tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23926182466775129082024-03-13T12:41:31.365+00:00The Daily PostcardContinuing the vibe from The Daily Tale, this archive is the second half of my year's project of short fiction. It comprises snapshots of stories: an image coupled with a short tale. I hope it proves interesting and inspiring to whomever finds it...Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.comBlogger124125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-7172140009520176962009-02-14T01:30:00.003+00:002009-02-14T01:35:29.580+00:00Catch up with me at TwitterHi,<br /><br />Just thought I'd say, you can catch up with me on Twitter. I'll be posting random bits of writing here:<br /><br /><a href="http://twitter.com/paulbernard">http://twitter.com/paulbernard</a><br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Paul.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-24632699750117588452009-01-05T23:55:00.004+00:002009-01-06T00:09:32.582+00:00Thank you and goodnight<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SWKhGEU4loI/AAAAAAAAAUE/5mxHTxWhpY4/s1600-h/Goodnight1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SWKhGEU4loI/AAAAAAAAAUE/5mxHTxWhpY4/s400/Goodnight1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287966038099007106" /></a><br />Well, it has been 12 months since I first set up my Blogger account and started my yearlong quest to keep writing and publishing.<br />I pretty much managed it, every week day, throughout 2008 (with a few short breaks, for my sanity) but now I must bring the journey to a close.<br />I wasn’t sure if I’d get through the year without admitting defeat. I’m glad I stuck it out. I also wasn’t sure if anyone would read the stories. I have been so proud, this past year, that people I’ve never met should take the time to read and comment on my writing.<br />I never tried to publicise the blog much, and for a while I didn’t have many readers. But that all changed when Blogger awarded me ‘Blog of Note’ status for The Daily Tale (my non-picture based story blog).<br />Overnight, I found myself with an audience of thousands, plus many commentators, which was exciting and a little overwhelming at once. It was difficult to hold everyone’s attention. I’m not sure which parts of the year were my creative peaks, or whether the blog’s popularity coincided with these. I often found the most popular pieces were not the ones I expected, or my favourites, but I was glad people liked them (or at least felt moved to comment) all the same.<br />Anyway, a nice collective of people stayed interested through the course of The Daily Tale, but I needed to freshen up the blog to keep me interested in it. So, halfway through the year, I opened up a new blog – this one – The Daily Postcard. My idea was to separate the two blogs and keep each as distinct archives of my work.<br />The Daily Postcard gave me a chance to publish many of the photos I’ve been taking over the last couple of years, and also use them as the basis for writing stories. Sometimes the confines of the picture were a blessing to the writing process, sometimes a hindrance. Still, it was a fine experiment, I think.<br />I’d particularly like to thank the crop of readers who stayed with me until the end of the project and for all your kind comments and support. It’s especially pleasing that you guys are all such fantastic bloggers and having such superb writers as yourselves reading my work, and hopefully enjoying it, is something I’ve cherished. I’ll have more time to read your blogs now so keep up the great work.<br />It will be strange not to write every day, but I’m looking forward to exploring other creative outlets (such as music) and then I’ll get back to writing, either some full length short stories, or perhaps a novella, or something bigger…<br />Rest assured, as I come up with short tales and other ideas I will post them either to the Daily Tale or Daily Postcard sites so keep an eye out for them!<br />Ok, well I think that’s it from me. All that’s left to say is – thanks, so much, for reading.<br /><br />Paul.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-25560655534235934052009-01-02T20:04:00.002+00:002009-01-02T20:08:54.170+00:00The living and the dead<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SV50McLi2vI/AAAAAAAAAT0/-6VPO0fHebs/s1600-h/Living+and+dead.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SV50McLi2vI/AAAAAAAAAT0/-6VPO0fHebs/s400/Living+and+dead.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286790769651407602" /></a><br />Sebastian,<br /><br />I trust this note finds you - it’s difficult to track you down at the best of times. Still, if you’ve been trying to get in touch with me, you won’t have managed it and I’ve sadly missed out on your fine words.<br />What must be must be, though, Sebastian. I was thrown from my digs a few months back and had to find whatever shelter I could. The church saved me.<br />Now, some people say it’s hard to be dead but I just don’t agree. I’ve been living in the grounds of this church for a while now and not noticed their hardship. The dead sleep better than the living and, when they wake, they have little to worry them. The dead do not disturb me.<br />Sometimes I’ve heard them whispering or moving rocks and leaves about, but they’re not interested in me. I’m as dead as they are.<br />It’s not been all fine here, but the priest is an understanding fellow and turns a blind eye to us, as often as he can. We stay out of the churchyard in the day, when people might be visiting. It’s a large cemetery and crypt here at St Theresa’s and it’s been easy to hide our existence from others. Fr Mead has warned us that if a needle is found in the churchyard he will be forced to call the police. I regard that as only fair.<br />I’m staying here with some friends – Millie, who I’m very fond of, also Gregor and his brother Tony. There was an incident a few months back, a group of guys throwing rocks and insults at us. We managed to get away from them, but they trashed our stuff.<br />The next day, we were drinking and Millie went back early because she felt ill and needed to sleep. They were waiting; she said it was the same guys. They were merciless with her. It brings me such pain to recall the sight of her when we found her there.