Writing, mostly.

First published at 330 Words, September 9th, 2011

There’s a shop just opened on High Street where you can buy wasted time. The owners must have secured a last minute deal for the premises because nothing’s organised and the fixtures and fittings are yellowed, left over from the last tenants who went bust trying to sell sporting memories.

A group of us went in after school. The others were smoking and the girl behind the counter asked us to leave but there was just one of her and half dozen of us and some of us were big and had facial hair. The girl ended up saying we could stay, just put out the fags and don’t steal anything. We decided to do as she asked, so she went back to looking bored.

The others had no money and just wanted to hang out until the bus came.

I played along but really I was a little bit interested. Ok, more than a little bit. I didn’t mind the girl either but she was older and I didn’t have facial hair.

I wandered to the back. The shelves were uneven, where there were shelves at all, and the wasted time was stacked one on the other like nobody cared. Some were labelled and I could see why nobody cared. Who’d want to buy stuff like a whole term wasted reading a novel with no last page? Or a train journey sat next to someone who stank?

The girl was looking at me all funny. My friends stepped outside for another smoke but I didn’t follow because it looked like I was nicking something and I’m not like that so I grabbed the nearest bit of wasted time and placed it on the counter. The girl didn’t stop looking bored. She glanced down at what I wanted to buy and then looked back at me. You can’t afford that, she told me. Just go. It’s all right, she smiled.

I left, leaving behind a life of no regrets.

First published at 330 Words, July 21st, 2011

It’s always the shoes. Other men in my line of business say it’s the photographs or the stacks of letters and postcards. One chap I spoke to said it was the telephone, it always rang as he went about his work. I’ve never met anyone else who had this happen, certainly it’s never happened to me. Neighbours drop by from time to time of course, that’s only natural. Sometimes I let them in for one last look but I never let them take anything. Not even the shoes, though heaven knows why they would want them. They do though, some of them. Shoes and suits.

All shoes make me feel this way, even those bought years ago by a child hoping their father or mother would again walk in the park and chase the grandchildren. The new shoes, those never worn and still packed with tissue like discarded handkerchiefs, even those affect me. You’d think I’d find them pristine, shop-happy but no, those too evade the light and crouch in wardrobes waiting for their master to return.

When I open a front door, unsealing it to begin my work, I hold my breath. I’m not superstitious, how could I be? I know the owner is dead and I’m only here to empty the house. But I also know there will be shoes slumped somewhere in a corner. I can’t bear their sadness. I deal with the watchful eyes of family photographs or memories of foreign holidays written onto plates on the kitchen wall but shoes, I escape the broken leather of shoes.

I’m thinking of retiring soon though. Families are selling on eBay these days. They can get more for their parents’ lives there. As we move further away from the great wars even the diaries and collections are becoming rarer. It’s hard making a living this way. Besides, my feet hurt from climbing into the lofts where childhoods are stored.

Rain. Broken by the landscape it falls upon.

First published at 330 Words, July 5th, 2011

It began with a mystery and ended with a murder.

The murder, based in Grasmere, took place in a whodunnit whose form was a rather alternative interpretation of the life and times of a William Wordsworth whose promising writing career is cut short by his murder at the hands of a more able, though less appreciated Dorothy who, we are led to believe, fell into a jealous fit after young William ended their incestuous affair in favour of a planned marriage to Annette Vallon (a beautiful but unbelievably innocent foil to the lusty wiles of the poet’s, bisexual, sister). Featuring facts which the author only half-remembered and details he had demonstrably misunderstood concerning the themes of the real world Wordsworth, the novel dragged in, amongst others, an Inspector Shelley whose own literary aspirations prevent him from seeing the truth about the monster Dorothy had become. It was both turgid and flaccid which, whilst certainly a remarkable achievement, was nothing compared to that of the title, “Murder Of The English Language”, which had the critics nodding in agreement.

The mystery, however, had begun years before. He had always wanted to know, long before the world denounced him and despite being encouraged to take extra Gym rather than English, why he wanted to write.

He’d never enjoyed the study of English. Never appreciated, or so he’d been told, the art of the novel or the beauty of a sentence. Yet this man, this man who would be denounced from Amazon to Twitter, continued to want to write.

In sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, sub-plot after motif, the author who would murder Wordsworth would, as he held his children and laughed about his journey into literary history, discover that he couldn’t care less about grammar, or whether his book was read or burnt. The act of writing was enough.

And in finally solving this mystery, the author reached for his notebook and began to give Shakespeare a right good kicking.

First published at 330 Words, April 21st, 2011

When Billy-o’s daddy came home from the war he said Billy-o don’t you go, no Billy-o don’t you go.

That’s all the man wanted to say as he took to his tea and tapped out a ditty on the old tin caddy.

But Billy-o wanted to know. He wanted to know why he should not go. So Billy-o’s daddy stirred his tea and looked at the pocket watch he’d brought back from the front and said hush now Billy-o, just don’t go.

But this was before Billy-o ever saw a clock and before Billy-o ever was dead and so Billy-o just asked and asked with a why not daddy, why not, why not. So Billy-o’s daddy said see this spoon, this old pitted spoon? Your grandaddy gave me this spoon. He told me he’d took it away to the front and he used it to stir as the kettle whistled and the bullets sang. He liked his tea strong and each sugar was home. One for his daddy and one for his mammy and one for his dear me and one for himself. So don’t you go, Billy-o, don’t you go. There’s not enough sugar to remind you of home.

But Billy-o wanted to know what do they do when they’re not stirring tea, what do they do and why shouldn’t I go?

These things would not be said and so daddy just stirred. He said nothing. Nothing of the rain and mud and the blood. He said nothing. Of the cries and the tears in the darkening nights he said nothing. Nothing of faces lost in a bang and nothing of tea mugs left by the stand. He said nothing except don’t go, Billy-o, don’t go.

Then his grandmammy sang and though Billy-o cried he didn’t dare go

but daddy-o did
once
more.