Day to Day - update

Day 120. Now I remember my childhood frustration with channels in sand. As soon as the tide touches them the walls collapse back in rendering them useless. I need to find a way of shoring them up. My mind goes back to those awful photographs from the trenches where they used wood to stabilise the soil. That’s what I need to do – find some suitable wood planking. Those awful photographs make me think of other awful things like the Little and Large Christmas Special. I just can’t get them out of my head. Now I’m thinking about bad Kylie Minogue songs. Come on, get yourself together and find a supply of planks.

Day 121. The channel is all but complete. With a plentiful supply of planking and a good saw and hammer I have shored up the sand. The tide when it came in filled the channel all the way up to where the boat used to be until I cut it up to make wood planking to shore up the channel. Now I know what people might be thinking and it has crossed my mind too. Did Little and Large have a Christmas Special or was that Cannon and Ball?

Day 122. I was of course only joking. I didn’t cut up the boat. I used the JCB to drive to town and pick up timber from the wood merchants. I then used it to dig out the main channel in sections to allow me to re-enforce as I went. I did it at low tide the sand was at its most structurally robust. Thank goodness for the bookstore having a special offer on ‘How to Build a Channel for a Boat on the Beach in a Day’. The co-incidence of this being in their front window seems almost unimaginable. Today we sail.

Day 123. How apt. Reverse the day and you get – 3,2,1, launch. I have been at sea now for over six hours. It was hard to get the boat away from the shore but once I was past the shore tides I found the rowing easier. I was tempted to put up the small sail but for now I will rely on ‘arm power’. I am making sure that I eat ‘little and often’ to fuel the engine that is me. Every time I eat gulls circle the boat. I am reminded of Erik Cantona’s quote “When the seagulls follow the trawler it’s because there are no sardines in Seething anymore.” I am feeling heartened and happy to be in control of my own destiny at last although I am getting a little fed up of singing ‘row, row, row the boat’.

Day 124. One plus one equals two, two plus two equals four. I don’t know when I have been so bored. I can only row in short bursts as it turns out my intensive training with the two tennis rackets in no way simulated the real experience of rowing. I have to take hour-long rests after every twelve strokes of painful movement. 12, rest, 12, rest, 12, rest. The land is now a distant blur. I have kept myself entertained by playing I Spy. Most of the words start with S and it’s hard to not answer correctly straight away. I hope I have the mental toughness for this. I am already missing the freedom of the shore. I was a little shocked and horrified to open up one of my Tupperware meals only to find that it was filled with maggots. I wish I had taken my plastic containers from a good business and not the £1 shop. Never has the phrase ‘buy well buy once’ meant so much.

Day 125. I have felt low at many, many times during my isolation but perhaps today is the lowest I have felt. I have opened all my food parcels and nearly everyone has maggots. The water is fresh but I doubt I have enough food to last more than four or five days. I can’t leave my mood behind because there is nowhere to go on the boat. I can’t row because my heart is in despair. What can I do, there is no place to get new food and I am too far from my island to go back. I tossed the contents of one of the Tupperware containers overboard. Even feeling this bad I am not going to litter the ocean. Then, the weirdest sound like a wet round of applause. I sat back up and looked over the edge of the boat and in amazement saw hundreds of fish breaking the surface to eat the maggots. Another old phrase comes to mind. ‘Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll never see his family again’. I have never fished but I’m sure I can learn.

Beware the Chair

It was the final piece of clearing up and then the house would be empty. Most of the things had gone to the charity shop and a few bits on eBay but for some reason he had been unable to deal with the chair that she had always sat on.

Well today had to be that day because the house was being sold or completed, whatever word the solicitor had said, tomorrow. He bent low and lifted the old armchair. It wasn’t as heavy as he thought and he came up too quickly and felt something twinge in his back. “Bollocks” he said loudly and immediately regretted it. Was the last word he said in his old family home going to be an expletive? Almost unconsciously he heard himself say, “Sorry,” and found himself smiling. She had gone but he still didn’t want to let her or his father down.

He carried the chair to the front door and then went back to the room. He glanced round it and saw the shadows of his childhood. It had been such a happy family, no issues, occasional rows but nothing major. He remembered feeling slightly jealous at school when his friends talked about their homes. Why couldn’t his family have such emotions and hate, such problems and pain? 

What a dick he had been back then. Now he could value the all encompassing love his mother and father had showered upon him. They were so happy together and so was he as the only child to get their attention.

He smiled and pulled the lounge door closed on his past. A new family would start their memories here from tomorrow and his would fade into the walls.

He looked at the chair by door and decided it would fit better in the car the other way up. It was as he was lifting it that the envelope fell out from the recess of the padding. He put the chair down and picked it up. It was well worn with a stamp he didn’t recognise. The name on the envelope was his mother’s but the address was one he didn’t know.

He sat on the edge of the stairs and shifted his glasses from his forehead to over his eyes. He carefully slipped the letter out. The paper was thin and smooth from being read so often. He opened up the folds tenderly and began to decipher the flowing script.

It was a letter to his mother in the most loving terms. He jumped to end to see his father’s name but it wasn’t there. He read to the end and felt his heart freeze, his spine slump and a cloud block the light in his mind. Suddenly the echo of voices in his head were so loud.

“Well he must take after your side of the family Kath, he looks nothing like Stan.”

True Appreciation

He stood at the bar and raised his pint to his lips. As he did a small round of applause broke out, He was used to this. He put the glass down on the toweling beer mat to further applause. He shrugged casually and even this gesture was met with a ripple of approbation.