<br />She said she’d be alright, that it wasn’t the first time it had happened. She didn’t want to go to hospital because they’d involve the police and then we’d all be moved on. So we looked after her as best we could. The men never came back.<br />I’m sorry I don’t have brighter news for you, Sebastian. Maybe I’ll see you, friend, next time you’re near the old church? Know that I think of you, often.<br /><br />Your friend,<br /><br />Robert.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-46768552164833123892009-01-01T20:11:00.004+00:002009-01-02T02:57:54.727+00:00The fish wife<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SV0kv3Xm5YI/AAAAAAAAATs/sG46QYaOG80/s1600-h/Fish+wife.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SV0kv3Xm5YI/AAAAAAAAATs/sG46QYaOG80/s400/Fish+wife.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286421942338250114" /></a><br />When the fish started talking to the man, rather than being staggered, the man simply found the sea creature rather rude.<br />The fish had interrupted a perfectly lovely conversation between the fellow (a middle-aged man, called Leonard) and a pretty young thing he had met at the docks.<br />The fish began to bleat quite pathetically: “My name is Susan, and I shall not be ignored!” The man, Leonard, tried his best to ignore this imposition for as long as he could, knowing full well that, were he to engage the fish in conversation, his pretty young conquest would soon turn heel and run.<br />But, just as a guilty conscience bangs the head like a hammer and nail, so the streamlined fish continued to shout up from the water: “I’m still here Leonard, stop ignoring me at once. I will be spoken to, remember, I need you to purchase some items for me – from the store.”<br />Leonard ignored the blue-eyed fish for as long as he could. He liked the way the young girl smiled at him and touched his hand occasionally. This was a sign of affection that his wife, Susan, never offered him.<br />“Who are you talking to up there?” snapped the fish, swimming out and away from the quayside to better sight the young woman.<br />“Hah! Why she’s nothing other than a common whore. Stop wasting your pathetic lusts on this floozy and run along to the shop to fetch my supplies,” shouted the fish, slapping with its tail to send a spray of water up to soak the couple. “I shall make you very sorry if you do not!” came its companion cry.<br />With that, Leonard’s calm reserve subsided and he turned upon the fish with a volley of verbal abuse. “You fish wife, you scaly serpent, your gills are blocked shut with venom which you spit forth at your erstwhile husband. Why, I should not hope to meet such a slippery eel as yourself again, and yet I find myself tied to you for eternity in matrimonial bondage!”<br />The fish chuckled to itself, at this tirade, and the pretty young maid did indeed turn fleet-footed from the scene and the middle-aged man was left to trudge wearily to the grocer’s store and purchase the few items she had sent him for.<br />Then he walked slowly, back to the quayside, and upended the brown paper bag of groceries into the water, whereby Susan, the blue-eyed fish, hungrily gobbled up this new and tasty flotsam.<br />She then waited, maintaining her position through small bristling movements of her fins, as her husband clambered down the rusting iron ladder on the wharf and plopped into the cold waters, beside her.<br />“Come along, dear,” said Susan, and they both swam off, away from the docks and on into deeper waters.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-69341451563289310882008-12-31T17:39:00.003+00:002009-05-07T10:30:36.761+01:00To remember<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVuua0-7A_I/AAAAAAAAATk/_ijjYpcabRQ/s1600-h/Remember.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVuua0-7A_I/AAAAAAAAATk/_ijjYpcabRQ/s400/Remember.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286010363571799026" /></a><br />I remember you; the grass running free in the meadow and you rolling through it. I remember you standing atop a narrow boat, your reflection in the water bejewelled by the sunlight.<br />I remember touching you, whenever I wanted, never having to hold back. I remember that day, on the towpath, tugging you along though you were scared of the water.<br />There was breeze, yet there was sun; there was fire and there was fear. Still, we ploughed on, didn’t we?<br />Do you remember the autumn coming? Ensnaring auburn leaves in your hair? Catching patchouli wafting from that bright boat we passed? Kissing my eyes and mouthing ‘I love yous’; breathless and silent, feeling the shape of the words through close-pressed lips.<br />Staying, that night, beneath stars we hadn’t seen for years. A bitter cold night, but we moved slowly and surely, sculpting one body against the other so there was no room for icy air to intervene. Do you remember it all?<br />Funny how it has come to me now. I hope it crosses your mind too, from time to time. I worry you never think of me at all.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-90805980889115638502008-12-30T21:36:00.007+00:002009-05-07T10:33:32.958+01:00Sensing hope<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVqVh31RQ-I/AAAAAAAAATc/fKcEjHdNPOs/s1600-h/Hope.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVqVh31RQ-I/AAAAAAAAATc/fKcEjHdNPOs/s400/Hope.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285701521828299746" /></a><br />After what they told me was a passing of thirteen days of my life, they moved me to a room where I could see daylight.<br />And not just see the sky outside, but taste the air; breathe and smell it. Winter is a cruel time for colour and the sky was blanched grey: no remedy there for the cold stones of my cell. Still, it offered such respite for my soul that I put all thoughts of giving in and wasting away, there in captivity, firmly aside.<br />I thought this view might help me to better understand or even recall how I came to my current predicament. I was trapped in a stone hewn cell, perhaps like that of a castle or medieval keep. The thin, overcast, corridors were lit by torches.