A Time When Worlds Were New

Once there was a time, long before this. A time when worlds like this were new and all things were possible. A time when the moments grew from one another, growing into strange shapes, strange structures and strange creatures.

I was there too, of course, shaping these growing possibilities into the shape of the world I wanted to make. Each morning, I would take the shape of the possible from the growing places, then twist them and turn them until I found the shape of the world I was looking for within them. Then I would let them grow on into that new shape.

Of course, I only suggested, formed, a tentative shape for the possible to grow into. I left the rest up to the various forces that were themselves growing into being to make this world grow out from a potential of an instant into millennia of growing and changing.

I remember the morning I found the shape of her waiting in the potential of the possible. It was not as if I created her, she just grew out of the formlessness I held in my shaping hands. It was as if my hands already knew the shape of her and the potential of the possible knew the shape of her too.

She grew there, in front of me, giving each of my new mornings a reason for being. Each day, I would hurry down to where she was growing out of the possible and I would sit back in wonder at what creation could make possible, make real, out of mere potential.

Of course, I never realised just how real she would turn out to be.

One morning I rushed down to look for her and she was gone. She'd grown and grown away from all that had created her, including me, and she gone off to discover just what was in this new world she'd found herself alive and free in.

Out of Distance and Circumstance

Possibility grew out of distance and circumstance. We moved away from all we knew into strange lands and strange times, looking for a place that could become a home. We had all lost so much, only memory remained, and memory, like the seasons fades away into loss... eventually. But these were still raw times; the memories of our loss burned and were sore.

There were some amongst us who had lost everything, except themselves. Lone survivors of families and the last of their name now, trudging through the winds and the blizzards. Alongside them, were those who still had remnants of family left, thinking they were the lucky ones, only to see those relatives fall and die by the wayside as we trudged on.

We were a weak and defeated people, making our stumbling way through hostile lands. Predators can smell fear, taste weakness on the wind. Not only animals: mountain lions, bears, wolves, but the wild humanity that prowls these thick forests too, the outlaws... they could sense we were easy pickings. Many of us died: taken in the night by animals, attacked at dawn by renegades, outlaws and slave traders. All eager for the easy pickings we – the weak – gave them.

It was a hard land and we too – eventually – learnt to be hard back, offering no mercy, no quarter. We became just as ruthless, just as savage as those that would prey upon us, but each day trudging ever onward, looking for that elusive place we could, one day, call home.

In the Parallels

The days passed as we moved on, further and further away from the familiar. It became apparent as we explored methodically, that the Parallels closest to what we still called Home Earth were different only in slight details. In some of the earliest Parallels, we could find no real differences. Perhaps the differences lay in something obscure like a slight variation in a species of beetle in the Amazon jungle or something like that, something none of our instruments – or any of us – could detect.

If it wasn't for our most useful instrument – the Parallel Worlds Detector – we would be hard-pressed to know whether we were on Home Earth or one of its nearby Parallels.

Soon though, the differences multiplied 'logarithmically,' as Sheena said, only half-joking. It did seem though the further we got from the familiar, the more unfamiliar it all got.

'Do you suppose,' Sheena said, some weeks into our journey. 'That ours... our home Earth is the real one, the one all the others are deviations from?'

'I doubt it,' I said. 'It was the old religions that saw Earth as the centre of the universe. We now know we are just one planet around one sun, one star among so many others. We know we are not the centre of the Universe, so why should we be the centre – if there is such a thing – of these parallel universes.'

Sheena nodded. 'Why then haven't we encountered any other travellers, explorers... scientists... like us coming the other way, from the other Parallels, then?'

A Significant Modern Artist

It is not all that often we get to see the full glory of Pointillist Etching’s full oeuvre in a major UK exhibition. This exhibition is a rare opportunity to encounter his most famous work Sardines – an opened tin of sardines placed at a precise 32 degrees from true north on a plain white dinner plate. As one critic said at its first public display, ‘this work is so profound in its unashamed exploration and condemnation of the lies of the Western military-industrial complex and their shabby moral vacuity’. This piece has not been on public view since its sale to a private collector for $456 million, three years ago.

