A hasty wind slams trees and howls around corners. Time is in a hurry. Rushed time easily escalates to a hurricane which whips you and whisks you up if you are not strong enough to hold your course. Racing time takes no solid form, it moves too fast – violent time, violent times – it shapes you, tears at you and wears you. It is just as vicious when time freezes and stays fixed. When it leaves you unable to think or blink, moment after moment melt into one single point that pierces your mind and body and nails you to the ground. This is the bright white pain of time – its shape shifts constantly, and you are a ragdoll caught in its throws and turns. Only fleetingly will you feel the notion of a steady time flow, tumbling and rolling in sweeping circles and cycles and spirals of ever changing yet recurring motion. When this happens and you are able to hang on and effortlessly float along, you are unaware of the beauty of that experience until it is too late and the feeling is gone and you are torn out of it and you crash.
Even in hilly countries, fields can be flat. Sometimes a big tree is left alone in the middle of an open space. If it stands proudly on top of a burial mound, it has once been nourished by a king of old. Not all trees are this lucky in life. A tree in a field that has no mound to call its own, is just a tree. «Just a tree?» You will have to excuse that phrase. Sometimes beauty is all it takes to prevent a tree from being cut down and killed. The silver birch is such a tree. There is a type of birch actually called silver birch, which this is not. Or maybe it is – but if so, it is not important. Silver birch is simply a massive, lonely tree in the middle of a flat field. The kind of tree you know is much older than you, and at least ten times wiser if only it could think and speak. Trust me – you will know it if you ever meet a true silver birch.
A tree has roots, a trunk and thick branches, as well as ever more slender arms and fingers that sprout outwards from the tree trunk like a lush flower greeting the morning sun in summertime. When a birch is large and old, its branches droop and weep in the way of a willow’s. Silver birch stands firm and tall, but makes a humble and apologetic gesture to its surroundings. It could never be the kind of tree that would choose to shout.
Without making a sound, winter names this most regal of trees. As snow silences the otherwise buzzing and crawling earth, frost creates glittering freeze-frames that stick in your mind. Playing with its frozen snapshots, winter tricks you with the little light there is. At the end of a short day when the bleak sun is about to fall over the edge of the world, the tree left alone in the middle of the field slowly turns silver. Each tiny snowflake that covers the tree shimmers and flickers, and tries to escape into the blue light of dusk. Coated in a thin layer of ice, the silver birch’s thick trunk looks fragile and about to shatter at any moment – weighed down and pushed deep into the snow. Throughout the night, pale moonlight polishes the silver birch until it shines as brightly as the nearest star in the sky. Only well into the next morning when the sun once again pushes the moon out of the way, cold air no longer clings to the branches and all the precious metal melts away.
*fires up chainsaw* … Oh, sweet lord of mercy – what has twitter done to me.
Some cafés are hip, where the staff look like rock stars. Some cafés are inviting, where they play soft music to create a cozy atmosphere. Other cafés are sad. I once worked in a sad café. When I say sad, I do not mean it ironically. I mean sad. Heartbreaking. A meeting place for lonely people who never actually meet, where each guest sits at a table on their own staring into space for hours over a cup of coffee or a beer. The Sad Stop was located upstairs in a smallish shopping centre – one of those shopping centres that never have all the things you need, only about half. The whole point of a shopping centre disappears when you still have to run up and down the high street looking for the rest of the shops you need. I do not like shopping centres much, I prefer smaller individual shops. Either one or the other, I think. Anyway. Usually, this shopping centre would be a ghost town about two hours before closing time. Except for McDonalds downstairs, and the café upstairs. The cool kids hung out at McDonalds. The misfits hung out at the café.
I worked alone on many dead evenings. Teenagers did not like us much, because the café had a strict policy of «buy something or get lost, punk!». Only the most obnoxious ones came to see us, and threatened to wait for us when we had closed up for the night, to beat us up. This was a small town. They never actually waited for us. Which I could not help but think was a little bit silly of them, as we each night carried a bag with the day’s cash through the city centre to drop it off in the bank’s safe on the seaside strip. I did say I worked alone a lot, right? Those kids were clearly not very opportunistic. They were obviously not as bad as they appeared to be either. This is the more important point: being a teenager in a small town sucks.
