After the Festive Season 

By Sis Unsworth 

It always is the same each year, something I can’t control,

a feeling that takes over me, and invades my very soul.

When Christmas is behind us, and New Year has finally passed,

I’ve made my resolutions, but as usual they won’t last.

We had the winter solstice, way back there in December,

and I’ve started my new diary, one thing I did remember.

Now something else is on my mind, it starts on New Years Eve,

a feeling that takes over me, you really won’t believe.

The festive season now is gone, and January’s here,

the nights start getting lighter, though it takes a while I fear.

I know I should be patient, as it takes sometime you know,

we must get through the winter, there may even be more snow.

The very thing I’m waiting for, obsesses me each day,

some little sign that tells me, that Spring is on its way!

Copyright Sis Unsworth

 Riddles 23

By the Riddler

The Riddler has more puzzles for us today:

No 1.  You are one of ten people in a room. Each person shakes hands once with all the other people in the room.  How many handshakes will take place?

No 2.  The combined age of a father and son is 66.  The father's age is his son,s age with the digits reversed; how old are they?

 

Keep em coming Riddler

 

 A BIRTHDAY PARTY WITH A BANG

By Bob French

The court room was full of chattering parents and kids from Hamilton-Wenham-Regional High, in Essex County. The press were there in force, some looking for the truth, others looking for more dirt on the boy who had got his thirteen year old girlfriend pregnant, stollen dinner money from at least 35 pupils, bullied most of the 12^th grade and virtually destroyed his parent’s house, car, swimming pool and the property of his neighbors on each side of his parent’s house.

          At the High Bench, three empty red velvet backed chairs, were placed.  These belonged to the three court officials, who were currently discussing the evidence presented to the court and the degree of punishment to be awarded, behind closed doors.

          At ten o’clock on the morning of the 12 of September, the front doors to Essex County Court opened, allowing a mob of angry people who had looked forward to this day; the down fall of John Wicks and hopefully the incarceration of one of the most wicked, mischievous, bad-tempered individuals who had ever been allowed[1] to roam the streets of North Hudson.  There were some mutterings among the crowd that if this thug had been caught back a way’s, there would have been a lynching from the grand-oak tree outside the court house in North Hudson rather than a trial.

Suddenly the door behind the high bench opened and the marshal of the court called for everyone to stand and be silent, as the officials took their seats.

The judge, having listened to over six and a half hours of evidence the previous day, from the Sheriff’s Department, Frank Mason, the County Fire Chief, Mr Phillips, the head of the school science department of HWR High, and several pupils in the 12^th grade, took a deep breath and looked up into the angry faces of everyone in his court room. They had been waiting for over two hours whilst he and the other two court officials deliberated over the seriousness of this boy’s crimes.  He banged his gavel for silence…

* * * * * * * * *

          It had all started on the last day of the summer term. It was Mr Phillips last words of encouragement to the science class that he wanted each pupil to create, a project that would benefit and improve the good and welfare of North Hudson, and support this with a 5,000-word thesis. He then explained that the science professor from Wentworth University, Dr Henderson, would judge their project and award a full scholarship to the winner.

As the school bell sounded, heralding the end of term, Mr. Phillips called out over the heads of his departing students’, “Remember! If you want to start you next term as a student of Wentworth University your project has to be spectacular, literally, blow his socks off.”

“Ja mean like a bomb, Sir?”

Mr. Phillips looked at Wicks, the class joker, a nuisance at the best of times, and a young man who was quickly following in his father’s footsteps; an intimidator, a racketeer and a thief and well known to the sheriff’s department.  

“I hope you’re joking Wicks, but metaphorically speaking, yes.”  

As Wicks pushed his way through the rest of the class, closely followed by his hangers-on, he raised his voice so all could hear, “I’m going to build a bomb and blow this class room to kingdom come.”

* * * * * * * * *

          Ben Hastings was the kind of boy most people overlooked, except for the bullies. Ben was a quiet, unassuming seventeen-year-old with a fascination for science, he spent most of his days tinkering with old gadgets, pulling apart machines and dreaming of a future where his inventions would change the world.  But at HWR, he was the favorite target of John Wicks, a loud-mouthed attention seeking bully who took great pleasure in humiliating Ben in front of his friends, including his girlfriend, Janet McClusky.

