2626D. A memorable event – Part 4

(continued…)

In the morning the boy’s father called in with my clothes (all neatly folded). The boy had the flu and had got delirious. He escaped out the toilet window and with the rain and river thought that the events had actually happened – which is why he was so believable.

The Armed Defenders had surrounded the house. The parents came to the door. It took the poor fellow a year or so to get used to what had happened.

Years later I bumped into him on some street steps in Wellington (New Zealand’s capital city). He owned and ran a popular lunch restaurant in the heart of the city’s business area. We chatted and he gave me the recipe of his most popular lunch soup recipe – which I still sometimes use to this day!

He then invited me to dinner at his home with his wife and children – and a good time was had by all! We sort of lost touch over the years, and haven’t “bumped into each other” for maybe a quarter of a century. So Carl, if you ever read this…

The End

2626C. A memorable event – Part 3

(continued…)

I phoned the police. Two policemen came and interviewed him. They too drove to the house and came back. They then called the “Armed Defenders Squad”. (In New Zealand the Police don’t carry guns, but when there is a need such as this the highly trained Armed Defenders step in.)

The police took the boy away. I did not know for the rest of the night what had happened.

(To be continued…Finale tomorrow)

2626B. A memorable event – Part 2

(continued…)

I leapt out of bed. My heart stopped. To this day I’m quite pleased with my reaction. I handed him a towel and said, “Well don’t stand there all wet. Dry yourself.” He was about my size so I found him some clothes.

He explained what happened.  He had gone to the bathroom in the night. While he was there the voices of men (it sounded like two of them) were shouting at his parents in their bedroom. Then there were gunshots. They started yelling for him to come out. The toilet had a louvered window. The boy squeezed himself out. He ran through the rain towards the river – the area of which was unhoused. The river was slightly in flood. He waded up the river towards school and came into my room. Naturally he was upset.

We got in a car and drove to his house (I have no clue why). No lights were on in the house. There were tall poplar tree swaying in the wind. It was dark and threatening. We drove back to school.

(To be continued…)

2626A. A memorable event – Part 1

Story Number 2626 is an interesting enough number to deviate from fiction into truth – as is customary on this blog! Today’s story is about what could be one of the more memorable things that has happened to me!

I was a teacher and house master at a large boarding school for boys – mainly sons of farmers from isolated areas, but the school had some local day students as well. The dormitory area of my responsibility catered for about 120 sixteen year old young men.

It was in fact a dark and stormy night. I was fast asleep and at about 2 in the morning my door opened, the light was switched on, and a boy appeared in his pyjamas covered in mud from top to bottom. He wasn’t from my dormitory, but was a day student who lived with his parents about a mile away. He said, “I’m sorry to disturb you, but my parents have just been shot.”

 (To be continued…)

Poem 112: The Storm

This poem should really be Poem Number One because it was written on 14 May 1962 – 60 years ago today! I was at primary school and we had to write a contribution for the class’s Literary Journal. There are two things I marvel at! One is that I wrote “Grand-pi-pa” and not simply “Grandpa” in order to get it to scan properly. (Incidentally my grandparents were long dead). The second thing I marvel at is the daringness of having three of the eight lines end with the word “sea”! It’s like it was difficult to find many things to rhyme with “sea”!

The ship was heaved and tossed like a cork
For there was a storm at sea.
And oh what a terrible storm it was
For my grand-pi-pa and me.

The lightning flashed, the thunder roared,
And the ship on the pitilous sea
Seemed so small to the two of us aboard
Against the enormous sea.

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.

2394. Job done

It was a dark and stormy night. Caitlin went out into the garden to find the cat. Caitlin had just had an argument with Milton, her husband. She had told him he spent too much time at the pub. In the course of the “conversation” quite a few regrettable statements were uttered. “I hope you die,” said Milton.

Caitlin had just spied her cat in the garden when a tree fell over in the wind. It pinned Caitlin to the ground. She was unable to move. With a slight lull in the storm Caitlin was able to call for help. Milton appeared.

Milton went into the shed to get his chainsaw. After he’d finished with the chainsaw he got in the car and went to the pub.

Poem 106: Beach walk

Hello everyone. I thought as a final posting for the year I would post a poem! It has nothing to do with the New or Old Year!

The form of the poem is a Sestina. It is a form used in some French poetry, and I find it quite hard to write. Anyway, I thought I would give it a go!

I battle long and empty beach.
I fight against the wind.
White manes of horses crash
to shore in wild spray.
My thoughts are tangled all adrift
and drown in angry waves.