There were some lovely people who visited the café. Most of them were regular visitors, which gave me all the joys of learning to know their preferences. The man who wanted extra pickles on his burger was always shocked that I remembered from one time to the next. Old ladies loved the fact that I quite liked to chat while I served them, they all reminded me of my grandmother who I missed very much. I used to ask them questions that gave them the opportunity to talk about more than the weather, which meant I was instantly considered their trusted friend. Forever and ever. The local alcoholics drank their beer silently and alone, and never bothered anyone. This was at a time when cafés still had a smokers’ section and a non-smoking section. The smokers’ section was the best, as it had all the windows. Sometimes people complained about this. They wanted to sit by the window, but did not like the smoke. What can I say – it was a small town, where people bitched about the little things. There was one woman who was always in a rush and had her lunch salad at our café every day – she never failed to treat me like scum. I punished her by making her remind me that she did not want any salad dressing. Every single day she had to repeat it to me. She must have thought I was incredibly stupid, when I was simply young and angry but old enough to know how to keep the anger to myself.
That year, the winter was one of the coldest we had seen in a decade or so. There was a lot of snow, and wind made the snow drift – causing chaos every morning as cars and buses got stuck in the middle of town. The council had to hire farmers from the surrounding area to remove all the snow – tractors were used in addition to the regular snow removal vehicles. What are those vehicle-thingys called? That is irrelevant – what I am trying to say is that the homeless junkies had nowhere to go. I do not like the word junkie. I think it is a derogatory term, but as soon as I say it you know exactly what I mean. So I am using it, like most people do. Anyway, the junkies had nowhere to go because the hospice was a depressing place where they only stayed at night in order not to freeze to death. The café at the train station where they usually hung out was closed (again), and another new owner was refurbishing it in order to attempt a «new» concept that would inevitably fail a couple of years down the line.
Because their usual hangout was shut, the junkies came to us instead. They only came when my boss was not there – he used to ask them to leave, which I could never quite understand: They always bought coffee, they did not bother anyone, were polite, you know – they were café guests for fuck’s sake. Paying guests, not like the groups of teenagers who only asked for a free glass of water and behaved in a much more intimidating manner. Unfortunately, a couple of the junkies regularly stole stuff from the shopping centre shops, so the security guys kept kicking them out. And so did my boss, he said they scared other guests from visiting us. This was bullshit – they were not scary at all, except from that one guy who I think had some kind of mental condition and was quite unpredictable. But he was never there unless he had his friends with him, and I always thought they would calm him down if it all became a bit too much. I never felt threatened.
One of the junkies was a woman in her forties. She was also one of those regularly picked up by the police for shoplifting at the shopping centre. The first time she came to the café on a quiet evening, I was not alone. There were two of us working, for some reason (there really was no need – the place was practically deserted). As the shopping centre was so quiet, we had been lazy – on a couple of tables there were some cups and plates I had not cleared away yet. The woman picked up one of the used cups, and came up to the counter asking for a re-fill. The café did that thing where the re-fill cost less, a symbolic sum in a futile attempt to hide the fact that the first cup was ridiculously expensive. My colleague was in the kitchen, she was not there to see. The woman who had asked for a re-fill had already put the exact money by the till. The cup she was holding had lipstick on it, from the guest who had been drinking from it an hour earlier. I gave her a clean cup and charged her the re-fill price. She had been very nervous, but happily relaxed and thanked me with a huge smile when the transaction was completed. She then quietly sat down at a table by the window in the smokers’ section and drank her coffee. It became our thing. She would come to the café in the evening about an hour before closing time, pick up a used cup and ask for a re-fill. I would give her a clean cup of coffee at the re-fill price. It was an enjoyable conspiracy. It was our thing. No fuss. I remember I was surprised by the amount of sugar she used to put in her coffee. Heaps of it.
