... did i fall?

did I leap ...

Stories from the Apocalypse - Sand

Some people say we're all descended from story. Story is all, and all is story. I think some people just don't read so much these days, and perhaps my eyes grow. Dim.

The biting wind is endless. A long, eternal stretch where sand is withered, whitened bone-rib, riding out the storm. Swirling.
Do you see, out there in the distance? Running down the molten wave, each step bleeds a glassy stare. We cannot avoid his eye.

Crow flies and we quicken down the sand. It stands before us, the skull, rictus grinning as wind whips in and out of the deep-set sockets. Motionless, grinning. We circle the wooden stake and return to face the skull. Bowing down we take our knife and carve out the eyes. For him to see.

Time passes and the sands snake silently down. A woman approaches the stake. Gold-ringed and bronze, she bears a purple scarf. Scraping the crusted blood to kiss his eyes. In rapture. The woman takes the scarf from her shoulders and wraps it tenderly around the skull - purple binding the coronal suture. She falls to the foot of the stake.

The words fly home. Crow bound and circling the stake, they lift the condyle voice as one. And so a story is borne on the winds. Story is all, and all is story. And somehow people just don't read so much these days.

Death is the star

Doodles

I cleared out the bottom drawer of my desk at work earlier this week, and came across a series of badly-inked doodles. There's a small selection below.

So many memories of b..o...r....i.....n............g meetings that stretched out in search of infinite emptiness. And then my mind spins once more and I'm lost in dreams.

I remember the morning I filled an entire meeting room in a mental deluge of fish, ambushing yet another pointless PowerPoint presentation. And the time a strangely happy spaniel bounded across a page of notes to bark, 'Woof!'

Exquisite dreams. Badly-inked doodles

The meeting of minds

Little Lamper at work

Thirteen months and growing

Dear Little Lamper,

we've recovered ... well, just about! It was rather hectic, wasn't it? Mummy off to learn how to mark papers properly, and us left in charge of you. Or was it the other way round, I wonder?

You did enjoy exploring, didn't you. Especially all those places that thirteen month old toddlers shouldn't be. And as for your dancing? Any grandson of mine who can cut a mean rug to the Brazilian back beats of Azymuth wins a special star from me!

The sight of you, Little Lamper, swaying from side to side, hands aloft and dressed in little more than a t-shirt and a slightly fragrant Pamper, will remain with me for ever.

And then you fell down.

But that's life.

So pick yourself up once more, young man, and spin in time with grandpa. It's the rhythm of life, you know.

God bless,

electrofried(grumps)