fashion show’ show where she would parade up and down a catwalk in fabulous clothes in front of lots of admiring people and really credible look-alikes of designers and other well-known people from the fashion world. There would also be champagne, press and TV interviews and all the other glamorous things that one normally associates with top fashion shows.
Yes, the 'DL' can make almost any dream come true. Whether you want to be a very successful 'film actor', 'Formula One racing champion', a 'world-famous authoress', an 'international football star', a 'number one rock star', the 'queen' or whatever, the people at the ‘DL’ will arrange it for you. It certainly is a great place and, generally speaking, everyone who goes there really enjoys their several days of glory. However, from time to time, things can go a wee bit wrong and this can sometimes produce rather peculiar results.
I remember for example, the time a woman called Sue secretly arranged for her husband Tom to go on his own to the 'DL' to be a 'millionaire', because she knew that that was what he had always wanted to be. Although a very hard working self-employed business man with lots of drive and ambition, Tom had never actually made it in a big way or realised his ambition to become a millionaire. So, Sue decided that she wanted him to achieve that goal, if only for a few days.
Of course, Sue had to pay the 'DL' a lot of money in advance to cover his weekend stay, but as soon as she'd done that, the 'DL' professionals got to work on making all the necessary preparations to give Tom the best weekend of his life.
Everything was going really well until Sue made the mistake of telling Tom's brother Jack about the secret surprise she was going to give Tom. Now Jack wasn't a bad fellow except perhaps that he was an inveterate practical joker.
Well anyway he decided he couldn't throw up a golden opportunity like this to play a joke on Tom. So, without telling Sue, he rang up the 'DL' and told them that there had been a change of plans and that Tom should now be treated as if he were a 'convicted murderer on death row' rather than a 'millionaire'.
The 'DL' of course weren't too pleased about this change in plans, but they did not show their annoyance because their policy has always been that 'whatever the customer wants, the customer will always get' and they accordingly made different arrangements.
When the weekend of Tom's surprise eventually arrived, he was very cleverly lured to the 'DL' and of course, he had no inkling whatsoever about what was going to happen during his stay there. Sue on the other hand spent the whole weekend excitedly telling everyone what she had done. At the same time, she could hardly wait for Monday to come around, so that Tom could tell her how it had all gone and how much he had enjoyed himself.
Now Tom had been due to get back on Monday morning, so when he had not turned up by six o'clock on that day, Sue rang Mr Jones, the 'DL' manager, to find out what had happened to him. Well that's when she got a wee bit of a shock for Mr Jones informed her that regretfully the 'Queen' had flatly refused to commute Tom's death sentence to life or agree to a stay of execution and that, as a result, he had been taken from his 'death row cell' and executed at 6.00 a.m. that very morning.
Needless to say, Sue wasn't too pleased to get this news and she started to kick up one hell of a fuss, reminding Mr Jones that she had asked them to make Tom into a 'millionaire' and that they had therefore made a mistake and an absolute mess of things. She then went on to say that she was going to sue them for millions for negligence and breach of contract.
Mr Jones listened patiently to her tirade and when her onslaught eventually died down, he responded by saying that the 'DL' had not been negligent, nor in breach of contract and that, furthermore, they did not make mistakes. And that’s when he informed her that they had carried out Jack's request exactly as requested.
Well when Sue heard Mr Jones' allegation about Jack's involvement, she slammed the phone down on him and went roaring round to Jack's in a very distraught state of mind. When Jack opened his front door, he could tell instantly from the look on her face that all was not well and he immediately went on the defensive.
“Is there something wrong Sue?” he asked rather nervously.
“You’re right there is,” she blazed back, “those people at the DL Hotel have just gone and killed Tom!”
“What!” exclaimed Jack, totally aghast.
“And what’s more they are putting all the blame on you.”
“Eh,” said Jack, reeling with the news, “how do they make that out?”
“They’re making the preposterous allegation that you rang them up to change the plans I gave them and that it’s as a result of that change that Tom’s now dead!”
Jack instantly went pale.
“Oh dear,” he said rather sheepishly, “I’m afraid I did actually.”
“Ouch hell Jack!” she screamed, “that means that I won’t even be able to claim a refund now!!”
But please don't let this little story put you off at all. Things like that very rarely happen at the 'DL'.
WEDDING SURPRISE
Let me tell you the tale about John and his friend Robby. Now although John (25) came from a very wealthy background (his father was a millionaire) and Robby (also 25) from a very poor one (his father was one of the long-term unemployed) and although John was an introvert and Robby an out and out extrovert, they had been the best of pals all their lives. They'd grown up together in the same small town and gone to the same school and university. They’d also both shared the same interests, gone on holiday together, been passionately keen on playing all types of sport and even shared the same girlfriends. In fact, they were so close, they were just like brothers. So, it was therefore no surprise when John asked Robby to be his best man at his forthcoming wedding to Sally.
Sally (24) was a really stunning, attractive girl whom John had met some months before in the office at his father's factory. John had hardly been able to believe his luck when she had not only agreed to his very shy request for a date but had also subsequently fallen for him. Mind you Robby had been very envious because Sally was an extrovert like him and he fancied her like crazy. Unfortunately for him however, she quickly made it clear to him in front of John that she didn't fancy him at all and she even went as far as to hint that she didn't really like him either. In fact, I heard on the grapevine that she was far from pleased when she learned that John had asked Robby to be best man at the wedding.
Well anyway, because Sally's parents were very poor and could not afford to pay for the wedding, John's rich parents agreed to foot the bill on the one condition that they wouldn’t have to make all the wedding arrangements. So, when Robby immediately stepped in and volunteered to see to them all himself, everyone (apart from Sally of course) was more than happy to let him take on the overall responsibility for arranging the wedding and he really got stuck into the task in a most energetic and positive way.
Over the next few weeks, Robby booked the church, the vicar, the wedding cars, the hotel and disco for the wedding reception, the flowers, the morning suits and wedding dresses, the hairdressers, the photographers (stills and video), the champagne, the honeymoon tickets and everything else that would make it a wedding, that nobody would ever forget, especially his best friend John. Mind you he ordered only the best of everything and although he spent a great deal of John's parent's money, they did not mind because, after all, they had told him not to skimp on anything. He also sent out all the wedding invitations, managed the wedding present list and when all the valuable wedding presents started arriving from John's rich family and friends, he agreed to store them round at his place until the big day, when he would bring them round to the hotel so that they could be put on display at the reception. All in all, he did an absolutely fantastic job, and everyone was extremely pleased. In fact, even Sally grudgingly admitted he wasn't as bad as she'd originally thought.
Well Robby had done such an excellent job that it was an awful shame when things started to go wrong at almost the last moment. Unfortunately for John, Sally suddenly began to have second thoughts just three days before the wedding and she 'did a runner'. Although Robby tried his best to reassure John that it was probably only last-minute nerves and that everything would actually work out okay, poor John was in a terrible tizzy. But then Sally rang Robby on eve of the wedding and made it absolutely clear that not only did she not to want to marry John but that he would never even see her again, because she was going abroad that very night. So, Robby had no choice but to give John the very bad news that the wedding was definitely off.
Needless to say, John was extremely upset and heartbroken. So, Robby put his arm around him to comfort him and told him that he would quietly and discreetly cancel all the wedding arrangements, tell all the guests the wedding was off and return all the wedding presents. He also suggested that John should go up to his little holiday cottage in the highlands of Scotland for several weeks to allow time for all the dust settle and for him to recover his composure. John thought that this was a really good idea and told Robby that he was so glad that he had such an amazingly good, kind, considerate and loyal friend, whom he could really trust.
So that very evening, John secretly departed for his little cottage in Scotland where he spent his days wandering round the highlands gazing at the beautiful scenery and feeling extremely sorry for himself. And when he eventually started his journey home several weeks later, he was, in a rather perverse way, looking forward to wallowing in self-pity and all the sympathy he'd get from all his family and friends, who would all tell him what a poor fellow he was and what an awful, cruel bitch she’d been. However, his emotions quickly changed from self-indulgent self-pity to absolute rage when he got home and heard the news.
Not only had Robby gone and married Sally on the day John should have, but he hadn’t cancelled any of the arrangements for John's wedding, which had meant that they’d enjoyed a free wedding, a free wedding reception (to which all their own guests had been invited of course), a free honeymoon and all the other lavish paraphernalia that John's parents had paid for! To top it all, they'd also got two sets of wedding presents, for not only did Robby and Sally receive wedding presents from their own friends, but they’d kept all the ones that John's family and wealthy friends had sent, including the “taken from under the bed and not to be disclosed to the Inland Revenue” £250,000 that John's father had secretly asked Robby to give to John as a surprise wedding present. John of course could not tell people about this money for fear of getting his father into bother. But the more he thought about it all, the more it dawned on him how he had been duped by Sally and Robby, right from the very first day he'd met her.
Needless to say, neither Robby nor Sally showed their faces round them parts again. However, I have heard that they are still happily married and living very comfortably. But then it's not all that surprising that things have gone so well for them. After all they did get off to fairly good start, didn't they!
NOISY NEIGHBOURS
When Tom and his wife Mary moved into 136 Albatross Avenue, things had been really good - for about thirteen hours! But then the ghastly nightmare began; and it lasted for three very long years. However, let me tell you the whole story.
When Tom retired after thirty years on a car assembly line, he and Mary decided that they would sell their little terraced house in an extremely dreary part of Birmingham and move to a seaside town on the south coast of England. So, they headed off for Kent and after seeing quite a few places, they eventually found their ‘dream’ home, a semi-detached house in Albatross Avenue. It was a lovely quiet tree-lined road, not far from the sea and seemingly populated by very pleasant people. Because they did not want to run the risk of losing it, they offered the full asking price, which was accepted. They were ecstatic and eagerly looked forward to moving as soon as possible, for they had this vision relaxing completely, taking life really easy and spending their remaining days either pottering about in their garden or wandering up and down the sea front, watching the world go by and enjoying the fresh sea air.
However, after they sold their city house and arrived down at their new home, they were instantly rather disturbed to see that the house next door had a great deal of rubbish in the front garden. But when they learned from a friendly local resident that some other new people had just moved in a few days before, they assumed that all the rubbish was probably as a result of the new owners clearing out their house and that it would not be too long until it would be all gone.
Well after the furniture men had moved all their stuff in, Tom and Mary shut the door on the outside world and sat down for their very first cup of tea in their new heaven. Then after they had finished their tea, they went out for a stroll round the garden. And that’s when they got another shock, because not only was the next-door neighbour’s garden full of unsightly rubbish, but there were empty beer cans and fag ends lying on their own back lawn. However, they once again assumed that the new owners were still in the process of sorting out their house and that it would not be too long until all the rubbish was gone. As for the beer cans etc strewn about their back lawn, they assumed that these had probably been the result of some exuberant revellers enjoying themselves at their neighbour’s house warming party and that it would probably never happen again.
As they wandered about their own garden, they could not stop thinking about what a beautiful peaceful place it was and how much they were looking forward to spending the rest of their days together there. But they did not stay outside for too long because they knew they had another long stint of sorting out and unpacking to be done.
Eventually, at around midnight, Tom and Mary finally called a halt to it all and retired to bed with their cups of cocoa, tired but happy to have achieved so much that marvellous day. When Mary had finished her cocoa, she gave Tom a kiss and immediately went off to sleep. Although Tom felt very tired himself, he lay back in the bed and once again enjoyed thinking about what a lovely place it was and how lucky they had been to have found it. He then turned his attention to his book, intending to read a few pages of it before turning off the light and going to sleep.
It started at 12.17 a.m. exactly and gave Tom such a start, he nearly fell out of bed. It went 'dum - dum - dum - dum - dum -dum' and the walls of the bedroom began to vibrate. It was their new neighbours - the ones Tom and Mary hadn't yet met - who were just playing a spot of music after returning home from their day-trip to London. Well I don't know where Mary was exactly in the land of nod, but she certainly came back to the land of the living mighty quick and almost fell out of bed too. The noise was incredible, and it was at that point in time that Tom had this flickering premonition that things were going to get worse - a lot worse!
The music went on till 4.49 a.m. Needless to say, neither Tom nor Mary slept a wink during it all. Several times Mary asked Tom to go next door and ask them to either turn off the music or at least turn it down, but he kept repeating what his mother had often told him: that the last thing you ever want to do in life is fall out with your neighbours. So, he told Mary that he didn't want to do anything rash and get off on the wrong foot with his new neighbours or annoy them. He also tried to reassure her by saying that it was probably a one-off thing and might never happen again. She was to remind him of those wise words many times after that.
Well it was not too long until Tom and Mary learnt that their rowdy new neighbours were the Boggs and that there were fifteen of them: Alan and Sheila Bogg, their obnoxious and truculent sons and daughters, as well as Sheila’s mother and her boyfriend. They also had dogs: Blackie (rottweiler 1 and constant barker-in-chief), Mutt (rottweiler 2 and second-in-command constant barker), Stubby (pit bull terrier and third-in-command constant barker). They had three cats as well and they all loved using Tom and Mary’s garden as their loo. Last, but not least, there was Polly, the forever squawking parrot.
Besides being music and animal lovers, the Boggs were really into junky motor bicycles and old bangers and all these various modes of transport seemed to be in constant need of repair, which meant that there was never-ending revving up and other works being carried out, which inevitably involved a great deal of banging and crashing. On top of all that, they also got a boat, which they never used but which was parked for months on end right outside Tom and Mary's home. This boat not only deprived Tom of a place to park his own car but sort of ruined their view out the front windows.
Every morning the Boggs put all the dogs out in the back garden and these dogs were fierce fond of barking, whining and whinging and they never shut their gobs all day. Then when it came to evening time, the Boggs would take them for a walk – just as far as Tom and Mary's front gate, where they would all do their business, thereby complementing the business they'd done in the same spot on their morning walk earlier on. These dogs were real experts and adept at depositing their loads just right where Tom or Mary would put their feet when they opened their front gate to go out.
Tom had hoped that he would be able to spend many long hours pottering about the garden, but what with all that racket from the dogs, that was out of the question. At the same time there wasn't any escape indoors either because, generally speaking, there was always at least one of the Bogg family at home, which meant of hours of very loud TV or music (if you could call it music). If by chance the house was empty and they were all out, there was still the problem of Polly the parrot screeching out all day "who are the b......s next door, who are the b......s next door!" Then when Alan’s mother-in-law was at home, she was worse than the parrot, what with her non-stop shrieks of high pitched laughter.
And then there were the regular all-night parties with the inevitable pounding loud music, the slamming and banging of car doors, the sound of engines being revved up all night, the drunken guests being sick over Tom's rose bushes and throwing used condoms behind the rhododendron bush and empty bottles all over Tom's neatly cut back lawn. And, of course if Tom or Mary ever got up the courage to say anything, all they ever received in return was the usual inevitable stream of foul-mouthed abuse, that would reverberate round the whole neighbourhood.
There were a few other irritating things that didn't make matters any better, such as the mysterious nasty phone calls, the vandalism and graffiti all over Tom and Mary's walls, all the old bits of cars and other rubbish littering the front lawn, the uncut grass, the rampant weeds in the garden, the mad son who was forever throwing stones and staring malevolently at Tom and Mary's house for hours on end and the never-ending rows and screeching matches. Then there were the cats forever digging up plants and mucking all over Tom's garden, the shabby frontage on the Bogg’s house which got shabbier and shabbier, the ugly satellite dish, the rusty old caravan parked in the driveway, the ugly extension that they'd somehow got planning permission for, the DIY work (destroy it yourself) with all the never-ending crashing and banging and high-pitched drilling noises that it entailed. On top of all, there was all the constantly being sneered at and all the nasty things the Boggs put through their door. Furthermore, there were several occasions, when Tom and Mary answered their front door and found a funeral director on the doorstep. Even when the Boggs went away on holiday, things did not get any better. This was because the Bogg’s friends used to come and stay and look after the animals and they were even worse than the Boggs. In fact, they were so bad, that Tom and Mary used to look forward to the Bogg’s return.
Initially Tom and Mary tried to deal with the problem in a friendly, neighbourly and civilised way. For example, Tom prepared a pleasant speech which he rehearsed over and over again until he had it so word perfect that he was sure it could not possibly cause anybody any offence whatsoever. However, when he went along to see Alan Bogg and delivered his speech in as friendly a way as possible, the brute just told him to 'f... off out of it' before turning on his heel, going back inside his house and slamming the front door in Tom’s face.
The next thing that Tom and Mary tried were ear plugs and while they were quite effective in reducing all the noise, they eventually quit using them because neither of them were lip-readers and couldn't understand what the other was saying. Furthermore, neither of them could hear the phone, TV, radio or doorbell when they had their ear plugs in.
At last Tom could take it no longer and although he knew it would annoy the Boggs no end, he went down to the local council offices to make a formal complaint to the environmental health officer, a chap called John Smith. Well after John Smith had listened patiently to Tom's tale of woe, he agreed to come up to their home to size up the situation for himself. But Mr Smith was such a laid-back sort of bloke that Tom and Mary did not hold out much hope that he would do much to help them, when he rolled up, armed with a clipboard. Nevertheless, they sat him down, gave him a cup of tea and left him to listen to the never-ending racket from the Bogg’s house.
After about 15 minutes Mr Smith drained his cup of tea, stood up, said that the noise and nuisance were awful and that something would have to be done about it. He then went out to his car, opened the boot, took out a funny looking contraption and then returned to the house. Now neither Tom nor Mary had a clue what the thing was, but they watched with some fascination as Mr Smith fiddled about with switches, dials and buttons.
At last when he'd finished, he told Tom and Mary that the contraption was now properly programmed to react if the nuisance factor from next door rose above the acceptable level. He then went out into the garden and set the thing up so that it was directed towards the Bogg’s residence. He then said that he'd be back the next morning to retrieve the machine because it was in such great demand, that nobody could have the loan of it for more than a day. He then thanked them for the tea and left.
Well neither Tom nor Mary had any clue what the contraption was supposed to do because Mr Smith had only managed to confuse them with all his mind-boggling technical jargon, but they knew that it must have some use or why else would he have left it there. So, they sat in the kitchen and watched the thing intently to see what would happen, if anything.
Now things in the Boggs weren't too bad for most of the afternoon, but when it got to evening time, they went clean mad and there was lots of screeching, shouting, swearing, dogs barking and the sound of things getting smashed. It was when things were getting really bad that Tom went out into the garden to study the machine and he noticed the little indicator hand on a dial on the front of the contraption slowly rising until it reached the red area. Suddenly there was a tremendous flash and the whole Bogg’s house, family, dogs, cats, parrot and rubbish disappeared from the face of the earth, totally vaporised.
Well Tom and Mary could hardly believe their eyes and when Mr Smith returned the next morning to retrieve the contraption, they thanked him profusely for all his help in resolving their problem. They were so happy that at last their nightmare was finally over. Everything was so peaceful that it was actually quite unsettling, and it took them several days to get used to the new wondrous, beautiful tranquillity in their home.
Of course, the council did sort of temporarily take the edge off their happiness when, a few days later, they sent Tom a demand for increased council tax payment on account of their house now being a detached one. But after a wee bit of huffing and puffing, Tom calmed down. After all it was well worth paying that wee bit extra just to get all that beautiful peace and quiet.
If you are suffering from similar problems with your neighbours and would like to get your hands on this vaporising equipment, just go down to your local council environmental health office and I am sure they will be more than happy to help you out.
RE-INCARNATED MURDERER
You're probably like the majority of people and think that the concept of re-incarnation is a load of old rubbish. Well if you do think that way, let me tell you what happened to my good friend James, as this will prove that the phenomenon actually does exist.
James and I were born and brought up in the same town near London. We also shared the same interests, went to the same school and were really good chums for many years. I therefore knew him very well and as far as I was concerned, he was always a very sensible, down-to-earth, realistic, level-headed sort of person, who wouldn't put up with any namby-pamby, pseudo-intellectual twaddle about anything. So, when he started to tell me strange things about having lived in a previous existence, I took him seriously and listened to what he had to say.
Initially he never said much about his previous life. For example, when we were about nine years old, he told me that he had really been born in a little village near Leeds. Well I knew he had been born down south like me, so I was confused by this remark. But looking at the expression on his face, I could see that he seemed very confused as well. So I ignored what he'd just said.
He didn't say anything more like that for a year or so, but when we got into our teens, he began to say similar strange things on a more regular basis. For example, he said one day that his father was a cobbler when we both knew he was a bus driver and that his mother was a blue-eyed blond when in fact she was dark haired with brown eyes. He also kept talking about his two brothers and one sister which was very odd because he was an only child.
Well anyway, as soon as he'd make remarks like that, he'd immediately look confused, go quiet and become very upset. I usually wouldn’t say anything. However, one day, when we were both twenty, he said that his mother had jumped into a river and drowned. That annoyed me because we'd only just spoken to her about half an hour before. So, I decided to remonstrate with him and I told him straight that it was an awful thing for him to say about her and that he shouldn't tempt providence like that. Next thing he burst into tears and when I tried to comfort him, he told me that there were things that were really confusing him and which he felt he just had to tell me, to get them all off his chest. And that’s when he started to tell me that although he was living in the present, he'd also had a previous life in the past. He said that in his earlier existence, he'd been born in the year 1835 and he repeated some of the things that he had told me before, like his father being a cobbler and his mother being blue-eyed and blond.
He then went on to tell me new things. For example, his previous father had apparently been a very decent soul, who had worked very hard to provide the family with a living; they had lived in a very small house in a poor, slummy area in a town near Leeds; his mother had been a lovely woman who had given the whole family more love than they could ever have hoped for. However, regrettably and despite his parents' hard work, love and devotion, James had turned out to be the 'black sheep' of the family and had got himself into lots of trouble, which had caused his family nothing but grief. In fact, he’d given his parents such a hard time that it broke his father, who died at an early age from consumption. Then when he was 23, his broken-hearted mother had committed suicide by drowning herself in the local river.
When I listened to all this I was amazed, although to be quite honest a little sceptical. But with my encouragement and support, we delved further into the whole thing, visiting libraries for more information about the life and times of that period and also the area where he'd said he'd lived and, incredibly, the more research we did, the more amazed I became because everything he'd told me about his earlier life turned out to be absolutely true, right down to the last detail.
Later on, he began to tell me in a guilty way more and more about all the bad things he had got up to and the women he'd had and all the drinking, violence and thieving he'd been involved in, although I myself found it hard to imagine that someone as nice as James could ever have done such nasty things.
Then one day I suggested we go and visit the place where he had lived in his previous life. He was initially reluctant for fear of what effect it might have on him, but I told him that it might actually have a positive rather than negative effect and help him get rid of his sense of guilt and shame. So, we set off to see where he had been such a bad person all those years before and when we got there, he took me, without hesitation or looking at maps or asking for directions, directly to the area where he had been born and raised and also to the graveyard where, incredibly, we found his gravestone, which showed that he had died at the ripe old age of 89.
Now, memories from James's past usually only came to him in flashes and while we were in the graveyard, he began to receive even more information. He told me that he now knew that although he'd started off being such a rascal, he'd ended up a very wealthy respectable citizen. Apparently, he had married Rebecca, the daughter of a wealthy man called Andrew Black, and Rebecca had inherited all her father's money after he had unexpectedly died in rather mysterious circumstances shortly after their marriage. With regard to Rebecca, she had died at the very young age of 27 from 'natural causes' and of course James had inherited all her money.
When we left the graveyard and returned to the inn where we were staying, James was still getting flashes from the past and he said they were now getting stronger and more vivid. He seemed very excited by it all but later he suddenly became very upset. When I pressed him to explain why, he eventually owned up to the murders of Andrew Black and Rebecca. He went on to add that he had committed both murders in such a clever and devious way that he had left himself completely above suspicion. However, he went on to say that even though the murders had taken place in the previous century, he could, nevertheless, actually prove that it was him in his previous existence who had caused both their deaths. He went on to say that he wanted 'the world to know' what he had done in his previous life because he was sure that it would help him get rid of all the guilt and shame that his past life was causing him now.
Initially the police were very sceptical, and we were almost told to leave and stop wasting their time with such nonsense. But when James began to give them details about both deaths that nobody, but the killer could possibly have known, they began to get a great deal more interested and began asking James more and more detailed questions. In fact, the police ended up taking it all so seriously that they persuaded James to make a statement and sign a full confession.
When it was all over, James felt very happy. It was like a great burden had been lifted off his shoulders and he was convinced that never again would he be haunted by his previous life. But unfortunately, things often don't work out the way you expect and just as we were about to leave the police station to return to the inn to celebrate the end of the case and the closure of the files, James was arrested and charged with the murders of both Andrew Black and Rebecca. Well I was more than a little surprised at this, but not half as surprised as when they then proceeded to charge me with being an accessory after the fact. Well anyway James was later convicted of both murders in 1989 and is currently serving a life sentence in Durham prison. As for me, I was sent down for 5 years!
Well after I had done my time, I went to visit him. It was very nice to see him again, but when he started to talk about an even earlier previous life he'd led as a ruffian away back in the 1600s, I immediately made my excuses and left because I didn’t want to hear anything at all about the other vile things he'd done in previous lives. I’d had my fill of being a jailbird and there was no way that I wanted to run the risk of ending up in the clink again!
ANOTHER WORLD
An extract from the diary of Trevor Simmons, 1994
I suppose you have heard about that strange phenomenon which occurs when you die i.e. you leave this ‘earthly’ dimension and pass through a kind of tunnel full of a dazzlingly white light into another dimension, which is an absolutely beautiful, peaceful, utopian place where you meet all your ancestors, family and friends who are there because they 'died' on earth before you did. Well, if you have not heard about it, or are sceptical about the whole concept, let me reassure you that it actually does happen. I know because I experienced it myself once.
It all happened five years ago when I was a young man of only 21. At that time, I considered myself to be fit and I hadn't a health care in the world. But that's when I had my heart attack. I was walking down the street one bright sunny morning, when I suddenly felt very nauseous and peculiar. I didn't think for one moment that it was my heart because I had always assumed that heart attacks were excruciatingly painful. I then fell unconscious to the ground.
The next thing I became aware of was being outside my body and looking down at the people who were milling around my motionless form on the ground, trying to revive me with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage. I then saw an ambulance arriving and my body being quickly loaded into it. I can remember the siren so clearly, as I watched the ambulance speeding towards the hospital. It was then that I heard one of the paramedics saying that he thought I was gone.
Suddenly I was no longer outside my body looking down but hurtling at tremendous speed down this tunnel full of a dazzlingly white light. I did not know what was happening or where I was going, but I did not feel afraid for I could sense that I was not in any danger. Next thing, I was in another place where the sense of timelessness, peace and beauty is indescribable. There seemed to be such an atmosphere of love and happiness in the air and I instantly felt totally at home there.
Then people came and although I did not recognise any of them, a lot of them seemed to know me very well and they greeted me warmly. I felt so much at ease and happy in their company that I was really glad to be there. Then some friendly people introduced themselves to me as my great grandparents. But I did not recognise them because I had never seen any of them before because they had all died before I was even born.
Well my great grandparents were really lovely people and I went to stay with them. I met all their friends and was really happy there, especially when they introduced me to Caroline, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She had an absolutely lovely personality and I immediately fell in love with her. She fell in love with me too and we had the happiest times you could possibly imagine together, which I suppose wasn’t really surprising, because that's the only way things can be in the next dimension.
But then something happened one very sad day that brought it all to an end. One moment I was sitting with my arms around Caroline on the top of a peaceful mountain, watching the red sun sink down into a golden horizon and the next I was back in that hospital on earth, outside my body and watching from above as doctors continued trying to resuscitate me.
I hoped desperately that they would not succeed for I wanted to get back to my lovely Caroline as soon as possible. Although I knew my death on earth would upset my parents, grandparents, family and friends, I did not really mind that because I knew from my recent experience that we would all meet again and be happy together at some later stage. However, the doctors did succeed and the next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital bed with my mother and father anxiously looking down at me. I was of course very happy to see them, but I also felt totally heartbroken over losing my beautiful Caroline.
One day, while I was still in hospital, I started to try and tell my parents about my experience in the other dimension, but I could see from the sceptical expression on their faces that it'd be wiser if I were to quickly drop the subject. So, I decided to write it all down in my diary instead, so that people like you could read it after I had really 'died'. With regard to Caroline I continued to miss her so much. I suppose I could have committed suicide to get back to her, but something kept telling me that this was not permissible. Furthermore, I did not want to inflict any more suffering on my parents while they were still 'alive' on earth, especially as I was an only child. So, I consoled myself with the fact that when I did actually 'die', I'd be able to return immediately to my great grandparents and my darling Caroline.
When I eventually left hospital, I began to make enquiries about my great grandparents and was very surprised and pleased when my mother told me that there were photographs of them all and that my father's brother, uncle Jack, had them over at his house. It had not crossed my mind for one moment that photography went back so far in time, so this revelation filled me full of hope and joy.
Needless to say, I rushed over to Jack's place, but he and his wife Sue were out. However, I was too impatient to go away and come back some other time, so I asked Jack's son Tom if he knew where the family photograph album was and, if so, whether I could have a look at it to see what my great grandparents looked like. He said, ‘yes of course’, rummaged about a bit in another room, before returning with an old album.
I took it into the parlour to look at it in privacy and my heart was racing with excitement as I opened it. However, when I had a good look through it, I was absolutely horrified to see that none of the old photographs inside looked anything like the lovely, kind people I'd met in the other dimension. I was stunned, and it was so noticeable that Tom asked me if I was okay when I gave him back the album.
On my way home, I began to receive what appeared to be a strange message in my mind, a message that seemed to say that I had only been able to spend some time in the other dimension because of a bureaucratic error, that had been compounded to such an extent that the people who I had thought were my great grandparents actually belonged to somebody else and to a different era of time on earth, and that, as a result, I would unfortunately never see them or Caroline again. I was absolutely heartbroken and deeply depressed for weeks.
About 3 months later, my parents and I were visiting my uncle Jack and Sue, when Tom mentioned the time I had come to look at the photograph album. This was obviously the first time that Sue had heard about my earlier visit and because she was very curious to know why I had wanted to see the photograph album, I told her that it was nothing much, that I was just interested in seeing what my great grandparents had looked like. Sue then said that she assumed that the great grandparents I was interested in where the ones relating to my own father and mother rather than to her own mother and father. Well anyway, it was all very confusing to me, but it soon transpired that Tom, the wally, had in fact given me the wrong photograph album and Sue went to get the right one.
When she returned with it, I could hardly restrain myself from ripping it from her hands. But I took it as casually as I could, but I could hardly stop my hands trembling as I opened it. And I could hardly believe my eyes when, lo and behold, there were my great grandparents. There was also photo of my maternal great grandparents with a beautiful young girl whom my mother explained they had adopted. Although it was only an old photograph, I could not take my eyes off this lovely creature for I could see that she was smiling directly at me. I could also feel her love filling me with warmth. It was my darling Caroline.
It is now 15 years on and I am very glad to say that both my parents were killed in a car accident several weeks ago. As I have now tidied up all the family affairs, I shall not be writing any more in this dairy. So, I am going to die myself now and I shall do so a very happy man, for I know I am on my way back to heaven, to my happy parents and my lovely, darling Caroline.
Note: the above was found beside the body of Trevor Simmons who committed suicide shortly after his parents were tragically killed in a car accident. The coroner is still pondering on whether to take it into account at Trevor Simmons' inquest.
ROOF GHOSTS
Martin Webster (45), a very wealthy and successful London property developer, decided to tour a beautiful remote part of Yorkshire with his wife Jane in search of a second home that would be fairly near to his parents, who lived in Yorkshire and were getting very old. Although they had seen quite a few properties, none of them had been at all suitable. But then they came across 'Miller's Lodge', a magnificent, sound, grey-stone, two-hundred-year-old mansion. It was situated on the top of a hill and had fantastic panoramic views over the Yorkshire Dales and, furthermore, it was only about twenty miles from his parents.
Martin immediately rang Fiona at the estate agents to find out more details and was very pleased to learn that it had 12 bedrooms, 5 reception rooms, 8 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, an outdoor swimming pool, was set in 25 acres of beautiful countryside and had its own trout river. However, when he learned the asking price, alarm bells began ringing in his mind, for he knew from experience that it was far too cheap and that therefore there had to be a catch. So, he asked Fiona why it was so cheap and was told that when it had first come on to the market just over three years before, it had been up for sale at double the current price. However, the owner had become so fed up waiting for a buyer to come along, that he had decided to cut the asking price in half because he wanted to get away as soon as possible to start a new life in Australia.
Martin did not feel at all re-assured by this. In fact, when he heard about the 'just over three years' bit, he became even more suspicious and assumed that there had to be something badly wrong with it. However, Fiona eventually managed to reassure him, telling him that although the house needed some redecoration and modernisation, the main reason why it'd been on the market for so long was because very few people round those parts wanted that type of big house. So, Martin decided he had nothing to lose in having a good look at it and they arranged a meet later that day, at 2.30 p.m.
When she put down the phone, Fiona told her colleagues excitedly that she thought that she had at last found a real buyer for 'Miller's Lodge'. Her junior colleague John sort of put the mockers on her celebrations by asking her if she'd told Martin about the house being haunted and added that if she hadn't, then he'd be off like a flash, just like all the others, when he found out the truth. Fiona replied that of course she hadn't told Martin, adding contemptuously that unlike John, she didn't believe in ghosts.
Fiona met Martin and Jane at 2.30 p.m. precisely and she immediately proceeded to gush on about how lovely the house was. But then, when she eventually gave them an opportunity to say something, they repeated that they could still not understand why it was so cheap. Martin even jokingly asked Fiona whether it was haunted. She did not respond except to give him a sickly grin and go on gushing about is good points.
After they had had a good look over it, Martin and Jane decided that they really loved the house and shortly afterwards Martin rang Fiona to make an offer which was quite a bit lower than the asking price, but which the vendor promptly accepted. While he was very pleased that his low offer had been accepted so readily, Martin became even more suspicious. So he arranged for the house to be properly surveyed from top to bottom for he was sure that the surveyor would discover some awful problems that would make the low price understandable.
A few days later Martin received the surveyor's report and was very pleasantly surprised that it revealed that although the house needed some modernisation and minor repairs, it was actually very sound structurally. So, Martin rang Fiona to tell her the good news. Needless to say, she was very pleased. However, she continued to remain 'stumm' about the ghost rumour.
Completion took place quite quickly and Martin and Jane soon became the new owners of 'Miller's Lodge'. However, they didn't move in immediately because they wanted the modernisation work carried out first. With regard to the remedial work, although Martin tried to hire some local contractors to do it, they seemed strangely reluctant to take it on, so he had no choice but to bring in London builders. Although the builders reported that some eerie things happened while the work was being carried out, Martin chose to dismiss their reports as nonsense.
Eventually the house was ready, and Martin and Jane moved in on the day of their house warming party. The party went very well and after it was over, several of the guests stayed the night. However, although they heard some strange noises during the night, Martin and Jane assumed that it was a few amorous guests doing a bit of 'midnight creeping'. So, the next morning when some of the guests commented on the weird sounds they’d heard during the night, Martin and Jane looked around for people with red faces squirming uncomfortably in their seats.
Although Martin and Jane tried to be friendly, the neighbours remained aloof and made a point of staying well clear of the house. This did not bother Martin and Jane too much because they spent so much of their time in London. They also put it down to the locals being quiet, shy country folk who would take their own time to become acquainted.
About 3 weeks after the house warming party, Martin and Jane came down from London for a 2-week holiday and during their stay they soon became aware of strange sad wailings and movements in the night and, as a result, they quickly realised that the house was haunted. It was then that Martin understood why the purchase price had been so low and he had a go at Fiona at the estate agents for not telling them about the ghost, but to no avail. But the thing that really bothered Martin was not the sound of the wailing but the fact that if he ever wanted to sell the house, he would have to 'quieten' the ghost before they could put it on the market. So, although Martin tried to exorcise the ghost using "experts" and then a priest, it was all in vain.
While all these attempts to exorcise the ghost were going on, Martin made a few local enquiries and discovered that the house was being haunted by the ghost of a man called Matthew who used to live there. He also learned that although Matthew had been a very rich man, he had also been shy and lonely. However, after many years of living alone in that house, he had met a sweet young local girl called Mary and they had fallen madly in love. But on the eve of their marriage, she had suddenly died tragically at home in her parents' little cottage. Matthew had been totally heartbroken and after her death, he had lived like a recluse, before dying alone of a broken heart.
But another interesting thing that Martin learned was that Mary was haunting the little house where she had lived before her death and the people who were currently living there often heard the same sort of wailing noises that Martin and Jane were experiencing. So, after some thought, it crossed Martin's mind that if he could reunite the two ghosts, then the problem might disappear because the two ghosts would then be happy. But because the owner of Mary's house would not agree to Matthew's ghost being transferred to Mary's house, Martin accepted the fact that Mary would have to be transferred to his house.
After a great deal of research (although not through Yellow Pages), they found out about a man with special supernatural gifts who could help them. So, Martin hired him at great expense to come over from South America and, believe it or not, he managed to transfer Mary over to Matthew in Martin's house, where Martin and Jane decided to carry out a touching marriage service, because they felt that there might be a possibility that the couple of ghosts would not be happy unless they were married. After the 'marriage', Martin's house fell absolutely silent. Martin was so pleased.
After about 6 months of blissful peace, Martin and Jane set off on a 3-month cruise around the world. However, when they returned to their London home, Martin learned from the people looking after 'Miller's Lodge' that something had gone horribly wrong. So, he rushed down from London and when he got there late at night, he was absolutely horrified to hear the two ghosts squabbling like an old married couple. It was quite plain that all the lovey-doveyness and romance had gone completely from their marriage. But the thing that really bothered Martin the most about the tone of their voices was the realisation that things were only going to get worse - a great deal worse!