I once worked alone on Christmas Eve. All my guests that evening were men in their 40s and 50s who ordered beer and sounded lonely. I should add that Norway celebrates Christmas on the 24th. Dinner that night is the big family happening. As you know by now, this café was not a pub – but a soulless place which had that «last stop» kind of feel to it. All my Christmas guests were alone, and wanted to talk to me. I heard a few life stories that day. When the café closed, each one of the guests went home alone. I was very happy to see my family that night. But I digress – my memories may be sparked by the Christmas season, but I do not mean to talk about Christmas itself.
As I said, that winter was particularly cold. One evening when I was working alone, the regular group of seven or eight junkies sat in the smokers’ section, waiting for night-time when they had nowhere else to go but the hospice. I came out from the kitchen when I saw that two of them had moved to a different corner, closer to where I was standing. One of them looked like he was dying, he was incredibly pale and I thought he was going to pass out. I was about to go over to ask if they needed help, when I realised he only really needed a fix – he was pale and sweating and almost collapsing from abstinence. And I saw the other guy discreetly cooking up. He gave the one in trouble a shot. I pretended I had not seen anything, I had never seen anyone shooting up before and was quite taken aback. The pale guy sort of stabilised, and they all said good night and left as usual when I closed up. Nobody else but me saw the shooting up. I mean, no other guests, apart from their friends who knew, of course. They had been very polite and quiet about the way they did it, so I did not say anything. Small towns are just as harsh as big cities, if not worse. People do not just hate you for something that has long been out of your control, they call you by your name as they ask you to get lost. This happened a long time ago. I wonder how many of those friends are still alive.
I make the café sound like a depressing place, I know. When I think back however, I have a lot of good memories from there. I learnt a lot about people, and had my first meeting with the Animal Farm tendencies that a successful welfare society always has embedded on some level. Never since have I had quite as many interesting conversations with otherwise invisible people.
I asked people on Twitter to send me their favourite words. Fifty tweeters responded to my request within the one hour deadline, and the story below is the result of their replies.
I must admit, this project ended up being a bit of a challenge for me. Quite a few Twitter folk are fond of tongue twisters, it seems. I am pretty sure I have used some words in the wrong way and that it is a bit forced in some places, but this was meant as a writing exercise and the list of words was perfect for that. I wrote it all in one night, so I am happy with the result.
I share my favourite English word with one of my contributors, and it is the simple but powerful ‘book’. This word describes something I love, it shares its origin with the Norwegian word ‘bok’, and it has a solid quality when said out loud: ‘BOOK’. It sounds like ‘fuck’, only with more mind and slightly less body.
THANK YOU to everyone who kindly shared their favourite word with me:
@Mattwellsted74, @SafP, @JonLeeWriter, @Stewzer, @CathyReadsBooks, @Jurassic_Dan, @angusprune, @H1TCH_, @keewa, @Hemeloid, @CiaranM87, @MrBoffly, @Aitch_ess, @and_armstrong, @j_d_willis, @LordAndKuro, @shirlywirly, @FrizFrizzle, @booktrunk, @PatrickDeWitte, @wellybadger, @DrBizzarro, @booksellerpete, @Sausage_Wa11et, @Teagy63, @JallenTightrope, @death_stairs, @joeloverton, @Mors_Kajak, @foxyinthebox, @Alien_Orifice, @AdamSwainston, @Jo_Bell, @jeannedesutun, @Shilts84, @salcoops, @Unikentpvcext, @Contact_Light, @ducksandchucks, @justcallmelenny, @NiceHandwriting, @SamWilson1, @ejbreezenelmes, @utterben, @Bones_And_Moans, @gdorean, @Si_1, @PenguinGalaxy, @Davida_in_KSA and @book_lover72. @John_Self retweeted me and sent people my way, but did not submit his own favourite word. He will have to do with yours.
… Now read the story and look out for your favourite word. Happy word hunting, everyone!
