Not Today

This is what comes from the moment; this is what turns back from the open sky and away from the sea of possibilities that laps against the shore of the now. We have walked these beaches so often before. Each time, your eyes turn towards the distant horizon where the sky meets the sea. You long to be back there, riding the waves and diving deeper than I have ever known into a world I cannot touch. Meanwhile, I trap you here on the dry land, hoping the memories of your water-born freedom will fade, until you know longer know how to dive deep into the seas that lie forever beyond my reach.

I have woken alone in the night to see you silhouetted against the moonlit window, watching the waves flickering in the moonlight. Longing for your home, until I call your land name and you return to our bed with one last lingering glance over your shoulder to what was once the only life you knew.

Then, each morning, I turn first to make sure you remain here on my dry land. I know one morning I will wake to find you gone. I will never know if you could ever return to such a dry life once you have dived deep again and swum out across that moonlight sea into a far freedom beyond the reach of land. Lost far beyond any horizon I could ever see from where I stand.

I know now that one morning I must take you down to the beach, to the edge of your sea and then let you go. I just hope, each morning, as I turn to you in our bed, that today is not that day.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

The Day We Met

I saw her as she came through the door into the café. I was sitting at my usual table, back near the far wall. There, I could sit with my back against the wall and watch everyone who came in, yet be far enough away from the counter so that I wasn’t bothered by people passing by me on their way to get served. I watched her for a few moments; liking what I saw, liking the way she moved. She had that special grace about her that fascinates me. I always like watching a woman who moves through the world with a lightness of step, a delicacy, but at the same time an ease and a confidence.

I could have watched her for a while. I had the feeling she would be someone who made a ceremony out of her coffee break. Someone who would sit, sip and appreciate, take delicate bites from her sandwich or cake, take an interest in the world around her. Me, though, I was too busy. I had something to write. For once I had something I felt I ought to write, not the usual half-baked musings on the inconsequential I’d been passing - wasting – my time on lately. That morning I’d woken up with a thought nagging my mind and now it had grown, matured, and was now something I felt I could use.

A shadow passed across my table and stopped.

I looked up.

She stood there, coffee and a cake, one in each hand. ‘May I?’ she said.

‘Yes, sure. Of course.’ I made a show of moving my laptop so she could put down her cup and plate. She sidled across the seat, knees together.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ she said, looking at me with an intensity that made me lower the lid on my laptop.

‘No,’ I lied. ‘I’m more or less done… for the moment.’ I resigned myself to never finishing that idea, of it fading away and disappearing like a rain puddle on a hot day.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ she said.

I looked at her. ‘No.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then we must not have met yet… and I’m just in time.’

‘In time for what?’ I laughed.

‘To save your life,’ she said.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Britain's Leading TV Actress

Podcast Bellydance is probably the UK's current most in-demand TV actress. From last year's surprise hit, the 1960s-set, police procedural Get us a Cup of Tea, Luv, to the turn of the Twentieth Century great house drama, set in Poshgits Hall, Time for Afternoon Tea. She has served tea to some of Britain's best-loved character actors and actresses.

Of course, serving tea, either on stage or the TV set or location, is one of the most demanding roles an actor can undertake. Especially if they have to take a cup of tea across the set or stage and hand it to another actor or actress, sometimes when saying some lines at the same time.

As Bellydance herself says: 'acting is of course just dressing up and playing pretend like we all used to do as children. However, it is of course much harder than that. We do have to remember the lines given to us by the writer and try to same them at the right time and in the right order. Sometimes we have to do this whilst doing something else as well, like walking – or even carrying a cup of tea.'

Several critics have claimed it is especially brave of Bellydance to perform her own tea-carrying stunts. Mostly without calling for a stuntman and or a body double to take over these arduous and exacting tasks, while she does the hard work of both remembering her lines and remembering to say them at the appropriate points.

'I also have to remember to blink occasionally,' Bellydance said in a recent interview where she spent most of her time learning her lines for her next scene. All while reminding herself where to breathe and – most importantly - blink. 'Luckily, I've always been cast in these demanding roles,' Bellydance added. 'Sometimes my characters have to blink several times a scene. Having to remember to breathe, blink and say the right words is demanding enough, of course. But I also think it adds depth to my portrayals of these characters if I actually carry a cup of tea in the way these characters would in real life.

Bellydance is very excited about her forthcoming role in a new film. The title of which is yet to be released. However, rumour has it she will be seen on the screen performing a full-frontal biscuit-dunking scene. We can only admire the courage she has, when saying she'll perform such a demanding scene herself without the aid of a stunt stand-in.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

The Day I Wrote for Her

This was the special day I wrote for her. I chose that early morning of springtime. I chose that day when, waking up, we realise the long winter is gone. There is sunlight, birdsong, and the first returning of the green world bursting out of the dull grey winter we have left behind.

I chose a morning where she did not have to be out of bed, unwilling in the rush of mornings never noticed. She could take her time; throw off the sheets and lie, feeling the real warmth of the sun on her naked skin.

I chose a house for her to live where she could walk out of the door still undressed, facing the world in all her naked honesty, as she had so often wished deep in her secret dreams. There was a garden full of those spring flowers, already blooming and alive on this warm morning and only a single cloud to give contrast between its white and the deep blue sky.

At the bottom of her garden, I'd placed a river, flowing gentle and slow, ready for her to walk into, cold with a hint of snow. A river she could wash in and feel connected to the morning I'd brought for her.