<br />The guards ordered me about in grunts and arm movements. My interrogators questioned me in broken, halting English. They were all white-skinned, of obvious European descent, but their accents were seemingly impossible to place.<br />Their questions, too, were a source of perplexity: "How many kings have reigned during your lifetime? Do you remember the last time you saw your mother? How many times have you attempted suicide? Have you ever been to South-East Asia?"<br />They would ask these in a barrage – one after the other – seemingly not recording the answers. I have no idea which questions they needed the answers too, nor if the answers to all of these questions were of interest to them.<br />It may have been a psychological exercise or an information extraction. All I know is that I had difficulty recalling much of the information they required. My mother, for example; I have no recollection of her whereabouts, nor where I last met with her. This seems to be a cause of real sadness to me.<br />I’m drifting now, between consciousness and sleep. I’m peering along the tiny passage, as wide as my fist and barred at both ends with barbed wire. I’m peering out in some vain hope of salvation. And then I hear something, a song from the outside world; a call of nature.<br />A dark bird sings and I am undone, for it is the caw of a crow. I don’t know whether to call myself blessed or cursed, but I find myself making the strangest of sounds. My throat feels like it is being strangled, torn by internal wires. Still, I struggle loose a caw of my own, a quite realistic call. Where did I ever learn to do that?<br />I cough a little and then wait. Sure enough, after a small time, I am answered. My body floods with warmth and a smile greets my face.<br />Somehow, I know now, there is hope.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-5314451304081324472008-12-29T19:51:00.002+00:002008-12-29T19:58:44.705+00:00The devil's hand<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVkrpyWVq1I/AAAAAAAAATU/3_WvJ7hgQPQ/s1600-h/Devils+Hand.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 323px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVkrpyWVq1I/AAAAAAAAATU/3_WvJ7hgQPQ/s400/Devils+Hand.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285303634586086226" /></a><br />The silver coin weighed him down, played on his conscience. Neil’s grey hair, was parted and greasy and flopping into his face as he stared down at the mugshot of capitalism. It eyed him coolly in return as a magic mirror, almost smirking remembering the spinning lies and the possible future it had once shown him.<br />He tossed the coin away then, as the thunder rumbled in the hills behind the city. There would be a flood, soon, but not that day. The rains never reached the city until late summer, but the devil walked freely there.<br />So Neil saw it: the evil twists of his life’s story. He guessed at a sinister edge of dark magic being accountable for his wretched decline in wealth and status. Perhaps men like Neil refuse to see the truth in such situations, for to see the truth would be to accept blame, to understand one’s own fallibility and take blame for one’s own actions and the outcome of their risks.<br />So Neil kicked on through the black heart of a city that seemed dead, now that trading hours had ceased. And there, he found himself; his head repeatedly pressing itself up against the tastefully lit windows of designer stores.<br />He saw the devil, there. Somewhere between Buddha and baby it laughed at him in its perverse infant nudity, all red and burning. Behind it lay the stuff of temptation and greed and pride.<br />And, from its nascent sulphurous palm, Neil struggled to climb free.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-34689390156939721552008-12-25T23:51:00.000+00:002008-12-25T23:51:00.693+00:00Happy ChristmasHello dear readers,<br /><br />Hope you're having a wonderful Christmas. I am not going to post a tale on Christmas Day or Boxing Day.<br /><br />See you next week when hopefully I shall be more sober, full of leftover turkey and with more stories to end the year.<br /><br />Paul.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-74688758368165395472008-12-24T23:40:00.001+00:002008-12-25T01:30:47.924+00:00The tidewalker<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVJKD61YOnI/AAAAAAAAATE/Q341IcomcSk/s1600-h/Tidewalking.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVJKD61YOnI/AAAAAAAAATE/Q341IcomcSk/s400/Tidewalking.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5283366744052218482" /></a><br />She used to tell him that the moon brought lovers together. She’d say that its great actions in the heavens would draw souls together, magnetised by lunar cycles and destined to cling forever to the other.<br />He’d laugh, of course, and kiss her forehead and they’d both sigh and wish it were true. When he lost her – lost her to doubt, fear and perennial lust – he had an epiphany soon after.<br />He began to believe her idea, about the moon and the souls of young lovers. He began to imagine this intangible thread running always from him to her. It was now tightly drawn, and straining across a great distance of space and mind, but it existed all the same.<br />So he came to thinking that the flow of the tides could help him to find her; that the gravitational pull of the satellite moon would be the strongest at high tide. That if he were to stand on a beach, when the yearly tide was at its highest, there was a good chance she’d be there, on that same stretch of beach, searching for him too.<br />So there he was, on December 14th, 2008, his shoes filling with salt-water, his trousers sopping and him flinching in the chill. He was there, on a desolate winter’s beach, strolling through the surf, walking the tide.<br />Nobody else was on the beach that bitter day but, in the icy sting of the salt spray, a song came to him, shuffling forth from his memories.<br />It was a song she sometimes sang and it always made him smile. Somehow, he had lost this memory to time, and now the clawing December tide had returned it to him along with a clear visual memory of her face, fair and glowing, at Christmastime.<br />He stood there, tidewalking, for as long as his shivering body could stand the winter sea. And, all the while, he smiled.