Flat Baby Squirrel
by Carol Fenwick
Simon sweeps the floor. He cleans the dirt from the carpets, the lino, the laminate floor. He work his way through each room. From the living room, yellow wood rotting to the core, to the furnishings, red and lemon blue settees that have seen better days, reflecting off the sun's glimmering surface. It is dingy, decaying like it had been inhabited by someone who had much but was inclined to be lazy, leaving much work undone. Black and chiffon curtains are open. There is a picture of a red pinkish tinted rose on the wall. There is an element of prosperity, destroyed by laziness and depressive bouts. He is cleaning up after her. The floors are being wiped bit by bit, mopped with bleach and hot water. Then suddenly, as if captivated by the smell of dinginess, the floors rise above the surface, clenching Simon into a cramped space, rising to the level of the roof. Simon is shrunken into the space. Lightening striking; the sun dim, the black clouds passing over, thunder hammering the night. Kinetic energy passes through bolts of magnetism, karma gone wrong decrepitness and dampness feisty in its almighty utterances of damnation.
Many moons ago, the flat was the site of an infamous bog land inhabited by witches in the sixteenth century. Legend had it that they cast spells and made potions which brought about the deadly fungus that gradually weaved its way through the centuries upon this un-consecrated ground. Whatever wickedness and depravities that were practiced through the black arts had taken on an increasingly sinister turn by the twenty-first century. Now the fungus was morphing and changing shape into people, bringing on the damp in a conspiracy to take over the world.
A squirrel jumps into the flat with a nut in his paws. He turns albino, white with fright. He wanders through the window, scurries all over the floor and the walls. He has the giggles, chattering away like Mickey Mouse on helium, and then morphs into a newborn baby, crying and gurgling, turning back to the squirrel again eating on the fungus, feeding off the damp. The squirrel becomes the landlord prattling on and on about the state of the flat, then back to the baby weeping blood and the albino squirrel chewing on the fungus. He moves around the floor having a boogie to the eighties music from Simon's stereo system, as he sweeps the floor shrinking into the confined space. The squirrel jumps on Simon's shoulder, the hairs on Simon's chin turn curly whirly, the squirrel changes into the baby, Simon goes albino this time jumping into the television where he looks as tiny as a micro chip, hopping about. The fungus tries to move toward the telly, the squirrel jumps, becoming the baby squealing, the housing officer ranting while Simon has escaped into the TV away from the baby, the squirrel and the housing officer for the time being.
The TV is a flat-screen, Samsung 32 inches transmitting free view and terrestrial throughout the day. Simon smiles, happy to escape the fungus and the squirrel knowing that he is part of the technological equipment he worships as a highly technical man who loves his gadgetry, the network boxes, hard drives and any kind of electrical cabling.
His wife is in a hospital bed having her baby. The induction process moves on like an Amazonian sloth, lazily. Baby does not want to come out. She pictures the baby in her mind, and sees images of the flat and a squirrel. In her dream in between labour pains she imagines she is giving birth to a squirrel, called Sam. Sam the squirrel. Her best friend had recently given her a T-shirt with “Little Sam the squirrel” written on. Perhaps that was where the dream originated, somewhere in her subconscious. The thought of giving birth to a squirrel was quite a bizarre one at first then it suddenly dawned on her it wasn’t so strange really in the scheme of weird peculiarities and freaks of nature. She was a freak herself she thought so why should she not give birth to a freak of nature, a white albino squirrel? Then she composed herself, coming out of deep sleep.
“Don’t let them win,” a voice plays in her head. The hospital television is on, it wakes her. Simon will be here soon, she thinks happily. But then she sees him on the screen her husband eaten up by fungus surrounded by the albino squirrel in the most bizarre other worldly environment she has ever seen.
