The Tree that Couldn’t Grow Leaves

Posted on May 13, 2008 by blogmywiki

(another short story, I’m afraid… look away)

Winterlong the tall tree stood shoulder-to-shoulder with all the other trees beside the busy road that snaked through the forest. The tree spent the short days watching the ebb and flow of the traffic, wondering why and where all the people were going in their cars. As more cars appeared on the roads he felt his branches tingling more and more.

Spring came and as the sap rose in the other trees the forest grew noisier as the wind rustled the leaves that started growing on the other trees. But none grew on the tallest tree.

He started to grow sad, standing apart a little from the other trees. The other trees looked so beautiful with their fine greenery, and as the wind blew through the forest it seemed as if all the other trees were talking about him.

One day a bright red fox was exploring the forest and noticed that the tallest tree looked sad, his branches drooping.

“Hey, tallest tree!” she called.

The tallest tree looked around, hardly daring to believe that the fox was talking to him.

“Me?” he mumbled.

“Yes – you! What’s wrong? Why are your branches drooping?’ asked the fox.

“All the other trees have beautiful leaves and I have none.”

“So… you’re different from the other trees?”

“Yes.”

“But you must be here for a reason.”

“Really?” asked the tree, “Why are you here, fox?”

“I empty the bins” replied the fox.

“Oh. I don’t do that. I don’t do anything, except watch the sun rise and set and the moon wax and wane…”

“That’s something. Don’t you notice anything else?”

“My branches tingle sometimes. More in the day”.

“Listen to the tingles!” laughed the fox and she ran off deeper into the forest.

“Come back!” cried the tallest tree but she had left him all alone.

The sky lightened as the sun rose and the tallest tree watched the cars grow in number. The tingling in his branches got stronger and he remembered what the fox had said. He closed his ears, emptied his mind and listened to the tingling. And now he could hear the voices, so many voices and messages pulsing through his veins, words of anger, words of joy and words of love.

Posted in fiction | 2 Comments

Jimmy Mizen, day 2

Posted on May 11, 2008 by blogmywiki

There’s a very odd atmosphere in our community today. It’s never been so quiet, even on a Sunday. Especially on a Sunday.

Very odd seeing the priest that baptised my daughter being interviewed live on the BBC News Channel. I keep seeing people I know on TV, in tears.

Very hard trying to tell my son Henry, who is 8 and was in the same class as Jimmy Mizen’s youngest brother, not to worry and that this sort of thing won’t happen to him. But if it can happen to a boy like Jimmy, who went to Henry’s school, a few yards from Henry’s school in the middle of a sunny Saturday, it’s hard not to think that it can happen to anyone.

Posted in family life, grief | 3 Comments

In the midst of a party, death

Posted on May 10, 2008 by blogmywiki

We were on our way to a friend’s 40th birthday party on the bus and really hacked off that the bus was diverted. There had been ‘an incident’ on Burnt Ash Hill, road closed, we spent 90p on a bus fare to nowhere and had to walk.

Jimmy MizenThen we arrived at the scene where Jimmy Mizen was murdered. His youngest brother was in my son Henry’s class at school. The bakers’ shop is across the road from Henry’s school and I have often popped in there for a sausage roll.

A very odd evening. Tearful friends of the family spilling out of the church a short distance from the murder scene, the church where my daughter Tilly and son William were Christened, Mass apparently abandoned. An old colleague of Catherine’s doing a live into the BBC News Channel. My old colleague Graham Eva was in the sat truck.

The party was a strange do. Lots of food, Irish music and I drank too much Guinness and whiskey and pondered the angry mood of some of the people there as we talked about the news agenda and how BBC News will be doing lives from the church in the morning… some anger and tears and we are in the middle, Cathy’s phone ringing ringing ringing… the home news desk…

(Guardian article)

Posted in grief | 5 Comments

I don’t like cricket

Posted on May 5, 2008 by blogmywiki

I really don’t like cricket. I ought to love it – I mean I hate sport, and what could be less sporty than standing around most of the time, waiting and running for shelter at the first hint of rain. But I can’t stand it. I think it’s the thought that people actually get paid for playing it that turns my stomach.

Anyhoo, the rugby season is over and the boys have taken up cricket. The cricket parents seem a very different crowd from the rugby bunch, who are amiable and truly from all walks of life. Not so with the cricket dads. They all sat there with their Blackberries and The Sunday Times. One bemoaned the state of the floor in his snooker room. Another moaned that he just didn’t seem to get the time to take the Caterham out for a spin these days. There were phone calls to ‘the boys on the boat in Sicily’ about ‘closing down the deal before we lose the bonus’.

The only light relief came when one dad told a story about how the night before a strange woman had phoned his house and asked for him by name. His wife had taken the call and it transpired she was looking for someone else with the same name. His friends joshed him that he was really just telling them the story to bolster his alibi. The more he denied it the more they teased him about having an affair. I sat in the back row laughing like a drain in the rain.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Pain in the neck

Posted on May 3, 2008 by blogmywiki

I was diagnosed with spasmodic torticollis this week – a violent, crippling pain in the neck that came from nowhere, wiped out Tuesday, most of Wednesday and thankfully has now gone away, leaving me with nothing more than a stiff neck.

After seven hours in A&E they eventually gave me diazepam – valium – which left me alternately laughing and screaming. And as such it’s hard not to think that the spasmodic torticollis represents what’s going on in my life, as I’ve been alternately laughing and screaming for a few weeks now. People seem to think that I’m doing something with my life which I’m not and the more I protest the less they believe me. Now I know how Leonard Nemoy felt when he wrote “I AM NOT SPOCK”.

Art imitates life. Life imitates art. Spasmodic torticollis and diazepam have the last laugh.

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