Jack had just taken early retirement from his old job as a maths researcher. in Knittingham university.His large collection of books was overwhelming the home he shared with his excitable French wife Simone.
Simone was still working at the university cleaning computers heads all day long.Now she was hoping that she and Jack could do more entertaining.If only he would get rid of some of the many books he owned!
Simone left for work wearing her new pink cord trousers and a dark blue denim knit jumper with a long lasting beige foundation from Max Factor covering her red complexion.
Jack gave the cat,Louisa, a hot bath in goat’s milk.Now instead of being grey she was cream coloured!
I’ve been dyed,she shrieked politely but Jack never replied.
He pondered,as he dried her what to do with all his maths books.He had thought of making a large collage but who would want it?
Or he could donate them to the university or have a fire in the back garden.
Suddenly he looked up and saw a very charmingly pink faced woman peering into the window.
It was his neighbour Mima whose husband had disappeared last year,possibly inside a wheelie bin,though no-one was sure.
Hello,l,did you want me?” he cried nervously
I thought you might like some company for morning coffee.What a pretty cat.what is her name?”
Louisa was wary of Mima.Maybe the purple trousers and orange jumper might give the cat an epileptic fit… she was a sufferer, just like St Paul.She hoped to be converted but so far was disappointed.She longed to see a vision of heavenly cat food in the sky.
Can cats go to Mass? she mioawed to Jack.
Yes,but they can’t have Communion,he responded furtively
Well,we don’t eat bread but I love wine!
I’ll mention it to the Pope next time I see him,Mima said with a roguish smile.Her make up looked to be waterproof as the drip in the ceiling was right above her head and heavy rain was falling yet her face did not change at all.Was it plastic coated?
But Louisa,you would have to confess your sins.All your sins
I never did a thing wrong in my whole life ,the cat replied haughtily.
Well,you know the Church is only for repentant sinners,so if you never sin,you can’t repent. so it follows indubitably that you can’t join the Church! I studied Aristotle once so
I get all logical with emotion.I only wish I’d got to Wittgenstein..I could have loved that man….though now I seem to recall he was gay…still,who knows?
If that were true about the Church,would Jesus be allowed to join?
Certainly not.He was perfect and also he was Jewish.So why would he want to join a Christian church?
As he began it, he might like to see its holy life,Louisa purred loudly.
Really,I think this is a very odd conversation murmured the parrot,Felix Semper.
Not so odd,responded a tall dark man who just appeared from nowhere.
I am called Jesus he said,but I’m from Malaga.
In Spain many men are called Jesus,he continued mellifluously.
Is that so, cried she murmured tenderly.
I never met a Jesus before.If you married me it would give people a shock if I said I was married to Jesus! she whispered loudly behind her hand.
Marry you! Is it leap year? Women have never proposed to me before.
I was just thinking out loud,she replied demurely in her soft voice.
Nuns used to be married to Jesus and wore a silver wedding ring.
I was educated at a convent school.That’s why I’m so very neurotic.
Are you really neurotic? Jack,screamed neurotically
I have a whole shelf of books by Karen Horney here.Self Analysis, is just one.
I could give it to you now….
Not in front of Jesus,she muttered chastely.
Have you no moral feelings?
No,I’ve never had any feelings of any sort in my entire. bu life but it’s done me no harm.
I’ll ask Simone when she gets back, we’ll see if she agrees!
I’m just like a computer with a human body.
I sometimes think I’d like a suit of silver armour.
Bless you,my child,Jesus murmured.
When they looked up the tall dark man was gone.
They looked around but he had left no footprints.
Should we call the police?He came in with no permission!
How disgraceful.
How dastardly.
How disgusting
How damnable.
How divine.
How dumb.
How deplorable.
So on they murmured until it was time to cook lunch. for the cats and birds.What a morning,what a life.
Oh, mug, so noble, men might worship you
You hold a pint of Earl Grey Tea with milk.
That’s more than I can fit inside my shoe.
The very notion makes my body wilt.
From Amazon, you traveled all alone
Until I took you to my heart complete.
