Odd things, secrets.

There are odd things we do for the sake of other people, and there are then things we do that make possible for us to cope with that. It may not sound like any sense of purgatory to sit around a pool mostly naked with a bunch of possibly very pleasant strangers, also mostly naked, in a your tropical country of choice, but it feels like it to me. Well, not hell exactly, there would be no moral imperative imaginable if hell were like this, if you believe in a concept of hell to start with, for it is the most comfy chair like of all places I've been to. Probably that's why I feel uncomfortable. Is there no pleasing people like me? Probably not.
I am assuaging the odd thing by talking to myself online. That, I find pleasurable. I have no idea really why, except that as the lyrics to that song that I can't remember exactly, but it's a lovely wistful 80s ballad about telling your secrets to a stranger, not your friend. I'm supposing that all of us who blog are somewhat the same in this urge and it reminds me of an artwork I found, over six years ago now, in Stockholm, when I was working there and met the partner who I am now with, love very much and am now attempting to gracefully suffer for, and probably failing. It was a voice pipe, a sort of drain with a glamorous shower attachment (I'm not doing it justice - it was prettier than that) on the quay alongside the artist's invitation to tell your secret to the water - the great lake that Stockholm sits on. And I told it my secret - no longer a secret - that a colleague was making my life a misery, and felt a weight lift. All the guilt and confusion I felt didn't float away on the water exactly, but they shifted to somewhere I could deal with them.
So I think there is some value in talking to myself online, and in making it public. It is important to recognise the not so beautiful feelings and to not be 'fine'. There are things you can't tell a friend, because sometimes the friend is the problem, and because you are their friend you can't tell them that, you just suffer a little for them instead. My boyfriend is still getting his holiday, and this is the way I can help him have a not so miserable girlfriend. It is sort of working as long as he leaves me to it. Poor lad.

2010 Review

My own personal review this, rather than the world's in general because that would really take rather a long time and I'm terribly under qualified. One could also say that one is also unqualified to pass judgment on one's own year, lacking distance, perspective, and all that, but I don't think anyone else will do it for me so here goes...

In 2010 I learnt that...

I love learning, but I don't love performing. I am happier out of the limelight, even though I always have one eye on how I think I'm being perceived - I have no wish to be famous - isn't that a refreshing thing to hear these days?

I'm happier when I have something to do, and miserable when I have not.

I enjoy writing. Writing is enjoyable. Writing is a valid art form and a really good substitute for visual artforms as well as being far more portable than a studio full of brushes and messy paint, as well as being infinitely more editable, tweakable and malleable with the same capability, if you are clever, for projection beyond language, possibly.

When I feel in a particular way about something then I should listen to my heart and not what my head is telling me - it is cheaper in the long run.

I am very secretive and changeable. I don't like to be pinned down. I will not be.

Embracing one's celebrity crush (the crush, not the celebrity - one can get arrested for that) can be a very good motivator for creative projects and also broaden one's mind in some areas.

Twitter is fucking ace.

Work sort of looks after itself, as long as I continue to be diligent. I really should invoice more promptly.

I can't do holidays where you do fuck all - see point 2. I am going out of my mind!

In 2010 I...

Decided my degree course and I were no longer compatible as it was seriously below par.
Conceived my first child (see 2011).
Allowed my relationship to grow up somewhat.
Began writing. We will wait to see if this becomes a good thing, but for the moment it is a good thing, even if for the moment it is suffering an interruption due to impending motherhood tailspin and general uggyness, plus, being trapped in a hot country.

In 2011 I might...
Become somebody's mother. Alongside the application of time and energy that will undoubtedly take I am really interested to see how that will change me, and everything else. This is good, I will be useful. I will make a contribution to the human race. Hopefully a good one.
Finish one of the three pieces of writing I started this year.

These are not resolutions, these are simply things that may become because they began in 2010. Other things will become too. This is my only resolution for 2011: Invoice more promptly.

And the next time I went down that bumpy road...

I got to see this...

The whole of you inside me is
Surrounded by stars
A wedge of galaxy
Occupied by pulsars
Three black holes, a planetary ring, several UFO
Primordial goo

The doctor and nurse
Spied your satellite
Within this universe
And now we are within your light
Me, grasping the trolley. Him, my hand. Us, the situation.

Evidence of you

And us too.

Koh Phan Gan Road Sign

And this is the what I was going to say...

Yesterday I was driven along a sandy and precipitous road in Koh Phan Gan, Thailand, and I saw a sign that said:

Dangerous

Apologize

Machines are being

I wish I had taken a photo but I had no idea where my camera was and it was very, very bumpy, sandy, wet, precipitous and I was hanging on. I know this is a poor substitute and should I get another chance then I will take one.

Still. The machines are being what exactly?

Google Chrome - always assume, never ask

When faced with pretty but bewildering spaghetti-like doodles instead of plain English... Oh my word, this website is a useful brain-ease and general detangler: http://www.stars21.com/translator/thai_to_english.html

I've just had an unlovely time logging onto my blog from Thailand (which otherwise is completely lovely, obviously) because Google Chrome, in that annoying teeth-grinding way it has of assuming it can think for you, has suddenly assumed that because I happen to have popped up in Thailand, that I must, of course, be Thai and therefore be fully equipped with the language, even though up to now I have always used the damn thing in English.