Then, when she got back home, she would find her favourite breakfast and hot black coffee waiting for her out on the patio and a soft robe to take away the chill of the snow-melt water.

And I would be there too, patiently waiting in the shadows for her to come back to me.

 

Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

The Days of the Deluge

It was, as they later said, something approaching a bit of a bugger. However, at the time everyone was too busy erecting their defences against the feared encroachment. Each town, village and hamlet in the area had lookouts posted at strategic points around the area to ward of the approaching flood. Local shops reported a run on sandbags and other defences as well as wood and nails to board up doors, windows and any other weak points where the deluge could worm its way inside.

Still, as the time approached ever nearer, people grew more and more nervous. Some began stockpiling food, fearing they could be cut off from civilisation once it began. All had little or no idea when they would walk the streets in safety again.

It began slowly, the lookouts reported the first signs of the beginning early one morning with reports of TV news vehicles sighted on the horizon and a local radio reporter found wandering the streets.

These were early days, though.

Then it began.

First it was somewhat desultory, a few election leaflets posted through the door with the party activists fleeing before the disturbed householders could complain. Some hoped that if they kicked up enough fuss in these early days then they would be safe.

But it was not to be.

Soon the flood began as doorbell after doorbell was rung, as loudspeaker van after loudspeaker van began to plague the streets. Soon the dribble of leaflets turned into a flood.

People were too scared to stay at home in case they were trapped there by the politicians seeking their vote, and too scared to venture out in case some roving rabid media report captured them for an impromptu vox pop.

Most just cowered inside, curtains drawn, lights and TV off. All living off cold canned goods until the word filtered through that the by-election was – at long last – over. Only then could they, if they'd survived, pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and try to live as normal a life as possible once again....

Until the next time.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

The Maiden Flight

Even then it was not quite all that we were led to believe, even if the optional courgette was included. Still, for that sort of price it is hard to complain, although that doesn't stop some from trying.

Anyway, once the flight engineer had lubricated all the necessary parts, it was time to take our positions for the maiden flight. Although, by this time the maiden herself was busy checking her phone diary trying to find some urgent appointment elsewhere, preferably not on the intended flightpath.

However, the various health and safety checks were now complete, a mere five and a half years after the idea was first mooted. Some still say, however, that the first year of preparations for the maiden flight, or to be accurate, maiden's flight of the decade saw the greatest influx of health and safety inspectors into one location the world has ever known. Such is the nature of progress.

Some do say that if Wilbur and Orville Wright had been subject to the same amount of health and safety scrutiny their machine would have been unable to take to the air. Mainly because of the extra weight of the warning stickers, alert notices and other such safety paraphernalia mandated by such inspectors.

However, our maiden had her high-visibility jacket, safety helmet and – of course – her mandatory emergency courgette, so there was very little the inspectorate could do to halt it. Except check there wasn't another form somewhere in the regulatory universe that would give them more justification for their existence.

So, there she stood at the runway, with all mandatory health warnings, safety instructions and emergency gear all around her, ready for the take off.

It was only then that some small boy, usually found around the feet of fashion-conscious emperors, pointed out that in our haste to comply with all the health and safety inspections, and locate a suitable safety courgette, we'd somehow forgotten to build the plane.

Still, we have until next Tuesday before our maiden is due elsewhere.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

These Stories We Tell Each Other

We tell one other stories of these times and places. We have no choice.

Without the story of the morning about how the sun rises beyond those far hills, our days could not begin.

Without the stories of the animals moving across these landscapes and the tales of how the plants grow we would have nothing to eat. Then our dry bones would be the only story we could tell to that warming sun. Without the long twisting tale of the river we would have no fish, nothing to drink and no way of taking ourselves down to where the sea waits. Its waves tumbling over one another in their haste to hear us tell the great legends of the sea and the tales of the seafarers who risked all to travel across it is search of more tales to tell. The tales of distant lands and peoples who each have their own stories of how this world came to be, and their place inside it the sailors tell us on their return.

Without you, I would have no tale to tell of how it feels to wake and not be alone with only the trees and the animals to sing my stories to. Without your stories of children that grow inside you, then break free to run across these hillsides making the stories of their own life then there would be no-one to tell all these stories to.

And what else is there, except these stories we tell one another?

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

To Touch These Clouds

 

To Touch These Clouds

Down on the ground the grass will grow
while birds reach out to touch the clouds.
We could have once expected such
small portents shaping all our dreaming

as we so often ask for some
acceptance of so much we want.
Even though there are shadows here
amongst us as we make our way

between these rocks that fill these paths
towards the summits of our hills.
Up where we hope to emulate
the birds and reach out, touch these clouds

which darkened all our promised skies
and turned us from our green-soft valleys.
To climb these hillsides in the hope
of finding something here to point

towards. A promise offered here
of something better than we know.
Before we turn back from the sky
returning to our valley lives
to live in clouded shadows again.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Queue Theory

There was a time, but then there would be. For if there was no time there would have been nowhere for the was to happen and we'd all be standing around feeling foolish, wishing we were waiting for something, but without the time element waiting does become somewhat problematical.

As Professor Eigenvector Electronvolt, emeritus professor of Queueing and Waiting theory of the Tipton Institute of Technology (TIT) recently stated, 'a queue needs both time and space to be a queue, without it everyone there is just dicking around.'