I shall never stir my tea with bones.
Not shall I for my writing press, delete.
I drink a pint of tea when dawn arrives
I dream of broken teeth and opiate drugs.
But when I waken, I am still alive
And to an opiate,I prefer a mug.
Yet has my life been abstinent and harsh?
Still my mouth can never , now, be parched!
Next they’ll be putting cameras into our ears but are the eustachian tubes large enough?
Which is larger the urethra or the eye of a needle?
Just think what might be living inside your kidney and you won’t even know until one day you have a terrible pain and it’s not your period.
I have had sepsis twice but will I make it through a third episode? On the one hand yes I must be very strong to survive twice so on that basis I predict I will go on surviving it forever until I die of something else
But my infirmity is no reason at all for Trump to bomb Iran or indeed to bomb anywhere at all in the world.
There’s probably a name for this but it’s the opposite of feeling that you are responsible for all the sin and suffering in the world.
We just have to accept we’re responsible for a small amount of it but we’re also responsible for a larger amount of goodness kindness decency humour love friendship care and community spirit. And much more . Like the preservation of ancient churches and other buildings. On the medical research that’s ongoing in the NHS and our universities.
Shall I miss the journeys that we made
Up sheer cliffs and through deep muddy yards
Chased by geese and then with heather laid?
I cannot catch you now, it is too far.
You cleaned my boots back in the cottage sweet
On the bed, you covered me in coats
Tenderly you stroked my crooked feet
And hot and sugared tea you once more brought
A dog stopped by and held out its clean paw
It shook your hand and gazed with amber eyes
Remote and cold, the Hartland Cliffs we saw
Where have you got to now, my love, disguised?
Danger and delight then drew us on
I cannot find your face, where have you gone?
Try to put a cannula into your arm and burst a weather vane. Sorry I meant your vein.
Inject you with broad spectrum antibiotics with a blunt needle.
Give you an enema
Wash you all over with fairy liquid and cold water?
Read you a story about Donald Duck the evil orange murderer. He is getting to be worse than Satan
All of the above?
After all, the worst thing is being bored, being alone and being sick.
We don’t know what it’s like to be dead until we die and then we can’t come back and tell anybody although I did see my husband once.
I saw him in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep because my friend had been run over and my husband was very fond of her so he appeared in my bedroom and said when I heard I had to come back unfortunately he was only there for about two minutes.
My this metal bed is very hard Mary thought she lay on the scanner. Where should I look? Just keep my eyes closed that’s the best.
I think the iodine will have got into your kidneys by now, she heard a male voice say
Well I can’t feel anything but as long as you can see something I am happy Mary told them suddenly her phone rang.
It was nside her capacious bra Mary had forgotten.
Luckily she was not inside the scanner so she pulled it out and handed it to the radiographer who was standing by her side.
It’s lucky it wasn’t inside my knickers I suppose but then we don’t have those knickers that women used to wear in Victorian times with elasticated legs coming halfway down the thighs but they would be very useful. Actually my mother-in-law used to carry a handkerchief there.
Mary’s mind drifted on. Her shoulders were aching because she had to hold her arms vertically behind her which meant they were actually horizontal.
Finally they had finished and she sat up with the aid of the radiographer because the room was spinning round and round.
Well this makes a change, she told Annie. Then she heard a noise that sounded like a cat meowing
Have you got Emile inside your handbag she asked Annie?
Well yes I have because I did not want to be alone in the wait ing room while you were having your scan.
I don’t know if that’s a good enough reason…
we could have brought another person with us like that man who lives in the house across the road it’s about time we got to know him.
Mary you’re acting very strangely you’ve never expressed interest in men before not since we lost Stan
Well maybe it’s the iodine if it goes into my kidneys and bladder gets into my womb
Maybe iodine is like viagra for womenm I can’t say what it does for men .
