Pre the intro, re the intro…
I have to thank all those who brought me to this point, where I’m so keyed up I’m gagging on my words. It’s been so long since I escaped out into print you see.
Of course the first one’s for the big one- Mr Big Himself- GOD. I can literally and most sincerely say that I wouldn’t be either sitting on this plane NOW nor sitting here later on the same planet, writing down a word by word resume of what I think about the whole enchilada, if it weren’t for his initial impetus. I could quote from some of the stuff I’ve served up to him over this last half century and at a rate not adjacent to time and a quarter but it’s mostly dry and dusty and unopened- only joking.
So goddam touchy, I’m not complaining. Don’t worry.
But there honestly was no bloody response. I’m just not complaining about it.
One Monday morning he switched the light on and Lo! A hundred million billion years later or so I’m patching into my state of the art lappy. Blooming marvellous! If I’m not too unlucky I might get some moments of fame as well as some euros for my trouble haha ….
We’ll soon at that crucial topic sentence folks, where the first pungent whiff gives you a starting point. It gives you a choice; have I got an urge to continue or to race off to the little room. I’m going to say, for the sake of argument, that it started once upon a time. Now that doesn’t mean that it really did start there or then but we gotta pick a spot to dance round. We can’t keep wandering on and on looking for a place to shake hands and begin our duel to the death.
It’s not that kind of story atch: I mean it’s not a fairy tale set in modern times …
Spose I mean that there is/are more than one beginning to the story and so to focus on one is a partial fallacy. It might start when I’m born or my parents or theirs and then by procession of events all back to my father in law Adamdamnman. So you see that is a problem if you know at the same time I’m trying to be accurate and “Tell the Truth” …
It started a long time ago when I was in Miss Blenkinsop’s Junior class. We had extra writing to do because someone had crapped behind the bike sheds again- and nobody would own up this time. It had to be dredged out somehow …
You see I’m doing the bit where the fatted calf returns with his/her pockets bulging with wealth and all the rest except, I’m still thin and my pockets are visibly slack and my moods one approaching exasperation at how many times my delivery’s been marked to follow; but I’m game enough to pick my time and place with my mobile and to go out there to get another few shots. You’d think that by now I’d be writhing on the floor at the number of times I’ve been given the runaround but I do enjoy a challenge: And I do my share of writhing, I assure you …
– I just want to know why the person who did it, did it. None of us was going to fall for that one Miss. We’d been done that way many times before …
– If someone thinks that they know who did it- or who might have done it- I’ll be looking at the reports again… she let that one hang for a moment like a wriggly worm. Might get a taker there. Lots of time to kill before afternoon break. If she let us have it at all. I put my hand up.
– Miss I think I might know something. Her eyes swivelled to lock on mine: I practiced calm empty mind, the only way …
– My little Nemo. Good boy. I can see another A* coming up. Damn those to damnation who go against the spirit of the rule of law. That’s what we say isn’t it Nemo?
I had to keep quiet for that. I looked as worried as I dared. This would need confirmation. Would anyone else follow my lead?
– I was round there this morning when I locked my bike and I thought I saw a shadow of someone in the long grass, Miss. How fresh was it, Miss?
That would make her think a bit. What could she say? Kids always found this subject fascinating.
I looked away to the window to take a deep breath of relief. She must think I’m pondering deeply on that mythical shadow in the long grass. I’d noticed traces of movement- some flattened down patches-when I’d actually looked to check how the hoopoe nestlings were getting on. So in my mind I panned over the area focussing on my empty mind: Don’t let her see those little birdies …
Her eyes swept the room. Now was the moment for divine intervention or we’d miss our ten minutes in the sunshine. I had to keep a lid on the feeling or she’d react to that too. Empty mind, empty mind. Then someone spoke …
– Sorry to interrupt you Sir. Would you like a drink? Bloody Hell. The hostess had arrived. I was miles away. And years away. That was travelling indeed! Wish I could market it somehow- make a fortune. At least. Maybe several habloodyhaha …
I picked something hot for now and something cold for later on. She decided to leave both now to save me waiting for someone to come round again. I sipped from each in turn. Seemed a good idea. My mind was drawn back down through the years but it was like the Time Tunnel. It ended up in a slightly different crossroad of spacetime each time round.