* * * * * * * * *

 Having avoided the crowds of cheering and hysterical students, Ben made his way to the far end of the sports field where he had arranged to meet Janet.

After a quick kiss, they held hands and wandered down the winding path that ran alongside the river.

Janet spoke first.  “Have you given any thought for your project?”

“Not really.  Have you?”

Janet was silent for a while, then turned to face Ben. “You may think I’m mad, but how about we create a bomb?”

Ben looked into her deep blue eyes and squinted.  “You sure you know what you’re talking about?”

“Look, Wicks has given us a perfect excuse.  I very much doubt that he has the brains to make a bomb.  So, let’s help him.”

“Sorry, but you’ve lost me.”

“Everyone heard him say that he was going to build a bomb, then blow up the classroom. Well, what if we build a bomb and discreetly planted it in his garden shed.  We can detonate it after his birthday party is over.

“What birthday party? I didn’t know there was a birthday party.”

“That is because you didn’t get an invite. He is holding his 18^th birthday party on the weekend before school starts.  Perfect timing to set off a bomb that looks like it was made by Wicks so he could carry out his brag.  ”The first person the sheriff’s department would want to speak to would be Wicks, after his threat.”

“Brilliant idea.  In one fell-swoop, we could get rid of him once and for all.”

By the time they had reached the end of town they had discussed the outline of their plan and how they were going to create a fool-proof alibi.  Ben, now full of enthusiasm wanted to recruit a few of his mates to help with plan but Janet held up her hand.

“I think if this plan is to work, we both must swear an oath of silence.  We must not discuss the plan or write anything down, show an interest publicly or we shall be implicated. I will sit down this evening and draw up the plan.  Then we can discuss it between us. So, if you have any ideas or questions, keep them in your head until tomorrow afternoon.”

* * * * * * * * *

Janet, with the help of Ben and his garden shed, had created a small bomb using a mixture of a thunder flash, CS gas canister, a purple paint bomb and with Ben’s clever idea, a mobile phone detonator.  They then both went through each of their sheds and bed rooms to ensure that anything they used in making the bomb was removed and their sheds were thoroughly cleaned.   All they had to do was smuggle it into the shed in Wick’s back garden prior to his party on the week end before the new term started.

Janet had invited their friends from the science class to an end of summer term barbecue, which would end around ten in the evening. As the light started to fade, Janet asked Ben to get some more Coca-Cola. Ben understood the coded language and slipped discretely through the back gate and into Wick’s back garden. Placed the bomb against some empty petrol cans, then spread around the shed and garden some of the items that had been used to make the bomb, knowing that the fire brigade would find them in the debris.

The bomb, when it had exploded on Saturday before school started, completely destroyed the shed, blew out most of the windows of Wick’s house and those of his neighbors, sprayed everyone who was in the back garden and the pool with purple die and set on fire his father’s BMW.

Within hours, the sheriff’s department, after some simple questioning of the guests at the party, followed the evidence to the son of the Wick’s family.  Then the Fire Department studied some of the components of the bomb with what they found scattered around the garden, then briefed the Sheriff’s Department with what they had found.

* * * * * * * * *

The court room fell silent. The judge looked up from his notes, and cleared his throat.

“After much deliberation, I find you, John Wicks guilty of all the charges laid against you.  The matter of you impregnating a minor will be dealt with by under a separate court hearing, where they will place a financial provision order upon you for the support of the child when it is born.”

Wicks smiled at the people sitting in the public galleries, knowing that the judge could not send him to prison because of his age. The judge, after a pause, looked up again at Wicks.

“As you are no longer a minor, I hereby sentence you to 8 years with no parole in the Massachusetts correction facility.”

Wicks stood and stared at the judge, then screamed, “You can’t I’m a minor. Stop, you’ve got this wrong.  I’m a minor.”

”Take him down, then clear the court.”

In the cool of the evening, Janet and Ben sat on the porch drinking ice cold Coca-Cola. After a period of silence, she draped her arm around Ben’s shoulder and gently kissed the side of his face. 

“Although we could never claim the prize of creating a project that would benefit and improve the good and welfare of our town, it was fun.”