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-208674186356978582008-12-23T23:00:00.000+00:002008-12-24T03:07:37.247+00:00The melting prayer<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVGms_GUGsI/AAAAAAAAAS8/2r8Sm7ZS740/s1600-h/Prayer.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVGms_GUGsI/AAAAAAAAAS8/2r8Sm7ZS740/s400/Prayer.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5283187129664674498" /></a><br />Religion is such a wonderful thing. Believers feel they can invoke it, as a warlock would a magic spell, to bring their dreams to life.<br />Here is a religious bribe; a treat with a message for selfish needs. A big tin of Quality Street with a sticker on it saying: “Thank you for your prayers that I get into Pembroke! Have a chocolate!”<br />Quality Street is a popular brand of confectionery, and Pembroke is a respected college within Oxford University. How do scholarly life and the aspect of the Christian pulpit become so intangibly entwined? <br />I asked myself that question as I toured the sacrosanct chapels of the Oxford conglomerate; saw the enlightened ministers of the written word that studied nearby; inspected the towers of beer cans they had drained, we all laughed to see such fun.<br />And there, on the dark oaken table, next to the postcard of Michael defeating Lucifer, sat the tin of temptation; the treat-laden box of delights with the begging message: pray for me, just me. Pray for me and perhaps I will enter these hallowed halls and be better. Better than you, or better than most.<br />Pray for me. Pray for me and have a chocolate. Pray for my intercession unto the right hand of the dons.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-16090817303782313412008-12-22T23:51:00.000+00:002008-12-23T02:57:04.304+00:00Into the vapour<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVBTWVWDqoI/AAAAAAAAAS0/ajXDsSDuWuo/s1600-h/Into+the+vapour.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SVBTWVWDqoI/AAAAAAAAAS0/ajXDsSDuWuo/s400/Into+the+vapour.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282814006057478786" /></a><br />What a thrill it is to walk unguided into the syrupy mist. What wonders might await you in the lands you cannot see?<br />Usually the landscape of your home is a thing of ornamental ordinariness to you. When the fog cloys and the mists choke the trees and bushels, the houses of your neighbours and the fields of the farmers are less obscured than actually lost to sight and so knowledge. Only on closer exploration can an explanation for their existence be found.<br />When I was a young lad, my older brother told me that when the mist descended upon the park to the rear of our house it offered us a strange chance; to reach a land of dinosaurs.<br />If we might tread carefully and absolutely correctly, along the grey concrete path cut through the centre of the oval park, then we might find ourselves coming through the spectral mist into a land of thunderous lizards.<br />We’d set off to school with excitement in our hearts and I’d hold his hand tight as we stepped into the fogbound field. Sometimes all we could see ahead of us was the cool grey path. And I swear that, sometimes, I could hear the cumbersome roar of giant beasts, lurking somewhere ahead in the strange smog.<br />We never made it to that prehistoric land he conjured up but, whenever the mists return and the world returns to the haze of childhood, I tend to think, there’s always next time...Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-14423687959954731892008-12-19T22:20:00.000+00:002008-12-19T22:20:01.017+00:00From the forest to the sea: The House<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUvKC59uE5I/AAAAAAAAASs/4tlJ8L4Si3k/s1600-h/House.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 395px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUvKC59uE5I/AAAAAAAAASs/4tlJ8L4Si3k/s400/House.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281537139290280850" /></a><br />So he returned to the clearing, dragged and heaved the body, scraped along the path and then on into the trees.<br />He stopped some way along the journey. The woman’s dress had caught and was now up over her head, revealing her underwear. He slowly and quite gently replaced the dress, for he felt her shame.<br />Soon he came to the old house. He saw no-one on the narrow dirt track through the trees and he left the forest cover and approached the dilapidated property.<br />He followed the message he had received via the beacon. He took the body to the first floor of the house and laid it in the large room to the west. He was able to prise up some of the rotting floorboards and drop the corpse there.<br />He stood and looked for a little while, spied to see if the woman’s hand was showing, or if her cold eyes regarded him in return.<br />When he was at last satisfied, he left the house with a glance to each side, and he never went back there again.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-31176129215432481452008-12-18T23:35:00.000+00:002008-12-19T00:51:38.721+00:00From the forest to the sea: The Beacon<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUrs2eI41VI/AAAAAAAAASk/PM7ksXExy3E/s1600-h/Beacon.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 393px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUrs2eI41VI/AAAAAAAAASk/PM7ksXExy3E/s400/Beacon.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281293933592761682" /></a><br />He crossed the dunes. His plan – to return to and burn the body – itched at his scalp. It was wrong, somehow.<br />He needed to ask a higher power, but the sea was not granting him communion today. Then he spied the great spear, the beacon which could connect him to heaven, and he rubbed against it and kissed it and spoke sweetly to it.<br />And, sure enough, the wires rippled and whispered to him in a strange breeze of tongues. He waited there for comprehension. He pieced together the voice from the strings.<br />He smiled when he understood. Its message was as beautiful as the strumming of the lyre.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-62334989519901022092008-12-17T22:16:00.000+00:002008-12-17T22:16:00.295+00:00From the forest to the sea: The Shore<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUkmTTThzOI/AAAAAAAAASc/rB_xpLjWmUw/s1600-h/Foreshore.