DREAM LOVER
Now Danny (23) normally went abroad for his holidays. However, after reading a magazine article about holidays in Scotland, he decided, that just for a change, it would be a good idea to go there. Aye, the thought of the fantastic Scottish scenery, hill-climbing, salmon and trout fishing and all the lovely Scottish lassies really appealed to him. So, after he persuaded his two chums, Stuart and Glen, to come away with him, he paid the deposit for a self-catering cottage in Sutherland, in the highlands of Scotland. But then on the eve of their departure, Stuart and Glen suddenly dropped a bombshell by telling him that they’d received a “better offer” and were dropping out.
Well needless to say, Danny wasn’t best pleased. But he decided that rather than lose the deposit he had paid on the holiday cottage, he'd go on his own and to hell with his so-called friends. However, within a day or so of arriving in Sutherland, he began to feel very lonely and wondered how he was going to last out for the rest of the three weeks on his own. So, when he saw an advertisement about a local dance, he decided to go, to see if he could meet some new friends there.
However, when he got there, he felt so shy and out of place, that he couldn't even summon up the courage to ask anyone to dance and instead, he hung around at the end of the hall, just watching the proceedings and feeling very sad and sorry for himself. Then, after about an hour or so, he began to feel so depressed, that he decided to return to the cottage and it was when he was leaving the hall to go home, that he bumped into Sally Montgomery.
Sally was a beautiful outgoing girl, with a lovely personality and an aura that immediately excited Danny to such an extent, that all his feelings of depression instantly disappeared. He asked her for a dance and when she nodded and gave him a lovely smile, Danny knew instinctively that he was going to fall in love with her.
They got on tremendously well, like as if they had known each other for years. They were both so happy in each other’s company and really enjoyed themselves for the rest of the evening. Then, when the dance was over, and they were heading towards their cars, Sally invited him to come and see her at her parents’ home the following day. Danny of course immediately accepted her invitation. But when he went to bed that night, he was so happy and excited that he could hardly sleep, for she was the most delectable creature he had ever met in his life and he could hardly wait to see her again.
The next day, he drove over to her home and was amazed when he saw that it was a magnificent mansion set in its own extensive estate, with breath-taking panoramic views of the mountains and glens. It was then that he realised that Sally was from a very wealthy background and sure enough, it soon became apparent that her father was a multi-millionaire.
Over the next two and half weeks, Danny and Sally were inseparable and were very happy in each other's company. She introduced him to all sorts of wonderful experiences and he was happier than he had ever dreamed possible. But what made it all so much better was the fact that Sally's mother, father and brother all liked him so much, that they put him completely at his ease and made him feel that he was a part of their family.
When the holiday was coming to a close, Danny and Sally realised that they had fallen deeply in love and, throwing all caution to the wind, they decided to get engaged. Everyone was very pleased to hear the good news, especially Sally's father, who offered Danny a job, which he immediately accepted. Sally’s dad also said that after they were married, they could move into a beautiful cottage on the estate. Danny was ecstatic and told them all, that as soon as he had sorted out his affairs back home, he would return to Sutherland - for good.
When Danny arrived home, he excitedly told his family and friends about his beautiful Sally, her friendly family, his new job and home and his ambitious and thrilling plans for the future. Then, after resigning from his job and saying his goodbyes, he gathered up his things and headed straight back over to Scotland. But each time he tried to ring Sally to let her know when he would be arriving, all he ever got was an unattainable tone down the phone line, which really puzzled him.
Later, when he arrived in Sutherland, he could not find the Montgomery estate. So, he asked some locals for directions and was really mystified when they told him that they had never heard of it. Furthermore, there was no reference to Sally’s family in the telephone directory and the local police had never heard of them either. Danny was thoroughly confused but decided to scour the area to try and find the estate himself. However, no matter where he went and no matter who he asked, Danny just couldn’t find Sally or her parents' estate.
Eventually he had no choice but to return home, totally perplexed. He just could not understand it all and was absolutely heartbroken. As for his family and friends, they began to worry that he was suffering from some kind of serious mental breakdown and that Sally was actually nothing more than just a bizarre figment of his imagination. But although they tried to get him to go and see a psychiatrist, Danny spurned all their attempts and, as time went by, he became more and more depressed.
Meanwhile, in another part of the world, the beautiful daughter of a multi-millionaire, awoke from a deep sleep and then immediately burst into floods of tears. When her alarmed mother heard her weeping, she rushed into her bedroom to find out what was wrong, and it was then that her daughter told her tearfully about the fantastically vivid dream she’d just had about the very nice Irish boy, who had asked her to marry him. She had of course immediately accepted his proposal because she was so much in love with him and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. It had all seemed so real and she had been so happy. But then she had woken up...and her dream lover had disappeared for ever!
Well anyway, that's more or less the end of the story and there's nothing much more to say I suppose, except perhaps that about six months later, Danny eventually came out of his depression and that is when he got himself another job, which involved moving to Philadelphia in the United States, where he met and married a beautiful girl called Sally Montgomery, whose ancestors had originally hailed from Sutherland in Scotland, away back in the early 1700s and from what I've heard, they are very much in love and extremely happy.
SULLY'S CHOICE
There was once an Irish priest on the west coast of Ireland called Father Patrick Flynn (55) and he was a very friendly, laid-back, jovial, cheerful sort of chap who was very well liked by all his 'flock'. Although he had been a priest for many’s the long year and had always 'done things by the book', he wasn't actually very religious at all. However, he did like being a priest and all the things that went with it, such as the house, ‘job security' and the social contact he had with all the local people in the area, whom he'd got to know very well over the twenty-six years he'd been their priest. Furthermore, because Bishop Bowles more or less let him get on with things in his own way, he was never put under any pressure and, as a result, his 'job' wasn't in the slightest bit stressful. In fact, as far as Father Patrick was concerned, if he’d been allowed to carry on in the same way for the rest of his days as a priest, he would have been an extremely happy man. Unfortunately, all good things eventually come to an end and sadly for Father Patrick, Bishop Bowles went to bed one night and woke up dead the next day. So that was the end of him and that's where Bishop Sean O'Connell comes into the story.
Now Bishop O'Connell was a bit of a high-flyer and in fact quite young to have reached the position of bishop in the Catholic Church. Needless to say, Father Patrick was a wee bit anxious about meeting his new young boss for the first time and his fears turned out to be justified for he was a cold, aloof sort of a boyo and there was something not right about him that Father Patrick just couldn’t put his finger on. Although Father Patrick had hoped that things would go on more or less the same way as they had done under Bishop Bowles, his hopes were quickly dashed for Bishop O'Connell soon made it clear that he was one of these ‘hands-on’ types who was full of new ideas and who wanted to make his mark in the area. Or in other words he was 'a new broom' who wanted 'to sweep clean'. Well this didn’t go down too well with Father Patrick, who just wanted to continue leading a quiet life and didn't want to have anything to do with these damned, new-fangled ideas. So, because he just wanted to leave well alone and carry on as before, he initially didn't show much enthusiasm for Bishop O'Connell's ideas.
Now Bishop O'Connell had a steely streak in him, so when it dawned on him quite quickly that Father Patrick wasn't too keen on carrying out his ideas, he began to hint that maybe it was about time for the good father to move on to pastures new. Well Father Patrick got the message loud and clear and decided he'd do his best to accommodate the good bishop in everything that he suggested, even though he used to secretly grind his teeth at some of the bishop's proposals, which, by the way, a lot of Father Patrick's 'flock' also thought were barmy.
Now one of the first things that Bishop O'Connell wanted was for Father Patrick to carry out a survey to find out how many single unmarried men there were in the area and when Father Patrick eventually provided him with the details, Bishop O'Connell told him to find brides for all these ‘poor’ men, because he felt that loneliness was a terrible disease and he didn’t want any of his 'flock' to be suffering from it. But Father Patrick knew this was a load of ‘owl shite’ and that Bishop O’Connell’s main goal was to increase the number of young catholic lambs in his area. However, Father Patrick was left in no doubt that he was going to have to make a sustained effort to find 'brides' for all the lonely bachelors round-about and this made him inwardly groan, for if there was one thing he didn't like, it was acting as 'matchmaker'. But he felt he did not have any choice but to fall in line with the new bishop’s request.
Now the thing that surprised Father Patrick was how successful the 'project' actually turned out to be and at each monthly review meeting on the subject, he was always happy to be able to report even more successes to Bishop O'Connell, who was of course very pleased. In fact, Father Patrick did so well that Bishop O'Connell began to suggest that he'd be exceptionally pleased if the good father could ultimately achieve a 100% success rate. Now although this sort of target put a wee bit of additional pressure on Father Patrick, he did not mind too much because he was actually quite confident that he would eventually reach that target. But there are always 'snegs' in life and with regard to this particular 'project' the 'sneg' was called Joseph Sully (40).
Now Joseph Sully had lived on his own for over 20 years in a wee cottage up the mountain and he was said to be a relatively wealthy man. On top of that he was a very decent, open, cheerful, handsome sort of boy, who had no 'back doors' in him. But despite his cottage, farm, money, good nature and handsome looks, he had never got married. However, when Father Patrick first talked quietly to him after mass one Sunday and explained his mission on behalf of Bishop O'Connell, he got the impression from Joseph that he was indeed very lonely and would love to get married. So, Father Patrick thought initially that Joseph's case would be easily resolved, especially when after making a few enquiries amongst the local women, he discovered three eager contenders: Theresa, Molly and Philomena.
Now to find three women interested in one man was quite unusual because a lot of the local bachelors were not what you could describe as good marriage material, on account of their being more than a little rough and ready, with very little going for them. So, at his next monthly meeting with Bishop O'Connell, Father Patrick told him confidently that he would be reporting Joseph Sully's forthcoming marriage at the following monthly meeting. Needless to say, the bishop was very pleased to hear this bit of good news.
However, things did not quite work out as Father Patrick had planned and even though the weeks went by, there was still no wedding announcement by Joseph. But when Father Patrick took Joseph aside one Sunday morning after mass, he discovered that the thing that was holding things up was not that Joseph had changed his mind about getting wed but because he liked all three women so much, he just could not make up his mind about which of them to go for. So, Father Patrick told him sternly to make up his mind quickly because the bishop wanted to hear some good news soon.
Well the months passed by and there was still no news of Joseph getting married and when Father Patrick was asked about him at the monthly meetings with Bishop O'Connell, he used to squirm uncomfortably in his seat and admit continued failure on his part. In fact, Father Patrick really began to regret his initial confident report to the bishop about Joseph all those months before because, as time had gone by, the bishop seemed to have become increasingly obsessed with Joseph's case and it had become the number one topic for discussion at their monthly meetings.
Now although Father Patrick saw Joseph in the congregation nearly every Sunday at mass, Joseph was a cute sort of a boy and he always made sure that he was first out of the chapel and away over the horizon as soon as the service was over and, as a result, Father Patrick never got the chance to 'pin him down'. So, he decided that he had no choice but to make the long trek up the mountain to Joseph's wee cottage, which he wasn't too pleased about because the weather was so cold, wet and windy.
Well, when he got there, he received a right wee surprise because instead of finding Joseph there on his own, he found him in the company of the three women Theresa, Molly and Philomena. Furthermore, it also quickly dawned on him that the women were not just visiting but were all actually living there 'in sin' with Joseph and had been for quite some time, which, in the eyes of the Catholic Church in that part of the country, was a totally unacceptable state of affairs. Now when Joseph saw that Father Patrick was a little taken aback, he explained it all by saying that although he'd thought long and hard about his three girlfriends, he'd never been able to make up his mind which one to choose. So, to get round the problem, he'd decided he'd take all three of them and he was glad he had for they were all as happy as they could possibly be
Well Father Patrick didn't know quite what to say, but it was clearly apparent to him that there was nothing that he could do to change things. But as he went back down the mountain, he began to worry about how Bishop O'Connell would take the news and he had this awful sinking feeling that he would want him to interfere in Joseph's affairs rather than 'let sleeping dogs lie'. But then he had an idea.
At the next monthly meeting with Bishop O'Connell, Father Patrick regretted that he had to report that there would be no further progress with the Joseph Sully case because unfortunately it had come light that poor Joseph was a homosexual, who had no interest whatsoever in women. Well this news sort of flummoxed Bishop O'Connell, who went a bit pink and shifted rather uneasily in his chair for a few moments before rapidly moving on to the next item on the agenda. As for Joseph Sully, his name was never mentioned again at any of Father Patrick's subsequent monthly meetings with the bishop.
With regard to the bold Joseph, you may be interested to know that he's still living with Theresa, Molly and Philomena up in his wee cottage near the top of the mountain and they are all as happy as Larry.
ADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE
Now I don't know what you think about the judicial system in this country but I've heard that there are some very powerful and influential establishment figures who secretly established a ‘think tank’ and, based on what they came up with, they are now pressing for big changes because they believe that the current legal processes take far too long, are much too expensive, produce far too many unsatisfactory results (with lots of obviously guilty people getting off scot-free and too many innocent people getting locked up for years) and is also far too soft on the real criminals. So, let me tell you about some of the various options that I've heard they would like to have introduced in the foreseeable future.
They are proposing that as soon as people are born, microchips should be implanted in their brains, thereby enabling a central computer to keep a record of all their movements and actions throughout their lifetime, which would therefore help the police resolve all crimes. For example, if a crime is committed at point X at 12.43 p.m. on a certain day, the computer would be able tell exactly who was there at that precise time.
They also believe that personality analysis software is now becoming so sophisticated and advanced, that it will soon be possible, with the aid of a computer, to immediately and accurately sum up that person's nature, political attitudes, morals, aptitudes etc, which would of course be very useful. For example, all unsuitable people could be 'weeded out', if you see what I mean.
Instead of bothering about lengthy expensive court cases, they think that when suspects are arrested, they should be given the infallible truth drugs that are currently being successfully developed and that if they are guilty, they should be sentenced immediately. For example, if the crime is a particularly serious one, they should be instantly executed. On the other hand, if the crime does not merit execution, then the convicted criminal should be rendered unconscious and placed in a special 'sleeping' tube, where they would remain for the duration of their sentence. Needless to say, such measures would reduce judicial and penal costs dramatically.
They believe that if people commit crimes, then it is a clear indication that they are not prepared to live within the rules of our society. So, although people would normally be given a second chance to reform after serving a sentence for a first offence, they would not be sent to prison again if they committed any subsequent offences. Instead they would have to spend the rest of their lives on a remote isolated island (from where there would no possible escape) to live whatever sort of lives they wanted. The basic thinking behind the principle is that if our society's rules aren't good enough for criminals, then they should go and live by their own rules on the island.
They would like to see convicted criminals branded on the forehead and, as a result, there would be different types of permanent brand marks to indicate the sort of crime(s) they have committed.
They are proposing two-way video links between prison cells and prisoners' homes so that prisoners could see what they are missing at home, which could be extremely painful for them, especially, for example, if their wives were having affairs with other men. There would also be links to special correctional units to enable young potential offenders to see what prison life is really like, in the hope that they would be deterred from any further criminal activities.
They think that if people are convicted of a crime, their sentence should be directly related to the effects of their crimes on their victims. For example, if someone commits murder, then that person should be executed. If, however someone steals something, then the thief would have to pay for a new replacement. If someone injures another person either physically or mentally, then a similar injury would have to be inflicted on the prisoner, who would remain inside prison until at least such times as the victim has recovered completely. If the victim never fully recovers, then the prisoner would never leave prison.
They believe that society could also consider doing away with prisons. Their thinking is that if people commit a serious crime and are charged, they should not be held on remand. Instead, they should be sent to live in the community where they committed the crime to work on behalf of the victim(s) in that community. Their case would then be re-assessed 2 years later when their behaviour during the 2-year period in the community would be taken into account when it is decided what should happen to them next. For example, if their behaviour is good, they'll remain working in the "aggrieved" community for as long as the judge decrees. However, if their behaviour is bad, the judge would allow the "aggrieved" community to decide what should become of them and to inflict whatever punishment they see fit. For example, they could even decide upon agonising death after hideous torture if need be. It is thought that if this system were adopted, criminals' behaviour in "aggrieved" communities would definitely be very, very good.
It has also been suggested that if people commit a serious crime, they should be sent away for life to a massive prison, where the walls and roof would be made out of unbreakable glass. There would be no warders inside and prisoners would have to fend for themselves in whatever way they could. It is thought that if this were adopted, the public would flock from the city to their local glass prison each weekend to watch the antics of the inmates in the same way as they currently go to see animals in the zoo and that, as a result, it would be a great deterrent.
They have proposed that if people are convicted of a crime, they should be given a choice: they could either fester for years in a really ghastly prison or they could become the 'victim's' slave for the same number of years that they would have spent in prison. Of course, it would never be an easy choice to make because 'slaves' would have to do everything their 'master' wanted and if a 'slave' was unlucky enough to get a bad 'master', life could be absolute hell.
It has also been suggested that when people are convicted of crimes, the authorities should run very accurate tests on their emotions, stamina, character etc and decide upon the length and type of sentence that should be imposed upon them. For example, if Joe Soap and Joe Bloggs commit exactly the same type of offence, Joe Soap would end up receiving a harsher sentence than Joe Bloggs simply because he is a tougher man. Or to put it another way, the system would compensate for the various differences in people so that stronger individuals would receive longer, stiffer sentences than weaker individuals. It is thought that while this might seem a little harsh, it would be fairer because criminals committing the same crime would, in real terms, receive exactly the same sentence/punishment.
They believe that if people are convicted of a serious crime, they should undergo a series of extensive tests to find out their weak points, both mentally and physically and when these are established, the courts would then decide upon an appropriate punishment. This way society would get to inflict the maximum amount of punishment and suffering on criminals.
Unbeknown to the general public, scientists have developed a technique which, if adopted, could enable them to reactivate that person's 'memory' brain cells after their death. It is thought that this technique could be applied to ascertain the truth about earlier incidents, murders and crimes. Furthermore, if someone was executed for a crime and there was some doubt as to whether they'd actually been guilty, the technique could be applied to their dead 'memory' cells to find out if the courts had been right or wrong (the technique could also be used to discover where criminals hid their loot, or who their bosses were or, if the crime was political, who was behind it etc). However, if the authorities ever used the technique and discovered that an innocent person had been executed in error, steps would of course have to be taken to ensure that the general public never found out.
It is also thought that a similar technique could be applied to people who are still alive and would involve scanning their memories after they had been rendered unconscious. It is believed that not only would the use of this technique help resolve unsolved crimes, but other government departments (such as the Inland Revenue) could put it to good use. Furthermore, the government could make some money from it. For example, private companies might well be prepared to pay for its use to vet prospective employees. At the lower end of the scale, private individuals might also be prepared to pay for its use. Or a fiancé might want to check up on his prospective partner's past etc.
With regard to the concept of judges and juries, it is proposed the current system be changed so that just before the start of a defendant's case in court, court officials would go out on to the streets and collect 20 citizens at random to try the case in whatever way they thought fit. Furthermore, if they found the defendant guilty, they could impose whatever sentence they thought appropriate. And there would be no appeal!
They think special surgeons appointed by the courts should be able to operate on the brains of convicted criminals to leave them in a kind of robotic state so that although they lose their personality and free will, they would still retain the physical ability to function as mindless slaves, capable of doing good work for the state for the rest of their days.
Well if you think some of these proposed options are a bit over the top, let me tell you about something really peculiar that actually happened in a court room not too long ago and which created a rather alarming precedent. But let me start at the beginning.
Despite massive efforts over a very lengthy period, the police had been having very little luck in satisfactorily resolving a particularly baffling murder involving a very important establishment figure and it was beginning to look like they were never going to get a result. But then a clairvoyant suddenly stepped forward and claimed that he knew who the culprit was and furthermore, he was so convincing that the police were sure they had at last found the killer. However, they knew that on the basis of the evidence, it was going to be impossible to even arrest and charge the suspect let alone secure a conviction in court. But then, following intensive pressure from on high, the legal authorities decreed that something would have to be done and, as a result, it was decided that the matter should go before a special secret court.
The whole thing started off with the unfortunate judge in charge of the case being told that it was down to him to give a ruling as to whether the evidence of this clairvoyant should be admissible. Well the poor judge had never had to deal with such a question before and for a long time, he scratched his head and prevaricated. But he eventually ended up saying that if the clairvoyant could prove beyond all doubt in his court, that his abilities were fool proof, then he would rule that his evidence was admissible. So, the clairvoyant was asked for a demonstration of his skills.
The clairvoyant was a chap called Bill Moses, who, by chance, was actually a good friend of mine. Well when he was brought into court and asked to demonstrate his skills, he soon had everyone agog at what he could tell them about themselves. For example, he told some of the officials there very intimate things that only they or their close relatives could possibly have known.
Now this was all very entertaining, but the main prosecuting council could see that the judge was still not convinced. So, Bill Moses was asked to turn his attention to the judge. Well Bill started to tell the judge what he'd had for breakfast and what colour his underpants were and so on and the judge was obviously very impressed. But it was when Bill started saying something about some young bit of stuff called Penny down in a Mayfair flat, who was good at bondage and whips and the like that the judge went a bit pink, immediately interrupted Bill and said that his ruling was that Bill's evidence would be admissible in his court.
Well you may wonder how I know so much about this case and why I am so interested in it. Well it's because of what happened after Bill revealed the name of the murderer in court because it led to me getting one hell of a surprise. There I was, sitting in my big Hampstead mansion, drinking my whisky and soda and avidly watching 'Neighbours' on TV when suddenly the doorbell rang. I was a bit annoyed because I didn't want to miss any of the action, so when I answered the door, I was a bit sharp and none too friendly. However, I soon changed my tune when I realised that it was the police and that I was wanted tout suite at this secret court at the Old Bailey on a murder charge.
Needless to say, I was more than a little bit puzzled when I arrived in court. However, when I saw my old pal Bill Moses coming up into the witness box to give evidence, I knew I would be okay for if there was anyone alive who knew I wasn't a murderer, it was him. So, you can imagine my astonishment when he pointed his finger at me and said in a loud clear voice “that's him, m'lud!”.
Well you know getting a life sentence for something that I didn't do was one thing. But what really got my goat is that these days that blaggard Bill Moses is sleeping with my wife in my big house and driving my Rolls Royce!
THE PHONEY CLAIRVOYANT
Mark was one of those incredibly lucky young men whom nature had blessed with startlingly good looks and a fantastic body and although he wasn't actually a very nice person, the majority of women just could not resist him.
Mark originally came from a very poor family and initially his only ambition in life was to become carpenter. However, when it dawned on him what a magnetic effect he had on women, he decided that rather than becoming a carpenter, he would use his good looks to make his way in the world. So, when he was 21, he left his home in the country and went to the city where he knew all the rich and famous women lived.
Right from the word go, he decided that he would go for older women because they tended to be the ones who had the most money and it wasn't long until he was using all his 'charm' and cunning to meet them. He was very pleased of course when he had the same effect on them as he'd had on the women back home and within no time at all, he was having affair after affair with these ladies, many of whom were old enough to be his mother.
He had a really great time, saw lots of the world, lived in absolute luxury and received many valuable presents and lots of 'pocket money'. In fact, he had many of those women competing with each other for his attentions and he really enjoyed this. But he was basically a very cruel sadistic person and no matter what any of them did for him, he always dumped them eventually, before moving on to his next wealthy conquest.
When Mark reached 35, he decided that he'd need to change the course of his life because he knew that it would not be too long until time would take its toll on his looks and he'd eventually lose his pulling power, which would mean that he could end up with nothing, if he was not careful. So, he decided he would find himself the richest woman available, 'fall in love’ with her, marry her and then 'work on her' until, one way or another, he ended up with all her fortune for himself. And that's when he met Eleanor (77).
Eleanor was an extremely wealthy woman who had inherited all her millions from her father. Although she was no beauty, she was nevertheless a very nice, kind, generous person. However, despite all her money, she was a very lonely old woman. So, when Mark began to 'court' her, she was very happy indeed for she thought he was such a nice young man and so handsome too. She fell in love with him and much to everyone's surprise, they got married two months later.
Needless to say, a tremendous amount of bitching and sneering went on behind Eleanor's back, for the majority of her friends and acquaintances considered Mark to be nothing more than a professional 'gold-digger'. But she did not care what they said because she was really happy for the first time in her life. Mark was happy too for he believed it would not be too long until he'd get his hands on all her money and realise his ambition to become a millionaire in his own right.
Although he found it very hard, Mark went out of his way to be nice and loving towards Eleanor in the hope that he could persuade her to sign over all her money to him as soon as possible, because he did not want to have to wait until she eventually died before he got his ‘pot of gold’. But rich people generally like to hold on to their money and it wasn't long until Mark realised that it was going to be a very long, drawn-out process. However, he was confident that he was on to a real winner with Eleanor and that, as a result, he should persevere because he knew that if he did, he would ultimately succeed.
But as time went by, Mark began to feel very bored and restless and started having affairs with a string of younger women, although of course he did so in such a way that Eleanor never suspected anything. In fact, as far as she was concerned, he became more and more loving as each day went by. However, he was taking a hell of risk with his secret affairs because she'd told him on the day they were married, that if she ever found out that he was seeing other women, she'd toss him out on his ear without one single penny and there was no doubt in Mark's mind that she meant it. However, the risk only made things more exciting and pleasurable.
Then Eleanor began to suffer very badly from bronchitis and her doctor suggested that she should leave the city and go to her villa in the Swiss Alps for a while because he felt the mountain air would do her good. So, Eleanor and Mark headed off for Switzerland in her twin engine private jet which he'd learned to fly. Mark had never visited Switzerland before, so they had a nice time travelling round and seeing the sights. But eventually Mark started to get bored again, so when Eleanor wasn't feeling too good and wanted to rest, he used to head off out on his own.
It was on one such a trip that he bumped into the beautiful Maria who fell for him immediately. They began to have a very torrid and passionate affair, although, as per usual, Mark kept it extremely secret. However, one evening, when he returned home, he got an awful shock from a rather grim-faced Eleanor. Apparently, Eleanor had met this lovely woman called Maleeta who was a clairvoyant and who had told Eleanor a lot of very interesting things about her life, including details about Mark and his relationship with Maria.
Mark instantly had visions of all of Eleanor's money disappearing out the window and he knew he'd have to fight his corner well or he'd be out on his ear with nothing to show for all the hard work he'd put into his 'investment'. So, he exploded with rage and ranted and raved that this woman Maleeta must be a phoney, a fraud and a troublemaker, that there was not one word of truth in anything she had said to Eleanor, that he loved Eleanor more than he had ever loved any woman and that he was terribly hurt to realise that she did not trust him.
And this tirade went on and on until eventually he could see from the look in Eleanor's eyes that she believed him. He then stopped, and she put her arms round him and pleaded for his forgiveness. Mark told her that of course he forgave her and repeated that he loved her more than he had ever loved any woman and that he would never leave her and so on. But later he secretly rang Maria to tell her that they would have to stop seeing each other for a while or at least until the clairvoyant had disappeared off the scene.
A few days later Eleanor suggested that they fly to the Canary Islands to do a little business and of course Mark jumped at this because he'd never been there before either. However, just before they were due to set off for Tenerife, Eleanor suddenly said she wasn't feeling too good and couldn't go. Mark was instantly disappointed, but she 'persuaded' him that he should go on his own, see to her business and then spend a few days there on his own sightseeing. He 'reluctantly' agreed, but on the way to the airport he was cock-a-hoop at the prospect of having a week or so of freedom.
Shortly after he took off on his own, he switched over to auto-pilot in Eleanor's private jet and sat back in his seat to enjoy the sun, the beautiful blue sky, the wispy white clouds and the sight of the sea so far below. But then he received a radio message from Eleanor. It annoyed him a little because he'd been feeling so happy and relaxed at the thought of being shot of her for a few days. But he did not show his annoyance and instead told her that it was lovely to hear from her.
When he asked her why she was contacting him, she replied that she was missing him, that she loved him and that she wanted him to know that. He said that it was a pity that she'd felt too poorly to come along. She then said that she had a confession to make that would probably make him very cross. She went on to say that she hadn't been poorly at all, that in fact the reason why she had decided not to accompany him was because Maleeta had warned her that if she did fly with him, the plane would explode and she'd die and while she agreed with Mark that Maleeta was probably only a fraud who couldn't be believed after what she'd said about Mark and Maria, she'd decided not to take any chances at all. And while Eleanor was telling Mark all this, Mark began to feel extremely worried. After all he knew for a fact that Maleeta was not a fraud and that she had not been talking rubbish when she'd spoken to Eleanor about him and Maria.
Now although Eleanor obviously could not see what was going on inside the plane, she could hear what was going on. She therefore heard the explosion that ripped the plane apart.
We all thought that Eleanor would be absolutely distraught and heartbroken after Mark's death. But she never even batted an eyelid. In fact, the more I talked to her after Mark's tragic death, the more I began to wonder if that clairvoyant Maleeta had ever existed at all or if I was ever going to hear the whole story.
A COOL RESPONSE
It's amazing how things can affect people so differently, even though their initial instant reactions to incidents are nearly always basically the same. For example, if a man were to walk into a restaurant full of people, wave a gun around and then start shooting indiscriminately, you could be almost sure that the majority of people would immediately react with horror. However, after the initial 'shock' reaction, each individual's subsequent behaviour would depend upon their personality and character. For example, some of them would freeze with fear or dive under the table while others would flee towards the nearest exit and there might even be some people there willing to put their lives at risk by trying to disarm the gunman.
Then, after such a traumatic incident was over, you would normally expect people to experience after-effects of some sort, although once again it would depend upon the personality and character of each person involved. While some people would recover very quickly, others might take years to get over the shock, if ever. However, it would be extremely unusual if an individual did not react at all in any way to a horrific incident and did not appear to experience any of the usual after-effects. So, when I heard about the details of the Carmina Stender rape case, I became very intrigued.
Now before I go any further I had better explain that I am a US detective in a police murder squad and my wife Susan is a policewoman working for the rape squad. But to continue with the story, about twenty-five years ago a horrific rape was inflicted upon a young eleven-year-old girl called Carmina Stender who was the only child of a multi-millionaire called Harold Stender (68) and his wife Tania (39).
My wife Susan was immediately drafted in to work on the case and later, she confidentially gave me the details. Apparently, an intruder (in his late twenties or early thirties) had broken into a luxury apartment in a very exclusive part of town during the afternoon to commit burglary and he'd come across young Carmina, who had been left on her own for a while by her mother who had gone out shopping. Now Carmina was an extremely pretty young girl and over the following two hours the intruder had repeatedly raped her in a most sadistic and evil way. In fact, if her mother had not returned and disturbed the intruder, Carmina might even have been murdered.
Now the strange thing about the whole incident was that although it had been an absolutely brutal attack and although the injuries inflicted on Carmina had been horrendous, when Susan arrived on the scene, she found that Carmina did not seem to be suffering any of the usual after-effects. For example, she was not crying, shaking, gabbling incoherently or clinging on to her mother or father or wanting to wash herself clean or behave as if she was terrified or anything like that. Instead she seemed totally calm and collected and all she seemed to want to do was to be left in peace to sit in front of the TV and watch her favourite programme.
My wife automatically assumed that the young girl was simply repressing her emotions but that later she'd suddenly break down and start showing all the usual types of symptoms of deep shock, fear, guilt and trauma. But the really weird thing was that although Susan's team kept a very close eye on Carmina over a lengthy period of time, the little girl never once showed any reaction to the nightmare that had been inflicted upon her. It was almost as if, in her mind, it had either never actually happened or else she just regarded it all as being nothing more than a minor irritation. Furthermore, even though the rapist was never caught, she never seemed to be afraid that he might come back or anything like that. In short, apart from the fact that the rapist had sliced off half her right ear during the attack, she didn't appear to be suffering from any other scars whatsoever, either mental or physical.
Well eventually Susan and her colleagues had to move on to other rape cases and the Carmina Stender case more or less became history. However, Carmina's reaction to her rape had been so unusual that Susan and I were really intrigued by her and we used to surreptitiously check up on her from time to time just to see how she was getting on and if she was at last showing any signs of a delayed action reaction. However, she always seemed fine and never appeared to ever suffer from any lasting ill-effects. In fact, she grew up into a very beautiful mature, extroverted, bubbly, well-adjusted adult woman. What may of course have helped a lot was the fact that she inherited a fortune from her father's millions when he died, and this helped her lead a very full and active live.
As the years went by, Susan and I eventually stopped thinking about Carmina until something very peculiar happened one day not long ago. I was sitting in the police station, nursing a very bad hangover when my boss landed me with this young man called John Slovin. Now John was in his late thirties and seemed an arrogant sort of a person. So, I instantly didn't take to him and what with my hangover, I wasn't in the mood for being too sympathetic or positive towards him. Well anyway, he said that he wanted to report an attempted murder. Although my instinct told me that there was no need for me to take his complaint seriously, I decided nevertheless that I'd better ask a few questions and make a few notes, just to make things look good.
Apparently, he'd met this extremely attractive blond woman called Maggie in a 'singles' bar and they'd immediately got on so well together, that they'd spent the whole evening together, although there had been no physical intimacy or anything like that. Well anyway, during the evening, this Maggie had told John that she had a pilot's licence and she invited him to accompany her on a flying trip she had planned for the next morning. Because John had been a pilot in the air force, really enjoyed flying and liked her company, he'd instantly accepted her invitation.
It had been really beautiful and sunny when they'd taken off in the two-seater plane the next morning and it wasn't long until John had realised that she was a very competent pilot who had obviously flown many times before. However, he was a little disappointed when she flew the plane away out over the boring empty dreary desert rather than over some of the area's famous beautiful scenery. But even so, he sat back and enjoyed the trip, because he loved flying and being in her company.
After they'd been flying over this seemingly never-ending desert for about two hours, this terrible screeching noise suddenly filled the cockpit and it startled John so much that he banged his head so hard against the roof of the cockpit that he almost knocked himself out. Maggie immediately turned around and told him in a panic-stricken voice that because the plane was out of control and going to crash, he'd better bail out. This puzzled John for he knew from his previous flying experience that it was very unlikely that there was anything seriously wrong with the plane and furthermore it soon became clear to him that the screeching noise was actually coming from a cassette recorder underneath her seat. So he told her that he assumed that she was playing some sort of an awful sick joke and he started to laugh. But when he noticed that she wasn't grinning or laughing and that instead there was a very strange, chilling expression of hate on her face, he began to feel very ill at ease and didn't feel happy until they were back on the ground again.
Well I hadn't heard anything really startling yet and was wishing that this guy John would wrap up and leave so that I could get myself over to the bar for a 'cure' for my hangover. But he went rambling on, saying that when they were back on the ground, she'd just vanished, without even saying goodbye and it was at that point that he'd felt an urge to examine his parachute. Well, when he did, he'd found that it had been tampered with in such a way that if he had jumped, the parachute wouldn't have opened, and he'd have fallen to his death. It was then that he'd become convinced that she'd been trying to kill him.
I still wasn't all that impressed by his story, but I decided I'd better ask him a few questions to show willing. So, I asked him what the girl's second name was, but he didn't know. I then asked him where she lived, but he didn't know. So, I asked him what her phone number was, but he didn't know that either. I was quickly beginning to get fed up, but I asked him what she looked like.
When he described her as being very beautiful, blond, about 5 feet nine, with a good figure and brown eyes, I wrote it all down in a bored sort of way. However, when he described the moment when she'd swished her hair and he'd noticed that half her right ear was missing, I really sat up and paid attention for it was beginning to dawn on me that, apart from the colour of her hair, the woman he'd been describing was Carmina Stender.
I then asked John if it was possible that the woman could have been wearing a blond wig and he replied that not only was it possible, but it was a certainty and that furthermore he was almost sure that the woman was actually brunette under the wig. When he said that, I began to feel even more excited for I knew that Carmina Stender was a brunette. But I did not reveal my excitement to John. Instead I just asked him a few more insignificant questions and before he left me, I promised that I'd make a few enquiries and then come back to him as soon as I could.
Over the next few weeks I unofficially made some covert enquiries and, lo and behold, I discovered quite quickly that Carmina did indeed have a pilot's licence and that she regularly flew. It was then that my instinct told me to have a look at the missing persons list and what I found quite startled me. Apparently, a large number of young men in their late twenties/early thirties had gone missing in mysterious circumstances during the previous 5 years. Further enquiries then revealed that just before some of these men had disappeared, they'd been seen in the company of a beautiful blond woman whom nobody seemed to know.
However, the thing that really startled me the most was my discovery that 57 of these missing men all had one thing in common. At some time or another, they had been in trouble with the police over sexual offences. Then a few more enquiries also revealed that John Slovin had been a suspected sex offender. A very large penny was beginning to drop in my mind. So, I decided that perhaps I should go and have a few words with Carmina. But I was disappointed to discover that she had left a few days before and had seemingly disappeared.
For a few days after that I thought long and hard about what I should do next. After all I was a veteran senior policeman and I therefore had a duty to initiate action against Carmina. At the same time, I hated sex offenders because of the grief and suffering they inflicted upon women and also because of the way that so many of them never received their just deserts simply because of the unsatisfactory nature of the law relating to sex offences. Furthermore, I didn't feel any great desire to see Carmina locked up for eliminating sex offenders because she had only done what so many other women victims must have fantasised doing.
Although I eventually decided to keep 'stumm' and say nothing to anyone else, I knew that there was something else I just had to do before I could let the matter drop. So, a few days later I went away out into the barren desert for a few days and after a great deal of hunting around I eventually came to a particularly bleak and remote area where I found just what I had been expecting - the bleached bones of over 40 skeletons and the disintegrating remains of parachutes that had failed to open!
