Monday 29 March 2010

House of Diamonds - part 1

[the aim of this exercise for my creative writing class was to write the opening page for a story entitled House of Diamonds]

The House of Diamonds is the unintelligent name Uncle Cecile’s wife gave to her hairdressing parlour. When questioned as to the origin of the name, she answered that the stroke of her round brush made hair shine like a diamond. In our 8th year of existence, we spent many a summer afternoon in the back room of the House of Diamonds, mixing shampoo for blonde hair, with shampoo for red hair, and greasy hair. Marc had even developed his favourite mix - one part grey, two parts dry and three parts damaged - which, when mixed with water frothed and bubbled into a green foam that gave off a heady melon smell.

We’d reached the consensus that Aunt Marnie could economise on air freshener by placing pyrex bowls of our concoction in corners of the shop. In fact, we never asked for her opinion on the matter and volunteered to save the salon from its sure demise and spread our fragrance.

Adele was Marnie’s most frequent customer. She was gifted with a very large head covered in an alarming mop of hair for Auntie to plough through four days a week. Along with her bobbing hair and swinging bottom, Adele brought fear to this beauty establishment. She was at once its reputation and its disgrace. She was blessed with a loud, big voice and language of questionable appeal. She could often be overheard at tea parties bellowing the virtues of The House of Diamonds, then whispering its downfall. We were never quite able to pick up the full extent of the dismissal but in our net were words such as cheap products, bad lighting, unusual room scent…

Cousin Marc and I had many hobbies to our name; but the one that would most certainly assure our ascent to fame was our radio show. Based in Kent, we fancied ourselves as great regional voices blessed with a slight estuary tang. Not content with our natural talent, we practiced regional accents, ever striving to expand our repertoire. Marc specialized in dialects from “up north” and Essex in which he gave the news and the weather, while I had a special knack for the romantic West Country flat vowels and slow talking which told short stories and special bulletins of eventful significance.

It was therefore on a fine afternoon, c 1966, that Marc and I sat down to record our daily installment of House of Diamond radio news. I can just remember the room as it stood back then, still and lifeless like in the faded photograph I keep on my mantle-piece today. The rays of setting sun, shredded by the aluminium blinds, cut strange shapes on Marc’s ever growing nose. I sat on the dusty carpet, rocked by the vibrations of Adele’s heavy footsteps in the room next door. The radio was giving off static, reminiscent of the grind of the curtain at the Royal Oak Theatre down the road. The prevailing silence was not unusual for this establishment, and neither was the garbage-like smell. As Adele launched into yet another chapter of the house of spirits in which she truly believed she lived, Marc struck the switch on the recorder and, in his most accurate Lancashire accent yet, announced:
“This is Marc Pillow coming to you live from the House of Diamonds. In today’s headlines, we have an armed burglary at a jewellery shop”.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Lapland's gone missing...

... could she be under a sleepy Kune Kune pig?

If you find her, please bring her back home.

Monday 15 March 2010

Congraduation Lapland

Dear Readers,

Seems I'm graduating today!!!

I hope you'll excuse my absent post for the day... There'll be lots of stories to tell, so come back tomorrow (or the day after)(depending on how much fun I have tonight!!)

Love,

Lapland M.Sc., M.A., B.A.

Friday 12 March 2010

'High Coup'

[Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry consisting of 5-7-5 syllables which traditionally makes reference to nature and seasonal change]

Chic sleek London bird
Pink flamingo on stilts perched
Cries black tears tonight

Haiku

[is a Japanese form of poetry consisting of 5-7-5 syllables which traditionally makes reference to nature and seasonal change]


Dusk settling sets loose
Big balloon to steeple tied
Lights up sky till morrow

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Baby - part 1

”I want a baby” has been on repeat since the first morning of our honeymoon, three married years ago. “Why so soon?” I asked at the time. She answered that she wanted a baby with my hazel eyes, her little nose and my handsome hands. Quite an appealing sales pitch, I must admit. Three years later and she still voices the same desire, but seems to have made quite a few changes along the way. I suspect the long grueling hours as management consultants have left us with very little time to dream, let alone conceive babies. We did consult a fertility specialist after a year of trying who assured us that all was in order – except for our finances of course. I was reluctant to start a family just yet. My friends who’d already made the big step assured me that it would be the end of my life as I know it, and practically I wondered how our combined salaries would allow for our existing lifestyle, plus baby. My wife was 27 when we married, a successful analyst at a big consultancy, rapidly climbing the corporate ladder whilst others like me stayed back and watched her sail past. I couldn’t believe how lucky I’d been to find a woman like her; “every man’s dream” as my mother described her, adding that I was a very lucky man that she’d chosen me. Indeed Lisa could have anyone she wanted. Why me? I still can’t answer that question. She’s stunningly beautiful. She’s the girl who smiles at everyone but gets a small handful of smiles in return, only from those who are too madly in love with her to envy her. I’d always gotten the impression that both men and women envied my Lisa, as if she was too brilliant a star for the general greyness of earthlings. And yet she inspired them. Where Lisa went others followed, most of the time hoping to pick up the crumbs from her luscious mouth, other times as if they wished her aura to be contagious. This is the woman I married three fateful years ago, and whose presence in my life has lit an unwavering flame. I’m a better man for her. Conversations about our wives down at the pub always end up in a tease fest starring me; when my mates find their wives overbearing and boring, I’m still in awe of mine. Until yesterday.

