My this metal bed is very hard Mary thought she lay on the scanner. Where should I look? Just keep my eyes closed that’s the best.
I think the iodine will have got into your kidneys by now, she heard a male voice say
Well I can’t feel anything but as long as you can see something I am happy Mary told them suddenly her phone rang.
It was nside her capacious bra Mary had forgotten.
Luckily she was not inside the scanner so she pulled it out and handed it to the radiographer who was standing by her side.
It’s lucky it wasn’t inside my knickers I suppose but then we don’t have those knickers that women used to wear in Victorian times with elasticated legs coming halfway down the thighs but they would be very useful. Actually my mother-in-law used to carry a handkerchief there.
Mary’s mind drifted on. Her shoulders were aching because she had to hold her arms vertically behind her which meant they were actually horizontal.
Finally they had finished and she sat up with the aid of the radiographer because the room was spinning round and round.
Well this makes a change, she told Annie. Then she heard a noise that sounded like a cat meowing
Have you got Emile inside your handbag she asked Annie?
Well yes I have because I did not want to be alone in the wait ing room while you were having your scan.
I don’t know if that’s a good enough reason…
we could have brought another person with us like that man who lives in the house across the road it’s about time we got to know him.
Mary you’re acting very strangely you’ve never expressed interest in men before not since we lost Stan
Well maybe it’s the iodine if it goes into my kidneys and bladder gets into my womb
Maybe iodine is like viagra for womenm I can’t say what it does for men .
But do not drink iodine at home as I will not be answerable for the consequences no will I pay for you to go to a nursing home to have a baby if you become pregnant after reading this storym
short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale’s edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.
on wind-side,careful sight,
may swoop to prey
and away.
your yellow broad-eyed look,
at once both sharp and distant,
holds me.
oh,silence,
oh,wind on green,
oh,earth,
sky.
immense your held vision,
sphere without center,
pied geometer of flight,
oh, swift descent and ascent.
trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home
Mary went to the hospital to have her CT scan. As usual she was a companies by her friend Anne. But she didn’t know that Emile the cat was in Anna’s handbag today.
As you know some women like to have very big handbags but have you never wondered what they are carrying inside these bags?
Annie, they are going to put some iodine into one of my veins, she informed her friend .
Well it doesn’t matter which one they’re putting it into because all your blood circulates around your entire body is it once every 24 hours or is it once a year I’m not sure.
I think you’re thinking about the sun and the earth and the moon which has got nothing to do with the human circulatory system.
Yes Mary I think you’re right I was never very good at science.
And you have no common sense either
How could it take a whole year for the blood to circulates round my body. I would turn into a stone!
I just wasn’t thinking properly I apologize. But why should I apologize because I was born like this… in the lower half of the normal curve for the IQ. God must be very good at statistics.
Oh don’t worry I know what it’s like I’m sure I will say something quite stupid while I’m in the hospital. Doctors seem to bring out the worst in me.
If you feel like that maybe you shouldn’t speak at. After all irs only scan of your kidneys not your brain.
Do you think if you’re having a brain scan that talking will make the scan come out differently? It seems a ridiculous idea to me but you never know is these days especially if you watch Fox News.
Mary lay down on the on the cold metal bed that was part of the CT scanner.
Will it be alright if I put a cannula into your arm, the nurse enquired kindly?
If I say no, what will you do Mary asked
Well it’s not really a question it’s just a form of politeness so we don’t just grab your arm and stick the cannula in as it will be seen as very invasive.
You are in a very powerful position aren’t you as a nurse here before you could ask me a question which I cannot actually give a truthful answer to because I don’t like having cannulas put in. I really don’t want you to put it in but I have read the explanation on the internet and I realised it will better if you do put it in.
You really need to study philosophy and language and many other topics before you could understand these pseudo questions that doctors had nurses and other people may ask you.
Why it’s almost as if Benjamin Netanyahu rang up the new Ruler of Iran and asked him would he mind he dropped a bomb on his home.?