TWIN REPLACEMENT
Although Lorraine and Carol were twins, they were not identical twins. In fact, they were totally different in almost every way. For example, whereas Carol was extremely beautiful and attractive, Lorraine was very plain and while Carol was amusing, articulate and extroverted, Lorraine was quiet, shy and very introverted. At the same time, although Carol was of average intelligence, Lorraine had an IQ of 160 and was said to be brilliant academically. In short, they were complete opposites in almost every way. However, although they were so different, they did the same things and, when they were younger, they were always together. For example, they went to the same school, played the same sports, had the same interests and hobbies, went to the same parties, had the same chums and even shared the same boyfriends.
When they left school (Carol 3 'A' levels, grades BCC; Lorraine 4 'A' levels, grades AAAA), they went to the same university, which was where they started to go their own separate ways. Although they continued to do a lot of things together, Lorraine began to devote more and more of her time to her studies while Carol threw herself enthusiastically into the university social scene and tended to neglect her studies. It was also around about that time that both girls started to decide what they wanted to do with their lives and ended up having totally different goals and ambitions. Whereas Lorraine was very ambitious and wanted to become a high-flying, successful career woman in advertising, Carol was quite happy at the prospect of just getting married and raising a family. When Lorraine became aware of Carol's wish to be 'just a housewife', she regularly chided her for her lack of ambition and they had quite a few rows, which often ended with Carol in tears. However, Lorraine eventually came to the conclusion that Carol was a lost cause, so she gave up having a go at her and concentrated instead on her own ambitions.
It was in their last year at university that Lorraine met John. He was a very open, down to earth, decent character who was good looking, intelligent and charming. Although he was very attractive to lots of the girls at university and could have taken his pick, he took a shine to Lorraine despite the fact that she was very plain and actually quite dull. Lorraine went out with him a few times but then dropped him, for although she liked him and was very fond of him, he was getting in the way of her studies and therefore her ambitions. Needless to say John was a bit upset at the way he had been dumped, but he soon got over it and that's when he became involved with Carol. They got on tremendously well together and within no time at all they were inseparable and soon became engaged.
When the two girls left university with their degrees (Carol 2.2, Lorraine a first), they went their separate ways. In fact, their paths through life were so different from then on that they very rarely saw each other after that. Carol of course did what she said she would do and she got married to John, became a housewife and had three children. She was very much in love with John and extremely happy with her lot. She also really enjoyed her children and although she didn't do any paid work, she derived a great deal pleasure from involving herself in the local community, doing things like voluntary work. With regard to Lorraine, she avoided men, marriage and relationships like the plague and immersed herself totally in her career. She was a real workaholic and work became the most important thing in her life, so much so that she used to take it home at nights and weekends and she never went on holiday or did any socialising.
Although Lorraine was extremely good at her job and became successful very quickly, she soon developed a reputation for being a really tedious nit-picker, a slave driver, a tyrant, an over-zealous perfectionist and in fact someone to be avoided as a boss, which led to very few people working very long for her and therefore a big turnover of staff in her department. This eventually led to problems with the directors of the company and, as a result, she resigned and started her own company which proceeded to do well, although she had to work even harder and for much longer hours.
Carol and Lorraine did not see each other at all for a period of around five years and it would have been even longer but for the fact that unfortunately for Lorraine, the recession took its toll on her company and no matter what she did to survive, the business collapsed with vast debts and she was declared bankrupt. What with all the stress, strain and worry, she was soon in very poor health and on top of that she even had to go into hospital to have a hysterectomy. So, it wasn't surprising when shortly after all that, Lorraine suddenly had a nervous breakdown at the age of 38.
Unfortunately, Carol and Lorraine's parents had both died a few years before and, as a result, there was no obvious bolt-hole for Lorraine to escape to. So, although she hadn't seen Carol for over five years and basically still despised her for 'being just a housewife', she felt so depressed and desperate, that she ‘ate humble pie’ and asked Carol if she could come and stay with her for a little while. Much to Lorraine's relief, Carol agreed without hesitation, saying that she would really love to see her again and that she could stay as long as she liked.
When Lorraine arrived at Carol's home down by the sea, they all made her feel most welcome. It was all so nice after all she had been through and she soon fitted into Carol's lovely cosy home. It was really good to be able to lie in bed for as long as she wanted every morning, get a really good rest and eat lovely nourishing food. She also found Carol's unquenchable sense of humour, zest for life and enthusiasm for everything a real tonic. Furthermore, John was really kind to her and treated her like she was his sister and, to make things even better, all the children quickly accepted her into the family. As for all of Carol's neighbours and friends, they were really nice to her right from the word go.
Lorraine soon began to feel a lot better and her spirits rose. However, as the weeks passed by, she began to start worrying about what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She knew that she could not stay at Carol's indefinitely and that she would soon have to move on, although she did not have clue where to. The thought of being alone again and trying to make her own way in life again frightened her intensely, especially as she had become so used to life in Carol's home. She loved sharing the warmth and closeness of family life and the relationships between them all. She also enjoyed monitoring the children's daily progress and immersing herself completely in all aspects of their family life. She really thrived on the atmosphere of love that filled the whole home.
It was all so different from the business world she had moved in, the world that she had thought would be so fulfilling and exciting, but which had turned out to be so lonely and which she now knew could never ever be ultimately as emotionally satisfying as Carol's world. Lorraine cringed many times when she remembered the days when she used to pour scorn on Carol and her simple ambitions and she wished that she could turn the clock back and start all over again, for she knew she would do things so differently the second time round. But deep down she knew there could be no second chance, that it was now too late and that she would never be able to have her own children, that she would end up sad, lonely and alone.
Although she hid it well, Lorraine eventually began to sink back into a black depression again and suffered constantly from melancholic regrets about her life and all that she had missed. It didn't help either when one day she read the following in a magazine article: 'the path to glory leads but to the grave.' It seemed to imply that it doesn't really matter how successful anyone is in life if at the end of it all, that person is just going to end up all alone without family and friends. And the future began to look so bleak and empty to Lorraine that she began to seriously contemplate suicide.
One bright breezy winter's day, Lorraine went for a walk by herself along the cliff-tops and as she looked down at the raging sea far down below, she suddenly decided that she would jump and end it all. But when she reached the cliff edge, she experienced a very strange feeling and then, inexplicably, she could see Carol smiling down at her from above, telling her not to jump, but to go home to her husband, children and friends because they all needed her so much. And then Carol said goodbye without any sadness and disappeared. Lorraine was so taken aback by this strange experience that the thought of committing suicide immediately left her mind. She felt like a new person full of energy and joy and she could also feel an incredible, irresistible force sucking her homewards. So, she turned to go home as fast as she could.
When she got in through the door, John immediately came out to greet her. He noticed that she was trembling a little, so he put his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek.
"You're back then darling," he said warmly, "you must be frozen....would you like a nice hot cup of tea?" She nodded and smiled. She knew that although she should have felt startled at being addressed as 'darling' and by John's intimate display of affection, but somehow it all seemed so natural, just as it was later, when the children returned from school and called her 'mummy' and also when the neighbours and family friends treated her as if she was Carol rather than Lorraine. In fact, it was almost as if they all didn't seem to notice that she wasn't Carol.
With regard to Carol, she has never been seen again on this earth, but Lorraine knows deep down that Carol is very happy wherever she is and that they will definitely see each other again someday. Finally, I am happy to be able to report that Lorraine and her husband John and all their children are all very well and happy.
DARK HERITAGE
It's strange the things that go on in the world, the things that you would never think could possibly happen. For example, take what happened to my friend Jack.
Jack (28) was a very a happy young man, who came from an extremely wealthy family. He had absolutely everything a young man could want in life, including good looks, marvellous health, plenty of money and brains and a great future in front of him. Needless to say, he led a very full and active life, involving himself in all sorts of adventures and new experiences and, of course, he always had plenty of women and friends around him to help him enjoy himself. But although Jack played hard, he also worked very hard in the family business.
Although Jack had been born in England, his original roots actually lay in a faraway country called Tesbettia. Apparently, his great grandfather, Zstuma, had emigrated from there away back in the 1800s and travelled all over Europe before ending up to England, where he had used all his money to start an import/export business, which, after a great deal of time and effort, had become very successful. After Zstuma’s death, the business had continued to thrive through the efforts of Jack's grand-father and father and had eventually become a multimillion pound empire.
Jack was extremely proud of his family and he decided one day that he wanted to find out more about his family roots in Tesbettia. Now I don't know if you have heard of Tesbettia (very few people have), but it is a very small secretive country in the far east, which is run by an extremely repressive and unfriendly regime, which does not generally allow tourists, journalists and other visitors in. But Jack was not a person to be easily put off and, as time went by, he became increasingly obsessed with the idea of going there to see the birthplace of his great grandfather Zstuma, even though his father tried to dissuade him by telling him that he would definitely not be granted an entry visa. However, Jack ignored him and continued making approaches to the Tesbettian government, which eventually relented, and, against everyone's expectations, he was granted a six-week entry visa, allowing him to go whenever he wanted. Needless to say, Jack was very happy about this and immediately made preparations for his visit to Tesbettia, finding out from his father all the places of family interest that he should visit and taking a crash refresher course in the Tesbettian language, which his father had insisted he should learn when he was young. Although his father continued to try and dissuade him from going by saying that Tesbettia was such a dour drab depressing country, that he would be totally disappointed and disillusioned, Jack ignored him.
At last the big moment came and Jack set off for Tesbettia. But when he arrived there, he soon saw that his father had been right, that it was an absolutely ghastly place, with poverty and deprivation everywhere. He found it to be a very backward primitive place without any of things that you would normally expect to see in a twentieth century country. For example, there were no phones, TV or internal postal services. It was also impossible to hire a car and the transport system was almost non-existent. However, despite all the problems he had to contend with and the fact that the officials generally made everything so very difficult for him, he eventually managed to reach the mountain village of Stoota, where his great grandfather had been born.
The people in Stoota turned out to be quite friendly compared to the people he'd met in the urban areas and although he found the local dialect very difficult, he did, with a great deal of patience, manage to find out a little bit more about his great grandfather and other ancestors. Jack found it all extremely interesting and was very happy that he had come. But then one day the police arrived from the city. They were terrible looking people with their dark glasses, guns and black uniforms and the villagers immediately cowered away from them before disappearing. Jack was very nervous himself because he knew the Tesbettian regime was such a repressive one, which is the main reason why he’d taken great care to respect all the country’s laws and customs, for he knew if he did not, he'd be in trouble.
But although the police initially seemed really frightening, they were actually very polite. They said that they had heard about Jack's enquiries about his great-grandfather Zstuma and, as a result, they had looked back through their own records and uncovered some very interesting information which the police captain had said he'd be happy to let Jack have, if he'd accompany them back down the mountain to police headquarters. Needless to say, a relieved Jack was extremely interested and was more than happy to accompany them.
When they met up, the first thing that the police captain got Jack to do was sign some bureaucratic form confirming that he was indeed the great-grandson of Zstuma and when this was done, he proceeded to give Jack a terrible shock by revealing information about Zstuma that neither he nor any of his family had known anything about. Apparently Zstuma had been involved in a long running dispute with a local merchant over some land deal and it had got so bad that Zstuma had ended up murdering him before fleeing Tesbettia with all the merchant's money, gold and jewellery. Jack of course was very upset to hear all this because he had been so proud of his great-grandfather. But he wasn't all that surprised to learn that Zstuma had been tried in his absence and sentenced to death.
When the police captain had finished giving Jack all these sordid details about Zstuma, Jack apologised most profusely to the police captain and the Tesbettian people on behalf of himself and also all his family for the awful crime his great-grandfather had committed. Now when the police captain accepted his apologies, Jack had thought that that would be the end of the matter and he'd be free to go. But as is often the case in life, there was one little snag. You see the legal system in Tesbettia is a very peculiar one in that every crime committed there has to be paid for one way or another and if the perpetrator of a crime cannot be punished for whatever reason, then it has to be paid for by the nearest surviving relative in Tesbettia, which, in this particular case, was Jack. So, they immediately took Jack out, put him up against a wall and shot him there and then, before closing the file and stamping it 'case closed'.
P.S. I have just read in the Sunday Times that the authorities in Tesbettia are relaxing their entry visa conditions and that, as a result, it will be easier for people to visit the country. However, if you're thinking of going to there, my advice to you would be check that none of your ancestors ever lived there, or, if they did, that they didn't commit any serious crimes for which they were never punished.
A CLAIRVOYANT’S CONFUSION
John lived by himself in a small house just outside a little village in the North of England. Sadly, his wife had died unexpectedly a few years before and whereas he'd subsequently tried his best to be positive and cheerful, he'd missed her terribly and often felt very lonely. However, there was one person whom he loved to see, because she brought such warmth into his life - his granddaughter Nicola (18), a lovely girl in every sense of the word. She loved her grandfather so much that she used to come up from the village three times a week to see him. He really appreciated her coming so regularly because her visits helped him forget his loneliness and sorrow. So, he was totally devastated when she was murdered one evening, on her way home from visiting him.
Although there was an extensive police investigation involving a large number of policemen and detectives over a lengthy period of time, no progress was made, and it was eventually decided that the murderer must have been someone passing through the area. So, the police unfortunately had no real option but to eventually scale down the whole operation. John was of course heartbroken, but also very angry and frustrated that they had not managed to catch the killer. But although the police had more or less given up all hope of ever finding the killer, John had not. Instead he continued making his own private enquiries, which involved questioning almost everyone in the village. People were generally very patient, sympathetic and helpful, especially Tom, a nearby neighbour and trusted friend, who used to drive John around the area. But sadly, John was no more successful than the police had been.
Then one day he spotted a small ad in a newspaper advertising the services of a London clairvoyant called Cy Standen. Because he'd unsuccessfully tried everything else, John decided he’d nothing to lose by giving clairvoyance a try. So, he contacted him and after he'd arranged an appointment for the following Thursday, he immediately began to feel excited and full of optimism, for he was sure that Cy Standen would be able to tell him who the killer was. He then told Tom, who agreed to come along too.
When the day of the appointment came, John and Tom got up very early and made the long train journey down to London. When they first met Cy Standen, they found he had a phoney American accent and, as far as Tom was concerned, he looked a very shifty looking sort of man, who seemed like he was a charlatan, only interested in getting the clairvoyance session over as soon as possible, so that he could get John to part with so much of his hard-earned savings. But John was oblivious to Tom’s reservations about Cy, because he felt that the clairvoyant was probably his last real hope.
John listened intently as Cy Standen started by saying that he could not make out the killer's name, but he described him as being a local person with a badly scarred face, a very bad limp and an awful ugly mark on his forearm which looked very like a birthmark. He also added that this man would be in John’s local pub the following Friday night. As the Bull and Last was the only pub in the village, John assumed that it must be the pub Standen was referring to. However, although he really racked his brains, he couldn't think of any local round the village who fitted Standen's description.
The next night, John excitedly went down to the Bull and Last pub as soon as it opened and sat there the whole night to see who would come in. But nobody with a scarred face or a bad limp came in the whole night. In fact, as he was sitting there, becoming increasingly depressed and drinking far too much, John became more and more convinced that there really was nobody who fitted Standen's description in and around the village. Then when Tom came in and heard John’s bad news, he asked him if he wanted a lift home. John said he would really appreciate that but not until the landlord had rung the last bell.
It was so unusual for John to spend all night in the pub, that some of the regulars became so curious, that they started asking questions and that’s when John told them all about his trip to see Cy Standen in London and his description of the killer. While he was talking, everyone listened to him sympathetically. Well everyone except George, which was not surprising because he was an odd, cold sort of character and a real loner.
Well as the others listened intently to John, George seemed to be ignoring everything he was saying. However, when John said that he was going to contact Cy Standen the next day to find out more about the killer, George suddenly chipped in and fervently tried to dissuade him, saying that it would only be a waste of time and good money. The others were rather taken aback by this intervention, but John refused to be persuaded by George.
At last the landlord rang the last bell. All the remaining customers felt terribly sorry for John because he looked so sad and depressed. But it was when he stood up to follow Tom out of the bar that they all realised that he had drunk far too much, for he tripped over a chair leg and crashed heavily on to the floor. They all rushed over to help him up to his feet and were horrified to see the nasty cut on his forehead. He had also hurt his leg badly and there was an awful bruise on his forearm, a bruise that looked like a birthmark. They tried to persuade John to go the area A & E hospital and told him that the wound looked like it'd need stitches and that if he ignored it, he'd be left with an ugly scar on his face. But he refused point blank and said he'd go to the doctor in the morning.
Tom drove John home and saw him safely into his house and then headed off to his own home. Although John went to bed, he couldn't sleep for there was too much going on in his mind. However, he was determined that even though Cy Standen had obviously made a bad mistake, he would return to him as soon as possible, no matter what it cost. It was then that John heard a noise outside his house and he knew instinctively that someone was creeping around outside. So, he jumped out of bed and stealthily looked out the window. Although there a full moon and it was very light outside, all he could see was a shadowy figure standing near an outhouse and looking up at the house. But although he could not see who it was, John was convinced that, following his peculiar outburst in the pub, it must be George. Then the shadowy figure moved forwards slightly and while John could still not see his face, he did catch sight of an absolutely grotesque birthmark on his forearm. John began to feel terrified, especially when the figure suddenly darted over to the house.
There followed the tinkle of glass and John knew he was breaking into the house. John immediately reached for the phone but found it was dead. He then tried to switch on a light, but nothing happened. He was absolutely panic-stricken and didn't know what to do. But then he heard the stairs creaking. So, he picked up his heavy walking stick and hid behind the door. When the door creaked open, John drew back the walking stick and let fly at the dark shadow coming in through the door. There was an awful clump, a piercing scream and then the sound of someone falling head over heels down the stairs. Then there was absolute silence. When the police came, they found that the unconscious intruder was not in fact George but Tom, John's trusted friend. He was immediately taken to hospital under police escort because he had a badly broken leg and a severely gashed face.
Several months later, when his case came up, Tom still hadn't fully recovered from his fall down the stairs and had to limp into court with the aid of crutches. And as he listened to all the evidence against him, he couldn't stop nervously fingering the scar on his face.
At the end of the trial, after Tom had been convicted and sentenced to life, John felt that, at long last, his beloved Nicola could now rest in peace.
THE FAMILY TREE
My name is Theresa, the second youngest of a large family of 12 children. We all lived in a big farmhouse at the end of a very long lane away out in the country and, needless to say, with so many children around, there was always plenty of fun, laughter and noise. Mind you there were plenty of barneys too, although this was understandable considering that we were all so totally different from each other in every single way. But generally speaking we were all very happy most of the time and loved our home and our parents dearly.
My father had been a farmer when he was younger, but tragically he'd been involved in a serious tractor accident a few days after he'd married my mother and he'd been forced him to give up it up. In fact, since the day of the accident, he hadn't been fit to do anything much, except sit in his rocking out on the porch at the front of the house, smoking his pipe and gazing out over the beautifully peaceful valley and the distant green hills.
But he was a big extroverted man who was kind, gentle and very wise. He was also a fantastic storyteller, with a very fine sense of humour, and we used to sit for hours at his feet, as he'd tell even more of his 'true stories'. Many’s the time he had us in fits of laughter and I could see that he always enjoyed it when we congregated around his feet, for although he had a great personality, he did not seem to have any friends and guests very rarely ever came calling at our house. I sometimes wondered about this and generally put it down to the fact that it was probably because we lived so far off the main road or because he had been out of circulation for so long. However, there were times when I used to get this feeling that for some strange reason, he did not want people visiting.
My mother was a very different type of person in many ways. Although she was as kind as my father and very loving too, she was tiny, self-effacing, introverted and very quiet, the sort of person who easily disappeared into the background in a crowd. Although she was firm, I never recall her ever raising her voice or her hand to us, although she must have had the patience of Job, for we could be a real handful at times. She was also a very religious woman and although none of us ever had to go to chapel (which was a little strange because she was a Catholic), she would disappear every Sunday without fail for several hours, to attend mass and carry out other voluntary works on behalf of the Catholic Church. Well anyway, we all had a very happy upbringing and never went short on anything, which was a little puzzling, for although my father couldn't work, there always seemed to be plenty of money around to pay for everything we needed. But we didn't pass too many remarks on this, for we were all too young to worry about how money was got and were only concerned about how we got spending it.
By the time I reached 18, the most of my elder brothers and sisters had left home. Some got married, others went to university and some got jobs elsewhere and so on. As for my brother Seamus, he stayed at home to work on the farm and I remained because my parents were getting elderly and needed care and attention, for by this time my poor father was almost totally incapacitated, and my mother was suffering badly from arthritis. The house, of course, was no longer a bedlam of screaming, shouting, boisterous children and whereas I was kept quite busy, I nevertheless had quite a lot of spare time on my hands. I used to do a lot of reading and writing. I also did a lot of thinking, for I had not made up my mind yet what I was going to do with the rest of my life when I was free.
But then came the day that my beloved father died. It was an awfully sad time and all my brothers and sisters came home to attend the funeral. There was much grief and many tears, especially when we recalled the happy times he had given us and remembered all his little jokes and stories. However, I was very disappointed that so few people had turned up at the funeral, but I assumed that this was because he had been out of circulation for so long, that there weren't many people around who actually knew him. After my father was buried, my brothers and sisters left home again to pursue their separate lives. But it was not long until they were back, for my dear mother died unexpectedly two months later. Once again there were floods of tears and lots of grief.
But it was when it came to the funeral service that I got a really big surprise. When my father had been buried, there had been so few people there, that it had been almost like a purely family affair. But when my mother died, it seemed like the whole village came along. The chapel was packed to the doors and I could hardly believe my eyes. My mother had seemed such a shy woman who had always kept well out of the limelight and it had never crossed any of our minds that she could have been so popular. After the service, Father Patrick Logan, the local priest, invited us and a lot of other people back to his house for tea and a chat. It was a lovely gesture and of course we all agreed. Back at his place, in the big drawing room, there was a lovely peaceful atmosphere and a sense of so much love in the air.
I sat in a big leather chair by the fire, sipping at my tea in silence and, from time to time, I glanced round the room at all my brothers and sisters and everyone else who was there. It was all so lovely and so very kind of the priest and I was reminded of an incident that had occurred in our house, many years before when I'd only been three years old, when Father Patrick Logan had once come to visit. Now he was about the only man I ever recall visiting our house and when he arrived, all my brothers and sisters kept calling him 'father' and this really upset me. Now he had noticed this and during a quiet moment, when he and I were alone, he asked me what was wrong, and I replied, with tears in my eyes, that I could not understand why all the others were calling him 'father' when I knew that our real father was out on the porch, in his rocking chair. And I remember how he smiled at me as he looked at the confused sad little expression on my face and how he patted me on the head so kindly.
"My dear Theresa," he whispered reassuringly into my ear, "it's a bit too difficult for me to explain because you're still so young, but I'm not really your father....more your uncle so to speak." I didn't understand what he meant by that, but I was so relieved that my father was still my father and that he wasn't going to be taken away and replaced by this priest. So, I said no more about and put it out of my mind.
I smiled at the memory and when I turned to mention it to the priest, I saw him gazing at my sister Patricia and I noticed that he had the same sort of an expression on his face that you would see on the face of a proud, doting father. Something suddenly went zing in my mind. I looked at Patricia and then back at the priest and then back at Patricia again and the more I looked at the both of them, the more similar in appearance they both became. And it suddenly dawned on me that Patricia's real father could be the priest.
I realised there and then that I had probably stumbled over some great secret and my heart began to pound wildly. But I still wasn't sure, so I then looked at my brother Sean before casting my eye around the room, looking very carefully at every face that was present. And lo and behold, after a great deal of silent and secret studying of faces, it became clear to me that Sean was the son of the local butcher; Mary the daughter of the local solicitor; Frank the son of a farmer; Philomena the daughter of a publican and so on and so on. By the time I had finished, I had accounted for the father of every single one of us apart from myself. I did not know whether to laugh or cry, but I now understood what my mother's voluntary works had been and why father had not liked visitors calling and why the priest had said he was my 'uncle so to speak' and why so many men had come back to the priest's for tea.
After my brothers and sisters left home again, I thought long and hard about the whole matter, but I eventually decided that I would not tell any of them, for they only had happy memories of our mum and dad and I did not want to jeopardise that in any way, especially as my mother would have told us herself if she'd wanted all the truth to come out. But I did pay another visit to Father Patrick Logan to have a little chat.
While I was in his cosy study with a cup of tea, I told him about my suspicions and he instantly went a little pink. But then when he had recovered his composure, he went on to explain that whereas my mother and father had both wanted lots of children when they had got married, he'd been made impotent by his ghastly accident. So, after a great deal of heart searching, they'd agreed together that my mother should let other men be the fathers of their children, but that there should not be more than one father per child, that the fathers should never come visiting nor made any claim on their children and that they should contribute to their upkeep. And as he told me the whole story, I remembered all the love and devotion my father and mother had given us all and I broke down and wept, for I loved and missed them so much.
When I eventually stopped crying and was on my way out of his house, I asked the Father if he knew who my real dad was. He shook his head, said he did not know and that I would have to discover that by myself. But do you know, in the seventeen years that have passed since then, although I have studied each man's face round the village and the surrounding area at least one hundred times, I still do not have any clue as to who my blood father is. I used to fret a lot about this, but now I don't care anymore. After all it did not really matter, for my real father was the darling man who had loved me so much and been married to my dear mother.
TOP DOG
It's amazing what gets into some women when they realise that they can't have any children. I remember my poor pal, big, fat Sammy O'Reilly, who decided at the age of thirty that maybe he'd better make a move in the marriage stakes before it was too late. So, one night, when he had a load of drink in him, he asked Madge Wilson to marry him. Well Madge was at least 35 herself and therefore no spring chicken. Furthermore, because she was nearly as broad as she was tall and only a bit better looking than any of them heifers you see out crazing in the fields, she wasn't in great demand by the men-folk round the village. So not only did she immediately say ‘yes’ to Sammy's proposal, but she made sure that the wedding took place that quick that Sammy didn't have the chance to change his mind.
Well anyway, although everybody said they weren't suited and that the marriage wouldn't last more than a few months and all that sort of thing, they actually settled down quite well together and there weren't that many times when we saw the walls shaking from battles going on within. However, things did start to go a ‘kinda’ wrong when Madge decided that she wanted a child. First of all, there was no more pubbing nor midnight movies on TV for Sammy. Instead it was early nights in bed and lights out, often as early as 7 o'clock in the evening. Man, she kept him at it 'ding dong' night after night until the poor man was but a shadow of his former self, walking about with a kind of a permanent limp and his eyes half closed. But they didn’t seem to be having much luck, which, to be quite honest, did not really surprise us because the two of them were so grotesquely fat, you'd wonder how it could have been physically possible for them to have even coupled, if you see what I mean.
Well after a year or so of rolling about in bed without any success, it eventually began to dawn on Madge that she was never going to become pregnant. And that's when she forgot all about having children and got herself a little short-haired male puppy dog, which was no bigger than a rat and which she called Angel. Sammy had his own secret name for it – Sooner. This was because it'd sooner do its wee jobs inside than go outside.
Madge immediately took to treating that puppy dog like it was a baby, dressing it up in children's clothing, with a little bonnet on its head and bootees on its feet and she was forever hugging it, kissing it, wheeling it around in a pram and wiping its bum with a tissue every time it did another wee job. Furthermore, she was forever sickening everyone by cooing and clucking and talking to it like it was a child. Sammy absolutely hated this 'dog child' Angel, because not only did it become number one in the house, but Sammy ended up being treated like some old mangy mutt himself.
That 'dog child' Angel could do no wrong in Madge’s eyes, but as far as Sammy was concerned, the damned hound wasn't good for anything but eating, sleeping and making messes in the house, which it always got away with, without as much as a murmur from Madge. She sure loved that dog, no matter what it did, and Sammy was the worst in the world if he ever opened his mouth against it. Also, the dog seemed to know Jack was only number two, for if Sammy ever came near Angel, the brute would snarl at him in a strange mocking sort of way. On top of that, Angel took over Sammy's chair, slept in his bed, got fed before him and if the dog had been able to read, it would even have got the newspapers before Sammy. But last but not least Madge wouldn't let Sammy near her in bed when the dog was around for fear of 'upsetting the poor wee thing'.
But then one day one of Madge's sisters came from afar to visit her for the first time in a long time and when she saw the way Madge was talking and carrying on like as if this here Angel was a child, she got fed up (especially when Angel nipped her) and she whispered in Madge's ear that if she wanted a real child, she'd be well advised to try again but to ‘change the rooster' this time. But Madge was so much in love with this pooch Angel that she didn't seem to take any notice of her sister's advice. However, some time later, when Sammy went away up the country for a few days fishing, this boyo Willie was seen a few times creeping over Madge's garden fence late at night and going into her house. Now none of us could be absolutely sure what all this furtive midnight creepin’ was about, but we did know for a fact that he wasn’t no dog lover. So, it wasn’t Angel he was going in to see!
Well by a very funny coincidence, Madge announced that she was pregnant shortly after Sammy arrived home from his fishing trip. Sammy was real pleased at the news for he was sure things would now get better as far as that damned mutt Angel was concerned and that the hound would no longer remain the centre of attention in the home. But in fact, things actually seemed to get worse and no matter what Sammy or anyone else said, Madge just didn't seem able to grasp the reality of the fact that the ever-increasing girth of her belly meant that she was going to have a real child soon and that, as a result, she should be giving all her attention to it rather than the dog. So, Angel continued to remain number one.
But then at last it was time for Madge to go into hospital to have the baby. Well they almost had to drag her there and of course there were floods of tears when they told her she couldn't bring the dog in with her and that it would have to stay at home with Sammy. Then when the medical people came to examine her, she wouldn't even look at them let alone talk to them because she was pining so much about her poor 'child' Angel being all alone at home. And she rang Sammy at least ten times a day to find out how Angel was getting on and if the poor wee mite was missing her and all that sort of sickly nonsense.
Well despite her not co-operating with the hospital nurses and doctors, on account of all her pining and worrying about Angel, Madge eventually had the baby. The dog seemed to sense this and that its 'mammy' would soon be coming back home, for it suddenly became very excited. It also took to growling at Sammy all the time because it knew that it wouldn't be long until it'd be top dog again and that Sammy'd be back in the 'doghouse'.
The big day arrived a few days later and Madge returned to the house with the baby in her arms. The dog was so pleased to see her that it ran hither and thither, jumped up and down, barked, licked her and wagged its tail. But it got a bit of a wee bit of a gunk for Madge clutched the new baby to her bosom and screamed at Sammy to "get that dirty flea-ridden brute out of my house and away from my baby!" Well Sammy didn't have to be told twice and he kicked the dog out of the house with the greatest of pleasure.
The poor dog looked a kinda stunned at this sudden reversal in its fortunes and the totally unexpected loss of its 'mammy'. Furthermore, things didn't improve for the dog for it was banished to spend the rest of its days outside in the garden shed. As for Sammy, although he knew damned fine that the child couldn't possibly have been his, he didn't give a damn - just as long as he was shot of that bloody 'dog child', Angel!
HUMAN GUINEA PIGS
John was a very bright young man who'd obtained A grades in all three of his 'A' LEVEL examinations. However, although he wanted to go into to law and become a barrister, he decided that he would follow the advice of his father and 'take a year out' before going to university to read law. His father's view was that it was better to 'rough it a little' and 'see a bit of the world' between leaving school and going to university, because such an experience tended to leave people like John more aware of the 'harsher realities of life' and therefore make them a lot keener to do well at university. However, when John left school, he didn’t want to do anything mundane like working in a supermarket or in a McDonald’s or anything like that. Instead he wanted to do something more exciting and was particularly interested in going over to the US.
One of the options he was considering seriously was driving people's cars from one part of the United States to another (e.g. say from Boston all the way down to New Orleans or LA or wherever) because not only would he get paid quite good money for doing this, but he would have the very enjoyable and interesting experience of seeing quite a lot of the US. However, before he could do anything like this, he knew he would have to find some money from somewhere. Although John's father was a very wealthy man, he believed that his offspring should make their own way in life without any handouts from him, for he felt that this would encourage them to use their own initiative and resourcefulness and, as a result, help them develop into better and more capable people. So, although John desperately wanted to go to the US, he knew that because he couldn't rely on his father to fund him to get out there and because he didn't have enough of his own money, he would have to get cash from somewhere else to pay for the trip.
However, one day, he came across a Californian website which seemed to be the answer to his funding problems. They were offering substantial amounts of cash to people prepared to act as guinea pigs for several simple medical tests and promised to pay all their travelling expenses for the initial interview in the US. So even though John was a little apprehensive about what the 'simple medical tests' would be, he decided that going for the initial interview wouldn't commit him to anything and, as a result, he responded to the website ad, because it seemed to be the only easy way of getting to the US free of charge.
A few days later, he received a phone call from a Mr Kobenz, who sounded a very pleasant gentleman and after they’d had a little chat over the phone, Mr Kobenz made it clear that because John seemed to meet his criteria, he would like him to fly over to California for a more in-depth interview, without any obligation and with all expenses paid. John immediately accepted his invitation and a few days later, the money for all his travel expenses duly arrived. Needless to say, John was extremely excited and immediately made his travel arrangements. After he had got the necessary visa and tickets etc, John flew into LA where he was met by a chauffeur-driven Cadillac and was driven to a beautiful palatial mansion, which was set in its own grounds (over five thousand acres), where he was introduced to Sam Kobenz, whom he immediately liked.
John quickly learned that Sam Kobenz (55) was a multimillionaire surgeon who had made a lot of his money carrying out operations on the very rich in California and although he had more or less 'retired' from all that, he was still a very busy man, devoting the most of his time to medical research, which he was carrying out in the specially designed medical facilities he'd erected in the grounds of his mansion and which was why he was looking for 'guinea pigs' like John.
John was a very fit, healthy young man and Sam Kobenz seemed very interested in him. When John said that he was extremely apprehensive about the nature of the 'simple medical tests', Kobenz reassured him that they wouldn't entail any drugs or anything like that and that the only thing they wanted from him was statistical information which would be based on blood samples, blood pressure readings, urine analysis and similar basic medical tests, which would follow physical exercise each day over a four-week period. So, John signed the contract, which Sam said would become valid when John passed the medical.
John was one of about thirty other young men and women applicants and after they'd all had their 'medicals', they made friends with each other and lived in absolute luxury in Kobenz's mansion, while they awaited the outcome of their 'medicals'. John got on so extremely well with all the others that he began to become afraid that he might fail his 'medical'. But he should not have worried, for he learned several days later that he had sailed through with flying colours, along with all the others.
During the following month, they all had a great time. After they had done a few physical exercises each morning and undergone simple tests, the rest of the day and night was their own and although under the terms of Kobenz's contract, they could not leave the grounds of the mansion, they were free to do anything else they liked, with no expense being spared. For example, they could order anything they wanted from outside, from say a crate of Jack Daniels to a high-powered motor bike or whatever. John spent a lot his spare time sitting in the sun, taking it easy, laughing and talking with the others and learning a great deal about life in the US - and earning a lot of money in the process! In fact, John enjoyed himself so much that when the month was over, and he was asked if he would stay on for a little bit longer, he readily agreed, although he was sad to see all the other ‘guinea pigs’ leave. And so, the life of luxury went on and John was very happy.
However, things suddenly changed one day. John was awoken early one morning by the arrival of an ambulance. He got up out of bed, looked out the window and saw a young man being carried into the mansion on a stretcher. Well John wasn't too concerned at the time and just went back to bed. But later when he got dressed, he found the door to his bedroom locked, which alarmed him. But when he saw bars sliding down over his window, he suddenly became very scared, because he realised that he was now a prisoner. Although he shouted a lot and banged on the door, nobody came for quite a few hours and even when they did, they didn't explain anything. Instead they just gave him a jab in the arm which knocked him out. It was a bit of a shame really because John had really been enjoying himself so much. But then how was he to know that Sam Kobenz's only son and heir Zack had been suffering from a deteriorating heart condition, which could only be resolved by a heart transplant from a suitable donor like John.
If you're interested in knowing what became of John and Zack, well John just disappeared off the face of the earth one day. However, his history was changed in such a way that no connection could ever be established between Sam Kobenz and his disappearance. As for me, I'm doing very well indeed thank you very much and I am once again leading a very active life, thanks to the skill of my father and also John's kindness in letting me have his heart.
P.S. By the way my father and I are currently working hard on a very exciting new project to help all our rich and powerful friends, who are unfortunate enough to be suffering from diseased hearts, kidneys and other such organs. Because transplanting human organs is becoming easier as time goes by and because the success rate for such operations is getting so much better, we decided to round up as many of life's riff-raff as possible and place them in top secret concentration camps away out in the desert, where we shall keep them until our friends want organ transplants.
HIS FORMER WIFE
Although married with two children, Jack (31) was a real chauvinistic pig, who treated his wife in a contemptible way. For example, he never did any housework or shopping, nor did he ever give her any money and was forever having affairs with pretty young things. But if she ever tackled him about being such a pig, he wasn't averse to giving her a slap and the odd black eye. He was a real 'jack the lad' and a ladies’ man and although he'd always had big ideas about making millions and enjoying all the very best that life had to offer, he'd never actually seen his dreams come true. This was mainly because he was basically lazy and not prepared to put in the hard work to achieve his goals. But that did not stop him dreaming and he remained for ever on the lookout for opportunities to hit the big-time.
But then something strange happened one sunny summer's morning that changed things forever. Jack was on his own in a fancy, high-class bar in a select part of town when this very attractive woman in her early thirties came in and, needless to say, Jack gave her a good look over. But what happened next really took him by surprise, for she made a beeline for him and gave him a big warm kiss on the lips. But what puzzled him even more was that after a lot of kissing and hugging, she told him that it was really great to see him after such a long time.
Jack was really confused because he was totally convinced that he had never seen her before in his life. So, he assumed that, somehow or another, she was confusing him with somebody else. However, when he tried to enlighten her, she would not listen, and, in fact, she went on to say things that baffled him even further. For example, she made it clear that as far as she was concerned, he was her husband, that they had been together for 7 years and, for the most of that time, they had been blissfully happy. She also added that she'd been really sad when he'd suddenly upped and left, although she did admit it had all been her fault.
