Writing Challenge–Day 6

The instruction for Day 6 of the 30-Day writing challenge reads:

Brief: Write a story that includes: twins, a 12-layer cake, a house that seems to be haunted but isn't…

This is a problem with wide-base challenges – every entrant must complete assignments  covering a wide range of subjects, even though he would never enter some of those situations ordinarily.  I am particularly stumped by matters such as cakes and cooking. ‘Haunted’ is a word that doesn’t conjure up wild ideas for me, so my reader should pardon the lack of originality in this assignment.

A blonde young man hops off a sophisticated-looking cycle, and pushes it across the pavement into a private garage attached to a little boutique hotel. His name is Thijs van Houten. A lot of people have a problem with his name, so a short explanation is appropriate. ‘Thijs’ is pronounced “Tay-ss” and is an abbreviated form of Matthijs, which is the Dutch equivalent of Matthew. The family name ‘van Houten’ means “from or family of the forest ” (pronounced “Fun Hoh-tin”). If he had therefore been born to English parents, he would most likely have been known as ‘Matt Forrester.’

Thijs locks the garage with his bike safely inside and pockets the key. He cycles for 60 minutes every day between 6:00 and 7:00 wherever he finds himself (if it is practical to do so, otherwise he delays the exercise until a more practical time. Rain does not interfere with his routine, as his cycling attire is of the highest quality and design as all-weather wear. Thijs is proud to be at the top of his sport, although he is not in that elite group classified as “professional”, as he found that he did not generally agree with the habits and ethics, or the general spirit and camaraderie of many members of that group generally.  

He enters the hotel and heads for his room. En route, he encounters one of the chamber maids”Good morning, Madame,” he smiles at the woman, “Perhaps you can enlighten me: I was out cycling on the road north of the town, and I encountered a property near the river with a large sign, saying ‘Haunted House – Please Come In’ . This is something I do not understand. Do you know the place?”

“Yes,” she confides in a strong German accent, “I know the place. That is not really haunted. It is… how do you say… it is an entertainment place… it is like a night-club for teenagers… yes, I would say it is a nightclub.”

“Thank you, Madame, I am interested in the paranormal and the possibilities of life after death, so the sign… you know… ” Thijs continues down the corridor to his room.

He undresses his cycling attire, showers and dresses, meticulously choosing the impeccably laundered and ironed casual shirt and short trousers, finished with a brilliant orange thermal short-sleeved waistcoat. It is his favourite, not only because it is neat and smart, is comfortable and warm, but also because with three useful pockets and is in his favourite colour, Orange, the colour which identifies him and millions of his compatriots wherever they go. He is proud to be a citizen of The Netherlands, in fact he hopes that people will stop him in the street and question him. 

Today is a birthday. Thijs’s twenty-ninth, in fact. Yes, this very day, the twelfth of June twenty-nine years ago, a diminutive Thijs Hein van Houten was one of the babies born at the Bronovo clinic in the Hague. And, his birthday was the reason for him being in Thun. He planned to spend a few days at this little hotel in peace and quiet.

Thijs also had one very special reason for being in Thun. A reason which very few people would understand.

Thun is a Swiss town situated where the River Aare flows into Lake Thun. He had been there on a family holiday many years ago, and the town obviously held certain fond memories for him. The simple act of standing on one of the bridges, for instance and watching the water below, could conjure up many memories. Some could make him smile or laugh, whilst others would bring tears to his eyes.

Thijs heads off in search of a confectioner-bakery called Petersen Cakes. He walks briskly up Sustenstrasse, a distance of roughly 500 metres. He passes a luscious green field with some groups of youngsters practising football. It is strange that the field has no white boundary lines painted on the grass, but there is a set of goals at each end of the field. There is absolutely no sign of any traffic. A few bicycle-riders have gone past. The views of the snow-clad mountains in the background is absolutely amazing. The gardens in front of the neatly-maintained houses are lush, colourful and impeccable in appearance.

When he reaches Shorenstrasse running parallel with the railway reserve, he turns left and walks along the road for about 550 metres, until he reaches an intersection with Schulstrasse. He passes a few pedestrians possibly making their way to the railway station? Here he turns right and goes under the railway bridge a short way from the intersection. When he reaches a hair-dressing salon, he knows instinctively that Petersens is nearby. 

Just past the salon, he sees the sign set back in a little parking square off Schulstrasse.

“Petersens – Bake A Cake” it reads.

Inside there are a variety of mouth-watering aromas, baking and confectionary smells, the hint of freshly-baked breads, and the distinctive hint of chocolate. Thijs approaches the man behind the counter. He is wearing a white baker’s coat.

“Hi, are you Joachim? I’m looking for Joachim Petersen,” Thijs enquires.

“What can I do for you to-day, sir?” comes the response, without any admission of identity.

“I want to speak to the Twelve Layer Cake Champion. I believe his name is Joachim Petersen, formerly of  Salzburg in Austria.”

The mention of the Austrian city changes the mood of the conversation. The man in the white coat turned and calls out towards the back of the shop, “Maria, please mind the counter for me while I attend to my guest.”

With that, he motions the orange-clad Thijs into a separate office-like room adjoining the main shop and closes the door behind them. The room has shelves along one wall, a window looking out onto a pretty little tea-garden on the other. There is a desk with computer, telephone and some magazines. Three upholstered easy chairs with a coffee table is where they sit.

“You have a Dutch accent, sir. You are one of the Van Houten twins, are you not? It has been two years, I know, but I was away on medical service in Africa, and have only recently returned to Switzerland.”

Thijs listens attentively without interrupting.

“Oh… Oh… Can I get you a coffee, sir, while we talk?

Thijs shakes his head in the negative, “No, thanks, I do not want to keep you from your work for too long.”

“No, sir, I am in no hurry. We need to speak. I need to explain…” he clasps and unclasps his hands nervously.

“The tragic accident of two years ago happened without any witnesses other than your dear twin brother and… not me, but my late father. I say ‘late’, because sadly he was killed six months ago when a huge truck ran out of control one evening, mounted the pavement and fatally struck my father Joachim who was out walking his little dog at the time.”

With a slight degree of embarrassment, “Apologies: I am Joachim Junior, I have taken over the business from my father. Mother’s health does not allow her to be involved in the day to day matters of the shop,” Joachim explains.

“Since the day of the accident in Salzburg, I have been aware of your family, but it is so difficult, you know, near impossible… to approach you to speak about this… this very sad matter… I really do not know what to say…. My father claimed that he had swerved across the road to avoid hitting a young child who came running out into the street, directly into his pathway… It was so tragic that your brother just happened to be on the other side at that very moment on that very space….”

Joachim pauses momentarily, then continues, “One fact of which I am one hundred percent sure, Thijs,” he uses the name for the first time, “if I may call you by your name, sir, and that is” My father was not intoxicated.”

Joachim stopped and first looks at the floor then out of the window for a few moments.

“In all my life I have never seen my father with a drink, nor in any state of having had any alcohol. He was what they call a ‘teetotaller.’ So, that there is even the slightest possibility that alcohol was involved in the accident, as the newspapers tried to insinuate at the time, is out of the question. Of that I am certain. And secondly, he was a careful and experienced driver… he was in no way negligent… I am so sorry… I know that all these things may be trivial to you… you have lost your brother… through no fault of his own… I am so sorry, Thijs... I do not know what I can do to help in the healing of your grief…”

For a while both men sit in silence, looking at one another and out at the tea garden. Then Thijs speaks.

“It is probably difficult for other people to understand, but being a twin is a very special relationship. It is almost like being one half of a two-half person… I don’t know how to put it… if your brother feels bad, then you feel bad. If he feels excited, you feel the same excitement… what happens to one, automatically happens to the other… once when he fell off his bike in a collision on a corner during a race in our home town, I immediately experienced terrible pains in my left leg… it was so severe that I could not pedal any further… not even five metres… the race paramedics declared that he had broken his leg… but they were puzzled, because they could find absolutely nothing wrong with me… yet I was unable to walk…”

“On the night of the accident, we were practising for a race which would take place at the weekend, he went for an extra 10k run, while I went into the race organisers’ office to collect our official numbers… I can remember it clearly… I was waiting in the queue.. it was just before seven… suddenly, for no reason at all, I felt hot and cold, dizzy and I could not stand up… they told me that I had passed out, probably from exhaustion… I know know that it was the precise moment of my brother’s impact with the car…it was the worst moment of my life…”

Joachim looks ahead, a bit stunned, “I am sorry… so sorry. I am so sorry, Thijs…”

“No, Joachim, I did not come here for sympathy. And I am sorry that you, too, have had to lose someone as lose as your father. But I simply need closure on the matter. None of us can live in the past forever. We need a period for grieving, but then we need to cut loose those ties and move on… It is obviously not easy, but now I know that I must do it…”

“You see, today is our twenty-ninth birthday, my brother’s and mine. Today I say a final goodbye to him, just like I say my first hello to him in the maternity ward on the day that we were born…”

Thijs pauses for a moment, reflecting with a sly little grin, “Perhaps we said our first hello before our birth?”