However, the work displays the obvious technical skill of an artist of Etching’s calibre, whose 12 assistants worked tirelessly through the night to create this work. His team used a protractor and a laser – to make sure the sardine tin was at precisely the right angle to make his political point. The power of the political argument expressed through the work becomes so obvious to the discerning viewer, making the tickets to the exhibition a real bargain at only £1500 each.

On the Roads Ahead

It is never that clear, never so straightforward. These roads we walk on our journey - through this only life we will ever have - are full of twists and turns, forks in the road and crossroads that have no sign or indication where they will lead. We walk on, sometimes in company; sometimes alone, only ever knowing that one day, one of these roads we are walking along will come to a dead end.

There are things to see, things to do, though, along all these roads. It is just a matter of learning the art of looking; learning how to see. Our eyes track movement and they track colour. So often, though, we do not see what we notice, just things we pass by as we walk this latest road, looking for that turn to take us to some special place we have heard about.

There are so many tales, stories, myths and legends about the wonders that lie on the roads ahead. Sometimes there are those who run right off the end of the road they are travelling to reach for some wonder, some paradise, others have told them of at some weary traveller’s resting-place.

Others stand there, in the road, looking forward, looking back, peering over walls and under hedgerows. All looking for that one secret that will mean their road will never end, but it always does. Often while they were too busy looking elsewhere along the side of the road to see the end was here all along.

Never-Ending Winter

Never-Ending Winter

At times, it grows so cold and dark
as though the sun has given up
on this slow turning globe, a small

and insignificant blue world,
alone and lost against the distance
as though the universe has turned

its shoulder on us, leaving us here
in this a never-ending winter.
The days become half-night, so cold

and dark, all gone before they can
begin. We huddle close together
around forlorn and feeble fires,

in hope of heat, and warmth to bring
enlightenment, but now the flames
can only splutter and then die,

this dampness leaving only ash
and fading embers of the fires
that could have burnt so bright and hot.

Simplicities and Illusion

There was a time, or so we would like to think, when things were not so complicated. Eventually, we realise the simplicities of a more straightforward past are mostly illusions caused by the mind filtering out the awkward times that don't fit our golden memories. However, there is still this feeling there must have been a time better than this.

Of course, religions have taken such myths and – as usual – used them for their own ends, to speak of times before it was all ruined, of a Golden Age, of a time without sin and all such nonsenses. We would still like to believe in, even though we know such belief is only for those who look without seeing.

Marie knew too, that our own Golden Age was a creation of us looking back on certain selected instances. She still liked to think there had been a time when we were happier, even though happiness is such a nebulous concept, something that disappears like a magician's trick whenever you try to take hold of it. Nevertheless, she was still sure we were happy once.

Me? I don't know. I've never been that sure about happiness, what it is... or even if it is that desirable. Not that I prefer being unhappy, of course. Although, I suspect the puritan inside us all gets some sort of perverse pleasure from the denial of happiness, especially to those whom we believe have been dealt a better hand than us in this game of life.

Where I did agree with Marie was that you find happiness only when you do not realise it, discovered in retrospect when you look back. Trying to be happy in the future – to me, anyway – always seemed doomed to failure, as the future is something that lies always just beyond the grasp, something to reach for but never obtain. To me, happiness is in the places where you do not expect to find it, like a kiss in the middle of a rainstorm, or sunlight breaking free of a dull cloudy day. Moments, in other words, when the ordinary became – if only for an instant – extraordinary, like that smile Marie gave me after we kissed in the rain.

Political Funding

Anyway, until the public inquiry reports, there is not much that can be done. Although, obviously, until that report is published, members of the general public have been warned against too close a contact with any politician, either at a local or national level, without taking all the necessary precautions.

Obviously, as many politicians – if they have ever had anything resembling a proper job – have been either lawyers themselves, or have come into close contact with lawyers. Therefore, any ordinary person should make sure they do not allow the politician anywhere near their own money. All purses, wallets, piggy banks and under areas of mattresses should therefore be kept out of sight of any politicians you come into contact with. On no account should you share any bank account details with them. Especially in the politician breeding season during the pre-election stage, particularly if they sidle up to you and ask for a ‘donation’.