It's the assumption that gets me. I was always told, mostly after the several cock-ups made in the first job I really loved and still do now, and from which I must have recovered because I learnt this: NEVER assume, always ASK.

Not only does that help prevent so many errors, it is POLITE!

This irritating state of affairs, combined with the fact that whenever I log in from a new place Google Chrome refuses to believe my password, has meant that I've had to go through the rigmarole of getting the password reset WITH THAI INSTRUCTIONS. For which the above website has been vital.

In my perusal (read wretched hair-tearing, profanity inventing, wall beating) I discovered, as always seems to happen in such situations that others have been more unfortunate and have also discovered their blogger dashboards also to be in the foreign language of Google Chrome choice. So glad that wasn't me.

Apparently you have to make sure that your language of choice is the one set as your language of choice (there is a menu in your dashboard), which fortunately mine already was. I'd have given up by now if it wasn't.

So if you travel and want to blog, as I do. Set it. Set it now. And then you can blog about the pleasantness of the place you have travelled to in all it's wondrous, bewildering and sometimes amusing complexity, instead of having to whinge like this.

More BAD words

Well, this one is not bad, but it is a word I've collided with more often than I expected to over the past year, so it's worth a mention. This word is:

Ideate ( also, Ideation / Ideating )

No, it's not pronounced I-deat, but I-D-ate. Imagine an annoying monster / child / friend has deprived you of your driving licence / passport, and they were very, very hungry.

The OED (love the OED) defines ideate as 'to form or create ideas', and it's first usage goes back to the 17th century. Love that. Still don't like how it sounds. Suspect I'm being pedantic about how words sound, but I like a bit of phonetic clarity.

A friend (A Facebook 'friend') used it a year ago and I liked it then - once I'd looked it up. I tried to drop it into conversation, but it sounded really naff, and so did I. So I stopped.

Just yesterday it erupted at a conference.

Does that mean it is here to stay?

I'll furnish you with a little more context. The speaker was American, highly intelligent, highly professional, high in her organisation, high in middle-age, so generally high, and definitely not in the other sense.

The context was definitely corporate. A multinational departmental conference. Still, does that mean that ideate is back for good, ready to leap like a reborn superhero back into common usage, or will it remain trapped and gurning behind the bars of business-speak?

Has ideate done that American English thing? Having abandoned addled, impoverished British shores long ago for America, to be feted and adored, returning in moneyed form looking for a culturally rich partner, only to have its habits found strange. (Am I getting a bit Henry James?)

Is it really coming back? Well, only time will tell.

There are BAD words here: http://bit.ly/fcB8aa
...

The 'dunkiest' biscuit.

Not of world-shattering importance this: I believe the Shortbread to be the dunkiest biscuit.

By dunkiest, not the best dunker. That accolade must surely go to the Digestive, for its optimum interlude of dunk to dissintegration (applause, lights, music). Just enough to provide the best ‘mouthfeel’ - a term from the fizzy beverage industry describing tiny carbon dioxide bubbles delectably exploding in one’s mouth - said without even a wry smirk (missed opportunity). No CO2 in a digestive (I believe), but a similar sensation.

I digressed. Shortbread unquestionably looks to be the best dunker, but no. Unfortunately its huge content of butter (yum), will simply repel your hot beverage or melt if dunked too long, ruining your lovely cuppa with fat, gritty crumbs.

However, I think those thick fat golden sticks or wedges of shortbread are still best for the job of being a satisfying little treat. The moment you dip a biccy in your tea, is a moment you concentrate totally on your own pleasure and no one else’s, and you deserve a damn good biscuit for that. And that is all I am concerned with when I proclaim them the dunkiest of all.

Of course, a good biscuit, regardless of its type will always improve a lackluster beverage. And such is this dreadful cup of AMT latte I optimistically bought on my way through Marylebone station.

I say latte, but I am not convinced. Actually, it tastes like concentrated Mellow Birds, further intensified by being left on a sunny windowsill for a week, then microwaved to bubbling, twice. It is dire.

So I thank the most beneficent god of biscuits for train station shortbread. And that is all for now.

The Green Boar - chapter eight - the Furies' tale, part one

The story so far... Le’Roy revealed that he and the blue Bear C’lementine are alter-creatures; products of shared memory not living flesh and bone, though no less real for all that. The story of how they came into being is told in the previous chapter. Now he is going tell Leanne about the Furies.

***

Well, I have already told you something of the Furies, of how they carry their heads, once long ago struck from their necks in a grim punishment, between their knees, and of how they have wings like an eagle. Let me tell you of how they are now, of how each wonderful feather is smoothed against the others to deliver such perfectly controlled lift and precise manoeuvrability, even at the highest altitudes and the windiest skies.

In fact, such is their mastery of the skies that they can make their homes on cliff edges, where no other animals live, eschewing the company of alter-kind in preference of the constantly skwarking gulls and terns, where only the brown Hawk can reach them. There they live off a diet of raw mackerel, herring, bird’s eggs and the green, bulbous bladderwrack, which is a form of edible seaweed, and they stink to high heaven.

But, before you say a word Leanne, because you are serving a customer and must not speak, lest they think your brain has come loose and your tongue rattles around in your head like a dried pea in a cup, I know you would say my Furies do not smell so bad. But that is because the three of them have been living with me, away from their sea cliff homes for so long that they have shed their pong, and reek no more.