I came home from work to find Lisa already there: highly unusual for a Tuesday at six pm. When I asked if she’d finished work early, she answered casually that she hadn’t been, preferring instead to stay home and watch daytime TV. I worried a little at this sudden change but decided she was probably falling ill with the flu like Archie and so many others at work. I cooked dinner to the best of my ability and settled for the night slightly intrigued but too tired to fret. I woke up this morning to find another woman in my bed.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

A little secret

For this evening's post, AK helped Lapland find words because her brain seems to be on strike.

She needs a good night's sleep!

Love,

She

Friday 5 March 2010

Lapland needs YOU!!

Dear Readers (Mum? Shisho? Andrew? Anyone else???)

My blog has been up and running for just over 2 weeks now, and I’ve mostly posted short stories.

It’s coming to that point where I need new sources of inspiration! So, if there are any exhibitions, plays, concerts, musicals, restaurants… that you’d like to read about could you please suggest them in the ‘comment’ box below this post. Please?

Thank you and have a lovely sunny weekend!!

Love,
Lapland

253

[This was an exercise for my writing class; it’s based on the online novel “253” by Geoff Ryman. The idea for this project was to write a short character description following Ryman’s format in 253 words. 253 is the number of passengers aboard a typical Bakerloo line train. Geoff Ryman describes each one of these fictitious characters, first in their outward appearance, then in terms of inside information and finally he writes about what she/he is thinking or doing. I highly recommend you go to: www.ryman-novel.com; it’s a fun read!]

Mr Blake Lewis

Outward Appearance
Round featured, with soft ‘mushy’ lips and a bulbous nose. Dressed to look ‘cool’ in an indie sort of way. He carries a used supermarket bag which he twirls around nonchalantly, but not really.

Inside Information
He’s an artist. A painter and student at the Royal Academy of Arts. His favourite subjects are electrical appliances.
Blake’s heart has never been broken, his breath never taken away.
What he is thinking or doing
In the bag is something precious; a secret perhaps.
Blake’s an only child. Born to non-demonstrative parents; “very English middle class” as his friend Paul once put it. He’s reserved, but his aloof demeanour makes his arty. He’s ashamed of his ordinary beginnings: couldn’t he have been the son of a rockstar, or a homeless man?
He uses stories like this to attract the ladies. They seem drawn to his detached persona, gluttons for disregard and punishment. He despises these women, exploits them for pleasure and abandon.
The theme for his next project at the academy is a woman’s love. His tutors have pushed him to explore unknown territory.
He left home today at 4am, headed for Smithfield’s meat market. It’s now 5:23, and in his bag is not what he had intended to buy. He set out to find a fresh cow’s heart as a starting piece for his romantic reverie. Instead, he chose lungs, deemed a more exact gauge of love. “For”, he thought in his cheesy poetic internal voice, “what’s more urgent and vital than oxygen”. He recognized this feeling as what he felt for Anne.

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Sprites

I am who you say I am. I do what you say to do. That is my premise in life, and discipline, obligation and obedience are my strongest traits. I clear the table when you ask. I clap my hands you when you say to do so. Even if it means dropping the plates I’m carrying. I am the mouse of the salon, the dragon of the kitchen, and the toad of my quarters. I slide and morph around corners, my disposition adapting to the footsteps coming my way. Madam, or Sitna as we call her, wears heeled shoes. Not necessarily high heels, but clickety ones. Sir, or Monsieur, shuffles his feet and changes into slippers when he’s home for the evening. And there’s the ever recognizable plimsole, with its occasional squeak and characteristically hurried steps. That’s the other me. The younger one they use for harder labour like climbing up ladders and carrying Monsieur’s suitcases to and from the car. I’ve been a member of this family for so long I’ve forgotten my own age. I am fiercely protective of them, just like the small print in my job description says.

There used to be many more footsteps in the household, reduced pair by pair to the four current occupiers. The daughter of the house has a limp. I used to hear her coming from far, on her trajectory between her room and the kitchen, her kitchen and the room. I would give her my legs to heal that lame foot. She comes home for holidays, and I invariably comment on her weight. She comments on my smoking habit. Both of us polite in the way we express disinterest in the other’s topic. She and I are as close as I’ll allow. There used to be more young ones in this house. The marbled floor was playground to the pitter patter of many a small foot; mischievous sprites who warmed my practical heart. The youngest presented a knee-height head of curly bleach blonde hair, the eldest had golden locks. No, that’s not accurate. The youngest was just a babe. And the daughter played with these young ones, I remember that too. But the daughter grew. And the household was left with but the echoes of those days. Nowadays, I take naps in the afternoons; the only time that I dream melancholic dreams. The kitchen settles after lunch and the dog is taken out for his walk. Sitna and Monsieur are out tending to their business. This is when the echoes are at their clearest. The front door shuts behind the last set of footsteps. And the shadows come to life. I lay on the bottom bed of the bunk I share with the other one, and listen. For the sprites to come back. The first sound is laughter - loud, raucous, boyish giggles. And with it, the others unfurl. There’s an argument, some forbidden swear words, a mother’s reprimanding voice, a dog’s playful bark. There’s running, changing directions, a pursuit, a broken glass, pulled hair and the thump of a body falling to the ground in surrender. There’s a breeze, a sob, a father’s haughty voice and a baby’s whimpers. A stronger wind blows this time, lifting my memories into upheaval. I hear another bark, this time not playful. I hear running again, and broken glass. A pursuit. A thump. A mother’s alarmed voice. A father’s injured sob. I hear crying and pleading. I hear gunshots.

I look down and find the babe in my arms again. Silent, faking death through her long blonde eyelashes. I feel her quickened heartbeat against my bosom. And her warm moist breath down my shirt.

I fall asleep on Thursday afternoon. For a short half hour, they relive and I live again with them. I’ll see them again on Friday afternoon, and Saturday afternoon and perhaps even Sunday. These sprites that I love so.