But do not drink iodine at home as I will not be answerable for the consequences no will I pay for you to go to a nursing home to have a baby if you become pregnant after reading this storym
short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale’s edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.
on wind-side,careful sight,
may swoop to prey
and away.
your yellow broad-eyed look,
at once both sharp and distant,
holds me.
oh,silence,
oh,wind on green,
oh,earth,
sky.
immense your held vision,
sphere without center,
pied geometer of flight,
oh, swift descent and ascent.
trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home
Mary went to the hospital to have her CT scan. As usual she was a companies by her friend Anne. But she didn’t know that Emile the cat was in Anna’s handbag today.
As you know some women like to have very big handbags but have you never wondered what they are carrying inside these bags?
Annie, they are going to put some iodine into one of my veins, she informed her friend .
Well it doesn’t matter which one they’re putting it into because all your blood circulates around your entire body is it once every 24 hours or is it once a year I’m not sure.
I think you’re thinking about the sun and the earth and the moon which has got nothing to do with the human circulatory system.
Yes Mary I think you’re right I was never very good at science.
And you have no common sense either
How could it take a whole year for the blood to circulates round my body. I would turn into a stone!
I just wasn’t thinking properly I apologize. But why should I apologize because I was born like this… in the lower half of the normal curve for the IQ. God must be very good at statistics.
Oh don’t worry I know what it’s like I’m sure I will say something quite stupid while I’m in the hospital. Doctors seem to bring out the worst in me.
If you feel like that maybe you shouldn’t speak at. After all irs only scan of your kidneys not your brain.
Do you think if you’re having a brain scan that talking will make the scan come out differently? It seems a ridiculous idea to me but you never know is these days especially if you watch Fox News.
Mary lay down on the on the cold metal bed that was part of the CT scanner.
Will it be alright if I put a cannula into your arm, the nurse enquired kindly?
If I say no, what will you do Mary asked
Well it’s not really a question it’s just a form of politeness so we don’t just grab your arm and stick the cannula in as it will be seen as very invasive.
You are in a very powerful position aren’t you as a nurse here before you could ask me a question which I cannot actually give a truthful answer to because I don’t like having cannulas put in. I really don’t want you to put it in but I have read the explanation on the internet and I realised it will better if you do put it in.
You really need to study philosophy and language and many other topics before you could understand these pseudo questions that doctors had nurses and other people may ask you.
Why it’s almost as if Benjamin Netanyahu rang up the new Ruler of Iran and asked him would he mind he dropped a bomb on his home.?
If they did that then they would say it wasn’t a war because the Iranian person had agreed or at least not disagreed when he was asked if he would mind having a bomb dropped on him.
Is it what they call a rhetorical question asked Annie nervously as she stroked Mary’s cat Emile who was in her handbag without permission of the hospital.
I knew I shouldn’t have brought a cat she thought anxiously.
If he meows it will cause a lot of trouble and since Mary can’t see him or touch him it’s of no benefit to her that he is nearby. I must be out of my mind she thought. Don’t tell me I’m getting dementia.
The face that was familiar is no more Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again If ,by a chance, his life could be restored It would affect me like the hidden chord Which played, my own life force would go. That one must live and one must die is plain The face that was familiar is no more. Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again
Jack opened the door and saw his elegantly thin wife Simone riding her bicycle along the pavement without even holding the handlebars
That is absolutely and utterly wrong, he told her rudely yet patiently.
You are giving a bad example to the cat and to many other people who may be looking out of their windows or driving along this intriguingly bland suburban road
Louisa grinned like a Cheshire cat would
Don’t be so ridiculous she cried, cats can’t ride bicycles. Their legs are not long enough
You’re missing the more subtle point that you are breaking the law in a particular way Now the cat or any cat, a dog or a human being may not be able to ride a bicycle but they can break the law.
Well of course they can because we all have free will or we are just too lazy to think she cried merrily.
So if you ride a bicycle along the pavement especially when there are people about you are giving the impression that you do not have any thought for the good of others. In modern terminology you are a narcissist or in Christian terminology you are a sinner although it’s not a mortal sin unless you kill somebody deliberately and wilfully. Who knows who is guilty of mortal sin ?
