Tag: bp_docs_comment_access_anyone

The Challenge that set by Mslexia is to write 500 words as wife mother daughter a real or fictional person. This was a far more interesting proposition than the one set for my small Suffolk writers group. I was halfway through it anyway so I decided to run with what I was already writing. It seemed to me like cutting class - which I had never done in school. So maybe it was about time to break the mould of a lifetime of trying to conform. It was this class that had got me to source a magazine to write to get work out there after all. So it was in someways legitimate not to follow the set piece but to go it alone. Deep Breath stride into the new! Meta title    The World’s Wife  Cleopatras Mistress Julius did not excite my hatred. He was, of course, a wonderfully strategic choice but fairly soon despite Cleopatra’s charms he became easily distracted from her bed....

I don’t say a word now - not a word - but I know everyone hates me I can see the hatred streaming at me like a river of darkness on my social media pages. Sharp words scream silently into my silent online world. The only world I live in. Every now and then I post a picture of my favourite tree. It is a low branched spreading oak that I sometimes walk to from my gate. It starts at my new school. I don’t know any of the girls that pitch and toss around me in the swirling sea of new faces. The first thing that happens is a girl says ‘We’re sending you to Coventry!’ I don’t really pay attention but as my day unfolds get it. A whole week where no one in my year speaks to me. If I ask if I can play with them I get no reply. They just turn away as if I don’t exist. I am shunned by...

I dont say a word now - not a word -but I know everyone hates me I can see the hatred streaming at me like a river of darkness on my social Media pages. The first thing that happened was a girl said - we’re sending you to Coventry. I didn’t really pay attention but as the day went on I got it then a whole week where noone in my year spoke to me - if I said something I got no reply they just turned away as if I didnt exist — 70 girls - there were two other classes in my year-no one spoke — so I stopped speak One girl from another class said as looked over my head - you suck up to teachers and walked away. Then there was the hall The teachers left us on our own and everyone on my side of the hall moved to the other side - so I moved over too At which point...

Reconning Thierry stands beside a small fire he has made in the gathering shadows behind the church.  He seems hunched over completely unaware of us as we approach. ‘Thierry!’ The headmasters voice makes him jump.  ‘Sorry Headmaster,’ he straightens up replying in an unsteady voice ’These empire maths books are completely out of date. I’ve put some new ones in the library about African mathematics by Thierry Zomerhund.’ Thierry catches his breath with an almost silent sob. The buttons of a small priests cassock are beginning to melt and shrivel up in the flames. The head indicates the burning robe ‘Was that yours?’ Thierry nods his head ‘It was made for me to wear as father O’Mallys curate’ ‘Mbabzi interjects. ’But you are only thirteen.’ ‘Yes. I only wore it in the other churches in Nansana. I’m tall for my age so nobody over there realised. I even wore it when we went to the border. I wore it on the trai…..!’ ‘On the train?’ Mbabzi was now standing...

JB turns up a bit late in his rather battered truck. He always sleeps with his truck when he travels with a consignment. ‘Precious cargo man!’ beats his chest and readjusts his drooping khaki shorts with a wide smile.  ‘Hi JB I’ve been up to the border by car but never all the way to Kampala. It’ll be quite a trip!’ ‘It’ll be a few days over roads that are rough in places and rather precipitous in others’ he warns me. ‘But I’ve made it every time. I’ve not been to the orphanage though but its not too far off the Kampala road. We’ll get there with St Christopher’s help!’ He taps the medallion around his neck.  ‘He’s never let me down. Yet!’  He laughs. ‘Not trouble at the docks. The pick up went through smooth as butter this time! It’s not always that easy.’ I throw my bag onto the wide front seat and pull myself into the truck. It smells of of hot...

The journey by road JB turns up a bit late in his rather battered truck. He always sleeps with his truck when he travels with a consignment. ‘Precious cargo man!’ beats his chest and readjusts his drooping khaki shorts with a wide smile.  ‘Hi JB I’ve been up to the border by car but never all the way to Kampala. It’ll be quite a trip!’ ‘It’ll be a few days over roads that are rough in places and rather precipitous in others’ he warns me. ‘But I’ve made it every time. I’ve not been to the orphanage though but its not too far off the Kampala road. We’ll get there with St Christopher’s help!’ He taps the medallion around his neck.  ‘He’s never let me down. Yet!’  He laughs. ‘Not trouble at the docks. The pick up went through smooth as butter this time! It’s not always that easy.’ I throw my bag onto the wide front seat and pull myself into the truck. It smells...

As we pull away from the station forty-five minutes late the huge blue diesel engine slowly picks up speed. Kampalas flimsy houses begin to crowd in close to the Line. Corrugated-roof slums with ragged children wave. Everyone we see turns towards the train and smiles. I return the smiles and waves, but the scene passed as quickly With the briefest glance back and a twinge of privilege-induced guilt, I return to my own personal reality - a bell-boy summoning First and Second Class passengers to the dining car. Local passengers are few and there are only a few passionate train enthusiasts. I hadn’t quite realised that riding on the Lunatic line would be a five hundred-mile trip.  The narrow-gauge track journey is twenty-three hours long. The scene is something from a 1940's black and white movie. Waiters hovered around the tables in starched almost-white uniforms and serve luncheon from once-gleaming silver platters. With a great sweep of his huge hands and a broad...

She  skip round the lonely stones She’s looking round the lone grey stones Livein’ the dream now She steps on confetti  Damp from the night before Sadly bright some how some how Was yesterday she took her vow Many years away From confetti falling falling day Where has she been She lives in a dream Waits at the window A woman who keeps her face in a jar And waits for the man in his bright red car Where does she come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong? Nobody knows Where is she going Where the wind blows Blows blows she knows the blows So what does she care? Swirling confetti is bright It is bright But not in the darkness Not in the night And yet in the morning he says its alright she walks in the door not keeping score She dances around the stone - the stone She dances around the standing stone And plays a game of ‘not alone’ Heart beating and breaking Mending and making The word spins around Confetti is falling Swirling and spinning As she whirls around The world spins around...

Sometimes I think mum loves O’Mally more than Dad She’s so down on Dad. I just can’t work out why. I hear them shouting in the night. I think she maybe hates him.  At Sunday school they say to love mum and dad.  But I don’t see dad much he’s always off on jobs.  Some Sundays he lets me sit in the drivers seat and work the wheel when he’s mending the car.  I look at all the dials and numbers and stuff and work the nob stick back and forth.  He whistles tunes while he’s fixing the underneath. In the side mirror I see his legs sticking out. He lets me look under the bonnet sometimes too.  I love the workshop mix of smells. I sniff the cans when he’s not looking. ‘They don’t make them like this anymore’ he says. I wonder why they don’t and who ‘they’ are. But I don’t dare ask him. Mum keeps having accidents. Getting bashed by a kitchen cupboard door and giving herself...

40 Return to the Orphanage I am doing a behind the counter stint afternoon at Hassocks and Cassocks shop. Nobody has entered the shop in the last two hours. I flick a large fly off my hand written accounts note book. I find myself beginning to worry about the orphanage consignment. It should have arrived for pick up by now. I ring the container shipment guy who tells me there were hold ups in the Gulf but the offload is expected in Mombasa any time soon.  Reaching for the counter phone I ring our van man JonB to put him on standby. He is our go-to delivery guy who picks up our Far East consignments from the docks in Kilindini Harbour. His wife makes a living running up sets robes for the numerous charismatic churches in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. We use her for making some of our more targeted stuff for the East African market.  Much of the rest comes as standard...