It was like Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory or Alice in Wonderland, or the Wizard of Oz, following the yellow brick road. The path through madness and darkness was long and hard, and seeing Simon standing there in the television screen compressed by the fungus and chased by the squirrel had an extremely surreal feeling to it, which strangely made her feel rather elated. She must have the heeby jeebies, what she was seeing was fantasy made real by the plod plod of the ward sister observing everyone on the ward, the screams of newborns, with the wind whirring, the buzzer that never stopped ringing throughout the night. The hard beds, the scent of only partially made bed linen perforated around. She overheard one of the auxiliaries, dropping a tube of gaviscon, demanding haughtily that a domestic clean it up. Here was grim reality, a world of goodness and kindliness overshadowed by dark echoes from the corridors, of feet tapping, cups of tea being stirred, and the hectic activity of midwives bustling, on hand to tend to any emergencies. With that came the joy of birth, babies screaming into life.
She is on her back, any other way she can't feel comfortable because she will feel the pain in her tummy that can't even be dulled by the pain killers she is taking.. 1Cm, 2cm, 3cm. A fifteen hour labour of love. Her cervix dilates 1cm ever two hours. She wonders when the pain will ever end. Those awful tablets they inserted up her vaginal passage, contractions controlled, timed, and then allowed to escape. She pictures the squirrel in her mind, Sam, the squirrel then this time she sees the flat the baby and the squirrel as one mass morphing from among the fungus. The baby has a look of a telly tubby about him, Tinky Winky La La and Po saying hello “eh oh” Then she hears a weird voice over, it is the albino squirrel squeaking like a telly tubby., “Tetelubbies, teletubbies, say hello” “Eh oh”. Then there appears to be paraphernalia of children programmes, leading them towards a new dimension. There are rainbow skies, George, bungle and Zippy, with Geoffrey going to bed with Bungle dressed in his pyjamas. The baby-faced albino squirrel wriggles around to the sound of hospital radio playing an eighties mixture of “The Power of Love” by Jennifer Rush and “Airport” by The Motors., boogie, boogieing.
She reaches the ten cm required for full labour, pushes for the baby to come out for over an hour. He doesn’t come. Then the C section. She feels nothing but pure joy. The pain over, the epidural worked. The boy screamed, came out of her, her husband in surgical outfit holding her hand, right by her side. Flat baby squirrel with rosy red cheeks and sensitive blue eyes just like his dad. Everything lifted. She remembers him saying how the baby's eyes were the first he had seen as he entered the world. Samuel, Samuel. The hell is over as the midwife produces the baby hidden by the white screen from her eyes. Simon touches her hand. The wind is whirring outside, the paranoid, mental and physical exertion is now over. She lifts a sigh as she comes into recovery.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Boxes
Boxes
She put us all in boxes
Labelled, “fat,” “thin,” “bright” and “dim”.
We were Russian dolls skittling.
Around the cardboard box interiors
We might have been real men and women
Reflected throughout the ages
From antiquity until today
Outside our box little could be seen
Except just the spark of a feeling
Which every now and then
Was either forced or denied
On some occasions truly meant
She stuck the box together with sellotape and spoke
To a man in his forties, who approached the post office.
The man looked off his head, stoned or simply a scab
She stared, glaring and suspicious until
He gave her a bus tripper that would see her into town
Yet still her smile did not melt fully from a spoilt sulky frown
As she held the boxes with the twelve Russian dolls inside
She observed us from every dimension
Said without any sign of comprehension
Opening the boxes slightly to peek in
She noticed the ones of us that were fat and thin
And could just tell which were bright or dim
She saw them on the streets of Middlesbrough
Fitted them to type, by class, by race, by gender
Glancing at the stoned man in his forties, she still stared
Not noticing the truth from inside, outside or around
That he held a Doctorate in Chemistry
He threw it all away on drink and drugs
Now he was homeless, unemployed
On the scrap heap of society
But trying to put his life back in order
He said to the woman with her box of Russian dolls.
“They must be heavy. Do you want a hand with them?”
She walked straight to the Post Office to get it delivered
Giving not a single thought to anything
Except the postage and packaging price she had to pay of £1.20
“Extortionate!” she cried.
She worshipped facts and figures
Though not when the odds were stacked against her
Before posting it she sent them to get weighed
Then took the bus into town, buying more boxes
Labelling each one for every single day
© Carol Ward 2009
She put us all in boxes
Labelled, “fat,” “thin,” “bright” and “dim”.
We were Russian dolls skittling.