AVALANCHE
«Here, take a look at your breasts. Do you see the shadow here? And there, and there?» The doctor was young and ambitious, the kind who goes for post-jentacular runs every day and practices each piece of health advice he ever preaches. He used a pen to point at the scan. A blue biro, Hannah noticed – a functional pen. None of that heavy my-pen-is-my-professional-identity-I-am-an-important-lawyer-Fountain-bluff-stuff in this doctor’s office, oh no. Clinical. Efficient. Nothing flashy, but it does the job perfectly. Biro. «… Miss Leigh?» She had drifted off, as if her brain refused to take in what she was being told. Now she snapped out of it, exhaled heavily and nodded. She could sense that the palms of her hands suddenly had gone cold and moist to the touch. «Yes,» she finally managed to squeeze through her throat, «I see the shadows. All of them. How bad is it?»
She had left the building, but still felt she needed to escape the miasma of the doctor’s office. Walking as fast as she could without breaking into a run, with her eyes fixed on the ground ahead of her feet, she made her way through the town streets and across the seaside strip, down to the seafront. The tide was out, the rocks where water hit land were covered in barnicles and seaweed. Driftwood clung to land’s edge, but the constant rhythm of lazy waves kept pushing and pulling at the broken branches – they did not quite get up on dry land, at the same time they were not pulled out to sea. Hannah’s lips were dry and numb. She licked them slowly and felt the cooling sensation of salty sea wind. Looking up and out at the horizon, she felt herself breathing again. The panic that had hit her as she was leaving the doctor’s office slowly left her body. «I am being pushed and pulled like driftwood», she thought. «The important difference is that I am not completely dead and helpless like rubbish is. I can fight this. I am not a driftwood corpse just yet.»
As she had taken a sick day from work anyway, Hannah returned to the nursery where she had left her little boy only a couple of hours earlier. She felt a sudden urge to see him now, her lovely Nugget, and he was ecstatic to have his mother take him to the park playground. Fighting for the daycare staff’s attention could never be better than a whole day with Mummy. Hannah sat down on a bench next to the playground. She looked on as Nugget got to work in the sand pit, happily digging through the layer of sand and into the mud underneath. There was already a huge mud stain on his right trouser buttock, but Hannah did not mind. In fact, she did not quite notice. She was already drifting off again, mumbling to herself in a way which made passer-byes glance over at her curiously as they pushed their prams along the path. Hannah’s soliloquy was casuistic in argument, with the bitter tone of a vehement misanthrope. Gloom had set in, and she was quietly arguing with herself about what had happened to her and why. Not until Nugget shouted «squeeeeewheeeeeel!» as a squirrel sprung up a tree next to the sand pit, did she once again snap out of it and thought that perhaps they should go to the town zoo or something. They did, and apart from passing thoughts of jumping off bridges and handing Nugget over to Social Services to get it over and done with, they had a lovely day and arrived home in the blue light of gloaming. Hannah had won some gewgaw at the zoo’s tiny funfair, and Nugget was full of sugar and images of monkeys. Yes, it had been a lovely day.