If they did that then they would say it wasn’t a war because the Iranian person had agreed or at least not disagreed when he was asked if he would mind having a bomb dropped on him.
Is it what they call a rhetorical question asked Annie nervously as she stroked Mary’s cat Emile who was in her handbag without permission of the hospital.
I knew I shouldn’t have brought a cat she thought anxiously.
If he meows it will cause a lot of trouble and since Mary can’t see him or touch him it’s of no benefit to her that he is nearby. I must be out of my mind she thought. Don’t tell me I’m getting dementia.
The face that was familiar is no more Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again If ,by a chance, his life could be restored It would affect me like the hidden chord Which played, my own life force would go. That one must live and one must die is plain The face that was familiar is no more. Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again
Jack opened the door and saw his elegantly thin wife Simone riding her bicycle along the pavement without even holding the handlebars
That is absolutely and utterly wrong, he told her rudely yet patiently.
You are giving a bad example to the cat and to many other people who may be looking out of their windows or driving along this intriguingly bland suburban road
Louisa grinned like a Cheshire cat would
Don’t be so ridiculous she cried, cats can’t ride bicycles. Their legs are not long enough
You’re missing the more subtle point that you are breaking the law in a particular way Now the cat or any cat, a dog or a human being may not be able to ride a bicycle but they can break the law.
Well of course they can because we all have free will or we are just too lazy to think she cried merrily.
So if you ride a bicycle along the pavement especially when there are people about you are giving the impression that you do not have any thought for the good of others. In modern terminology you are a narcissist or in Christian terminology you are a sinner although it’s not a mortal sin unless you kill somebody deliberately and wilfully. Who knows who is guilty of mortal sin ?
Don’t ask me I’m only a writer
Oh dear Jack you are so scrupulous. I have never done it before but it was so inviting when I came around the corner I felt like a child. I thought how lovely it will be to ride along the pavement
It’s very sad Jack sald that people see being an adult as a deprivation of pleasure. There are adult pleasures of course that we can’t talk about those in front of the cat can we?
Why not, the little cat wondered to herself. I would like them to talk about is in front of me.
The elderly couple rolled into the sweet little kitchen on their milk bottle like legs and their cruelly deformed feet and rolled onto the wooden bench behind the kitchen table. But close to the grand piano as well
What are we having for our tea?
Jack said, I found a teapot in the dining room so we can have tea in the pot instead of in mugs with tea bags I think you will enjoy that my dear
I definitely will. I love a nice teapot. And have you made a cake?
I’ve made a lot of cakes but they are potato cakes!
Well my mother used to make those in the 1950s or was it the 1960s ? We still had a coal fire with an oven at the side. Those were the days.
Jack put the potato cakes on the table along with some co-op best butter.
Then little Louisa climbed onto the table and licked the butter with her red tongue.
See I told you that you were leading the cat into sin and now she’s been licking this butter. I will have to throw it away m
A cat can do something wrong but is it a sin?
Are there cats in hell?
But she didn’t see me riding on the pavement, his beautiful brave wife exclaimed with a subtle yet obvious hint of violence.
Unfortunately the cat has got second sight being half Irish and she definitely did see her mother riding the bicycle along the pavement breaking the law with every turn of the pedals
What the cat was thinking was this:
is doing something illegal automatically a sin and is something legal always good?
The second question is easier to answer because we know that in world war two many things were done in Germany that were legal under their leader Hitler but they were definitely not good to put it mildly
To be plain they were evil
But breaking the law by riding a bicycle along the pavement is not in the list of sins in most Catholic missals
I suppose in the time of the Apostles there were no pavements and there were no bicycles so you would have to look for a general principle.
Give unto Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God’s
After that Jack got some fresh butter from the fridge and he and his wife demolished the potato cakes along with some bacon and egg
Inside my shell, I dream of pearls, Caterpillars, snails with whorls. I dream contented, all enwrapped With reverie and dream, I’m lapped. The inner seas will comfort me, While gods allow my eyes to see
Oh, sweeter than confectionery Is my hardback dictionary. The words whirl round and fall to shape The sentences, which my world drape. This furnishing is rich and strange Yet magically self-arranged.