Scientists investigating the life-cycle of the politician and the best method of eradicating this menace from society believe that it is this ‘donation’ part of the politicians’ life-cycle that leads to their proliferation. Even people with strong stomachs naturally blanch at the thought of politicians breeding freely, especially out in the wild. Therefore, some scientists believe if these ‘donations’ can be cut off at source – by denying politicians access to money – then society can go a long way towards eradicating the menace of politics from our lives altogether.

Down to the Beach

All day, we walked along the coastal path, high above the sea far below. Once or twice, we'd thought about going down to the beach when we'd met paths that headed down that way. But we didn't have much time and we weren't sure if there would be any benefit. I pointed out too, that down there we would lose the height advantage we had. Up here we could see if there was anyone else about, any dangers.

'You worry too much,' Jacq said.

I looked at her. 'You should worry more.'

She didn't reply, just looked out at the distant horizon. The sea was blue, bluer than I remember it from before. I thought about saying something, but then I know that sometimes it was a mistake to remind Jacq about the before.

'Why?' she said after a while, after I'd thought she'd forgotten. 'Why should I worry?'

'Because you're a woman.'

'What...? You mean...?'

I nodded, not looking at her.

'A fate worse than death....' she laughed. 'You have a low opinion of your fellow man.'

'So, what do you expect? Nobility? Chivalry? The kindness of strangers?'

'Maybe.'

I made a noise and stood up. Sometimes I thought it was a mistake to care, especially about Jacq. I'd cared before and look where that had got me... nowhere.... Stuck out here on a coastal path with a woman I hardly knew and everyone that once defined me, made me who I used to be, lost and gone forever.

I stood watching the horizon. I felt rather than heard Jacq come up behind me. She took my hand.

I turned.

She smiled. 'Let's go down. Go for a swim. Let's pretend – if only for an hour or so none of that... the before... ever happened.'

I turned and I saw something in her eyes, a kind of pleading and I knew I still cared about her enough to try to make her happy – if only for a while - and so I said: 'Yes.'

These Few Grains

These Few Grains

If all of this were no more
than the few grains of sand

you trickled through your fingers
on that one remembered afternoon,

staring out at a distant tanker
sailing slowly across the horizon,

while the gulls circled above
on the barest scraps of sea breeze,

before you turned towards me
smiling in that way you do,

then it would be more than enough
for me to hold cupped in my hands.

Secrets of the Dark Woods

So there it was, stretching out before us like some long green wall. The men looked at one another, as their horses grew restless. We all knew what was there; what the forest was said to contain. People from the villages had gone in there and not returned. Usually, what happened to the peasantry was no concern of those of us who lived in and served the Manor, but now we had a new Lord.

'New Lords is always trouble.' It was old Menich who said it, but the wise old heads in the barracks – and you don't get to be old in the barracks unless you have a lot of wisdom... or luck – all nodded their agreement.

Me, I didn't know anything. The new Lord had been away with the King on one of his foreign wars while I trained. I'd hardly ever seen the old Lord either. He had been too old to get out of bed most days and we left to ourselves most of the time. All of us carrying on the old day-to-day routines, more for want of anything else to do than for any other reason.

There had been the old Lord's young wife, but that was something I'd kept to myself. Now, though, as soon as the new Lord arrived, they'd packed her off to join the Dark Sisters, to live out her days long with all the other inconvenient women.

The new Lord had sent out a patrol with his bailiff, to do something called an audit. Apparently, a way of finding out how rich he was, how much the rest of us could pay in tax and how many sheep, cattle and wives each man in the Lord's new fiefdom called his own.

That patrol had gone – over a week ago – into the forest and never seen again. That was why I was here, newly promoted to captain and the first to be volunteered by the older – and wiser – captains to go looking for whatever remained of the bailiff and his men.

I sighed, took a deep breath and – hoping my men would follow me – rode off into the dark wood, probably never to be seen again... unless I was very lucky.

Sue and the Portal

So there it was. We did not know why or where we were, not any more. All we had was this unknown land spread out before us, and neither of us knew what to do.

Looking back, there was no way to tell how we got there. Worse than that though, we could see no sign at all of how we could get back.

Home suddenly seemed so far away.

I laughed and Sue turned.

'What?'

I could see the panic in her eyes... and the hope that my laugh was a sign I had discovered something redeemable about our situation.