Thijs rises, puts out his hand and firmly grips Joachim’s hand, “Thank you, Joachim.”

Then he opens his arms and, most uncharacteristically, hugs his host, “And give my warmest regards to your mother. Thank you and farewell, Joachim.”

He turns and walks out of the building back into Schulstrasse, back into his new future.

                                                      *  *  *  *  *  *

[  2,100 words ]

[  The brief for Day 7 reads:  Your character gets a call from someone asking to talk to "David." "You have the wrong number," your character says. But instead of hanging up, the caller and your character get to chatting, and they decide to meet later that night...  ]

Huh? What?

Our local Health Centre is staffed by a number of general practitioners, as well as a handful of nurses, who perform various functions in which the skill of a qualified doctor is not essential. We are registered patients at this facility.

‘Ear suctioning done here, enquire at reception’ reads the notice. And so I did. It is the latest in cutting edge ear suction technology, the gold film method of ear wax removal, and I had an appointment last Thursday.

My mind went back to about 1996, when a general practitioner at Melkbosstrand syringed my ears with warm soapy water, using a sort of water-jet gun thing and a little kidney dish to catch the bath water. It worked quite effectively, and I walked out half an hour later ordering everyone I met, “No need to shout. You can speak a little softer…” It was as if I’d entered a new world, a huge multi-phonic surround-sound studio.

Since that time, I have had minor hearing problems in my left ear, with sound effects as if I was in a rapidly climbing or falling jet-plane. Frequently a little wiggle of my pinkie in the ear canal would sort the sound defect.

Wednesday, I arrive at the appointed time and Nurse Anne runs me through the standard medical procedures, and reads to me the dangers of the treatment, repercussions and the disclaimers notice. Just so that I am approaching the treatment from an informed angle…

I lie on the uncomfortable hard and narrow bed with its white sheet and my dirty brown shoes. She presses a stainless steel cone shape into the canal, and starts operating the vacuum cleaner, with a head as thin as a hypodermic syringe.

Did she mention that this was the very latest gold standard of ear cleaning methods because they do not touch the eardrum? And that the old-style flushing method was dangerous because a sudden pressure spike could foreseeably puncture the eardrum? Yes, she has already told me. Twice. I told her that she had.

The appointment was scheduled to last 30 minutes. She had battled for close on 20 minutes with the right ear, resorting to the use of tweezers, and a sharp pointy needle thingy, something that looked suspiciously like a “Bic Clic” ball-point pen.

“There, that’s done, so to speak,” Nurse Anne confided as she showed me a strip of white kitchen towel paper with a small black lumpy ball sitting in the middle. She was like a kid who’d just done their first successful nose-pick experiment and was asking you to take a jolly good look at the bogey.

My bogey looked like the remains of a cremated common house fly, slightly smaller than a regular garden green pea on your dinner plate. I was most unimpressed by the minor proportions of the garbage, considering all the sucking and picking, and scratching and prodding. I was expecting something more like an unshelled peanut, at least.

The left ear was a different kettle of fish. Here the gold-standard sucking and vacuum  procedure was promptly dropped in favour of the more brassy picking by ball-point pen technique. Well, here we will definitely be able to easily mine my fifty Dollars worth of wax, I thought to myself.

After my allocated time slot drew to an end, Nurse Anne packed up her vacuum and mining equipment, with the kitchen paper towel displaying about half a dead common house fly as the prize bogey.

“Mr Andrews, I am very sorry, but the wax in your left ear is extremely hard, having collected over a number of years, and has clearly compacted. I will book you another appointment for next week, but I have to charge you for this visit. Next week, they may charge you $25, or, if it comes clean within a few minutes, even do it at no extra charge – I will make a note accordingly on your file.”

She ushered me to the door, “ I'm terribly sorry, but that softening oil which you put into your ears wasn’t effective enough. Make sure you use plenty of oil until your next appointment.”

                                                           * * * * * * *

Wednesday just past, I am back on the narrow bed with its clean white sheet, my shoes are still brown. And they’re still dirty. A different nurse, Nurse Susan, is attending to the dredging of my canal. She has the cheek to tell me that I’ve got a crappy, bony, narrow and deformed canal.

Here it comes, I told myself. The excuses as to why she is failing dismally at the gold-standard procedure. She has hardly removed any bogeys from my left ear.

She made a number of comments about the hardness of the wax, as well as the frequency and difficulty the ear has when losing its inner skin layer, as the body gets older. Yes, here it came, surely,

“Mr Andrews, it is quite clear that the wax in your ear is very old and has super-compacted…” She made it sound like my ear canal was the site for the discovery of some dinosaur poo deep underground.

“I am not going to charge you for this consultation, because you paid the $50 for the treatment by Nurse Anne,” she explained, “I’m booking an appointment for Wednesday next. In the meantime I want to break down the wax by means of drops twice a day – I’ll arrange a doctor’s script for the drops.”

Here we are, three days into using the wax-dissolving wonder drops, and my hearing is no better, getting even worse at times. It is scary to even try to imagine what the world, and indeed living itself, is like if one is unable to hear at all.

We never appreciate our senses until we are deprived of them one day.

Four New Kiwis

The time is just after midnight on 4 September 2008. A single figure strides through the biting cold at the Wellington airport, having departed O.R. Tambo airport just on 24 hours earlier.

A few months later, a figure accompanied by a 4-year-old and a 11-year-old, around midnight of 25th December strides through the same space, having left O.R. Tambo on 24 December.

The first person in September was our son Clayton, arriving to start a new job with a large company in Wellington city. The other person arriving in December was our daughter Bianca, with our grandchildren Tyler and Brynn under her care.

That was 2008. Since then, just on six years have passed, and last night Wednesday 1 October 2014 marked a milestone for this young Waikanae family, a family of New Zealanders as from the moment when they took the Oath of Allegiance at the Council Chambers of the KCDC in Paraparaumu.

Just before 7:00pm we arrived at the hall as guests to Clayton, Bianca, Tyler and Brynn to be able to witness our children and grandchildren receiving the certificates which prove their newly-gained citizenship.

“I, Clayton James Andrews of Waikanae, swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of New Zealand, her heirs and successors, according to law, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of New Zealand and fulfil my duties as a New Zealand citizen, so help me God.”

After the opening prayer, then the introduction of dignitaries, and the opening speech by Mayor Ross Church, the taking of the Oath was taken by 40 new citizens. This was done in alphabetical sequence, “Andrews” topping the list.

(Above): The Andrews clan organising themselves in p-reparation of their turn at the front of the hall. Apologies to Bianca for the poor quality of photo taken from our guest zone seat near the back. 

The full names of Clayton, Bianca, Tyler and Brynn were called as a group. They stood in front of the other applicants and their guests, each in turn stated his/her name and address, and then the group read out in unison the Oath of Allegiance.

By way of congratulations, the members of the audience clapped for each applicant or group, followed by official photos of the applicants and photos with their guests/families.

Congratulations to each of you, Clayton, Bianca, Tyler and Brynn. We are proud of you, and are overjoyed that you have reached this milestone in life.

Just before the closing prayer, the National Anthem was sung in Maori and English,

“E Ihoa, Atua,
O nga iwi, matou ra,
Ata whakarongo na,
Me aroha noa

Kia hua, ko te pai,
Kia tau to atawhai,
Manaakitia mai,
Aotearoa

God of nations at thy feet,
In the binds of love we meet,
Hear our voices we entreat,
God defend our free land

Guard Pacific’s triple star,
From the shafts of strife and war,
Make her praises heard afar,
God defend New Zealand.”

A light dinner and tea was served after what was a pleasant and very memorable evening.