I cannot hear for noise of waves
the calls of birds on beach.
They fight to fly, are cast adrift
as victims of the wind.
Their wings are torn like salted spray
as on the dunes they crash.

I long for calm as waters crash;
I’ll quiet the seething waves.
The sanded, salted, pitting spray
face-stings my walk on beach.
Christ calmed a storm, Christ calmed the wind;
Why set my mind adrift?

A fisher’s boat was tossed adrift
and pummelled in a crash.
Yet none about, no voice in wind,
no drownings in the waves.
Just one abandoned boat on beach
left to sand and spray.

The storm intensifies its spray,
the boat is freed adrift,
the sand blows mad along the beach,
the skies unleash its crash.
Waves no longer follow waves
but roil in the wind.

At last a blue patch in the wind;
less biting of the spray;
a quietening of deafening waves.
My mind unbound adrift.
My thoughts are stilled, though whitecaps crash,
and peace returns to beach.

My thoughts the wind released adrift.
Thoughts spray as ordered breakers crash.
Peace now waves goodbye to storm on empty beach.

To hear the poem read aloud click HERE.

2310. The snowstorm

It was dark. I couldn’t see a thing as I inched my way home through the snowstorm. It was the coldest storm in decades. I had to make it home or die. Suddenly icy fingers grabbed my left wrist.

“Who is it?” I asked.

There was no answer. I tried to free myself from the grip. “Who is it?” I asked again. Still there was no reply.

I thrashed with my right arm, flaying it about so as to hit the owner of the grip. There seemed to be no one there.

“Please let me go,” I said. “Please let me go.”

The grip was released. My frozen mesh stainless steel watchstrap had fallen off. I made it home.

2031. The open window

(The opening sentence for this story was suggested by Noelle of Sayling Away. If you want to join in the fun of suggesting a future opening sentence for these stories, please leave your suggestion in the comments – only one suggestion per person!)

The sky outside the open window was dark with the portent of a storm. Philomena went over to close it. Several times in the past she had left the window open and a squall had come and blown rain on the furniture. Not much mind you. There was no substantial damage, although she kept a doily on top of the sideboard to hide a small water stain.

The window was on the ground floor. The television news had recently announced the escape of a dangerous murderer from the local prison. “Do not approach”, they had announced. “Things like that never happen to me,” thought Philomena, “but I had better err on the side of caution.”

It would be easy for a lithe man to climb in through the window. She didn’t know if the murderer was fat, thin, or somewhere in the middle. Usually in prison the inmates are fit from spending too much time in the gym with nothing better to do. The television news had not shown a photograph, so she didn’t know if the murderer was handsome, ugly, or somewhere in between. Suddenly a great rumble came from the black cloud. There was going to be a downpour.

Philomena shivered. There seemed more to it than bad weather. She had goose bumps on her arms. She almost felt a presence. “How silly,” she thought. “It must be the combination of a black sky and the news of the murderer.” A blast of lightning forked. She began to count. Thunder came five seconds later so the storm was only five miles away. At least that was the method she had learned as a girl; count the seconds, count the miles.  Another lightning flash! She shut the window tight.

“Rain! Rain! Go away! Come again another day,” chanted Philomena. She turned back into the room. There was an ugly stranger standing behind her.

1823. Adventure on the high seas

Look! It’s not Maxine’s fault that her husband was a sour-puss from the second he stepped onto the cruise liner. Gordon was determined to make Maxine’s longed-for cruise as unpleasant as possible. There were several reasons for this: Maxine had been planning this cruise for a year and Gordon was sick of her going on and on about it. Also Gordon was worried, if the cruise was a success, that she’d want to waste even more of their hard-earned savings year after year on further cruises.

They had been befriended by a Mr. and Mrs. Calvin and Gail Harlick of Cabin 1763. He was a buffoon if ever there was one, although Gail was quite nice. Actually a little more than quite nice, Gordon thought. But Calvin went on and on about nothing. He would monopolize the conversation at dinner and it would inevitably be about himself. The only saving grace at dinner was that Gail sitting opposite would affectionately rub the calf of Gordon’s leg with the toe of her high heels. It was their little joke.

Maxine and Gordon were always invited back to Cabin 1763 for a little drink after the meal, but so far they hadn’t accept the invitation. And then a storm hit. It was so rough that the passengers were confined to their quarters for a brief time. Gordon insisted he and Maxine go up onto the deck. “This storm is the only exciting thing to have happened thus far on the trip.”

That was when Maxine gave Gordon a push over the side, saying “Go join Gail Harlick.”

Steadying herself against the railing, Maxine made her way to Cabin 1763.