Under The Worm Farm Lid

Letter From The Other Side.  From Cynthia.

When All Else Fails. 

It was when I decided to put my purchases through the self serve check-out at the supermarket that I had the first inkling my day was not going to be a time full of smooth flowing pleasure.

Things began to go haywire when the 2litre container of orange juice flew out of my hands and propelled itself into the machine with a crash. The woman on duty for this area put an abrupt end to a conversation she had been having  and came running toward us.

The container lid flew off and the contents burst like a fountain that had suddenly come to life after a long dry spell. It was most spectacular and quite amazing to witness how far and wide two litres of orange juice could spread. It of course included me, Teddy and the man who was using the machine beside us with a splatter of orange juice. The pale orange liquid flowed down the front of the machine and across the floor. Our groceries waiting to be checked out were pelted and the ones which had already been checked out were spotted.

My embarrassment grew as I became aware of people staring, a few unfeeling souls even had the gall to laugh at my predicament and no doubt just dying to get home and tell everyone what they had seen. Concerned supermarket staff descended on our position with buckets and mops like a group of vampires that have smelled warm blood.  

‘At least we were in the right store to have plenty of cleaning products.’ I quipped. My stab at levity fell on their ears with as much affect as the wet sponges they were holding had on the juice which by now seemed to be congealing a little around the edges. 

People wheeling trolleys went through the mess without seeing it but became aware fairly soon as the wheels of their carts began to make the unmistakably slick, sticky sound of grit being picked up from the floor. It increased the further they travelled and began to produce traffic lines on the cleaned tiles.

When I looked at the total on the machine’s screen I saw it had retaliated to my assault by charging me three times for the citrus juice which since it had now spread across quite a large area of the store I felt was rather unwarranted. I wasn’t about to get my money’s worth by licking it up.

The bombardment of our machine seemed to affect the one the man beside us was using and his it went on strike in sympathy and refused his card.

He was livid and began trying to get some help from somewhere. Most of the staff was too busy trying to clean up our troubles before more people entered the store and spread the orange glue further a-field throughout the aisles.

The unhappy gentleman to our left feeling neglected by the preoccupied staff threw his bag of groceries in a basket and purposely wheeled it to the middle of the orange pool and strode out of the store squelching footprints all the way outside through the glass doors.

 It was a cold morning and I’m sure some of the steam I thought I saw issuing from his nostrils was as a result of his heightened blood pressure.

To be fair he could have turned round and blamed me so I hope he was more successful with his shopping somewhere else.

The floor was cleaned sooner than our clothes. We left the staff wiping down the checkout area and tried to make ourselves as insignificant as possible as we left but wafting quite a pleasant marmalade smell behind. We endeavoured as we travelled home in a stunned and silent condition not to spread our orange dressings onto the car seats.

At home, still flustered and upset we had to undress and remove all our gluey top clothes and put them in the wash. Our shoes were cleaned and the soles washed because everywhere we walked there was that tell-tale sluuuurpy gluey noise that sticky shoe soles make on vinyl flooring. It was even essential to have small spots wiped from the lenses of our specs.

Before we could put the groceries away into the cupboards every item received the obligatory wipe to stop the gummy spots from attracting ants or mice.

Eventually we subsided into our chairs and enjoyed a restorative cup of tea.

After a while, I thought of ‘Open Writing’ and feeling very guilty I hadn’t sent in an article for a week or so I sat in front of my friendly home computer to write, hoping in some way to put the ghastly morning’s accident in some sort of perspective and trying to see it in the way some of those that were giggling at us in the store would have viewed it. It was going to be hard work!

After waiting for the computer to fire up I pressed my Word files and looked for my writing. 

Now, my essays, poems, pod casts and letters do not remotely hold the splendour of content, thrill of story line or memorable insight of Tolstoy. It is however my writing and some of it, just a little, has won me the odd prize and been published and has been appreciated by a few. It is my little interest and hobby and something I enjoy even when no one wants to read it. On viewing the blank page my heart lurched and I felt positively ill. A decade of writing files should have been looking at me. They were not there.

It was a white shimmering blank zero.

Two hours of frustration, tears, indigestion tablets and a scream of help to Teddy my resident computer guru and husband and they were found in a place within the mysterious bowels of my machine I didn’t even know existed. 