Writing Challenge–Day 5

The instruction for Day 5 of the 30-Day challenge reads:

[ Brief:  Your character has a date but decides not to show up. Your character believes
he has a very good reason for this decision (you decide the reason). But
your character's date is furious and decides to make your character sorry… ]

Wednesday 8:30pm
Ben and Cynthia had a date for Friday night. They pre-arranged to meet at the northern entrance of the local football stadium for the game between the home team the Golden Arrows and the Silver Aces from the next-door province which was due to start at 8:30

“Cynthia,” Ben had chanted over the phone on Wednesday evening, “I am so grateful that you are also keen to go to the match. It is billed as the match of the season, not to be missed. It really means a lot to me that you will accompany me. I’ll get the tickets after work and then meet you not later than 7:30 at Gate number 7 on the northern side of the stadium near the station, Ok?  Oh, and be sure to wear something warm and woolly, the forecast is for clear but very cold weather.”

Cynthia so desperately missed the words of endearment that any girl would like to hear. A darling, or something about love, a precious, anything other than grateful, or meaning a lot, or accompany me. Nevertheless, this was an opportunity to get out into the social circle, especially as her date Ben was well-liked by the guys and popular with the girls.

                                                          * * * * * * *

Saturday 5:00pm

Ben has just climbed out of the shower and preparing to get ready for the football match to-night. This will be a swell occasion, especially considering that he’d managed to get complimentary tickets to the team hospitality suite. Real special, as Ben knew many of the team members and reserves. Real special, as this date would really impress the Cynthia bird, and she could be a huge publicity agent for him among the girls on the social  scene.

Ben lies flat on his back on the bed in his bachelor pad, looking out over the bay. He really was a lucky guy, he thought to himself. But, he mused, he was worth it.

The telephone rings. Probably that Cynthia bird, with some sort of damn-fool question again. He rolls over the bed and retrieves the latest mobile from the bedside table, “Ellooow, Ben here.”

“Hi Ben, darling,” the sweetest voice he’d heard for many a day, “You won’t know me, but my name is Celeste. My older brother is Hiram Graham who plays for the Golden Arrows. You know him, not so?”

“Naturally, Celeste, I know most of the regular boys on the team,” Ben exaggerated. He recalled that Hiram had been the fellow who had organised his complementary tickets.

“Well, Ben darling, I was just wondering…. I was just wondering whether we couldn’t perhaps go to tonight’s game together… as a… you know… as a couple.”

It was coming back clearly to him now. Celeste was the blonde number who’d been junior drum majorette leader, and had subsequently won a string of beauty and personality contest. She had also graduate from college a few years earlier cum laude. She was more than a pretty lass, she could do intelligent conversation as well.

“Celeste, just hold on a moment. I need to turn the telly down, so’s I can hear you properly,” Ben desperately needed to buy some time at a discount from the wholesalers, as he muted the phone. Cynthia or Celeste? Celeste or Cynthia? Both were pretty girls, both… But was Cynthia capable of stringing more than three words together? He had never yet had any intelligent discussion with her.

He un-muted the phone, “Hi Celeste, that’s better, now I can hear, thanks. What were you saying before the line broke up?”

“I was wondering whether we might go to the game together to-night?”

Celeste or Cynthia. He had already made the date with Cynthia. Could he simply just drop her for this blonde bombshell, the sister of a key player and hero in the local football team? Think quickly, Ben chided himself for indecision. It’s now or never.

“Sure, it’ll be my pleasure, I’d love to, Celeste. Shall I pick you up at… say around 7:30? That will give us tons of time to settle in before the game. Oh, and wear something warm and woolly… although we’ll be in the hospitality suite for most of the night…” Ben faltered a bit, his mind racing ahead, “so 7:30 at your place?”

Ben lay back, pleased at his “catch.” Cynthia? Hell he should do something about Cynthia.

                                                                 * * * * * * *

Saturday  7:20pm
Outside Gate number 7 at the stadium, Cynthia stood waiting, watching the groups of people and couples, going through the turnstiles for the game. She kept her eyes peeled, looking down towards the car-park, where she would see her date arriving in the next few minutes. The gate was fairly wide, so that she needed to pay careful attention to the folk passing that line.

She was starting to feel a bit embarrassed at her alone-ness, but nevertheless keep looking out. Then her mobile started ringing.

“Hi Cynthia, darling, “Ben’s voice croaked over the phone. “Man, I’ve been down heavy with the flu since Wednesday morning. I’m still running a high temperature and the doctor says I should stay in bed until Monday or Tuesday.”

“So, our date’s off? I shouldn’t go to the stadium, then?”

“I’m afraid there’s no way I can even go outside, with this dose of flu, but I’ll make it up to you next time, perhaps. Ok, bye for now.”

Cynthia’s voice choked as she accepted the stand-up, “Yeah.”

She stood against the wall, her head a bit dizzy with anger. She tried to keep up the appearance of someone waiting for her date, rather than walking against the tide of oncoming spectators. She just waited and waited.

On the far side of the gate entrance, something strange caught Cynthia’s eye. A couple arriving from the car park, the guy wearing a distinctive red jacket and hood. She knew that outfit. It was… no, surely not, she struggled to accept the obvious.

On Ben’s left arm, was a shapely young woman with beautiful long blonde hair, “So, that’s what your flu looks like, Mr Smarty, you lying beast,” Cynthia said out aloud to herself. She struggled to fight back the tears from welling up in the corners of her little eyes.

She watched as the bright couple walked towards the turnstiles, entering at the point marked “Home Team Suite.” Then she recalled the name of the blonde on Ben’s arm, that was Celeste Graham, the celebrity drum majorette leader, or something.

As the couple disappeared into the stadium, Cynthia bit her lip had, fumbled for some cash in her purse and was in the stadium with enough time to spare for the start of the game. She really wanted to see the game, and had agreed to accompany Ben as a secondary aim. She wouldn’t let this two-timing liar spoil the match of the season for her.

As she stood up to stretch her long shapely legs at the half-time intermission break, a plan suddenly dawned on her. As many of the spectators were rushing down to the hamburger and drinks stands below, she scooted across the rows of seat and up to the VIP promotion suites, until she arrived at the staircase marked “Golden Arrows Promotions.”

Up the dozen or so stairs, and Cynthia reached the unguarded door. It was open. She strolled in and look at the few groups of VIP spectators sitting with their snacks and drinks. A waiter came over, to enquire if he could help.

“Won’t you please ask that gent in the red suit over their, next to Miss Celeste Graham, that I’m here to see him. Please, I’d appreciate it.”

Moments later, Ben strolled across to the door, with all eyes in the room on him.

Cynthia had made up her mind. She had decided that, despite the fact that others may disagree with her methods. She stood firmly in the doorway, spoke firmly without faltering in a clear loud voice, “So this is what the flu looks like, Ben?”

“This is the terrible condition,” walking across top a point near Celeste’s chair, “that caused you to have to lie to me as to why you were breaking off our date?”

She smiled briefly at Celeste, “Good luck with his lies, Celeste. Just take care.”

She walked carefully back to the door, turned around and addressed all present, “I am really sorry if I disturbed anyone. I trust you all will enjoy the second half of the match, as much as I will. Bye for now”

[ 1,485 words ]

[The brief for Day 6 of the 30-Day writing challenge reads: Write a story that includes: twins, a 12-layer cake, a house that seems to be haunted but isn't…]

Writing Challenge : Day 4

 

The instruction for Day 4 of the 30-Day challenge reads:

[Brief: Think of two very different people you know. Invent a character who combines
characteristics of both of them. Then put this character in a stressful family
situation...]

The instruction makes sense. But the difficult bit is the words “very different”. Of course, the question is: how believable will the so-called stressful situation be?

I do not currently know either of the two people I have chosen, but have known each of them in my past. As many of my readers might recognise either or both of them, I choose to make some minor adjustments to their situations, characters or habits. Quite naturally, I am not using their correct names…

Thomas and Richard were two very different people.

The Rev Thomas McCuddy (known as “Tom”) was a diligent and devout Anglican priest, about 30 years of age, who served in conjunction with Father Jackson and Rev Petersen at a church in an underprivileged community in the south of Johannesburg.

Richard Smithers (known to his pals and the police as “Dick”) was the son of a wealthy mining magnate from one of the affluent northern suburbs of Johannesburg.  After dropping out of high school, Tom teamed up with a group of no-gooders, who saw the possibilities of having a friend with an endless supply of ready cash on tap. One thing led to another, mostly drugs and drink, and, eventually, the police. He was not imprisoned for his misdemeanours, which were classified as “minor”, which in turn meant that he did not learn anything from his brush with the law. He got to know the police department more intimately for a fifth and sixth time, at which point he was locked in a holding cell overnight.