Since he could remember he had been followed around by what he liked to think of as his appreciation society. They volubly praised his every move. He wiped his hands down the side of his bearded face. The cheers were almost deafening.

He smiled a dreamy smile and heard mutterings of praise. “Oh hell,” he thought, “Why not go for the big one.” He lifted his glass and downed the remaining liquid. What a noise!

He moved awkwardly and lifted one eye. The sound of loud applause faded as he woke from his dream and stretched. This was the difficult bit. He dreamt every night of that life. Of pubs and clubs and restaurants, of fine dining and even finer women and of the love and overwhelming support from his appreciators. It was difficult because when he had tried to explain his dream life no one could understand what he really meant.

Casually he leant forward and licked his groin before carrying on with the rest of his morning ablutions. He was a Mongoose and that’s what Mongooses do. He looked at those around him. Some still asleep, others carrying out fur cleaning. He knew it would come at some point and here it was.

“OK then, what did you dream about last night? You were tossing and turning and murmuring non stop.”

“Nothing,” he said sadly, “Nothing.”

What was the point. Their only frame of reference was life as a Mongoose. Food, drink, sleep, groom, mate, run, hide, die. They knew nothing of Guinness or of being truly lauded by your followers. He casually flicked a tick from his genitals – no one cheered. 

Three Geeks and a Kebab

Three geeks bent low over a dying laptop trying to retrieve its final message before the virus takes it over completely. The screen flickers into life momentarily.

“I got it,” shouted Frank.

“Are you sure?” said Mervyn, his acned face screwed up in distress.

“Quite sure.”

“What did it say?” muttered Ian who found it difficult to talk through the brace a sadistic dentist had fitted. He still didn’t realise that the nickname ‘Goldie’ his friends had given him was ironic. “What did it say?”

“Look to the East.”

“That’s all?”

“Yep, that’s all.”
“Who the fuck buys a Dixons Gabriel 211 PC anyway?” said Mervyn as the computer finally gave up the ghost and shut down for the final time.

“Great name for a virus though,” lisped Goldie, “Very clever calling it Glad Tidings.”

Located near the station trade had been brisk earlier in the evening but now as the commuters drifted away the numbers coming into the shop had dwindled to those few making their way home from the pub. What was it about alcohol that made the stomach scream for a kebab. ‘Shepherds’ had been selling food for over one hundred years but over time the diet had changed from pie and mash, through fish and chips to the current lamb kebab offer. No one could remember the original ‘Shepherd’ but now it’s new owner was trying to make a go of things in difficult times.

Pietro turned away from the flickering TV as he heard the bell over the door ring. He looked around the empty shop. It was unnerving, there was no one in the shop and no one on the pavement outside. He waited for a few moments to make sure it wasn’t kids messing about and then turned back to the screen. ‘Beneath the Star” filled the screen for a few moments and then the programme returned.

Pietro shuddered and decided to shut early. He was his own boss and besides, people at this time of night were more trouble than they were worth. He carved a few slices from the kebab into one of the polystyrene trays, took a coke, gathered his coat and began to turn everything off.

Mervyn squeezed in the back of Goldie’s beaten up Fiat Uno with Frank in the front seat.

“Let’s head towards Islingston, that’s due east from here,” said Frank

No one disagreed as no one had a better idea of how to crack the code.

Pietro pulled the door closed and turned the key in the three locks. He heard the alarm beep twice and turned away. He never knew what made him take a different route that night but for some reason The Angel tube station was calling him.

At this time of night The Angel was one of the few bright lights in the area. It made him feel safer walking towards it. He glanced up and saw a light above one of the buildings that seemed much brighter than before. Almost unconsciously he was walking towards it when he heard a low moaning coming from an alley.

“Who’s there?” he shouted letting his eyes grow accustomed to the dark. There, by one of the large refuse carriers, was a young girl slumped on the ground holding something in her arms. “Bloody druggies,” he thought to himself.

“What are you looking at?” said a voice behind him.

Turning he saw a young man with eyes filled with fear and hate.

“We’re doing nothing wrong, there’s just nowhere to to go.”

Without thinking he heard himself speak. “I’m here to help you.”

The boy brushed past him and knelt down by the girl. “I’m sorry love, I can’t find any food or drink, the bloody shops are shut,”

“Here, take this,” said Pietro reaching out and offering them his lamb and the can of coke from his coat pocket.

“Thank you,” said the young girl in a tiny whispered voice. It was then he saw what she was holding. A tiny baby rested in her arms and at that moment it looked up at Pietro. That was the moment something happened inside him. He felt a blinding light shine through his life and the light found him wanting.

He was woken from this trance by a screech of brakes. Three men jumped out of a car and rushed down the alley. The young man stood up to protect his wife and child but it was clear that these three men were not here for violence, nor up to it.

“Hi,” said Ian, “I’m Goldie, and this is Frank and Mervyn. What can we do to help you and your child."

So what if this happened tonight? What hope is there for a young homeless couple with a new baby today? Of course we all know the Bible story and we all know that we would have done the right thing back then. It’s easy really because they were all heathens back but we know how to behave now, how to protect the poor, care for the weak, love all our ‘brothers and sisters’. 

But perhaps we don’t, because it is happening today and not just at Christmas – it’s all year and every day. So what are we doing ourselves, as a community, as a society, through our governments to care for a little child?