This ground-breaking theoretical breakthrough has galvanised the entire field* of queueing, both at a theoretical and practical level. Recent experiments at the Large Queue Collider on the Tipton-Wednesbury border have concentrated mainly on what happens at two points. First, where the ends of the queue meet the target – such as a Post Office Counter or airline check-in desk, where the queue particles meet and unmoveable object. Secondly, at the other end where the queue interacts with the normal day-to-day world. The rear of the queue, where it meets the ordinary world, has been well-understood since Newtonian times and Newton's Laws of the Queue still hold strong, especially his Third Law which – of course – deals with the mathematical consequences of queue-podging.

However, recent work has mainly concentrated on the other end of the queue, mostly at a theoretical level as busy physicists don't have time to spend in queues, except when signing in to top-flight conference venues in exotic locations. Consequently, a lot of work in this area has been undertaken by postgraduate researchers, who – of course – have little else to do other than stand around waiting for someone to notice them.

Therefore, researchers in this area hope that in the next few years they will be able to confirm the existence of the so-far, only theoretical 'Next Please,' particle. Theory suggests such a particle should exist but has been so rarely encountered down at the front of the queue, leading some queue physicists to doubt it exists.

 

*Obviously queuing in a filed has its own specialised theoretical and practical sub-divisions, mainly concerned with the toileting arrangements at music festivals (wellies advised).

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

First Move

She stood, waiting, listening. The air was calm, quiet, apart from the occasional bird song from the woodland over to her right. She raised her head, cocking it to the left and then the right, but there was nothing beyond the birdsong.

She moved out of the shadow of the rock, slowly, listening all the time, her eyes searching for any movement in the landscape around her.

The woods over to her right were less than fifty yards from the rock, but still she did not know. The ground over the other side of the rough track rose to a peak around 100 yards away from her. There could se someone up there now, watching her.

She waited, unsure.

Mira was a city girl; she did not know how it worked out here in the countryside. Back in the Warrens, she would have escaped by now, nipping down some shadowy alleyway, or across the rickety roofs to one of her many places of refuge.

She would know who was chasing her and why.

Out here though, in this alien landscape of trees, grassland and the incessant birdsong, she felt unsure, uncertain.

She did not like the way the grass was waving up on the peak of the rise. She did not know if grass naturally moved like that, or if something – or worse – someone, was up there stalking here.

She moved back into the shadow of the rock. From what she could see there was not much daylight left. Perhaps then she would make a move; that is unless there really was something – or someone – up there watching her and they moved first.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

The Crying Wind

So, the summer came, after such a long winter. The weather took us by surprise, as it always does up here in the Wildlands. One day there was a howling gale and snow falling, even though the calendar called it the end of spring. Wearily, we dragged ourselves inside our furs once again for our patrols and trudged off into the wind.

Borca said, as he always did, when we set off: ‘Fuckin’ wind. Which ever way you face to always blows right in your face.’ We all laughed, as we usually did, and agreed. Borca was right though, whichever way you face, the wind always seems to blow straight at you. It is a sharp wind that steals the breath from your mouth and makes your eyes run. The locals, the Wildfolk, call it the crying wind, and all of us who spend time at this garrison know why. After all, they say it makes you cry so that you are prepared for when it steals everyone, and everything, you care about from you.

So we set off trudging around the routine march with the gale flinging barrel-loads of icy sharp snow into our faces, each thinking that this winter would never end and that we would all die frozen in the ice and snow; ice and snow that would never end.

Then, next day, it was summer and we woke to sunlight and birdsong and – for once – the air was warm. I threw the bedcovers back, letting the furs fall to the floor and just enjoyed the feeling of the warm sunlight, streaming in from the window, on my skin. Hella moaned and muttered in her sleep, but I ignored her and just lay there enjoying the sun, but only for a while.

For we all know that when the winter is over, that is when the savage tribes from the North come south, and this time - after such a long deadly winter - we knew we were no longer strong enough to stop them.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Wildlife Documentaries of the Future

Well, as you know if you are a devotee of nature and wildlife programmes on the TV, these days it is rare to see the Attenborough in the wild. At least in his native habitat downwind from any rutting wild animals. Some even claim the TV naturalist is becoming an endangered species, especially with the possibilities of miniaturisation and remote operation of today's camera technology.

There are some, indeed, who believe the whole business of going out into the back of beyond, just to film various animals either having it off or eating one-another, and sometimes both, is no longer a viable business model. Especially in these days of reduced budgets, receding hairlines and the relative paucity of camera-ready totty in the field. Let alone the expense of getting some out of work former top-flight actor to do the voice-over when all else fails.

Critics point to the increasing success of CGI films featuring cartoon animals with far more endearing personalities than their natural wild analogues. As well as the merchandising prospects of some of the more engaging artificial creatures.

So, in future, it looks as though computer-generated virtual animals will replace today's wildlife documentaries. Programmes where the animals can go beyond the mere rutting and devouring with, and of, one-another and go on to do more adventurous activities, up to and including saving the world from mankind in cute and endearing ways. This will leave both the possibilities of numerous sequels to each programme and the very real possibility of significant merchandising sales as the creatures grow into popular characters.

All in all then, a much more rewarding televisual experience. Much better than watching, yet again, some old bloke crouching behind a bush, muttering on about how exciting it is to be this close to a pair of wild creatures either copulating with, or eating, one-another.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Each Word is Less Than a Moment

All these words that fall across the page like snowflakes settling, like rain falling, like the tears that stain the page when there are no words left and still far too much to say. The words themselves shy away from the page, away from permanence, wanting only to be fleeting moments, there, then lost on the breezes that blow all the possibilities from now away into the unreachable past.