«I’m not just being a curmudgeon, Kate. I have the right to be at least a little bit disgruntled, don’t you think? Don’t you get it?! They are going to cut my breasts off. My breasts! That’s the plural form, Kate! What kind of woman am I left as when my tits are gone, eh?» Hannah grinned frantically and stared at her best friend. They were at their end of the night’s dinner, in the middle of dessert. Hannah had told Kate everything about the day’s visit to the doctor’s, the haze afterwards, the squirrel in the park, the zoo, and how putting Nugget to bed earlier that evening had been emotional on a whole new level. Kate was not only Hannah’s colleague and best friend from their time at university. She was also the only person on this planet – apart from the doctor and Hannah, of course – who knew about the day’s diagnosis. Now the two friends were sat on Hannah’s couch with what must be called a plethora of canned lychee and ice cream, polishing off their second bottle of wine. Kate looked back at Hannah with a half-smile, trying to figure out if she could follow up on the dark joke or if that would be going too far – even for the two of them. «Can’t they make a breast… Breast… Gusset, or something? You know – to hold it all together still and make your tits stronger?» she finally heard herself say – and broke into a hysterical laughing fit as soon as she had finished the question. It was all too sad, and the tasteless jokes were exactly what the situation demanded. They both laughed and cried and tried to keep the noise down - «shhhh – we’ll wake little Nugget!». Kate stood up and made an excaggerated terpsichorean trip to the kitchen to get a third bottle of wine. «You can dance your illness, like some people in weird cults dance their names. It could be your cartharsis,» she said dramatically and pulled a face. Hannah giggled, dried her tears and finished her bowl of lychee. She grimased. «This syrup is way too sweet. I think we’ll go with pears next time.» They were over the worst part of the conversation. They both fell silent as the night dressed in a halcyon atmosphere. «Seriously, though», Kate said as she returned to the couch with the new bottle of white wine, «it’s possible to conceal information about these kinds of operations nowadays, isn’t it? Nobody at work needs to know what’s going on.» Hannah thought for a moment before she replied. «The treatment will make me ill. I’ll have to be away from work, I’ll have to tell Pete what’s going on. It’s not like I’ll promulgate it, but it would feel mendacious not to let people know what’s going on. I mean – people will talk no matter what, so-». She broke off for a second before she concluded; «I mean, this thing can kill me. Losing my breasts are simply concomitant circumstances.» Kate cocked her head and smiled at her best friend. «Pete’s made you read a lot of reports this week, hasn’t he.» Hannah looked confused. «Hm? What do you mean?» «You are quite sesquipedalian this evening, my sweet.» «Sesqui-what?» «Ha, the way you talk I’m surprised you don’t know? … I’m teasing you, silly – you talk like the reports at work, or like that client from last summer. You know – the crazy guy from the council who kept throwing words like ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ into the conversation. He was quite the antediluvian troubadour, I’ll have you know.» Hannah giggled. «I kind of liked him» she said absently, as she was trying to remember why.
Kate had lingered on the doorstep for a little while before she left that night. They were both quite drunk and neither really wanted to be alone. Looking up at the stars in the sky, they philosophised over how small they were when considering the galaxy, and how the total sum of all ephemeral joys of life were really just a tiny blip on some insignificant radar – all things considered. As they hugged each other good night, Kate quoted some bosh ‘Eat, Sleep, Feel’-kind of book she had read lately: «’…Youuu are my kith and kin, my frieeend and my sister. The elixir of life is mellifluous…’ – and I love you very, very much. Good night, sweetness. I’ll call you tomorrow.» They held each other for a little bit longer than usual that night. All important words and silly words and useful words were said, and what was left was all that mattered.
Hannah stumbled into the bathroom, to get ready for bed. She stood in front of the mirror and saw a pale and exhausted young woman looking back at her. «Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore’» She mumbled to her own reflection, only half-committed – her voice trailed off as she inspected her eyes, trying to see if they showed any indication of the illness that threatened her. The sensation of life seeping out of her made her feel like she was losing her mind. She thought she remembered a snippet from a nightmare she once had – was there a devil in there somewhere? There was definitely some kind of ungulate. She tried hard to remember, but all she was left with was a mixture of pure terror and feeling strangely discombobulated. Her heartbeats were slow and felt sharp enough to crack her ribs. The dress she had been wearing was now in a heap on the bathroom floor – her gaze had moved to the breasts she could see in the mirror. Her breasts, which had fed her son and given joy to her lovers. She could feel the sickly sweet lychee syrup fighting its way back up her esophagus. With a jolt she collapsed over the sink and vomited. Crouched like that, with the spell of the mirror broken, she let all her anger and sadness gush out of her through tears, snot, vomit and spit – she screamed without making a sound, and an esoteric realisation hit her like a blacksmith’s hammer falls heavily on the anvil: Yes, this is what it feels like to know that you are mortal. Memento fucking mori.
pins poke my heart
punch tiny holes that bleed
drip drip droplets of blood
leave my body in need
pins prod my mind
burst the bits that are sane
throb throb thoughts disappear
replaced by blinding pain
pins pierce my eyes
I was already blind
cut cut colours turn dark
forever left behind
pinned to a wall
no use
I still fall
Float across the water
in search of strength.