Around the cardboard box interiors
We might have been real men and women
Reflected throughout the ages
From antiquity until today
Outside our box little could be seen
Except just the spark of a feeling
Which every now and then
Was either forced or denied
On some occasions truly meant
She stuck the box together with sellotape and spoke
To a man in his forties, who approached the post office.
The man looked off his head, stoned or simply a scab
She stared, glaring and suspicious until
He gave her a bus tripper that would see her into town
Yet still her smile did not melt fully from a spoilt sulky frown
As she held the boxes with the twelve Russian dolls inside
She observed us from every dimension
Said without any sign of comprehension
Opening the boxes slightly to peek in
She noticed the ones of us that were fat and thin
And could just tell which were bright or dim
She saw them on the streets of Middlesbrough
Fitted them to type, by class, by race, by gender
Glancing at the stoned man in his forties, she still stared
Not noticing the truth from inside, outside or around
That he held a Doctorate in Chemistry
He threw it all away on drink and drugs
Now he was homeless, unemployed
On the scrap heap of society
But trying to put his life back in order
He said to the woman with her box of Russian dolls.
“They must be heavy. Do you want a hand with them?”
She walked straight to the Post Office to get it delivered
Giving not a single thought to anything
Except the postage and packaging price she had to pay of £1.20
“Extortionate!” she cried.
She worshipped facts and figures
Though not when the odds were stacked against her
Before posting it she sent them to get weighed
Then took the bus into town, buying more boxes
Labelling each one for every single day
© Carol Ward 2009
Friday, 10 April 2009
Shadows of TIme
Shadows of Time
I stood in the corridor waiting. That was all I ever did in life. "Good things come to those who wait". Was it my uncle Jack who said that or did I hear it when watching an advert for beer on the television? I stifled a muffled laugh. Well uncle Jack's second name was Daniels just like the famous alcoholic beverage. I did not half fancy a drink at that moment, maybe not a Jack Daniels, but a nice pint, no bottle of stella.
Keira, you are at a job interview, the last thing you should be thinking of is your next fix. I might be twenty-eight but I feel like I am going on fifty.
I want it. I want it badly. If I do not get the job I do not know what I will do. I would almost kill for it. In fact I would. Anything is better than returning to the monotony of sleep, booze, puke, sleep, booze, sinking into the shadows of someone who might once have made it big and been special.
So long I have been on and off the wagon. That is what happens when you have nothing else in life; no hope, no job, no prospects".
Now, waiting in the corridor with only a small air vent for light and heating. It felt as if the thin walls were crumbling from within. They were a sickly pasty colour, poorly plastered and in need of repair. They failed to shield you properly from the elements. Water dropped in from the air vent and I felt as if I was experiencing a cold shower. Now I was feeling claustrophobic and started to get the shakes again for the first time in about six months - well ok I am prone to exaggerate a little, maybe three weeks is closer to the mark.
There was a ghostly half-light that descended through the long desolate corridor. God, this reminds me of Jack Nicholson and the scary horror movie "The Shining".
"It is you, Keira, you. Winner of employee of the year 2008. Open the bottle of champagne, Keira, you deserve it! You have waited so long for this incredible success!"
"What? What is going on?"
"Boozy bitch! Boozy bitch!"
It is too hot, I am stifled. Please do not do this to me. I put my hands over my face. Was this someone's ide of a joke?
"Look at me. It is your Uncle Jack. Fancy a drink? Go on, one won't hurt you"
A small bottle of Jack Daniels falls on the floor. "I am not thirsty."
"Drink it! Your Uncle Jack says so."
"Go away!". Uncle Jack vanished but the bottle was still there.
I must be hallucinating. I am palpitating all over.
“You need therapy” I saw a little girl with the face of an angel and holding a teddy in her hand.
That is me as a little girl
Uncle Jack. “You need therapy Keira. You have been a bad, wicked girl.” I could smell the whisky on his breath. I hear the bustle and trundle of feet from upstairs. I see Uncle Jack staring at me with a lopsided smile.
The cold mustiness of this stale foisty corridor had gathered me into a frenzy of frozen unalloyed panic. Uncle Jack was gone but the bottle was still there teasing, tormenting and tantalising me.
I am going to wake up in a second and this will all have been one of those ghastly and weird supernatural dreams.