Each word is less than a moment, waiting, heaping up beyond the reach of the hand that could take those waiting words and pin them to the moment. Then spreading them out on this page to say all that needs to be said, before the moment is lost, before the time is gone, before there is nothing left to say.

She sits at the table, pen in hand, watching the tears fall onto the blank page. Next to her unmoving hand are the crumpled balls of discarded pages that didn’t get close to anything she wanted to say. A heap of words that danced around across her mind and over the page, none of them getting close to what she wanted to say, like dancers dancing apart and alone, her thoughts and the words never joined hands, never danced together across the page, creating something new out of all she wanted to say.

Now, there is only silence; a silence and the blank page that waits for her words. Now she knows the page will stay blank because there are far too many words and she had far too much to say for a piece of paper to hold.

So she stands, walks out leaves the empty desk and the blank page and the pen behind as she closes the door on them and dries her tears before walking away.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Ye Olde Toppe Gear

Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Ye Olde Toppe Gear. This week Richard de Hammond field tests the new Porsche two-oxen plough. Meanwhile James of May takes the new Land Rover hay cart out on some of Britain's rural byways and off-road. Meanwhile,the Stig takes the new British warhorse out on our track to see how it compares to the European warhorse and even the latest hot hatchback mounts from the Saracens.

Also, I Jeremy Lord Clarkson, discover just which is the best vehicle to use when going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Later, we have Little John from the world-famous band of the Merry Men taking our reasonably-priced mule around our track later on.

Before that, we'll have, a special report from a muddy field near Agincourt where we see what happens when a bunch of poncy modern French knights go up against the traditional British longbow. We think you'll be surprised at the results though.

First, though, the news. There is talk at the King's court of introducing a national speed limit of three miles an hour on all British roads, including what remains of all the Roman roads. Although, judging by my ride into the studio this morning down Watling Street, the possibility of achieving such high speeds is almost impossible given the poor state of the roads. Especially, given the fact most of them turn into a muddy swamp. As for the talk of adding safety features such as speed humps, must roads have them naturally these days.

Anyway, talking of mud, here's Richard de Hammond with his report on the new Porsche two oxen superplough.

Run the film!

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Where the Shadows Belong

It comes slow and careful through the darkness. It feels at home in the dark, light reveals too much. The shadows and dark places are a home. It can feel the prey as it moves oblivious through the darkness.

There was a time long ago, many prey lifetimes ago, when it would haunt the dark woods, waiting for the prey to come into the deep night of the forest. It would wait high in trees, or low in the undergrowth, for the prey to blunder into its reach. Then it would stretch, grab and devour, leaving only a memory for the prey’s kin to mourn.

Then, though, it moved, made its home in the prey’s cavernous cities. There were more shadows, more dark places and much more prey. The creature could sit up high on the roofs and watch. It could wait for the choicest prey to pass by. The creature could hide in the deep, almost solid, darkness in the cellars and basements for the prey to come by, sometimes oblivious, sometimes wary. But, all too often, wary of other dangers than the creature waiting to rip their lives away.

The creature knew this world belonged to it, and not to the prey, and it liked it that way.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Archaeology

Archaeology

And here is something newly found.
It sits here, waiting on the palm,
in one cupped hand, and makes its shape
from limits it can then transcend.

It's more beyond itself enclosed,
contains the distances of time
and history within itself.

Its turning form can speak to us
of ages long ago and gone,
to times before the modern now,
when other lost unknowable
wise hands then grew and shaped its form.

But still it will remain right here,
becoming this new meaning taken
by every hand that holds it tight.

Each making new connections back
along that trodden path of time.
We listen now to sounds, echoes
of times, ages long past and gone.

Always we have long history
behind us, somehow reassuring
when walking down these twisting paths
in these now fading footsteps taken here
by earlier, forgotten, generations.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

The Wedding Party

Each morning she would wake before the rest of the company, just to see the world around her. Until this journey, her father’s tower confined and defined her whole world.

Once they arrived at their destination, the walls of her husband’s tower would confine and define her life. Her whole world would end at the thick stone wall, rising on the high ground above her new Lord and Master’s lands.

No doubt, she would have a window to look through. As wife of the Lord she would – Hella presumed – have a window of her own she could look through. She would no longer have to share everything with her sisters. She would have servants too and guards of her own.

These early mornings, though, on the journey, her servants and her guards were sleeping. Several – she assumed from the noises in the darkness around her carriage in the night – with one another.

It made Hella wonder what her own wedding night would be like. She wondered too, what her husband would be like. She had not met him since the formal betrothal ten years before on his tenth birthday. She had been four at the time and more interested in her new kitten, Bojo, than in the strange boy in his formal clothing watching her from the other side of her father’s great hall.

Now she wished she’d paid more attention. She wished she’d realised at the time that the boy in the rich clothes was to be her Lord and Master for the rest of her days.

She sighed as she looked out at the strange world outside her carriage – the strange lands that lay between her father’s lands and those of her new husband. Her husband’s family had paid enough for her; she hoped they would all treat her as the expensive prize she was.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Street Life

Well, at the time, few – if any of us – really noticed it all that much. That is the thing with living in a place like this; people are not quite sure what is the best thing to do about it. After all, it could be none of our business, and no-one wants to look as if they are prying, especially into matters that do not concern them.

