Drabbles

“Wish I was certain I’m happy,” says the Tin Woman to the Clown.

“It’s like juggling,” replies the clown, throwing two, three, then five balls in the air. “Just keep practising, until you get the hang of it.”

“Fake it until you make it?” asks the Tin Woman. “That working for you?”

“Well I’m happy right now, aren’t you?” He grins.

She was happy. But then she was sitting next to a clown, whose purpose was to make people smile.

He’s still faking it, she thinks, his certainty lies in his lies.

His kind of happiness could never be real.

You are my nemesis. Not because you’re evil and I’m good, we’re not.

You’re my nemesis because you’re my opposite, my balance and the one who pushes me. You challenge my assumptions, and question my comments, you make me do better, be better, the best I can be.

Friends agree with me too easily. You challenge me.

My friends like who I am. You see I can be more.

But you’re also my conflict, my ruination, my downfall, because I love you and I shouldn’t.

Every day I love you more and try to love you less, you, my nemesis.

Listen to the man on the bus, the lady in the street, the mother in the queue or the boy on the bench. Everyone has their story, their tale to tell. The thing that is most pressing on their mind.

They’re getting a divorce. He’s lost his job. She hasn’t slept in weeks. His wife is in hospital.

And just for a moment your life crosses with theirs and in that moment, they tell you of their grief, joy or sadness. You can’t help or resolve their problems, but you listen and by this acknowledge that they are of value.

From a doorway on the Shambles, I watch a river of humanity.

Despite the music playing in my ears, I hear the babble of visitors. Some laugh, a baby screams, girls giggle, and friends point out the over-hanging houses to each other.

The voices are vary in pitch, tone and accent, creating a harmony of sound.

Couples walk passed arm in arm, hand in hand. A man in a red ski jacket, takes his brown husky-cross, for a walk. Grown up daughters, with their grey-haired mum, stop on the cobbles to review their map and decide where to go next.

A hurrying, blonde ponytail swings back and forth. An unzipped black coat trails behind a mother, running with her three daughters.

The youngest sleeps in the whizzing, black pram, in front of the toddler perched on the buddy seat. The pre-schooler, hair flying back, smiles with glee as her little legs pump against the ground and her small fingers cling to the handle.

All four are swept up in a moment of exhilaration and imagination. They are a racing car, a rocket soaring to the moon, they are unicorns galloping over a rainbow.

They are also late for the bus.

Passing many possible places to complete her ritual, she reaches a stone statue of a man in a mitre. Nicolas the Patron Saint of Children, says the plaque. Accepting this, the woman picks up a circle of wax.

The wick catches fire, like the birth of a new soul. The little light dances, seemingly with life.  She doesn’t sit or kneel but stands with her arms at her side, palms open.

Slowing her breathe, she lowers her real-world defences. Hearing the choir’s harmonies, smelling old incense, and looking to the vast height of the nave, she lets the universe in.

Crawling, I scurry along the dry ground, dodging the tall blades of yellowing grass, when something blocks out the sun.

Shaded, I keep scurrying, much preferring the darkness under a home stone. But then I’m crawling onto a squishy pink hand.

This is the end, I think, squishing time.

If I were a ladybird, I would fly away but all I can do is keep scurrying on my six little legs.

“Mr Woodlouse,” says a smiling boy, “Weren’t you friends with dinosaurs?”

Well I wasn’t, I think, but my many great Grandfather was best friends with a T-Rex called Jim.

Pain that comes and goes of its own accord is like a familiar, but uninvited guest. Usually at your door, when you’re having a bad day. But really there’s no way to anticipate their unexpected visit.

So, you accept the unexpected.

You hold the door open, and let them in because keeping them out means more pain and they’ll get in anyway.

So, you accept the inevitable.

Then despite every attempt to get rid of them, they never realise they’re not welcome, even for a day. Then they stay a week!

So, all you do is hope they’ll leave soon.

A fighter treads life, like a drowning person treads water. She keeps her head above the waves, until she spots a little boat, gliding through the waves.

“Have you lost your boat?” asks the sailor.

“I don’t think I ever had one,” says the fighter, as another boat appears, then six more.

But each boat already has a sailor.

“You must be very strong.”

“She’s a fighter.”

“I don’t feel like a fighter.”

“We’ll stay until you find your boat.”

Then eight life rings are thrown to the fighter.

A fighter floats through life, with the help of her friends.

Entering a sacred space, he follows the first of many rituals without thinking. Using the water in a basin he cleanses his hands. Then he makes a sign in the air like a wizard casting a spell and kneels to the flame, as a knight kneels to his King.

Others join, following the same rituals.

The chanting begins. Words long engrained in memory, come easily to his lips. Most having no meaning anymore. But sometimes a word or phrase catches a loose neuron and sparks a series of thoughts, of reflections, only possible in this quiet world of familiar ritual.