It was the morning after this particular night when Dick spent the small hours in the cell of the police station, that Tom just happened to visit the facility for the purpose of saving souls, as he frequently did. When he met Dick, he sensed that this young man was not your common petty criminal. He could see past the dirty veneer and past the alcohol-laden breath. As was his style, he had an arrangement with the duty officers that he would take responsibility for the welfare and behaviour of “minor” troublemakers, in the name of the church.

Tom explained the situation to Dick, and that he had a small but clean room on the property at the church, and that he would find chores which Dick could do in exchange for his food and lodgings. He made no promises of grandeur, no luxury or exotic meals, but he could guarantee a lifestyle which did not include police holding cells, for proper and lawful behaviour.

Dick had reached the point where he knew that any  way forward  in prison would be the start of a slippery slope towards the end. The situation as explained by the priest made perfect sense, so he shook hands and he was release within the hour into the care of Rev Thomas McCuddy of the St Mark’s Anglican Church, Diagonal Street, Rewlatch.

“Holy shit, your reverendness, you’ve got a crappy car for a top bod of the kirk,” was Dick’s first comment as they left the parking lot of the police yard in a battered Ford Anglia 1100, “How about a fag? Those buggers in the cop shop are as stingy as hell, the bastards – won’t even give a guy a smoke.”

“You can start by calling me Tom, Richard. And I do not smoke, nor do I condone the foul habit, either. Behind this collar, I’m an ordinary guy, just like anyone else, and I do not earn a large salary, as our community is of meagre means, hence my transport is not of the latest model. But it helps me to get from point A to point B in reasonable comfort. I’m not here to impress.”

“Sorry, your rev… er Tom. And my friends call me Dick. I didn’t mean to be rude, and all, you know,” Dick replied.

And so it came to pass that Tom found many odd jobs for Dick, who gradually saw the folly of his ways and the damage that his mis-spent youth had caused. Dick mowed lawns and weeded pavements, washed cars, cleaned windows, and assisted a furniture removal company. His transformation was almost a miracle, and it seemed to hinge on the fact that he no longer had contact with the petty crime rings, and, more probably, he no longer had access to liquor or drugs.  Dick was rapidly being transformed back into the Richard of old once more.

The parish parsons lived in a 4-roomed cottage at the bottom of the church grounds in Diagonal Street. They shared a communal bathroom, a large dining room and a cosy little sitting room with a little fireplace for the cold winter nights and a television set donated by a member of the congregation. Richard occupied Room 4 at the back next to the bathroom during this time, and paid his own way towards food from earnings derived from all the odd jobs offered by members of the parish.

Richard had slowly become more accustomed to the daily evening prayer after the nine o’clock news, and participated when asked, if he felt able to do so. His style of talking had changed from the loose-living coarse jargon to the new revised proper English without the use of foul language.

And so it came to pass that Tom, whose elderly parents, his father also a parson, got a call from his mother inviting him to dinner in their Boksburg home the next Friday evening, to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary.

“And bring your new friend Richard along as well. Father agrees, from what you’ve told us, he sounds like a real interesting and colourful character. See the both of you at seven, darling.”

Friday evening arrived pretty smartly. Just before 7:00pm Tom and Dick arrived at Tom’s parents’ home in Boksburg in the cream and blue Ford Anglia 1100. His mother came down the steps to meet her son and his guest, and took them into the lounge for proper introduction to Tom’s dad.

As an appetiser, Tom’s mother poured out generous helpings of Sherry to open the conversation, which would naturally include tales of Richard’s reformation.

A tasty supper ensued, with idle chatter, mostly Tom’s mother questioning him about various matters regarding his parish, and the work that he had been doing. Tom’s father and Richard did not participate actively, and concentrated on their plates.

After dinner, Tom’s father rose from his chair and beckoned to the others to follow him to the lounge with the cosy fire. He poured generous helpings of Cognac, which he saved for those “special” occasions. This was apparently a special occasion.

Richard thanked Tom’s mother for the meal and complimented her on the way she had prepared the meat dish, especially.

“It is only a pleasure, lad. And it’s so good to see that there are still some young people around with manners. Don’t you agree, Bill?” This was the first time that Richard became aware of Tom’s father’s name.

Now, remember that a period of six or seven months had gone by during which Richard had been a teetotaller. That had been a condition under which Tom had been granted “custody” by the police.  When the spirit beverage touched his tongue, it was like honey from heaven, countless pleasant memories flooded back, as his blood pressure rose with the juice entering his circulation. And with this change, the looseness of his tongue increased proportionately.

Richard started speaking to Tom’s parents as if they were long lost friends, as he held his glass for a refill, and then another. Tom, a bit apprehensive, put up a brave facade and did not try to intervene in the distribution of the potent red juice.

“No, I have never been in a happier phase of my lie than since old Tom here rescued me from those fascist pigs who were only intent on destroying our lives simply for their amusement, rather than being real cops and hunting down real criminals,” Richard blurted out all of a sudden, changing the subject. “I was never actually imprisoned by a judge for any crime.”

“Oh, yes Richard, that is so nice to hear,” Tom’s mother smiled at Richard, “he is generous fellow and always shares with others.”

“You’re so right, Mrs Mac, Tom shares, he has even shared his bed on some cold nights. The rooms at the rectory are pretty cold, you know.” 

There ensued an awkward silence for a moment, until Tom’s mother slowly and softly uttered, “Shared his bed…?”

“Our beds are not very big, and snuggling up under two blankets instead of one each, is much more pleasant,” he explained.

Tom’s father, who had been rather silent for most of the conversation, said nothing as he stared ahead and simply grunted, almost inaudibly . He got up and looked at the face of the grandfather clock, and croaked, “Oh look at the time, I guess we better let the boys be on the way, Martha. I’m sure Tom needs the time to prepare for his sermon for tomorrow morning.”

A few minutes later, the Ford Anglia was moving southwards, back to Rewlath. Neither of the occupants spoke for quite a while.

Then Tom glanced towards his passenger, “What on earth came across you to make up that nonsense about sharing a bed? Are you crazy or what?”

Another long silence, the Richard replied quite casually, “The conversation was getting quite boring, and I though a bombshell might liven things up, but it seems I was wrong. Sorry, man.”                                                           

                                                                     * *  * *  *  *

[  1,640 words ]

[  The brief for Day 5 of the 30-Day writing challenge is: Your character has a date but decides not to show up. Your character believes he/she has a very good reason for this decision (you decide the reason). But your character's date is furious and decides to make your character sorry… ]

If I Was A Rocket Scientist…

If I’d been a modern-day Noah, and if I’d been a rocket scientist, I could have built a rocket capable of long distance space travel. I could have appointed some other top rocket scientists to help me, and last 25 December I could have blasted off from a suitable rocket launch pad. If… such a small word.

But seriously, being the 26 September now, if the whole rocket thing was factual, then I’d be preparing to land on Mars, because… it takes nine months to get to Mars. It is possible to get to Mars in less time, but this would require you to burn your rocket engines longer, using more fuel. With current rocket technology, this isn't really feasible.

And nine months is the length of time we’ve been in New Zealand.

A more practical example might be Paul and Mary who might have announced at last year’s family Christmas dinner that Mary they were pregnant (note how modern I’ve become, by affirming that the couple became pregnant.) Anyway, if they had, then around about today, there would be a stack of to-ing and fro-ing on their Facebook pages with messages of congratulations on the arrival of Paulette or Marybert…

I also found the results of the Facebook Withdrawal Experiment, which lists the things one can do in nine months:
1. Develop a child within your womb (if you’re a human female).
2. Grow 4.5 inches of hair.
3. Watch the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Extended Edition) 532 times.
4.  Read the Harry Potter series 168 times (on an average of 1.5 weeks per read through of the series).
5.  Boil 36288 rounds of corn on the cob (on an average of 10 minutes per boil).
6.  Get an average night’s rest of 9 hours 672 times.
7.  Watch a butterfly appear from a cocoon after it makes it about 25.2 times.
8. Watch a reflux reaction react about…eh 6048 times.
9. You can also get used to not having Facebook as well, but start missing it as well.
I have been away from Facebook for 9 months. Let that sink in.

From our perspective, you can also plan, design and build a small extension to a house in New Zealand.