Oh, sweeter than the love of man Is reading works of poets long gone; And feeling deeply their dark tides, Upon which our boats may glide. The infinite sea we float upon Is the same warm sea that ancients swam.
Sweeter still is this spring air And the blossom spreading fair. We’ll drown ourselves in deep green fields To the gods of poetry yield. We’ll rise again and spring up tall To grow more rich until we fall.
Sweet it is to live and die And to write my poetry Touch me with your ardent souls My mind and yours shall all be whole
When we think of God, we see an eye Watching us like some abhorrent spy What of his touch, his hearing, his small voice? What his taste conveys and how employed
Larger than the total of sand grains That form all ocean shores by moon arranged Smaller than the eyes of ladybirds And insects humble without spoken words
What is size compared to tangled roots? What is loud compared to army boots? What the colour, what the perfect form To ripple through my eyes with no alarm
What do you here, what vision do you flee? Who sieves earth and whose the face you see?
Enfolded by your smile,I saw the light As if a hidden world such love revealed Our spirits touched, our sorrows pushed to flight In that space, our worries did not bite The trees were shelter, losses were each healed In your holy smile,I saw the light Blessed be, there is a second sight From heart and soul , the silver bells shall peal Where spirits touch ,where sorrows quickly fly And who but you would see my inner plight Would know the false from what is right and real Cradled in your smile,I felt the light No army with its metal and its might Can win the final war , love conquers steel As spirits touch as sorrows say goodbye I know it’s hard to learn what others feel And not draw back from grief, from loss revealed Enchanted by your smile ,O golden light Our spirits touched, our eyes wept their delight
Sometimes religious people do what Jesus did and then they are executed To shoot a priest saying Mass in el Savador a Catholic country is not just murder it is sacrilege because Catholics believe that the Bread and Wine become Jesus himself I hope the USA is not on this track
Protest
Violence increased in El Salvador by the mid 1970s, as the government and army began killing poor people who stood up for their rights. When the army killed three people in the village of Tres Calles in Romero’s diocese, he comforted the families and wrote to the President to protest about the murders
Archbishop of San Salvador
Romero became Archbishop of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. Some rich people were happy because they thought he would stop priests from helping the poor to stand up for their basic rights. But a few weeks later, his friend Fr Rutilio Grande was shot and killed, along with two companions. The following Sunday, Romero allowed only one Mass in the whole diocese – at the Cathedral – where he spoke out against the murders.
Death
In his sermon on 23 March, Romero ordered the army to stop killing people: “In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I beg you, I implore you, I order you, in the name of God, stop the repression!” The next day, a shot killed Romero as he said Mass. A UN report later found that Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, had ordered Romero’s death. Thousands came to the funeral. The army fired into the crowd. 30 people died and hundreds were injured. The civil war in El Salvador continued until 1992
As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
When Mary got home she tried to find her key but it was nowhere to be seen. Then she remembered that she had another key with her.
I must have dropped it in the cab she thought to herself I will ring them up tomorrow, Emile her large black and white cat ran towards her very fast.
You won’t believe this, Mother..
Emile I have told you before I am not your mother.
Why do you take everything so literally, the cat asked her in a manner that reminded her of the French psychoanalyst Jack Le Con.
If I am on the autistic spectrum she said to him, that might explain it.
Well you have to take a test to see if you are on the spectrum
But I have got comfortable with you and I don’t want you to change your personality just because somebody says that you’re a bit odd.
Don’t tell me somebody has been spreading rumours about me. Who says I am odd at all depends on the definition doesn’t it? I may be odd in some ways but surely that’s what makes people interesting if they have a lot of differences from everybody else you know
Well Jesus was very odd and very old wasn’t he ,because God was his father?
Do you think God was my father said Emile ?
I’ll ask him next time I see him said Mary cruelly.
Are you going to see God, can I come with you?