Jack was so perplexed by all this that it suddenly crossed his mind that it must be a ‘set-up’ and that he was on something like 'Candid Camera'. But when he looked around for hidden cameras, he could not see any. He then wondered if she was just playing games with him or even if she was mad. But despite his reservations, he quickly decided to play along with her. After all, not only was she extremely attractive but when she took out her purse to buy drinks, he saw that she had thousands in there and he realised that she was obviously a very rich woman. So, in his usual way, he immediately saw an opportunity to have sex with a beautiful woman and also make a lot of money as well.
She ordered some drinks and while she talked about her life, their children, her career and all her money, he let on that none of what she was telling him was new, that he was totally familiar with everything about her. She then took him to a very expensive restaurant and, over lunch, she agreed to give him thousands to set up a business and buy anything else he might need. Jack was becoming increasingly ecstatic, for his instinct told him that he was on to a real winner with her.
Later on, after she had bought him some very expensive presents and jewellery, she invited him back to her home. He of course accepted her invitation and the chauffeur drove them in her Rolls Royce out to her palatial mansion in the country. Jack could hardly believe his luck for he was now even more convinced that he had hit the jackpot - at long last! What also made it better was the fact that she seemed to really like him. So, when she suggested that they should put the past behind them and get back together again, as man and wife, he readily agreed.
After they’d had a cocktail out on the veranda, she showed him round the house. It was an absolutely magnificent place and he was staggered by its opulence. Needless to say, he felt excited when she showed him her bedroom, but he knew he'd probably have to wait a little longer for that sort of fun to begin. She then took him down to show him the 'wine cellar'. However as soon as he entered the dark cellar, she slammed the door and locked him in. At first, he did not worry too much because he thought she was just playing a little game. But when she did not return within the next 10 hours, he began to get anxious. But it was when he came across the skeletons of all her other 'husbands' that he became really worried.
LIVING IN FICTION
Although Tom was in his early thirties and had tried to achieve many things in his life, he’d never had any success. In fact, he had come to the sad conclusion that he was nothing but a loser and 'a road to nowhere man' and this realisation led to him becoming increasingly depressed.
One night, while he was out in a pub, drinking himself silly and feeling very sorry for himself, he fell into conversation with a man called John, who was about the same age as him. After they’d chatted for a while, it began to dawn on Tom that John was just was depressed as he was, if not more so. And as he listened to John’s tale of woe, Tom learned that he was an unsuccessful writer, who’d had so many rejections from publishers that he’d given up writing completely. Despite the depressed way he felt himself, Tom spent the whole evening encouraging John to start writing again and eventually John agreed to do so, on the one condition that he and Tom remained friends. Tom wasn’t too happy about this condition because he had visions of spending many long, boring nights in pubs having his ears bashed by John repeating his problems over and over again. However, he pretended to enthusiastically accept John's condition.
Although Tom was pleased that he’d been able to help John, his own depression worsened for some strange reason over the next few days. However, just when he seemed to have reached the lowest depths of despair, things suddenly started improving for him in every respect. For example, he met some very beautiful women who fell in love with him; he unexpectedly came into large amounts of money; he acquired a lovely home, flashy cars and many other opulent things; he also found himself going on exotic holidays and being involved in lots of very exciting adventures. In fact, within a relatively short period of time, his whole life changed completely for the better and he was, as a result, a very happy man.
Not long afterwards, Tom accepted an invitation from John to come to his flat for dinner and as soon as he arrived, John started to talk very excitedly about his new novel. Tom was very pleased that John was in such a better frame of mind and was quite happy to listen to him going on and on about his writing. However, when John showed him the draft manuscript and asked him for his comments, Tom cringed because he hated reading and commenting on other people's creative work. However, once he started reading the draft novel, he could not lay it down. This was because the events in the novel were so similar to all the things that had happened in own life over the preceding few months.
It soon also became clear to Tom that, as a result some very strange phenomenon, he was, somehow or another, living in the fictional world of John's novel, although John seemed to be unaware of this. It then dawned on Tom that this was the reason why his life had improved so much recently. So Tom advised John to ensure that the novel had a very happy ending. He also suggested lots of other exciting and pleasurable plots that John should include in the novel. John always followed his advice and, as a result, Tom continued living a fantastic life. As for John, he had a great deal of success with his novels and, in a relatively short space of time, they had all been published. Not only that, but they became so popular that they got into the top 10 and were even been made into films, which, of course, made John very rich and famous.
One night, John was coming to the end of his fourth novel. He was on to the last chapter and had just finished the section about the fantastic lovemaking session between the hero and his fabulously beautiful girlfriend and also the beautiful moment when they’d said au revoir and he’d returned alone to his beautiful penthouse apartment overlooking LA, so happy and so much in love. But then sadly, tragedy struck, and John suddenly died. The whole literary world was saddened by John's death but nobody more so than Tom, who found himself trapped in limbo in that beautiful LA apartment. Tom was absolutely terrified for he was convinced that he would remain there alone and lonely, in frozen time, for eternity.
Several years passed and John's unfinished book remained in his study gathering dust. However, one day, his nephew Will came across the manuscript and decided that as a mark of respect and in memory of his uncle, he would complete the novel for him. Now Will wasn’t much of a writer but after a great struggle, he managed to complete the last chapter and therefore the novel. Mind you the ending was crappy and very boring because Will was a very dull sort of chap, whose ideas and imagination weren’t up to much. But Tom didn't give a damn about that for although he's once again a loser and 'a road to nowhere man', he is at least free and back in reality! At last!
JAMES’S WIFE
(a true story)
A few years ago, I knew two women who, although twin sisters, were totally different in almost every way. For example, whereas Patricia was an extremely beautiful, attractive, amusing, articulate, outgoing extrovert, her sister Sandra was very plain, quiet, shy and introverted. Anyone meeting them both for the first time would probably have formed the impression that Patricia was the real winner in life, with so much more to offer both in looks and personality than Sandra. But nature is a great equaliser and very few people have everything their own way. For example, although Patricia was a real stunner and Sandra very plain, Sandra nevertheless had something about her that really appealed to men. In fact, whatever it was, it was so powerful that no matter what boy Patricia brought home, it was never too long until Sandra had pinched him off her.
When they both left home, they went their separate ways, Patricia becoming a very successful model down south and Sandra a civil servant up north. Needless to say, Patricia's glamorous lifestyle was full, exciting and hectic, whereas Sandra's seemed very routine, boring and dull. Furthermore, whereas Patricia made herself a lot of money, Sandra was very poor in comparison. Then one day Patricia met and fell in love with a very handsome young man called James Smith and she could hardly wait to get married to him. So, the wedding arrangements were made, and all the family, relatives and friends were invited, including Sandra of course, who turned up on her own looking very dull and dowdy.
Generally speaking it was a really good day and Patricia enjoyed herself immensely, although there were a few anxious moments. For example, she caught James gazing at Sandra with a most peculiar expression on his face a few times and she also wasn't too happy when James asked Sandra to dance a couple of times at the wedding reception, for it brought back memories of all the boy friends that Sandra had 'nicked' off her when they were younger. However, the day was soon over and once again Patricia and Sandra were heading off in their different directions, with Patricia and James heading off on their honeymoon and Sandra returning home to her lonely house.
Although the newly-weds had a very nice time, James seemed very moody and distant at times. However, it was when they got back home that Patricia got a real stunning shock for instead of her and James starting up their married life together, he packed his bags and headed off up north to move in with and subsequently marry Sandra, after his divorce from Patricia eventually came through. Needless to say, Patricia was absolutely heartbroken. Also, her pride had taken a such a hell of a battering that she decided there and then that if she ever fell in love with anyone again, she would make sure that Sandra never got to know anything about him, let alone meet him. In fact, Patricia felt so bad about Sandra and James that she stayed well clear of the both of them and the two sisters did not speak for years.
However, as time went by, their parents died, and Patricia began to mellow, because Sandra was the only family she had left. So, she eventually got around to talking to her again on the phone from time to time. However, when Patricia met the second love of her life, a man called Jim, she married him in a registry office and Sandra was definitely not invited. Furthermore, she made sure Sandra never got to know anything about Jim. Well Patricia and Jim lived happily enough down south and remained very much in love. Then when she gave up modelling, she started writing very successful freelance travel articles for magazines, which involved going to holiday resorts throughout the world, sampling the delights that each had to offer and then writing articles about her experiences. Needless to say, it was very pleasurable and right up her street, although she nearly always had to go alone, because Jim had to remain at home to run his computing consultancy company.
It all happened one time when Patricia (then 42) set off to tour round the China. She never had a fixed itinerary for such trips because she always liked to follow her instinct and just go where she got the urge to go. As a result, nobody ever knew where she was at any given point in time or where she was going to be next. She liked it that way for she really enjoyed being on her own and hated being contactable by 'bloody nuisances'. However, one day after she had been in China for over three weeks, she suddenly felt this compelling urge to ring her 'agent' and when she did, she was told that her sister wanted to speak to her very urgently and that, unfortunately, it was really bad news. Needless to say, Patricia immediately rang Sandra who, as soon as she heard Patricia's voice, broke down into floods of tears.
What with Sandra's hysterical weeping and the telephone line being so bad, Patricia had great difficulty getting much sense out of Sandra. However, she did eventually get the drift that James had died suddenly and most unexpectedly from a heart attack. Even though Patricia had once loved James with a real passion, she'd got over him a long time before and although she said she was very sorry and all that, it wasn't long until her sister's floods of tears and wailing down the phone really began to irritate her so much that all she wanted to do was put the phone down on her.
When Sandra asked Patricia when she'd be back, Patricia lied and said she didn't know because she was away out in the back of nowhere and it was going to be difficult to make travel arrangements. So, Sandra told her 'not to worry', that she'd go ahead and make the funeral arrangements. She then asked Patricia where she thought the funeral service should take place and Patricia suggested the cremation chapel where their own parents had been cremated and Sandra said she thought that this was a nice idea. The telephone line then began to really crackle so badly that Patricia said that she'd better ring off, although she'd be over for the funeral as soon as possible. However, as soon as she put the phone down, great waves of resentment flooded over her. Although she would never have admitted it to Sandra, she did however selfishly think that it was a real drag for James to die at that point in time, because she was enjoying herself so much in China. She also felt more than a little needled at being expected to return home to pay her respects to the man who had hurt her so much all those years before.
Patricia decided that she wasn't going to rush herself and that she'd return to England when she'd finished what she was doing. In fact, as the days went by, the less inclined she felt like going back for the funeral and she began to wonder if she shouldn't ring up Sandra at some stage and make her excuses for not coming. But then she remembered how upset Sandra had been over the phone and she reluctantly began to make arrangements to go back to England.
Patricia dawdled about so much on the way back that she nearly missed the funeral service, arriving right at the very last moment at the cremation chapel. Everyone else was already in the chapel, but she didn't look at any of them, for she only had eyes for Sandra whom she rushed up to and embraced. Poor Sandra immediately dissolved into floods of tears and Patricia felt so sorry for her and also guilty that she had not come back sooner to comfort her in her hour of need. They then sat down together in the front pew, with Patricia comforting her sobbing, distraught sister as much as possible.
Well the priest started the funeral service and went on to say the usual things that they say at such events about people whom they do not know, and he droned on and on about what a lovely man James had been and so on. But Patricia wasn't really listening too carefully because she'd heard this sort of old claptrap many times before. However, the thing that really began to get on her nerves was the fact that every time the priest mentioned James and his 'devoted, loving wife', he looked directly at her instead of at Sandra, which she knew must have been very hurtful and upsetting for Sandra. Now she knew that the priest probably didn't know anything much about James, but she felt that he should nevertheless have made some kind of an effort to establish who exactly the widow was. So, she stared resolutely at the priest and every time he mentioned James and his 'loving and devoted wife' and then looked at her instead of Sandra, she nodded her head surreptitiously sideways towards at Sandra.
The priest gave her a few funny looks but continued staring at Patricia whenever he mentioned James's ‘loving and devoted wife’. So, Patricia changed tack and every time he mentioned James' 'devoted, loving wife', she raised her hand behind Sandra's back and pointed directly at Sandra. Now although Sandra could not see this going on, everyone else obviously could and Patricia felt really embarrassed about it. But unfortunately, it didn't work either and the priest continued to keep looking at Patricia rather than at Sandra, which annoyed her so much that she started mouthing foul obscenities at the priest, who began giving her even funnier looks.
Well anyway the funeral service eventually came to a close and after the coffin had disappeared behind the curtains on its way to the cremation furnace and the solemn music had started up, everyone filed out sadly from the chapel. Patricia didn't like funerals at all, so although she was really sorry for her poor sad grieving sister, she was rather hoping that she'd be able to share a few words of condolence with her and then make her excuses and leave. However, when she got out of the chapel, she got such a terrible shock that she instantly fainted, for there coming to greet her after such a long time was James, her first husband.
Well when she eventually came to, she opened her eyes to see Sandra, her first husband and a crowd of other people all gazing anxiously down at her. For a few minutes, she was unable to say anything and just lay there, opening and shutting her mouth like a fish out of water, staring in a horrified way at her first husband, just like she had a seen a ghost.
"Who the hell have we just cremated?" she eventually managed to ask.
"Why your husband James of course, my dear...who did you think it was?!!" Patricia could hear the distant jangle of a penny dropping in the fog of her mind and as she allowed them to help her up on her feet, she thought it might be better not to reply to their question. She also decided that it was probably not an appropriate moment to enlighten Sandra and tell her that, in fact, she used to refer to her late husband as Jim rather than James.
LIVING IN SUSPENSE
Not long ago I met an American chap called Charlie, who told me the following incredible story about a man called Hunter Bland and his quest for eternal life.
Hunter Bland was an extremely rich young man (23) who had inherited many millions from his father when he died. Unfortunately, he was not a very nice sort of person, being arrogant, selfish, and self-centred and, as a result, most people considered him to be an absolutely obnoxious brat. But he didn't care what people thought of him and did whatever he wanted, enjoying life to the full. He had plenty of girlfriends, lovely holidays and countless interesting, exciting experiences and absolutely the very best of everything in life. However, although he had everything that anybody could possibly want, he was, nevertheless, very unhappy about one simple fact - that he was going to grow old and die. This used to bother him incessantly and because he felt that the world revolved round him, he couldn't bear the thought of it going on without him.
Now his experience of life up until then had been that if you had plenty of money, there were always ways and means to get around anything. So, he decided that with his money, he was going to buy eternal life one way or another and that’s when he became more and more interested in the concept of cryonic suspension, which involves the subject being cooled just after legal death to a temperature where physical decay essentially stops, and being then maintained indefinitely in cryostasis, until such times as future medical technology allows the subject to be revived to live an extended life in good health.
One day, while he was doing some further research into this, he found out about some secret work being carried out by several very eminent scientists, which involved a rather different approach, in that they were prepared to put subjects into cryonic suspension at any stage of their lives and not just after legal death. Or to put it more simply, they had developed the ability to 'freeze' people's lives, by stopping their hearts, draining their bodies, freezing them at controlled temperatures for however long they wanted and then bringing them fully back to life at some agreed stage in the future. Then when the subject was revived, and they decided that they wanted to skip another couple of hundred years or so, the whole process could be repeated. Furthermore, this could be repeated many times, although eventually the natural aging process would inevitably bring the whole thing to an end because, generally speaking, the average time a human body can be actively alive is only around 70 years (i.e. 3 score years + 10).
Hunter Bland immediately went to see these scientists and after a great deal of secret negotiations, they entered into a 'hush-hush' contract that would enable him to live for at least another 1000 years. The basic terms of the contract were that he would be 'frozen' for 50 years, brought back to life for 2 years, then be 'frozen' for another 50 before being revived for another 2 years etc. With regard to the mathematics of it all, it was all based on the assumption I mentioned above, that the majority of people normally expect a lifespan of around 70 years. So, in Hunter’s case it was 70 years minus his age of 23 years divided by 2 years multiplied by 50 years which would equal around 1175 years.
He was so happy and pleased with the contract that he could not restrain himself and although he had sworn under oath not to tell anyone, he couldn't help but tell a few very close 'friends' about it and how he was looking forward to seeing how the world had changed after each 50 year 'frozen' period. He also told them that he was confident that at some stage during the 1000+ year period, scientists would resolve the problem of the ageing process and death and that when they did, he would be able to choose to live forever in whatever future period he liked.
Although he was very rich, he was aware of the fact that the costs of maintaining the contract and arranging the operations/treatments etc far away into the future would be a real drain on his resources and he was therefore initially worried that if he ran out of money at some stage, the whole process could eventually come to a premature end. However, his accountants were able to reassure him that the interest earned on his investments during each 'frozen' period would be more than enough pay for the next 1000 years ‘treatment’.
Hunter Bland then made plans for his organisation to compile interesting news and current affairs videos during his years away, which he could look at and update himself on, whenever he returned from a 'frozen' period. He also constructed a special 'sleeping chamber' room in his mansion where he would 'sleep' in a 'frozen' state until the next awakening. The room was nuclear bomb proof and earthquake proof and one of the most sophisticated computers in the world was purchased and its purpose was to monitor him while he slept and also control the temperature in the special 'freezing' tube that he'd be in.
When he'd taken care of all the practical things relating to the contract, he started arranging farewell parties to say goodbye to all his friends without actually telling the vast majority of them where he was going. Those that didn't know what was going on were a bit puzzled, but that didn't stop them having one hell of a good time. Then came the big day, which was about 2 years ago. During a secret operation, the scientists and doctors stopped his heart, drained his body etc, and put him in the special tube in his 'sleeping' chamber, where he was to remain for the next fifty years, after which time he would then be revived and brought back to life for an exciting 2 year 'live' period in whatever reality existed at that time.
I was absolutely fascinated by the story and as I wanted to know more, I asked Charlie if Hunter Bland was still in the 'sleeping chamber'.
"No, I'm afraid not," he replied, "things didn't quite work out as planned...one night some new cleaner came in to do her job round Hunter's mansion and the guy in charge of things forgot to tell her that cleaning the 'sleeping chamber' was not part of her job and was, in fact, out of bounds.
“Well anyway she went into the 'sleeping chamber and when she couldn't find a spare power point for her vacuum cleaner, she unplugged the computer that was controlling the temperature in Hunter's special 'freezing' tube and used its power socket for her vac.
“Well a couple of weeks later, the guy in charge of things wondered what the hell the funny smell in the 'sleeping chamber' was and he got a bit of a shock when he looked in the special 'freezing' tube and found nothing but a pile of poop.
“Needless to say the cleaner got fired after that....and do you know they wouldn't even give her a reference...I thought that was very mean of them and so unfair on her, because I thought she was a very nice wee woman and a damned good cleaner, who had done an excellent cleaning job throughout the whole of Hunter's mansion during the period of time she'd been employed there.
“Well anyway, that was the end of her....as for Hunter Bland, well that was sorta the end of him too."
OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY
The sky was grey and threatening; the hills looked bleak and hostile. But this was his chance. He climbed the low stone wall at the back of the cottage and ran up the heathery slope. As he ran he expected at any moment to hear someone calling him back as they had always done before. But this time his father was away from home and the talkative woman from up the hill had just dropped in with a fresh piece of gossip for his mother and she had a powerful thirst for tea.
He ran as hard as he could go until he knew he was out of earshot. But as he went on and on, he began to realise how high and far away the hills really were for no matter how far he ran, they seemed to walk backwards out of reach. His heart pounded, and his lungs seemed to be bursting and he was more than a little scared of the strange silence around him. But he was not giving in.
He reached the top of the first hill and paused to look around. Before him lay a little declivity and then another, steeper rise. He had never been up there before for he was only five and his mother did not like him wandering too far away. He was her only child and she was a nervous woman who had never grown used to living in this remote place among the hills and Patrick had had to content himself with playing by himself round the cottage where she could keep an eye on him.
He had invented many exciting games for himself and always appeared happy with his lonely lot. Nobody guessed that he was filled with curiosity about what lay beyond the hills behind the house. He thought about them a great deal and imagined that on the other side there was a sunny little village with pleasant neighbours and plenty of children to play with. The more he imagined it, the stronger grew his curiosity until it had become a burning ambition to climb the hills and see for himself.
As he struggled up the final slope Patrick forgot his fear of the lonely silence for he was sure that any minute now he would see the village of his dreams and hear the voices of children shouting to each other.
He reached the top. Before him lay an immense stretch of moss and moor land. A cold wave of disappointment passed over him. There was no village; no sign of life anywhere. But then his eye caught a gleam of white in the distance and gradually he picked out the shape of a little cottage a long distance away. He stared at it, straining his eyes for any sign of movement, but there was none. However, the distant blue haze might just be smoke from the chimney and he was full of curiosity about the lonely little cottage.
He hesitated on the hill top and turned to look back in the direction of his own cottage, which lay at the foot of the hill like a little matchbox. Above him in the big sky a lark was singing. Its tiny, sweet song made the whole lifeless expanse of land and sky seem emptier and more lonely and he felt very small and frightened. Whichever way he went, he was a long way from anyone. So, he decided to go on.
As he ran down the hill towards the cottage the sky seemed to grow darker and more threatening and the whole empty landscape seemed to hold its breath and listen and watch his every movement. When he reached the lower slope where the hedges began, he kept closely to their shade. He wanted to see the cottage without being seen.
Within a few minutes, although they seemed like hours, he was quite close to the cottage. He crouched down in the shadow of a thorn tree and stared at the place. He was gasping for breath; a sick feeling clutched at his stomach; he was alone in strange territory and cold with fear.
The cottage was old and derelict; there was no sign of life at all. Patrick stared at it a long time, hoping against hope that something would move. It fascinated him and filled him with dread. He wanted to run away and at the same time, he wanted terribly to go and explore.
Keeping low in the tangled grass and brambles he crept slowly nearer and nearer till at last he could touch the cold, grey stone at the base of the wall. He inched himself up to his feet and moved across till he could peer in through a broken window pane.
There was nobody inside, but this did not relieve his feeling of terror. An acute sense of danger, which had been growing since first he came face to face with this deserted cottage, warned him to run for his life. But curiosity drove him, and he was a very small, scared little boy as he moved along by the wall till he reached the door-step. He put his hand to the door and pushed. It creaked slowly open. Something moved in the gloom inside. Patrick screamed. The rat stared up at him. He could see its wet, quivering nose in the shadow. Then it turned tail and fled.
The big, lofty kitchen was dark and musty. Dust and litter lay everywhere. Among the rubbish he could make out the broken bits and pieces of what once had been a family's precious possessions: a chair leg, a broom without bristles, a broken basket, a rusted alarm clock, the head and shoulders of a china doll. People had lived here one time and there had been children, laughter and weeping. Now there was silence and dust and nothing moving except the scurrying feet of the rat.
Patrick no longer felt frightened. The gentle melancholy of the little house made him feel sad and yet strangely comforted. He began to explore in every nook and corner, turning over the dusty relics of a family story. Everything fascinated him, especially the old alarm clock which still had most of its works. He thought of taking it home with him and put it carefully on one side. Then his eye fell on the whistle.
It was on the mantelpiece, gleaming and not dust-covered like the other things. He reached up for it and, as his finger-tips touched it, some strange, haunting feeling ran through him. He did not know how to play a tin whistle, but he put it to his lips and began to blow.
The most beautiful music he had ever heard filled the room. It rose and swelled till it filled the whole cottage the very walls seemed to vibrate with the echo. The air misted with music till it was completely dark.
For a few moments Patrick could see nothing. Then the air cleared, and he saw a big turf fire blazing on the hearth and the kettle hissing steam above it. The kitchen was bright and shining and full of laughing, singing, dancing people. He was in the middle of a cottage ceilidh.
"Come on, me boy", someone said, "give us a reel now". He had hardly started until they were on the floor again: young men and old men their faces shining with sweat, young women with their hair flying and old women with their long skirts lifted so you could see their petticoats. Even the little children were dancing in their own corner. They moved to the music of his tin whistle and the music he made was lovely and gay. He tapped his feet in time to the music and the heart in him was as light and merry as the dancers on the fire-lit floor.
Patrick awoke to find himself under an unfamiliar thorn bush. It was nearly dusk, but he could still see his own home at the foot of the hill. With scarcely a glance at the higher hill that loomed all dark and shadowy beyond the shallow decline, he turned his face to home. He ran all the way downhill and burst excitedly into the kitchen. His mother was standing by the window looking strained and anxious. He brushed her nervous reproof aside and began to babble out his strange story. His father, who had come home, looked at him in puzzlement as he rambled on.
"There's no cottage over there", he said. "I heard tell there was family lived there one time, but there's not hilt nor hair of their house left. They do say they were the great ones for the ceilidhs and dancing. But that was long before my time. They went to America at the time of the Famine. I used to hear my grandfather talkin' about them. But there has been no house there for as long as I remember."
"But there is, daddy," the child insisted. “Come and I'll show you."
"Very well, then", he promised, "we'll go and see some time when it's daylight."
The next evening his father finished work earlier than usual and when Patrick reminded him of his promise, he agreed to go. The mother thought the two of them were mad as they started out to cross the hills.
"The child will be tired out," she complained.
"I'll carry him when he gets tired," her husband reassured her.
When they neared the top of the high hill Patrick ran ahead, eager to point out the cottage to his father. The sun was setting and the whole sky and the hills were filled with a golden light. There was great silence and peace on the landscape and Patrick had no sense of fear or loneliness with his father just behind him.
He reached the top; and stared down across the waste of moss and moor land. There was no cottage; not even a trace of a cottage anywhere. His eyes began to fill with tears. Then he felt his father's arm around him.
"It was a dream you had, son," he said.
"It wasn't a dream," Patrick insisted, his voice sharp with disappointment. "It was there......down there where the bushes are. I saw it. I was in it. I saw the people dancing. I played the magic whistle."
"Of course, you did, son," his father answered, "of course you did. Many's the time the like happened to myself. Many's the time indeed."
Before his father lifted him to his shoulder, Patrick took a last look out across the golden landscape. And, as he looked, the music of the tin whistle rose once more from among the clump of bushes and swelled and echoed around the lonely hills.
THE LONG TRAIL HOME
High up in the lonely mountains, beneath a big blue sky, a black speck moved slowly upwards, climbing higher and higher, into the searing inferno of the midday sun. That black speck was Jack McQuail, returning home for the first time in 23 long years. However, if he had known what was awaiting him at the end of this tortuous journey, he would never have started out. But as he wearily struggled up that soul-destroying mountain, Jack McQuail was not to know that this was to be the last trip he would ever make.
Forty-two years had passed since Annie McQuail unexpectedly gave birth to the child she'd hoped would console her for the tragic loss of her first son, who had died 10 years before when she and her husband John had been making that awful gruelling westward trek to Sally Springs, a "lucky strike" town, where it was rumoured "gold nuggets the size of turnips" were lying all over the ground, “just waiting to be picked up” by people like themselves. They’d been like so many other poor pioneers those days, without anything to their names but their dreams and hopes when they’d set out for that desolate hellhole to seek their fortune.
But there had been no gold nuggets "just waiting to be picked up" and what gold there was began to peter out early. The prospectors found more hardship than riches and after many mishaps and disappointments, John gave up prospecting for gold and set up as a blacksmith, his former trade. Life had been a struggle, but John became a well-respected man and, even though Sally Springs was a "dying" town, he managed to scrape a respectable living. Then that joyous day had arrived, after they had almost given up all hope, and a fine, healthy boy was born, their second son, Jack.
"He's the image of you, John", Annie had said. "Please God he'll grow up to be a fine, decent man like yourself." But Jack did not grow up to be anything like his father. Whereas John was open, honest and friendly, Jack was cold, remote and moody; a big disappointment. He took absolutely no interest in his father's trade, preferring instead to spend his time watching the cowboys swaggering around in their leather chaps and spurs and listening to them boasting about their daring exploits. Now and again, if he was "lucky", he got to handling a gun. Although his father and mother hated guns, he loved them and had this feeling that someday they would help him achieve all the things he had ever dreamed of. Becoming a blacksmith was not for him; it was too much like hard work and hard work was only for "contemptible" fools like his father, not "clever" young men like him with exciting "plans" for the future.
On his nineteenth birthday, Jack went out for a long walk and returned riding a fine chestnut and wearing a gun belt. He dashed into the house and returned moments later clutching a bag containing all his parents' hard-earned savings. When his mother caught sight of the gun she screamed and on hearing this, his father rushed from the smithy. Jack was already at the horse's head, a wild, desperate look in his eyes. His father took in the situation at a glance and his usually calm face went white with alarm and rage.
"Where did you get that horse? .... and what in God's name are you doing with that gun?" he shouted. Jack drew the gun and levelled it without answering. His father drew back a pace, but his mother rushed between them and clung to Jack's arm.
"Jack", she cried pitifully, "what's the matter with you?" He shook her off roughly and clambered up into the saddle. His father rushed forward and tried to seize the horse's bridle.
"Wait a minute, Jack," he said, "wait till I talk to you".
Jack did not reply but swung the horse round and dug in his spurs. As he was about to round the corner he stopped, turned in the saddle, picked out his father's dejected figure and fired one shot. A cruel smile covered his face as he watched his father fall bleeding into the dust, clutching his shattered "hammer" arm. Then he spurred forward again and disappeared in a cloud of dust, the thunder of the horse's hooves drowning his mother's screams as she flung herself down beside her beloved husband.
At first Jack became a casual cowhand, helping cattle men to round up their herds. He was hired readily enough for his strength and horsemanship but was just as readily fired for his arrogant idleness and his penchant for provoking stupid fights. So, he gave it all up and turned to crime. He joined up with a gang of desperados who made a living through violent robbery. Banks and stage-coaches were their usual targets and over the years they terrorised a wide stretch of country. Jack quickly became the most formidable of the gang members! Tall, dark and immensely strong, with cold, piercing eyes and dressed completely in black, people kept well out of his way as the word soon spread that he was a man without any compassion, who readily killed people for pleasure.
At first the gang's freedom seemed unassailable and Jack enjoyed those days riding with the boys, living out his blood thirsty fantasies. However, as time went by and the security net tightened, they began to become disillusioned. Some men gave up the game and settled for earning a living in peace; some were killed; some grew old and unreliable; some were caught and sentenced. Then one day, there was only one gang member left: Jack McQuail. He was on his own and no longer felt such a big tough man. Like so many bullies, he was basically a coward, and, without the support of the others, he quickly lost his appetite for blood and trouble. Even his black clothes - once so sinister and threatening - were now faded, threadbare and torn. He knew he was a wanted man with a substantial "dead or live" reward on his head and he could sense the hangman's noose was getting closer. But then he had an idea he knew would save him. And he set off on the long trail home.
At the start of his journey, Jack McQuail had felt weak and vulnerable. However, the farther he rode into the bare hill country, the more relieved he became, for he knew he was travelling out of the reach of the law. Farmsteads grew fewer and less prosperous, till at last he was high in the bare foothills, where nothing grew except stunted little trees and long, yellowing grass. There was no shade from the sun's naked heart. His shirt clung to his body, heavy with sweat and his mouth was gritty with warm dust. Then, across the vast hard dome of blue sky, he noticed the black wings of vultures as they wheeled and hovered. They seemed to stare at him from the remorseless blue with black malevolent eyes.
It was when he reached the lower slopes of the mountains that the horse went lame and he had to shoot it. All the while the sun was becoming hotter and there was not a drop of water in sight. The vultures hovered patiently overhead, as he dragged one foot after the other, dripping with sweat, his half-blind eyes resolutely fixed on the path ahead, staggering ever onwards and upwards.
Then, half crazed with weariness and thirst, he began to "see" the faces of all the men he had murdered. The ground was running with their blood and their bleaching bones were lying everywhere. He heard his mother scream and saw the pained surprise in the eyes of the young cowboy whose horse and gun and life he had taken away so cruelly all those years before. He saw his father crumpling in the dust. Above all his nightmares the vultures hovered, their wings spreading like a black evil cloud.
But suddenly the nightmare lifted, and he realised he was home. There was not a soul to be seen on the deserted streets; no sign of life at all. Broken doors hung askew on rusted hinges; windows stared blankly; a shutter creaked in a fitful gust of hot air, then was still. Sally Springs had been a ghost town for many's a long year and he knew he would be safe there. Nobody would ever come to such a god-forsaken place.
Jack McQuail thought of his father and mother for the first time in 23 years and wondered for a moment what had become of them. But he had more pressing things to think about; there was a spring well to be found and buck rabbits to be hunted down; and plans to be made. Maybe when things had quietened down, he could form a new gang and go out and make some real money!
The vultures hovered above, so close that he could almost look into their evil eyes. He cursed them and staggered on down the street. Then suddenly he heard a familiar voice calling his name and he turned around in astonishment. Sad, pitiful eyes stared intently into his, searching desperately for some sign that despite all the grief and suffering he had inflicted on so many people, there might nevertheless be a glimmer of remorse and humanity in his soul. But there never had been any room in his heart for human kindness or love and it was plain to see from his depraved yellow eyes that there never would be.
"May God forgive you, Jack McQuail, for all the evil things that you have done." And a single shot rang out. He fell on his knees, pitched forward, sprawled face downward in the dust, dead.
The lonely 17-year vigil was over at last. The rifle fell from her wizened hands and clattered to the ground. She sank to her knees and tears flooded down over her hollow cheeks. Some of those tears were for her poor crippled husband who had died a broken man 17 years before and some were for Jack's many innocent victims. But most of her tears were for him. Although he had been a cruel, vicious killer, he was still her son.
But he would kill no more. And the black wings closed in.
THE BURNING CANDLE
I once knew a woman called Mary and she was probably the nicest person I have ever met. Although very plain, physically handicapped and stout, she had an absolutely lovely temperament and no matter how bad things ever were, she was cheerful and positive in her outlook all the time. She always had a warm smile on her face and was a really kind and generous person. But the thing that made her attitude all the more remarkable was the fact that she'd had such a hard, tough life, which had been so full of disappointments, that nobody could have blamed her if she'd become sour and bitter.
When Mary was only five years old, she was abandoned by her parents and put into an institution. Although she wasn’t one for crying, she wept her heart out that day. She received virtually no education while in the institution and when she left that place at the age of fourteen, she found life so tough that the only way she could make a living and survive was by doing all the very dirty, menial jobs that nobody else would do, which was not easy for her on account of her physical handicap, which meant she walked with a permanent limp and could only bend down with difficulty. Then, at the age of twenty-eight, she met and married John and soon she became pregnant. However, when her son Danny was born, John abandoned her. She cried again that day.
But Mary had no choice but to make the best of things and bring Danny up on her own. So, she found herself a little cottage and a few acres of land in a remote part of the country, away up in the hills where the deep snow lay on the ground for months on end during the long winter months. Although it was very difficult to eke a living from her little farm, she had such a fighting spirit that she made sure young Danny always had enough to eat and clothes on his back. In fact, the only real interest in her life was Danny and she poured all the love she'd never had herself on to him.
Because the area they lived in was very poor, there were very few jobs. But when Danny left school, Mary never stopped trying until she managed to eventually get him a job in a mine about three miles away. But what made it even better was the fact that even though the job involved rough, tough work, Danny loved it. He also made new friends down the mine and really enjoyed their company.
Mary's whole life continued to revolve around Danny and when he was away working down the mine, she'd spend all day every day thinking about him and looking forward to his coming home in the evening, when she'd give him the meal she'd so lovingly prepared and while he was eating, she would listen to all his gossip. After all the disappointments of her earlier years and the harshness of her life, she was very happy and hoped that it would never end. As for Danny, he loved his mother and was very happy living with her at home.
Later on, when he looked back over his life, he used to say that that was the happiest period of it and he had so many happy memories from that time. I remember him telling me once that during the winter months, when it was so cold and dark, and he was plodding home from the mine through the deep snow, he always looked forward to that moment when he would reach the top of the hill, look down the valley and see the candle that his mother always put in the window to guide him home. Danny used to love to see that candle for he knew it would not be too long until he'd be sitting at home, warm and snug, in front of the big log fire, eating a piping-hot meal, safe and sound from the cold world outside.
Unfortunately, things always change in life. Now every Saturday night, hail, rain or snow, Danny would always make his way down to the little village tavern 3 miles away for a few drinks and lots of laughs with his mining pals. Mary didn't mind this as long as Danny was happy. However, one Saturday night, while down in the tavern, he met an old friend home on holiday and this young man told him about all the money he could make abroad, the brilliant life he could have and all the women he would meet and so on.
By the time he had finished, he had filled Danny's head full of so many hopes and dreams, that Danny decided there and then that he'd leave the mine, go abroad and try his luck there. Needless to say, when he told his Mary, she was distraught and tried to persuade him to stay and not give up his precious job. But he was adamant and when she eventually realised that he was utterly determined to go, she resigned herself to the fact and did not stand in his way. But when the day of his departure quickly came around, she was so very sad, lonely and depressed. And she cried again that day, after he had gone.
Before he actually left, Mary promised him that during the long dark winter months, she would always put a candle in the window to guide him home through the snow when he came back to visit her and this she did for year after year without fail. Before she went to bed each night, she would always take one last lingering look out across the snow to see if she could see him making his way homewards through the snow. But despite all her hopes and dreams, never once did she experience the joy of seeing him struggling homewards through the snow, guided by the light of her candle
Initially he used to write to her regularly and she looked forward to going down to the village post office once a week to collect his letters and post some of her own back to him. However, as time went by, his letters began to become less and less frequent until eventually, five years later, they dried up completely. This made Mary feel very sad, but even so she still kept going to the post office each week, just in case. And of course, she continued putting a candle in the window to guide him home.