Copyright Bob French

 Riddles 22

 

By the Riddler

 

The Riddler has two puzzles for us today:

 

No 1.  I’m tall when young but short when I’m old.  What am I?

 

No 2.   I’m an odd number, take away one letter and I become even.   What number am I?

 

Keep em coming Riddler

 

 It’s a week before Christmas

By Jane Goodhew

It is a week before Christmas and there is so much to do but first, I shall sit by the tree and remember. Your first steps, your sweet smile, the laughter in your eyes and the sparkle that shone around you where ever you went.  Life was magical with you in it, and I wanted so much for you to love me as I loved you and not just because I was your mother. I had waited so long to have a child of my own but finding the perfect man was not that simple or easy to do.                                                         

  I eventually did when I wasn’t even looking, he walked into the office and as he strode towards me my heart missed a beat, and I felt as if I would faint.  It sounds far fetched and straight out of Mills & Boon but that was how it was. From that day forth he was mine and I was his. We were married within a year and by the end of the next, Sebastian our son you were born. You was perfect as perfect could be in every way and rarely cried, so life was bliss. We had moved into a cottage in the village and the garden seemed to stretch for miles with a small lake towards the bottom. Trees grew along the side, so we were secluded and protected from the rest of the world. It was idyllic especially for the first few years, I had remained at home to be a mother and wife and keep house. I never thought it would be enough to satisfy me, but it was, as I learnt to cook and sew and make jams and preserves for the autumn. I joined the mother and baby club and took you swimming and for walks in the park. We had it all but that was all about to change.

  Your father started staying out later and later until he stopped coming home at all. Whilst we were out, he would return and take his belongings and then he left a note saying we were over. He was sorry but he realised that marital bliss was not for him, and he would leave us the house and enough income to last until you finished full time education and then a small amount to keep me going until I found appropriate work. I sat on the sofa totally stunned by what I read after all we had only been married a few years and we had always seemed so happy together. We didn’t row, we were loving and romantic and had time to ourselves, so it was not all divided between work and being a parent.  What had happened to make him just walk away? Perhaps I will never know and a part of me didn’t want to find out, so I didn’t, I just accepted it and got on with life, just you and me. 

The years past quickly and you enjoyed school and made many friends who often came over to play. We built a tree house, and you would spend many happy hours in the evening playing with your friends and imagining far away places that you would one day visit. I tried to show you as much of the world as I could, and we would holiday in a different country every summer and Christmas. I never liked the idea of Christmas at home just you and me and the tree. I know you sometimes would have wanted a more traditional time with family and friends and presents around the 'over decorated' tree, with a plate left out for Santa. I just couldn’t do it; it was too painful as your father, and I would be like children with presents and surprises for one another.  We laughed and sang and played charades and Scrabble and occasionally invited the neighbours in for a drink or two.

  One year we even threw a New Years Eve party and had lights all through the garden, it was like a winter wonderland, and I loved all he did to make our life perfect. If only I had known what the following year would bring but I didn’t as I had worn rose coloured glasses and lived in a dream, a fantasy.   I had thought of selling our home once he had made it perfectly clear that he would never be returning but I didn’t know where I   would go, and you were happy here.

  Your Grandparents would visit once a year and bring family photos and videos so we could see what your father was like as a child. The years blended one into another and your teenage years were filled with nights out and parties. I hoped you would work harder at school as you seemed to be an academic rather than a craftsman. Although you did like painting and music so had piano lessons, but they soon went the way of everything else and became part of your past. You did enjoy sport, and weekends were filled with rugby and football and in the summer cricket or tennis. Then the girls started to call, and you would drive off with the roof down and the wind in your hair and I wouldn’t see you until late Sunday night.

                                                                  

  I guess that just about covers your life in a nutshell.   I look around the room at the photos of you over the years and the smile on your face the day you graduated and wanted to get all those moments back. There were no more moments, no more memories, no photos just letters of condolence and flowers and mumbling messages left on the answer phone. How sorry they were for my loss. How tragic that his life had been cut short just as his future was opening up for him.

 

All I have now are my memories of life as it once was before that fateful day when you leapt into your car and without a care in the world drove off never to return until the hearse bought you home in a box.                                         

 

That was a lifetime ago and now there is just me and this rambling old house filled with memories of you my son and the tears stream down my face when I realise you will never walk through the door again.  You have no tomorrow, you only had your yesterday and I hope they were happy, that you were and that one day I will see your smiling face and your sparkling eyes and hear your laughter fill the air once more.  Til then I shall just sit here and remember a Christmas when life was good and we had fun.  

