MAGPIES

The woman looked out of her first floor window. It was the beginning of November and the frost had painted the fields white. She took a small, sharp, breath.

There were five of the birds in the garden. She counted them carefully. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and - just then, another contraction began. She did the little, blowing pant she had been taught in pre-natal class. The contractions were coming more often now. Soon she would wake her husband to take her to the hospital.

The birds were still there. They hopped and jumped and sparred around each other, twittering, cheeping and cawing. One did summersaults for no apparent reason at all. Every now and then they would stop, momentarily, and look up at the window before resuming their lunatic behaviour.

How did the rhyme go? Four for a boy. She knew that one well. There had been four of the birds that morning, eighteen months ago, when she had begun labour with her first child. She had forgotten how bad it had hurt. She'd forgotten about the magpies too, until long after she'd held her brand new baby boy in her arms.

Coming from a different culture, she had not known the rhyme then. When she told her husband about the birds, at first he had not believed her, thinking that she was making some kind of joke based on the magpie rhyme, but when he realised she was telling the truth, he told her about the rhyme. Somehow, it had made the birth of her son extra special, magical even - and now there were five!

She struggled to remember the rest of the rhyme, it took her mind away from the extreme discomfort of late pregnancy. It had been eighteen months since she had first heard the rhyme and she had made no attempt to memorise it, it was just a beautiful co-incidence, yet, in her anxiety, something made her realise that it was somehow important.

Five, what did five mean? There was something about a wish - and something about a secret and a kiss and - and - another contraction. Time to wake her husband.

Ten minutes after arriving at the maternity ward of the Princess of Wales hospital, Vincent Lightning (for so he was named) came into the world like a squeezed orange pip, straight into the arms of his eighteen month old ' big brother ' Daniel Norton. The nurses had objected to Daniel's presence at the birth, but the imminence of Lightnings arrival abbreviated their objections, and the manner of his receival changed their hearts. Daniel held and kissed his new brother, then his mother, then his brother, then his father, then his brother, over and over and over again. He took a lot of re-assurance and coaxing before he would relinquish his charge to be cleaned and checked and weighed.

The nurses determined that if ever they had any more children they would be sure to involve their siblings more. His mother learned that five was silver but in her heart it was gold. He never cried, Daniel saw to that by always drawing attention to him before he became upset. He never cried, not from his birth nor at his death, for yes, he left this world as fast as he arrived, at the tender age of three months, he contracted Bronco Pneumonia and died. The 1990 Welsh Hurricane struck the village moments later, accompanied by huge bolts of lightning, that continued for days, until his burial. The tears he never cried were shed many times over by all who knew him. His family never got over the shock.

John Henry White "Biker" Daring - 15 years, 11 months, 25 days ago

The Dragon Awakes


1
The dragon floated out through the cosmos. Stars, galaxies and deep space sank slowly within him. He knew he was dead. How or why didn’t seem to be important, it was just an overwhelming relief to be done with, ‘all that’, which was whatever he was leaving behind. He vaguely remembered twice before beginning this journey, once caught in a tidal undertow and another from the bottom of a pool.


This time, the universe had shrunk completely and disappeared somewhere near the very heart of him, like the final glow from a dying ember, but it was not cold. Not yet.


The darkness began to brighten. The Light didn’t seem to come ‘from’ anywhere, but instead ‘seemed’ to come ‘from’ everywhere. It was ‘very’ light. It didn’t hurt the ‘eyes’. It was ‘warm’, he felt comfortable. The word was too weak for what he felt – he felt – overjoyed! Ecstatic! Orgasmically so! He began to be aware of ‘intensities’ moving around within the light. They began to gather around him and he became aware that they were ‘persons’. He did not recognise them but felt they knew him. They felt benign, as though they were gently smiling.


“You must return.” The words entered his mind.
“It’s not your time.” A different ‘voice’ but the same gentle tone.
“NO!” the dragons’ mind screamed, panic and desperation flooding to every part of his being.
“You cannot stay here.” There was love and compassion with the words. The panic receded slightly.
“I don’t care!” the dragons mind roared. “I will not return!”
“There’s something you have to do, you must return.”
“I DON’T CARE!” He ripped with his minds claws, he gripped with his minds tails, he beat with his minds wings, he held with all his minds might, but to no avail, it ‘seemed’ to have no effect at all, on the light. But it did. The light firmed. It was never anything but loving, but it firmed. Then it pushed. It was never anything but the gentlest of pushes, almost a caress, but it pushed. And the light began to fade away!


2
He was falling, falling faster and faster, accelerating into the universe, already thousands of times the speed of light, galaxies star trekking into colour shifted stars, mind compressing under the weight of it all, the final approach both terrifying and astounding with the blinding speed of it.


Then he hit bottom. It was a bit like those falling dreams you have when you wake as you hit the floor falling from bed. A bit. But this was no dream. The instant agony of it confirmed that without need of pinching! This time the light hurt his eyes and was coming from above. He was lying on something hard and surrounded by green smocked humans. In the middle of the agony there was a sharp focus to the pain, in the middle of his chest. This appeared to be being caused by a length of thick, clear plastic tubing being pushed up his right nostril by one of the humans. His right forelimb lashed up with lightning speed to seize the human by the wrist directing the tube. The forelimb that did the seizing was also human. The moment was frozen, an eternity in itself………


A voice broke the stillness, “We have to remove the blood from your lungs!” It sounded like a good excuse. He relaxed his grip and the tube continued its’ journey into his lung. A huge syringe was attached to the other end and used to draw a thick, dark, liquid along the tube. As they were emptying the third syringe full into its shiny kidney shaped receptacle, he began to draw a breath. Began to. He never consciously completed the action. The ensuing rush of pain sent him straight into oblivion.


3
He awoke, the memory of recent events still at the surface of his consciousness.
“You’re awake then.” The voice drew his attention to a pretty young nurse seated next to the bed he was resting in, slowly folding the book she had been reading. They were in a small, unequipped room; the nurse was the monitor, intensive care early seventies style. “You’re very lucky, you were brought in D.O.A.”, he must have looked quizzical, “Dead on arrival.” She explained. Memories of a group of bikers, friends, at a roadside café in the night, showing how to fix the then, new type, ‘D’ ring fastener that secured his Bell Star helmet to the head of his mate who was wanting to try it.
“How’s my mate?” he whisper/croaked.
“He broke his collar bone and dislocated his hip, he’s going to be all right. You broke all your ribs and they punctured your lungs. You really are very lucky to be alive. I’m going to see sister to see about getting you on the ward.”


He pushed himself gently upright as soon as the door closed. As long as he moved silky smooth, and breathed nice and shallow, the pain was bearable. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, swaying slightly. He walked to the door, quite easily really, easier than he’d expected, and out into the corridor until he found a washroom. He stood before the urinal and relaxed. Ahhhhhh! It had been three days. At least one part of him still felt good. Then he turned to the mirror, and away again twice as fast, recoiling in horror. So far all the parts he’d used appeared human, but that head, that face.


He looked again, this time more cautious, more considered. It was human, just. His first glance had caught the ruined side, now he studied it. It was grossly swollen on the right side, mostly black with blue and purple trim. The swelling included the nose and was split by a crease that made it look rather like a severely beaten bottom in repose. An eyebrow adorned the upper cheek, and a row of stitches the lower. The eye, he hoped, was buried somewhere in between. He washed his hands, then splashed cold water onto his face before turning his attention outward once more.........

John Henry White "Biker" Daring - 16 years, 2 months, 6 days ago