Although she lived on her own and very rarely had any social contact with anyone else, she remained as cheerful as possible. As for Danny, although life aboard was never as fulfilling or as exciting as the young man had said that it would be, he did, nevertheless, do quite well. He found himself a fairly good job and made quite a lot of money. He also met and fell in love with a girl called Kathie. Although initially, he had meant to keep in better touch with his mother, he somehow never seemed to find the time in later years. But he never grew tired of telling people about what a lovely person Mary was and what a beautiful life he'd had back home when he was younger. And of course, he always told the story about the candle in the window.
Unfortunately, nine years after he'd left home and four years since he'd last written to Mary, things started to go badly wrong for Danny. Not only did he lose his job, but Kathie found another man and left him. Danny felt so heartbroken and depressed that he decided on the spur of the moment that he'd go home to his mum. Because his decision was spontaneous, there was no time for him to warn her. He also thought that it would be a nice surprise for her if he was to suddenly walk through the door unexpectedly.
After a very long tiring journey, he eventually got back to the village quite late, only to find the dark streets were totally deserted. He had hoped to have a drink and a chat in the tavern, but it was shut. So, he started off on the last lap home over the dark snow-covered hills. Memories of all the lovely times he'd had in the past came flooding back to him and as he dragged himself wearily through the snow, the thing that kept him going was the thought of seeing the candle in the window to guide him home through the snow. But when he got to the brow of the hill and looked down the valley towards his mother's little cottage, he saw there was no light in the window. His heart sank, and he knew instantly that something was wrong, and he hurried down to his mother's little home as quickly as he could through the thick snow.
The next day he learned from a neighbour that his poor mother had died the night before his arrival. He felt so sad and full of remorse that he broke down and wept uncontrollably. He later told me that when he went to see her lifeless body in the morgue, something suddenly dawned on him for the very first time in his life. No matter where you go or who you meet in life, nobody will ever love you more than your mother.
ONE DAY TOO LATE
Many long years ago, when Pat was just a lad, he lived with his parents and seven brothers and sisters in a little cottage in a very remote part of the country, where there was no industry and very few jobs and where the land was so rough and unproductive, that it was very hard for anyone trying to scrape a living. Now although life was very tough for everyone, the people were nevertheless extremely happy. This was mainly because they were a very close-knit community and were all so helpful to each other that they never thought twice about giving their neighbours a hand if they were in any sort of bother. Of course, it was an awful lot harder for the parents because it was up to them to find the daily bread and so on each day and, as a result, all the children were, generally speaking, shielded from the harsh realities of life. This meant that the youngsters were all free to enjoy themselves as best they could with what little they had.
Pat really loved all his family and had a very happy childhood. He loved the cosy warmth of the little cottage, the big turf fire in the hearth, the candle-light during the dark nights, sitting in his father's rocking chair whenever it was free, the big feeds of steaming mashed potato and butter (and sometimes if they were lucky pieces of beef or bacon), the mugs of piping hot sweet tea and the never ending flow of friends, neighbours and relatives who used to drop in for a chat, a laugh and a good old gossip. Then there were the ceilidhs, when people of all ages used to come late at night and there'd be lots of poteen, good food, music, dancing, storytelling and plenty of laughing and joking. Aye the ceilidhs would last the whole night long and everyone used to enjoy themselves immensely.
Pat also used to love going with his father and brothers to help cut the turf and he looked forward to market days, when they would go into town to see all the horses, cattle and pigs being sold. Aye, he enjoyed all the hustle and bustle, followed by the tremendous treat of going into the packed little teashop to drink big mugs of tea and eat thick wedges of lovely apple cake. As for Sundays after mass, they would regularly go fishing or on trips in the boat on the lough to the little island where there was this mysterious tower, which it was said was inhabited by the fairies. Then, during the bluebell season, they used to go walking through the forest nearby and marvel at the carpet of blue which seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see.
When he got a bit older, he began to take notice of the lassies and one day when he was fishing on his own down by the river, he noticed two girls on the other side, laughing and giggling and giving him the eye. One of them appealed to him so much that he instantly fell in love with her. Although he was far too shy to say a word to her, he couldn't stop thinking about her after that. In fact, it even put him off his grub.
Well, he took to going down to the river every day and after crossing it away downstream, he'd spend all day wandering up and down in the hope that he'd see his angel again. Many's a day he returned heartbroken for she was never there. But just when he was on the verge of giving up hope, she and her friend suddenly appeared one day. He went bright red of course but after all the pain he'd been through, he decided he wasn't going to be deterred and was surprised to hear himself calling out to her and inviting her over for a chat. Mary became his first ever girlfriend and when he brought her home, she was instantly accepted into the family and made to feel very much at home. He used to love taking her to the local socials, where they'd dance to the tunes of a small band playing fiddles and accordions. Half way through the night, they'd stop the dance and the women would pass round hot tea, sandwiches and buns. Then it would be back to the dancing again before eventually the long cooling walk home under the clear starry sky. Whenever the banshee wailed, Mary would snuggle up to him and he loved that.
Although Pat was not a handsome boy, he was a very kind person and no matter what, he always had a smile on his face and everyone liked him a lot. But unfortunately, when he reached the age of seventeen, things got really bad round those parts and his parents could not afford to continue keeping him. But as there were no jobs at all in the area, he had no choice but to do the same thing as so many of his friends, family and neighbours had been forced to do and that was to consider emigrating.
Initially he could not make up his mind where to go but then his favourite uncle Frank sent the family a letter. Now Frank had left them parts eight years before to go to England and join the merchant navy and during his time at sea, he'd ended up seeing quite a lot of the world. However, he'd eventually got fed up with the sea life, so when he met a lovely girl he really liked in a foreign port, he decided to marry her and settle down there.
Well anyway, he used to write from time to time and in this particular letter he sent, he said that if anyone was interested in coming to stay with him, they'd be welcome. He also added that it was a lovely country and that there were plenty of jobs. The thought of going to live with Frank appealed to Pat a lot more than going to America where he knew nobody. So because he could neither read nor write, he got his father to write to Frank to say that he'd be on his way as soon as the turf cutting season was over and as long as it would be all right for Mary to follow him once he had settled in. Frank replied saying that he was really looking forward to seeing Pat and he sent some money to help Pat pay for his journey.
Sometime later, the day of his departure eventually came. It was a very sad day and there were floods of tears. Pat found it very, very difficult to leave, but leave he had to, because he had no choice. So, he set off feeling very frightened and with a sad, heavy heart. However, he knew it was all for the best because at least he'd have a home, a job, some money and, eventually, his beloved Mary would join him.
It was a long, long journey eastward across Europe, mile after mile after mile. But despite the fact that it was very tiring, everything was going well until the train stopped unexpectedly at little town in this very poor, dreary backward country, run by a very repressive military government. Poor Pat got out for a walk just to stretch his legs, but after a while he sat down under a tree to take a little rest and unfortunately, he fell asleep. When he awoke later, the sun was setting, and it was getting cool. He rushed back to where the train had been, but of course it was gone, along with his bag and travel documents. It was then that he was arrested by armed soldiers who jabbered away at him in a foreign language before throwing him in a disgusting prison cell with a lot of common criminals, murderers and rapists.
Sometime later, he appeared before a very stern, officious looking man and although he did not really understand what was going on, he got the impression that he was being charged with being a spy and that he'd been found guilty. They took him away and threw him into another prison away out in the back of nowhere and forced to do back breaking hard labour. It was a terrible life and very, very hard. Not only that but Pat knew that nobody from back home knew where he was or what had happened to him. But what made it worse was that he was not allowed to send letters. He often became terribly depressed, but what helped him survive it all were the lovely memories of Mary, his youth, his family and friends and all the good times he'd had back at home and he dreamed of the day that he could return and see them all again.
Thirty years later, when he was 47, they suddenly released him. They dumped him over the border into a neighbouring country where he ended up at the embassy and after he'd signed a form, they gave him the money to pay for his journey home. After all the hardship and suffering he had endured, he was extremely happy. But when he reached his hometown, he could not believe his eyes. It had changed so much he couldn't recognise it. But what made it worse was learning that his mother, father, two brothers and a sister had died, along with a lot of his friends; Mary had married someone else and was living in another country somewhere with her husband and five children and his surviving family had all emigrated to America, apart from his sister Aggie.
When he called at Aggie’s, she nearly died from shock for she, like all the others, had assumed that he was a long time dead. However, although he tried to tell her all that had happened to him, she didn't seem to want to know and appeared to be more interested in telling him all about the neighbours and other local gossip. As for her husband Sean, he didn't want Pat around the place and he whinged so much that Aggie had to ask Pat to leave, although she did at least find him a room in widow Elsie's little cottage on the far side of town.
It was when he was just about to leave Aggie’s that she remembered the letter.
"It's for you from your uncle Frank," she'd said, "and it arrived the day after you left....I've kept it all these years, just in case you ever returned." Pat could not read so he got Aggie to read it out to him. When she had finished it, poor Pat was in tears, for Frank had written that he should not come after all, because he had left his wife and decided to re-join the merchant navy.
"It's a pity that letter didn't arrive one day earlier, isn’t it!" was all Aggie could say.
Poor Pat went to the widow Elsie with a very sad and heavy heart. She was a big plump friendly kindly woman and she took an instant liking to him, for she could see that he was a really decent man. She also immediately had this wee idea at the back of her mind that maybe her and Pat could eventually have some sort of a future together. But for starters, she decided that she would not rush things and she gave him the room at the back of the cottage. However, the only snag about the room was that it was tiny, dark and dingy and looked out directly on to a tall wall. It was in fact just like a prison cell.
Well anyway, when Pat had a wee look around his room and after he’d drunk a cup of tea with the widow Elsie, he went for a long walk around the village before climbing the hill overlooking the valley, before hanging himself from the branch of a tall oak tree.
Aye, it was an awful shame that letter arrived one day too late.
THE BEST LAID PLANS
When he woke up, the first thing that Slater (38) noticed was how grey and wet it was outside and he groaned. The second thing he noticed was that it was only 9.47 a.m. and therefore far too early to contemplate getting up. So, he cursed and disappeared under the bed covers for another couple of hours or so.
Life was a real drag and it wasn't getting any better as the years went by. It had been different when he'd been younger because he'd had some hopes and dreams then. For example, when he'd been in his early teens, he'd thought that he was a great footballer and that it wouldn't be too long until his talents would be spotted, and he'd be playing for Manchester United. But when that dream had gone down the Suwannee, he'd taken to playing a guitar and writing songs and he'd 'made such fantastic progress' that despite the fact that everyone in the house groaned whenever he'd started playing, he was convinced that he'd soon be a millionaire and rubbing shoulders with the likes of Elton John and Eric Clapton. But when that dream also disappeared down the plughole of life, it dawned on him that maybe he'd been aiming just a bit too high. So, he set his heart on becoming a bricklayer and although he'd worked quite hard at it and become fairly good, he hadn't made much progress for the simple reason that there hadn't been many jobs around.
Slater hadn't actually been in a steady job for years and he'd become so used to being unemployed that the thought of going for a job interview or starting a new job frightened him intensely. At the same time being continually unemployed meant that he was perpetually short of funds and he was forever moaning about how little they paid out in state benefits. Or to put it another way, what he got from the state was so little that it didn't last too long down the club or in the bookies, which meant he often had nothing in his pockets for days on end and no choice but to wait patiently for the next time he'd get his benefits and therefore an 'entrance' fee into the club for a few good drinks and whatever else he enjoyed.
It was like this, week after week, year in year out, lying about half the day in bed, then getting up, going out and hanging round the street corners or going into the bookies out of the cold or visiting a mate's house or sitting at home all day watching hour after hour of TV, continually biting his nails, arguing with his wife Patsy, screaming at the children for being so noisy and waiting, waiting, waiting until at last he'd get some money and become alive again, so that he could get full and enjoy himself for a couple of days or so with his pals down the club, or in the snooker hall or down in the bookies laying a few bets and so on.
Slater eventually got up at 12.35 p.m. and went downstairs. He ignored his wife Patsy, got himself a slice of bread and a cup of tea and went to take it out to the little back yard at the back of their slummy little 'two up two down' house. But his heart sank when he saw that it had started to rain again outside. It always seemed to be raining and it made him so cross and frustrated that he felt like going back to his bed for another few hours to escape the grey drabness of the day outside. But instead he sat down beside his wife and watched the soap on TV with her. However, he could not really concentrate because he was so wound up and tense. He felt so angry with life that he was tempted to have a go at Patsy, the big fat ugly good for nothing cow, and give her a good smack across the chops for he felt that this might help to relieve him of some of his feelings of pent-up intense frustration. But he decided not to because she'd had too many black eyes recently and people were beginning to pass remarks about it. However, he still wished she wasn't such a big fat barrel of lard and could have been a bit more like that lovely Bridie across the street.
Bridie was a very attractive sexy looking woman in her mid-twenties who lived with her husband Paul across the street from Slater at number 37. Paul's mother had lived there on her own for many years after her husband had died, but when she had passed on herself, Paul had inherited the house and he and Bridie had left their council house and moved in a short time before. Because Paul was 'blow-in' whom nobody really knew, people were naturally very suspicious of him and, as a result, tended to stir clear of him. But Bridie was a different 'kettle of fish' and no normal man could steer clear of such an attractive lovely woman. So, they used to buzz around her like bees round a honey pot.
Slater really fancied Bridie and she was always so friendly towards him that he was absolutely sure that the feeling was mutual. When he was lying in bed, Slater used to spend hours fantasising about what he would do with her if only he could get her on her own. But the only snag was Paul. Slater considered him to be a no-good useless 'get' who didn't deserve to have such a lovely wife as Bridie but, unfortunately, he was unemployed too and was always round the house, which, of course, prevented Slater from attempting any hanky-panky with Bridie.
Every time Slater heard the door at 37 being opened, he'd get to his feet as casually as possible so as not to draw any attention to himself and wander over to the window in the hope that it would be Bridie in that short sexy mini skirt and those black leather boots that really turned him on. If he saw she had her shopping bag with her, he'd tell Patsy that he was off to see Eugene or someone, leave the house and catch up with Bridie around the corner away down the street and man did she not flirt like mad with him, making him even more convinced that if it weren't for that useless bastard Paul, she'd be his. Then, when he'd be next in bed dreaming about having sex with Bridie, he'd get so frustrated thinking about her, that he’d start fantasising about how he could get rid of Paul, the pig.
Well Slater got fed up watching the soap on TV and he knew that rain or no rain, he just had to get out of the house or he'd explode. So, he set off down to the club in the hope that there might be a little job for him to do down there or messages to be run or whatever and then hopefully he’d receive a bottle or two as payment. But when he got down to the club he immediately realised by the way everyone was huddled round in small groups talking very seriously that something was wrong. So, he went over to Eugene and asked him what the score was.
"They've lifted four of the boys," Eugene said. "They lifted them this morning at 4.00 a.m.....Charlie, Sean...Joe and Seamus...things are getting real bad round here....somebody's really grassing the whole crowd up." Slater listened, all ears. This was a lot more exciting and interesting than watching some damned programme on the TV. But what made it better was that Eugene was so agitated about what had happened and wanted an audience so badly that he bought Slater a pint, which was very rare for him because he was normally such a tight 'get'. Well anyway the whole club was buzzing, and the atmosphere was electric. People were speculating as to who could be spilling the beans and that if he was ever caught, then by God, he'd cop it. Slater was enjoying the excitement of it all immensely, even though he could have done with another few pints. But then he suddenly had an idea.
Later that evening Slater went down into the city centre and made an anonymous phone call and four hours later at around 11.30 p.m., three masked men burst into Paul's house, ran up the stairs and into his bedroom where they shot him dead for being the 'blow-in' 'tout' who'd caused so much grief for the local IRA men and who the anonymous phone-caller had said was going to give evidence in court against all those who'd been lifted earlier that day.
Well Slater's plan worked very well to a certain degree for he had managed to get rid of Paul. However, with regard to the second part of his plan to move in on Bridie after Paul had been put under the sod, well unfortunately that hit a wee bit of a snag. Aye, when the IRA boys had been blasting Paul to death, they'd been a bit reckless and sadly for Slater, a stray bullet had hit Bridie right between the eyes and killed her stone dead.
(A tale from the ‘Troubles’ in N Ireland)
THE CARD GAME
Whenever you are bored and in need of something to do to pass the time, playing cards with your mates can often help. However, playing cards can sometimes cause terrible trouble between people, especially when money is involved.
I remember this man called Liam (33) whom I didn't like at all because he was such a big rough brute, who had a terrible reputation for being ruthlessly violent. Well anyway, one time Liam had to call round to Brendan's rundown little terraced house down a back street in the slums to do a wee job. Unfortunately, it was not the sort of job he could do as soon as he arrived and, as a result, Liam did not know how long it would be until he'd be able to start. However, he knew from previous experience of similar jobs that he'd probably have to hang around waiting for hours, or maybe even the whole day. So, when he found Aidan and Joseph were there too, he suggested to Brendan that they should all have a good game of seven card stud poker. Needless to say, Brendan and the other boys readily agreed because they all loved playing poker, especially if there were a few quid involved as well. So, they retired to the front room to play so that they could get away from Brendan's wife and his noisy children.
Now playing cards is generally very exciting. Although there is obviously some skill involved, a great deal depends on how your luck is going and it is because of this luck factor that nobody ever wins all the time. For example, you can have your really good days when you can do no wrong and you win hand after hand. Then there are other bad times, when you can't win a cent because no matter how good your cards seem to be, there is always someone there whose luck is in and who has better ones. The other factor that makes playing poker so exciting is the involvement of money. Whether it be bundles of ‘tenners’ or a handful of coppers, there'll always be plenty of tension.
Sometimes it can take quite a long time for a particular game's 'lucky' people to emerge but when they do, they generally tend to start winning more than their fair share of hands and therefore most of the money. Well this is what happened on that day round at Brendan's. For the first hour or so they all had their fair share of luck, but eventually Liam and Brendan began to pull ahead of the other two and as a result, a lot of the games were ending up between Liam and Brendan, with the stakes getting higher and higher. However, of the two of them, it was Brendan who was gradually getting on top.
As time went by, Liam started feeling annoyed especially when Brendan beat some of his really good hands, which he’d been sure were winners. He also lost most of the money he had won from the other two boys. Now although part of his annoyance was to do with the fact that he felt that Brendan was only a 'jammy' player without any real skill, the main reason for his growing resentment was the fact that he just didn’t like Brendan and never had. As far as he was concerned, Brendan was a no-good useless get, a real scum bag.
Well anyway, Brendan continued winning with his 'jammy' hands. This led to him becoming more and more cocky and he began to make disparaging 'funny' remarks about Liam's playing ability. Liam’s anger and sense of frustration kept rising until eventually he felt on the verge of exploding into one of those awful violent rages for which he was so infamous. However, somehow or another, he managed to control his temper, totally determined that he would hang on until he eventually got a really good hand that would not only relieve Brendan of all his money but also wipe that horrible smirk off his face.
At last there came the moment when it seemed as if Liam's opportunity was arriving. Joseph, who was sitting immediately to Liam's right, was the dealer and the first two cards he dealt Liam face down on the table were two aces and the next two were two threes which he placed face up on the table. Now Brendan's two face down cards were two Jacks and as a result he felt so confident about his hand that he bet very heavily. However, a sense of excitement began to surge through Liam because his intuition told him that this was going to be his hand and that if he could get another ace and therefore a full house, he would clear the pot.
The betting became so heavy that the other two boys dropped out leaving Liam and Brendan to battle it out yet again. Liam's next two face up cards were a nine and a five and Brendan's were a six and an eight. There was one card each to go for them and it would be face down. Brendan kept looking at the two face-down cards in front of him and he seemed very confident, whereas Liam's confidence was rapidly beginning to fade. So, when Brendan upped the stakes substantially, Liam had to pause to consider his options, for he knew that if he lost this hand, he'd be cleared out.
It was when he was thinking about what to do that Joseph took the opportunity to go out to the toilet for a slash. Then the phone rang, and Brendan rushed out of the room to get it. But it was when Aidan stood up and went over to look out the window to get a closer look at some sexy girl passing by outside, that Liam realised he had a split second to act. He quickly reached out and, in a flash, looked at the card on the top of the deck, the last card that Joseph was going to deal him. It was an ace! Liam could hardly believe it for he was now absolutely certain that he was going to win the hand. So, he leaned back in his seat and smiled inwardly as Aidan sat down again, totally unaware of what Liam had done. But it was then that Brendan rushed back into the room and spoiled things.
"You'll have to go Liam," he said in an urgent tone, "that was your man on the phone...they have just set off!" Liam cursed out loud.
"Let's finish the game first," he pleaded. Brendan shook his head.
"You must be joking," he cried, "if you miss this one and they hear it was over cards in my house, there'll be all hell to pay for the both of us...you know that!" Liam grimaced for he knew Brendan was right and that he had no option but to leave straight away.
"Okay," he said reluctantly, "but we'll finish this hand when I get back." Brendan nodded.
"Of course," he replied, "why not...after all I'm going to win, amn't I!" Liam glowered at him.
"We'll see," he growled before standing up and rushing over to the door. But then he stopped and looked back at Brendan.
"And don't you dare look at my hand or mess around with cards while I'm away...because if you do, I'll kill you...and I'm not joking!" Brendan could see that he wasn’t joking, and he immediately nodded. Liam then glared at Joseph and Aidan.
"Now I'm relying on you other two boys to make sure he doesn't tamper with those cards because if I come back and find out he has, you'll bloody well pay too......and that’s a promise!" When Liam saw from the look of fear on their faces that they'd got the message, he rushed from the house.
When he got outside, Liam walked as quickly but as casually as possible, so as not to draw attention to himself. He went down to the end of the street, turned right and then went down another street until he reached the alleyway half way down which ran along behind a row of rundown, derelict houses. As he walked along the alleyway he noticed Martin talking to Theresa who had a pram with her. As Liam got near them, Martin looked around to check that nobody was looking before reaching into the pram and withdrawing a bundle out from under the baby. He then disappeared through the gate leading into the enclosed yard of one of the small houses and then into the empty house. Meanwhile Liam reached Theresa, nodded without speaking, checked that nobody was looking, slipped into the house after Martin and quickly ran up the stairs to the front room overlooking the street, where he found Martin undoing the bundle. Once again, he did not speak and only nodded before moving near the window to watch and wait.
He knew that he should be really alert and concentrate on nothing but the job ahead, but all he could think about was getting back to the house to win the game, lift all that money and humiliate Brendan. At the same time, he could not get rid of the nagging fear in his guts that that treacherous pig Brendan was bound to tamper with the cards and the longer he was away from Brendan's, the more likely it’d be that the bastard would cheat. The long minutes ticked by ever so slowly. Although the boss man had said on the telephone that the others had just set off and should be there within 15 minutes, thirty minutes passed and there was still no sign.
Liam was on the verge of going berserk with frustration when suddenly there they were, coming around the corner and moving fast. But Liam had done this many times before and he knew exactly to what to do. So, within a few split seconds, he'd raised the rifle, aimed, fired one shot and watched momentarily as the soldier instantly fell dead with half his skull blown away. Liam then gave the rifle to Martin who quickly rolled it up in the cloth and the two of them immediately ran out of the house to the alleyway at the back where Theresa was waiting. Then after Martin had shoved the bundle back under Theresa's baby, she wheeled the pram away while Liam and Martin headed off quickly in the opposite direction. As soon as they got to the end of the alleyway and were out on the street, they parted company and went their separate ways. The shooting and their escape was all over within the space of just 30 seconds.
Although Liam knew that in circumstances such as these he should have remained as calm and collected as possible so as not to draw attention to himself, he felt so agitated and anxious about Brendan and those cards that he ran all the way back to Brendan's house. When he got there, he found the three boys still there. He rushed straight into the front room without saying a word and looked at the cards and the pot in the middle of the table. But nothing seemed to have been disturbed. However, he was a suspicious man by nature, so he grabbed Brendan by the throat and pulled him towards him.
"Now you haven't been mucking around now, have you!" he growled menacingly. Brendan looked terrified because he knew all about Liam and his reputation for merciless violence.
"You must be joking," he squealed as he tried to get free of Liam's iron grip. Liam glowered at the other two boys.
"Now you boys had better tell me the truth....has he been fiddling around with the cards?" They looked just as scared as Brendan, so he believed them when they said that Brendan hadn't laid one finger on the cards while he'd been away.
Liam sat down, stared at Brendan and then upped the stakes tenfold on his hand. Brendan gazed back at him and Liam could see he was wondering whether to surrender or to take the risk of incurring Liam's wrath any further by matching his bet. But Brendan’s greed got the better of his fear and he matched Liam's bet. Joseph dealt the two of them their last card, face down. Well when Liam picked up the card and saw that it was only a ten and not the ace he'd been expecting and also that Brendan had got a third Jack, he knew damned fine that Brendan had cheated. At the same time, he knew he could not explain how he knew, for that would have meant owning up to the fact that he had been cheating himself. So, he simply gave in and tossed his cards into the centre.
But as Brendan gathered in all the money, he made the mistake of beginning to smirk and sneer at Liam. Well that was the last straw for Liam who drew back his fist and then rammed it so hard into Brendan's sneering face that he sent him flying out of his chair and back across the room where he crashed up against the wall. There was blood all over Brendan's face and when he realised that his nose had been smashed into pulp, he began to whine like a dog. Liam stood up and glowered down at Brendan with an expression of total contempt and anger all over his face.
"You are the nastiest, most treacherous scum bag I have ever met," he roared, "and although I can't prove a thing, I know that you are nothing more than a lying cheat....have you no conscience at all, you bastard!" And with that he stormed out of the house. Needless to say, the poker game was over.
(A tale from the ‘Troubles’ in N Ireland)
THE MAGPIE
When the first of his three alarm clocks awoke him at four o'clock in the morning, Packy (27) groaned, reached out from under the bed clothes and switched it off. He knew he had another two minutes peace before the next one would go off, so he disappeared beneath the covers again, closed his eyes and half went to sleep again. But he seemed to have hardly closed his eyes when the second alarm clock began to jangle. It was such a tortuous noise, that he cursed out loud as he reached out and switched it off. However, this time he did not close his eyes or disappear under the covers. Instead, he laid his head back on the pillow and stared upwards towards the ceiling through the early morning darkness, with his eyes wide open.
When the third alarm clock went off one minute later, the racket it created was such that he had no choice but to grit his teeth, throw back the bed covers, jump out of bed and rush over to the other side of the bedroom, where he had left it the night before. When he reached the alarm clock, it was giving out such an irritating noise that he felt like picking it up and smashing it to smithereens against the wall. But he decided not to and switched it off instead because, although he really hated that clock, it had never let him down in the past and had saved him from getting into serious trouble with the boys for sleeping in and being late for a job.
He went to turn on the light but then remembered that he couldn't, for fear of someone in any of the other neighbouring farmhouses noticing. So, he went back and sat on the edge of his bed to sit quietly for a few moments and collect himself. But it was such a teeth rattling cold winter's morning that it was impossible to sit for longer than a few seconds. He decided to make a move. However, he did not bother having a wash on account of the water being so icy and instead he jumped straight into his clothes which meant putting on underpants, two pairs of long johns, thick jeans, two pairs of thermal socks, a warm shirt, 3 jerseys, a dark jacket, a bobble hat and a pair of stout boots with deep treaded soles.
He then went to the window and looked out into the wintry darkness for a few moments. He knew Sean would be along shortly and that they would soon have to get moving. But he really wished that he didn't have to go and that he could have stayed cosy and snug in his nice warm bed. However, he knew he had no choice, that orders were orders. So, he went downstairs, collected the sandwiches he'd made the night before, opened the back door, slipped out into the back yard, went through the gate, across the field and into the little copse at the far side, where he hid in the darkness and waited. It was getting on for 4.30 a.m.
Sean arrived five minutes later. They grunted greetings at each other before heading off across the dark fields. They moved silently and also quickly because their destination was nearly five miles away. So, for the next hour and a half they trekked through muck, dirt, drains and water, they climbed over thorny hedges, when there was no convenient gate to go through, and clambered up hills and slithered down slopes. It wasn't pleasant and at times very scary, especially, for example, when, out in the darkness, a cow suddenly coughed. However, although they were soon feeling exhausted, they managed to get near their destination by almost 6.00 a.m., which was just as the boys had planned,
The last two hundred yards were the most nerve wracking. It was still dark, and they could not see far in front of them, so they were not sure what they would find when they arrived there. However, when they got to within 50 yards of their target, Sean gave the little 'password' whistle and a few moments later they heard the correct response. So, they moved forward quickly and joined Frank in the little den at the top of the hill. Frank proceeded to tell them that he and the others hadn't run into any problems and that everything had been prepared and that it was now up to them to do their bit and complete the job. He then wished them good luck before disappearing into the darkness. Packy and Sean settled down into the den and hoped that their wait would not be as long as some they'd had to endure in the past. For example, there was that really cold wet time 8 months before, when they'd had to wait for more than 36 hours - and all for nothing!
It soon began to get light as the pale morning sun rose into the sky and Packy and Sean were able to look out from their well concealed den at the top of the hill and see the little country road far down below. They were pleased to see that the boys' choice had been a good one for they had a good long view in both directions. Furthermore, they also felt very confident about the escape route which the boys had also planned meticulously, and which would enable them to get well away from the area before the whole place went mad. They patiently watched and waited and every time they heard the sound of vehicles coming they tensed up, ready for action and every time it was a false alarm, they felt a mixture of both relief and disappointment.
After about three hours of waiting, still nothing had happened. But it was about that time that Packy suddenly heard a squawk which made him jump. He immediately looked round and there sitting on a nearby tree was a lone magpie. Packy swore under his breath for he knew that there was nothing more unlucky than seeing a lone magpie. In fact, he was so put off by seeing it, that he felt like calling off the whole operation. But he knew he couldn't do that, that orders were orders and that was that. So, he just crossed himself and said a little prayer in the hope that that would be enough to offset the magpie's bad luck.
About two hours later, at around 9.30 a.m., Packy and Sean heard a convoy of vehicles coming in the distance. Although they could not see them yet, they both instinctively knew that their wait was nearly over and right enough, what they had been waiting for came into sight about three minutes later. Packy was ready for action and as soon as the second vehicle was passing over the culvert, he pressed the button and the 800 pounds of explosives detonated under the Land Rover, throwing it high into the air and over the ditch into the neighbouring field, instantly killing all four policemen inside.
Within seconds of the explosion Packy and Sean were up and away, running as fast as they could in the opposite direction, away from the site of the explosion, down the hill, alongside the hedge, into the little wood at the bottom of the hill and out the other side, just as planned. It had been their intention to then keep running close to the hedges and cross three fields and then escape over the border to freedom, where they knew they'd be greeted as heroes with a lot of whooping, cheering and back slapping before being taken to a safe house to lie low for a while. They also knew that all the big boys would be very happy at it being a job well done.
If the whole escape had worked out as planned, they would have been safe and sound within ten minutes of the policemen being blown up. But unfortunately, life is full of wee snags and no matter how well things are planned, they have a nasty habit of going wrong. Poor Packy and Sean were in such a rush to save their own bacon that they weren't probably as cautious as they should have been and just as they were emerging from the little wood, they had the damned bad luck to run slap bang into an army patrol.
Well it's one thing being a hero when you press a button on the top of a hill and blow your enemy to bits over three hundred yards away, but it's a different 'kettle of fish' when they're right in front of you and pointing guns at you. Now Packy had a 9 mm pistol on him and when he first saw the soldiers, he just wished that he'd had the opportunity to throw it away because he knew that even if they couldn't prove that it had been him who'd killed those policemen, they’d certainly get him for the pistol. With regard to the possibility of Packy pulling out the pistol and using it, well that thought just never crossed his mind. Instead, as soon as he set eyes on the soldiers, he immediately put his hands up as high in the air as they would go and prayed to the Virgin Mary that they wouldn't shoot him.
Sometime later, Packy was convicted of four murders and other terrorist offences and received four life sentences. But I remember listening to him bleating on one day, just after he had started his prison sentence in the Maze
"As soon as I saw that magpie, I just knew it wasn't going to be my day", he moaned. Well I suppose, when you think about the four poor sods he'd killed, it hadn't really been their day either, had it!
(A tale from the ‘Troubles’ in N Ireland)
THE NEW SUIT
As soon as Patsy (38) woke up that Sunday morning, he wished he hadn't and that he could have slept on forever. He loved being fast asleep and far away in the 'land of nod' for whenever he was there, he felt safe, sound and secure. But coming back to land of the living usually meant coming back to problems and this time was no exception. In fact, he knew that this time he was returning to trouble, really serious trouble. Feelings of anxiety started gnawing away at his guts but then he shrugged his shoulders, turned over in his bed and dismissed the thoughts of fear from his mind. The boys had given him one last warning to stop nicking from old ladies' houses and he'd chosen to ignore them. Now he was going to have to pay for his misdeeds. So, what was the point in him worrying! There was no escape; whatever must be, must be.
But he just wished the boys could have been a bit more understanding. It wasn't that he deliberately wanted to ignore their warnings, it was just that 'nicking' was like a disease to him. Creeping into people's houses after they had just 'popped' out and then going through their things gave him such an incredible buzz that it was just like a drug to him. The simple fact of the matter was that he was addicted and just could not stop himself doing it. Anyway, he was like everyone else, he liked to have a good time. But this was impossible as he was out of work and had been for years. So, the way he looked at it, what other option did he have but to go out and get himself a few quid, by hook or by crook. After all, the 'dole' money wasn't much use if, after a couple of days down the pub and in the bookies, it was all spent.
He looked at his watch and saw it was almost eleven o'clock. It'd soon be time to get up and go down the pub for a bit fun with his pals. He turned his head from the pillow and looked across the bedroom at his brand-new suit hanging on the front of the cupboard, the new suit he had bought himself so excitedly the previous day from the proceeds of the burglary at old Mrs Ford's where, incredibly, he'd found a small fortune hidden under the old widow's mattress in her bedroom. He jumped from his bed, went over to the suit. It sure was a real smart piece of tailoring. He lovingly felt the cloth. Man, he'd feel just like the Prince of Wales when he walked into the pub wearing such fine gear. My, when he hit that pub in his new suit, they'd all turn their heads and wonder who this real cool dude in his new threads was. Yea, whether he got into trouble or not that day, he'd never give up 'nicking' for it just gave him far too much pleasure, one way or another.
Well he had a wash and then took his time getting dressed, continually looking in the mirror to check that not even a hair was out of place. Meanwhile Mary his wife was down the stairs shouting and screeching at the children and trying her best to rustle up some kind of a Sunday lunch for them all from the few bits and pieces she'd been able to buy from what had been left over from the 'child benefit'.
When Patsy came down the stairs and Mary saw him all dolled up and ready to go out, she started having a go at him, saying that rather than going out and wasting his money on drink, he should stay at home with her and the family and give her what money he had left to buy groceries and food for the coming week. But the thought of sitting at home trying to read the News of the World with all that racket going on round him didn't appeal to him too much. So, he growled at her and raised the back of his hand to her. When she cowered back, he grinned and left the house. Sod her and her burgers and mash, he'd get a right good tasty Chinese takeaway later on, after the drink had given him a good appetite.
When he first entered the pub, he nervously glanced round inside, just to make sure there was nobody he didn't want to see there. But when he saw nothing but cheerful friendly faces, he walked across the bar floor really slowly so as to ensure that everyone would get a damned good look at his fine new suit and then when he'd finished his parading about like a proud rooster, he got up on his favourite bar stool, ordered a drink, lit up a fag and began to relax. Jesus, he really enjoyed Sunday mornings down the pub, especially when he had a pocket full of money.
It was about an hour later that the door opened and three very tough unsmiling men came in. Patsy recognised them immediately and knew from the way they glowered at him that they weren’t striding over to him for a friendly chat. He cursed to himself because although he knew that they were going to catch up with him some day, he had rather hoped it wouldn't be that day and for a few seconds the thought of being at home with his nagging wife, the squalling kids and the News of the World seemed rather appealing.
The bar went silent as he turned to face them. They made to grab him, but he put his hands up in surrender and whispered to them that there was no need for any rough stuff, that he'd go quietly and not cause any fuss. They immediately lowered their arms as they could tell from the tone of his voice and the submissive look in his eyes that he had already accepted his fate and that he wouldn't try to escape or cause them any trouble.
The four of them left the bar. It was a lovely day outside and the sun was shining brightly in a big blue sky. The four men walked quickly and quietly down the road with nobody saying a single word. From time to time Patsy would nod at people he knew, and they would nod back but nobody stopped him for a chat because they all knew instinctively from the looks on the four men's faces that something was up and that it wasn't a good time for a wee chin-wag. Although Patsy knew what was coming, he was amazed at how calm and collected he felt. At the same time, he was looking forward to it all being over.
After they had walked for about 500 yards in total silence, they came to a small piece of waste ground, where they were met by another unsmiling serious looking man, who was holding a small travelling bag. The men stopped.
"Right Patsy," said one of them, "you know what this is all about don't you?" Patsy nodded.
"Well are you ready then?" Patsy nodded again. But then he had a thought and he raised his hand to halt the proceedings.
"Before you do it boys," he said in a pleading tone of voice, "what about me new suit?....it'd be an awful shame to ruin it." The men looked at each other and then the one who was obviously the leader nodded.
"Okay," he growled, "take off your jacket and trousers real quick and put them to one side." Patsy did as he said in a flash.
"Now lie face down on the ground," growled the leader. Patsy did as he was told, still feeling remarkably calm. The men quickly looked all around them and when they saw that there was nobody else about, one of them quickly pulled a revolver from the small travelling back and delivered two rapid shots into the back of Patsy's legs, blowing away his knee caps and leaving him a cripple for the rest of his days. They then put the gun back in the bag and were gone within seconds.
As for Patsy, he was really pleased that his new suit was okay. At the same time, he hoped that help would arrive soon before the pain in his legs became too intense or he lost too much blood.