Buildlogue #33 -- Final Report

Today is 24 September 2014, with a dry breeze and reported 17 degrees. It feels more like 22 degrees, I guess. But, we’re not complaining, as the heat gives us a chance to catch up on some long overdue mowing.

The KCDC inspector has just signed off the building extension, subject to two very minor provisos, one for silicone at the top of the shower and the fitting of an additional smoke detector in the existing house,  and submission of guarantees to Council by the Roofers, Plumbers and Electricians.

We’ve come a very long way from Buildlogue #1 on 14 May. Our thanks to Builder John and everyone else who played a part.

Writing Challenge : Day 3

The instruction for Day 3 of the 30-Day challenge reads:

[ Brief: Imagine you're looking through a collection of short stories. One of the titles
catches your interest. That's the story you want to read first. What might the
title be? Invent a title that would make you want to read the story. Now, write a
story to go with that title...]

On occasions I visit the local recycling transfer station to drop off recyclable household waste sorted into bins for cardboard, paper, plastics, green white and brown glass, tinplate and aluminium cans. Quite obviously there are materials which fall into other categories, items which can possibly be reused as discarded. One such category includes books, paperbacks and magazines, which can be purchased from the transfer station ‘shop’ for a nominal fee. It is here that I find interesting material…

The above paragraph was written last night. This morning I woke up in a panic with that totally blank dreaded ‘writer’s block.’ As Hamlet said in Act 2 Scene 2, “The plot’s the thing…” Yeah, I know, he actually said, “The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” But, in my case, it’s a plot I need. Once I have the plot sorted, the rest should be as simple as ABC.
[End of Wednesday morning’s entry. I’m off to the greenhouse to complete the sowing of the seeds… perhaps ideas will develop...]

But I Thought…

The electric lights set in neat rows on the high ceiling above drown the scene below in exceptionally bright white light. There is not a single space in the room where the slightest shadow can be detected. A bank of electronic devices form an amphitheatre of screens and dials around the one end of the narrow flat bed in the centre of the room.

Two white-clad figures wearing surgeon skull caps and face masks stand in attendance next to the bed, one on each side of the still naked figure of a black bearded man. Whilst a couple of the monitors are plotting never-ending wave graphs in luminescent green and red, a number of others are emitting various pitched signals.

At the end of the room is a set of wide doors, stainless steel with painted wooden hand panel. A sign with neat red lettering proclaims “No Unauthorised Entry.”  At the other end is a rectangular glass window looking in from what appears to be a small room on the other side. One can just make out a face and shoulders of someone standing in that space looking through at the brightly lit scene. Above the window hangs a simple chrome-plated electronic clock . It shows 04:22

The two white-clad figures speak in muted educated tones. Professional.

“You know, I reckon we’ve done all we can. Look at these,” the taller of the two indicates to his colleague a set of electronic graphs on a large screen, “This has reached the critical point. The BP is too low to try anything else.”

“You’re spot-on, Carl,” the other replies, “Patient 78455 Time 03:22 Sunday 19 July 2009, check… Shall I go to inform him?” and he motions with his eyes towards the observation window at the end of the room.

                                                     * * * * * *

Ring. Ring.

Brad Withers looks up at the clock as he lifts the receiver from its docking station on the untidy desk of the little office inside the workshop building. It had a high pitched ceiling and a number of boats in various stages of assembly were standing around on dollies and platforms. In the far corner, a compressor burst into life.

4:05
Who on earth will be phoning at this time on a Friday afternoon, Brad wondered, “Hiya Honeywell SpeedCraft.”

“Brad, where are you? You know that I’m going down to Samantha for the weekend. You were supposed to have the car here by half-three! What’s your game?” The irate voice on the phone belonged to his wife Juliet.

“And Mona has been so looking forward to coming with us this time. It’s all I’ve heard about the whole week,” Julie ranted on. Mona was their 18-year-old daughter, for whom Brad would do anything. Her new association with Samantha, on the other hand, was deeply troubling to her proud father. But Brad had learned that it doesn’t pay to enforce bans on your kids. Not that Mona was a kid any longer; she had developed into a most attractive young lady over the last two years.

“Julie, I’ve had to work on the fine-tuning of the ‘SC170’ for the test runs, which we will have to do over the weekend. The customer will be here on Monday morning. I haven’t been sitting around on my arse, like you make out!” Brad paused to allow his message to get across, then continued, “Listen, I’ll be another quarter of an hour, half tops, then I will be home by… oh shit, it’s ten after already… I’ll try to make it by five.” Brad clicked off before his wife could offer any more encouragement.

Brad sat staring at the phone in its cradle, then at the clock on the wall for a few minutes, motionless, thinking. He pulled a crumpled pack of plain cigarettes from his overall pocket as he strolled outside the building into the deserted yard towards an untidy stack of wooden pallets.

He lit the tobacco with a cheap plastic lighter, blew the grey-blue smoke carefully away from the workshop entrance where the large sign declared, “Home of Honeywell SpeedCraft.”  The business was owned and managed by Wallie Honeywell, a good 15 years Brad’s junior. Brad held an engineering degree or two, was a whiz motor mechanic, and an acclaimed speed fiend, with a reputation both on water and on terra firma. Half of SpeedCraft sales were based purely on Wallie’s reputation in the speed arena.

Brad blew another lungful of fumes into the air. Wallie couldn’t tolerate the smoking habit and a number of arguments had resulted between the pair over it on and off during the past number of years.

“Julie is up to no good,” Brad said out loud to himself, as he considered the tone of his recent telephone argument. Samantha, his boss’s wife, was a socialite, with an eye for the guys and always ready for a drink and a laugh. Not the sort of company Julie should be mixing in. The fact that they were trying to draw his precious Mona into this style of loose living, angered Brad no end, but he hadn’t come up with a workable plan for an alternative. Wallie, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care about what Samantha got up to. The two of them Samantha and Wallie, were slowly breaking down his already teetering relationship with Julie. And now Wallie is insisting on having this SC170 up and ready and firing on all cylinders before 8:00 on Monday morning for this big shot customer.

Ring. Ring.
In a few moments, Brad was back in the office, “Yeah?” He was not in the mood for any more fighting with Julie, she must just learn that his job comes first in instances like this.

“Yeah? Excuse me, but is that the way we answer the phone at the Home of Honeywell?” The voice of boss Wallie showed obvious annoyance at the Brad’s apparent lack of professionalism on the telephone.

“So sorry, boss. I thought it was the wife nagging again.”

“And what if it was an important customer? What sort of bloody impression would that greeting give him. I’ll tell you what sort – the sort that will take him elsewhere to buy his boats, somewhere where the staff are professional and courteous. Not bloody Yeah, you hear me?”

Brad could sense that Wallie had possibly not had a good Friday. He was inclined to be moody from time to time, but moodiness goes with the territory of champions, when things are not going their way.

“I said I was sorry. I thought…”

“No, don’t talk shit to me - You did not bloody think. I’ve had just about enough from your sort. It’s time to pull you socks up, matey, or else ship out.”

“It won’t happen again, boss. I promise. It’s just that my wife’s been pestering me about the weekend away with your wife, and I was supposed to drop the car off for her.”

Brad could feel the anger and resentment welling up within him. For a while, he had been sensing Wallie’s change in attitude, and his disregard for considering Brad’s needs. He had started treating him like a paid slave, rather than a friend-employee. The resentment was starting to border on hate…

“You just make sure that you have the SC170 at the slipway at 3:30 sharp tomorrow afternoon ready for the full works, including the 90-minute endurance, and don’t be late, hear?” With that final instruction, the call was ended.

                                                       * * * * * *

The SC170 slid easily off the trailer into the water on the slipway, crisp new paintwork gleaming in the bright Saturday afternoon sunshine. It is a high-speed flat-hull performance vessel, with a crew capacity of four. Ideal for deep-sea fishing and recreational water sports. Brad ties the boat at the mooring quay rented by Honeywell, the grey wooden slats creaking somewhat under his weight. He returns to the truck and takes the trailer to the parking yard.

“Hiya, Bennie,” Brad greets the yard-keeper and carefully manoeuvres the trailer neatly between the white lines of bay marked “Trailer 41” near the far end of the yard. Bennie’s ‘office’ is a timber shed with a large window overlooking the yard, with a clear view of the boat harbour and the bay beyond. He takes the large book from Bennie and logs in the SC170 as Vessel: ‘Honeywell 4872’, skipper: ‘W Honeywell’, crew ‘B. Withers’, Next-of-kin: ‘Mrs Juliet Withers’, Estimated time of return: Brad glanced at his wristwatch 3:15. He carefully entered ‘6:30pm’. Yes, that should give them the required two-and-a-half hours for travelling and all the trials as ordered by Wallie.