That is because they must be stealthy in order to complete the tasks I ask of them. For the fishy smell is the only technique by which they can be located. Until a Fury carries or attacks you, there will be no other indication where they are for you will not feel them. Many times my friends have taken me from place to place, yet I have never felt their touch, neither a fingertip nor a feathertip.

They have deliberately and completely withdrawn any sense of touch or visual stimuli from the world because it was the world who allowed them to be punished so cruelly, and they are the most unbelieavble sulkers. The only way that we know how they look is from the drawings of the old stories. When they tell you of how they look now you must not believe them, for unlike the green Boars, they are able to dissemble.

They do not call themselves ugly, although at heart they know that to be the truth. They were very beautiful women once. Now with no one able to see them and contradict them they imagine themselves to be that way again. To hear them speak to each other is to listen to the most sycophantic conversation you can imagine.

They constantly congratulate and applaud each other on the nature of their costume and hairstyle, pretending to be swathed in only the best silks, laces, velvets, printed cottons and nylons, all covered in sequins and glitter, and all cut in the latest fashions. Their curls will have been set just recently in the French way, in glossy auburn, brunette or seductive blonde, or a trendy combination of the three. Their bare neck stumps will be strung with pearls and cut stone necklaces, cleverly anchored to their clothes with golden thread, for they have no heads to stop them falling off otherwise.

According to them, the colouring of their great eagle wings is borrowed from the gamut of avian kind; the dash on the Goldfinch’s side; the iridescent bottle-green head plumage of the Mallard drake in season; the shifting eyed tail feather of the Peacock; the mottled back of the Partridge, apparently dull yet seductively patterned; the delicate lime, lemon and peach of the Lovebird, and the vibrant scarlet, blue and green of the Amboina King Parrot, are just some. Furthermore, they claim to have decorated the ornately jewelled felt slippers, and the hats sometimes worn by the heads, with the moulted tail plumes and flourishes from tropical birds.

They must be stunning. But if you can imagine such a sight Leanne, then I do not know whether to be jealous or afraid for you.

All in all, I think it not a bad thing for them to imagine themselves so. For imagination harms nobody and it eases their isolated hearts. For, as well as still suffering their original punishment, they cannot properly take up their place in our reality that they took as compensation for the hideous crimes made against them.

Unfortunately, in my reality there is an assumption that what is invisible may as well not be there at all. Even though all the evidence points to the contrary. Everyone will tell you Furies exist, but sadly, because they can’t be seen that existance cannot be proved. So in the alter court of law they are not accepted to be true alter-beings. You must be clever to accept proof beyond that which you can see, but as you must realise by now, dear lady, we are not terribly cleveref beast. So the Furies live in a strange kind of limbo, they are an alter-creature like me, but they are also not.

Anyway, that is by the by. If a Fury is observed, well, it would strike a level of fear into the hearts of timid beasts strong enough to kill them on the spot. For we ferocious ones, it would paralyse us with fright and then we could be cut down where we stood frozen like statues. It is because of that they they are great use in battle, but, as I will tell you now, thier other qualities mean their currency in a fight must be spent thinly, for there are dire consequences for not doing so.

Though they came to our reality of their own volition rather than being tricked into it, and so are cleverer than we alter-beings, they are also quick to anger, remembering as they do the crimes against them. It cannot be said that they don’t know how to hold a grudge.

This is dangerous because they are also empathic, but only with one emotion, the one they are named for: Fury.

Do you know the concept, Leanne? The one of making your feelings felt? Well, that is what they do. When one Fury gets angry the others are attracted to her like a moth to a lamp, for they feel the pain of their own kind. This multiplies the feeling and when it reaches a certain point it will tip over and spread all around, infesting the air like the stench of death. When those in range breathe in the fury they also become furious and then they lash out at their companions, even those they love dearly; friends they have known since childhood, lovers with whom they have just been reunited, and even their own children.

The use of furies in war very often becomes the reason that war continues, for each side will be blinded by anger and all number of imagined slights cannot go without revenge. So, as you may be able to understand, it is very dangerous to deploy the Furies, unless you want your war to continue through generations and many good people die as well as bad.

The only way of preventing this is not to allow more than three Furies at a time to gather, and that is why my friends are only three. More than three and the danger of the fury tipping over at the slightest provocation is too high. No more than three and everyone gets along just fine, because should one become upset the other two will calm her down. In the case of the Furies, three is indeed, the magic number.

There are stories of great warriors, champions of just and fair causes, coming to a bad end just because they asked for the help of Furies and forgot that simple rule. One such was H’mberto de Kier, one of the brown Hawks. Who like all the Hawks was brave, fast, sharp-sighted and capable of great concentration and focus. The obsessive Hawk is able to create great things, for instance they are great builders, but they are also cursed with a narrow vision that frequently causes their projects to fail.

In this case, H’mberto simply wished to defend his forested lands from N’ro, the white Hart, who damaged the bark of his trees and caused them to fall sick from disease.

