Wednesday Write-In #77

This week’s words for CAKE.shortandsweet’s Wednesday Write-In were:

warm beer :: ridicule :: double vision :: colt :: connect

This week, a voice and a scenario came straight into my head, and it’s something slightly different from my usual style – or so I think, at least. Let’s see if you agree.

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The Last Drop

I’m laughing when I fall into the kitchen – someone shoved me, but I’ll never know who. The swinging door slaps smack against the panelboard wall and I tumble, bumpidibump, through it.

‘Hey!’ I shout, already half-up from my knee-bashed crouch. ‘Not cool!’ I get ready to turn around and go after them, but something makes me stop. Something catches me.

And it’s then that I see you, perched on the countertop beside the half-open fridge, and you see me too and there’s that look in your eye again, that look, the one you used to get. Before.

‘Warm beer,’ I mumble, nodding at the fridge, and the words come out all sticky and burning, like napalm.

‘Nothing worse,’ you say and your voice is as fresh and shocking as rain in winter despite the fact that I have heard it before, so many times, and in so many different colours.

‘Yeah.’ I pull myself up onto my feet again and make myself swear I will not trip and I yank my fingers through my stupid hair and I start walking toward you like I was planning, all this time, to do it anyway.

‘How’ve you been?’ you ask as I get close enough to close the fridge door. It meets with a soft moist little noise, a flumf sort of noise, one that gets me thinking about other stuff, the sort of stuff that gives me double vision as I imagine the things that could have happened between us but didn’t.

‘How’ve I been?’ I sound so stupid. ‘Fine, I guess. School. The usual. You?’

‘Same,’ you say, tossing back the last of your beer. You still drink the same brand, and your hair is still golden on top and brown around the back of your ears and down your neck and you still move your head like a colt does, like a coiled spring, like you’re ready but you don’t know what for.

‘How’re your folks?’ I clear my throat, trying not to look at you. I don’t know why I even asked about them, because the ridicule still burns like a blowtorch flame, and the tears are all still fresh in my mind and the anger will never die. I remember what they called me and even though they didn’t use the same words to talk about you, I know you suffered too in your own way. You’re in a different school now, one where you can just be you and not a part of us. You put your beer bottle down so gently that it barely makes a tink on the marble.

‘Folks are fine,’ you say, and when you look at me I happen to be looking at you and then our eyes get all mixed up and there’s no escape. There’s the old connect again, the one where I know my heart’s beating in time with your heart and our breathing falls into step like two old friends.

But then, a stumble.

‘I’ve – got to go,’ you say, and you slither down off the counter like a little kid, all elbows and urgency, and you blink and look away and it feels like I’m falling. ‘Enjoy the party, or whatever.’ And then you’re gone.

I pick up your beer bottle and there’s just a tiny dreg left in the bottom of it and so I put it to my lips and drain it, my eyes feeling like two blobs of molten glass and my nose starting to melt inside. I drink back the sour drop, all that’s left, and then I chuck the bottle with all the other empties, and it settles down clinkidiclink among them like a long-lost traveller arriving home, until I don’t know which one is ours any more.

When I get back outside to the party, someone tells me you’ve gone home early, and I pretend that I don’t even care, and everyone is fooled.

Maybe even me, for just long enough to get me through.

 

 

A Big Weekend

Monday mornings usually come all wrapped up in a sense of depression and anti-climax, don’t they? This Monday morning is no different, except in terms of how much worse than normal these anti-climactic feelings are.

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But don’t be concerned. Everything is all right – just about.

All this emotion is a result of (another) surprise party, which was held at the weekend to mark my younger brother’s 30th birthday. It was a wonderful night, attended by friends and family from all over the country and even further afield – one very determined partygoer came all the way from Tobago! – but the best part was that my brother had no idea it was going to happen. It was a huge effort to keep it secret, but everyone managed to pull together and the whole thing worked like a dream. My brother’s fiancée is a miracle-worker. Most of the hard work and organisation fell to her, and she did a marvellous job. It was such a great party that it’s hard to cope with the fact that it’s all over, and there’s nothing to look forward to any more – but we’ll just have to soldier on.

One of the best parts of the night was seeing my brother’s friends again, all the people I remember from his life as he grew up. I hadn’t seen some of them for years, and it was great to see them all again, all of them making their own way in the world and succeeding in their own fields. I was struck once more by how nice my brother’s friends are, and how friendly and supportive (not to mention kind and generous) a bunch of people they are. My brother was amazed by the amount of people who made the effort to attend, and he couldn’t believe so many people actually wanted to be there for him as he marked this milestone in his life. Of course, nobody who loves him was surprised. My brother is a beautiful person, and he is loved far more than he realises, I suspect.