 

                  Copyright Jane Goodhew                                                                                                        .                                                   

                                      

                                                                                                                                                             

 

 

 Limerick?

By Robert Kingston

 

there was a tree named oak

he’d shed all his leaves, no joke

he stood there all bare

throughout winters austere

then in spring, he grew a new cloak

 

Robert Kingston

 

 ENDORA

by Richard Banks

During her long life Endora has seen many things and met many people, including Elizabeth I and the Duke of Wellington. Since her entry into this world she has ‘been there’, ‘seen it’ and sometimes taken a hand in the making of history. How she yearns to tell everyone what really happened to the Princes in the Tower or the name of the Polish seaman who was Jack the Ripper. These things and many others she knows, but having no proofs to satisfy the demands of academia must keep them to herself.

         During her lifetime witches have become an endangered species. Many have been burnt at the stake while others, in fear of their lives, have consented to become the wives or mistresses of mortal men, and by doing so lose their powers and become human. Not that Endora has ever been tempted to do the same. When danger threatens she hops unnoticed into the warm body of another creature and looks out through its eyes until it is safe to become Endora again. By doing so she has escaped death from insurrection, plague and persecution, often fleeing from danger in the body of a magpie or crow before abandoning this host for the safer refuge of a household pet.

         Through her good judgement she has survived many generations of man and confidently expects to live out her normal span of years which, she thinks, are only half spent. Knowing the location of many lost places she has recently become an archaeologist, establishing a glowing reputation by her unerring ability to rediscover the past. Despite having no formal qualifications for what she does, no one can deny that she knows more about the nation’s history than anyone else in academia. Where and how she has gained this knowledge is a mystery that has become unimportant; clearly she is a genius and geniuses once identified have no need for certificates or diplomas.

         These years of celebrity and history have been the best of her life but to her horror the bedrock of her existence has been shaken by the BBC which has invited her to appear on a popular TV programme dedicated to tracing the family history of well known people. Having already begun their research and drawn a perplexing blank the programme’s researchers have been more than normally curious to find out from Endora the identity of her parents so they can begin to trace the generations before.

         Sensing the closing of a net Endora has once again sought safety in flight. Forgoing the uncertain transport of magpies and crows she has bribed O’Keefe, the owner of a small aircraft, to take her incognito to the northern isle of Stackle Steady which has recently advertised for a school mistress who, when not teaching the island’s children, will have charge of their museum, recently established with lottery money. Here in this remote location beyond the reach of TV she will be safe from discovery and free to write the book that might one day re-establish her celebrity under an assumed name.

           On arrival Endora submits her application in person citing her wealth of knowledge in all the requested areas of learning and many more besides. While the islanders are surprised that someone so well qualified should not have the usual papers confirming their excellence they are nonetheless impressed by the person who purports to be a Professor Smyde. As no one else has applied for the post or is likely to do so they appoint Endora with immediate effect on a modest salary augmented by free accommodation in a croft adjacent to the school house and the loan of Dougie Muir’s cow for milk and butter. Her contract agreed and written into the back of an exercise book Endora takes up her new post, bewitching her sixteen charges on the first day of term so that they forget nothing she tells them and obey her every whim as if they were commands.

         The islanders are duly impressed and congratulate themselves on the success of their selection process; they might be far flung, country folk but they are more than able to cut a good deal when one is needed. However, none of them are entirely convinced that she is who she says she is. Their worse conjecture that she is a desperate criminal on the run from the police becomes less and less likely when no one is murdered and the museum’s donations’ box continues to rattle when shook. The consideration of lesser offences is also inconclusive until the answers they are seeking are discovered in the cargo of the monthly supply boat; there in a batch of back issue magazines is found a photograph of their teacher and the story of her unexplained disappearance.

         Mystery solved the islanders are as one in deciding that if Endora wants to be known by some other name that’s OK with them. The mainland folk are a strange lot to be sure and the Prof – as they call her – is no doubt better off with them. So life goes on much as before except that the crops grow larger and the fish in the sea never fail to fill the nets of the island’s fishermen. And all this, they note, had happened since the arrival of their teacher; what a good luck charm she is!