Most too, as they later said, assumed it was some sort of local council initiative they had not heard about. Such ‘initiatives’ are not that unusual. I can remember when they replaced our traditional bins with wheelie bins. They arrived on our drives and doorsteps like some alien invading army appearing from nowhere.

In fact, that is how most people in our street approached the new bins. As if expecting the strange upright plastic monstrosities to demand to be taken to our leader, and – to a man and/or woman - wondering who our leader would be. Except her from number 22, of course who, naturally to her, has always assumed she is our leader. Why, no one-knows, or dares disabuse her.

Anyway, there it (or should it be they?) lay there in the middle of the road with each passer-by noting it (them), some even paused to take a closer look. Old Joe from number 45 even went up close and poked it (them) with his walking stick, before furtively looking around and walking away as briskly as he could manage before anyone accused him of being responsible.

After all, these days, no-one ever wants to admit responsibility, not for anything – just in case.

So, there they lay for several hours in the middle of the road. Meanwhile, everyone waited to see what would happen and who would be the one to break and – foolishly, we knew – go and do something about them (it).

Even so, we all still cringed every time a vehicle came close to them. For I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the sound of some lost or discarded bagpipes as they are run over, but – believe me – it is not a sound you are ever likely to forget.

Still, they were there when night came and we all – with relief – closed our curtains on the problem. Each hoping that in the morning, the problem would be solved and the discarded, or lost, bagpipes would be gone.

Which they were….

Thankfully.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Mouse in the Alley

We kissed, hard and urgent. I pushed her back against the wall as our hands roamed over each other. We could hear them, shouting and running feet. We broke off the kiss and stared towards the mouth of the alley.

‘We haven’t got time for this,’ Mouse whispered, even though her hands were already unfastening and rummaging through my clothes. I glanced down the alley again.

Mouse nibbled my lip, her tongue entering my mouth as I was about to speak. We kissed again. ‘This alley…? Do you know it?’ I said as we came back up for air.

Mouse shook her head as she moved lower.

‘It could be a dead-end.’ I glanced back at the mouth of the alley again. The voices and the running feet were getting closer. Then I had to close my eyes for a moment as Mouse’s tongue did one of its special tricks.

For a while I forgot where we were, what we’d done and who we were running from.

Then, reluctantly, I pulled Mouse to her feet. She grinned at me, licking her lips and kissed me again.

‘We have to go,’ I said, trying to fit myself back inside clothes that were now way too tight. ‘Now!’

Mouse laughed and took my hand, half-running down the alley. She stopped laughing when we reached the wall at the end.

I looked back. They were at the top of the alley; I could see torches, hear excited shouts. If there’d been only one or two, or even a handful, we could have tried to fight our way out. But this time it was the Guard and there were at least twenty of them, and they were coming down the alley.

All of them.

I turned back to see Mouse half-undressed, shoving the sack and her weapons and tools behind a barrel.

‘Quickly,’ she said pulling me to her and tugging down my trousers with one hand as she shoved my stuff with hers behind the barrel with the other.

We tried not to look as the flaming torches came closer.

‘Hey, you!’ a voice called as the torches lit up the alley.

‘What?’ Mouse cursed at the Guard. ‘Can’t a girl earn a few honest coins without you wanting your cut?’

The Guards swore and turned away.

‘We should ask them,’ a young voice said. ‘Ask if they’ve seen the thieves.’

‘Really?’ An older, more tired, voice said. ‘And do you think they’d really have noticed…? Come on, let’s go back to the crossing and try the other streets.’

I turned back to see Mouse laughing silently. ‘We should go.’

‘Why stop now?’ she laughed again and pulled me closer.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

The Purl

Kretz looked up at me from where she’d been sleeping, head on my chest. She blinked slowly. Her pink tongue darted out and licked the side of her hand; she brushed the hand over the side of her face a few times, purring as she did it.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it can be more than a little disconcerting, but in a universe the size of this one, it is – almost - bound to happen.

For such a long time, we humans had wondered if we were alone in the universe. We’d wondered whether there was life out there, somewhere amongst all those stars. Then we discovered those stars had planets, that ours was not the only one. Then, a little later we’d discovered that some of those planets were in the goldilocks zone like ours.

Then, we found we were not alone.

The Purl were one of the first races from beyond our solar system to contact us. Then when we discovered what the Purl were, then it was inevitable we’d find so much in common, considering humanity’s long association with cats. Discovered by the Purl, and brought into the association of intelligent species by them had a certain rightness about it. A race of intelligent cats – well, it was a love affair waiting to happen.

Kretz wrapped her tail around us as we lay there. She was purring again. I took a deep breath. I was going to have to tell her it was over, that I had to go back to Earth.

I looked down at those hands… paws, with their razor-sharp claws retracted. I thought about her sharp pointed teeth and about what a cat could do to a mouse. Then I thought about my pink helpless body and I decided, instead, to put off telling her… at least, for a while.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

The Untidy Universe

There is nothing. Everything is emptiness and hollowness.

But then that does save the bother of having to find somewhere to put it all. There should be at least some cupboard space, but there never is.

‘There is,’ as Wittgenstein said about this great philosophical conundrum, ‘never enough space on top of the wardrobe. For that which we cannot find space for, we must learn to live without.’