I knew it was a bad day the moment the dog jump up to wake me by sticking his nose in my ear after I had had a sleepless night and was at last enjoying one of the three hours I had managed to grab.

Better luck to you all with the machines you meet this week.

Cynthia.

 

elizabeththompsonmywrite.blogspot.com

Under The Worm farm Lid

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia

Old Ticker.

Old Ticker was known by everyone in the town. He helped out with cutting fire wood for elderly people, did the odd gardening jobs and when the small funeral parlour was for some reason experiencing a bit of a gridlock of deceased persons in their refrigerated premises, he would help out with the grave digging.

            Out of respect for the bereaved relatives and friends who may have needed to pass the cemetery during the days before the funeral while they made their way to the shopping centre or pub, he usually went along to the gravesite during the evenings and by the glow of his old fashioned Hurricane lamp he would dig the grave. His only company would be the possums scampering around in the trees and birds settling down for the night.

            He was a tall sinewy man. His face was long and thin and despite a life of outdoor work he never lost his pallor. His long arms hung loosely by his side most of the time except for when he felt the urge to know the time. Needing to know the time was a compulsive thing with Ticker. For the best part of his life a watch had encircled his bony left wrist. It had been a special birthday gift when he was young and except for when he indulged in the occasional bath, he had worn it ever since and boasted that a daily wind was the only attention he had ever needed to give it in all his years of ownership and it still kept perfect time.

            Most people supposed it was because of this watch and the pride he felt in its beautiful case and fine gold band he had formed the habit of going about telling everyone the time and displaying his new gift and this had been the beginning of his obsession.

            When he became a part-time grave digger his mind would have dwelt on the passing of time and the shortness of life and this must have been the final catalyst to confirm an ingrained fetish and concern about life’s brief span.

            Whatever it was, the habit stayed with him and all conversations began with ‘Hello Cynthia how are you at 11.02 a.m. on this day Monday the 6th of February 2012?’ or ‘I spoke to Teddy at 7.55 p.m. last week Tuesday the of 15th January.’ You get my drift. He not only told everyone the time, he remembered when and where he contacted all of us. Although this was a little disconcerting when someone first met him, we all became used to it and were barely aware of the sprinkling of time and dates which were included in all discussion. No matter what the subject, somehow time was always included in it .

            If he had ever been called as a witness at a trial he would have been invaluable.

            One evening, you will have to ask Ticker which one because I forget those sort of details; an ashen faced young couple visiting an aunt who lived in the town rushed into the pub. They were breathless and the young woman was shaking so violently someone thinking she was about to faint pushed a chair under her sagging knees as her body began to sink rapidly toward the floor.

            People hurried to help and the usual questions were buzzing about. ‘Are you all right?’ Of course they plainly weren’t. ‘Will we call the doctor or ambulance?’ ‘Would you like a drink?’

That was the first question which received an affirmative reply and a beer and brandy soda were produced.

After a few gulps the young man staring wildly at the inquisitive faces about him announced. ‘We’ve seen a ghost….I never thought I would say that because I don’t believe in them, or didn’t…. but now I do.’

The look on his face defied anyone to disagree.

We don’t get much crime in this place and we didn’t think they looked as if they had been taking any drugs or been drinking before they had come into the pub.

‘You’d better tell us about it.’ drawled a fellow who was already so far gone he would probably see a ghost or two before his night was over as well. We all settled back to listen.

‘We were walking on the bike track beside the river,’ the young man began, ‘and because Ellie was a bit upset we were running late and her aunt, her mum’s sister, would be angry with us for being later home than we said we would be, we decided to walk up along the path that passes the cemetery. It was getting dark and colder too and the wind was whistling around the old graves. As we passed buy the cemetery, Ellie mentioned her grandfather was buried there.’ As the lad spoke Ellie’s head was nodding in agreement and she kept biting her lower lip reliving the scene in her mind once more. ‘I asked her’ he continued, ‘when that was and she said she didn’t know. Well.’ and here his hand began shaking violently again…. ‘Ellie asked me the time, and from the cemetery there came this croaking sort of voice. I looked across the grass and a tall thin ghost surrounded by a weird sort of glow rose from out of a grave and said.’ Here he stood demonstrating the ghost’s actions and held his shaking hand up above his head. ‘He was buried at 2.05.p.m. on the 14 January 1973. And it’s now 10.37 p.m. on the 12^th of May 2012 and time you took the little lady home young man, her mother will be worried.’