“Keira, come here darling. Good girl.” Mum’s voice. Uncle Jack: “She cannot see you. You are not there. You are nothing to her.”
“Do I have to spell it out to you?” Uncle Jack holds a newspaper in his hands. He chucks it on the floor. Then there was nothing and no-one, but the hustle and bustle of feet stamping and ghostly clouds of smoke forming.
I am in a dream. But why can I feel my tight skirt pressing against my thighs, sweat dripping off this cleanly ironed blouse".
The bottle was still there and the newspaper seemed to draw me to it. “It cannot be.” I looked at the pages and the date of the paper stared out at me.
“Keira,” a soft yet masculine voice was calling me. “I am Mark Matthews.”
“Hi, oh yes,” trying to appear composed despite everything. “I am Keira Johnson here for the job.”
Mark. “Yes, come in and sit down. So what interest you about working as a secretary for my company?”
I heard the tapping and clatter of those old black typewriters, as if they were chattering away to each other. I murmured something in a half daze.
“Well, you have got the job and a great task to complete.”
Who was this strange man? He brought back a faint recollection from my childhood. It was as if this corridor represented some kind of tunnel disclosing the past I could not or would not remember. Uncle Jack with whisky on his breath whom had abused me as a child. Part fantasy, delusion and reality. I knew somehow that it was a mixture of it all. Then suddenly I recalled faintly looking back through the corridor that I had got the job.
Then there was laughter. Uncle Jack, he of my repressed past mocking me. I got hold of the bottle of Jack Daniels to thrust it at him, but it was not there.
I was alone in a heap on the floor, unconscious from drink but could not think no more. I held my hand out to the faint apparition of a man I could barely see. It was him whom I had seen in the interview and knew somehow that he was the father whom my mum had driven out when I was a child and that he had come back to me.
“Dad.”
“We were meant to meet. I love you Keira. But you know I saw you piled in a heap on the floor outside. You must have been drinking. I rang the hospital. They came. You have been in a coma for the last four years of your life. But you are back now, my miracle girl.”
“I saw the light dad and I reached for it. I found you there. I felt like I have gone through hell to find you bur now I have got you I will hold you close forever.”
THE END
© Carol Ward 2008
I stood in the corridor waiting. That was all I ever did in life. "Good things come to those who wait". Was it my uncle Jack who said that or did I hear it when watching an advert for beer on the television? I stifled a muffled laugh. Well uncle Jack's second name was Daniels just like the famous alcoholic beverage. I did not half fancy a drink at that moment, maybe not a Jack Daniels, but a nice pint, no bottle of stella.
Keira, you are at a job interview, the last thing you should be thinking of is your next fix. I might be twenty-eight but I feel like I am going on fifty.
I want it. I want it badly. If I do not get the job I do not know what I will do. I would almost kill for it. In fact I would. Anything is better than returning to the monotony of sleep, booze, puke, sleep, booze, sinking into the shadows of someone who might once have made it big and been special.
So long I have been on and off the wagon. That is what happens when you have nothing else in life; no hope, no job, no prospects".
Now, waiting in the corridor with only a small air vent for light and heating. It felt as if the thin walls were crumbling from within. They were a sickly pasty colour, poorly plastered and in need of repair. They failed to shield you properly from the elements. Water dropped in from the air vent and I felt as if I was experiencing a cold shower. Now I was feeling claustrophobic and started to get the shakes again for the first time in about six months - well ok I am prone to exaggerate a little, maybe three weeks is closer to the mark.
There was a ghostly half-light that descended through the long desolate corridor. God, this reminds me of Jack Nicholson and the scary horror movie "The Shining".
"It is you, Keira, you. Winner of employee of the year 2008. Open the bottle of champagne, Keira, you deserve it! You have waited so long for this incredible success!"
"What? What is going on?"
"Boozy bitch! Boozy bitch!"
It is too hot, I am stifled. Please do not do this to me. I put my hands over my face. Was this someone's ide of a joke?
"Look at me. It is your Uncle Jack. Fancy a drink? Go on, one won't hurt you"
A small bottle of Jack Daniels falls on the floor. "I am not thirsty."