It is a problem overcome by nature in its constantly expanding universe. Obviously, some cosmic force had tried to stuff all of space and time into a universal cupboard, only to find it suddenly bursting back out again in what we now call the Big Bang.

Despite the complete lack of evidence for one, perhaps there was some sort of god after all. Perhaps a god whose wife suggested that he might tidy up the form and void a bit and put some of that matter away he’d left about all over her nice clean eternity.

So, like any normal bloke he just rammed it all in the universal cupboard and went off to watch the football on the telly, then jut as he’d settled down with a beer, the big bang burst out and there he was with a universe all over his wife’s nice clean floor.

No wonder he buggered off pretty sharpish as soon as the universe came into being and hasn’t been seen since.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Naughty Tennis – A Tactical Approach

Anyway, there we were. She had the tennis racquet, of course... but we won't go into that, not before the watershed anyway.

Still, as the typical British weather is pouring down, it is possibly safe to assume that whatever amount of water constitutes the aforesaid watershed. At least, that amount has already been shed this morning. Therefore we are safe to continue with this promenade through the outer suburbs of what is regarded as both the rude and the naughty with little chance of interruption. Especially any interruption from those who like to think they know what is best for everyone.

Just why so many people think it is any of their business what others get up to. Or, that it is for them to stipulate which of those doings has their approval or not, we will leave to one side for a while. At least for as long as it takes to mention that she is rather adept with the tennis racquet, but – as we are civilised people – not for tennis obviously.

We are not that weird.

Anyway, there she stood, naked and proud and with the tennis racquet in a standard two-handed grip. She, of course, following the standard rules of Naughty Tennis was standing on the kitchen by-line, awaiting my service.

Of course, Naughty Tennis is always best played in the domestic setting. Except, of course, when there is something good on the telly. For then, the players can easy be distracted by Downton-esque plot twists during the vital match point manoeuvres, especially if it is their turn with the raspberry-flavoured jelly.

Anyway, I had the bag of marshmallows at the ready and my racquet was poised too.

But then she remembered a couple of VAT Invoices she had not filed correctly. So instead of Naughty |Tennis we went off to play a game of sexy VAT Inspector instead, which was good because it was my turn with the buff envelopes.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Radicalism and Tinned Fruit

It was not that it was all that obvious, except from certain angles, but you could easily tell she was one of those women, by the way she moved down the street. Women, in the West, have achieved financial and social independence over the recent century or so. Consequently, certain women do indeed prefer to carry a tin of peach slices with them when they are out and about on an evening.

It was just over a hundred years ago when the Suffragette Henrietta Bullspizzle chained herself to the railings outside 10 Downing Street clutching a tin of peach slices. A few months later, another suffragette Doreen Pendulous smuggled a tin of mandarin segments, concealed in her bodice, into Purple's, a staunch men-only Gentleman's club. Another suffragette flagrantly opened a tin of fruit cocktail during the Grand National with - as we all know – tragically fatal consequences when the authorities later discovered she didn't have an appropriate serving spoon for the occasion.

From these tentative beginnings the suffragettes regarded carrying tinned fruit on or about the person as a political act. They claimed that the male patriarchy had a certain dismissive view of women found possessing various tinned goods when on a night out, especially tinned fruit. Suffragettes claimed men often viewed women holding - say – a tin of pineapple rings in a predatory manner. Especially if that male had in his possession a tin-opener (See, for example, Germoline Goat's: The Female with Fruit Cocktail in Syrup). This they claimed discriminated against the woman – who may have legitimate reasons of her own to want to carry some tinned fruit when going about her business.

However, as time passed and fashions changed it became more and more common for women to go out on the town carrying the aforementioned tinned fruit. This was especially the case for a girls' night out, when each of the women, more as a fashion accessory than as a political statement of feminist solidarity took with them a tin of mandarin segments.

Therefore present-day feminists have called for several Reclamation of the Peach Slices (in Syrup) Nights to take place in town centres throughout the UK. They hope the original spirit of radicalism can be reclaimed from what is now little more than a fashionable way of accessioning for a night on the town.

Others, though, claim that it is too late now and that modern feminists should be looking at other grocery items should they wish to make a political statement of equal importance to that of their forebears.

However, only time will tell who is right, this time.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

That’s Buggered It

Still, as she said at the time, it is a bit of a bugger. Exactly, how much of a bugger will, of course, depend upon the new unit of measure agreed at the next EU leaders’ summit.

There have been some complaints especially by scientists specialising in measurement the definition of the now international standard metric Oh, Bugger has been appropriated by politicians. Consequently with all the inevitable fudging, compromises and blatant electioneering and posturing such a process inevitably entails.

However, other experts point out that the politicians being the unparalleled experts at buggering things up are the ideal people to define just how much a bit of a bugger something is. Not only that, but also defining just what is involved – mainly themselves – in buggering something up past all possible redemption.

‘After all, as one MEP pointed out. ‘We created the EU and you couldn’t get anything more buggered up than that, or anything that buggers people about more.’ A point which those opposing scientist have had to concede, especially when some smart-arse pointed out that science was responsible for all manner of benefits from medicines to computers to understanding the very nature of the universe. All of massive and possibly incalculable benefit to the human race, while the EU’s proudest boast was that they came up with the Euro. Faced with such overwhelming data and their inherent belief in the power of evidence the scientists had to concede defeat.