Let me put the kettle on and make some tea and then I will have to get some food out for the supper. Do you fancy some sardines from a tin?
Well I won’t say no to a sardine wherever it’s come from I know that God would never put them into tins
Next time I go to church I will start laughing because they are talking to God as if he is a being from another planet but I will be imagining him on top of a mountain putting a sardines into tins although being on top of a mountain it will be quite difficult to find sardines.
Nothing is difficult for God but he doesn’t sound very practical :I expect some angels would put the sardines in to tins if he asked them to do that
Here you are said Mary and she put a saucer of sardines in front of the cat while she 🦐heated up a tin of chicken curry from Waitrose,
Around the kitchen she looked with sorrow because if Stan wete alive he would never have used a tin of curry for her dinner. Why am I so bad at cooking? I suppose I’ve never spent enough time doing it and also when you live by yourself it takes away the incentive
The Amazon assistant switched on the radio and they heard the end of the news.
Boris Johnson has an army and they are marching on London from Framlingham Castle because they can’t suffer the Home Secretary any more. When she compared asylum-seekers to insects even Boris Johnson was shocked. And Boris is a very rich man now so soon he will be the King.
Oh that will be very exciting. I believe
I think we’ve had enough excitement here since the referendum what we all want is so hot cocoa and an early night. I hope it’s not too late for that.
But will the citizens of London be able to sleep knowing that Boris Johnson is leading an army from Suffolk although if he meets beautiful women on the way he might take longer to get here. Let’s hope hes not fathering any more children. London is overcrowded already.
Stan the aged yet sexy senior citizen was outside polishing the brass doorstep till it gleamed in the early sunshine leaking from a blue and orange sky.
“My goodness,these microfibre cloths are wonderful” he thought intrigued.
Mary was out taking a load of clothes to the Oxfam Shop.
Suddenly he heard a loud cry.,then he felt a pair of hands fondling the top of his bald head and tugging on his beard.
“Eeh,no rest for the wicked,even at 81,” he screamed.He staggered to his feet and rubbed his nose with his knees.
“Just give me a hand” ,he said,”I’ll have to stretch my hamstrings.They tighten up so.”
“I’ll stretch them for you!” Annie whispered naughtilyStan leant forward to touch his toes and she could not resist the temptation to give his bottom a hearty slap.
“For God’s sake,Annie” he shouted faintly.
“Someone might see that.”
“Don’t worry,there’s no-one around at this time of the day”
she tittered in her usual female manner..
“Oh,yes there is!”
It was Dave,the paramedic.He had been lying behind the wheelie bins,all three of them standing plaintively and unwanted in the tiny front garden.
“I’m an MI5 spy,and I’ve been reading your blog,Mr Brown.
We need you to answer a question”
“I’m not called Brown”,said Stan nerdishly.
“Refuses to accept reality,”Dave wrote in his little notepad with some blood he had taken from himself earlier,
“Jesus Christ!”, said Stan.
“Now,now” said Dave,”that’s not your name.
“No my name is Tan,not Brown,you’ve been reading the wrong blog!
“Stan Tan!”
Dave appeared crestfallen.
“Any chairs need mending today?”
“My what beautiful ears you have,sweetheart,” he said to Annie,
“They look like sea shells by the Dead Sea”
“Your eyes are like shallow pools in Lake Windermere during a summer thunderstorm.”Annie replied womanfully,sarcasm being alien to her nature.
“Are you still a transvestite?” she followed on incoherently yet logically.
“No,I had a mystical experience and now I’m a Zen Buddhist”
“How did that happen?” demanded Stan querulously.And can’t you be both?
“Well,I was knitting myself a Shetland lace sweater in pale blue mohair,and I suddenly had the feeling that everything was interwoven.
Going forward or backwards,sideways or straight ahead,it is all part of the warp and weft of life.
“mistakes don’t matter” he continued emotionally.
