watch tHe skies

I read a friend’s blog entry the other day and it made me sad. It made me sad because the person in question is sad and I don’t like to see people I know unhappy.

And so this little story came to mind, I can’t remember where I read it.

One day a sheep farmer was returning from the city where he had sold his wares. Along the route he saw a rare sight in the fields behind the road - a hunter had caught a lion. Having never seen a lion close-up he stopped his cart and wandered over to the hunter who was working on the carcass to take his trophies. Suddenly the farmer noticed a rustling in the long grass and cautiously wandered over to look, noticing a tiny lion cub cowering, hungry and frightened.

The cub would surely die out in the wilderness alone, so the farmer decided to take the cub home.

Over the next few months and years, the lion lived with farmer’s flock of sheep. After some initial concern, the sheep took him in and raised him as one of their own. He ate with the sheep, and slept with the sheep. For all purposes he was a sheep himself.

One day the sheep were grazing in a meadow when they took the fancy of a hungry predator - a lion stalked the flock for the longest time, and as one sheep strayed from the group, he pounced and began to chase…

Only to stop in his tracks when he noticed one very oddly behaving lion - baaing and bouncing away like the sheep that surrounded him.

“You!” yelled the hungry lion, “what are you doing?”

“Me?” I’m running away from you with my brothers and sisters…

“Why? They are not your brethren - you are a lion!”

“Of couse I’m not… I’m a sheep… baaa!”

“Come here, to the water’s edge, I will show you…”

Cautiously, the sheeplion approached the lakeshore.

“Now, look…”

Sure enough, the sheeplion now noticed the similarities to the hungry lion. Previously he had noticed his similarities to the sheep - a nose, two ears, eyes, four legs, yet now he saw a majestic jaw, powerful muscles and strong, penetrating eyes… He baaed again.

“No!” said the hungry lion, “don’t baa, roooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

And so he did, the timid baa was replaced with the powerful, throaty roar of a mature lion.

“That’s better, what are you?” asked the hungry lion.

“I’m a lion! And I’m hungry… where are those sheep?”

 I actually added the last line myself. Feel free to delete where applicable, if you, like me prefer happy endings.

It had been a good day by all accounts. And in that respect it was the same as most of his days in recent memory. The business was doing well, really well, beyond expectations and certainly a lot better than his plan intended. Customers were happy, and happy customers gave him even more business as he took away from them more and more of their worries. Consequently his bank balance was looking very healthy indeed, which meant he was able to treat his wife and children to some fabulous experiences. And everything was good.

Except for one thing. Something was wrong, and it had been wrong for a while, he just didn’t know what to do about it.

Somewhere inside him, he had this feeling that he was doing the wrong thing.

Not on a moral or ethical basis, as far as he could tell. Everything was above board, carbon-neutral and as far as he could reasonably analyse, any bad (because of course every action has side-effects that can be considered harmful from some perspective, he often thought) was far outweighed by the good he and his company did.

It was simply that he was increasingly under the impression that what he was doing with his working time wasn’t really what he should be doing with himself. And this feeling seemed to be growing proportionally with his success. Back when the company was struggling, spending more on marketing and selling than it was making in sales, this wasn’t a problem. But as the order book grew, as the organisation expanded from a couple of people renting desks in an office-for hire in some generic building, to three floors of a modern, glass fronted conversion overlooking the river, this feeling of misalignment grew and grew, until today, where he had just received an order that would double the size of the business within a year and keep his team in work for another five. This uncomfortable feeling originally tucked away at the bottom of his stomach had grown and mutated in to a nauseous feeling of claustrophobia, almost as if he was locked inside someone else, someone he didn’t want to be and didn’t know how to get out.

And he didn’t know who to talk to. To his friends and family, he was busy as always, and everyone knew he was at his happiest when he was busy. So that meant he was happy, right?

And yet somewhere along the line he had got swept away by the growth of the organisation, the money pouring in, the excitement of winning big contracts and making a difference, and now he just wanted to get out and not feel the way he felt, even if it meant losing all of the perks, the money, the holidays, and the respect of his people and his family.

But he had no idea what to do about it. So many people depended upon him.

Gasping for air, his heart beating furiously in his ears, he collapsed against the short, grimy wall. He strained to listen for sounds of his pursuers over his own rapid breathing. He began to make out the sounds of voices, grunting and growling in the distance. It seemed far away, though he knew that the tunnels and doorways would distort the sounds, and they could be only a few feet away. But he couldn’t run any more. Not for a few moments, long enough to get his breath and think. Running away wasn’t working, they knew the area much better than he.

