Friday 27 May 2011

Moving to the Country


Mrs Jones worried about her son. Growing up in suburbia, with wild gangs of yobs around, watching TV with crime and sex all on all the time, playing computer games, killing with guns for fun. It just didn’t seem right. “Not natural,” she’d say.

Mrs Jones saved, every penny she could, until, when her son had just turned seven they moved. They moved to a country cottage, with a thatched roof, and an oil burning stove, and a small patch of land to keep pigs and chickens and grow their own vegetables.  There was a small village, with pub and a shop within walking distance and a bus to school.

Mrs Jones' son continued growing. He learnt how cows that stopped providing milk or chickens that didn’t lay eggs were killed just to save the cost of feeding them. He learnt that pigs sometimes eat their own children. That people deliberately gave a disease called mixi to rabbits that made them die an awful death, even if mixi seemed like a nice name. He also learnt to avoid the strange man called Mr Archwright, who smelt of wee and that he was to tell his mother if Mr Archwright tried to makes friends with him.

As he continued to grow up he got quite bored, so he watched TV, and played a lot of video games.

Friday 20 May 2011

Changing Winds


“Don’t pull that face” Nanny would warn, “the wind will change and you’ll stick like it.”

Everyday, every single day, she’d trot out the same lines, and I’d carry on regardless. Grimacing at crying babies on the bus, sticking my tongue out at pedestrians in the rain from the back seat of the car, scowling at shop assistant trying to push their tat on me.

The one, the bloody only time, she was right I’d caught the end of an unseen argument. One of those doomed dramatic couples that just had to demonstrate their passion for each other in decibels. A couple of incongruous words; baboon’s arse, those were the words. “Baboon’s arse!” screamed out as an emphatic closing statement. That was all it took, and I smiled. It would have been a fleeting moment of humour. A brief facial spasm..., but the wind changed.

“And she always seems so happy,” I hear, and “such a nice girl... so pleasant...,” they say. Fuckwits.