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 398px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUkmTTThzOI/AAAAAAAAASc/rB_xpLjWmUw/s400/Foreshore.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280794151110167778" /></a><br />He spent a while looking into the vegetation. His eyes couldn’t pick the body out and he was satisfied. It safely hidden, he went to ask the sea what to do next.<br />The rich dark wet sand crumbled under his mighty footstep; the killer, come to the almighty sea like a pilgrim to Delphi. He sat down, cross-legged on the deserted shore. He listened to the waves as they whispered their commands.<br />After a time, he got up and snarled at the sea birds. The messages were all garbled and confused. He didn’t know what to do next.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-684599984579741472008-12-16T23:19:00.004+00:002008-12-18T09:50:44.454+00:00From the forest to the sea: The Clearing<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUjEZKNAx8I/AAAAAAAAASU/dSMC_VsVpS4/s1600-h/Clearing.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 318px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUjEZKNAx8I/AAAAAAAAASU/dSMC_VsVpS4/s400/Clearing.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280686499606611906" /></a><br />At the edges of the forest the trees were leafy and deciduous.<br />He dragged the battered body to the treeline and hesitated at the clearing. It seemed a lane, running from the dunes back to the inhabited world. It was a potential giveaway, a total lack of vegetation to cover his sin. Yet, where were the people? Where the witnesses?<br />He bent down and examined the corpse for signs of animation: a gargled breath, a sinister movement (for he could have sworn it jerked and spasmed still, such is the wont of the restless dead).<br />It lay still though, like yesterday’s doll. It almost made him want to cry, so he hauled it over the path and dumped the heavy load down, amid the longer grass and nettles; kicking it until it rolled down a shallow bank and under the trees again.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-60640425605280353382008-12-15T23:11:00.002+00:002008-12-15T23:14:58.622+00:00From the forest to the sea: The Forest<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUbkhNNOZcI/AAAAAAAAASE/svvhANjsnbA/s1600-h/Forest.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 353px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUbkhNNOZcI/AAAAAAAAASE/svvhANjsnbA/s400/Forest.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280158872270431682" /></a><br />He killed her in the forest, while she was walking alone.<br />The sun shone its brilliant light through the thin canopy of pines. She saw him, smiled a hello, let him approach.<br />She bit his fingers as she struggled. He lifted her off the ground as he strangled her. She didn’t stop fighting until her head hit the tree.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-56769785631309745192008-12-12T23:35:00.004+00:002008-12-15T23:24:41.374+00:00Dragging the millstone<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUbnLzh0AXI/AAAAAAAAASM/rKBR96sTSeM/s1600-h/Millstone2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUbnLzh0AXI/AAAAAAAAASM/rKBR96sTSeM/s400/Millstone2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280161803135091058" /></a><br />The stone hit with a thud and a whine. There was no movement, thereafter.<br />Though it was late afternoon, nobody was around the village green and no cars were driving past. Charlie acted quickly, dragging the body by the scruff of its neck away from the open lawn where it lay and soon into the bushes and soon into the trees.<br />He knew the hidden ways well, places where he’d hide and watch the children play. The body was surprisingly light. He looked back at it for a minute and saw blood pooling upon the crack in its head, mixing with hair and dead leaves.<br />When he was a safe distance from the village, he thought of leaving the carcass in the trees to rot, or for animals to feast upon. But his eyes heard the babbling of the brook and he was soon sliding down the bank with the small body trailing behind him. They made two firm splashes as they hit the water. He stopped to peer about the banks, for signs of fisherman or nosey children, but the area was as silent as any a dull day in Breckford ever was.<br />As he dragged downstream, the body grew heavier with water and his arm soon weakened. He eventually decided he would find a deepish pool, under overhanging branches, and weight the body down with stones.<br />Charlie looked down at the sad bedraggled creature he had killed. Blood mingled in tugging draughts from its head wound, matting its fur. Its pink tongue lolled from its once snarling mouth. Its tail hung pathetically and uselessly behind, like some broken rudder.<br />Still, it soon sank, and the stones fell slowly to crush its bones.<br />Charlie withdrew, up the bank, covering his pants with mud. On the shivering walk home his mind whirred with excuses, ready for the parental inquisition to come.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-64955775094536861622008-12-11T23:44:00.002+00:002008-12-12T00:54:26.457+00:00A future explosion<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUG15QPhCgI/AAAAAAAAAR0/R5vTcu2BP7k/s1600-h/The+minefield.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUG15QPhCgI/AAAAAAAAAR0/R5vTcu2BP7k/s400/The+minefield.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278700233472150018" /></a><br /><br />Though he touched her and felt alive, he found himself more afraid of this girl than he had been afraid of anything, at any time in his life. <br />Her priapic presence was a joy to him, a real joy. He wanted to sing it to every man he met, that he was there, that he was at last in love. So long a disbeliever, he'd finally succumbed. He had found his faith; his calling. <br />Looking at her, as she slept, he examined what it could be that induced this terror in him, something that disturbed his slumber and worried him all day at work and then later when they ate (and he ate, but a little). <br />He analysed his fear, and it had always been aimed at the future. With other women, he had no such fear. The future was something unbeknownst, and he always felt that it would not contain the woman he was seeing at the time.