Drabbles

It’s a sunny afternoon, a holiday, and the runners are winding up for the contest of their lives.

The opening fanfare includes balancing on walls, hide and seek, and tag round the park.

Reaching the starting blocks, they line up.

The bright colours of the participants make them easily recognisable and their sponsors cheer from the side-lines.

Red T-rex starts fast but the wrong way, yellow Stegosaurus plods after the green diplodocus, veers the left and falls over. It’s the blue triceratops that charges to the winning line.

“Again! Again!” squeal four children, as they race to collect their toys.

Rain is wrung out of a sodden blanket of grey clouds.

The river rises.

From up here, it looks like brown sludge, oozing downstream.  Standing on the edge, the long drop makes me feel insignificant. Makes me feel free.

A thunderous symphony of churning water fills the emptiness in my heart and drowns the thoughts in my head.

Getting soaked, and refreshed by the strong, cool wind, I still stand there, waiting. Always waiting.

For you?

For what?

A glow from the south breaks through the grey clouds and lights up each drop, like falling diamonds.

I wait.

For me.

A girl in my class knew everything. When the teacher asked a question, her hand would shoot up and wave frantically above her auburn hair.

But there was one fact I was sure she didn’t know; that I was in love with her.

From her polished black shoes, to the tips of her light-red lashes, which fluttered as frantically as her arm when she knew the answer to a question.

Then a friend said, “You need to ask her a question.”

Heart hammering and palms sweating, I asked her to the Leavers Ball.

Of course, she knew the answer, “Yes.”

She shivers but she can’t walk away from the blue-grey cloud-ship sailing across the horizon. As it moves, it leaves a trail of fluffy white clouds on a burnt pink sea.

Mesmerised, she sits down. She shivers but continues to watch.

Overhead aeroplane trails criss-cross the still blue atmosphere, like some giant marking out a tally on the sky.

A man takes photos.

A couple walk their dog.                              

Pigeons coo.

Too soon the cloud-ship sails on, morphing into something else, the photographer finishes shooting, the pigeons nestle down and the dog does its business.

She shivers.

She should go home.

Standing less than an inch away from her, he inclines his head to better hear her honey voice or take in her expensive scent. Smiling and laughing, he must be happy.  

The joy I’d felt a moment ago vanishes, like frost on a sunny morning.

Straight black hair washes, like a midnight waterfall, over her shoulders. Designer clothes, I can’t even guess at, hang exquisitely from her petite frame.

I’m jealous.

I’ll never admit it. It’d inflate his already massive ego and make no difference, except demolish my pride.  

Catching his eye, I smile then start talking to someone else.

The Children follow the red ribbon and find their way to the Edge of the Light, to the Chasm of Darkest Nothing.

They are not afraid. Here they dance and sing, run and shout, and wait in the Light.

And here She collects the Children.

A woman glowing with the light of a candle lit room.  She’s a mother too, like the ones they only just knew.

Holding out her hands, she gathers the Children in her arms. Caring for them across the shining bridge, that spans the Chasm of Darkest Nothing, she makes them safe in the Eternal Estate.

Sorrow’s only desire is to curl up in a corner and cry. Anger wants to shout and scream and rail against the universe.  Anger drags Sorrow out into the world. Sorrow cloaks Anger in a veneer of politeness.

Carrying on with a busy life, she ignores them. If she ignores them, they’ll go away, like clouds in the wind.

But what if Sorrow and Anger are like a conquering army laying siege to her heart?

She’ll have to fight to take back what’s hers.  

But she doesn’t have the heart.

And when the battle’s over what’ll be left of her?

At first there was darkness. Then the taste of water, moist and sweet. Movement came next, stretching and reaching until a break through.

Touching Sunlight, I shot up. Every day I’d grow toward his light and while others battled Wind, I embraced it, listening to her talk.

My skin hardened, against the animals that gnawed, the squirrels that tickled and those that swung from my arms.

Then the air was tainted and filled with different noises. Many of us were chopped down, but I was walled up in a corner, away from Wind and World.

And here I still stand.

A small nudge and the wheels of his imagination rock.

Why’s she late?  The train must have been delayed.

But the wheels have begun to turn now.

What if she was run over and is now being whisked to the hospital, sirens blaring?

Maybe she lost her phone and an opportune thief stole her bag. She’ll be a Jane Doe.

How long should he wait to ring the hospitals?

Maybe he’ll discover that she’s really a spy and before she died, she’d hid information and he must complete her mission.

His phone beeps – Train delayed. Home in five. x

The world is almost half-full of women, writing code, teaching, saving lives, cooking, caring, organising, writing, evaluating history, cleaning, fighting, performing on stage, back stage, gardening, competing, calculating, designing, cashing up, giving birth, shooting into space, directing, advising, deducing, reigning and building roads, bridges and a way forward.

The world is almost half-full of men writing code, teaching, saving lives, cooking, caring, organising, writing, evaluating history, cleaning, fighting, performing on stage, back stage, gardening, competing, calculating, designing, cashing up, shooting into space, directing, advising, deducing, reigning and building roads, bridges and a way forward.

The world is full of people.