As his breathing calmed and his pulse quietened, he began to notice how cold and wet he was. Sweat ran down his oil-smeared face and to his stubbly chin. His arm hung limp and lifeless, and he began to feel the sting of grazed knees through torn jeans.

It had suddenly gone quiet. He held his breath. Total silence. Not a splash, not a bark or growl. His heart made itself once again heard, as the beating grew strong and fast in his ears, and he fought to ignore the growing waves of nausea flaring in the pit of his stomach…

Whump.

A low rumbling noise preceded a flash of light as a flare lit the sky, and the broken outbuildings around him. Darkness, his only friend, had been taken away.

In the distance now, voices, shouting, and the barking and cries of hungry beasts.

They were coming. Time to run again.

When someone holds a gun to your head for real, it’s not like in the movies. Not at all. No sly karate move came to MY mind, I had no lazy plot device to get me out of the latest peril, and pithy one-liners were far from my thoughts.

The fact is I was frozen to the spot, and it was all I could do not to puke right there. My knees buckled as soon as I felt the cold circular metallic shape pressed aggressively to my temple, and I had to reach out and steady myself against a wall. This reaction is all down to adrenalin, apparently, the body’s “red alert” system that has for thousands of years protected us against physical threats – tigers, crocodiles, snakes et cetera, but nowadays for most people is considered a hindrance when we are asked to give a presentation or tell everyone what job we do in the latest customer service seminar.

This ‘fight or flight’ response as it is often called, causes the adrenal gland to pump adrenalin in to our bloodstream, increasing heart rate, and preparing the muscles for explosive action. I guess all of this activity takes blood away from the stomach, causing nausea in some people like me.

Anyway I digress. Yes ‘fight or flight?’ is the question you ask when encountering a lion in the wilderness. However, having a gun pressed to your temple whilst waiting for a bus leaves you with an entirely different question.

‘Am I going to die?’ (more…)

And so it began with the incessant beeping of a small alarm clock that had fallen, presumably knocked over during the night, in between the bedside table and the bed. Rooting blindly under the bed wasn’t his preferred way to start the day, however today, on this day, it didn’t matter.

7am. This was the day he’d been waiting for.

Waiting? Dreading? He had always had a problem understanding whether it was excitement or fear he was feeling, but whichever it was, it manifested itself in a warm, but slightly empty sensation in the pit of his stomach, and a tingling in his ears. (more…)

I must admit that I was most surprised to find myself in the Vicar’s garden at six in the morning. Obviously I had been there many times before - fortnightly in fact for the past eight months since George, the village’s incumbent gardener-for-hire, had decided to hang up his shears for Miriam, the post lady, whose husband passed away some years before in a most unfortunate rowing accident. Anyway, I digress, as the point of importance in my somewhat distracted description, was that dispite the gentle spring sunlight, there was no evidence of how I had come to be lying, face down, on the Vicar’s lawn, early one Saturday morning. No darkened footsteps through the warming frost, or even the tire mark of a wheelbarrow that may have been used to carry an unconscious (surely the reason for my complete lack of recollection of the journey here, and in fact most of Friday night) person halfway across the village.

I felt my scalp for signs of bruising, whilst simultaneously doing a “systems check” on my internal organs, much like a computer whirling to life first thing in the morning. No bruising, no headache, no hangover, but certainly a memory error.

Slowly I pushed myself in to a seated position, now noticing that I was cold and soaked through - I had been here some time, a deduction supported by the frosted silhouette on the lawn beside me, seemingly staring at the hideous victorian street lamp that the Vicar insisted took pride out of place in the beautifully sculpted, vibrant garden experience that I had spent four months designing and building.

I began to retrace my last memory, much like rewinding a video tape that has run past the last transmission of the evening - static, more static and then there I was - walking along the bridle path that runs through the maize field but a quarter of a mile from the Vicarage. Well trodden and muddy at this time of year from so many pony treks and enthusiastic mountain bikers, it was hard going, yet saved more than fifteen minutes off of the journey from the Writer’s Block Arms, back to my two up, two down, that would one day, I promise, actually have four habitable rooms.

But what happened between ten in the evening, and six in the morning? Eight hours of lost time? I hurredly patted myself down, checking for wounds that may have been caused by alien abduction which, between you and me, has bothered me since I saw Close Encounters when I was five. No signs meant one less explanation, reducing possible hypotheses down to infinity less one.