“Oh,yes,they do,”Annie said pouting her full lips,cherry pink by courtesy of L’oreal of Paris and New York,lip balm by Yves St Laurent,peach foundation by Lancome also of Paris,toning smokey grey mascara by Max Factor,handbag Annie’s own,deep burgundy 70 denier tights by M&S,Grey pointed ballet slippers by Bally of Switzerland.[also available in black,red and teal].Raspberry lingerie by ,strangely,M&S.
“As I was saying..,”
Dave dived back behind the wheelie bin.
Stan polished the brass and Annie disappeared in a patch of woodbine..
It was Mary’s famous and loud vocal imitation of a bicycle bell that had alerted them to her imminent return from the Oxfam shop.
“Don’t they make bike bells any more?” Dave boringly wondered as he carried on reading the new life of Emily Dickinson “A loaded gun.” He thought it was an army training manual,but,hey,mistakes don’t matter!Or do they?
Read the next instalment yesterday at your local newsagent or here free of interest,hope or love.Any additions welcome.
All donations to Oxfam.
I made this from a photograph using digital software
First we had grow your own, and now it’s kill it yourself.
We had paint your own pictures then it was draw your own blood.
Write your own books then Read your own palms.
We used to make love now it’s ensure your own climax
We used to talk to each other Now we message our others We used to share bedrooms Now we are alone with just Zoom We used to have fantasies now we have pornography We didn’t see our own vulvas Now we get plastic surgery so they look good for anonymous strangers.
If we do everything ourselves and nothing for each other where will that lead to in the end?
Gravity pulls us to this earth of ours
Where grace is needed for the heart to flower
The need for roots is what each person feels
Yet how can roots grow through a floor of steel?
Settlement in legal terms means peace
Agreement reached and hatred will soon cease
What name exists for taking land not ours
The occupier pays no price, he has the power
The British Empire leaves a trail of death
Pakistan and India split by wrath
Balfour did not care for Arab lives
Jewish people fell to genocide
Lit by raging fires on Holy Lands
Burning children cannot understand
Gravity pulls us to this earth of ours
Where grace is needed for the heart to flower
The need for roots is what each person feels
Yet how can roots grow through a floor of steel?
Settlement in legal terms means peace
Agreement reached and hatred will soon cease
What name exists for taking land not ours
The occupier pays no price, he has the power
The British Empire leaves a trail of death
Pakistan and India split by wrath
Balfour did not care for Arab lives
Jewish people fell to genocide
Lit by raging fires on Holy Lands
Burning children cannot understand
In the winter, comes a day of spring
The wind brings softness to the upturned face
And warmth to once cold bodies seems to cling
When will be the day the first bird sings
And hawthorn hedges fill with sweet white lace?
In the winter, comes a day of spring
A little heat is welcome ,promising
That winter darkness soon will lose first place
And warmth to once cold bodies, sunshine brings
We struggle on like donkeys stumbling
With heavy burdens and no hint of grace
In the winter, comes a day of spring
So we lift our eyes, allow wide opening
And in the lines of hills, our love is traced
Giving hope to our cold hearts and skins
We take our time and feel no need for haste
And so create an opening for grace
In the winter, came a day of spring
And sun on our cold bodies made them sing
Stan was leaning over, cleaning the new bath.When the doorbell rang,he rushed downstairs and opened the double front door.
“Will you take this parcel in for the lady next door?” The postman asked wearily.
“Oh,fine Stan stuttered.He was trying to avoid Annie but here she was,coming down the road of superior semi detached houses suitable for ex-headmasters ,small businessmen,econometricians,surgeons,pie salesmen and theologians.
She was wearing perfume, and green sandals from TK Maxx,light khaki tencel cropped combat trousers with a purple silky over-blouse, not to mention her matching raspberry and cream underwear .Round her neck hung a miniature grandfather clock on a solid gold chain,and she had three imitation gold and silver watches on each of her three wrists making a total of 333 watches according to Carnap’s theory of logic and Russell’s terrible handwriting.
Stanley didn’t know that she had a mobile phone stuffed into her bra—one advantage for the larger sized woman.In fact she had 4 down there in her raspberry coloured glamour bra,as she had a phobia about their batteries running down all at once
The more she had the lower the probability of her being without a phone whilst out and about the town and countryside.