(A tale from the ‘Troubles’ in N Ireland)
THE WALK
There's a saying that goes as follows: it's a good man that can sing at night but it's a better man that can sing in the morning. Well with regard to my friend John, there was a night not so long ago when he was doing plenty of singing. However, when it came to the next morning, there was hardly a cheep out of him. But I'll stop talking in riddles and tell you all about it.
About six months ago, John and I went down to our crowd's social club after work to have a bite to eat and a few drinks. Needless to say, all our chums were there, along with quite a few of our work colleagues. Well anyway we were both feeling very thirsty and because we weren't driving and were getting a lift home, we really got stuck into the booze, knocking back pint after pint and whisky after whisky. There was a great atmosphere in the club that night and we were all really enjoying ourselves, laughing and joking and chatting away as merrily as could be. As usual John was the life and soul of the party and, with that superb sense of humour of his, he had us all in stitches the whole night.
I am not sure at what point the boys started talking about the 'walk' but it was getting on towards the end of the evening, when John was well and truly scootered. Now doing the 'walk' is such a dangerous pastime that very few of us had ever attempted it, including me and John. But those who'd 'had the guts' to do it were, generally speaking, revered as being very brave men, although I personally thought they were all fools for taking such a risk.
Well anyway, Alan, who'd successfully completed the 'walk', looked round at those of us who hadn't yet done it and asked which of us was going to be the next one to try. When none of us volunteered, he began to make clucking chicken noises and mock us for being cowards. Now it wouldn't have mattered one jot to me how many chicken noises he made or what jibes he came out with, there was no way that I would ever have agreed to do the 'walk' because I was just too fond of living to take the chance. So I just ignored him. However, John was so full of booze and bravado that he took the bait and, jumping to his feet, he announced in a very loud voice so that everyone in the club could hear, that he'd be the next one to do the 'walk'. Everyone of course cheered and clapped, and I could see from the look on his face that John felt really pleased at all the adulation and he told me a few moments later that he was raring to go so that he could show them all that he could do it too. However, when he woke up the next day, with one of the worst hangovers he'd ever had in all his life and remembered what he'd committed himself to, he groaned with horror at being such a fool.
Later that day, John and I went down the club, for we were both in bad need of a 'cure'. Before we went in, we decided not to drink too much because sometimes in the past, our love of the booze had led to the 'cure' turning out to be worse than the 'disease'. Now John had not mentioned the 'walk' again to me and I could tell that he was rather hoping that nobody would remember what he'd said the night before and that it would all be forgotten. But unfortunately for John, that was just wishful thinking because we weren't in the club two minutes before Alan and his mates were over to ask John when he was going to do it.
John tried to fob them off by hinting that he'd just been joking, but then they began sneering at him and telling him that he was a coward. They also began to place bets with each other that he wouldn't have the guts to do the 'walk' and it wasn't long until John realised that he'd never be able to live it down if he didn't at least attempt it, that in future people would dismiss him as being 'yellow' if he didn't do the business. So, he suddenly confirmed that he definitely would do the 'walk' and furthermore he bet them a month’s wages he'd succeed. Now a lot of people didn't really believe that John would have the 'bottle' and were relatively confident that they'd win, so they accepted his bet. After all, of the 17 people who had started out on the 'walk', only 4 had ever had the nerve to actually complete it. But when Alan and his cronies went about their business and left us in peace, I could see from the look on John's face that he was really worried. In fact, that morning wasn't much fun in the club because he wouldn't chat or joke and wasn’t his usual self. Instead he just drank and drank until he was well scootered again.
Over the next few weeks, people kept asking John when he was going to do the 'walk' and although he kept trying to put it off, there eventually came the time when he had to name a day. So, he chose the following Saturday.
It was a horrible cold grey day when we all arrived at the 'starting line'. John looked terribly pale and although he tried to give the impression that he was unconcerned and jovial, I could tell he was worried sick. Then Alan appeared and reminded John of the rules: that he would have to follow the agreed route and not attempt to take any shortcuts; he would also have to go into the pub exactly halfway along the route and stay there drinking for at least one hour before leaving it to complete the 'walk' (the actual walking part of the 'walk' would take roughly an hour). He also reminded John that he and the other boys would be discreetly driving up and down the route to keep an eye on him to make sure he did not cheat. He then slapped John on the back and wished him good luck, as did all the others including me. John gave us all a sickly smile and then set off. Just looking at him setting off down the road absolutely terrified me.
John started walking down the road as ‘casually’ as possible so as not to draw attention to himself and although he had a 'relaxed' expression on his face, he made sure he avoided all eye contact with everyone. However, he felt extremely conspicuous because he knew that the majority of people round there all knew each other and that it would have been instantly obvious to the most of them that he was a stranger. He also had this terrible fear that someone might even recognise him, because if they did, he’d be a dead man for sure. It was all so frightening that he was sorely tempted all the time to make a run for it and escape. But despite the ever-increasing sickening anxiety he felt, he managed to keep his wild urge to run under control and kept walking.
However, at one stage, when a car backfired behind him, he nearly jumped a foot in the air. Then later, when he ‘casually’ looked round, he noticed, to his horror, two young men not ten yards behind him. He could see that they were looking intently at him and his instinct told him that they were following him. But he tried not to panic or start running, he just kept walking and hoped and prayed that his instinct was wrong. However, every few minutes, when he'd ‘casually’ glance around again, they were still there, only ten yards behind him. The urge to make a run for it became so strong at that point that he almost cracked. But somehow, he held his nerve. However, it got to the point where he could stand the pressure of this uncertainty no longer, so he stopped and looked into a shop window to see what the two young men would do. But they just walked on by and disappeared into the crowd. His sense of relief was one of the most beautiful sensations he had ever experienced in all his life.
John walked in and around the area, along the main road and up and down and round the side streets as he followed the 'walk' route precisely. He knew me and the others were in the area in our cars but he did not look out for us in case by doing so he drew attention to himself. But it was when he arrived at the pub that he reached crisis point, the point where all the people who had failed the 'walk' before had chickened out. He suddenly felt so frightened that he almost gave up there and then. But then he had this vision of Alan's sneering face and that was enough to spur him on. He went into the pub and, by doing so, he entered the most dangerous phase of the 'walk'.
Once inside, he couldn't see anything initially because it was so dark and gloomy, and it took a few moments for his eyes to readjust. But when he could see, he noticed a small group of very tough looking men at the far end of the bar. It was quite obvious from the resentful way that they glowered at him that they did not like strangers like him coming into their pub. The atmosphere was so hostile and unfriendly that once again John immediately felt like turning on his heel and leaving. But he knew he'd come too far to do that, so he ignored their malevolent stares and walked over to the bar. The barman did not move towards him and it was quite clear from the look on his face that he didn't want John in the place either. So John had to call down the bar to him that he wanted a beer before the barman deigned made a move to serve him.
It seemed to take ages for the barman to pour the drink and then John got all mixed up with the money. All the while he was very conscious of the fact that the other grim-faced customers were all staring at him and that they had all stopped talking amongst themselves because he, a suspicious stranger, had come in. When the drink was eventually poured out and paid for, John took it over to a table in a quiet corner. He hoped that the other customers would soon forget him, relax and start chatting again. However, they remained silent and their hostility towards him seemed almost tangible. With shaking hands, John took out his newspaper, spread it out in front of him and tried to read it as casually as possible. But he felt so scared that he could not read a complete sentence let alone a full article. Furthermore, he was terrified in case his nervousness was too obvious.
For a long time, none of the other customers spoke a word and there was complete silence apart from the extremely irritating noise of someone repeatedly lifting up and dropping some loose change on the counter top. Then someone came over to him and stared at him intensely with dark piercing eyes. John was so tense that once again he felt like jumping up and fleeing. But the man only wanted to know the time which John was pleased to tell him, albeit with a very shaky voice. However, although helping the man out had made him feel slightly better, that feeling only lasted for a few moments and his anxiety soon returned when he noticed the big clock right just above where the man had been sitting.
Then another one of the men suddenly came over to him. He was a really tough looking nut and different from the first one. He didn’t beat about the bush and asked John who he was and what he was doing there. As John looked up into his pale cold eyes, he began to feel a terrible dread. But he told the man what he had rehearsed over and over again in his mind, that his name was Seamus Quinn from South Armagh and that he was waiting for a Joseph Quigley who was going to sell him a car and who had told him to wait for him in that pub. The man gazed at John for what seemed like an eternity before turning on his heel and returning to the bar. Inwardly John sighed with relief.
John continued trying to read his newspaper, but it was a pointless exercise because he was so scared he could not concentrate. The only thought he had on his mind was to get out of the pub as soon as the hour was up. But it was the longest hour he had ever experienced in all his life. Every time someone came into the pub, he felt such a bag of nerves that he nearly always gave a start. He also hated the way anyone new coming in would invariably stop and stare at him, an obvious stranger. But what frightened him even more was when anyone left the pub because he was convinced that it wouldn't be long until they'd be back with a few of the boys, who’d take him to some awful place where they'd beat him with clubs and baseball bats, break all his bones, hang him up, cut bits off him and rip his nails and teeth out with pliers, before shooting him. He had heard so many ghastly stories about things that had happened in the past that he was sure that it'd be his turn next.
But eventually the hour passed and his ordeal in the pub was finally over. He drank up the dregs in his glass and left as ‘casually’ as possible, saying 'thank you' to the barman on the way out. He then set off to complete the rest of the 'walk' which actually seemed great deal less scary after what he had just been through in the pub. And then it was all over, he'd successfully completed the 'walk' and won his bet. Needless to say, he was totally elated and really enjoyed telling us over and over again about all the things that had happened on the 'walk' and about the people he'd seen in the pub and the way they'd glared at him and so on. He was also so pleased to have become a member of a very exclusive club, especially as he knew that in future everyone would look up to him and regard him as a hero.
That was some night down in the club and John was in great form. There was so much boozing going on and I could see that John really enjoyed all the back slapping and the way people had started looking up to him for being so brave. But although he tried to nonchalantly dismiss the whole experience as being nothing much, I knew him from old and I could tell that no matter what he now said, the whole escapade had frightened him more than half to death. In fact he later admitted to me that when he'd been doing the 'walk', he'd felt in fear of his life every second of the way and that there was no way that he would ever contemplate doing such a crazy thing again.
Now the ironic thing is that during the 'walk', when he'd felt so frightened, nothing had actually happened to him. However, a few weeks later, when he got into his car without a care in the world, the damned thing blew up, killing him instantly. But in case you don't understand all this, I suppose I'd better explain that John and I were policemen in N Ireland and that the 'walk' that he’d completed had been through one of the most dangerous and staunchly Republican areas in Belfast and that the bomb that killed him that lovely sunny morning had been an IRA one.
(A tale from the ‘Troubles’ in N Ireland)
CRIMINAL DREAM
When Malcolm Tierney (28) heard that he was being sent on a business trip to the faraway country of Lucifer, he instantly felt very excited because although he had never heard of Lucifer before, he loved travel, seeing new places, experiencing new things and meeting new people.
Malcolm immediately began making a few enquiries about Lucifer, but the more he found out about the place the less enthusiastic he became about going there. For example, he learned that it was a backward primitive country run by a very right-wing fascist repressive dictator called Fiend, who ruled his country with a 'rod of iron', using the military and the police to secure his position. Apparently, he was so paranoiac about any opposition to him that he'd made the legal system particularly severe and anyone caught breaking any of the country's laws was always very harshly dealt with. Even crimes that would seem trivial in most other countries were regarded as being very serious in Lucifer and minor things such as dropping a piece of litter in the street could result in a ten-year jail sentence. Another thing that made life very difficult was that very few people were aware of all the laws that existed, and it was therefore extremely easy to unwittingly fall foul of the law. But the thing that probably alarmed Malcolm the most was the fact that, although Luciferians were treated badly under the legal system, foreign visitors were treated even more severely and, as a result, he began to feel distinctly uneasy about his forthcoming trip.
However, it was when he actually arrived in Lucifer that Malcolm began to feel really anxious. Lucifer was definitely not his type of country. Not only was it ruled by this brute Fiend, but it was a very flat drab dreary country without any scenery of any note. On top of that, all the people seemed very cowed, frightened, sullen, cold and unfriendly. Furthermore, there seemed to be heavily armed police just about everywhere and they were the most sinister menacing crowd of toughs he had ever seen in his life. Malcolm felt so apprehensive about the police that he decided immediately that under no circumstances would he have any eye contact with them for fear that they might take unkindly to him 'clocking' them and react in the awful, evil way they were obviously capable of.
Malcolm quickly concluded that this was not going to be one of the usual fun trips he was used to and that the wisest thing to do would be to keep as low a profile as possible, stay close to his hotel, complete his work and get out of Lucifer and back to civilisation as quickly as possible. So instead of taking a preliminary tour round the capital city Tweresno, as he would normally have done in any other country, he headed straight for his hotel, booked in and went straight to his room.
When Malcolm met some junior Luciferian government officials the following morning for preliminary discussions, he tried his very best to be as nice and as friendly as possible and was pleasantly surprised at how co-operative and friendly they seemed to be. In fact, things seemed to be moving along so well that he began to feel very confident that the deal could be quickly concluded and that he would soon be on his way back home. However, it was when the senior Luciferian negotiator Mr Toko arrived that the whole atmosphere changed, and things started to go wrong.
Malcolm took an instant dislike to the man. As far as he was concerned, he was a horrible, aggressive, narrow-minded, pompous, arrogant, obstructive, nit-picking little prig with foul breath and disgusting BO. But what made things worse was the fact that negotiations dragged on day after day, week after week and the one person who seemed to be delaying things unnecessarily was Mr Toko. So, by the time five weeks had passed, Malcolm had grown to hate him more than he had ever hated anyone else in his whole life. In fact, Malcolm often felt like smacking him right in the chops out of total frustration. However, despite all his inner animosity towards Mr Toko, Malcolm continued trying to be as nice as possible to him, although when he got back to his hotel room each night, he used to fume to himself at the thought of him.
But then things came to a head one day during some especially frustrating negotiations. Malcolm became so exasperated with Mr Toko that he could not restrain himself any longer and he leapt from his chair, leaned across the table, put his hands round Mr Toko's neck and squeezed his throat until his eyes almost popped out of his head. Needless to say, the others there tried to restrain Malcolm, but his anger and sense of frustration were so great that he seemed to have the strength of ten men and did not let go of Mr Toko until he was dead.
As soon as his anger had subsided, and he'd come back down to earth, Malcolm realised that he was in very serious trouble and that if the police caught him, he'd be for the firing squad. So he immediately fled from the room. He was so scared that he didn't bother going to the hotel for his things. All he had in his mind was to get to the border 100 miles away, cross it and escape from that awful evil country. Being a foreigner, he was of course conspicuous, so he decided that safest thing to do would be to lie low each day until darkness fell before making any move towards the border.
Even though it took several weeks to get there, he eventually made it there. It’d been an awful experience and he’d had many close shaves. However, worse was to come. Just as he was about to cross the border, he was suddenly confronted by a pack of baying dogs and a large group of sneering heavily armed policemen. As the dogs ran at him barking and snarling, the grinning police just stood back to watch and enjoy those vicious brutes tearing him to pieces. It was then that Malcolm woke up with a start in a cold sweat and realised that he had been having an awful dream and that he was actually safe and sound in his hotel bed. Even so he felt so frightened that did not sleep another wink that night.
Malcolm was so relieved that it had all just been a dream. However, it had been so vivid that he suddenly felt a compelling urge to get out of Lucifer as soon as possible. So, he decided there and then that as far as he was concerned the negotiations were over and he was going home, even if it meant him ultimately losing his job back home. He began packing his things and got ready to leave. It was at that point that he heard a knock at the door and when he opened it, he saw several men standing outside who did not look at all friendly.
"Malcolm Tierney?" Malcolm nodded. "My name is chief inspector Sento Borros, Dream Police murder squad.....I am arresting you for the murder of Mr Toko in your dream...you are not required to say anything at this point but anything you do say may be used as evidence in court at a later stage."
Well if Malcolm had murdered Mr Toko in real life, he would of course have been executed by firing squad. However, luckily for Malcom, murdering someone in a dream is not such a serious offence in Lucifer. So, all he got was 50 years hard labour instead.
THE DINNER PARTY
After he was promoted, Mark, a young civil servant (28), was posted to a one-man government admin office in a very remote part of the country. Initially he was very excited about the move. However, he was fundamentally a city boy, so he found living out in the country very strange and, in many ways, disorienting. He also felt extremely homesick and lonely, especially as he was such a quiet shy person who did not make new friends easily. But what made matters worse was the fact that the local people seemed very rough, gruff, rough and distinctly unfriendly.
Even after a couple of months at his new post, things did not improve. In fact, his life became increasingly dreary. Every evening, after he'd shut the office and had something to eat in the inn where he was staying temporarily, he used to retire to his room to read books and do a bit of studying for future exams. But he eventually got so fed up with this routine that, although not a drinker, he plucked up the courage one night to go down into the bar for a drink in the hope that he would meet new friends there.
As he stood at the bar, he felt very self-conscious and even though he tried to start up a conversation with several different people, they all quickly turned their backs on him which made him feel even lonelier. After about 2 hours Mark had become so despondent that he was on the verge of returning to his lonely bedroom. However suddenly the door of the bar opened and in came the most beautiful and attractive girl he had ever seen in his life. He could not take his eyes off her and could tell from her aura that she was very well educated, intelligent, extroverted and from a very good background. She was also obviously a strong personality and totally different from all the other locals and, needless to say, he was very, very interested in her.
When she approached the bar, she took a long look at Mark, smiled, introduced herself as Samantha and then asked him if he was going to buy her a drink. He did not hesitate and within a few minutes they were getting on so well together that anyone would have thought that they'd known each other all their lives. Mark was very happy in her company, but when it came to time for her to leave, he felt absolutely dejected and it showed. However, she soon cheered him up by inviting him to a formal dinner party on the following Friday night at her home on the family country estate and to spend the rest of the weekend with her, some friends and her family. She promised him that it would be all really good fun and that he would definitely enjoy himself. He of course accepted her invitation immediately. So, she gave him her address and then she disappeared.
Mark was ecstatic and realised that although he'd only known her for about an hour or so, he had fallen deeply in love with her. He could hardly wait for the next three very long days to pass until Friday night came at last. Excitedly he had a bath, put on his evening dress suit, packed his weekend case and ordered a taxi to take him there. It was a cold dark winter's night, the wind was howling and rain lashing down and the journey was a lot longer than he'd expected, but he did not mind because he was going to see the girl he loved, the girl who'd made him feel so happy and filled him with so many hopes and dreams, Samantha.
When he eventually arrived at Samantha's home, he found it to be a big mansion at the end of a long drive, at least a mile away from the main road. He got out of the car and paid the taxi-driver, but it was raining so heavily that he got soaked through, just going to the front door. However, a very friendly butler called Soames welcomed him and invited him inside. He then took Mark's case and his wet coat, but then realised that all the coat pegs had been taken and that there was nowhere to hang the coat. So much to Mark's surprise, he simply dropped it in a heap on the floor and ushered Mark into a large drawing room.
There was a big roaring fire going in the hearth and the room was lovely and warm. When Mark entered the room, he felt a little shy because there were 12 other people there, all laughing and chattering away. But when Samantha spotted him, she got up from her chair and immediately came over to him. She smiled at him and he could see that she was very pleased to see him. She embraced him and kissed him warmly on the lips before introducing him to all the others who greeted him in a very friendly way. Samantha then went back to her chair, sat down and chatted away merrily to all the others.
Mark felt a little put out, not only because she had left him so abruptly but also because he was the only one there without a chair and he had to remain standing. But what made it worse was the fact that although everyone was being offered drinks, nobody offered him one and he felt too shy to ask for one. However, although he felt rather uncomfortable being the only one left standing up, he joined in the conversation as best he could, and everyone seemed to like him.
When the gong sounded to announce that dinner was being served, everyone got up from their chairs and headed towards the dining room, with Mark following after them. However, when he got into the room, he noticed that there were name cards at each table setting, so he went looking for his and hoped it would be beside Samantha. However, not only was there no name card for him, but there wasn’t even a spare place at the table for him to sit down.
Mark looked frantically at Samantha, but she only smiled back and blew him a loving kiss before turning to talk to the person beside her. Mark then turned to Soames and when he explained to him that there didn’t seem to be a place for him, Soames merely looked at him a strange way before disappearing into the kitchen. Mark began to feel really embarrassed. However, Samantha called out to him and reassured him that everything was going to be all right. So, he went to stand by the fire to wait for things to be sorted out while the others chattered away and tucked into a lovely meal.
Mark felt really uncomfortable standing alone by the fire, even though everyone continued to be friendly and include him in the conversation. But as time went by, he became so embarrassed that at one stage he tried to leave the room. However, for some reason or another, the door leading back to the drawing room seemed to be locked. So rather than risk drawing attention to himself by trying to get past Soames and into the kitchen, he self-consciously returned to stand by the fire. But he was absolutely seething with rage at being treated this way and had already promised himself that he would never ever come back to this place or see Samantha again.
When the dinner was eventually over, the dining room door was unlocked, and they were invited to return to the drawing room. This time Mark led the way, determined to get a seat this time and, as a result, he was first into the drawing room. He immediately sat down and waited for the others to come in. But when they didn't, he went outside, where he found Soames who explained that all the others were in another drawing room, which he led him to.
There was of course no chair for him. Mark completely lost his temper, called Samantha over and quietly complained bitterly to her about the way he was being treated. She seemed genuinely very puzzled by his outburst, but she took his hand and said that she'd explain later. She then kissed him warmly on the lips, squeezed his hand and said with a seductive look in her eye that she'd make it up to him later, when they were alone together. The prospect of this calmed him down immediately and although still confused, he came to the conclusion that what was happening to him was something to do with some local custom that he had not heard about. They then passed the drinks and cigars around but, as usual, not to Mark, although they all continued to be exceedingly friendly towards him.
When at last the party came to an end, Mark instantly felt excited for he was sure that at last he and Samantha would be together and that, with any luck, he'd end up in her bed that night. But after she'd said goodbye to the guests, she suddenly disappeared, along with the rest of her family, leaving him all on his own. But when he asked Soames where his room was, he replied in a surprised tone that there was no room for him, that they were all occupied. Mark then asked to see Samantha, but Soames said it was far too late and he disappeared too, leaving Mark all on his own. Then all the lights the house were turned off and Mark was left in complete darkness.
Mark was so angry by now that he decided that he would not stay in that house for one more minute. So, he went to find a phone to ring a taxi but could not find one. However, he was so determined to get away from that place that he decided that he'd walk all the way home, even if it took all night. So, he went to get his coat and case but found both were gone. But that didn't stop him, and he opened the big front door, strode out angrily into the cold wet night and headed off into the pitch darkness and driving rain. But he could not see where he was going, and he unfortunately fell into this big hole from which there was no escape.
At first light the next morning, some men with tractors came along, filled in the hole, laid top soil and planted some trees, flowers and bushes. That was the end of Mark and there was never another word about him. It was almost as if he had never existed at all. With regard to his job, the bosses back at base decided they wouldn't send anyone to replace him. After all he was the tenth official to have gone missing like that in just one year. So, they closed down the office for good.
THE PETROL PUMP ATTENDANT
It was an unbearably hot, sticky day. The sun was a dazzling, burning glare high up in the cloudless sky. Nothing moved, there was not a sound, just an unsettling sense of timelessness in that awful bleak barren place. Jack turned over a page of his dirty old newspaper and began to read the other side, while he waited patiently beside his petrol pump for customers.
Jack was quite an old man with a blank, expressionless face. Nobody knew much about him, where he came from, or even what his second name was. In fact, the only people who knew vaguely of his existence on this earth were the petrol company drivers who came once every six years to refill his petrol pump, the postman who called every third year, his nearest neighbours who owned another filling station 197 miles down the highway and the four or five customers who stopped for petrol each year.
In spite of the lack of custom out there in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles away from civilisation, Jack was a patient man. Every day he rose early and painstakingly polished his petrol pump for an hour or so, before sitting down beside it for the rest of the day, to read his newspaper, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, for year after year after year. That day was no different from the others except that some noisy irritating insect kept buzzing around his head. Every now and then he would swat at it or look out across the featureless flat land that encircled him and his petrol pump or else glance miles down the straight road, which seemed to eventually narrow to the width of black thread before disappearing over the hazy horizon.
Suddenly there was a high-pitched noise away in the distance. Something was approaching at a very high speed. Jack continued reading his newspaper. The high-pitched whining came closer. But Jack did not even bother lifting his head as the long black car roared past at over 120 miles per hour, leaving a cloud of dust and an acrid smell of exhaust fumes. Jack's eyes never flickered for even a split second from the grubby page in front of him. Then there was a sickening crash, a rending of steel, more crashing, splintering, bumping - and silence before a further smashing sound a few seconds later, as the car hit the bottom of the ravine. Jack did not even turn his head. The article in the newspaper - which he had read two hundred and sixty-seven times before - was far more interesting.
Six hours later Jack's working day was over. So, he folded the newspaper carefully and put it underneath his chair. He stood up and looked around, and when he saw nothing was coming, he hung up the 'closed' sign. He then looked right and left and right again before rushing safely across the highway. There was not a sound as he strolled casually towards the distant bend in the road. The safety railings bordering the gentle bend in the road were shattered. Jack stared at them impassively for a few moments before picking his way down the ravine slope.
Twenty-five minutes later he was beside the crumpled remains of the car lying on the dry, rocky bottom of the ravine. All around the wreck lay pieces of metal, pools of oil, glass and blood. He peered into the car. In the driver's seat lay a young man with the hub of the steering wheel in his chest. Beside him was a woman with a face that had been lacerated beyond recognition by glass and jagged steel. Jack stared at them for several moments with half open emotionless eyes. In the back seat of the car another young man lay, staring at him with horrified, dead eyes. A small smile flickered across Jack's face as he noticed an unlighted cigarette protruding from between the man's tense white lips. Beside him lay a young woman. She was covered in blood and an ugly wound was gaping open in her head.
Jack stared at them all without emotion for he had more a more pressing matter to think about. He began to search the car. There was money in the men's pockets, watches on their wrists and rings on the women's fingers. But he ignored all these things for he was looking for something far more important. But despite all his efforts he could not find it. A frown, angry and threatening, covered his face, showing his frustration. He pursed his lips and swore out aloud at his bad luck. But in fact, his luck was not out, for just when he had almost given up hope, he caught a glimpse of what he'd been looking for, lying underneath the girl in the back seat. He made to grab it, but she groaned. Jack froze and stared at her sideways.
However, her eyes remained closed. So, he gingerly moved forward again and extracted it from beneath her. A big grin lit up his face; his task was completed. He got out of the car and headed slowly back up the slope, callously ignoring the girl's desperate groans.
He was panting as he reached the top of the ravine. However, a look of joy covered his face. Humming with pleasure he stepped on to the road; he had to be careful where he walked for it was still slippery from the oil he had put on it. He looked up at the red sun disappearing into the peaceful, golden horizon. He knew the next day would be a tough one because he'd have to pour petrol over the car and burn it, before burying it completely with rocks, along with the other seven wrecks there. At least it would be worthwhile for he had found what he had been looking for - another newspaper.
THE UNDERTAKER
(BLACK COMEDY)
Jack was born in 1902 and brought up in a little farming town called Hope away out in the back of beyond and over 250 miles from the nearest big city. There were only about 150 people living in and around the town, which was a poor drab bleak place with no rail connection and only one very long narrow dusty track, leading in and out of the town.
The majority of people who were born in Hope spent all their lives there, eking out a living from the rocky barren infertile land and they were all very rough and ready. Life was extremely tough and dreary, and it showed through in the way they lived and conducted their lives. They did not know the meaning of the word ‘manners’ and lived like hogs in filth and squalor. There were also plenty of fights and feuds forever going on and the most of them seemed to hate each other. Even in death they behaved like heathens. For example, when someone died, and nearly before the body was cold, they dug a hole in the ground and threw the body into the hole before filling it in with soil. There was never any funeral service, nor coffin, nor hearse, nor gravestone, nor any other of the things you would normally associate with funerals.
Well even though life round there was so hard, very few of the people were ever brave enough to take the plunge and make the tortuously long journey out of the place and because it was such a horrible dump, virtually nobody ever came visiting. In fact, of those few who had actually summoned up the courage to leave and join the rest of the world, hardly a single one of them ever returned, not even for a fleeting visit. Really, they should have called the town Hell rather than Hope.
Once a month a few supply wagons would come to Hope and the young Jack used to look forward so much to their arrival for he loved to talk to the wagon drivers while the horses were being rested, fed and watered. The wagon drivers used to tell Jack many interesting and exciting things about the big wide world outside Hope, about all the money he could make, and the beautiful women he could have and so on and so on. Jack used to listen to them intently with big wide eyes.
When Jack got to the age of 20, his head was full of hopes and dreams and he decided that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in Hope, that he would leave, take his chances in the outside world and go to the big city over 250 miles away to make his fame and fortune. Needless to say, his family tried to persuade him to stay but he was adamant and refused to listen to them. Instead he wandered around the town blowing and bragging about how rich and famous he was going to become and scornfully criticising all those who were foolish enough to listen to him for being a load of useless sod busters who'd never do any good.
Although people were lenient with him on account of him being so young, the more he said, the more he annoyed people and it was beginning to look like Jack was going to get himself a good hiding. But then luckily for him the day of his departure arrived, and he was off. Most people were glad to see the back of him but there were lots of tears from his family when he left Hope on one of the supply wagons.
When he got to the city, he didn't find any bands or crowds waiting to welcome him with open arms. In fact, it was not at all like what he had imagined, and life was a lot tougher and more difficult than he had ever thought possible. But although initially he felt very homesick and frightened, he was too proud to go home, especially after all the awful things he'd said to the locals before leaving. So, he stuck it out, doing all sorts of temporary jobs, including labouring, bar tending, cleaning and unloading ships, before eventually becoming an undertaker’s assistant. However, things kept going wrong and he never managed to become rich and famous after all.
From time to time he contacted his family back home in Hope to tell them that he was doing really good and that it wouldn't be too long until he'd come home and visit them and that when he did, he'd be a millionaire. But the years passed, and he never managed to make it back because, as he used to tell his family, he was always too busy making his name and his fortune. Even when his mother and father died, he still somehow couldn't find the time to return. However, 40 years after he'd left Hope, Jack learned that all his family had died off and that he'd inherited the family home. So, he finally returned home to take it over.
When he got there, he of course tried to let on to everyone he met that he had made a lot of money and was a very rich man. However, the truth was that, despite his fancy clothes and so on, he didn't have that much at all and he knew that it would run out of cash within a year or so if he didn't quickly find himself some alternative means of income. As for the locals, although it was over 40 years since he'd first left Hope, people still remembered the stinging things he'd said before leaving and they were all dying to see him get his come-uppance from someone.
As Jack wandered around Hope each day wondering what to do, he was horrified to see that the place had hardly changed at all in all the time that he'd been away. But then when he realised that their funeral arrangements were still as crude as ever, it gave him an idea which he was sure would make him money and secure his future. Using his experience as an undertaking assistant, he spent a great deal of time and effort on opening a very posh undertaking business, employing 2 staff. Although he used up all his money on the funeral parlour, he was not too concerned for he knew it was bound to do well and it would only be a matter of time before the money would be rolling in and he'd be rich.
However, on the very day that he opened the doors of the undertaking business for the first time and was standing out on the front steps, poor Jack dropped down dead with a heart attack. Now Jack had trained his staff well and, as a result, they proceeded to bury him properly with all the trimmings. But then when they were done, they went home and that was the end of Jack's undertaking business round those parts. Poor old Jack was his own first and last customer and from what I have heard, they're still burying people in Hope the same way they've always done.
FILL MY GLASS
Once again, it was another beautiful blue warm sunny morning up there on top of the mountain, seemingly a 'million' miles away from 'civilisation' and the rest of the world. Eddie rocked gently backwards and forwards in his rocking chair on the veranda in front of his log cabin home as he gazed away down the mountainside towards the deep green valley far below. He felt relaxed, totally at peace with himself and as happy as any man could possibly be. Mind you he hadn't always been happy. In fact, when was a boy, his life had been absolutely miserable.
One of seven children born in the squalid slums in a rundown area of the big city, his father - an alcoholic, a drug abuser and a very violent criminal - had regularly beaten up his wife and all his children, including Eddie. As for Eddie's mother, she'd been an alcoholic and drug abuser too and had paid for her addictions through prostitution and petty crime. Needless to say, life at home had been very grim and Eddie had no pleasant memories of his youth at all, apart from one which related to that glorious time when he'd been just 10 and his uncle Jack (a law abiding long distance truck driver) had taken him out of the city and away on a two-week hunting holiday up in the mountains.
It had been such a lovely time up there in the mountains with uncle Jack, that on the day they left to return home, Eddie made up his mind that no matter what, he would return some day to live up there in the beautiful heaven. He never forgot that holiday or the promise he'd made to himself. In fact, it was mainly as a result of the memory of that happy time and his dream of returning there that he was able to survive the degradation of life down in the city and avoid getting dragged down into all the crap that all his chums got involved in.
When he reached 16, Eddie left school and managed to get himself two rather menial jobs, in a bar and a fast food restaurant. He worked day and night (unlike his brothers and so many of friends who'd turned to crime) and every cent he earned, he saved. People of course thought he was very mean because he never spent any money on anything. They also considered him to be a very strange person because not only was he very quiet and withdrawn but he didn't seem to want chums or girlfriends and so, although he lived in amongst the teeming masses in the slums of the big city, he was nevertheless a total recluse, who kept very much to himself.
When Eddie reached 22, he went out and bought himself a large four-wheel drive van (capable of crossing rough terrain), camping gear and all the other sort of things you'd need to lead an outdoor life. He then left his jobs and his home without a word to anyone and drove out of the city towards the distant mountains. When he reached them a couple of days later, he then started to drive upwards - using the rough bumpy tracks used now and again by hunters - and he did not stop until at last, after a few days, he reached what he considered to be the most beautiful and yet most remote and isolated place in the world and that's where he built the log cabin which he'd lived in as a total recluse for the following 10 long years.
After all the depravity of life down in the slums, living up in the mountains was like being in heaven. He grew all his own vegetables, caught fish in the mountain streams, chopped up timber for fuel and was more or less self-sufficient and as 'free as a bird'. He really enjoyed walking through the forests and studying all the flowers, the trees and the plants, he loved listening to the birds' dawn chorus in the mornings when he was in his bed and he made friends with all the animals that lived in and around his cabin. It was so beautiful sitting in the sun on the veranda during the day and looking out over his breath-taking paradise. Then in the evenings there were the spectacular sunsets and later the billions of brilliant stars to gaze at up in the clear night sky. He was so happy living there playing his guitar, writing songs and stories about life and enjoying nature.
Eddie's thoughts returned to the present and he raised the glass of wine to his lips and drained it. But when he reached for the bottle to replenish his glass, he was disappointed to find that it was empty. So, he sighed for he knew that eventually he'd have to stir himself from the lovely warm relaxing haze he was in and go and fetch another bottle.
After a while he managed to rouse himself and he strolled round to the little outhouse at the side of the log cabin. However, when he went inside and reached for another bottle, his heart soon sank because he realised that there were no full ones left. Once again, he sighed because he knew that, after an uninterrupted period of eleven months total blissful seclusion in his heaven, it would once again be necessary for him to revisit the 'world'. So, he put up all the shutters, locked up the log cabin, jumped into his old battered four-wheel drive van and headed off down the bumpy mountain path towards 'civilisation'.
It was a hell of a long journey. First of all, it took several days to get all the way down from the mountain tops to the low lands and then it was quite some time before he even started seeing the first signs of human life. However, although he eventually came to a few small towns where he'd stopped before, he knew he couldn't stop in any of them again and that he therefore had no choice but to press on until he reached some little place he'd never been to before.
After about seven days driving, Eddie eventually came across this little town called Trellgin which was not on his list of places to avoid. So, he stopped his vehicle and booked himself into a cheap little lodging house. Now Eddie was by nature a very shy, introverted, reclusive type of person, who'd normally head the other way if he saw someone coming towards him. However, when he arrived in Trellgin, he suddenly turned into an outgoing extrovert.
He wandered around the town, greeting everyone he met and chatted with them all in a most friendly and cheerful way. He really went out of his way to make friends and get to know as many of the local people as he possibly could. He also did whatever he could to help them. For example, he carried old ladies' heavy shopping to their homes, escorted the local blind people across the roads, opened doors for people and so on. Needless to say, the local people soon got to know him and they all thought he was a really nice wholesome upstanding charming young man. Furthermore, when he went looking for work as a barman in 'Benny's' bar, Benny took an instant shine to him and did not hesitate to give him a job.
Soon Eddie was working 14-hour days in 'Benny's' bar, seven days a week, week after week. Benny was really pleased with him because he was such a nice pleasant chatty humorous sort of person whom everyone soon got to like, which of course was very good for business. On top of that he was totally reliable and while he was always very friendly and polite, he was also very firm and therefore always able to handle the local drunks diplomatically and with ease, without offending any of them. He was also extremely honest. For example, there was that money he'd found underneath the counter in the bar. Although he could have kept it, and nobody would have been any the wiser, he instead immediately handed it over to Benny.
Another thing that Benny liked about him was the fact that he didn't drink at all behind the bar and that, all in all, he was a tremendous worker and a real asset to Benny's business.
After several weeks, Benny began to realise that not only was Eddie an extremely good barman, but he was also an intelligent young man, capable of looking after all the paperwork, ordering, stock control and all the other tedious administrative work that Benny normally had to do himself but which he hated. So, Benny made Eddie manager of his bar and upped his wages. Needless to say, Eddie was extremely pleased about his 'promotion' because, as he told Eddie, he wanted to save up as much money as possible.