Confused? You will be! I sure was/am …
Part the First ~ In the beginning are the words…
Here I am then flying on a plane and sitting on the ground at the same time! Talk about confusing! It’s all relative tho as dear old Uncle Albert said, is the earth moving or only the cart? The plane journey is safely in the past now, all done and dusted. I’m sitting later on collecting the bits and pieces together and making them into a pile for the bonfire this evening. ( set fire to the day’s work at nightfall each day. The start of each evening’s celebrations- I find it helps me the next day to start with a fresh pile of paper … )
I’m returning to my origins of course as we all do sooner or later if we’re really lucky, so I tell myself. (Or unlucky son!) I’ve been away far too long- of course I’ll admit that first. Now when should I say that and to whom? Dad? The ostensible Head of Family. That will please him no end I hope. I’ll say how I wish I’d had the courage to do as you did, to grit your teeth and stay. I’ll say… yes I’ll say I ran off to safety and here I’m back and also big enough to admit it. I’m grown up enough for that now. Be open and honest, got nothing to hide. I’m wondering when I got the idea to leave anyway; when I decided to evade the encroaching nets. When I noticed it. When was it … roughly …
If I think back hard I can just about remember it first whacking into me one day like a train. At school a few years later and there I was sitting idly in a science lesson: Sir was banging on about dear Old Isaac, bless him, starring in one of those cameo roles, going through his laws of motion- discovering them over again. All of them. Three apples, three laws count the bumps 1,2,3. Now I’m sure I’m not alone in having had to learn to develop a sort of coping apparatus for processing gump like they dumped onto me/you/us at regular intervals. For some reason Newton’s laws seemed to keep returning under various file names, in different connexions again and again during those long years when I was first condemned to serving time inside schoolrooms …
It was something that we had all sure as Hell had to get used to right from day uno, absolutely had to I say, obeying orders conveyed from on high; however contradictory and confusing they seemed to our uninformed, naïve minds, it was important to follow and obey them without question. There was no more dangerous cry to get both Sir and Miss on your back than for someone to accuse you of ‘not following orders’.
– Nemo, just do it lad! Paint it, white first then back to black. White. Black. What I say when I say. Now please. Jump. Sit. Write. Run.
I hear again a selection of some of my favourite phrases from yesteryear. It’s just like when I stroll down memory lane with my old dansette playing vinyl. They have an annoying habit tho these phrases, in that every now and then one of will interrupt my scheduled times for r’n’r- in other words they haunt my night and I wake up sweating again. I hear them uttered generations later and I wonder if they are having any effect that I no longer notice …
From our earliest days at school, we did just what we were told and learnt what we were told. No more, no less. After that, what we did with their facts and the information, after we had passed our tests, was entirely up to us. It was as if the stuff itself was “value free” and of no intrinsic worth, after it learnt us good grades. Unfortunately, one day I heard someone jokingly call out one of my absolute favourites, as I passed on my way to my next feeding lesson at the troughs of knowledge:
– Inwardly digest you little bastard!
Some of this gump has been swimming around in my mouth since then for a long time now and you might say I’m fed up. What’s more my jaw’s sore. Chew, chew, chew.
– Don’t bolt your food, Laddie. Chew it carefully, and get the goodness out.
So good boy me, I chewed it and chewed it very carefully and diligently indeed and I’ve come up with this bolus in my mouth.
– Spit it out laddie. Don’t be shy. Come in and sit down. We won’t bite. Well not all of us, haha…only Miss Blenkinsop and she’s outside- looking for you I hear! Hahaha, only joking. Like to see you jump. Not really. Have some rooibos tea. It’s good and strong by now.
So. There I sat a good boy amid others repeating my first day again, still gazing with open adoration at them, the present masters and mistresses of my newest universe, reminding me somehow of previous ones in my past. I’d brought along some of my certificates and diplomas as I’d been told, to prove that I had learnt enough while I was having my batteries charged up to scratch. God, this new job takes me back to years ago, when I was being prepared for this second leg of this lifelong journey I embarked on at birth. My last first day at school. Day Uno as a resident warder I was returning to my previous haunt…
I’d like to get on with the main point but it seems that my timetable says otherwise, as right at the beginning, I’m breaking my journey for a moment, to stretch my legs and get some air into my lungs. Starting with a free period! what luck! I’ve got to set the scene, give you a bit of background as they say. So start with the scenery. The place. Person, place, event. The Unities- thanks Sir for reminding me ….