'No, it's just that I've read so many SF and Fantasy stories that all begin with someone stepping through a portal.' I looked back to where the portal wasn't. 'I just can't believe I just did it.' I laughed again.

'This is no fuckin' joke.' Sue glared around at the landscape with her look that always suggested I take a quick trip to the pub. When she found out who was to blame for all this, I knew there would be hell to pay. I just hoped it didn't turn out to be me who was to blame. Although, according to Sue, it was all usually my fault – whatever it was.

I looked around and smiled.

'What now?' Sue stared at me, arms akimbo.

'Usually in the stories, just about now, the adventure begins,' I said.

'This is no fuckin’ story though, is it?' She glared.

'Oh, I don't know.' I pointed towards the horizon behind her.

She turned just in time to see the growing dust cloud I'd noticed resolve itself into a group of horsemen galloping towards us. 'Oh, shit,' she said. This can't be happening to me!'

'Why not?'

She turned back to me. 'Because I don't like bloody science fiction.'

‘But this is more like fantasy than SF,’ I said.

Sue glared at me.

I shut up.

Only Survival

There comes a time when there is no alternative. I had not asked for the role given me. I had not wanted to be anything in this world. But I was... I was the one whose word was the only law and I knew what I must do.

My word was the law, but it was more that the law was my word. I was just as constrained by circumstance and precedent as anyone else. I had no choice.

He knew I had no choice too.

It was – simply – a mater of him or me.

It was my family or his.

It was survival or death.

I had the upper hand. I had the weight of authority behind me.

I could see it in his eyes before he looked down at the ground just in front of my feet. He submitted now, but that was no guarantee. If circumstances changed - even if only slightly – to favour his family, then it would be me on my knees in front of him.

I could be merciful, of course. But there is a fine line between being merciful and being weak. There are many who see mercy as weakness and many who would exploit that weakness for their own ends.

My position, my survival and the survival of all I cared about - all I allowed myself the luxury of caring about - depended on me turning my back on such concepts as mercy, forgiveness, live and let live.

I had no choice.

I drew my sword as his neck was laid bare before me.

New Kindle Short Story: An Undulation of a Shadow’s Edge

An Undulation of a Shadow’s Edge

Available for the Kindle here (UK) or here (US)

[Short story: 7,500 words (approx)]

Dark creatures writhe in the city’s shadows, Claire has seen them and seen their hungry eyes watching her… and waiting.

Claire avoids the darkness and the shadows of the city’s nights because she knows what lurks there.

That was until the night she saw Henry, standing in the darkest shadows watching her, wanting her as much as she wants him. But he is as unwilling to leave the dark as Claire is to enter it.

Will Claire save Henry before the shadows and darkness consume him and he is lost to the darkness forever?

Available for the Kindle here (UK) or here (US)

Not the Droid We Were Looking For

It was not quite the droid we were looking for, as it didn’t have either the integrated MP3 player or the egg-whisk attachment. Nor did it have the optional City-destroying laser. But it did have the chest-mounted coffee machine and the chain gun. So all in all, despite some less than stellar customer reviews we did – in the end – plump for this one.

On the whole it is not too bad. However, it does insist we call it ‘Steve’, despite us already knowing seven Steves already. This does play havoc with its internal contacts directory. I have, of course, tried to reset its name from the default, but every automatic upgrade – for some reason – always sets it back to Steve. It even has the manufacturer’s Customer Services baffled. Although, as we all know, it never takes much to baffle Customer Services. They always seem so surprised - and puzzled – that you are not as head over heels in love with their products as their adverts suggest you ought to be.

Still, it does make a nice cup of coffee.

Although, for some unknown reason, the Coffee Ready light also usually sets off the chain gun. This does make retrieving your coffee without significant bullet damage to you, your favourite coffee-cup or you selection of biscuits sometimes a bit more trouble than it is worth. This – as some on the user forums have pointed out – can make neighbourhood coffee mornings somewhat problematic. Especially in areas with a more elderly demographic, as senior citizens are not as sprightly on their feet as they used to be. Their age and infirmity making it much harder for them to duck for cover behind the furniture.

