Reblogged with JP Faucher’s kind permission
Follow the link to a story that emerged whilst I was working on a DIY tilt and shift lens. Funny how some experiments can lead to completely unexpected results, or stories for that matter.
Please leave any comments on the post or individual photos if they interest you. All images copyright Jean-Pierre Faucher. All rights reserved. If you wish to use any images please email me for permission.
(DISCLAIMER Under most jurisdictions it is a serious criminal offence to conceal frame-damage when selling a motor bike.)
The Director of Operations considered the file on his desk. The Analysts indicated the Target’s vulnerability was financial. He lived in a remote rural area where transport was infrequent and expensive. He had just used most of his savings to buy a new motor-bike, to get to work when he found any. Without the bike he couldn’t get to work. Without work he couldn’t afford transport. The logic was straightforward. Get rid of the bike.
Marty was riding between two rows of stationery vehicles, having right of way, when a car shot out of the side road straight in front of him. He was taken to hospital then home where he remained for several days recovering from shock, but otherwise unhurt. The garage told him the frame was damaged and the bike was unsafe to ride. The insurance company paid for repairs, but refused to write off the bike.
He wrestled with his conscience for days, but in the end practicality won. All his savings were invested in the bike. Without transport he faced destitution. He took the bike to another town and sold it, not declaring frame damage, and bought another bike.
Another report appeared on the Director’s desk. He glanced up at the Analyst who had presented the report.
“So our fish got off the hook?” he said.
The Analyst nodded. “The bike could break down in normal use at any time. I wouldn’t want to be on it at 50mph on the motorway. Sir, why not prosecute? It is criminal to conceal frame damage when selling a motorbike.”
The Director glanced towards the open window through which the strains of “You chose a fine time to leave me, Lucille” were coming. He got up and closed the window.
“And have the details of how the accident happened and why the insurance company refused to write off a badly frame damaged bike examined in Court? And expose our operatives?
The Director shrugged. “Open another file. We’ll just have to make sure the right person buys it”.
Prayerwarriorpsychicnot Copyright 2014
Re-blogged with kind permission from Gautem Sudev
O’ my valentine wept, despite my best intentions,
obscure to her own impassioned euphoria.
Many centuries before the rise of reality,
lived we were on a fertile valley,
unknown of the smouldering destiny.
Thence we were estranged of us along.
She trailed on and then on,
past the bedeviled sorts of laments,
eyes once were fire, scouring for fingers
Of legitimate route judgment,
With only the atoned ashes of hope remaining.
Reached, she was near a bridge of
fragmented dreams and dark-savoring
lethal thoughts of incompetent ideas.
Stood she stock-still, bewildered and
dismayed on that savage cliff,
failed to catch up with this world of
callous humans and false lying gods.
O’ my valentine wept.
Three first year students rented the house that year. They were good tenants, kept up with the utilities, paid the rent on time and left the house immaculate.
They hadn’t got a grant so they were very short of money. When the term ended they resolved to go to London for work, but before they went, decided to ask the Landlady if they could come back for the next term.
A neighbour met the old lady while she was out shopping. The neighbour asked about the tenants. “Oh, they are lovely girls” said the old lady smiling. “Ever so polite, and clean too”.
The neighbour smiled slyly. “Yes, they would be. They are very well off. Didn’t you know? I heard they are off to the Caribbean for the break. You know , if I were you , I would ask them for a retainer when they go. They can afford it”.
The old lady smiled. She hadn’t thought of asking for a retainer, but she could certainly use the extra cash.
When the students handed back the keys, one said, ” Thanks for the stay. We are going away for the summer, but can we come back next year?”
The old lady, thinking what the neighbour said, said nothing.
The students looked at each other uncertainly, then smiled and said, “Well, thank you very much”.
As they walked away, one said, “What did we do wrong?”
The other shook her head. “I don’t know. But old people are strange. We”ll just have to find somewhere else for next year. We can’t risk the term starting without accommodation.”
At the end of the holiday one came back early from work and found a cheaper place further out of town.