It was not the deliberate fault of N’ro. For when he ruts, he loses his mind. Like all Harts all he cares about at springtime is proving himself a worthy mate for his beloved doe. Love is both his gift and his curse. If he had hands such as yours, Leanne, capable of making such wondrous things, then he would build castles to prove his love. But he cannot. All he has are four pairs of hooves and a magnificent crown of antlers that he must shed and grow new every year. Unfortunatly, the antlers emerge covered downy skin that itches like crawling ants as the horns reach maturity, so he would go to H’mberto’s forest each year in early spring to rub his antlers against the tree trunks to remove it and reveal the wonderful hardness of his new crown.

Now, every year until this one, N’ro stopped his altercation with the trees after a few days, and the damage to the bark revealing the tender living wood inside was bearable. While without their hard shells some trees would catch disease, but the majority recover, and H’mberto understood this and left N’ro to his own devices.

However, one year, on leaving the woods with his proud new set of horns to go and search for his female companions, N’ro glanced back to admire the trees that helped to cure his horrible itch. From that middle distance he suddenly realised the marks he had made on the bark of the Hawk’s trees were like writing that the bears made and used to communicate with each other. He realised his marks could be writing too, so he started to make more marks to proclaim his love for his female companions for everyone to see.

As a romantic gesture, it worked admirably. They were very simple gouges, but to the female Hart, they were as seductive as poetry.

However, being caught in midst of run away sexual emotion, N’ro went a overboard, and when the Hawk returned from his hunting trip, he was shocked to find nearly a tenth of his forest home laid to waste. Some trees had even been felled by N’ro gouging too deeply, and now they lay in a higgledy-piggledy pile on the forest floor as if a giant child had laid down a game of pick-up-sticks, while others looked as though they had been gnawed at by a giant rat.

By this time the white Hart was far away enjoying the attentions of his impressed hareem. So the Hawk cried his lust for revenge for the rest of the alter reality to hear. For if the Hart wasn’t stopped, then what would become of the Hawk’s forest next year? The tenth would never recover in time. It wasn’t just his home but that of many other creatures too, and the trees were living things, why should they die just because N’ro had discovered how to write?

Of course, N’ro was terribly sorry when he realised what he had done but before he had the chance to apologise and offer to compensate the Hawk the Furies sent by H’mberto were upon him. From this point onward, all sense was lost and Harts and Hawks called revenge on each other for generations, each biting the other back for every kind of wrong doing imaginable, and some unimaginable. Inevitably, other alter-beasts became involved and the war spread thickly on both sides. By the end we faught because we faught. We knew no other reason. We could no longer conceive of place in which we did not fight.

Hostilities continued for generations, as I said, until the brown hawk L’renzo ended it. He was a more clear-sighted Hawk than most, and it is only because of him that a ceasefire was brokered and we live in the relative peace that we do today. He was a direct decendent of the original H’mbert, yet he was weary and tired of battle, of seeing beloved members of his family plucked from the sky before their time. He drew a council of alter-beasts together and we petitioned the Furies to desist in helping either side. Which thankfull, they agreed to do.

Only the Furies regretted the ceasefire. For though they mourned such senseless loss of life, they couldn’t help their nature and whilst the war continued they’d had a purpose. For a while they had been back in the limelight, it reminded them how wonderfull it had been to be in demand as beautiful women, and they loved that. Now, they are invisible again and nobody wanted them. What’s more, most of the alter-reality blamed them for the war and forgot it originated in a H’mberto crying revenge on a N’ro.

***

        While Le’Roy had been relating his tale, four customers had come and gone from Cobblers and Keys. Leanne had struggled through, managing to act what she hoped was normal, and fortunately, nobody had said anything to make her think they knew different.

Two had been picking up shoes and hadn’t stayed long, while the third had wanted a key cut and busied herself doing something on her mobile phone while Leanne cut it for her.

The forth had been another matter entirely; a long-faced but otherwise non-descript man in a cheap dark suit with a brown overcoat and no bag, obviously a salesman passing through. Salesmen always wanted to talk, even if they weren’t trying to sell you anything directly, and this person had been asking inquisitive but mundane questions for the full ten minutes it took Leanne to cut his key. It had been very difficult to answer sensibly because it was the moment when Le’Roy had got to the part about the Hawk and Hart, and she had wanted to listen. She wasn’t sure she’d caught everything either party had said.

She peered out of the shop window to make sure he had properly gone and no one else was loitering wanting to come in. The day was brightening up at last. Being late November it was foolish to expect sun, so the little peeking through the clouds now was enough to brighten her spirits. She yawned hugely, not bothering to cover her mouth because nobody was in the shop. Sometimes you want to yawn like a lion, and a yawn can revitalise you and make you feel like the day is only just starting, and you’ve had your proper allocation of eight hours sleep instead of having spent half the night trapsing over town to an alternative world hidden behind a secret door in a brewery wall.

The secrecy of the door seemed debatable if in fact an ordinary postmen delivered to it as Le’Roy had described. The door had allowed her to find it easily enough, but then, as they said, she was supposed to be special, even if she wasn’t sure yet if she should let herself be persuaded of this. Best, she thought, to treat that idea with caution. Their idea of special could mean anything, after all, they did use chocolates as weapons. Though it still wasn’t clear how. She checked the bar of Dairy Milk in her pocket. Better safe than sorry.