Lamb to the slaughter.
Travel through time, by sea on a winter’s night. Look! an old wall at the seafront. Low barracks behind the wall. A lawn opens up at the back of the barracks. Stubborn bramble narrows the garden path. Up the worn stone steps lies the rose garden. Here young lovers meet in the belvedere to find it too cold and damp for true romance. Further up the steps is the beast garden. Hedges hide frozen gargoyles, perched on top of their tall columns. Find the spot where you escape the beasts’ stare, and stand there if you dare. Your reward for defetaing the beasts is to disappear. No? Climb the stairs to the top lawn. On the top lawn a castle sits heavily – viewing the sea, guarding the space between. Inside, winding stairs run all the way to the roof and a ghost leaves behind a faint scent of lavender. Whispering winds rush through the gun room and rattle bolted doors. Upstairs is a library hushed by thick carpets. Under each window is a ledge, wide as an altar, a stone slab for a windowsill. The castle is cold as of old, but modern times caught up with it somehow and heaters were placed under the flat stones – warming them up and making the ledges appear softer and more welcoming than they really are. The window in the far corner of the dimly lit library is the best. Curl up on the warm windowsill and leave everything behind. Encased by the keep, protected from winds and ghosts and beasts. Fall away – sleep.
(Dear Reader: This is a piece of fictional writing)
—————————————————————————————————-
Little Note 2
It was too hard. I have left.
Be angry with me for giving up.
The dead have no regrets.
Ask me why.
The dead have no agenda.
Wish you could turn back time.
The dead are released from what ifs.
Cry for me if you must.
The dead are not sorry.
I am gone.
The dead do not return to life.
Let me go.
She lowers the coffee cup from her lips and looks up at him. He knows that look – something important is coming. Whatever she is about to say to him is going to mean something. His response will matter.
- Do you love me?
Oh, crap. Please, not that. Why does she ask? Why does she have to ask?
- Of course I love you. You know that.
She does not seem convinced. He looks around the kitchen, as if he is searching for an excuse to leave the room, but it is too late. He walked in, after all. He resigns and sinks down on the chair opposite her. Her eyes are now fixed on a sticky smudge on the kitchen table. She scrapes slowly at the smudge with her fingernail. Bad sign.
- Why do you love me?
He sighs. He knows this conversation. Is it not enough that he shows that he loves her? Do they have to discuss it like it is a fucking book club topic?
- Do I need a reason? You know I love you.
- I need to know why. You never tell me why.
His gaze wanders. They should have replaced that old wreck of a cooker, years ago. Two of the hobs still work – she always shrugs and says there are more important things to spend their hard-earned money on. We only count two anyway, she jokes – whose food do we need a third pan for? He loves her to death for this: That she is able to joke about the fact that there is only the two of them. He can not tell her, though. He will never be able to make it sound right. It will only make her cry. He sighs again and looks at the cupboard. The door is open. She never closes the kitchen cupboard, he thinks. She leaves doors open, he closes them. She always leaves doors open. One of her little quirks. He smiles.
- What are you smiling at?
She is looking at him now. He glances at her sideways and smiles again.
- I love the way you leave doors open all the time.
- What?
- Doors. You forget to shut them. Like now, when you got that coffee cup out of the cupboard.
He nods at the cupboard door.
- Look – the only reason that door is not closed is that I have not been near it yet.
- Oh, I have not noticed. Do I always do that?
- Yes. Always.
- I am… Sorry?
He laughs.
- I love you for that. For leaving doors open all the time without realising. It is one of the things I really love about you.
She looks at him. He can see that she gets it. Of course she gets it.
- I love you too.
- I know. Is there any more coffee?