However, many of the scientists took some comfort in the fact that it is the very EU politicians who are about to attempt to come up with an international standard of buggering things up. Therefore - given their impeccable record of accomplishment in the past – many of those scientists are quietly confident the politicians will bugger this job up too. They believe then it will be them, the scientists, who get called in to sort out the resulting cock up (Using well-defined SI Cock-Up units, of course).

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Something for the Weekend – Free Kindle Ebook – Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape

Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape

Available here (UK) and here (US) free for the Kindle for the next five days.

Here we are back, once again, in Little Frigging in the Wold: England’s most perverse, erotic and excitingly-moist village, for some more tales of rural life, with more adventures and tales featuring Grand Uncle Stagnant, Old Feebletrousers, Strom Thighhammer, the cake shop manageress and many more of Little Frigging’s residents.
This book includes over one hundred stories involving inter-village competitive orgies, the erotic use of foodstuffs, how to extract as much money from tourists as possible, the naked pogo-stick steeplechase, mid-air and deep-sea perversions, the use of the fetish unicycle, medieval woodland perversions, the erotic use of cardigans, achieving match fitness in an inter-village orgy squad, accountancy fetish night in the village hall, and – of course – the best way of sellotaping a Cornish pasty to an assistant librarian for erotic purposes and much, much more.

This book free for the next five days only

Available here (UK) and here (US) free for the Kindle for the next five days:

Some comments on David Hadley’s writing:
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story.”
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Available here (UK) and here (US) free for the Kindle for the next five days

The Still Point of This Turning World

Well, there you go… unless, of course, you are currently not in motion. Although, quite how you manage that when the rest of the universe is rushing about all over the shop is probably better explained by someone in a more physics-compatible stance than the one I am currently utilising. A posture which more resembles the stance of one caught by surprise next to a chest freezer by a Thomson’s gazelle concerned about the integrity of its vanilla ice cream supplies.

No doubt, it is wise for a creature from such a warm climate to have some concern about whether or not someone is attempting to steal its ice cream. This is especially the case in an area famous for the diversity of its wildlife and especially some of the more rapacious hunters and scavengers… as well as an inordinate amount of TV naturalists. Particularly when the naturalists would be more than eager to capture such dramatic footage of a distraught gazelle standing next to its pillaged freezer.

After all we all – no doubt – remember that award-winning footage narrated by David Attenborough in his last TV wildlife extravaganza. A piece where a herd of zebras returned home from a day’s busy grazing to find their once so neat vegetable racks in complete disarray. Finding no sign whatsoever of the spring cabbage they’d bought only that morning from the Serengeti Tesco.

So, like I said – there you go… unless of course you are at the still point of this turning world. In which case, you won’t.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

The Other

Eyes?

The eyes opened, blinking rapidly, then slower as they grew accustomed to the light level. It was dim. The eyes couldn’t see much, just a ceiling made of metal with a low-powered light in the centre of it.

There were hands, and they could move.

A body. A breast, two breasts and a stomach and lower… the body was female.

There was a mouth too and it smiled.

Female was always good, better than a male.

The prey was always less suspicious of the female. The males wanted to protect, or if not protect, then damage. Always feeling they had the advantage whichever they were going to do. The females… well, they felt less threatened by another female, less wary of what the other could do.

The other?

The mouth smiled again. That was a good name, it… she liked that. She liked being the other.

The body sat up and she looked down at herself.

She liked this body. It was young and strong – even for a body of the prey – which were usually weak and easily broken – that was why they were the prey, after all.

Once she’d lived in this body for a while it would no longer be the body of the prey, it would become – in time – the other.

She hoped it would not be too long, not this time. She was already feeling hungry.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Oh, Shut Up

But starting a sentence with a but some regard as beyond the pale. Even though sometimes on a cold morning there is no other way of getting the sentence going. That is unless there is a nearby slope to push it down so it stutters into life and then the first paragraph is up and running.

Of course, back in the (good) old days, each paragraph would come with its own – sometimes–integral – starting-handle. A few sentences setting the scene and there you were, the whole piece was up and running and chugging away nicely before the readers had their reading goggles and gauntlets on.

Still, this though is – apparently – the modern world and things here are different. Now is not the future though as we still lack the personal jetpacks and robot butlers that officially demark the future’s arrival.

So this is the here and now and we are stuck with it. Up to and including getting our writing up and running on cold and damp mornings. Ideally, before the readership begins to suspect the writer has – at long last, and to the relief of many – run out of stuff to wibble on about.

Already, there are fingers poised over mice and touchscreens. Each digit twitching and itching to get on to the newest of the new pictures of cute cats doing cute things with cute captions, wishing this fool would just shut up so the rest of the day can carry on.

So, shut up he does.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Modern Horrors

It seems so long ago now, but back in those days it was as if the tank top had never gone, lost in the mists of time. There was even talk, late in the night, when it seems the darkness can hold everything we fear, the dread flared trousers could come back to haunt us once again.

But, hard as it may appear, there are more horrors out there to scare and terrify than unfortunate fashion choices. Of course, we know that some poor unfortunates can cease to be human if they are infected by the plague that is politics. Politics is a disease that, as yet, science has found no answer for beyond quarantining the victims in houses of legislature. There the horrible disease that afflicts and then destroys their minds can be contained with little chance of it escaping to infect the rest of the populace. A populace that have enough on their plates following the plot twists in their favourite TV programmes without having to descend to the mind and soul-destroying miasmic mire that is party politics.