"Drink it! Your Uncle Jack says so."
"Go away!". Uncle Jack vanished but the bottle was still there.
I must be hallucinating. I am palpitating all over.
“You need therapy” I saw a little girl with the face of an angel and holding a teddy in her hand.
That is me as a little girl
Uncle Jack. “You need therapy Keira. You have been a bad, wicked girl.” I could smell the whisky on his breath. I hear the bustle and trundle of feet from upstairs. I see Uncle Jack staring at me with a lopsided smile.
The cold mustiness of this stale foisty corridor had gathered me into a frenzy of frozen unalloyed panic. Uncle Jack was gone but the bottle was still there teasing, tormenting and tantalising me.
I am going to wake up in a second and this will all have been one of those ghastly and weird supernatural dreams.
“Keira, come here darling. Good girl.” Mum’s voice. Uncle Jack: “She cannot see you. You are not there. You are nothing to her.”
“Do I have to spell it out to you?” Uncle Jack holds a newspaper in his hands. He chucks it on the floor. Then there was nothing and no-one, but the hustle and bustle of feet stamping and ghostly clouds of smoke forming.
I am in a dream. But why can I feel my tight skirt pressing against my thighs, sweat dripping off this cleanly ironed blouse".
The bottle was still there and the newspaper seemed to draw me to it. “It cannot be.” I looked at the pages and the date of the paper stared out at me.
“Keira,” a soft yet masculine voice was calling me. “I am Mark Matthews.”
“Hi, oh yes,” trying to appear composed despite everything. “I am Keira Johnson here for the job.”
Mark. “Yes, come in and sit down. So what interest you about working as a secretary for my company?”
I heard the tapping and clatter of those old black typewriters, as if they were chattering away to each other. I murmured something in a half daze.
“Well, you have got the job and a great task to complete.”
Who was this strange man? He brought back a faint recollection from my childhood. It was as if this corridor represented some kind of tunnel disclosing the past I could not or would not remember. Uncle Jack with whisky on his breath whom had abused me as a child. Part fantasy, delusion and reality. I knew somehow that it was a mixture of it all. Then suddenly I recalled faintly looking back through the corridor that I had got the job.
Then there was laughter. Uncle Jack, he of my repressed past mocking me. I got hold of the bottle of Jack Daniels to thrust it at him, but it was not there.
I was alone in a heap on the floor, unconscious from drink but could not think no more. I held my hand out to the faint apparition of a man I could barely see. It was him whom I had seen in the interview and knew somehow that he was the father whom my mum had driven out when I was a child and that he had come back to me.
“Dad.”
“We were meant to meet. I love you Keira. But you know I saw you piled in a heap on the floor outside. You must have been drinking. I rang the hospital. They came. You have been in a coma for the last four years of your life. But you are back now, my miracle girl.”
“I saw the light dad and I reached for it. I found you there. I felt like I have gone through hell to find you bur now I have got you I will hold you close forever.”
THE END
© Carol Ward 2008
Shadows of Time by Carol Ward
"Keira stood in the corridor, knowing nothing of crossing the shadows of time that awaited her"
"Keira stood in the corridor waiting, thinking anxiously about her next fix. She was at an interview for the job that she wanted desperately. Anything was better than returning to the monotony of sleep, booze, puke, sleep, booze, sinking into the shadows of someone who might once have been special..."In this science-fiction short story you gain an insight into Keira's past, present and future. As she waits in the corridor she knows nothing of the ordeal that lies before her and the strange meeting with a figure of importance to her destiny. Is Keira mad, ill or dying or being sucked into a stange journey through time, from her own past, present to the future, in search of the secret and person who will set her free from the shadows of time?...
© Carol Ward 2008
Different Planet by Carol Ward
A selection of poetry that delves deep into the dark and lighter sides of life. An insight into a unique and individual viewpoint that casts a glimpse of the world now and how it could be. From the world of art, celebrity and the madness of high octane twenty-first century living, highlighted by the poems "Crazy" and "The Silent Man" to the shallow trivialities of instant pleasures.There is the "Sonnet to the Scone" and the darkly gothic "Ink" as I examine critically the world we live in today and how we may shape the future.
© Carol Ward 2008
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