A few days after the conversation with the students, the old lady met her neighbour in the shops. “Well, how did it go with the students?” she asked smilingly.
The old woman looked abashed. “I don’t know” she said uncertainly. “They said they wanted to come back, but they didn’t offer a retainer”.
“Did you ask for one?”
“Well, no. I thought they would offer. It’s a lovely house and I know they were happy there”.
The neighbour tutted impatiently. “There you go then, you should have asked . But I wouldn’t worry” she added reassuringly. “They’ll be back next year. My tenants are good friends of theirs, and they told me how much they liked your house, and how much they were looking forward to returning”.
A couple of weeks before the term started the Landlady started to wonder when her tenants would return. Then the term started and she still had not heard from them. A few weeks later she was getting worried and wondered if she should forget the students and advertise, when she met the neighbour on the High Road.
The neighbour greeted her with a big smile and they chatted for a while. Just when she turned to go the neighbour stopped her. “Oh, I nearly forgot. My tenants asked me to pass a message on. Your students are coming back, but while they were in London they were involved in a road accident. So they can’t come back right away. They were worried you might not keep the place for them”.
The Landlady’s face cleared. Her good tenants were coming, they were just delayed. “Oh, thank you for telling me”.
As she walked home she felt so relieved. No need to advertise after all. Her girls would be back soon. Oh, she did hope they weren’t badly hurt.
Several more weeks passed. The old lady missed the income from her tenants. The running costs of the house consumed her small pension – so she let to students and lived in an annexe in the back garden. She wished the girls would hurry up and return or at least contact her .
More weeks passed. Then a letter arrived. It was from one of the girls. She apologised profusely for not getting in touch before, and described how the accident had taken place and the car was in the garage getting fixed, but thankfully no-one was injured.
“Well, bully for you” thought the old lady exasperated. She was just about to throw the letter in the bin when she had a thought. She looked at the envelope. It had been posted locally. Then she remembered her neighbour had said the girls were going to the Caribbean. How could the girls have had a car accident in the Caribbean? Wouldn’t they have left their car at home? The old lady sat down at the table, her head in her hands. She felt very tired. Something wasn’t right. Bugger the girls. They were messing her around. Probably they were off having a laugh at the trouble they had caused her. And she had thought they were such nice people. Good tenants. Just goes to show . You can’t tell.
She advertised, but it was so late in the year she got no replies. She lost a year’s rent.
The new place the girls found were happy to let them stay on when the second year’s term ended. In the third year they were at a party and met a student living at their old address. The student looked at them oddly and remarked. “You know the Landlady expected you to come back”. The friends looked at each other in confusion. “We asked her if we could come back, but as she didn’t answer we thought she didn’t want us”.
“Well, the Landlady waited for you and the house remained vacant for the entire year. Your name is mud in that neighbourhood now”.
Copyright Prayerwarriorpsychicnot 2014.
ONLY LIES
I am not afraid of time.
The ticking of the clock does not disturb me.
The guest that comes,
welcome or unwelcome,
the end or the beginning.
Life and death married, always circling.
The pulse of the universe, our lives ,
less than a heartbeat.
I am not afraid of time, or death or life.
Only lies.
Prayerwarriorpsychicnot Copyright 2014
.
There once was a King. His word was law. He acknowledged no law higher than himself, nor morality, nor god.
One day riding in the countryside he saw a pretty peasant working in the fields. He returned to his palace in great excitement. “I must have her” he said. “She will add to my collection of butterflies in the Court harem”.
Later in the day Emissaries from the Court knocked at the door of the peasant’s hovel. Ostentatiously holding their nose and smirking at each other, they put on straight faces when an old man answered. He stared at them, frozen, speechless.
“We would like to speak to your daughter” one said.
The girl looked at them with suspicion and listened carefully to what they had to say. When they finished and waited for her reply she said one word.
“No”.
“But you can’t say , “no”, said one.
“You don’t understand” said the other.