She wondered what was so special about the brewery. She knew it was old, but there was no answer she could think of. Perhaps it would be wise to check the local history section in the library, or on the internet, for which she would need to go to the library anyway. She added the question to the mental list of things she needed to ask which was growing longer by the minute. She wasn’t sure either, if he had explained what great crime the furies had suffered. It was very frustrating to have to listen and be unable to interrupt with questions.

“Phew!” She exclaimed. “I thought he’d never go. Sorry Le’Roy, I missed quite a lot of that. Can you tell me again what the poor Furies did to get their heads chopped off?”

“Oh, but my dear lady, I never got to that part of the tale. I am much remiss and yet you didn’t miss a thing.” Which was a mistake for Le’Roy to say, because of course Leanne had missed some of it.

He launched into the tales of the Furies great punishment just as the doorbell rang to annouce the entrance of another customer.

        To be continued...

I do apologise with deep regret and grovelling obsequiousness to anyone who has read the green boar story, and as well as that, I extend my most grateful thanks for the lack of commenting and the not telling me what a bundle of shitey shite shite it is.

It will get better, I promise. It's a first draft and they're always crap and inconsistent. (I'm told.)

Anyway, all I want to do is finish something, seeing as I didn't finish the last thing, and I have, for better or worse, chosen this story to be that thing, so now I'm lumbered. And, also is anyone who reads it - my imaginary, heroic and definitely not be disappointed audience - because you are the ones sitting on the edge of your seats in the auditorium of my imagination who will help me finish it.

I don't like disappointing people, and basically, that alone is carrying me through.
x

you don't have to but you can if you want

SO... edits

There's obviously going to be a lot of these, (edits) but they say, write the introduction last, so I'm going on that being a thing that will eventually happen, and when it does, all the rest will make a lot more sense, or was that just essays? Well, I'm sure it also applies to stories.

At the moment, I'm hovering around bunging in a multi-character conversation, because it's all been a bit of a double act so far and I'm getting a mite bored of that.

The Green Boar: Part Seven 'The first story'

The story so far... Leanne has taken Le’Roy to work with her and made him hide under the counter. He has promised to keep quiet and tell her all about himself and Cl’mentine. (This means that I have to decide what they are...)

“I must begin with a confession. I have put you in a grave danger.” Said Le’Roy’s disembodied voice.

Strangely, this didn’t scare her, she'd expected it since they met. Dying of boredom, she felt, had been an all too close run thing before that, and right now she could deal with dangerous, as long as it was exciting too. She'd been living a half-life in utter boredom for too long.

It was not enough that Mr Ashburton daily proclaimed her the best thing that ever happened to ‘Cobblers and Keys’. At the end of the day, she only helped people through doors they had been through already, or tread in shoes that forever walked the same path.

This was a chance to alter her own path. She wanted to be more than a good employee all her life. This was a chance to change things, whatever things they were. She decided that she wholly bought into the idea that things, whether they were in the world around her or people in general, could always be better than they were already. Nonetheless, she was amazed she now thought along these lines. Danger and effort together, that’s what Le'Roy's task would take, and until now, she had always believed herself to be a lazy girl.

That was really the fault of her parents, though neither she nor they realised it. They raised her to know she must earn her place in the world, work hard and be tough. Of course, she believed them completely; they were well-meaning parents, they thought they doing their best to prepare her for the harsh world beyond their own magnolia walls.
For a person with even a hint of innate ambition it probably would have worked, but Leanne was not ambitious at all. Far from it. Once apart from parental influence her will to make any kind of impact on the world faded, slightly, just a touch, then it was gone. Eventually she came to the conclusion that she and the big, scary world would be better off if they simply ignored each other’s existence.

Strangely, her de-motivation did not apply to this new world. Afterall, why shouldn’t there be a parallel reality to hers, and there being such a place, why should not creatures other than man populate it. She imagined a place where beasts like Le’Roy did everything her dad did, from reading the paper, to cycling to the pub, to chuntering about the local council with the other retired men, or rather retired miscellaneous beasts in comfortable trousers and old jerseys. She felt comfortable with the idea that danger and excitement existed there for her and not here. Well, it didn't seem real enough yet.

At least if I fail to be useful, she thought, and then nobody here will know I have failed. It will not be like being caught acting stupid on telly.

So, in reply to the matter of dangerous situations and being summarily involved in them, she casually said, “That’s okay. I don’t mind.” as if she was giving up her right to the last piece of cake.

She could hear him draw a cautionary breath, “But my lady, when you know our tale, it will be too late to change your mind. Now is the very last time you can change it.”

His voice began to waver with the intensity of his sincerity, “Though it truly pains me to make this offer, for I wish more than anything that you will concede to put your wondrous skills beside ours and agree to help, but nevertheless I must make it, for it is only fair.” He continued. “I promise that you can tell me to go and I will. And what’s more, I will never return, and you, dear lady, shall live on in peace and never be bothered again by myself, or my kind again.”

She wished he would get on with it for she did not hover on the cusp of indecision. On taking leave of Cl’mentine, she had already known that she would return. Though the bear had vacillated in mood from murderous to pathetic, she, and it still felt a little odd to think of her as a she, had persuaded Leanne that at heart she was noble, clever, open, inquisitive, though a bit split personality.