<br />Now, however, the future was different, almost clearer. But it seemed to him a green field with a paradisiacal beach at the other side of it. This green field looked, at first glance, inviting; a thing to stroll across on a sunny day, arm-in-arm with one’s lover.<br />Stare at the scene, at the field, for a second or two, and see that it is strewn with ruptured bodies and dangerous craters caused by the eruption of once buried landmines parked, shallowly, beneath the lush and healthy exterior of the field.<br />This field, of his, was a trial. Everyday he would have to step carefully across it, measuring the green blades below with the progression of his feet, striving to cross with safety, without explosion.<br />He was scared because he now had to try and navigate this field, not alone, but tied to another who must somehow be shielded from potential carnage, underfoot.<br />As he lay there in bed – scratching his arm, a light sweat upon him – the bright beach seemed very, very far away.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-51816501448661690082008-12-10T22:45:00.000+00:002008-12-10T22:45:00.329+00:00The inevitable waters<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUAO3002vaI/AAAAAAAAARs/66jRxQ1EZ50/s1600-h/Inevitable+waters.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SUAO3002vaI/AAAAAAAAARs/66jRxQ1EZ50/s400/Inevitable+waters.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278235115514150306" /></a><br /><br />The tide is rolling in now. I can hear it coming. I can feel it. And with each roll, my stomach turns and my knuckles go white. <br />I’ve never been scared of the sea before; I’ve never really thought about drowning or the creatures that lurk in its murkier depths, but it’s all I can think of now. When I come to the beach it fills me with dread. <br />A few days ago I had to tell Sylvie I was ill. There was no hiding it any longer; she’d done well to pretend she hadn’t noticed it in me. She looked at me for a while, right in my eyes, then welled up and asked if I was going to die. I told her that I didn’t know, that they didn’t know. <br />I stroked her arm, like it was her who was sick, and told her to sit down. It dawned on her this information wasn’t new, that I had likely been keeping it from her for a good while. <br />She asked me why I’d not mentioned this sooner, but I didn’t know what to tell her. She asked me how I’d managed to get myself to and from appointments, perhaps tests and procedures, without her help. She asked me earnestly and I just sadly shook my head. <br />She looked up slowly from the bed and queried with her eyes. Even more slowly, she shook her own beautiful head. Eventually, she stood up and pushed past me. I listened for her and heard the front door open and close, then the ignition of a car’s engine. <br />She hasn’t been home since. She must have picked Greta up and taken her too, because she never came home from school that day. I’d made ratatouille, just in case they came home. I ate what I could manage and threw the rest away.<br />I shan’t come to the beach much more, I think. I can’t get what I need from the water, it seems. Not anymore.<br />Ha! And now it seems it’s going to piss down upon me from above too. Well, if I’m not going to jump in, it’ll still drown me in the end, I suppose.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-2427448467989977402008-12-09T22:50:00.002+00:002008-12-09T23:15:03.822+00:00Notes left for someone to find<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/ST775pqnU4I/AAAAAAAAARk/VPKgVWf-Ku8/s1600-h/Notes+left1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/ST775pqnU4I/AAAAAAAAARk/VPKgVWf-Ku8/s400/Notes+left1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277932781180507010" /></a><br /><br />Calling from the hole;<br />The cracks beside this bed, will echo sounds lost through reams<br />Of scholarly failures before me,<br />Crying you to sleep or awakening your dreams.<br /><br />And which of us will remain?<br />Ghosts walking among are soon to linger with kindred.<br />We may all be able to leave<br />But the house keeps a token; how large, depends on the dead.<br /><br />Different now<br />From the moment of entry – yesterday or last year –<br />Change entraps time, snorkelling our memories;<br />Discarding flotsam, lampooning fear.<br /><br />Time seems of little importance,<br />Life, at the time, now forgotten, along with the point of it all?<br />No deep truths, well, will we understand,<br />Here, our time is over, and soon some voice else will call.<br /><br />We begin anew, elsewhere, somewhere<br />Separated, yet together; connected. You’ll find<br />You have the chance, here, now,<br />Not to understand your deep truths, rather the ones we leave behind.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-63585697141063973802008-12-08T23:20:00.002+00:002008-12-08T23:30:26.437+00:00The end of the rails<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/ST2t_f6hdII/AAAAAAAAARc/e95zy0yDPxA/s1600-h/Rails.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/ST2t_f6hdII/AAAAAAAAARc/e95zy0yDPxA/s400/Rails.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277565644758414466" /></a><br />I’ve been driving the trams for years. ‘It’s a fine life,’ I always said, when people asked me. It’s not boring, like they think. <br />There’s a strange sort of freedom that comes with the trams. No-one understands that, when I say it to them. ‘Trams are stuck on rails,’ they say. ‘There’s nowhere to go than where you always go. A bus driver, even a train driver will need to go a different way sometimes, but you’re always on the same rails, going the same way, day after day.’ <br />I find it hard to explain why I feel free on the trams. I can never explain my thoughts clearly when people ask after that. I tell them, sometimes, in reply, that I believe God has put before us a hundred and two different ways and means of getting through the day, every day. And if we thought, about all the different decisions we made in one single day, and where these all might have taken us, if we’d done things differently, then we might all go completely mad. <br />You see, these decisions, they’re taken away from me – when I’m on the rails. I only have to stop and start when either the lights or the people ringing the bell tell me to. Everything else has been decided for me. And I’m free, then. Do you see? <br />Found out I had some sort of chronic anaemia this year. Doctor didn’t recommend I kept working on the trams. Could be dangerous; if I got tired, you see. Could get sick from meeting so many people, too. Immune system’s buggered now, apparently. <br />So, the company are retiring me. Can’t get insurance for me to drive the trams, anymore. I’m into my last week on the route, this week. A couple of women brought me a card the other day; said they were very sorry to see me go, that I was the only friendly driver on the route, these days. That was nice to hear. Someone else said she had a present for me, but every morning she says she’s forgotten it and will bring it in tomorrow. She’s got so much to think about in the morning you see, so many decisions to make. <br />People tell me it’ll be great when I’m finished on the trams. That I’ll have so much time to relax and enjoy life; do all the things I missed out on while I was travelling the rails. But, truth be told, I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know what to do; what can I do? <br />When the rails run out, there’s only roads to travel and paths to choose. Sometimes it seems all too much, this choice, the unlimited journeys we can make. It all gets so overwhelming that I can’t think of anything else. I don’t feel free anymore and I can see the end of the rails coming up fast. All I want to do is turn around, and go back the way I came.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-17471063965873183892008-12-08T23:15:00.003+00:002008-12-08T23:19:58.732+00:00A century of postcardsI've made it to 100 Daily Postcards now. I like to mark things like that.<br /><br />Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me and read on, especially if you've been a reader since The Daily Tale.<br /><br />The year's nearly up and the stories are nearly done...Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-61760762530711452032008-12-05T22:51:00.002+00:002008-12-05T22:55:46.838+00:00Following Annabel (part two)<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/STmwzfP9G6I/AAAAAAAAARU/ce8sumuaDCg/s1600-h/Annabel2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/STmwzfP9G6I/AAAAAAAAARU/ce8sumuaDCg/s400/Annabel2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276442837049482146" /></a><br /><br />His juddering hand pressed lightly upon the white door, to see if it could be pushed open. The door felt like ice. Such a jolt of cold went through him when he touched it that it almost repelled him from the house altogether. But then came the moans of Annabel filtering through the cracks around the door, he had to enter. <br />Wrapping his hand in his sleeve, he gripped the door handle. It seemed almost frozen to the touch but it turned and the door slowly opened before him. He took a step back as a blast of icy, reeking air flowed out over him. <br />The man staggered a little under the charnel stench, but stumbled forward into the room. His senses were reeling; he rubbed his eyes and lurched towards something he might hold onto. In the strange twilight of the room, he saw red carpets running into purple walls. He found a supporting pillar and leant against it in a daze. <br />There was a strange fog in this room, it was stopping him from understanding quite what was real here. He tried to look through it, to peer through the wisps to the motion beyond, the place where he could hear Annabel struggling. <br />He stumbled on then, brushing the effervescing smoke away and walking into a couch, which he rolled over and lolled upon in a stupor. He could see her now, Annabel in the fog. Her eyes were closed and she was leaning back against the cloud that enveloped her. Her black blouse had been removed and she was twitching a little and murmuring in seeming ecstasy. <br />Around her, the cloud was snaking into some kind of form. Nothing precise and definite, but there was a sensation of form, of a grey shape stroking her body and holding her in space. <br />The sight of Annabel’s bare white breasts, moving in the asphixiating room, shook the man and angered him. His fear draining away, he ran to the girl and grabbed her, wresting her from the spectral form that danced upon her flesh. She opened her eyes then, but her pupils had rolled back in her head. <br />She pushed the man back against the wall, kissing him and scratching at his neck. He wanted to succumb to this, all of this, the reason why she brought him here, the limits of strange lust and desire, the complete wanton destruction and devastation of the soul. But he opened his eyes then, and saw the fine grey mist grow thicker and less gaseous. Its form grew darker, like an oily pulp, pulsating and flowing forward towards them. <br />A thousand futures seemed to race through his mind as the sludge descended. Would he give himself to an eternity of urges and feelings? <br />Instead, he pushed Annabel hard, back into the open arms of the thing that possessed her and ran for the door. He flew from the room and bounded down the stairs. He noticed a thin layer of smoke trailing from under the doors in the ground floor rooms and he kicked at the grey mist as he pulled open the front door. <br />Spying a motor-scooter further down the street, he hopped on and forced the engine to start. He heard the gutteral scream of a young woman from a room somewhere above him and saw thick black smoke pouring from a shuttered window. Not for a second, though, did he think to go back for her. Not for a moment. <br />Soon he was propelled along upon a moped, whizzing out of the warren of the back streets; every second getting closer to sanity.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-46576650478817222392008-12-04T23:51:00.002+00:002008-12-05T00:18:41.598+00:00Following Annabel<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SThtpxkiFEI/AAAAAAAAARM/kOaUm0HrStg/s1600-h/Annabel.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/SThtpxkiFEI/AAAAAAAAARM/kOaUm0HrStg/s400/Annabel.