So she reasoned in her womanly way. J
ust then one phone rang.She rummaged around to the consternation and turmoil-uation of Stanley and the postman.She plucked out a pale blue phone.
“Hi,it’s Annie” she murmured.
“Hi Annie it’s Dave the paramedic with carpentry skills. You’ve not rung 999 lately so we were wondering if all was well!”
“Oh,I’m terribly sorry.I’ll try to phone later on.Thanks,Petal.
That was Dave,our ex-transvestite converted paramedic”,she informed the men.The postman galloped off on his donkey, his bags full of undelivered males.
It’s a tough but interesting life in Knittingham. Would you like a male delivery?Contact Parcel Force without delay.
Annie went into Stan’s house and demanded a cup of coffee.
“Won’t it make you put weight on” Stan quipped ironically.
“Do you think I’m too plump?” she responded anxiously..
“Too plump for what?” he quipped amiably.
“To attract men,of course!”
“No,my angel,you are just perfect”he quacked definitively.”Nor are you an angel,strictly speaking,as I have good reason to know.Thank you,my beloved for love rendered so generously .”
“Oh,my goodness I must get home to render the fat from the beef and to make some gooseberry jam.”
Stanley looked uneasy.
“I wonder why babies are left under gooseberry bushes?
The thorns are so big it’s quite dangerous getting them out,or so Mary told me when Lyra was born. She was covered in scratches and wouldn’t come near me for months.”
“Why don’t you come upstairs to look at our new purple bathroom suite.Since the Royal Wedding it’s the in colour.The gold taps were expensive but they do go well.”
“My God,let me out.” she bawled,”It reminds me of the Vatican and that’s no place for a lady”,
“Not even a gay lady?” Stan muttered parsimoniously, as he licked her eyelashes gently.
“Stop that.I’ve got my Yves St Laurent mascara on.”
“I prefer the taste of the Chanel,”he disclosed privately in an internal secret memo.[available on 50 years]
“Why not lick my neck instead?” she enquired curiously as she tripped over Emile the cat, who had slipped into the bathroom as usual to see what they were up to,you know what I mean, you catch my drift?
She fell floppily into the bath and banged her head on the taps.
“Oh,gosh,better ring 999” Stan said to Emile.
“Have you got your catphone warehouse mobile on you?”
“Yes ,it’s in my y-fronts”, the cat amiably miaowed.
“Hi Dave,this is Emile.Can you come quick.Annie is unconscious and what is worse,she has scratched the new bath.”
In fact it was Emile who had scratched the bath that morning but since Stan had not noticed he hoped to, callously, pass the blame onto poor Annie.
How cruel can a cat be? Ask any mouse! Still in the end God made all of us and what a terrifying and beautiful world it is.
And of so say all of us
I have walked the silent paths of grief Sunless,dreary,cold and all alone.
I have slept on beds of winter leaves.
I know that death’s a cruelly starving thief
Although my heart weeps and my joy has gone. I have never felt I was deceived.
I have learned that human life is brief. I have learned by sorrow we’re undone. I have sifted earth and what’s beneath.
I have felt the dark emotions seethe I’ve felt cruelly burned by glaring sun. I have learned the geography of grief.
I wait in sorrow for this life to cease Yet some are never loved by anyone I have dreamed in beds of winter leaves
Unconsoled grief can make us dumb Into our hearts, we drag the ice that numbs I have walked the silent paths of grief I have made my bed on winter leaves
The faculty to think objectively is reason; the emotional attitude behind reason is that of humility. To be objective, to use one’s reason, is possible only if one has achieved an attitude of humility, if one has emerged from the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence which one has as a child. Love, being dependent on the relative absence of narcissism, requires the development of humility, objectivity and reason. I must try to see the difference between my picture of a person and his behavior, as it is narcissistically distorted, and the person’s reality as it exists regardless of my interests, needs and fears.”
How my heart speaks 