They seemed to her like the elderly couple that you might get to know. Who live down the hall, or next door, who perhaps through grief or innate eccentricity have become detached from the world you share. That, as they turned their heads away for what felt to be the barest moment, changed beyond recognition to a place where they could no longer communicate.

Cl’mentine asked her to become a conduit, to explain this strange world to them and show them how they could make themselves anew. Leanne felt she could do that. No problem. It did not even seem dangerous. It was this thing of Le’Roy’s that could be dangerous, but in for a penny in for a pound went the old saying, so she did not let her confidence waver while she prised open the PG Tips tea bag tin.

“I don’t want you to go. I want to help.” She said, sorting through the tin until she found a pyramid shaped tea bag, she preferred those, though she knew they were no different to the others. “Do you drink tea?”

“I don’t require sustenance when I am in my alter form.”

She hadn’t thought so, but it had felt rude not to offer. They might not even know what tea is, she thought.

The kettle began to heat up, the steam shushing from its spout made a fifty pence sized patch of condensation on the wall under the shelf. It was a bit worrying that he was asking for her help and warning her not to do so at the same time. She hoped her newfound confidence wasn’t misplaced.

“I want to help,” She assured him,” and I want you to tell me who, or what, you are, what you do, and why you need me. You keep saying I’m important. Well... that’s good, I’m glad, but please tell me why I am, because maybe it will explain a lot of other things.”

She cut off his reply, half because she wanted to prevent his overwrought congratulations, followed by his heady exclamations and his rushing off before telling her anything. Because this seemed to be the manner in which he handled news. And half because she wanted to explain why fully, even if was just so that she could hear herself say the words.

“I’ve always felt different from everybody else, and I’ve drifted about never really latching on to anything. All my friends have had families by now, or amazing careers, or if they haven’t then they have a better reason not to than mine. But I never found the thing that I wanted to do, so I ended up here.” She gestured to the stockroom, which eloquently demonstrated her status by doing precisely nothing.

“I got stuck her. I guess it was comfortable.” She pursed her lips, thinking of how little she could imagine Mr Ashburton working anywhere but here, “Some people probably love that... it suits them, but I always thought something else should happen to me and now it has. So fire away. Tell me all about it.”
She stared interrogatively at the kettle as she spoke, imagining it to be Le’Roy instead of having his voice remain bodiless voice helped. She didn’t know if he could see her at the same time. She’d have to ask when she remembered. There were so many questions to ask. “You can start with why Cl’mentine was going on about being optimistic.”

“That,” he replied, “is a thing of her device. A slip of shiny paper came through the door. When they started to arrive we thought someone was trying to contact us at last, but then Cl’mentine noticed they all seemed so different, and that was when we realised they were from your world, and not meant for us at all.” He made what she thought was a boary chuckle.

“You see, when people drift off and forget what they are doing; sometimes our world becomes visible to them. But you mustn’t worry,” he said quickly in response to her surprise, “they never comprehend what they see. Many times we have taken delivery of parcels and letters and the man doesn’t notice that a blue bear big enough to flatten him offers to sign his slip of paper.”

“But how don’t they see you?”

“I don’t know, but they don’t. As to the paper about the optimism, I don’t know what it says any more than I know what it means. Cl’mentine does all the reading and writing for both of us. Anyway, I suspect it is something that only bears understand; they are emotional creatures, not like we practical boars. You must ask her to enlighten us both on the matter.”

“When will I get a chance to do that?”
“The day after tomorrow; she will have a delivery for us to make.”
“Oh, so I really am a courier. To where?” Leanne was genuinely surprised.
“Of course you are a courier. I do not lie.”
“But you omit the truth sometimes.”

“It is difficult to always tell the truth. As to the destination, I don’t know yet. I rushed out to see you as soon as I woke and learned of your difficulties. My esteemed friend was most upset that she had scared you, she was worried you would never come back and help us.”

“But I will. So that’s okay. I guess you’d better begin at the beginning instead then.”

So Le’Roy the Green Boar filled his intangible lungs with cobbler shop air steeped in the aromas of boot polish and cut brass, and told his story:

***

A long, long time ago, and before then for a period much longer than that, when we knew of nothing such as Time, the Sun and Moon, who were then still nameless, held us spellbound with their never-ending dance. As we watched them rise and fall, their fingers entwined in the dawn and dusk, we questioned nothing and therefore achieved no answers.

We lived, died, and were reborn. We were born from blood, sweat and heat and we died in blood, sweat and heat. That was as it was meant to be. And we know now that we were fortunate because in forsaking knowledge we also forsook lies.

Then one day one of us decided to want more.

That one suggested to us all that there was more to life than the moon, the sun, and the reflection of our hairy faces in the sweet fresh water, beneath whose ripples, rocks and mud continued ever onward to become the earth from which grass and trees grew.

What they suggested sounded wondrous

Each of us, they said, held a quality shaped like a beautiful shining stone that twinkled like sunlight falling on the ripples of the greatest lake.

They said each species had a special quality, a character or a skill, which was different to all the others.

They said we all shared all qualities in a larger or smaller way, but just one was our defining character, and knowing it would make us great.

Of course, all the animals, those who walked on four legs, or two, or who flew, swam, or slithered on the ground, each wanted to know what thier special quality was.

So we asked then our first question. And we asked it of humans, for of course, they were the ones who discovered the existence of the stone shaped qualities.