Some of my own friends also attended the party, and I also had a welcome chance to catch up with several others during the day. My husband and I couldn’t turn up at my parents’ house, of course, in case my brother would get a hint that something out of the ordinary was happening, so we had to take refuge in the home of one of my best friends until it was time to get ready for the party. My friend very generously accommodated us (and even cooked us dinner!) and gave us so much tea that we left her house in a faint caffeine haze, which was fantastic. My brother isn’t the only one with wonderful and brilliant friends.

I have often had reason to be thankful for the loving and selfless support given by my friends – there have been things I’ve faced in my life which would have overwhelmed me if not for the solid and dependable bunch of friends I’m lucky enough to have behind me. I’ve had most of them since I was a teenager, so we’re really starting to clock up the years now. My bridesmaid at my wedding was a friend who has been a central part of my life for over twenty-five years! Of course, it’s not all about the support they give me; I hope that I’ve given back as much love and help as I’ve received, and I hope they’d consider me as good a friend as I consider them. (They still want to hang out with me, so I hope that’s a good sign.)

There’s nothing in life that can’t be overcome if you have the steady hand of a friend to hold, and there are few joys which can compare to making and keeping good and loving friends. I have an abundance of blessings when it comes to my friends, and I’m hugely grateful for all of my friendships. So, to all those I’m lucky enough to know as a friend – thank you!

Image: kipper.8m.com

 

 

And So, it Begins Again!

Forsooth, it is Monday, and I’m back at my desk again. Did I miss much?

I was away for the last few days, visiting my parents, and we had a very busy weekend. The excitement kicked off on Friday night with ‘the party of the century’ (allegedly) – a surprise birthday party for my mother, which my father, brother and I have spent the last few months organising. I’m extremely happy to say that it all went off without a hitch, the guest of honour didn’t suspect anything until we all started yelling ‘surprise!’ at her, and a wonderful night was had by all. The surprise was increased by the fact that my mother’s birthday is not actually in October; it’s in March, but a combination of other family events at that time meant that we couldn’t have a party for her back then. I have to admit that the planning of this party was extremely stressful – because, of course, we all wanted it to work perfectly – but every second of the stress and worry was more than worth it. It was wonderful to give my mother such a beautiful and happy evening, surrounded by her family and friends. We had music, we had food aplenty, and we had cake (some of which was baked by me!) My mother is a wonderful woman, of whom I’m extremely proud and who I love very much, and it made me (and the rest of the family) extremely glad to see so many people make the effort to come out to help her celebrate on a freezing cold October night. So, thank you to everyone who helped us to make the night special.

The day after mam’s party, my husband and I called up to visit my parents, and for the first time in my life I wasn’t sure I wanted to look out our back windows, out over the grassy fields that stretch to the horizon behind my parents’ house. This is because those beautiful grassy fields, in which my brother and I and all our childhood friends spent all our days playing, are no more. My parents have been keeping me up to date on the changes over the last few weeks, describing for me how the land-moving machines rumbled in to rip the fields up, and trying to give me an idea of the scale of destruction, but until I saw it for myself, I couldn’t have imagined it. It drew tears, I’m not ashamed to admit it. When I was a child, these fields not only soothed the eye, but they were also a wonderland of playing opportunities – we climbed trees, slopped around in the mud, ran through the tall grass, swung out of the gates, and just rambled for hours ‘up hill and down dale’, aimlessly having fun as only children can.

It wasn’t only my brother and me who used to play there – my father did, and all his siblings did, and my grandfather before them. There was a feature of the landscape known locally as ‘The Bog Well’ which was marked on maps going back hundreds of years, familiar to all of us living in the area – now it’s been destroyed. It’s making me so angry to know that all these memories are now going to be entombed beneath a supermarket, and it makes me twice as angry to think my parents, who are used to living with the comfort of fields stretching out behind them, will now have to live with a huge loading bay right behind their house. But what can be done? Nothing. The fields were sold, permission to build was sought and granted, and that’s that. Progress trundles on.

My father, husband and I walked down to a neighbour’s garden to get a closer look at some of the deep excavation. The machines had cut down about fifteen feet – perhaps more – into the ground, making the garden where we were standing feel like it was teetering on the edge of a cliff. It was like looking down into the deep end of a gargantuan swimming pool.  ‘You know how deep they’ve cut down?’ asked my husband. I, thinking he was talking in terms of feet and inches, said ‘no’.  ‘About five thousand years,’ he replied, looking with disgust at the history that has been lost. That really struck pain into my heart.

The rest of the weekend was great, though – we got to spend time with my family, and that’s always good fun. Today is a Bank Holiday here, so we’ve got an extra day of relaxation before the world kicks in again. After the weekend we had, with the extremes of emotion we went through, we need the extra day, that’s for sure. I hope you’ve all had a good weekend and that you’re all happy, healthy and well. Happy Monday!