“Ellie screamed and we ran. We’ve never run so fast in all our lives! I’ll never forget those dates and words in all my life.” He concluded as he slumped back onto his stool.

The reaction he received obviously wasn’t the one of shock he had expected. Instead he was dismayed to see and hear most of the pub patrons either choking on their drinks or roaring with laughter.

The following day Ticker walked the streets stopping to speak with everyone he knew and asking them why, when he had been digging a grave the previous evening 10.07 p.m. for old Mrs Miller who had died at 9.22 a.m. last Wednesday 6^th of May 2012, a young couple after speaking to him ran screaming from the park.

Nobody could bring themselves to tell Ticker why.

It’s now 3.22 p.m. on the 8^th of April 2013 and I’ll say

Cheers for now,

Cynthia.

 

Under The Worm Farm Lid.

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia.

Last week my dog was taking me for our regular walk through his favourite haunts. He has been invaluable to me during my recovery and has become not just a companion but a major part in my therapy.

He was the reason I began to take short walks and is still the reason I will move from my chair on days when I would rather be resting than take myself outside.   It has been truly amazing during these last few months how he has been aware of my inability to move about as I once did. When, after nearly twelve months I first attempted a walk with him, he matched his pace with mine and seemed to know if I was hesitating on a slope or a step and would stop and lean into my leg lightly but comfortingly as though saying ‘I’m here, It’s O.K.’

We are now back to the full two mile stroll we always took.

So many of us walk each day, some going from place to place with only the goal in mind, others amble along with a friend or lover enjoying the company and paying little heed to what may be surrounding them. The ones I feel sympathy for are the joggers and power walkers. They look so unhappy and sour as they drip sweat profusely while pounding past me, often starring fixedly at where the next footfall should be without raising their eyes in any sort of greeting. Most are plugged into a type of electronic device with wires protruding from their ears. They often wear a look of grumpy determination. For me, a walk should be something pleasurable, a good exercise to help lower the blood pressure, sooth the mind and remind us the world is not always the dreadful place the news broadcasts would have us believe. I fail to see how exercising so hard during such hot weather and in a mind-set that is not happy, can be good for anyone.

 Perhaps it is the thought of the glass of wine they will enjoy when next they are talking to friends and are in a situation to throw in the line, ‘When I was out jogging the other day,’ compensates for the pain they put their bodies through. Bodies that will probably need premature knee and hip replacements if they keep stressing the joints for too long, encouraging the body’s ‘use by dates’ to come along much sooner than it should.

My favourite walk is with Walter. I think until you walk with a dog it is easy to miss so many of the sensory pleasures of human and animal contact that a dog will help you make and enjoy.

            Walter is a jet black cocker spaniel and of course has the appealing, heart melting eyes of his breed and uses them to great advantage. He adores the route we take through the main shopping street because it is busy, full of interesting sounds and smells issuing from restaurants, clothing shops, busy service stations and fragrant hardware shops wafting the odour of manures and sweet smelling timber through their doors.

As we turn a corner and walk past a boutique brewery; he always checks the shrubs and grasses to see if there have been any changes or new dogs since we were last passing by. The garrulous terrier which lives around the corner often follows the same path and I’m sure our stop there is to cover up his scent. They don’t like one another very much.

 He isn’t keen when a truck hisses the airbrakes. He replies to the insolent barking of a superior looking Blue Heeler hanging over the tray of a farmer’s Ute and lifts his head in appreciation of the rural smell issuing as another truck carrying cattle into the markets passes by.

The clothes hanging on racks outside apparel stores provide enormous pleasure as do the people sorting through them. His nose twitches with appreciation as he checks the air to sniff the scrumptious smells of the coffee shops and pub lunches and sometimes after using those ever appealing eyes, receives a small snack from some soft hearted person sitting at a table outdoors.

As we walk, his tail keeps up a constant wag of pleasure and tourists missing the pets they have left behind at home ask if they may give him a pat. He sits obligingly in front of them. It happens so often he is quite miffed if a group walk by and there isn’t at least one of them pause to pat. Last week a group of three stopped but only two of them patted. He moved and deliberately sat in front of the person who had ignored him and stared until the gentleman’s hand reluctantly moved to fastidiously touch the glossy black head. Satisfied he may have improved the gentleman’s attitude towards canines, we moved on.