But what about me then? I’m the host and it would be very remiss of me not to at least try to make you welcome. You won’t relax and sit back to listen to the sound of my voice, unless you feel a little more secure, or less insecure, safe and warm in my company.
I recognise this current way station, to be a bog-standard staffroom, which has put in many years of distinguished service. Probably due to get a plaque soon. It’s ironic, you know where I’m forced to pause for a breath of fresher air, at this tiny halt in an insignificant dorpihood, in this staff waiting room perilously poised just outside the outskirts of our glorious civilisation, could near enough be a clone of one belonging to the very same school I was sentenced to spend those wasted years of my youth. Auspicious or what?
Overcome with emotion I stumble to the balcony and drag down some murky air into my heaving chest. It’s such a relief at being outside for a while so that despite feeling dizzy, I am also sorely tempted to jump the fence and pour forth in song! Now that wouldn’t do on my first day here. I’ve got this monster debt to repay to society that’s why. They’re not that desperate they’ll allow me to skive off … No Way!
Bloody Hell! I nearly got carried away there, nearly lost it. Better not let it happen again. It’s these little tastes of freedom though, now and then, that will tend to set me off. I know that you never can get enough once you’ve been incarcerated. Funny that. The wanting to sing I mean. Like a dove. Yes, I volunteered to return for a special offer for a limited period trial term! Am I mad? However much they pay me! Howls of derision I hear from you! Lamb to the slaughter. Tell me to take their money and scarper. I let them pay me a joining fee too, so now of course I’m utterly hooked in John Lee …
I take my cup of murky tea and look for someone to talk to or alternatively, just somewhere to sit. Thinking back in time as I go round the room looking at how little has changed, I can’t say that I remember a lot of what I did and occupied myself with, during my long first stretch; but I do know that almost all of my time I was wearing short trousers. I was probably sitting there one sunny day before the war, pretending to be at least fairly professional; in other words if challenged I could repackage the last sentences; well more like regurge actually. Depended a bit on Sir’s mood that was, because erratically he suffered whims of having to scourge those apparently staring back cheekily at him; but if you took the right tack downwind, a cunning plan might deflect the divine flood of his wrath- ten cents to a pound some other poor bugger’d would get an asteroid/piece of chalk in their ear instead …
Someone just had to. It was the nature of the game. It seemed that every day someone had to suffer slow torture in that dirty stinky science lab, always smelling of chemicals, where schoolboys were- even then when doing A levels- usually quite sensibly thinking hard about something completely different …
– Bloody Hell! I ejaculated quietly under my breath- transported hundreds of thousands of light years from far reaches of deep space. Hundreds of thousands of light years I swear. What if Isaac’s ideas about motion referred to people as much as they did to atoms and molecules? People remained at rest or were persuaded to move an kept in straight lines until stopped by friction or obstacles- the first law. If acted on by a force people changed direction in response to that force- the second. This action produced an equal and opposite reaction- the third. I had to have time to think this out. Had I even got the nub of it?
– Something you’d care to share with us, young man? His tone laced across my cheek drawing blood. He’d been trying to nail me for a while, on and off; unsuccessfully so far. Go on the counter attack.
– Only me stomach, sorry Sir I think someone’s been at the phenolphthalein in the Dorms. It’s only a rumour, mind…
His face darkened, him being responsible for the dangerous chemicals in stock and parents always writing to the Brigadier to complain about their sons’ run of runs at the vaguest whimper. He grimaced at me.
– Permission to skive off. Here’s a pass. Go see Matron. Find out if it’s true and if it is, I may let you off your detention.
– But Sir, I did all my work. Every bit and the diagrams. Took me hours.
– Pence you mean. So you say. I think you paid Fraser. I recognise his lettering. I’m a scientist. Point taken? And you don’t even stay in the Dorms anymore … now voetsak/get lost! He waves me away …
I left before he laid into me any more. I went and looked through Matron’s window; she signalled me to return in ten minutes. She must have been having a smoke break. I sat on a bench in the Quad. I had a note and could plead an attack of waves of nausea- if anyone queried.
I practised several pained expressions and brooded awhile on my bench in the shade …
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