Don’t ask me I’m only a writer
Oh dear Jack you are so scrupulous. I have never done it before but it was so inviting when I came around the corner I felt like a child. I thought how lovely it will be to ride along the pavement
It’s very sad Jack sald that people see being an adult as a deprivation of pleasure. There are adult pleasures of course that we can’t talk about those in front of the cat can we?
Why not, the little cat wondered to herself. I would like them to talk about is in front of me.
The elderly couple rolled into the sweet little kitchen on their milk bottle like legs and their cruelly deformed feet and rolled onto the wooden bench behind the kitchen table. But close to the grand piano as well
What are we having for our tea?
Jack said, I found a teapot in the dining room so we can have tea in the pot instead of in mugs with tea bags I think you will enjoy that my dear
I definitely will. I love a nice teapot. And have you made a cake?
I’ve made a lot of cakes but they are potato cakes!
Well my mother used to make those in the 1950s or was it the 1960s ? We still had a coal fire with an oven at the side. Those were the days.
Jack put the potato cakes on the table along with some co-op best butter.
Then little Louisa climbed onto the table and licked the butter with her red tongue.
See I told you that you were leading the cat into sin and now she’s been licking this butter. I will have to throw it away m
A cat can do something wrong but is it a sin?
Are there cats in hell?
But she didn’t see me riding on the pavement, his beautiful brave wife exclaimed with a subtle yet obvious hint of violence.
Unfortunately the cat has got second sight being half Irish and she definitely did see her mother riding the bicycle along the pavement breaking the law with every turn of the pedals
What the cat was thinking was this:
is doing something illegal automatically a sin and is something legal always good?
The second question is easier to answer because we know that in world war two many things were done in Germany that were legal under their leader Hitler but they were definitely not good to put it mildly
To be plain they were evil
But breaking the law by riding a bicycle along the pavement is not in the list of sins in most Catholic missals
I suppose in the time of the Apostles there were no pavements and there were no bicycles so you would have to look for a general principle.
Give unto Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God’s
After that Jack got some fresh butter from the fridge and he and his wife demolished the potato cakes along with some bacon and egg
Inside my shell, I dream of pearls, Caterpillars, snails with whorls. I dream contented, all enwrapped With reverie and dream, I’m lapped. The inner seas will comfort me, While gods allow my eyes to see
Oh, sweeter than confectionery Is my hardback dictionary. The words whirl round and fall to shape The sentences, which my world drape. This furnishing is rich and strange Yet magically self-arranged.
Oh, sweeter than the love of man Is reading works of poets long gone; And feeling deeply their dark tides, Upon which our boats may glide. The infinite sea we float upon Is the same warm sea that ancients swam.
Sweeter still is this spring air And the blossom spreading fair. We’ll drown ourselves in deep green fields To the gods of poetry yield. We’ll rise again and spring up tall To grow more rich until we fall.
Sweet it is to live and die And to write my poetry Touch me with your ardent souls My mind and yours shall all be whole
When we think of God, we see an eye Watching us like some abhorrent spy What of his touch, his hearing, his small voice? What his taste conveys and how employed
Larger than the total of sand grains That form all ocean shores by moon arranged Smaller than the eyes of ladybirds And insects humble without spoken words
What is size compared to tangled roots? What is loud compared to army boots? What the colour, what the perfect form To ripple through my eyes with no alarm
What do you here, what vision do you flee? Who sieves earth and whose the face you see?
Enfolded by your smile,I saw the light As if a hidden world such love revealed Our spirits touched, our sorrows pushed to flight In that space, our worries did not bite The trees were shelter, losses were each healed In your holy smile,I saw the light Blessed be, there is a second sight From heart and soul , the silver bells shall peal Where spirits touch ,where sorrows quickly fly And who but you would see my inner plight Would know the false from what is right and real Cradled in your smile,I felt the light No army with its metal and its might Can win the final war , love conquers steel As spirits touch as sorrows say goodbye I know it’s hard to learn what others feel And not draw back from grief, from loss revealed Enchanted by your smile ,O golden light Our spirits touched, our eyes wept their delight
How my heart speaks 