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276087527913165890" /></a><br />He bought a new hat before he met her today. He wanted to look a little offbeat, out of sync with the world around him. He felt sure that would appeal to her.<br />She was so cool, so sure of herself. She didn't look like an Annabel. Her hair flowed pitch black down her back, her blue eyes stoked those around her with intense excitement; her lips, ruddy and enticing, she'd bite them when she was thinking. She'd bite sometimes while she was kissing, too.<br />She didn't mention the hat when she saw him, but she looked at it and smiled wryly. She kissed him slowly on the cheek and drew her fingers slowly down his face as she withdrew. Those same fingers then wrapped tightly around his hand and she set off, running at a startling place. "There's somewhere wonderful I've found," she shouted back at him. "I want to show you."<br />They danced through the back streets of the city. Flying down alleyways and along narrow streets he saw a world that he'd never noticed before: the city in daylight as a warren, almost deserted.<br />And then on a thin, overhanging street she slowed and walked quite genteelly to a door ajar. "I don't know how I found it, the first time," she said softly to him, smiling excitedly, "But it welcomed me, all the same. That's how it felt, anyway."<br />The girl shook her head then, as if she had been speaking gibberish and undoing all the hard work she'd put in establishing her casual persona.<br />When he stepped through the door, the young man was surprised to see the still furnished hallway of an apartment building. There even seemed to be a communal phone connected there.<br />Annabel looked back at him from the staircase. She’d already bounded halfway up one flight. Her head was turned towards him. She bit her lip and held her hand out, beckoning him.<br />He wanted to go upstairs with her, so much, but something about the house left him uncertain and uneasy. He stepped slowly towards the stairs, listening intently for some sound from this dead house. There was nothing. He stepped onto the first step as Annabel said, “Hurry! Come on!” and disappeared up the second flight. He heard her padding on across the landing. He was so scared of going up there with her, he looked for a reason not to go. Was that blood on the stair carpet? He almost wanted it to be, but he kept on, plodding up the stairs, feeling colder and more awkward with each step.<br />It seemed to take an age to clear the stairs and reach the landing. Why did he feel such dread? There were four doors, all closed, and the window shutters were all fastened. Where was Annabel?<br />He saw more stains on the carpet of the landing, more stains on the wall and, then, a bloody smear upon the old white door. Second to the left, a shaft of light illuminating the streak of red dried upon it. His body shook. What happened here?<br />He heard Annabel then. She was on the other side of this door. She was whimpering. And she was speaking to someone.<br /><br /><em>(To be continued...)</em>Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2392618246677512908.post-37705904101252618602008-12-03T20:10:00.003+00:002008-12-03T20:31:47.132+00:00From a beautiful balcony<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/STbo0uECfYI/AAAAAAAAARE/fkvXGy1h78g/s1600-h/Beautiful+balcony.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IIV9Jj3zN5Y/STbo0uECfYI/AAAAAAAAARE/fkvXGy1h78g/s400/Beautiful+balcony.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5275660005926927746" /></a><br /><br />From a beautiful balcony she saw the world. It was a world of constant blossom and energy; the kinetics of motion seemingly drawing a performance of life on and on before her lookout post.<br />She, Sarah, was a tender girl of 20 years; soft of face and lustrous of hair. Her young love, Theo, was the reason she watched out so much. <br />On the days she knew they would meet, she spent at least an hour before his arrival looking down upon the speeding world. This panoply of colour and sound would bring such a delighted smile to her mouth that she would often start to tremble with sheer joy, or perhaps shed a little tear for the world and all the beautiful things it had to show her. Even on the days it rained, she was happy by the teeming water tapping at her window.<br />When he eventually came (always five minutes early) she would see his black head bobbing along the street from quite a distance. Immediately her heart rate would increase and she might feel a little bit sick, but she would take a deep breath and follow his progress with her eyes.<br />When he got near to her balcony he would always look up to see her, but she was able to time this to perfection and always rolled away and around, back into the living room, to keep him waiting for his glimpse of her, to heighten the anticipation of their imminent embrace and kiss.<br />There was one day, just one day, when she looked out for him, looked out long and hard and she couldn’t see him. Her eyes flicked like a hungry tongue around the street, crossing to the other side and then back again. She felt sick, she was trembling, her eyes were tearful, but no sign of him. ‘He must just be running late,’ she told herself over and over. ‘He’s okay’.<br />But when the time came when she would usually twirl around away from the window, she simply fell to the floor, covered herself in her dress and wept. Not for long, though. It dawned on her that her Theo might be in trouble, somewhere near by. She must look for him, at least. She must do that.<br />And running down the stairs, without stopping to take a coat or change her shoes, she flung open the double doors of the house and then stopped dead. There, upon the first step, was a bouquet of delicate white roses, and smiling next to them was her love.<br />She stepped over the flowers, then, and threw herself into Theo’s arms, weeping some more and kissing his face, almost falling from the weight of the contrasting feelings she had been subject to these last minutes.<br />But he held her up and kissed her eyes, and found that he was weeping too.Paul Bernard Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08661133303797402251noreply@blogger.com0