With ten minutes to spare before cast-off time, he shares a last cigarette and a joke with Bennie. He notices that the dark grey clouds had started gathering in the North, a possible sign of rain?

“You guys must watch your backs if the wind starts picking up, hey, my mate,” Bennie warned, “That sea over there doesn’t have respect for anyone, not even for a high-flyer like your boss-man. It doesn’t favour one fellow over the next. On the water, we’re all equal.”

As he reaches the jetty, he spots the athletic figure of his skipper and boss Wallie already at his post on Honeywell 4872, life-jacket strapped to his chest, strictly as per regulations. Wallie treats the water and the dirt race-track with respect, always using the safety equipment as designed.

Brad gives his boss a wave-salute, and casts off the mooring ropes as Wallie fires up the two powerful engines, preparing to leave the boat club harbour. Brad looks back towards the yard, in time to see Bennie giving his customary wave, his checked shirt fluttering quite strongly in the breeze...

Brad took up his post on the port side, while Wallie stood at the controls. Once more the feeling of rising blood pressure and anger started building up once more. It was something he couldn’t explain, something foreign to him. He found that he had started resenting his boss, something to do with his loss of control over his daughter, perhaps. Did this feeling of resentment contain any components of hate? Hate is such a negative emotion, something which Brad has never experienced before.

He bit on his molars, and took a series of deep breaths, looking straight ahead, like a good naval sailor. Damn, it was impossible to shake off these feelings of resentment… 

                                                  * * * * * * *

Brad has done an outstanding job on fine-tuning the vessel, which responds to every command. Wallie first puts it through its handling paces, like opening the throttle full from standstill, maintaining maximum acceleration for four or five minutes, then closing down the fuel suddenly. Turning the vessel every which way and high speed, performing dough-nuts, and tackling the swell at top speed side-on. If the craft can handle Wallie’s treatment under such conditions, then it will pass the safety standard required when under the control of an owner-to-be who might perhaps not be quite as deft as Wallie at handling it when faced with sudden unexpected critical situations.

The wind picks up as the boat passes the headland at Seal Point and out into the deep ocean. These are the ideal conditions for testing the SC170, the conditions which help the adrenaline flow through Wallie’s veins to every extremity of his lean muscular body. He is at home now.

As Seal Point fades into the background, Wallie re-checks the fuel levels and then adjusts the controls for Big One. The Big One is a standard Honeywell endurance test in which the vessel is set to top speed for a full 60 minutes, and then all the mechanical and electronic components are immediately evaluated against the standard specifications. 

“Set your watch, Brad. We’ll do 30 minutes out and then 30 minutes back. T60 and counting, mine’s set.” Brad noticed that the headwind had stiffened considerably, as his boss dropped his arm as a timing signal, and opened the throttle to 100%. The Honeywell motors roared in keeping with their deep-throated pedigree causing the bow to lift steeply skywards and the stern to dig scarily deep below the watery surface. This was the time for concentration, this was the time for truth…

At this stage of the testing, Brad’s duties were just as important as those of the skipper at the controls. He knew that an critical error on his part could conceivably causing a major malfunction, and lead to who knows what? As serious as complete engine failure at high speed, which could result in a catastrophic event, even death of the crew. 

Brad had been on many sea trials with Wallie. He was acutely aware of the details which he needed to check on a minute by minute basis. This was the most important part of the ‘full medical’ of the boat world, and he was the physician specialist. The work required accurate measuring of electrical currents, checking mechanical efficiency at various points, and the turbulent sea wasn’t helping much, either. It need his full concentration every moment of the 60 minutes, but Brad’s mind was elsewhere…

He mulled over the possible fate of his daughter. The negative influences of Wallie’s wife over her. Not the sort of life he had envisaged for his daughter. It was Wallie’s doing that he would be spending the weekend working on this boat, instead of being with his family, instead of spending valuable time with his daughter. He dropped the electronic multi-meter as he stepped towards one of the cover plates.

The dull thud of the instrument on the deck brought him back to reality. Good, Wallie had not noticed the mishap. The last thing he needed was to be accused of day-dreaming. Yet Brad knew instantaneously that he had faltered, that his mind was not on the task; it was on this ‘hate’ crusade, as it had been since Friday afternoon. 

The wind picks up even more, making handling the Honeywell even trickier. The swell deepens and Brad needs to concentrate like never before to retain his footing in the performance of his tasks. The deck has become a wet slippery slide and the spray increases. Fifteen minutes later, for no apparent reason, an unholy metallic grating sound, then a dull explosion and the motors cut out entirely.

                                              * * * * * *

A number of cars are parked along the wide driveway leading up the imposing mansion on Park Avenue. An illuminated sign set in river-stone announces “Honeywell.” The double-storey home is illuminated from every window, loud music reverberating around the property.

In one of the reception rooms, Julie Withers, cigarette in hand, sips white wine from an obviously expensive long-stemmed wine glass. She is wearing a tasteful low-cut tailored dress and is in deep conversation with a younger bearded man.

Her mobile phone rings discreetly in her handbag which is lying at her left elbow on a tall coffee table. She excuses herself from the conversation and answers as she walks out onto the open patio, into then strong breeze, leaving her daughter Mona to keep the young man company.

Mona can see her mother through the glass doors to the patio. She can see her speaking on the mobile for a few moments and then she stands motionless, staring out over the expanse of the darkened lawn. Then she turns and walks slowly indoors once more.

                                              * * * * * *

“This can’t be true, Julie. What did they say? Did you get hold of Brad? What does Brad say?” Samantha fired the questions at Julie, between the torrents of tears as they sped along the coast road towards the town, towards the hospital, Julie at the wheel of the black SUV.

“No, the Sea Rescue guys phoned from the boat yard. He simply said that the boat had run into trouble in the stormy sea and that Wallie had somehow fallen overboard or fell somewhere and got injured or something. He couldn’t tell me anything else, just that the ambulance had taken him to the hospital in a very critical condition. That’s all I know. Apparently the other crew member was Ok and was rescued.”

“I have tried a couple of times, but I cannot get Brad on the phone.”

                                            * * * * * * *

Wallie turns slowly away from the white-coated figure and slowly walks out of the hospital building, almost as if in slow-motion. Halfway down the steps, he encounters the distraught Samantha, Julie and Mona running up from the black SUV towards him.

                                            * * * * * * *

This is surely one of my most unimaginative attempts at creative writing. The word “cheesy” comes to mind, something I might have written in my teens? Under normal circumstances, I would have scrapped, but the Challenge advises that, “Many of the story ideas will take much more more than 10 minutes to write, but don't worry. Just get started, and at the end of the 10 minutes, decide if you want to continue.
If not, you can abandon the story guilt-free. You've done your job; you've put in your writing time for the day. If you're inspired to keep going, you can either write for a longer time or save what you've started and come back to it another day.”

[ 3,150 words]

[Brief for Day 4 of the 30-Day Writing Challenge:

Think of two very different people you know. Invent a character who combines
characteristics of both of them. Then put this character in a stressful family
situation...]

 

 

 

 

Writing Challenge : Day 2

The instructions presented for Day 2 of the 30-Day Writing challenge:

[Brief:  Write a story that includes: a tombstone, a first kiss, and a butterfly collection…]

It is unclear whether the three items need to be directly and inextricably linked or whether the story simply needs to include the terms. I will presume the former to be the requisite.

I have chosen the title: A Kiss from the Little Butterfly

I am the owner of a guest house which I classify as a residential hotel and a bed-and-breakfast in the dusty African town of Gaborone. It is an old building, which I bought from a deceased estate registered in South Africa eight years ago. When I previewed the property on the Internet site, I made up my mind that this would become mine, and it would become my “Hotel California.” 

And it came to pass that I moved to Gaborone to take proud ownership of the run-down and battered Hotel California. 

Being what I thought was a fair handyman, I paid next to nothing for the unwanted eight-bedroomed Colonial-style town house and spent most of my retirement investment capital on building renovations and upgrades, modernising the facilities and attending to the finer details of the furnishings, drapery and flooring with the idea of offering old-style fine living to the weary traveller. I commissioned a marketing expert friend from Johannesburg to design and fit the appropriate outside signage and web design, and so was born my real Hotel California.