Beyond that, of course, there is the sheer terror of the TV schedules where vast inhospitable deserts spread out across the possible evenings of those looking for something decent to watch. The viewing schedule is a strange place where all the good programmes huddle together in terror around a mere handful of peak viewing slots. A place where each programme hopes, hope against hope, they will not be picked off one by one by the slavering hordes of Reality programmes that prowl the edges of civilisation. All waiting to tear, rip and devour the last few shreds of individuality and private thoughts from our already soporific tranquilised minds.

All this making the witches, demons and devils of past ages seem little more frightening than the prospect of accidentally switching to one of the shopping channels. Shopping channels that haunt our airwaves waiting to steal our brains and capture our credit card details.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

They Came From Outer Space

Of course, the odds were overwhelming. Never in human history had this planet faced such odds.

The alien ships appeared on the edge of the solar system in ever-increasing numbers. There were thousands of them, all approaching Earth orbit and there was nothing we could do to stop them.

Soon the night sky filled with the orbiting ships, like hundreds, thousands, of new stars in the sky. Then, in addition, the daytime sky filled, with the ships grown massive in the sky like solid metal storm clouds. They hung there over every point of human habitation on the planet. From the largest cities right down to the humblest nomadic tents. Each and all had at least one of the massive starships hovering in the sky above it, all casting huge shadows across the ground.

We learnt to live in perpetual shadow, learnt not to look up to see something impossibly huge just hanging there over our heads.

All we could do was wait, wait and tremble. Everyone was scared, too scared to mention the fearsome objects filling our skies. Soon we knew they would turn their attentions on us and we would be doomed.

The voice came from everywhere, from every speaker in the world, from every resonating surface that could vibrate at those frequencies and in every language spoken by those beneath the ships.

‘We want your cheese!’

The world’s leaders, hastily prepared to face impossible demands contacted one another. The world’s armies all ready for inevitable defeat and death at the hands (or whatever) of the overwhelming alien horde all dared breathe again.

‘What?’ said the leader of the free world, when she could find her voice – and get the American president to stop praying long enough for her to get a word in.

‘Your cheese. We want it now…. Or there will be war. War you puny humans can never win!’

‘But…well, cheese?’

Earth is the only planet in the entire universe that has the precious cheese.’ The voice was calm, almost reasonable. ‘We must have your Stilton. The future of the universe depends upon it.’

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Careful with that Canoe

Once we thought about the canoe, as is often the case on Thursdays. Even so, it was not often we thought about the canoe on Thursdays without a fully-consensual stickleback ponder session in the gazebo.

Of course, it does – so often – in these days of austerity mean that any fully-fledged consideration of almost every mode of aquatic (or in the case of the hovercraft semi-aquatic) transport does entail at least some – however fleeting – consideration of the stickleback.

Especially – as has already indicated in the House of Lords – on Thursdays.

Back in earlier days, however, it was often quite normal for the stickleback and its feelings about having its personal space violated by humans and their callous disregard of stickleback rights.

These days, of course, we live in more enlightened times... so we are told. Consequently, any violation, unthinking or otherwise, of the current nostrums of correct thinking will get us just as banged up as was the case when caught thinking the almost direct opposite a few short decades ago.

Most will – if they ever bother to think about it, will not waste much thought on the matter. Especially if they feel that the sticklebacks may have some sort of case for keeping their lifestyles free of unwarranted intrusion by canoes and – in some places – coracles.

However, we should all realise that what is the right thing to think today, may not be necessarily the right thing to think tomorrow.

So just be a bit careful with your canoe, because next time it may not be just the sticklebacks you are inconveniencing who take issue with you.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

The Return of the Red Revolutionaries

Well, obviously… or perhaps not, depending on how you take your cheese, at the time everyone regarded it as the most significant event of the century… so far. At least, that is, in the often turbulent and divisive history of cheese, up to and including the Wensleydale perturbations and the great Luton Stilton riot of 1874.

Of course, those of us who had our suspicions about the Red Leicester supporters were justified in our concerns. Especially when the Red Leicester Worker’s collective announced they had taken control of one of the country’s largest cracker factories. Before demanding the government hand over control of all cheese-related matters to what they called the Workers Cheese Eating Collective.

The government, of course, had long expected that the revolutionary cheese parties would stage some industrial or political action. So they had stockpiled the chutney in readiness and the essential cheese supply lines were to be taken over by the army should the disruption spread. Although, many feared that the resulting imposition of basic army-issue cheddar on the populace would cause more unrest than it quietened. Especially if the rumours of navy hard tack biscuits left over from the Battle of Trafalgar turned out to be true.

Still, though in the end the Red Leicesters made a significant mistake in underestimating the support they would have. First the Sage derby, then the Double Gloucester turned against them. Particularly when the Red Leicester leadership refused to ballot their members and some of them returned to work, but only on the promise of extra sweet pickle on their Ploughman’s Lunches.

Soon after that, it was all over and it seemed that Britain was yet again safe from the cheese revolutions that had scared so many countries in such much of the 20^th century.

It was thought that Cheese radicalism was a thing of the past. But now with Britain’s Left once more turning to those discredited and often stale cheeses of the past, it would be most unwise of us to ignore the danger signs. Especially since the leadership promised a prize freeze on Britain’s staple cheeses for the lifetime of their first parliament and a seizure of all unused and hoarded crackers. It seems that those dark cheese-less days of the 3 days-only cheese weeks, cracker coupons and complete chutney blackouts could so easily return, if we dare relax our vigilance.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]