We all asked: “What is my special quality?”

Only some of us came forward to ask it earlier, and because of this, the humans thought we were great.

And we were happy about that because they had discovered the qualities and therefore were known to be clever and resourceful.

Also, we knew we were amongst the first few because we were cleverer, or faster, or stronger, or more aggressive than the ones who came later, and because of this, we felt ourselves to be superior.

Despite our arrogance, humans afforded us privileges and we had such good times, for a while at least.

Of course, that is until we learnt that if you did not ask questions you would hear no lies.

First, they told the boars that we contained the qualities of instant and courageous action and that we were incapable of deception.

They cursed us forever with the inability to lie. Our actions would forever be true to our innermost thoughts.

Then they told the bears they contained the qualities of the endless search for wisdom, twinned with ferociousness in battle.

Bears were cursed with a thirst for knowledge yet with no application for it, for they are doomed to be feared.

In battle, they have to drop the books of learning and retreat to pure berserker rage. Bears are always on the front line, never in the planning tent making battle strategy. This is forever to their shame and regret. As fighters, they are too good to spare the field, yet their knowledge, if it could be tapped, might prevent such wars ever occurring.

Six more creatures of earth were with us at that time, asking to be told their special qualities, but what we all failed to realise was that we had been seduced by visions of what we could achieve, and that we each valued our own qualities too highly above those of the others.

We became competitive with each other. We didn’t notice that it was always the humans who drew us all together, and that it was only when they did, that our qualities became truly useful. Together we could not be defeated, but apart we were as weak and flawed as we had always been.

We had become the ingredients of a great pie, but only one would eat the magnificent meal.

It was, of course, humans alone who would eat.

But at the time, we trusted them and in return, they elevated us. For a while, we were gods. They gave us thanks, and made our forms in wood, clay, straw, and even stone, so they were reminded of us when we were not present.

And when they wore the skins of our relatives over thier easily marked skin and fed their children from our bodies, they was grateful.

We shared an understanding that this was how it was and would always be.

It seems to make no sense to you that we would accept that he should kill us, yes? Well, those of us who were ferocious felt they had equal standing with humans, and accepted that each one of us had the right to kill in order to live.

Those who were prey and had always been so, the grazers; deer, oxen, goats and elk, and the fish, understood part of their number would alway fall, but that as a whole, they would continue.

But of course it could not last, for humans proved to be deceptive and we were all under their spell.

Once they understood our qualities they took them for themselves and achieved complete mastery, and no longer bothered to venerate our forms, or to care for us at all.

At this point humans, who no longer saw themselves as an animal, and the animals who knew what they were, parted ways.

As the animals fled their qualities dropped like the stones they were onto the dark earth, which closed protectively over them.

Ever since, the memory of our more closely related past has remained in the earth, and she has passed it to the sun and moon, the sky, and water. They remember what humans properly are; that we were originally all the same, and once could have been one.

A remnant of memory also stayed in the minds of men, but they remembered mostly our feats of valour. Some of them even translated these into threats against themselves. But soon they turned against one another, being the over sensitive and complicated creatures that they are. But you know more of this than I do, don't you? So I don’t need to tell that overlong and complex history.

We, and by that I mean the ones that can assume the alter form, are myself and my friend the blue bear, and also the red lion, the white hart, the black horse, the gold eagle, the silver wolf, and the brown hawk. We all hang our forms on nothing more than memory.

Though those rocks the earth keeps hidden hold us, they are simply remains from an earlier time.

We are both given form and trapped in our reality by three far less tangible things: By our own rememberings of when we all acted as one, by the memory of the world, and by the minds of humans, who barely remember a whisper of who we were, but are her eminent beast.

We are, of course, not creatures of flesh and blood as the original beasts were, as beings we are quite apart from their hard reality. We consist of qualities. Concepts and ideas make us more tangible than material things do.

As far as I can most delicately put it, it would be most correct to say we are the manifestation of the qualities as man described them to us. We are shaped by their ideas about us, as much as we are by the figures and abilities of the animals we originally were.

***

Le’Roy stopped speaking at that point and there was an awkward silence for a second or two, then Leanne said, “Blimey.”

It didn’t feel quite like the appropriate thing to say, but then neither was it inappropriate. “That’s... um... quite a story. I suppose the, um, how did you put it, ‘manifestation of qualities’ is why your doors get to make their own minds up?”

“Yes. I still find it hard to believe yours don’t, it seems like such a waste of time.”

“Likewise.”

“There will be many things we shall both have to get used to.”

“Oh!” She exclaimed, looking at her watch. “It’s time to open up shop.” She hurried out of the cupboard without her tea, because all the boiled water was still in the kettle. She had been so engrossed in the tale that she had forgotten to pour it.

There was already someone on the other side of the door. As she turned the sign to ‘open’ and started to unbolt it to let them in, she whispered to Le’Roy. “So that’s what you are. That’s amazing. But what are you doing here, and why does Cl’mentine live in a brewery? Oh, yeah, and where do the furies fit in to the picture?”

“So many questions!” Breathed Le’Roy’s voice in her ear, it still felt very odd. “Which do you want me to start with?”