It has worked out just fine, attracting many tourists throughout the year, and has resulted in a colourful and mentally rewarding retirement.

I employ a staff of two sober locals (and their wives on a part-time basis from time to time) to act as waiters, barmen, cooks and bottle-washers, gardeners, launderers and ironers and general cleaner-uppers. I act as manager, general repair-man, host and part-time entertainer to the guests on an as-and-when basis. My finger skills on my old guitar are not what you might call legendary, but my background tune-keeping is frequently applauded by guests.

I have a “permanent” full-time boarder who has been living here for over five years now. In fact, I have known Bryce for close on 55 years, on and off. We met at University in Johannesburg in the late sixties, both in the zoological disciplines. I dropped out after a couple of years and we lost contact. Some years later, we met on Facebook by pure chance, and most probably, because of our mutual interest in music and things zoological.

Being a baby-boomer and an old school dodderer, I was always sceptical about these new social media arenas, writing them off as a fad for school-kids. Then, after I had posted some pictures and stories about my purchase and renovation job, I had a call from Bryce.

“If you think you will be able to tolerate my incessant talking, I’ll like to apply for residency in one of your posh suites, mate. I’ve had too much of the rat race in the big city and I’m ready for your world, especially if there are insects and creepy-crawlies which I can stalk. How say you?”

It was a rhetorical question, and ten minutes later, I put down the phone and scribbled in the name ‘Bryce’ opposite suite 7, which in my opinion, is the spitting image of Bryce’s world and situated near the side entrance, conveniently close to the parking for his off-roader.

                                                        * * * * *

“Welcome back to Hotel California, Bryce. Come to the bar and you can tell me all about everything, like only you can.” He had just returned from two month-long trip to Australia and New Zealand.

Interspersed with travel snaps and videos, Bryce related with enthusiasm and in great detail, his many stopovers in Western and Central Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania, followed by both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Much of his material covered mutual friends with whom we’d maintained contact since university days, as well as bugging field trips (BFT’s). BFT’s is an acronym for personal expeditions he undertakes to investigate and record the bugs, bees and butterflies. No actual specimens are collected (rules and regulations), but he takes most spectacular macro pictures, like the professor he is.

“And your encounter with the Butterfly? Bryce, tell me what happened which was so life-changing.”

By way of explanation, Butterfly was the nickname we gave to one of our Zoo classmates at university. She had the unique name of Brooke-Lynn Santana, a popular bubbly redhead, who was full of life and energy. Being South African, we found the family name a bit Spanish, but she always laughed it off by saying that her brother was Carlos, a good guitar player of the time.

It was during one of the classes, I forget the precise details, that Brooke started calling me Mantis, because my shaky mannerisms resembled those of a praying mantis when dissecting small insect creatures. I think it also had something to do with my lanky and awkward frame. I took the nickname in good spirit, and it has stuck ever since. In turn, I paid her a compliment by introducing her to others as “our Butterfly” and thereafter Brooke and her small group of close friends became known as The Butterfly Collection, to the point where they, as a sort of (non-professional) Marianne Faithfull – type country musical group in fact chose that as their stage name! Her signature tune was a guitar solo of “As Tears Go By.”

Needless to say, I lost contact with The Butterfly collection when I dropped out of classes and got caught up in the web of compulsory military conscription and border warfare in Namibia and Angola, which lasted too long and effectively ended my studies of bugs and butterflies. The military did not kill my passion for the guitar, though. I later heard that the Santana family had emigrated from South Africa to New Zealand, Brooke’s dad having been a successful farmer.

Here, Bryce starts becoming a bit more bashful in his tale. It was no secret that he had a soft spot for the redhead in the class, but he’s pursued the insects rather than the girls in those days. Now, fifty years later, he freely admits that he was actually totally infatuated by her, but had also felt inferior at the time, mostly because of her successes in the “entertainment” world, where he saw her as “everyone’s darling” rather than a one-guy gal.

“I met Butterfly on my last day in New Zealand, last Friday. In fact, the meeting was totally unplanned – I had forgotten that she went to New Zealand with her folks all those years ago. I lie, I hadn’t forgotten – the memory was simply tucked away somewhere near the appendices and footnotes, I guess.” Wry smile.

“This may take a while, because it was one of the highlights of my trip, even though the duration was most likely the shortest of all my visits and excursions. Probably less than half an hour. It happened in Christchurch on the South Island.” Again a wry Bryce smile.

“Last Thursday morning, my second-to-last day before flying home, I was checking through the local papers in my hotel room waiting for 10:30 when a round-the-town bus service would collect me for a city tour, when an article in the entertainment section under ‘music’ caught my eye.”

“There were three of four entries in the section, but the one name fell off the page ‘Santana-Steward.’ Hmm… I thought, one could possibly enjoy some local talent this evening? But something else fell off the folded page at the same time – the preceding word.” The style of story-telling was typical Bryce. He never gives the game away in paragraph one…

Without waiting for me to ask about the preceding word, Bryce continued, “The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I felt slightly faint – crazy…” Another wry smile, “You would never guess the name – Brooke-Lynne!”

“Here, look. I’ve kept the advert. It says: Resident guitarist Brooke-Lynne Santana-Steward and her Butterflies will be performing country-style at The Tombstone 12:51 while you enjoy your meal. Bring your own wine. Phone 09 756 1234 for bookings to avoid disappointment.”

“Crazy man… I dialled the number, not knowing how to start the conversation. I slammed the phone down. I was back in 1966, all thumbs and blushes. Her Butterfly is a performer in front of crowds, and I’m a simple old retired fart catching butterflies in the wild… The Steward part of the name would indicate a marriage. She’s probably married to this huge brute, probably an ex-rugby player. They’re pretty rugby-mad in that part of the world.”

“And, Bryce? And?”  At times like this, I wished he wasn’t so dramatic, “So did you get to meet this rugby giant or what?”

“When I finally made my booking, I asked the girl on the line. No, she’ told me, Brooke’s husband was actually the founder-owner of The Tomb, but he’d been tragically killed in the February 2011 earthquake, the only one in the establishment to have succumbed. After that, Brooke changed the name of the place by adding the 12:51 being the time of his death, in memory of her husband Jack Steward. No children.”

There was no mistaking the emotion in Bryce’s voice. He refilled his beer-mug and went for a pee before settling down to the serious part of his tale.

“And, Bryce? And, did you get to meet her? What does she look like now?” Bryce was enjoying my obvious impatience at hearing his tale.

“None of us look quite eighteen or twenty anymore, but she was unmistakably still the same little Butterfly, with hair not quite so scarlet anymore. She’s looked after herself over the years. I suppose not having kids would have helped in the figure department as well? But you know what, her physical body was the last thing I bothered to look at – she was still the same young little Butterfly, with that sweet clear Marianne Faithfull voice – it was just like yesterday…”

Bryce took a few more gulps of his brew, almost as if building up courage to retell of the encounter. We have no secrets, he need not be embarrassed. Bryce knew that.

“When we were finally face to face, I didn’t know what would be appropriate. I’d been going over the options all day already, still with no resolution. The girl’s husband had been tragically killed in this very room. She was most probably still a deeply grieving widow. She might misinterpret any silly action on my part… Should I simply shake hands?”

“But isn’t fate strange?” Bryce paused, eyebrows a bit twisted.

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but thankfully he didn’t give me a chance to reply, as he continued after yet another swig of brew, “It was probably the most wonderful moment of my life. Something I will never forget. Before either of us had uttered a single word, she stepped forward towards me, embraced me fully and tightly, almost like a long-lost lover, and kissed me ever-so-firmly on the lips, as if she was truly overjoyed to be with me.”

“’Bry, it’s been such a long time. I’ve missed you, Bry. I was madly in love with you at school, and you never responded, you fool.’ Then she gently pushed me away, and catching her breath, said ‘Do you realise that is the first time you have ever kissed me? It took half a century, and then you left it up to me to make the first move!’ Miss Brooke-Lynne Santana-Stewart would sing later, much later. She smiled as we sat down to our dinner table, and we caught up on half a life-time of events.” 

“You know, that is the truth. That was my first kiss with our Butterfly at the Tombstone.” A last wry smile from Bryce indicated the need for a fresh refill of the brown stuff.

* * * * *

[ 2010 words ]

The instruction for Day 3 of the 30-Day challenge reads:

[ Brief: Imagine you're looking through a collection of short stories. One of the titles
catches your interest. That's the story you want to read first. What might the
title be? Invent a title that would make you want to read the story. Now, write a
story to go with that title...]