Ten weeks later, it was once again another beautiful blue warm sunny morning up there on top of the mountain, seemingly a 'million' miles away from 'civilisation' and the rest of the world. Eddie rocked gently backwards and forwards in his rocking chair on the veranda in front of his log cabin home as he gazed away down the mountainside towards the deep green valley far below. He felt relaxed, totally at peace with himself and as happy as any man could possibly be. He raised the glass of wine to his lips and drained it. He then reached for the bottle to replenish his glass but was disappointed to find that it was empty. So, he sighed for he knew he'd have to eventually stir himself from the lovely warm relaxing haze he was in and go and fetch another bottle.
After a while he managed to rouse himself and he strolled round to the little outhouse at the side of the log cabin. When he went inside, he reached for another bottle from amongst the stacks and stacks of full ones that were there. He sighed happily because he knew that with such reserves of booze to keep him going, he could now enjoy another very long uninterrupted period of total blissful seclusion in his heaven and that it would be a long, long time before it'd be necessary for him to revisit the 'world' again.
Eddie went back to his rocking chair, sat down and poured himself another drink. He loved it up there amongst the mountains tops. It was all so beautiful and peaceful, and things were always so pleasant, especially when he knew his 'bar' was well stocked. In short, at that particular moment in time he was one of the happiest men in the world. However, the same couldn't exactly be said about Benny. One day the previous week, Benny had left his home and gone down to his bar to have a word to Eddie about all the booze he'd been ordering recently. But when he arrived down there, he got a wee bit of a shock. Not only was the bar not open but furthermore Eddie was nowhere to be seen.
This sort of disappointed Benny because he had always thought that Eddie was such a reliable dependable guy. So, Benny unlocked the premises and let himself into the bar. However, it was then that he got an even bigger shock for he quickly realised that there was not one bottle of booze nor banknote about the place. In fact, the whole place had been cleared out, as clean as a whistle!
P.S. As I have already said Eddie has lived up in that log cabin for over ten very happy years and as far as I know he intends seeing out his days up there. Now with regard to his list, there are the names of 17 towns on it. I wonder how many more places will end up on it before he dies! Aye, it's amazing the lengths some people will go to, to get themselves a decent drink!!
JUST ANOTHER DAY
When John Stevens awoke at 6.32 a.m. on Thursday, 26th September 1963, it seemed just like the beginning of yet another ordinary day. However, if he had known what was going to happen later, he would never have got out bed. But initially there was no hint of what was to come. So when he got up and had breakfast with his wife Sheila, everything seemed perfectly normal. However, when he was leaving the house on his way catch a train to his bank job in the 'City', he got the first warning that all was not well.
It was the very strange, mournful look on Sheila's face, a look he had never seen before and one that instantly filled him with a peculiar feeling of dread. But he dismissed it from his mind and gave her his customary 'peck' on the cheek before leaving for the railway station. But he had only gone about a hundred yards down the road when he felt a drop of rain hit his face. He looked up at the black threatening sky and groaned. It was going to be an awful rush, but he knew that if he did not return for his umbrella he would get drenched. So, he rushed back up to the house and burst in the rear door.
Much to his amazement, he found three men sitting around the kitchen table drinking tea. They jumped to their feet with startled expressions on their faces. One of them then asked him what he thought he was up to and another told him to "get the hell out of it". He stared at them open mouthed, totally stunned. When he did not move, they picked up knives and came around the table at him. He knew then that somehow or another he had entered the wrong house and he fled, with the men right behind him, lunging at him with their knives.
When he got outside, he sprinted down the road, just a couple of steps ahead of them, gasping for breath, heart pounding, expecting a knife at any moment to rip into his flesh, running onwards into a town centre he did not recognise, running, running, running until at last he realised that there was no longer anyone chasing him. He stopped to recover his breath. How could he have made such an incredible blunder? Why did his mind feel so dull and confused? Where the hell was he? And why was it getting so dark so early in the day?
He decided he was suffering from amnesia or some other strange mental condition and that he should ring Sheila. He walked down the street and, when he found an empty phone box, he dialled his home number. An unfamiliar woman's voice answered the phone and when he started to speak, she slammed down the receiver. He noticed an ugly man outside the phone box staring in. His expression startled John so much that he became terrified when the man started tapping loudly on the glass. However, he decided to persevere. So, he dialled his doctor's number but got a plumber instead.
Outside he saw a sea of angry faces staring in at him. He quickly dialled his work number but got a morgue attendant. The people outside were becoming more and more impatient and the incessant battering on the panes of glass got louder and louder until eventually several of them broke. But it was when rough hands reached in to punch and grab at him, that he fled from the phone box and ran away as fast he could, a very frightened man.
The sun had gone in and it was very dark. Everyone seemed to be looking aggressively at him and the air was full of strange muttering sounds. People bumped into him on purpose and swore violently at him. Whenever he walked in the gutter to avoid them, angry motorists beeped at him, flashed their lights and tried to run him down. He noticed a pub and decided to go in, have a drink and gather his thoughts. However, when he went inside, the whole place immediately fell silent and everyone turned to glare at him.
As he eased himself through the silent throng of surly, unfriendly men and eventually managed to reach the bar, he could feel danger in the air. Someone clattered into his back and he turned to see a hulking brute of a man pointing a big knife at him. Everyone in the bar started moving towards him, blocking his way out. He jumped over the bar and fled towards a door. Men, screaming and cursing, jumped over the bar after him. He pushed open the door and stumbled into darkness. He fumbled his way through the blackness, hands stretched out in front of him, banging into things, not knowing where he was going, only aware that there were at least 50 men pouring into the room, intent on catching him and slashing him to ribbons. He could feel their hot breath and the spittle from their shouts on his neck, he could smell the BO from their unwashed armpits and the foul odour of their festering mouths, as he tripped over crates of bottles and fell against unyielding walls.
Then suddenly he banged against a door. It opened, and he spilled out into a dark alley. He immediately picked himself up and took to his heels. However, although he ran as fast as he could, the men behind him quickly caught up and he seemed to be only several steps ahead of death. There was a strange silence, apart from the echoing clatter of their footsteps behind him. Suddenly he was at the end of the alley.
Frantically looking right and left, he noticed a police station about 500 yards away down the silent, empty street. He immediately headed for it because it meant safety, a sanctuary, the end of his nightmare - as long as he could make it. He ran, dragging one leg after another, gasping, stumbling, tripping, with the mob of men behind him, just several paces away, lunging for him and slashing at him. He was going as fast as he could, but the police station did not seem to be getting any closer. But suddenly he was there. Waves of relief swept over him as he stumbled up the steps and into the station. He knew he would be safe, that the policemen would look after him and protect him. He felt like cheering.
Inside the bleakly lit reception area, a tall blond policeman was talking casually to a colleague. He glanced round at John before returning to his conversation. John slowed down and approached him, gasping for breath. Then to his horror he realised that his pursuers had entered the station and were slowly advancing on him, evil smiles all over their faces. John grabbed the policeman's arm and pleaded for help. But instead of stepping forward to protect John from the mob, the policeman launched a ferocious attack on him. Within seconds more beefy policemen appeared. They grabbed him and, kicking, punching and cursing him, they dragged him down a long bleak corridor to a cold, dank cell. The jubilant cheers of the mob rang in his ears.
They kept him there in solitary confinement for seemingly years and the only sounds he ever heard were the agonised screams of other prisoners being mercilessly tortured day and night. From time to time they pushed cold, revolting food through to him but despite his hunger, he often left it to rot and fester in a corner. He grew more and more dishevelled and soon had a long beard. His cell had no toilet and a nauseating stench hung permanently in the air. He was a man seemingly without any future or hope and he spent all his time gazing into the pitch darkness, muttering endlessly.
Then one day he heard the door of his cell being unlocked. It quietly swung open and he could see a glimmer of light out in the corridor. He crept towards the open door. It was totally silent outside, and it seemed as if there was nobody about. Even so he felt in terrible danger. He slipped out into the corridor. Then there was a shout and he turned to see a crowd of men chasing down the corridor towards him. He saw a door in front of him. He opened it and found himself outside the prison, in the open. He started to run, run for his life.
Tall, derelict buildings, the sound of many footsteps in pursuit, echoing around the empty streets, never getting louder, never fading away, thick thack, thick thack, thick thack, thick thack, tapping out a deadly, sinister rhythm, spelling out a message of indescribable danger, a message of death. He stumbled and fell. He looked frantically back over his shoulder and, in the distance, he could see the mob. He did not understand what was going on but knew he could not stop, that he had to go on, somehow or another. He arose and staggered on down the road.
The sound of the mob's footsteps suddenly got louder; danger was approaching at speed. He stopped momentarily at a junction, gasping for breath, heart pounding, totally exhausted, wondering which way to go, lost and frightened in a wilderness of bleak, silent warehouses, beside decaying, stagnant docks in a god-forsaken part of some nameless town, not knowing where to run or how to lose the evil that was pursuing him relentlessly. He knew there had to be an escape somewhere and he would have to find it, if he wanted to live. He then noticed a long straight road leading up to some trees and houses and saw smoke coming from their chimneys. He knew there must be people there, that the end of his nightmare must surely lie along that road, the road back to reality.
He started running again and, although terrified, he at least had hope in his heart. He felt that, at last, he was going to make it, that he was going to escape. But he realised too late that he had chosen badly. There was a big hole in the road which he could neither go around nor cross. There was no way out; he had come to a dead end. He turned to face his enemy, to see who it was who had been pursuing him for so long and for no apparent reason. He looked frantically at their faces to see if they had any compassion at all, if they would spare him. It was his only hope. They stopped running and walked determinedly towards him, leering cruelly, closing in on him, blocking every possible means of escape, swinging chains, iron bars and knives, with hate in their eyes, thirsty for his blood, enjoying the look of terror on his face. They were deaf to his frantic pleas for mercy as they moved nearer and nearer.
They were only a few paces away and he had only seconds to live. They raised their weapons to cut him to pieces and he lifted his arms in a vain gesture to fend off the blows. The air was full of a strange murmuring sound. He knew his time was up. Their knives flashed down. Everything went dark. Sheila looked anxiously at her watch. It was 12.45 a.m. and John had been missing for over 18 hours. She had waited long enough; she rang the police. Although they tried their best to find him, John Stevens has not been seen since.
MEMORIES OF YOUTH
I once heard it said that if you lose sight of someone for even just one split second in a very big city, you could lose sight of that person forever. This comment reminded of a man called Souter, whom I once met in a bar while travelling extensively round Europe. Although Souter was obviously a very lonely man, he was also extremely nice, quietly spoken, gentle, civilised and intelligent and despite the fact that he'd obviously had very little formal education, he could talk at great length about a very wide range of interesting topics. However, it was when he began to talk about what had happened to him in his childhood that I became really interested.
Apparently, his father had been a very successful wealthy farmer and they'd all lived very comfortably in a big farmhouse on a very large farm, where they'd had plenty of everything. Souter's memories of his very early childhood were very vivid, and he told me all about the lovely nice warm bed he'd been so snug, warm and safe in at night; all the toys he'd had; how he'd so enjoyed following his father round the farm, looking at all cows and pigs and other farm animals.
He recalled the nights in front of the blazing fire, when he'd watched the flames creating all sorts of fascinating imagery in the big wide-open grate and listened to the lovely music played by his elder brothers and sisters; the beautiful food his mother had served up; all his friends and the exciting games they'd played; his teddy bear and his pet dog Skip; Santa Claus and the tooth fairies. Then there’d been the trips out in the car, including the day when they'd gone down to the coast and his father had carried him on his shoulders as they'd looked out over the sea at a boat in the distance, with its tall white sails eventually disappearing silently out of sight over the horizon. He remembered the birds singing high in the skies on the lonely moors and the tutor who'd shown them a new picture every day about some new interesting place in the world. There had been the trips out in the boat on the lake; sleigh rides in the snow; baked potatoes and butter by the bonfire; walks in the forest and the blue bells carpeting the ground; and lots, lots more.
But it was the love and warmth in the home that he'd remembered most fondly. He'd smiled so happily when he told me about his father playing with him like he was a big kid himself and his lovely smiling mother, who must have given him at least twenty warm cuddles a day, and his cheerful laughing brothers and sisters and the goodnight kisses from all and sundry. Then there'd been lots of aunts and uncles who'd been so nice to him and given him lots of presents.
He thought he’d probably been the happiest child alive in the whole wide world. But then one day, when Souter was only three years old, the family had set off very early on a long train journey for the big city to enjoy a day out. None of the children had ever been there before and were all bursting with excitement. Souter never forgot that day, seeing all the tall buildings, traffic, the 'millions' of people and the noisy and confusing hustle and bustle. They'd stared at it in such awe for it was all so strange and new to them. Then his father had suggested that they go for lunch and they'd headed down into the underground railway system to catch a train to some nice place his father knew.
Though there had been so many people around, on the platforms and in the trains, Souter had not felt scared because he knew his father was not far away. But then Souter had noticed a man with a tiny monkey on the train and he'd been so fascinated, he hadn't been able to take his eyes off the little creature. However, when he eventually looked round, he’d realised, to his horror, that all the rest of his family had got off the train and in all the hustle and bustle he’d been left behind.
He’d immediately felt lonely and afraid, but it’d never crossed his mind for one second that this was anything other than a temporary mishap, that it would not be long until his father would suddenly appear, lift him up into his arms and make him feel safe and happy again. But his father did not reappear and when Souter became more and more lost and frightened, he'd got off the train, weeping his wee heart out. A railway official had come across him and had tried to comfort him, telling him that it would not be long until he'd be reunited with his family. However, although the authorities made enquiries, they’d made no headway, for although Souter had such happy memories of his youth, he'd been unable to tell anyone where his family lived or even what his father's name was, for he'd only ever known him as 'daddy'.
Souter was eventually put 'temporarily' into a children's home, where in fact he was forgotten. He was really miserable there for the regime was authoritarian and there hadn’t been any love or comfort. However, he took some comfort from the realisation that when he grew older, he'd be able to leave that awful place and find his family and friends.
Several years later, he left the children's home and set off to find his family. However, although he’d subsequently spent the following 40 years of his life criss-crossing the country, placing advertisements in newspapers, writing countless letters to various authorities and government agencies and employing private detectives, he’d never made any progress.
The last thing I heard was that he has still not found his family yet and continues to spend all his time searching for them, driven on by all those happy memories from his youth, those days when he had been so happy and loved.
FANTASY WORLD
Andy lived in a very poor rundown area of London. He was single and in his forties, and he felt perpetually depressed because he realised that he had no future and that his best days were over (not that they'd ever been much good anyway). Although he'd once had dreams and ambitions, none of them had ever come to fruition. This was mainly because: he'd left school at 15, despite the fact that he'd had obvious ability; he'd never had any drive or determination and was basically lazy; and he'd always been far too fond of the booze to concentrate on anything worthwhile for long. Another factor in it all was that he'd never had any real opportunities to better himself, which was mainly because he'd spent his whole life doing menial jobs and living in grotty poor areas, where opportunities of any kind were always, inevitably, very few and far between.
One night, he got fed up lying about in a heap watching the TV in his squalid little high-rise council flat and he headed off down the local pub for a few pints to try and blot out the depression in his mind. Even though he didn't have any real friends and was basically a very lonely character, he ignored the other men in the pub and took his pint and went and sat by himself in a dark corner, to brood and feel sorry for himself. Then suddenly this very good-looking woman in her late thirties came into the pub. Andy'd never seen her before, but she was so attractive that he immediately forgot his troubles and concentrated on her instead.
Although shy of women, he managed to fall into conversation with her and learned that her name was Carole and that she'd just moved into the area. Carole and Andy got on so well together that at the end of the evening they arranged to meet again the following evening (Andy had considered inviting her round to his flat, but when he thought about the awful state of the place, he'd decided against any invitation there until he'd had a chance to clean it all up).
When Andy got back to his flat, he felt exactly opposite to how he'd felt when he'd left it earlier on in the evening. Instead of feeling down and depressed, he felt totally elated, happy and excited and he couldn’t stop thinking about Carole. She seemed so different from any woman he had ever met before. Furthermore, she also seemed to have an almost supernatural aura about her which filled him full of warmth and happiness.
Needless to say, he could hardly wait until the following night to see her and when they met up again, they had another really lovely evening together. However, although Andy had spent all day trying to clean up his flat, he still felt too ashamed about it to invite her back there. But she resolved the problem by inviting him back to her little place, which was a lovely warm flat and had a beautiful peaceful atmosphere about it. He immediately felt at home there, especially when she put her arms around him and told him how much she liked him. They spent many lovely times together there over the next few weeks.
But then one night something really strange happened. While they were lying in bed, she confessed to him that she had strange powers which enabled her and whoever was with her to leave reality and visit her fantasy world. Andy was of course very sceptical about this revelation (and in fact almost embarrassed) but he played along with what she told him, because he did not want to upset her. She proceeded to explain to him how the two of them could go together to her fantasy world and he followed her instructions, intertwining all his limbs with hers and allowing her to breath into his lungs, even though he found it all almost unbearably uncomfortable, especially when he felt himself suddenly sinking into unconsciousness.
The next thing he was aware of was him and Carole flashing down a kind of tunnel of brilliant white light at incredible speed. Then suddenly, and much to his amazement, he found himself with Carole in a totally different country, where the sun was always shining, the climate was beautiful, and everything was lovely. There was a tremendous sense of beauty and peace there and millions of colourful flowers and birds everywhere. Everyone they met was so good-looking, gentle and kind and Andy and Carole lived together in a luxurious penthouse apartment overlooking a golden beach and a dazzlingly blue sea. Furthermore, they had a limitless supply of money and lots of extravagant things, as well as flashy cars and many fabulous, famous and wealthy friends. They enjoyed so many exciting times together and it was all so different from the horrible life that Andy had been experiencing in reality.
Although they seemed to spend months in this new place, when they did eventually come back to earthly reality, Andy realised that they had not actually used up any earthly time. Needless to say, he wanted to return to Carole's fantasy world because life in that paradise was so like what he'd dreamt about when he was young and full of hope and so different from what his life had been like before he'd met Carole. She was so pleased to have made him happy and she agreed that they would return to her fantasy world soon, although she did explain that she couldn’t return immediately because the whole phenomenon took so much out of her that she had to have time to recover her powers. She also explained that she had no real control over how long they could stay there, so whenever they went there, a visit there could last from 5 minutes to 55 years or whatever.
Andy made many trips with Carole to her fantasy world and enjoyed every one. One thing he realised very quickly was that when they reached her fantasy world, he did not have to stay with her, that he could go and do his own thing on his own, although obviously when she returned to reality, he had to leave her fantasy world at the same time and return with her.
When Andy and Carole had first met, they had quickly become very fond of each other and had had some really nice times together in reality. But as time went by, Andy began to find her irritating and it was not actually too long until he started to get increasingly fed up with her. Even so he remained her lover because he knew that that was the only way that he could escape the drudgery of the real world and visit her fantasy world. However, it soon got to the stage that whenever he got to Carole's fantasy world, he always left her almost immediately and went off to do things on his own, which, funnily enough, didn't seem to bother her in the slightest.
One day when he was on his own in Carole's fantasy world, he met another woman called Rischa. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and he instantly fell deeply in love with her. What made him so happy was the fact that she fell instantly in love with him too. They seemed so perfectly matched and he hated it whenever he had to return to reality with Carole.
Back on earth, Andy spent all his time thinking of and pining for Rischa, longing for the next time when Carole had sufficient powers for them to return to her fantasy world. Now, although Carole did not seem to mind him going off and doing his own thing in her fantasy world, there was a reason for this. Although she had initially been in love with Andy, he had over time become so irritable, awkward, moody and unloving towards her that eventually she started falling out of love with him. He, on the other hand, was so wrapped up in himself and spending so much time thinking about Rischa, that he did not notice the way Carole was cooling off towards him.
Carole gradually became more and more unhappy and things got so bad that one day that she rang Andy to tell him that she no longer loved him, that it was all over and that she was leaving him and the area. He tried to persuade her over the phone to take him back and when this failed, he rushed around to her place only to find that she had gone. Andy was of course heartbroken and full of remorse at the way he had treated Carole, especially as he knew that without her, he would never see Rischa again and that he would be condemned to bleak reality forever without her.
One day, many months later, Andy was reading a gossip column in one of the national newspapers when he came across an article that immediately caught his eye. It was all about Carole. He was totally devastated to learn that she had met and married a millionaire who was making her fantasy world a permanent reality. Andy sank into a very deep depression and spent all his lonely days and lonely nights, alone in his flat, wondering where Rischa was and how she was getting on.
Carole eventually got to hear about his plight and visited him one last time. He begged her to let him go to her fantasy world just once more and she agreed. So, they intertwined their limbs and she breathed into his lungs. But then suddenly she got up and left Andy's flat. Andy's body was found the next day following an anonymous telephone call. When they came to take Andy away to the morgue, someone could not help remarking on what a beautiful peaceful happy expression he had on his face.
MONASTERY
I wonder if you’d be interested in hearing about the peculiar thing that happened to a good friend of mine called Robbie Lassky? Well, I'll tell you anyway. When he was 28, my friend Robbie finally qualified as a lawyer after working very hard for 8 long years and he decided he wanted to reap the benefits of all this hard work as soon as possible. He had lots of big ideas and was full of hopes and dreams. For example, he wanted loads of money, a magnificent house, a summer villa, a fancy high-powered car, a yacht, a beautiful wife and all the very best things in life. However, unlike me, he wasn't a very patient fellow and he didn't want to earn all these things the hard way and had decided that rather than spending all his life as some small-town lawyer, he wanted to be a big star right away.
So, he ignored my advice and decided to cut corners and take a few shortcuts and it was because of this, that he came into contact with a man called Monty. Monty was a notorious gangster and although he had become very rich through all sorts of criminal activity, he'd never been convicted of any crime. He was an absolutely ruthless cruel brute who would not hesitate for one second to wipe out anyone who dared to double-cross him, or steal off him. Although Robbie feared and respected him, Monty didn't look too bright to him and Robbie made the fatal mistake of thinking that he was smarter than Monty. So, when a golden opportunity arose for Robbie to steal over 3 million off Monty without him apparently being aware of it, Robbie took his chance and stole the money.
Robbie was very clever, and he thought that he had covered all his tracks so well that the theft couldn't be traced back to him. But Monty wasn't as thick as he looked, and not only did he become quickly aware of the theft, but he also knew who to blame. He came to see Robbie and told him to return the money. But Robbie made his second big mistake and told Monty he didn't know anything about the missing money. Well Monty blew up and told Robbie that he was a dead man. However, because Monty never ever got his own hands dirty, he told Robbie that he was taking a contract out on his life and that the hit man would be Bono Amato.
Well when Robbie heard the name Bono Amato, he was absolutely petrified because although he had never met Bono and, in fact, didn't even know what he looked like, he had heard a great deal about his fearsome reputation. Apparently, Bono was a really vicious professional assassin who would follow a target to the ends of the earth if need be and would never quit until that person was dead. As soon as Robbie heard Monty saying Bono’s name, he was sure he was a dead man.
Although Robbie immediately went on the run, no matter where he went, he could not relax because he was convinced the shadowy Bono was on his trail and that he'd be a dead man within days. But then he had what he thought was a brilliant idea; he decided to enter a very remote monastery at Loue where all the brothers had to live their lives in total silence. Robbie was convinced that this would be the last place that Bono or Monty would think of. So, he went to Loue, joined the other resident brothers there, and to disguise himself he grew a big bushy beard and long hair and started wearing glasses. As far as all his friends and relations were concerned, he'd vanished from the face of the earth.
Life in the monastery was a real comedown from what he had been used to in the outside world and was also very tough. There was always lots of hard work to be done and life was generally very boring because they were all required to obey the vow of complete silence. In fact the only thing that Robbie really had to look forward to was the arrival of some new brother for him to gawk at out of curiosity. Robbie quickly grew to hate life in the monastery, but he remained there because he no longer felt in fear of his life and could relax.
About 7 years after Robbie's arrival, it was decided by the powers that be that the regime was too harsh and that the monks should be allowed to talk for one day every five years and a notice was put up on the notice board to announce this. Needless to say, everyone was most excited about this relaxation of the rules, despite the fact that the notice made it clear that the first 'talking' day would not come around for another three years.
At last, three years later, the first 'talking' day arrived and all the brothers immediately began to chatter excitedly to one another. Robbie was just as happy and excited as all the others and he went from group to group listening to the brothers chattering away and talking plenty himself. He was feeling great until he came across one group of men who were all laughing and joking. He stopped to join in all the fun and it was then incredibly, that he heard the name Monty being mentioned. He could hardly believe his ears. The brother who was doing most of the jocular talking was someone who had joined the monastery shortly after he had and whom he had nicknamed Snoopy because he always seemed to be snooping about the place in a strange furtive way.
Well anyway Snoopy was telling the others with a grin on his face that he'd used to work for a man called Monty who'd been a real hard gangster. He said that Monty had considered himself to be a real tough guy, but it'd turned out that he wasn't as tough as he'd thought for although for many long years, he'd never given the police or other gangsters the opportunity to get him, he'd made the simple mistake one day about ten years ago of walking out into the road without looking where he was going, and a bus had flattened him. Man, all the other brothers roared at this.
Snoopy then went on to say that Monty's death had saddened him, but not because he'd loved the man but because as soon as Monty had died, his empire had died with him and all his gangs and business interests had evaporated into thin air, including his job. Well Robbie was very relieved to hear this, for he assumed it meant that at last it would be safe for him to leave the monastery which he had grown to hate so much, and he immediately began to fantasise about getting out, spending lots of the loot he'd stolen off Monty and making up for lost time, in the fast lane of life. But then Snoopy went and spoiled it all by saying that just before he had died under the bus, Monty'd given him a contract to kill someone and that he still felt obliged to fulfil it.
The other brothers assumed that Snoopy was still joking, but Robbie was not so sure and alarm bells began to ring in his mind. Could this man actually be Bono Amato or was he someone just relating a tale he had heard? So, he broke into the conversation and asked Snoopy, as jokingly as he could, why wasn't he out in the outside world tracking this man down. Snoopy smiled at him in a very friendly way and replied that there were two reasons: the target's trail had gone cold around about the time of Monty's death and because it had always been his ambition to be a monk and because he was really enjoying life in the monastery, he'd decided he'd remain there until the target resurfaced from wherever he was hiding.
Robbie tried to smile but it was difficult, especially when Snoopy went on to say that he had contacts on the outside who were keeping an eye on certain bank accounts and that if he ever got word that the target was on the move again, he'd leave the monastery and hunt him down. Then someone asked Snoopy what his name was and when Snoopy said Bono Amato (and that really, he'd been a school teacher on the outside), Robbie nearly wet his pants.
Up until that point in the day Robbie had been doing a great deal of laughing, chatting and nosey gossiping. But as soon as he heard the name Bono Amato, he said not one more word and in fact he could hardly wait for the talking day to come to an end. Well Robbie and Bono are still in the monastery together. Apparently, Robbie came to the conclusion that he was safer there, for he knew that if he ever left the monastery, it wouldn't be long until Bono'd be back on his tracks. So, he concluded that it was safer to keep Bono in his sights and always know where he was.
The last thing I heard was that although Robbie has settled back down into his old routine, he's really dreading the next talking day in four years’ time, especially as Bono seemed to have recently become very friendly towards him. Well, if you're wondering how I know so much about all this, it's because Robbie wrote to me recently for the first time in many years to 'get it all off his chest' and ask me for my advice. Well not only did I tell him to stay where he was, but I also told him to stop worrying, because his secret was safe with me.
c.c. Bono Amato - C/O Loue Monastery
DUCK AND DIVE
Have you ever met a real blaggard before? If not, let me introduce you to a man I used to know called Duke. Now Duke was one of those boys who liked to have a real good time all the time, but who never had enough of his own money to pay for it. So, he made a conscious decision very early on in his life that, hook or by crook, he'd get everyone around him to provide him with all the money he needed to enjoy the pleasures of life.
I remember him well and my God, was he not the sweetest 'get' who ever drew breathe. Man, he had a lovely bungalow, a nice wife, three children, a big car, a good job and always wore smart suits. Sure, he was miles ahead of all his neighbours in every respect, despite the fact that he owed more than half the country money. Aye he was a desperate bloody man.
Duke's father Sammy had been a farmer and a right good one too. Although he'd had to work very hard day and night on his wee farm, he'd made sure that his family never went short on anything and, as a result, they were always well fed and well dressed. But then the poor sod died which sort of turned everything upside down for the rest of them. However, Duke's mother was a right hardy woman and she decided that rather than sell up, she'd keep the farm going, with the help of her sons. So, they all got stuck in apart from the bold Duke who wasn't a pile of use around the place on account of his being so lazy. But Duke did have his uses. For example, his mother used to get all the feeding stuff for the cattle and pigs on credit from the merchant in town and because young Duke wasn't any good at doing anything else, she took to sending him into town with cash from time to time to pay what was owed.
For a few months everything went desperate well on the farm, until one day the merchant arrived. He was all apologetic of course for he'd known Duke's mother a long time and had got to trust her. But the bill had been mounting up a lot and he felt it was about time for it to be paid. Well she was that taken aback, she had to lie down. However, when the merchant told her the outstanding bill ran into thousands, she nearly lay down for good! Bejaysus, it transpired that the bold Duke had been spending all the 'feed' money on everything but the 'feed' - every last penny of it. Of course, Duke generously offered to forfeit his pocket money until the debt was all repaid. But it was no use, the bill was too high, and she had no choice but to sell the farm. Well I ask you, if a man could do that to his mother, what would he not do to everyone else!
Jaysus, it wasn't long until there was hardly a person he didn't owe money to, including children, the blind, cripples and old age pensioners. Jaysus if it'd been possible, sure he'd have borrowed off all the local cats and dogs as well. But damn the one of them ever saw any of their money back again. Once Duke had laid his hands on it, it was as good as gone forever, because there were never any return tickets attached to cash 'loaned' to the bold Duke. Man, he was that sweet and plausible in his fine suits and his great job, he gave the impression of being the most respectable and honest man you could ever have hoped to meet. Sure, the way he operated, he'd always leave you feeling that he was doing you a good turn to let you lend him money. But he was a great actor too and he'd fooled many's a mug.
He'd come up to someone who didn't know his record and, funnily enough, not all that many did know it - I mean what man's going to brag and blow to others what an eegit he'd been. As a part of his modus operandi, Duke could get very sad and serious at the drop of a hat.
"I hate to ask you," he'd ask you in an urgent, pleading tone of voice, "but I wonder could you help me out." Then he'd ask for money and if you looked in any way reluctant, sure the bold Duke'd turn on the tears, just as easy as if he was turning on a water tap.
"It's not for me," he'd wail, "it's just that I've had to pay some bills and now I have nothing left to feed or clothe the children." Sure, how could any dacent man refuse! And the money'd be handed over.
"Now you'll definitely get this money back at the end of the month," he'd say, "when I get my pay cheque." Sure, he was that plausible, you couldn't help but believe him.
"God love you," he'd continue, "you've really saved my bacon .....the kids'll eat tonight and it'll all be down to you...God bless you." Sure, you'd nearly be in tears yourself listening to him. But you never saw him nor the money again.
But Jaysus, he had a kind of sixth sense. If someone who he owed money to was within half a mile or so of where he was, he could almost sense it...and he'd be off, toute suite, in the opposite direction. He was a great boy with the cheques too. Man, his were great things, all clean and tidy with his lovely neat signature on them. But there was always one sneg - if you'd have dropped one, it'd have bounced at least six feet in the air.
However, it wouldn't have been so bad if all that money he borrowed (or should I say stole) had actually been going to the kids. But all they ever got from him were kicks up the arse and clips round the lugs. No, whenever he'd successfully tapped you for money and you stood and watched him going around the corner clutching your fivers and drying his tears, you, like an eegit, would have had no doubt but that he was on his way to the nearest grocer's to buy grub for the kiddies. But you'd have been wrong for where he was really off to was the nearest pub. Man, he used to burst in all laughs, grins and jokes and set up drinks for the whole bar. Sure, a more dacent or generous man you could never have hoped to meet. Man, he'd set up drinks until every last penny piece was gone. Aye a desperate generous man he was - with other people's money!
Not even his friends were safe. I remember his pal, poor Jimmy. He knew Duke's record because he had often been done before. Even so he was too soft, and Duke knew, that although it was getting harder each time, he could always get some more whenever he really wanted it off Jimmy. Jaysus, I remember the time well, when Duke came to Jimmy late one Friday evening in the pub, with tears flowing down his cheeks. He told him he really was in a desperate hank and this time he was serious. He just had to get a couple of hundred pounds or the police’d be up to take him away.
Jimmy was, of course, a mite reluctant at first on account of his previous experiences, but Duke's tears were giving his drink a salty taste and the one thing that Jimmy really didn't like was salty Guinness. So, he sighed and gave Duke what he wanted, even though he knew it'd mean him having to go short himself and that not only would he not be able to buy the coal he needed for the house, but he wouldn't have anything left for a few pints and fags over the weekend.
Poor Jimmy spent the whole weekend sitting shivering by his empty grate, all miserable and like a bear, dying of druth (cos he loved his drink) and suffering from nicotine withdrawal symptoms. On top of all that he had to listen to his wife giving him hell for being such a clem. As for the bold Duke, he was touring Donegal with his wife and her friend. Man, they stayed at all the best hotels, drank the best whisky and lived like millionaires.
But sure, you couldn't bate him. Jaysus, I remember the time he got married. It was the biggest, flashiest wedding that had ever seen round those parts. There were big cars hired and a marquee, and a couple of bands and lots and lots of fine grub, and the whisky and champagne were overflowing. Man, it was a great day, a day never to be forgotten. Especially for the poor suckers who'd rented him the fancy suits and the big cars and the marquee and sold him the booze and provided all the lovely grub and the two bands. Sure, all them cheques that Duke gave them bounced. And to top it all, when he very generously gave the smiling praycher £100 (rather than the usual £25 fee) to pay for the wedding service, sure that cheque bounced as well. Sure, the man had no shame nor conscience.
I remember well the time his brother died in a car accident. Poor Duke was grief-stricken and wept buckets for days. Of course, as usual he didn't have any money. But he wanted to give his brother a good send-off, to see him off in style. So, he begged this publican to give him some booze on tick. He confessed that although he'd diddled him in the past, this time would be different, that he was hardly going to say farewell to his brother with drink that wouldn't be paid for, because that would be worse than sacrilege. The publican reluctantly consented; the eegit! So, Duke buried his brother with whisky bought on what you could really call the 'never never'. Man, it was obvious to me he'd never pay. Sure, he even gave the undertaker a dud cheque. Jaysus, it was a terror.
He must have owed tens of thousands of pounds throughout the whole country. It used to break my heart watching him in action. Them damned barmen wouldn’t give me even one cold black bottle of stout on tick and yet they'd lend that rogue a £100 without even batting an eyelid. Sure, the man was no better than a common thief. The way he operated was like stealing money and knowingly passing dud cheques is fraud and yet, there he was, living the life of a playboy, happy, free and content. But yet, if some poor 'get' was to steal a £5 note, sure they'd throw him in the clink. Ach, sure there was no justice at all. But do you know why he never got jail. Well they were that odd round there that although they'd have you locked up for stealing a loaf, they'd never take you to court for money owed or dud cheques because the general view amongst merchants was that it'd be bad policy and bad for business, for they thought it'd give them a bad name if there was ever any court action involving them reported in the press. Jaysus it would have made you laugh to see him dancing rings round them eegits.
Now if you are wondering why none of Duke's 'victims' ever went to his house to try and get their money, it was because Duke's mother-in-law Maud lived with him and the family and she was far better than having 10 hungry Rottweilers around the place. Aye, it was well known throughout the country that she had the most desperate ferocious wicked temper that had ever been seen in any person and this sort of deterred any of them visiting Duke and 'going into the lioness's den' so to speak.
But to get back to Duke and the peculiarities of life, I remember one bright spark called Tom, who'd loaned Duke £75 a couple of years before. Tom trailed Duke continually, although it would have been easier following a ghost. However, he did eventually manage to bump into Duke and after a lengthy discussion, this Tom boyo realised he was getting nowhere and he started to get exasperated for it was beginning to dawn on him very rapidly that he hadn't a hope in hell of getting Duke to hand over the loot and that it would also be a complete waste of time trying to take him to court. So, Tom decided something positive would have to be done there and then to relieve himself of all his pent-up frustration. He therefore gave Duke a short, sharp, crisp box in the mouth and landed him on his backside in the gutter. Now while Duke's jaw soon recovered, and it wasn't long until he was back "borrowing" money again, poor Tom got six months jail for assault and battery.
But no man can escape forever, and he'll always eventually meet his Waterloo. Now despite the fact Duke'd been on the fiddle for many’s a long year, neither his wife nor his dreaded mother-in-law Maud knew a hate about his shenanigans. This was mainly to do with the fact that he intercepted all the letters on their way to his house and, as a result, they never got to see any of the bills or poison pen letters. But I was the local postman and I got fly for him. Now Duke used to hang around beside his car each morning waiting for me and I decided that I’d play a wee trick on him. So, for a lough of days, I only gave him the junk letters and kept the dynamite ones to myself. Then when I'd got 20 of them gathered up, I waited one day until he'd driven off to work and then I pushed the 20 letters (including an anonymous one from myself) through the rusty letter box.
At 5.30 p.m., I dandered up near his home. I didn't know what time he'd be home because although he was supposed to be a schools inspector, he usually spent most of his time inspecting the insides of pubs all around the country. But fortunately, I did not have to wait long. Jaysus he'd hardly got out of the car before his mother-in-law Maud and his wife were out to meet him. Jaysus, it was a great spectacle. The infamous Maud took into smigging him and blackening both his eyes, while his wife kicked lumps out of his shins. Jaysus, then they gave him a fierce tongue-lashing as they battered him all the way down the path into the house. My goodness the roof on that house never quit shaking that night. But hell slap it up him, for it was damned good medicine for him.
