Micro Story: 'Crows'

Have you ever seen how airplanes appear to hang totally motionless in the sky when your own speed and angle of travel countermands theirs? I've only seen it on the approach to London, from the A4, when the planes were perhaps a mile into their ascent from City Airport.

CROWS

The upper and greater of two crows angled itself explicitly into a bullet-shaped mark against a pearly-white strip of sky trapped beneath an ash-strapped darkened cloud. They glided precisely over the hedge, losing speed and height on a declining course, but from where I was, the first appeared to hang motionless for an improbably lengthened second.

You were sitting next to me when I last witnessed this optical pause in time and space. You won’t remember that though, your mind dwelt on more important things back then, and I hadn't said anything at the time; I didn’t want to distract you.

You won’t remember that morning. It was when the airplanes first flew again after that Icelandic volcano stopped all flights and we were driving to London to some or other meeting. The sky between the buildings was lemon tinted and from where we sat, in our angle of vision, because of the distance and our speed of travel, the planes appeared immobile again, but this time in the sky, as if they were painted on a mural. 

            For a moment I'd supposed they were model airplanes strategically placed between office blocks by a body of government wanting to reacclimatise us to the sight of human flight; to reassure us after many days of isolation that we would be reconnected.

Constantly anxious, I imagined reassurances but you gave them unasked, you were my personal government; a delicate chain of office, I imagined your effective management of my truths, imperfections, fey uncertainties and doubt.

I didn't doubt this crow; the control it exerted over its body against the wind was effortless.

It eventually floated into the corner of my watery eye, darker than India ink on coldpress paper, implacably solid, unreservedly precise. Its lower, lesser fellow, its doppelganger, flapped sluggishly after, untidy in its slipstream. Then there was nothing more than the road ruling onwards beside the brow of an arable field topped by a row of small silhouetted trees; three fat full stops.

I’m so sorry love; I should have flown today.

Poem #1: ‘The Alpha Mum’s Tale’ or ‘Everybody hates an overachiever’

She woke early, and so by Ten
Had raised two children
To an Oxbridge education.

To salve boredom then
She renovated property
Until Three.

And in the hour to Four,

Mastered the idiosyncrasies of law.

And by the strike of Seven came
Her novels numbered just the same.

Quickly the hour of Eight drew nigh

So she made a feast for Nine,
And had girlfriends round to dine.

Yet, although perfectly cooked
She’d been completely fXXked.

For her cooking spree could not have been
Less fondly seen.

So, by midnight she was dead
By her own hand. The note said,

‘Is nothing I do enough?’

Parent & baby DooDoo

Found this in a sketchbook which was in the pocket of a very underused suitcase which I have decided to take to Athens. Can't remember when I drew it or why a dismayed parent Dodo was amusing me at the time.

The 'boring' one

    I went to the Louvre last week and, faced with its daunting collection of art and people, I decided to concentrate on Northern European Painting which I've always found calming. I discovered there Hans Holbein's painting of Anne of Cleves, and, since nobody now seems to mind photographs being taken, here it is.

    I've always been fascinated by this painting, and in the flesh it's magnificent, she is presented as so calm, so symetrical, so pleasing, more like a doll than a person, that I don't wonder why Henry VIII chose her of the two sisters he sent Holbein to paint.
    But she's the wife that no one talks about. Possibly that's because she's the most boring, but well, in comparison to Anne Boleyn, they all seem so. And frankly, considering how capricious Henry was, she must have been glad to be boring, and perhaps it's why she survived. In fact, she survived him by the longest time, she was given lands and property after their divorce, and was considered, after his daughters and subsequent wives, to be the most pre-eminent of women. She became his friend, and was referred to as "the King's Beloved Sister".
    I think she was probably a shrewd person, cleverer than she was loud. She managed to get the best from the situation into which she was forced, and, although probably, by means of being called 'sister' she was still under Henry's protection, and therefore control, she achieved an independent position, virtually unknown for women at the time.
    Looking at it, I thought Henry must have fallen in love with the painting rather than the woman, she is so wonderfully framed in it, so decorated, that she, the person, can't be real. I don't think any woman could have lived up to Holbein's vision.
    Famously Henry called her 'the Flanders mare'. It's a bit cruel, but then men have always insulted women via their appearance, and that's quite mild treatment from Henry VIII. Additionally to the changed political panorama that meant their marriage was no longer so advantageous, apparently she wasn't cultivated enough for him; she had no formal education, she wasn't witty; the total opposite to her beheaded namesake. No wonder Cromwell liked her and Henry didn't.

    I suppose, if I were to be truthful about why I really like this painting, then it's because it's a masterful execution of marketing; a magnificent lie. It supported the claims of Cromwell, et al, to the King so well that it persuaded the King to marry, an enormous undertaking, and then, when his lack of attraction to her became infamous, it became renowned for being an example of portrait painting distorting the truth.

    This is a miniature of Anne, perhaps painted by Holbein as well, in it she seems more real, even sparkier, but still with those half-lidded eyes, calmly level headed and patient. The perfect queen, if only Henry had realised it.

I'm deeply considering doing an OCA course in writing. What I've seen on the website is encouraging. I suppose I just want what I write to be better. I generally feel like I'm feeling my way around a dark room at the moment, but that I'm sometimes blinded by brilliant white light, which, though it should give me hope, just serves to confuse me further, leaves me blinking with only the hazy outline of my brief glimpse to comfort me.
I've been really encouraged by the last few days that I've spent writing longhand, I've written around seven thousand words and it seems to make better sense than doing it on the computer. But now my arm aches!
I guess I want to wait until I've exhausted that subject, that what might turn into a novel, might actually turn into a novel if I don't let myself become distracted from it, and only then. Maybe I should wait a little, do what I'm doing now and try the course when it's finished. Because I know what courses do, they change you, and the me that writes afterwards won't be the me that writes now. In some ways I feel that the me that writes now is a little bit precious, terribly innocent and probably susceptible to all kinds of cliches and boring notions, but yesterday I found myself writing about sanitary towels and I had no idea that I was going to do that. It actually got quite traumatic. But it was funny at the same time. I've never read about that experience anywhere else so that's why I feel that I'm on to an interesting thing. And I don't want to stop myself while I'm enjoying it.

Rachel from 'Chips'