Leanne leaned against the door a second longer, her head turned away from the customer, “Mmm, start with the furies. They sound horrific. I think I’d rather know about them first. Now, you realise I can’t talk to you while I have someone in the shop, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Replied the boar, “So I shall tell you the furies’ story.” And he launched straight away into another most peculiar tale.

... to be continued...

Character assassination and rebirth

      I must end some of the implausibility around my character Leanne.
      I spent a good hour in the coffee shop this morning sorting her out, and though I don't think she's good and properly done yet (heaven forbid) I do think she is getting there.
      Motivation is the problem. I'd made her insular yet curious and the two qualities contrast too much. I need more reasons to take on the boar and the bear at face value, and I need another reason for having her work at what is, essentially, a dead end, low paid and boring job, when I fact she is this interesting and courageous person.
      Basically,  I concluded that instead of lonely she is bored, but that she puts up with being bored because it is better than what she was before, which was in trouble.
      Of course I know people like this. They had too much too young and now they just want things to be easy, although they are capable of so much more. However, no matter how much they batten down the hatches they have an inextinguishable zest for life that will always carry them to the next chapter.
      By trouble, I don't mean with the law, Leanne is too well meaning for that. Trouble most likely with letting her zest for life get out of hand. She has, for me the outlook on life and the actions of someone who sometime in their life has been an addict. Whether it be to drugs or some social situation; the external thing began to rule her life so much that she began to live for it and let it control her, rather than use it as some way of supplementing her enjoyment life. A time when she lived too much in the now, with not enough eye on the future - something many people (but not all) do when they are living independently for the first time.
      She rectified the situation in time, but she retains I think that air of brittleness on the surface of her personality that people who wear the scars of a great addiction do: a certain unwillingness to engage with what they love most because they know it will burn them.
      This means that to become involved with the bear and the boar she also has to be very courageous, very brave, and very convinced that it is something that only she can do.
       I think she has to be looking for a crusade, or a quest, something to prove herself worthy of living, but because she is open minded, the boar  and bear present something more interesting than say, joining the armed services or the police force would allow. Of course her addictive background may dissuade her from wanting to join an official organisation.
      For a moment I had her getting mixed up with a cult, because I think that could happen as a consequence of her curiosity and the feeling that she doesn't quite fit. Instead, I think she would have been the type to join up with the God-squad at college or university, then be persuaded to leave, or maybe just feel it wasn't for her, because her other life, the one spent experimenting with drugs and social situations.
      She has a zest for life, that is sure. Every breath she or anyone else takes on this planet is not a miracle because she knows of the practical, scientific reasons for it, but  she feels intuitively that every breath is survival. She is tuned in to the improbability of living. That is the bestial side of her. Apart from that she is nothing unusual. I want her to be quite normal. I had written:

I think she may have joined the god-squad, at college for instance, then her impulse for alcohol fuelled diversions may have caused them to disown her. This saved her sanity: "Not even they will have me and they pick up all the waifs and strays, and oddballs and even odder, completely round the twist balls who are a danger to themselves, and the self-regarding and the self-righteous who are not mad by popular distinction yet who are all the madder for it." Her natural optimism, self-confidence will save her at this point when she realises she's saner, more normal and more socially acceptable than she thought, despite her unconventionality. She hasn't found where she fits yet, but that is no reason to expect never to do so, or let the fact of it depress her.

      I've also written that there is a corollary of this rejection; a symptom of her bestial side that is utterly practical, which is to do with the acknowledgement of survival and the celebration of life - that is nothing to do with anyone else's philosophy of the meaning of life, but is wholly intuitive.

      The animal side of her is simply present in her acknowledgement of death and renewal. That death is the natural order of things. Somehow the bear and the boar have become unstuck from this order, and she too is stuck. The aim of all their struggles is to unstick themselves. 

      This intuitive side can also help explain that she is able to follow her instincts. When summing up a situation she isn't blinded by the assumption that it because she has neither seen nor heard of something that doesn't mean it cannot be. She is astoundingly open. That of course makes her also gullible, and for me that's a good combination: curiosity and openness. Good qualities with an explorable flaw.

       She's slowly coming together.

So if anyone actually is reading the boar story, please bear in mind (intended pun) that it's a first draft and though I'm posting it online and I really shouldn't until it's finished but the thought that someone might be reading it is driving me on (I'm terrible at completing things - I have an office full of half-started projects) because I'd be embarrassed if I didn't bring it to some kind of satisfactory conclusion. It will change in the end, and probably not hang together completely until then despite my best efforts. Eventually the daft draft will be done and I can begin glorious revision, and once that is done to my nit-picking best I will post the finished thing up too. There, I've promised, and now I have to.

Turns out I don't have worry that I gave up history at age 13

Because there is this: The French Revolution story told to pop soundtracks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXsZbkt0yqo

Just loverly. There are loads of them. Sometimes I really with I'd been a kid right now (excepting the credit crunch and the reduction of available high quality education, but that's another thing.

Well, I know it's simplistic, but it's fun and my knowledge of the French revolution has been improved - it was PANTS before - and I know about Napoleon, I've visited his not actually his apartments at the Louvre. It stops at Napoleon. I was convinced there were more revolutions after him.
Can't pretend to to say I found them, they were on the 'Who Does That' blog, also worth a visit. If only to see the Banarama 'Venus' story because she's worked out how to insert vt and I haven't yet.

Ta ra a bit.