Still, I’m sure – in time – these rather minor bugs will be sorted out in the next operating system upgrade. That is, of course, providing enough engineers can survive the inevitable chain gun strafing to perform the necessary upgrade.

Turn with the Turning World

And so it turned. The world turns and we turn with it. We turn to face each day that comes over the horizon towards us, neither of us knowing what the dawn will bring, or even if we will see another dawn beyond this one.

Everything beyond this moment is unknown, out of reach. The past is gone and no matter how far our fingers stretch we cannot touch even a moment ago. The future lies beyond the horizon, only a glow of possibility in the darkness, lighting up the possible.

I cannot turn back to a few seconds ago and undo any of those things that have left you here now, turning away, and I do not know how far your turning will go in the future. Maybe you will turn and walk away, turn away forever and leave me here with words of regret and an apology unspoken.

Maybe you will let it go and pretend nothing has happened, even though it did happen and always will have happened, no matter what either of us wants. The past is gone, out of reach. It will remain there always; something standing between us, a look in each other's eyes that cannot go away, no matter how far away the past slips or even if that one moment falls into forgetfulness.

We will still know that something, one time, changed and took us off into this still yet unknown direction.

Begin in Darkness

Begin in Darkness

Dreams always begin in darkness
moving towards the uncertain light.
We begin in darkness too, suddenly
learning all about the unexpected brightness.

Our beginning is lost to us, down back
along the twisting cords of history
to that beginning in new clarity
where we fall into a sharp new world.

But now we know too much about
the inevitable end that falls towards us
out of a tunnel of narrowing possibility,
until all we can do is stare into that final night.

Services in the Storm

It was one of those sudden downpours that is more like a tropical rainstorm than the usual run-of-the-mill British weather. The heatwave broke and the sky turned closer to black than grey. I could see the rain streaking the sky up ahead. I noticed a sign, half-overgrown, about some Services a few miles ahead. It was a surprise to me, the road itself, snaking through the moors, even though it was a dual carriageway, was very quiet and it looked little-used. It wasn't even a road I'd heard of before and my sat-nav doubted its existence, but with the roadworks on the motorway, I'd decided to risk this route. By then, I was beginning to regret having the second mug of tea at the last Services. The lorry driver I'd shared a table with had told me of this alternate route as we sat complaining to each other about the state of this country's roads and the uselessness of other drivers.

Now, though, I needed a piss, and with the storm getting worse, I decided it would be worth taking a break at these Services, no matter how poor their facilities.

Visibility was down to a few yards and my wipers were having trouble coping with this much rain, even on the fast setting. I could feel the car lurching too, as the wind blew and the road surface became slick, if not actually underwater.

I slowed at the overgrown turning, changing down faster than I'd intended as the feeder road curved off sharply to the one side.

I parked in an almost empty car park. I took a deep breath and ran for the shelter of the doorway.

It was only when I got to the door I noticed the lights were off.

I was under cover, out of the rain. I tried the door, surprising myself when it opened.

I walked into an empty, deserted, restaurant.

Not One of the World's Foremost Uses of the Mandolin

Still, it was not one of the world's foremost uses of the mandolin. Even if she did manage to express her artistic side in a manner regarded as most creative, especially by the jury of her peers as well as the investigating officers. However, as the judge himself was a self-confessed music lover, he felt he could not overlook the damage to the mandolin, despite agreeing with her that: 'they had it coming'.

After all, as he so wisely said, in court the day after her representatives met him in the underground car park and handed over a well-stuffed plain brown envelope, 'provocation is provocation.' and looking at someone 'in that way' whilst they are holding even something not usually considered as an offensive weapon, such as the aforesaid mandolin, is asking for trouble.

Especially if that mandolin-wielder is feeling a bit tetchy at the time.

Consequently, the presiding judge withdrew to his chambers to study the evidence she'd presented in her defence. This evidence consisted mainly in the form of a website where she offers professional services – with or without the mandolin – for all manner of specialised needs. Afterwards, the judge confirmed that – indeed – there were some doubts as to the validity of the prosecution's evidence and the defendants all looked like 'wrong 'uns'.

Therefore, as the case collapsed, the judge said she could go free without a blemish on her character.