Writing Challenge : Day 1

The challenge posed for Day 1 of the 30-Day writing challenge reads:
[  Brief:    Your character moves into a new apartment. On the surface, the place seemed
ideal, but his/her first night there, your character discovers a terrible problem with the place that he/she didn't take into account...  ]

Clearly the task hinges on the “terrible problem”, hence I will call the post… I’ll tell you what: we’ll give it a name later, after the ideas have hopefully start flowing. Ok?

Jerry Uniden adjusts the volume on his i-Pod, as he sits in the back of the taxi in the stormy black traffic of London this late November Sunday evening. He is on his way home… His new home, where his personal effects have already been dropped off earlier that afternoon by courier whilst he was still flight-bound to London Gatwick.

Bugger. I’ve been thinking ahead to the nature of the “terrible problem.” I need to confess in paragraph one of Day 1 of the challenge: I’m afraid I have a terrible problem myself… I need to discover Jerry’s phobia or personal problem… otherwise the story will not get off the ground...

Jerry’s apprehension is being fuelled by the unknown. Until now, he’s been protected under the wing of his Mamma, where he’s been living since leaving teacher’s college eight years ago. Now, after teaching piano at the Gustav Holst College of Music in Kenya and living on the farm with Mamma, he will be starting a prestigious job in London under the renowned composer-musician Sir Malcolm Butterford at the Sussex Gardens Academy.

The thought of working under Professor Butterford is causing apprehension... The thought of having to commute by tube train during peak hours in London is causing apprehension... The thought of where he will be living, living alone without the comforting wing of Mamma as protection, is causing apprehension… The thought of where he will find a place to have supper each night is causing apprehension…  At least, the apartment where he will live is not an unknown factor. At least, there’s no apprehension on that front.

Dwell on the positive. Dwell on the positive. That’s what Mamma has always said. Niki Apartments. His new home. That’s positive, that’s apprehension-free… From his inside pocket, he takes a DL ivory-coloured envelope. Printed on the back he can just make out in the dim light printed in dark green ink the words “Omega Lettings – long-term leases” and a Leyton address in smaller font. He carefully withdraws the document from its cover and looks at the photograph of the imposing building called The Niki once more. A bit on the posh side, but posh is good. Posh is positive.

The Niki is apprehension-free. Mamma had promised that his apartment is at the back of the building, adjoining a kind of portico garden with climbing creepers and shady trees. His unit is number 14A. That sounds positive. “A” is good. Frequently “A” is the best, as good as it gets.

He is not all that concerned as to whether he will have access to the gardens with creepers and trees, or to the gym which is located in the basement. Neither is he over-concerned about the open-air bar-b-que on the roof-top on the fifteenth floor, as he is not really into eating animal flesh, and certainly has no head for heights. Anything above his first floor A14 suite will really be a no-go area – he will rather die than go to the bar-b-que facility, even if they happen to offer a “vegetarian” cook-out! No thanks, he’ll most certainly stay away from that… 

Granted, the weekly rent for his garden-side suite is a bit on the steep side, almost half of his promised stipend. But this doesn’t present a problem, really, as Mamma can always organise a top-up draft from his investment income which comes from a handsome portfolio in his name after the untimely death of Mamma’s husband, Jerry’s late step-father. If the need should arise, it’s simply a matter of an email message…

He glances at his watch. Another five minutes and they should be arriving at The Niki. The Niki with his exclusive studio apartment 14A away from the noisy traffic at the back adjoining the peaceful portico garden with the climbing creepers and shady trees. Blissful country living in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. Blissful and apprehension-free. Yes. An accomplished pianist in his own right at the tender age of 27, Jerry is feeling good. Jerry is feeling successful. Professor Butterford, the tube and where to have supper, these are a bit of a cause for apprehension, but, by applying a bit of positivity, this will probably be the start of a great phase in his life. Bring it on!

He pockets the lease documents in their ivory-coloured DL envelope in his inside pocket, and relaxes in his seat, eyes closed while he imagines The Niki and his neighbours-to-be…

                                                               * * * * *

As the taxi drives away, Jerry picks up his travel case and trots up the three steps to the warmly-lit revolving door entrance of The Niki. Marble tiles adorn the hall floor, with luxurious walnut wall panelling and a just-audible recording of what Jerry recognises as the well-known ‘Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations’ playing over concealed speakers. He can live with this, he muses. Ah, the building directory: quite modern… electronic and high-tech, but not cheap, not like a station destination board.

There… “Reception – Lorna-Rose Portman : Suite C1”

He taps the little bell icon on the touch-screen. A sedate little ‘Ding!’ sound and the icon flashes on and off a few times. Ms Portman is apparently at home, and a soft feminine voice comes over an invisible speaker, “Jerry Uniden, I presume. Please go to the corridor marked ‘C Wing’ and I’ll meet you at my door which is number 1.” 

The rendition of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations then continues over the concealed speakers as before Ms Portman’s interjection. A few moments later he finds himself standing outside the imposing entrance door to suite C1.

“Jerry, welcome and do come in and sit down. We have no formalities here at The Niki, just call me Lorna-Rose.”

Jerry likes the name Lorna-Rose. So much better than an ordinary ‘Lorna’ or a common ‘Rose’, he thinks. Yes, he loves the name ‘Lorna-Rose’… so… fresh… so… so in keeping with the obvious tasteful standards maintained at The Niki…

Lorna-Rose is a shapely twenty-something, dressed tastefully in designer athletic wear. Perhaps she is on her way to the gym in the basement? She reminds Jerry of some or other television presenter or weather-forecaster. He decides that she will be a most agreeable neighbour, as she motions towards the coffee set on the table with enquiring eyebrows.

The coffee is strong and aromatic. The best he’s tasted for quite a while.

No apprehension about the neighbours so far. Much of the information Lorna-Rose is busy imparting is simply flowing over Jerry’s head, past his semi-glazed eyes. It must be the air travel from Kenya, followed by the trip from the airport, but he is not taking much in.

“But, I talk too much, Jerry. I’m sorry, you must be exhausted after your trip,” Lorna-Rose smiles, as she hands him an A4 folder. “This is our ‘Guide to The Niki’ which contains everything you need to know about your new home, and if you have any further needs, well, you know where to find me.” That smile again.

Jerry feels a bit flush as his cheeks redden ever so slightly. That smile again.

Lorna-Rose stands up and offers Jerry the single flat electronic door access card with A14 clearly engraved on the white background.

“Take the ‘A’ Block elevator to the fourteenth floor for your private luxury suite.” That smile again, “And, welcome once again, Jerry. I’m sure that living at The Niki will outstrip all your expectations.”

That smile again, “Oh, and of course the view of the city and the park below is to die for. Simply the best.”

                                                * * * * *

I would probably entitle this piece something like “A View to Die For” ?

[ 1270 words ]

The instruction for Day 2 of the 30-Day challenge reads:

[ Brief:  Write a story that includes: a tombstone, a first kiss, and a butterfly collection… ]

30-Day Challenge

Some of us imagine we can tell stories, some of us imagine we can write those stories. I guess I may perhaps be one of those. There must be millions of writers using the English medium, but how many of them have we read?  I’m not much of a reader, but I hardly read what others have written. Perhaps it is a trend in the electronic age, where a majority of folks would rather watch a video for 120 minutes than read the same “story” in book form over a few days. Perhaps its all to do with lack of energy or enthusiasm. But, by ignoring the written stories, we are effectively telling the story-tellers that their efforts are really a waste of their time…

I have written a number of posts on this blog over the past few months, without knowing the reaction of readers. If any readers, in the first instance. If no-one writes a comment against any post, the writer has absolutely no idea how he should change his content or style to make the articles more acceptable. Perhaps, stop writing entirely, and join the world of readers out there?

I encountered a site which poses a 30-day writing challenge. They sketch a scenario for each day and then you need to write a piece, with at least 10 minute input, in line with their sketch.

I thought to myself, “How about giving this a try? At worst, the readers of this blog may simply skim through the titles each day and dismiss the writing.”

And what have I lost after the 30 days? But I can’t sit here musing: I have decided to accept the 30-Day Challenge. I’m not sure that I will be able to compose something even vaguely intelligent for every day, but I’m prepared to give it a go. Please pass comments wherever you like – good or bad, it doesn’t matter, as long as there are comments. If you’d prefer not to make “public” comments, please feel free to email me those comments to CHARTWELL.NZ@GMAIL.COM