A dog barked in the field, and this not only brought me to my senses, but triggered a memory - a cat, screeching, yes! I heard it from the bridle path, coming from somewhere near the Vicarage! I trudged through the mud, thankful that years of guiding had taught me to be prepared, and as such my wellies kept muck from trousers. Standing at the wall that seperated Vicarage grounds from muddy field, I could hear a cat, crying above me, from one of the tall pines that kept my beautiful garden hidden from prying farmers’ eyes. But at thirty feet high, and with no torch or moonlight to guide my ascent, I was sure that I didn’t make such a climb, and if I had, I would have had to be right at the top to make it to the centre of the garden, and then only if I jumped.

I looked up at the line of pines, scanning for something, or someone, knowing that if I fell from that height, I would surely be injured. Yet there I sat, not so much as a bruise on my backside.

It was then, just at the moment that I was about to just drag myself home, hoping not to awaken the Vicar, that I noticed something lying at the base of the tallest pine. Painted metal and a rubber handle, I recognised it immediately, and I also knew its owner. Suddenly I knew exactly what had caused my memory error, and why I had climbed the tree.

Darkness and muffled mechanical noise in equal measures; a brief view of the passenger bay bathed in red light, then back to darkness. No white lights allowed in the war zone at night, not if you want to live. The noise never changes though, whether you are in a transport or short-range scout, the drone from the rotor that keeps us in the air is deafening without ear defenders, and not much better with them. In recent months, I’d grown accustomed to it in a way that makes it almost comforting in its predictability, so much so that I was struggling to stay conscious; images of my house, my wife and, my children began to numb the aches from so much marching and heavy loads. A few more hours and I would have been home, soaking in the tub whilst my entire family simultaneously accounted the happenings of the fours months that I had been away from them.

Four months? So I had missed exactly half of little Ethan’s life!

If only they could see me now, I thought, soaked through, darkened by oil, sweat and dirt, such that the only indication of life in the corner of the bay were the whites of my eyes that stared out at the trees and undergrowth passing some fifty feet below us.

After the previous three hours of monotonous mechanical chatter, I was brought to my senses by a distinct shift in tone and volume. Almost as if someone was dragging a key down the paintwork of my pristine mark one Volkswagen Golf, a high pitched squeak was audible for what seemed like days, before I was jolted in to the air by a sudden change in the transport’s altitude. Forward in the cockpit, the dash was lit like a Christmas tree, and the pilot grabbed desperately at the stick, trying to stop the descent. Another glance outside told me that we were soon going to hit the trees, and fast. I could hear the thumps as the blades cut ever-slower paths through the damp night air.

It is a strange feeling, expecting to die, with no control over your destiny, and nowhere to seek shelter but within the confines of my own mind. So suddenly I was back in the tub, glancing around at the bathroom I had fitted on leave over the summer. My wife had taken nearly a year to find tiles that she was happy with, she had poured over catalogues and magazines, looking for that one tile that she could see in her mind’s eye. Her eventual choice, aptly named “Zen” was a creamy marbled effect, with a carved border that reminded me of Roman baths, and that room became my sanctuary that shut out the bad things I had seen but could never tell my family. Lazing in that bath with my family so pleased to see me, all simultaneously competing for my attention as I eased my aching muscles, all of the marching, the fighting, the memories, somehow seemed worthwhile.

As the transport crashed in to the trees and scorched the earth, at least one of us in that transport had gotten home.

Blue makes me think of the sea. Standing on the beach, watching the waves roll on to the golden shore, accompanied by that gentle rumbling sound as they return to the sea. The feel of the warm sand under foot, as I gently work my toes deeper in to the beach for no apparent reason. This is the place I come to when reality is becoming too real, and I find myself seeking solitude to gather my thoughts. Strangely this place is nowhere in particular, rather a mixture of places I’ve been, islands I’ve seen or read about. Or perhaps it’s my psyche’s idea of paradise - no ringing phones, demanding customers, or news reporters telling me about the latest moral panic. And as I stand here, I decide that this is indeed paradise, as I spy my beautiful wife, making her way through the shallow waters, smiling, and walking towards me.

The clouds seemed to be gathering together to mask the stars and moon from view. The shadows cast by the trees, seemed to move ever closer, like so many clawed hands rising from hell itself. A cold wind was whilstling around her ears, as if calling her name.

My Action-Man helicopter was at one time so large in comparison to me that I struggled to carry it. I had been a good boy that year and Father Christmas had left it for me under the tree and there was no way I was going to leave it alone. Even when flames began to consume the main bar in the pub below us, I held on to my helicopter as my dad carried me all the way down the fire escape, and out in to the garden. There we stood and watched the thick, black smoke pour from the windows, whilst I wondered if my Action-Man would survive the inferno long enough to make a maiden flight in his new aircraft…