Six months later, though, a tabloid newspaper published photographs of both she and the judge sharing an intimate moment in a beachside café in an exclusive Caribbean resort. Later the judge dismissed this as a mere coincidence, despite the evidence proving that he had undertaken an intensive mandolin-appreciation course in the weeks preceding this holiday.

Eventually, the authorities forced the judge to resign, but he did it with a smile on his face and clutching a brand-new mandolin. A mandolin presented to him as a parting gift by fellow members of the judiciary, several of whom subsequently have expressed an interest in taking up the mandolin themselves in the near future.

All Those Lies She Longed to Hear

Of course, she wanted me to tell her all those lies she longed to hear. I, though, didn’t want to lie to her. I had lied to too many women already, telling them everything they wanted to hear, so I could get what I wanted and leave them wondering what it was they'd lost.

She, though, was different. I didn't even want to ask her name, in case she told it to me. I didn't want to know anything about her in case I found some way of using it to get her to do those things I’d already had so many other women doing.

She was different.

I had thought I would never fall in love. I laughed at it, sneered at it. It was a trap for the unwary. A trap laid by the women to capture the men they wanted.

I was too clever for all that.

I took the stratagems, the tactics, the methods of the women. I took all the tricks they used against men; to trap them and to trick them. Then I used those tricks against the women, tricking them, trapping them into giving me what I wanted from them.

Such a small thing, an hour or so taken out of one of many of their days.

I could leave them with memories of something special, something unique, something they never had from any of the other men they tricked into caring for them.

I thought I was immune.

Then she came along and, without even trying, she had me trapped, pinned and imprisoned, with just one look.

The Day Her World Changed

When the day began, she was not expecting the world to change. Julia lived in a world that was much the same, each day much the same as the day before it and much the same as the day that would follow it.

There had been times, when she was younger, when she expected the world to become magical, full of all those wonders she read about in stories. She had thought that one day her prince would come to take her away to some magical kingdom.

Now, though, she was older and every prince she’d met had turned out to be either a frog – the good ones – or a toad – the rest. There had been no magical kingdoms and no wonder; no unicorns and no dragons.

The day the world changed though, was much the same as any other day. There had been a storm the night before, and the sea was still wild, still rough, as she walked along the dunes. The dunes hadn’t changed much, looking just as wind-blown and desolate as they’d always looked for all the years the family had been holidaying in this same place, year after year.

Then, she slipped and fell, ending up at the bottom of a dune where she found the trapdoor. The trapdoor she had never seen before in all the years of the annual holidays. It took her only a few seconds to open the door and in those few seconds Julia’s world changed forever.

Cathedral

Cathedral

And there, so deep inside the darkest woods;
a sudden clearing, bright in sunlight waits,
long after all the head-high bracken fades,
long after the entangled brambles unwind.
It is a refuge, silent hidden, a place
of sanctuary, safe for us to stay.

The sunlight streaming in, up where the trees
each open their green, reaching fingers out
into a canopy over our heads
beneath this bright forgiving sky above
makes it a sacred place for our devotions.

This soft green grass for us to lie and offer
our nakedness in, as the sun heals us.
This place is special and deserves our praise,
we're going to remember how we ought
to live in glory, love and time together.
This place will save us, make us whole again.

More of the Noise

Then there was this. We thought it could be an answer, but it wasn't. We thought it could be some new route through the noise to a place of quiet, understanding and contemplation, but it wasn't.

It was just more of the unanswered, more of the noise.

We thought about silence, but silence was not an option. There were things that needed to be said, even when no-one was listening… especially when no-one was listening, even when it became yet more futile howling at an indifferent moon.

We thought we could chase the creatures back to their homes in the dark places and shifting shadows. Instead, we found it was just another empty space where nothing crept and nothing crawled, just the lonely wind, looking for a home.

We thought we could run up the sun-dappled hillsides and see as far as horizons and see as far as our dreams would allow. But that too was just another bare landscape stretching out before us, too far away even to touch with outstretched hands.

So we look around these ruins and these fragments to see what remains of what we once wanted to build; our new great city out here on these plains. We find only half-completed buildings falling into dusty ruins, and plans all ripped and torn, blowing on that same lonely wind, and we wonder if any of it was really worth it.

Attack at Dawn

And so it began….