Duke was a kinda quiet for a while after that. He was grounded, under curfew, put under constant surveillance and all his money had to go straight to his wife at the end of each month. On top of that, there was no pubbing, nor messing about neither. No, his routine from then on entailed getting himself off to work early each morning and then getting himself right on back home early each evening for exciting nights with the family in front of the TV.
But once a bad egg, always a bad egg. One day Maud decided to ease up on him and she gave him money and asked him to go down the town and get the groceries in the local grocery.
Well she was just as big an eegit as all the others for he took the money and headed for the nearest pub for he could stand the druth no longer. Jaysus he drank the whole money. Then he drove 15 miles to a shop where he'd heard there were new owners who he knew wouldn't know his record and he got all the groceries on tick. Duke's self-confidence soared after that and soon he was back in business, back on the road, 'borrowing' money from all and sundry. Sure, not even the divil could have kept him down. Aye, the bold Duke was a real blaggard and yet, for most of his life, everything went his way.
POLLY DOLLY
Terry, a 33-year-old police constable, had just moved from a very busy inner-city job 'on the front line' to a quiet police station in the suburbs where he became a community bobby. During the first few days in his new job, he soon became familiar with his new beat and it wasn’t long until he realised that it was going to be a lot different from his previous very hectic and demanding job and that instead of spending all his time chasing villains and sorting out violent incidents, he’d be spending all day every day just pounding his beat, up and down and round and round, without having anything much to do, apart from helping old dears across the roads, giving directions to people passing through the area and chatting with the locals. However, although his job was not very exciting and a bit of an anti-climax after his previous job, it did have its advantages. For example, he didn’t feel as stressed as he used to and there seemed to be quite a few interesting characters around to give him a laugh and make him smile.
Now one of the local characters he met on his first day on duty was old Aggie, who was wheeling a pramful of dolls. Although smartly dressed and obviously quite well off, it was quite obvious to him that she was an eccentric, who lived in her own little world and definitely seemed to have a 'screw loose'. But as for the dolls, Terry didn’t actually take much notice of them.
At the start of his second week on the beat, he bumped into Aggie in the street again and he stopped for a few friendly words. She seemed to be in good spirits and in good health and when they’d finished chatting, he watched with a look of amusement on his face, as she headed off towards the park with her pramful of dolls, which she was chattering merrily away to.
About 5 minutes later, while wandering down the street, he heard a woman shouting. He looked round and saw this young woman running towards him, gesticulating at him. When she got near him, he noticed that although she was wearing rather odd but colourful clothes, she was probably the most beautiful and attractive woman he had ever seen in his life. In fact, he was so taken by her beauty that he found it difficult to concentrate on what she was saying. However, it quickly dawned on him that she was in great distress and he realised why when she told him that her mother had collapsed in the park and urgently needed help. So Terry ran into the park, followed by the girl, and was very surprised to see that the girl's mother was in fact Aggie.
She was lying on the ground and when he rushed over to her, he discovered that she had stopped breathing. However, he managed to revive her, before calling an ambulance on his walkie-talkie. Needless to say, he felt very pleased that he had been able to cope with the crisis so satisfactorily. The girl was so grateful that she threw her arms around him and gave him a big warm kiss on the cheek. Now although on the surface, Terry seemed a very cheerful chap and happy with his lot in life, he had no girlfriend and was, in fact, a very lonely and unhappy man, who was desperately looking for someone he could fall in love with and marry. Sadly, for him however, he'd never had much success with the girls, although he did continue to live in hope that someday his luck would change and that he would meet someone really nice. So, when she kissed him, his heart leapt, for he knew immediately that it was love at first sight and that she was the girl he’d been looking for all his life.
While they were awaiting the ambulance, Terry took the opportunity to talk to the girl and it was then that he learnt that her name was Sarah and that she was Aggie's daughter. But later when he was relating the whole incident back in the police station and started talking about Aggie's daughter's role in the whole incident, he was taken aback when the sergeant told him that not only had Aggie never been married, but she’d certainly never had any children.
Terry was absolutely desperate to see Sarah again and over the next few weeks he searched the area high and low for her, but in vain. Then later, when Terry heard that Aggie had been released from hospital, he decided to go round to her place to see how she was getting on and to wish her well and also find out more about Sarah. As he was approaching her home, he thought he heard lots of laughter and conversation coming from the house. However, when Aggie answered the door and invited him in, it soon became absolutely clear to him that there was nobody else in her house, except her dolls.
Terry tried his best to have a reasonable conversation with Aggie, but she was so barmy that it was not easy. Then just as he was about to leave, one of her dolls suddenly caught his eye and instantly took his breath away, for not only did the doll look exactly like Sarah but she was wearing the same peculiar ill-matching but colourful clothes that Sarah had been wearing. Terry was completely taken aback and although he tried to question Aggie about the doll, all he could get out of her was that the doll's name was Sarah and that she was her favourite 'daughter'. Because Terry was feeling so love-sick for Sarah, he begged Aggie to sell him the doll. But Aggie steadfastly refused to let her go and Terry had no choice but to leave the house, heartbroken and totally dejected, convinced that he would never see Sarah again.
Now there had been definitely nobody else in the house, so when Terry was walking down the path to the gate, he was extremely puzzled when, through the open window, he could clearly hear a young woman pleading with Aggie.
"But please, please, please Mummy, let me go," he heard her saying, "he saved your life and I love him." Terry was very confused, so he stopped and turned back towards the front door.
"All right my love," he heard Aggie saying, "I'll let you go." And the front door of the house opened, and Sarah came running out and down the path into Terry's arms.
REBEL NUN
One day when she was six years old, Molly was asked by a visiting relative what she wanted to be when she grew up. She told me later that her first reaction had been to say that she’d like to be Santa Claus's little assistant or work in a sweet factory or something like that. However, for some reason or another, she replied that as a result of a strange dream she’d had the previous night, she wanted to be a nun. Now although her mother and the relative laughed, her father, a very religious man, took it very seriously and decided that the dream was a message from the Virgin Mary calling his daughter into God’s service.
Now of course Molly didn’t really want to be a nun, but because she loved her adoring father so much she didn’t want to disappoint him by not fulfilling his dream of her becoming a nun, especially as he was forever going round telling all and sundry about the Virgin Mary's message to HIS daughter calling her to be a nun. However, the older she became, the less she felt she wanted to be a nun and she often wished she'd just kept her big mouth shut about that silly dream.
During her early teens, she tried to put it to the back of her mind and she carried on like any other pretty young girl and was full of the joys of life. She went to all the dances and ceilidhs, flirted with the boys, gossiped about local romances, listened to 'pop' music, followed the fashion and other modern trends and this, that and the other. Furthermore, although she would never admit it, she had very little interest in the church or religion, which she actually thought was all very boring.
However, when she got to the right age and all the arrangements had been made by her father and the local priest, the big day arrived, and Molly had to tearfully say goodbye to her mother, father and all her brothers and sisters and enter the nunnery. As soon as she entered that dreary place she immediately felt homesick and terribly upset, especially when she met her new 'mother', the Mother Superior, who although quite young, was a very cold, strict and unfriendly woman and not a bit like Molly's own dear kind loving mother, to whom she had always been able to turn to for plenty of TLC whenever she'd had any problems or felt upset.
Well Molly was shown her own little cell-like bedroom, before being taken on a tour around the place. It was a desperate dump, full of big grey cold buildings, which were surrounded by a high grey-stoned perimeter wall. Molly knew it was going to be just like a prison and that she'd never be allowed out into the outside world again, unless of course she signed herself out or got expelled. She became even more depressed when she was introduced to the other nuns for they were all so different from her because they were all obviously totally dedicated to their vocation in life. Although Molly didn't want to stay and wished that she could leave, she knew she couldn't because of how much it would upset her dear dad, make him into a laughing stock and bring shame and ridicule to the whole family.
During those early days, Molly used to cry herself to sleep at nights because she felt so sad and lonely. But she derived some comfort from her happy memories of the past and also the few illicit things that she had smuggled in and which were hidden in the suitcase under her bed. For example, there was the couple of dresses she used to wear to dances and ceilidhs, her jewellery, old letters from and photographs of her boyfriends, her diaries which reminded her of all the good times she'd had in the past and also all the money that she knew she could use to escape from there if things ever got too bad.
Every night when all the other nuns were asleep in their beds, Molly would go through all her things and dream about her happy past and wonder how all her friends and family were getting on. She really missed the dances, the crack, the visits to the local bar, the laughter and chatter of all her friends, letting down her hair and doing the odd bit of 'coorting' here and there. There wasn't a day that didn't pass but that she wished she could escape from that awful place and get back to all her friends in the land of the living.
Time passed, and she gradually became used to life in the nunnery and in fact, on the surface, she became a very a very good nun. But really, she found the spartan life so dreary and boring that she constantly dreamed of the day when she could leave the place, which she realised would probably not be until after the death of her parents whom she did not want to hurt.
Molly had been assigned the job of looking after some of the extensive gardens round the nunnery and although it was hard work, she enjoyed it, especially as she was on her own a lot of the time and, as a result, did not have to show too much holiness and all that. But the thing she hated most about life in the nunnery was when the Mother Superior used to call her in, from time to time, for a little chat. This was because she hated her and thought she was the most horrible, sour, cold and severe bitch she had ever met in her life and because she was completely without any sense of humour at all.
Well anyway the months dragged on by and Molly continued feeling deeply miserable inside, although on the surface she seemed okay to all the others. However, one day, when she was working out in the garden, she went into the little stone outhouse at the perimeter wall and while she was looking for tools, she noticed a little door in the wall behind a big pile of gardening junk. This of course intrigued her and because she wondered what was behind the door, she quietly and quickly removed all the junk. She then turned the key in the door and to her amazement the door began to creak open.
She hesitated for she was a little afraid of what lay behind it. But her curiosity got the better of her and she pulled it wide open. To her absolute astonishment, she found herself looking out on to the road outside and also a bus stop. She stepped out onto the road and for the first time in over six months, Molly could look out on the outside world. She stood there for ages gazing out at the faraway hills and the market town that was nestling down in the valley below.
Then suddenly she heard the noise of an approaching vehicle and she rushed back in through the door. But although she was scared of being seen and closed the door, she left herself a little crack to peer out through. She saw a bus pulling up at the bus stop and a woman slowly getting off. There were people on the bus, including young women like herself, and a feeling of excitement ran through Molly. Then the bus started off and roared off down the hill towards the market town, about five miles down the road.
When the old woman had disappeared out of sight, Molly decided that for future reference and in case she ever needed to escape the nunnery, she should know more about the bus times. So, she quickly ran over to the bus stop to see the timetable on the post and was pleased to see that there was at least one bus an hour until 10.00 p.m. at night.
Later that night when she was lying in her hard, little bed, she couldn't sleep for thinking about the view down the valley to the busy market town and all the cheerful people on the bus. It was then that she suddenly had an incredible idea. The following night, after everyone had gone to bed at 8.00 p.m., she quietly opened her suitcase, took out a dress, put it on, got some of her money, crept stealthily out of the nunnery, across the lawns and gardens to the little outhouse by the wall, opened the heavy wooden door and within seconds, she was out on to the road and down to the bus stop.
She was almost sick with fear but so excited at the prospect of visiting the real world once again, if only for half an hour or so. She was so relieved when the bus came along shortly afterwards and stopped for her. She got on and paid her fare and soon she was on her way into town, feeling so frightened and yet at the same time so happy and excited. She really enjoyed wandering round the streets of the market town looking at all the people and the shop windows, really curious about everyone and everything about her. Then she heard the sound of laughter and music coming from a pub and she was in so much in need of a good laugh that she could not resist going inside.
It was a modern disco pub and seemed a bit on the bawdy side, with everyone drinking like mad, laughing, joking, dancing and canoodling with one another. Molly initially felt a bit self-conscious and alone, but it did not last because she was such a good-looking girl that it was not long until there were boys around her chatting to her and buying her drinks, telling her jokes and making her laugh. She enjoyed every single minute of it until it dawned on her that she'd missed the last bus home. But she should not have worried for a couple of the local lassies took her the most of the way back to the nunnery in their car. During the journey there, they were of course very curious to know who she was and where she lived and what she did for a living and all that and she replied to all their questions in such a vague way that by the end of the journey they were none the wiser.
Well she'd had a bit too much to drink on her night out and, as a result, she felt like death warmed up when she had to get up at 5.00 a.m. the next morning. It also didn't do her any good getting side-tracked by the Mother Superior who seemed to be even more sour and caustic than usual and who gave her some additional tedious chores to carry out. But somehow or another she managed to get through the morning and by lunchtime, her hangover had begun to ease, and she was able to think about and enjoy the memories from the night before.
Life was suddenly full of warmth and colours once again and while she toiled away in the garden, all she could think about was her secret pub, all the jolly people there, the music, the laughing and the dancing with all the lovely boys. It had been such a lovely night and what had made it even better was she had not spent too much money and therefore had plenty left to go a few more times again.
About a week later, she was once again on the bus and on her way back to the market town where she met her new chums and had another tremendous night. And she did this quite a few times. However, she was terrified that she would get caught some night for she knew by the look of the Mother Superior that if she ever discovered her little secret, she would be out on her ear and heading straight back home in utter disgrace, which she knew would break her parents' hearts. She was also finding it very difficult to deflect her new friends’ questions about where she lived and worked because it was a rural community and the majority of people knew everyone else. But she managed it somehow and was very happy, although she knew that one day her money would run out and that sadly the whole thing would have to come to an end anyway.
During her secret night outs to the market town, she got herself a handsome boyfriend called Pat. Now he was a kind big block of a lad and he looked after her and treated her well. He took her to lots of nice places, although I must tell you about one den of iniquity that he took her to one night by mistake.
Well this place was a real kip and all the cliental looked very rough indeed. Molly soon began to feel very nervous on account of all the things she witnessed going on. For example, there was one girl she saw talking to her chums who stopped half way through a sentence, turned round sideways, was sick over the back of the chair and then proceeded to wipe her mouth on the curtains before turning back to her mates to finish her sentence, all as cool as a cucumber. Then, down at the far end of the bar, there was this other woman, with peroxide blond hair and a very short skirt on, who was being particularly outrageous. Man, she was up dancing on a table and wiggling her bum most provocatively at the boys. It was clear to Molly from the way all the boys were slobbering all round her and looking up her skirt that she was a bit of a tart.
Now Molly was basically such a very nice girl that she felt a little threatened by all that was going on around here. So, she turned to Pat with a smile on her face and was just about to suggest to him that they go elsewhere, when the peroxide blond turned her head and looked down towards her and Pat. Molly immediately quit smiling and instantly sobered up, for the brazen drunken hussy in the blond wig, with a fag hanging out the corner of her mouth was none other than the Mother Superior.
Their eyes met and the Mother Superior sort of froze as well. But then she reached for her glass, winked, mouthed 'cheers' at Molly and then kissed some man full on the lips before collapsing in a heap on the floor. Well needless to say, Molly was never scared again of getting caught after that, although not one word was ever said between her and the Mother Superior about what they both got up to at nights. In fact, nobody would ever have suspected a thing for during the day at the nunnery, things went on exactly the same as before, with the humourless Mother Superior continuing to be as authoritarian, cold and sour as ever and Molly the nice shy girl continuing to work quietly in the gardens, just like before.
IN TRANSIT
Although Geraghty had flown many times, there had never been any occasion before when he’d felt even slightly nervous. But when the pilot announced that they were going to make an unscheduled refuelling stop at some place he'd never heard of, he suddenly began to feel strangely uneasy. Even when the plane touched down smoothly, he still felt nervous. Something deep down kept telling him that something awful was going to happen to him - very soon!
When the plane finally stopped, an airhostess announced that they were going to disembark for a short while. But it was when she warned them repeatedly that "under no circumstances" were they to leave the confines of Terminal 1, that he began to feel distinctly anxious. However, when he stepped from the plane into blazing sunlight and perceived a flat, deserted, silent landscape, totally without character, unfriendly and sinister, stretching far, far away, his underlying feeling of anxiety was suddenly replaced by one of absolute dread.
When he entered Terminal 1 and found it similar to any you would see in a typical, modern international airport, he soon forgot his sense of foreboding completely and happily wandered around exploring the place. But when he came to a door leading into Terminal 2, his fear returned immediately. He turned to walk away but then stopped. He was damned if he was going to let some silly irrational fear get the upper hand! So, he ignored the airhostess's earlier insistent warnings and went through the door into Terminal 2. It shut behind him with a deep resounding clunk and, glancing round, he realised that it had no handle, which struck him as being rather odd. But he gave it no further thought as he ambled casually across the concourse.
He quickly began to notice the many differences between the two terminals. In Terminal 2 there were no clocks nor windows; it was cold and the lights were starkly bright; there was litter everywhere and the walls were grubby and stained; there was nowhere to sit and very little noise apart from a strange muttering sound that filled the air; there were cameras everywhere and heavily armed, surly looking guards; peculiar looking people, wearing rags and with strange empty expressions on their faces, hung around aimlessly in long queues and all the officials looked mean and unfriendly.
He began to feel very frightened again and headed back towards the door leading into Terminal 1. But of course, he could not open it because there was no handle. Suddenly he heard his name being called out over the public-address system, asking him to proceed immediately to gate 3 in Terminal 1. But there seemed to be no way into Terminal 1. He turned for a help to a passing official, but he only glowered at him and pointed towards the end of a very long queue. Then suddenly, he heard his name being called out repeatedly on the public-address system. They were urgently requesting him to go immediately to departure gate 3 in Terminal. Once again, he desperately tried to get help but he was just pushed and shoved all the way back to the end of the queue. He then heard them calling his name out for "the last time, definitely the last time". He looked around, panic-stricken. But there was no escape.
They stopped calling his name out and his heart sank. His plane had gone without him and he was stranded in a strange, alien country, thousands of miles from home. Two policemen with gloating expressions on their faces suddenly appeared. Without any word of explanation, they quickly bundled him through a door and dragged him along dimly lit corridors, past rows and rows of eerily silent cells, down into the depths of the earth. They took all his clothes off and strip-searched him. Then they switched off the light, locked the door and left him naked and shivering in the cold, silent darkness. Never before had he felt so lonely and dejected. He broke down and wept and his sobs echoed around that awful place.
They kept him there for years in total isolation. Every so often, they pushed cold, revolting food through to him under the door, but nobody came near him and the only sounds he ever heard were the agonised screams of other prisoners being mercilessly tortured day and night. He felt sure that it was only a matter of time until it would be his turn. He also feared that he was going to die there, and it began to dawn on him that the reason why so many of the other cells were silent was because they were no longer really cells at all, but tombs full of the silent skeletons of poor souls like him.
Then one day, when he had all but given up hope, they gave him a bundle of rags to wear and released him on to the main concourse of Terminal 2. As he staggered across the floor he caught a reflection of himself in a glass door and saw a stooped and broken old wreck, with a long beard and matted, lank hair staring back at him with sunken, lifeless eyes. He glanced around at all the other strange sad souls wandering around the Terminal and wondered if they had all made the same mistake as him and come through that door from Terminal 1 into Terminal 2 and whether they were all doomed to wander aimlessly through that desolate place until the day they died!
He suddenly heard shouting, screaming and the clattering of boots and, on looking round, he saw a violent murderous mob chanting his name and converging on him. Panic-stricken, he took to his heels and fled for his life, desperately looking for some means of escape. Then he saw a door he had not noticed before. He rushed through it and found himself all alone at the end of a long, brightly lit and eerily silent corridor. The door closed after him with a deep 'clunk'.
He expected his pursuers to rip it open and come spilling in after him. But for some reason they did not. He cautiously tiptoed down the corridor until he came to the first of the many doors that led off it. He stopped and put his ear to it. But there was no sound from the other side. Maybe he could slip in there, hide in the darkness, gather his wits and make plans. Nervously, very nervously, he slowly opened the door.
He found a very large banqueting hall and long tables, laden down with mountains of food. Around the table sat hundreds of fat, zombie-like people, all gazing at him with piggy eyes, waiting impatiently to start feasting. Because he was so hungry, he greedily picked up a piece of seemingly luscious chicken. The other fat creatures immediately picked up their knives and forks and began to gorge themselves. There was no noise apart from the sound of jaws masticating, the rattling of cutlery on plates and the clinking of glasses. Nobody looked at any one else nor spoke. But when he noticed that the chicken and all the other food in the room was rotten and seething with maggots, he spat the chicken from his mouth and fled.
He moved rapidly from room to room looking for some escape. In one he found farm animals wandering around, baying, braying and grunting and, in another, skinny geriatrics, wearing rags, roaming around in circles, muttering to themselves, going round and round, never stopping, never resting, staring ahead, obviously destined to stagger on relentlessly until eventually they dropped down dead one by one. He found an operating theatre and saw a man, strapped to the operating table, with a big surgical gash in his side. He could see the man's innards moving inside his body, but fled when suddenly the man gave a long, agonised scream and gallons and gallons of blood began to gush from the wound in his side.
He also saw piles of corpses lying around in strange positions, with sad, empty expressions on their faces; a torture chamber where evil looking men laughed as they inflicted terrible pain on poor, naked souls screaming in chains; then there were the snakes, spiders and rats, all slithering, creeping and scuttling around in search of someone or something to kill. There were screaming women giving birth to weird monsters, sane looking people locked in stocks and lunatics throwing rotten fruit, stones and whatever else came to hand, at them. No matter what room he ventured into, it was full of horrific things.
He turned a corner and there they were once again, the gang of vicious men, waiting silently for him to fall into their trap. It suddenly went dark. Panic-stricken, he fumbled his way back through the blackness, hands stretched out in front of him, banging into things, not knowing where he was going, only aware that those evil men were after him, shouting and cursing, intent on catching him and slashing him to ribbons. He could feel their hot breath and the spittle from their shouts on his neck, smell the BO from their unwashed armpits and the foul odour of their breath. He could sense horrific violence and death in the air; his death.
The men and their knives came closer and closer. Then there was light and the sound of many footsteps, in pursuit, echoing around that bleak empty place, never getting louder, never fading away, thick thack, thick thack, thick thack, thick thack, tapping out a deadly, sinister rhythm, a threnody of indescribable danger, a message of death. Lost and frightened, not knowing where to run or how to escape the evil that was relentlessly pursuing him, he ran round and round, up and down, backwards and forwards, running, running, running for his life, with the mob in hot pursuit, down another long, long corridor, heart almost bursting, lungs burning, legs leaden, only a few steps ahead of death.
The corridor was so long, he did not seem to be moving and the men behind him were gradually gaining on him. There was a strange silence apart from the echoing thick thack of their footsteps. Next thing, they were right behind him; fumbling hands were clawing at him and knives were slashing at his clothes; their triumphant screams filled his ears. There was nowhere else to run, nowhere to hide, no escape. They were going to catch him and rip him to bloody pieces.
Suddenly he came to a door. A possible escape? But there was a notice on the door. "DANGER...CERTAIN DEATH BEYOND THIS DOOR!” He had a choice. It was either certain death at the hands of the mob. Or certain death on the other side of the door. Which death would be less horrific? Which would involve less pain? He looked back in horror at the cruel men advancing upon him with their knives and clubs and chains. He rushed through the door, slamming it behind him.
He found himself back in Terminal 1 and behind him was the door he had originally used to enter Terminal 2. He recognised fellow travellers from his plane and realised that he was clean shaven and wearing his own smart clothes. The nightmare was over! Waves of relief poured over him and all the tension in his body evaporated. Then they announced the imminent departure of his flight. He felt so glad; he did not understand where he had been or what he had been through and knew that he never would. But he did not care, he just wanted to leave and never ever return.
He made to go towards the departure gate. But then he stopped and looked back at the door leading into Terminal 2. He slowly returned to it and hesitated. With trepidation, he opened the door and looked in. A strange wind suddenly began to murmur inside Terminal 2 and he could feel himself being sucked back into that hell. But he held his ground for he knew what was going to happen. And it did! A terrified man, who had made the same mistake as him, came running back in from Terminal 2. Geraghty looked into that awful place one last time to make sure there was nobody else coming before he let the door shut with a heavy locking clunk. And Geraghty went to catch his plane - a very happy man.
AMATEUR DETECTIVE
When Mal was home on summer holiday from university, he didn't know what to do with himself. However, he suddenly had a bright idea and decided that in order to make life a little more interesting during the remainder of his summer holiday, he should become an amateur detective. Now because he didn't know of any local crime that he could investigate, he selected a 'target' at random from the local telephone directory and the name he picked was one E. G. Barrett.
Mal went to Barrett's home and found it to be a very large derelict house, in a very rundown, grotty part of town, where there were very few houses but plenty of warehouses, factories and other industrial premises and it wasn’t long until he realised that the whole area was gradually being flattened as a part of a major new development project.
Although Mal found himself a suitably concealed vantage point from which to watch Barrett's house, it was not too long however until he began to realise what a boring job being a detective can be. Even though Mal hung around Barrett's house for days on end, not only did Barrett never leave the house but he never seemed to get any visitors either. In fact, the only glimpses that Mal ever got of Barrett was through the dirty net curtains on a first-floor window. But although he couldn’t get a good look at Barrett's face, his impression of him was that he was a big ugly violent looking man, obviously living on his own.
Initially Mal had been very excited about his 'target' but as each day passed, he became more and more disappointed, especially when he learnt after 5 days patient surveillance and investigation that Barrett was not actually the man's real name and that the real E.G.Barrett had been the previous tenant.
But then one dark evening, things suddenly changed when he saw a very beautiful but nervous looking young blond woman ringing Barrett's doorbell. When Barrett opened the door, Mal tried once again to get a good look at him, but all he could see in the shadows was a dark shape looking furtively up and down the road, as if he was checking to make sure that nobody was watching. Then Barrett suddenly pulled the girl inside and slammed the door. Something about the demeanour of both Barrett and the girl told Mal that something very strange was going on and his fear and adrenalin levels rose immediately. He began to feel that perhaps his 'target' would end up being a most interesting one after all.
Sometime later, Mal thought he heard a short burst of horrific screaming coming from the house and he was almost certain something terrible was going on inside. But then everything went quiet again and he wasn't sure what to do next. Although his first instinct had been to call the police, he decided against that for fear of looking a fool in front of them, if it turned out that nothing in fact was wrong.
While he was pondering on what to do next, he noticed all the lights in the house being switched off. Then Barrett left the house hurriedly and rushed down the road, looking around him all the time. Once again Mal could not get a good look at him because of the darkness and the shadows. Mal was tempted to follow him but decided not to because he felt that this might be his one and only chance to get into Barrett's house. Because of the screaming he’d heard, he was certain that something was wrong inside the house and, being concerned about the safety of the girl, he realised that this might be his only opportunity to become a 'hero' and rescue her. So, he decided to get into the house round the back and search it from top to bottom.
Mal crept round the back of the house and managed to break in. As he entered the house, he was terrified in case a burglar alarm would go off or that there'd be vicious dogs inside that'd start barking, come after him and rip him to pieces. However inside it was pitch dark and totally silent. He began to feel absolutely petrified, for he was sure that he was either going to get caught or that he'd find something really gruesome.
The house was in an awful mess and all he saw was junk, odds and ends, old furniture and rubbish, all piled high. His heart was thumping and his ears buzzing as he crept through the house. Every step seemed to reverberate round the whole place and as he went down creaking stairs and along musty corridors, he felt that around some dark corner or behind some squeaking door there would be some unimaginable horror waiting patiently to pounce on him and turn him into a bloody pulp.
Then he heard a noise, which sounded like a woman moaning in the basement area of the house. So, he headed in that direction. However, when he was on the ground floor, in the main hallway, heading towards the stairs leading down to the basement, he suddenly he heard other noises outside the front door of the house. He realised that there were people coming up the front door steps and that they would soon be in the house. He instinctively knew that he was in real danger and that if he didn't disappear really fast and these people would catch him and kill him.
For a horrible split second Mal was so terrified that he couldn't get his legs moving. But then suddenly his limbs functioned and away he went, panic-stricken lest he missed this slim chance of escape. As he fled down the corridor to the stairs leading down into the basement area, he heard the front door of the house being opened. As he ran down the basement staircase as quietly and as quickly as he possibly could, he heard the sound of voices and footsteps in the main hallway and he was aware of lights going on in the main hallway. Mal kept running, amazed at his own speed, down to the bottom of the stairs and into the darkness of the basement.
Panic-stricken, he managed to find a cupboard and he quickly got inside it and shut the door. He couldn't see a thing. He thought that he was relatively safe there but then he was absolutely horrified when he heard men coming into the basement and switching on the light. He thought that they must have heard him and that within a few moments he'd be caught. However, it soon began to dawn on him that they had other things on their minds.
Over the next few hours he heard low muffled voices and strange noises which sounded very much like scraping knives, meat being cut up, plastic bags being filled up and tied. He was convinced that they were cutting the girl up and that if they caught him, they would do the same to him. During the lengthy operation, there were times when he appeared to be only seconds away from being caught. At one point, someone came over to the cupboard and looked inside without actually seeing him. But at last they finished what they were doing, and they switched off the light and went upstairs, leaving the black plastic bags behind them.
A few hours later, although Mal heard people leaving the house, he was convinced that one had remained and that it was Barrett. He crept upstairs and tried to make his way silently towards the back of the house only to find out, to his horror, that the internal door through to the back had been locked. He now had a real dilemma, for he realised that he had no means of escape other than through the front door, which meant passing the room where he thought Barrett was.
Sometime later, he heard the front door of the house being unlocked and someone walking out of the house and down the steps to the street. He was sure it must be Barrett and that his opportunity to escape had arrived at last. He crept out of the cupboard and stealthily went upstairs. It was night-time, and he could see through the dirty glass panels in the front door that it was very dark outside in the street. But he was horrified to see some light out in the corridor, seeping from beneath a door and it crossed his mind that Barrett or another man might still be in that room. He stared at the dim outline of the front door for a long time. Although there was total silence in the hallway and he couldn't hear any noises, he couldn’t be sure that there was nobody about.
He was so frightened for he knew that he was in terrible danger. But he knew he could not stay there any longer, that he had to move on and take his chances. Warily he crept along the corridor on tip toes, constantly looking all round him, his ears straining to hear the slightest noise, his heart thumping. But at last he got to the front door and opened it. However, he seemed to lose all control over his limbs and felt as if he was frozen to the spot. But then suddenly he was away, out into the cool night air, running, running, lungs bursting, running as hard as he could, away across the lonely street and round the corner, past derelict buildings, convinced that there were people chasing him. So, when he came to a small wall, he jumped straight over it to get out of sight. But what he did not realise was that there was a 25-foot drop into pitch darkness on the other side of the wall.
The next thing he remembered was the sound of voices. His heart immediately leapt because he thought that he was still being pursued. However, the gentle and familiar tones of the voices reassured him that he was safe. He opened his eyes to find that he was in a hospital bed and that his parents and family were round his bed peering very anxiously at him. He was of course totally confused by the situation but was absolutely amazed to learn later that he had been in a deep coma for over 6 months.
Mal never told anyone about his experience in Barrett's house, but when he eventually got out of hospital, he went back to where Barrett's house had been, only to find it had been flattened by bulldozers and that a new block of flats had been erected on the site. Mal made a few discreet enquiries to try and find out if a blond girl had gone missing at the time of his ordeal, but no matter what he did or where he went or who he asked, he couldn't find out anything. In fact, as time went by, he began to wonder if it had happened at all and the more he thought about it all, the more unreal and unlikely it all became. So, he finally came to the conclusion that those horrible 'memories' had all been caused somehow by his accident and that it was just his mind playing tricks on him. He put it all to the back of his mind and returned to his university studies.
Within another six months Mal had fully recovered and forgotten all about his ordeal. Furthermore, he was doing very well with his studies and was also really enjoying himself at university, especially because he now had a steady girlfriend, whom he'd met in a club outside the university. She was a blond and, by a strange coincidence, she looked remarkably like the girl who'd come to Barrett's house on that fateful night.
One day Mal was in his flat, getting ready to go out to lectures. He went to the window to see what sort of a day it was. But while he was looking out over the street, he didn't notice the character standing under the trees on the other side of the street, the character who had been watching him for the previous 13 days. Furthermore, when Mal came back later that day, he did not notice that his flat had been broken into and that the same character who'd been watching him had been through all his things. He also did not realise that this man had not left the flat but had remained, hidden in a cupboard. If he had been aware of the man being in the cupboard, he would have taken some appropriate action and, as a result, he would not have been strangled as he lay asleep in his bed.
When his body was discovered, everyone who knew him was stunned and very sad. He had been very popular young man and lot of people came to his funeral, including myself. However, for some strange reason his girlfriend didn't turn up. In fact, nobody ever saw her again.
Now you may wonder how it is that I know so much about Mal's ordeal at Barrett's house if he didn't tell anyone about it. You may also be wondering how I know about him being watched and also how he was murdered. Well, it's quite simple actually. You see I'm E. G. Barrett. But you won’t tell anyone, will you!
RELIGIOUS LAW
Have you ever heard of the country of Bizar? Well if not, it's a mountainous kingdom not far from India and the reason so few people have heard of it is because it is so poor and almost inaccessible. Furthermore, it has very few natural resources and, because it is so very mountainous, very little good arable land. Also, the communications and transport network within the country are very, very bad. So, in short, Bizar is an extremely backward country and, for the majority of people there, life is very basic and primitive, especially in the remote outlying villages high up in the mountains, including the village of Alcho.
Now let me tell you a story about what happened in Alcho several years ago. Alcho is situated high up in the mountains and is, more or less, cut off from the rest of Bizar. The people living there are extremely poor, and life is so hard that they have to work hard from dawn to dusk to scrape themselves a living and, any outsider looking in, would wonder how they could possibly survive. But what makes things worse for the people there is the fact that Alcho is governed by the council of a local religious cult called Bleecism.
Bleecism is widespread throughout Bizar and is probably one of the most demanding religious cults anywhere in the world. With regard to Alcho, everyone who lives there is automatically deemed to be a member of the cult and is therefore under an obligation to comply totally with all its laws and rules. For example, the people are required to pray five times a day, visit their place of worship every morning and evening, give a fifth of their hard-earned money to the cult and so on. But if all that wasn't bad enough, the Bleecism religious cult also frowns on all forms of pleasure, including smoking, drinking, partying, laughing, joking, gossiping and sex etc.
However, for some strange reason that nobody really understands, when someone dies, the cult members must break all the normal rules and, as a result, they are required to eat, drink and be merry during the three-day wake in celebration of the dead person's past life, all at the cult's expense. But apart from the three-day wake periods, if anyone is caught breaking any of the cult’s rules, they are immediately executed. But despite the fact that life in Alcho is generally speaking not a barrel of laughs, the people manage to survive the rigours of life there one way or another.
But to get back to the story, about 5 years ago, one of the respected local elders was found dead in his cot. It was a terrible shock for he had seemed such a fit, healthy, hardy sort of man, who everyone thought had at least another twenty years of living in him. Well they followed the usual ritual and during the three-day wake, they grieved over his body and drank plenty to celebrate his past life and so on. Then when the three-day wake was over, they buried him, and everyone got back to work and that was that.
Now although life in Alcho is very hard, the people are in fact very healthy and, as a result, deaths were normally few and far between. So, it was quite a surprise when someone else died two weeks later. So once again there followed the usual three-day wake, with all its boozy celebrations, before the person was buried and everyone got back to their dreary lives again, scraping and slaving.
Well if the people were surprised when the second person had died so soon after the elder, it was nothing to when a third person died within days of the second. There followed, of course, the usual mad drinking binges at the wake and this time some of the people really let themselves go. In fact, there was an orgy of merriment, gluttony and excessive, outrageous behaviour of every description, the likes of which had never been seen before. But the priests did not mind at all because the rules of their religion not only allowed such behaviour, but actually encouraged it after a death.
Now although nobody likes to see anyone else die, the locals were getting so used to having these good times on such a fairly regular basis that a lot of them were sort of half hoping that a few more people would snuff it, so that the partying could go on and on. Well my goodness but if their wishes didn’t come true, for soon after, there followed several more deaths, all seemingly from natural causes.
Although, I hate to say it, an awful lot of people's eyes used to light up each time they heard of yet another death. In fact, the majority of people weren't too unhappy about all these folk dying, just as long as it wasn't them and they were around to enjoy the subsequent wake celebrations. However, the local police chief Thicko began to smell a rat. Although the spate of deaths seemed to be purely coincidental, he became more and more convinced that something more sinister was going on. However, no matter how much he delved into each death, he could not discover any evidence of foul play. So, he decided to secretly call in a police detective called Idioti from Dumpo, the capital city of Bizar.
When Idioti eventually arrived, Thicko told him about everything that had happened and asked him to undertake a covert operation to look into the whole case. Idioti immediately agreed and, when five more deaths occurred over the next two months, he carried out very discreet undercover investigations into each death. But he, like Thicko, could not find anything untoward. So, he had a word with Thicko and got his agreement to have all the bodies dug up at the dead of night. He then went back to Dumpo with the bodies and arranged for post-mortems to be carried out on the remains.
Two weeks later (during which time there had been yet another death and another riotous wake party), Idioti returned to Thicko with some very important news. Thicko immediately led him into his office and I followed them, because I was Thicko's second-in-command.
"You know," Idioti said excitedly, "you were absolutely right to be suspicious...although all the deaths round here appear to have resulted from natural causes, chemical analysis of their remains has shown that they were all poisoned." Thicko's mouth dropped wide open.
"So, what you are saying is that we are looking for a psychopathic serial killer?" he asked. Idioti shook his head.
"No, an alcoholic." It was at this point that I left them to go and make some tea for us all. Well, damned good tea it turned out to be for the next day both Thicko and Idioti died.
Needless to say, we had a really great time at their wakes. My God, but do I not love a good drink!
P.S. After the unfortunate demise of poor Thicko, I was promoted to local police chief.
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