Children hold out sticky hands as they pass by in strollers and every now and then I have a parent tell me their child doesn’t have a pet and it is rare for them to enjoy the opportunity of stroking a dog. To me, when I think back to my whole lifetime surrounded by animals of all kinds, I feel saddened for them that they will grow up with a void in their lives which prevented them from learning to love and care for another creature.

We move on from the street and turn down a road that leads to the park. He likes this road because there is a low brick fence he can jump onto and walk along it to demonstrate his balance and tight walking skills. We then go down the slope under the giant plane trees and across the grass toward the river where he is delighted if he can disturb the ducks from the group preening session they had been enjoying in the shade.

The river is different every day. When the level in low the children shift the smooth stones making them into pretend dams or walls or whatever their imaginations have created. These shapes change constantly with each different group of visitors. During winter the mood of the waters can change into stunning ferocity, sometimes raging and frothing and carrying trees and debris. We both stand and watch it because that is what everyone does. It seems to demand a moment of contemplation and is impossible to walk past without stopping and staring as it relentlessly moves along.

Here under the trees, the grass is long and thick. Often the council men have cut it and Walter smells the rich odours that come floating up from the ground. It must be a mix of cut grass, duck droppings, spilt food, people’s scents, decaying leaves, dropped cigarette butts…... So much he could tell me. Then he may enjoy startling a bird or watch the children at the swings or be attracted by the seductive smell of fish and chips that picnickers are spreading out across a table.

 A little further along, past one of the scary swing bridges that neither of us likes, is another low stone wall with a flat top. Here he jumps up and thumps his bottom down firmly. I am not allowed to move or be distracted until he has been petted and we have had a discussion about something. I don’t care if the people sitting at the tables under the trees of the restaurant behind us think I am balmy, he needs his chat. This is our small part of the day together. There are things he could tell me about some of those folk which they would prefer others didn’t know such as do they carry sweets, do they smoke, do they take drugs, are they friendly…or not, are they sad, do they have an illness? Dogs know these things and more.

 Sometimes we watch people swimming or canoeists paddling about and occasionally falling out into the water which has not long left the mountains and is still extremely cold. They emerge all pink and covered in Goosebumps.

Further along, the path is close to bushy scrub. It is used daily by dozens of people. This year summer has been long and hot and sometimes if the path has been quiet for a while we will come across a lizard sunning itself.

On a walk one day early in the season Walter kept bumping my legs and walking in front of me, eventually I stopped and asked ‘what’s wrong’? He was clearly not happy and stood stock still staring, his eyes fixed ahead. There I saw what had been upsetting him. On a low rock sunning itself was a young Tiger snake. It was only about three feet long but quite big enough to kill anything it struck. We would have passed within a foot of it had Walter allowed me to go on. Snakes kill a lot of dogs during summer particularly Fox terriers and the type that like to chase rabbits down holes. They have also killed quite a few people if medical attention isn’t found soon enough. I bent and picked up a small rock and threw it at the snake. He didn’t like being disturbed at all, flicked his tongue in disgust and slithered down off the rock into the dry grass. Once I was sure he was gone and Walter said it was safe, we went on our way.

Tourists from the city wander along this path oblivious to the wildlife that may be around and we locals don’t enlighten them very often because the wild things have more sense  than to stay around and mostly do less harm to the tourists than the tourists do to them.  

From that spot we slowly make our way up a slope past the elms and the Woolamai Pine tree and take small steps down another slope to the car.

Sometimes a small white dog, with a nasty attitude and an unrealistic, concept of its size will try and start an argument. Walter very wisely waits until he is in the security of the car before he lets fly with a deep and very loud reply. Once he is satisfied he has preserved his honour with the obnoxious little squirt he lies down.

I think any walk I take now is enriched by the things he has taught me to appreciate and a companionship that is not possible to explain to anyone who does not have an affinity with animals.

If you are lonely, get a dog. You will not only have a loyal companion you will have a friend who will help you meet new people, see new things. See some things in a different way and never complain about where you take him.

Happy walkies,

Cynthia.