“I understand. The King wants me to be his whore. Dressed up in shiny clothes, that is all I will be. Will the people at Court view me as an equal? Will they talk to me as one of themselves? Oh, they will be polite – on the surface. But they will mock me among themselves. And if the King is a thug, a pervert, where do I go for help? The police? And since when does a King go trawling in the gutter for a mate? Has he run out of princesses. Or do those princesses know what they would be getting into?”
The girl held out her hands, worn hard and calloused with work. “If I’d wanted to be a whore, would I have hands like these?”
“But, but ..” stuttered one Emissary, “It is an honour!”
“Who is the King’s General?” the girl asked. “Give the honour to him. He deserves it”.
She turned and walked back into the hut.
The Emissaries looked at each other, white faced.
“We can’t say that to the King”
“We have to” said the other, grim-faced. “It is our job”.
The Emissaries returned to the Palace. The grim-faced Emissary reported the conversation verbatim, as he was trained.
The King raged. “A peasant? A worthless female dares to insult me?”
Early next morning soldiers descended on the village. They not only rounded up the girl and her family, but everyone. They killed all stock and burnt the village and surrounding fields to the ground.
They took everyone back to the Kings dungeons and slowly tortured everyone to death. Men women and children. They forced them to carry out every perversion on each other known. Fathers were forced to rape their children while their torturers stood round laughing. And worse.
When the peasant girl gave up her dying breath she thought, “And we respected these bastards? We worked for them? And fought for them? What fools we were”. She laughed. “All that work of our ancestors. Working hard, struggling to bring up children. Why did we bother? Their deeds proclaim them for what they are – the honour of kings”.
………………………
Copyright 2014 Prayerwarriorpsychicnot
She looked round the empty flat. A paper tissue lay under the table. It would have to stay there, with her arthritis she couldn’t reach the floor. The flat really needed cleaned. But it was all she could manage moving out into the bed-sit – the one overlooking woodland she and her husband had first looked at when they moved from London. She shrugged. She would leave the bond. The landlord had been good and he deserved it.
The first week was strange. She felt calm, a bit out of this world. An image of her husband when she had first met him twenty years before seemed to hang in the air in front of her – smiling, young and strong, but now as if a golden aura hung around him. The image went, she couldn’t exactly identify when . But the feeling of peace, of safety lingered for weeks afterwards.
It was strange. In the early days she spent little time thinking about him, as if he was still there. But a year and a half later she felt normal again. And the memories started. Their holiday in Rome, when she had taken a photo of him in the Coliseum, the circular walls and the labyrinth of rooms at the base. He looked at home there. As if he had stepped into the modern age from another time.
Small flashes of memory punctuated her day. Sitting in a corner of the library reading, a coffee at his side. When he was ill driving to the airport in the early morning, for a flight to Malta. Lots of memories of holidays. The coach tour to Scotland, where after a shower, they saw one rainbow after another, lighting the sky over the bleak moors and brooding hills.
Bringing her a cup of tea with a slab of chocolate cake, with a smile.
“Where are you now, my love?”
The rose dies, but the scent lingers on, or in their case, lavender. Her husband loved lavender. Especially when she gave him a foot massage, and rubbed lavender cream into his feet.
Funny. A tough man, with tender feet.
The time they walked together, hand in hand, along the beach at Shanklin.
Driving her mother around Strangford Lough, a rare outing for the old lady in her eighties. She slept the whole way but later said she enjoyed it.
Everywhere she turned a memory lay in wait to ambush with a chuckle, a smile, a thoughtful moment, and tears.
She was surrounded by books. Since his death she had built up a small library. But in her head was a library of memories given to her by her husband. His last gift and the sweetest gift of all.
.
Copyright 2014 Prayerwarriorpsychicnot
Tribute William Andrew McCleary 1943-2013
The seven year old Seer led the child to her lost broach.
Then a voice spoke to her. “If you follow this path, one day you will find something better left unfound”.
Fifty years later, she did not find something that needed to be found.
And thousands died.
Tales of Unwise Paths 