Or, at least it would have, if they’d managed to get up on time. However, winter was drawing in and the mornings were getting colder and darker. So, although the invasion of the hated neighbour was scheduled to begin at dawn, everybody was still in bed when the signal for the attack came.

Immediately, the Generals sprung into action and scheduled a working breakfast to see if they could reschedule the invasion for a more reasonable time. ‘Say,’ one suggested, ‘around mid-morning?’

However, the general in charge of the artillery then pointed out that his men would be having their Health & Safety mandated mid-morning break at that point. So if the attack did go ahead then, it would be without artillery support.

The commanding General turned to the Artillery commander. ‘Why do they need this mid-morning break?’

‘They need a break from the noise of the artillery. Health and Safety has decreed that firing great big noisy artillery pieces at the enemy can be a health hazard.’ The artillery commander shrugged. ‘What can I do?’

‘But if we don’t invade at dawn, then they won’t have been firing all morning,’ an aide said.

‘But rules are rules,’ the artillery General said. ‘We could end up with Union trouble, disregarding Health and Safety rules like that.’ He looked around the breakfast table. ‘It’s more than my job’s worth.’

Slowly, as he looked from face to face around the table, each one nodded their agreement.

Meanwhile, over the border, the ancient enemy slept on, oblivious.

The Shape of a Door

'Hurry!' she drew the shape of a door in the air and stepped through, pulling me behind her.

I looked back. The alley had gone.

She took a deep breath and shook her head. 'I shouldn't have done that.'

I stared back. The alley had gone. 'Where...? What...?' I winced and lifted my hand to look at my shoulder; the blood was seeping through my fingers. The knife had sliced, slashed at me rather that stabbed, but it still hurt.

She moved towards me, indicating that I should let her see. She was silent for a moment, examining the wound like one who was use to such things. She was wearing a uniform under her coat. As she stood closer in the calm of wherever this place was, I could see the uniform was a nurse's uniform, even down to the watch above her breast pocket. 'You'll live.' She stepped back, looking up at my face.

'Where are we?' I looked around. It still looked a bit like my home town, but there was something different about it, something that looked far older, stranger.

'Kingsford,' she said.

'I've lived here all my life, but I don't recognise this part of the town,' I said.

'You won't.' She sighed. 'Anyway, let's get you sorted out and see about taking you back.' She turned, leading me down a street.

I followed, holding my shoulder. Then I realised what was different, the street lights had gone.

'This isn't Kingsford,' I said.

She turned. 'Oh, yes it is... Just not the Kingsford you know.'

Not Our Days

These were not our days. We did not have time left to us. Our time was over. We watched the dawn coming up over the sea, knowing the morning would bring with it the ship that would take us away from this; the only land we have known.

We had to flee before the soldiers came. Behind us, over the hills that sheltered the bay from the rest of the land we could hear the dull thunder of the guns drawing closer.

We should have gone long before, but we are only human and we do not expect catastrophe, we – much like everyone else – had expected it all to carry on much as normal, much as it always had done.

When the General came to power we did not expect things to change that much. Of course, he had spoken about how the politicians betrayed the country. How everything had gone wrong, how our country had fallen apart. Used to the talk of politicians and knowing that – whatever they say – they are powerless to change things, we did not pay that much attention to the General, even after he seized power.

Then came the rumours of the arrests and the deportations, the camps and the executions – still we did not run, we did not flee. Such talk, we thought, belonged on the pages of the history books, stories from times long ago. We – we knew – could not be living through such times: not after all this time, not after all that humankind had learnt from the horrors of the past.

But we – like the rest of humankind – had not learnt the one true lesson of the past: that humans never learn from the past. So we had to live through it all again, if we were lucky enough to survive.

So Many Leaves Have Fallen

So Many Leaves Have Fallen

I should fall like a leaf
like loosing a tight-gripped hand
letting these winds of time

dictate where I should fall
down across all these
wide-open fields of history,

where so many leaves have fallen
and left no trace on the ground.
Except this rich earth that grows

a new generation each time.
The blood of its forebears
soaks into the ground around this place

where we wait, each of us
to fall to that ground and fade
away into the soil of history.

Into the forgetful earth
where unknowing footsteps
walk over us for ever more.