         But as the Feast of the Renewal draws near they are by no means certain what role Endora should play. Had she not become a valued addition to their ranks her role in that ritual would have been an obvious one. Already plump on arrival the constant invitations to lunch or dinner have since added an extra band of fat around her middle and her breath now smells sweetly of the cherry brandy that is their cottage industry. Expertly roasted she will make the Renewal a very tasty affair indeed. But then, do they really want to lose the person who has made their children so clever and brought them so much good fortune? Surely these are signs from the island’s deities that she should be spared and become one of them. Reasoning that actions rather than words is the best way forward Mr McTavish, the Chief Clerk, who is also the islanders’ Grand Master, invites Endora to join him and his good wife on the beach for a barbecue at which he has decreed that the entire population of the island appear unannounced from behind a sand dune in a state of unclad revelation he hopes will be appealing to their intended convert.

         Endora has seen many initiation ceremonies and, once she gets over her surprise at the unexpected arrival of the islanders, is not unduly perturbed to find herself fully exposed to the chill sea wind and daubed with the same blue colouring they have applied to themselves. This, she realises, is a joyous occasion, an expression of affection and acceptance into the inner sanctum of their community. It is not until she sees Mr McTavish advancing towards her, his lance at the ready and in advance of his unusually flushed face, that she realises that seven hundred years of witchery are within moments of ending. Never has a spell been uttered so quickly, and having frozen the island in time and motion she detaches herself from restraining hands and retreats to her croft where she releases the islanders from the game of statues she has obliged them to play.

         She wonders what next to do until it occurs to her that she and the islanders both have secrets they would rather not divulge. If she wants to stay on the island – which she does - it is cards on table time. Summoning the town moot by the sounding of the community gong she confesses to what she is and they, thinking she understands more than she does, let slip more than they need to. Confronted with a secret every bit the equal of her own she loses no time in pledging her silence in exchange for theirs. Indeed she quickly realises they can be of mutual assistance. If the islanders keep her supplied with the large number of frogs and toads needed for her spells she will ensure that a sufficient supply of tasty mortals visit them each year. There are, she observes, far too many of them in the outside world, tasty or otherwise, and few serve any useful purpose.

         More than that - far more than that! - they have been responsible for the deaths of many thousands of her kind, including her aunt Alveira who - had she not been drowned in a ducking stool - would now be within a decade of her treble 0 birthday. Suddenly the sacrifice of a few dozen humans to satisfy the infrequent rituals of the islanders is not enough. This, she realises, could be the turning of the tide, an all conquering alliance of witchery and cannibalism that over the course of the millennium will relegate the rest of mankind to the farmyard where its sole function will be to fill supermarket shelves.

         It is no more than they deserve! Never again will they make war and pollute the atmosphere. Never again will they decimate habitats and the animals that dwell in them; for the first time they will become givers, not takers. The islanders will do better, far better, of that she is sure. At present they have no ambition beyond the farming of their crofts but this she will change. As their teacher she will reveal to them their destiny and stiffen their resolve for the task ahead by witchery spells that will take root in their DNA and strengthen with every passing generation. 

                                               *****

         Thirty years on Endora has begun the history of her chosen people. She writes it in advance of the facts but knows that every word will come to pass. With more than enough to eat and drink the birth rate of the island has rapidly increased necessitating the migration of surplus population onto the mainland where they farm the land of those they honour by the eating of their flesh. The newcomers dominate local government and law enforcement while subtly controlling social media. When bad things are discovered it is others who get the blame.

         Endora’s most gifted pupils are now in London where they have become indispensable to Government, while ensuring that mankind is blind, deaf and dumb to the march of the new order. By the end of the century Britain will be theirs and the crossing of the Dover Straits will mark a new period of expansion. Nothing will prevent the islanders' domination of each and every landmass – it is only a matter of time and arithmetic.

         For the moment Endora has stayed her pen. What follows will be complex requiring much thought but she is determined that the final triumph of the island people will be accomplished within her lifetime. They will cleanse the world of its poisons, a single united people living in peace and harmony. They will be a new people for a new age... 

Copyright Richard Banks