So, I'm going to start my next venture, "The Refreshing" on Saturday. http://thecloudisdescending.blogspot.com/ if I haven't posted it enough! I'm excited. I was excited about doing "Postcards In Winter" but this is different. I felt a need to post "Postcards..." (No pun intended) as it was a very personal story, and all elements bar the supernatural ones and the order of the cards were at least in part inspired by reality, albeit with creative license used to bring them together. Plus, it was Christmas, and the story fit in nicely with that. "The Refreshing" is, as I have said before, not as warm and fuzzy as "Postcards..." but it is not completely devoid of warmth. I do feel it is a braver and more daring story. I have had a critical comment made in respect of the wordiness of my writing. A critical comment made with an accompanying apology. Why do we feel the need to apologise for criticism? I believe strongly that without criticism and mistakes, we would not learn. I have made mistakes in my life and feel that they have helped better me as a person. I will do things in my writing which will attract criticism. And I think that is great. I can't please everyone, I wouldn't want to. But I do want anyone who does ever have a criticism to share it. I am so passionate about literature, writing and storytelling that I can on occasion be blind to my own shortcomings. Without constructive feedback I cannot rectify this. Hell, even feedback of a non-constructive variety is helpful in its own way. Oh, and not to mention praise...Criticism goes a long way, but we mustn't forget that praise does too. What I am basically trying to say is that if you have an opinion, share it. I want what I have to say heard, and I am certainly a person who wants to hear what other people have to say. And after that ramble, who can really deny I'm a wordy person?!
Thats all for now, except to reiterate: http://thecloudisdescending.blogspot.com/ The cloud descends on Saturday.
Ian.
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Gearing up for a return...
I would like to thank anyone who followed this story to it's conclusion. And extra thanks for any feedback given. I enjoyed putting it together, enjoyed seeing a new chapter up on the screen to be read by anyone who wanted to read it. It was a great feeling to know that in some form, even if not a conventional one (and certainly not one that made me any money) I had a story published. It was in the public domain, and that was all that mattered, that I had dared to share an idea of mine with the world, that I had pulled my thumb out and actually got around to doing something about my dream of writing.
And I will be doing it again. I have a story all ready to go (not quite as warm and fuzzy as Postcards In Winter, but equally, if not more rivetting), a blog ready to launch at http://thecloudisdescending.blogspot.com and all that I have left to do before I start is make sure I get the word spread as far wide as I possibly can. And it is in this respect that I humbly request assistance. If you enjoyed this story, please tell people about it. All we can do is try.
So, thanks again for giving this story a chance, and I hope I can convince you to come back and check out my next one.
I had fun, hope you did too.
Ian.
And I will be doing it again. I have a story all ready to go (not quite as warm and fuzzy as Postcards In Winter, but equally, if not more rivetting), a blog ready to launch at http://thecloudisdescending.blogspot.com and all that I have left to do before I start is make sure I get the word spread as far wide as I possibly can. And it is in this respect that I humbly request assistance. If you enjoyed this story, please tell people about it. All we can do is try.
So, thanks again for giving this story a chance, and I hope I can convince you to come back and check out my next one.
I had fun, hope you did too.
Ian.
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
"Postcards In Winter" by Ian Myers, Chapter 7...
7.
When Liam walked in the front door that evening, he hoped Ellie wouldn’t talk too much about the lack of a postcard, feeling (as she had believed) disappointed and saddened. So, when he entered the kitchen and saw the newest addition to the notice board, he too allowed his instinctive smile to flourish, snatching the card down and hurrying into the living room when he was headed off by Ellie, who told him about how it had arrived. They both exchanged a knowing look; Helen had a wicked sense of humour, and despite the constant retelling of the same two or three stories (affectionately laughed at and cherished by Ellie and Liam), was as sharp and perceptive as she had been in her youth. Could it be that she had picked up on their findings in regards to the pattern of the postcards and pulled an incredible sleight of hand to keep them on their toes? They could both imagine her infectious, mischievous laugh, sounding out across the heaven she was surely in, and both had a laugh themselves when, after sharing the joint thought out loud, Ellie said that Helen would be telling her new friends this story for an infinite lifetime to come.
As if copying their parents’ laughter, the sound of Rohan gargling happily and Declan and Ciaran’s giggles (especially Declan’s particularly impressive dirty laugh) floated out of the living room. Knowing that laughter of that raucous nature normally signalled that some semblance of misbehaviour was afoot, Ellie and Liam went quickly through the baby gate into the living room to see just what the boys were up to, sure that it had something to do with the removal of chocolates from the Christmas tree. But no, both were simply sat, side by side, on the floor in front of the sofa, their faces pointed towards the back of the seats, their sister pottering around behind them in her walker. Nothing there, so they assumed the boys had been mimicking them laughing; after all, they were going through the stage of picking up on everything that they heard. Happy with the show of good behaviour in the living room, Ellie and Liam set about preparing the evening routine. Ellie and Liam were looking forward to their together time after the boys went to bed even more than usual on this night; they were both so desperate to have a proper discussion about the recent events. And so it was, with two very exhausted boys left rubbing their eyes in their room, that Ellie and Liam went downstairs and, with Rohan naturally nestled between them, cuddled up beside one another on the sofa to have that longed for talk. Before either could open their mouths, they heard the sounds of their sons laughing again, as loudly as they had been earlier. Being a sign that one or both boys were probably up and about from their little beds, Ellie and Liam rose to their feet to go up and settle them. As they started to ascend the stairs, there came an unusual clicking sound and a slight rustling from behind the kitchen door. Liam carried on up the stairs to see to the boys, while Ellie went to see if the noise had been that of one of the cats shut in there. Instead of a cat, she found something on the floor at the foot of the fridge, next to the smiley face magnet that had been holding it up. She scooped it up off the floor and practically bounded up the stairs, where Liam had only just gone into the boys’ room and was in the process of telling them what almost good boys they were, for while they were both in Ciaran‘s bed rather than in their own separate beds, and although not asleep, they were both just sat in the bed, with the duvet up over their legs, behaving perfectly well, and laughing at seemingly nothing.
Liam turned to leave the room, but was stopped by Ellie, who handed him what she had found on the kitchen floor. He couldn’t help but smile, a huge smile like that on the face of his wife, as he pulled the door shut with their sons still laughing on the other side of it, Rohan clapping happily as he held her. He embraced Ellie tightly and then positioned on top of the bookshelf on the landing the thing that Ellie had just placed in his hand.
A photo.
A photo of Declan and Ciaran, sat grinning at either side of a radiantly beaming Helen, herself sat with a clapping Rohan on her knee.
The End.
When Liam walked in the front door that evening, he hoped Ellie wouldn’t talk too much about the lack of a postcard, feeling (as she had believed) disappointed and saddened. So, when he entered the kitchen and saw the newest addition to the notice board, he too allowed his instinctive smile to flourish, snatching the card down and hurrying into the living room when he was headed off by Ellie, who told him about how it had arrived. They both exchanged a knowing look; Helen had a wicked sense of humour, and despite the constant retelling of the same two or three stories (affectionately laughed at and cherished by Ellie and Liam), was as sharp and perceptive as she had been in her youth. Could it be that she had picked up on their findings in regards to the pattern of the postcards and pulled an incredible sleight of hand to keep them on their toes? They could both imagine her infectious, mischievous laugh, sounding out across the heaven she was surely in, and both had a laugh themselves when, after sharing the joint thought out loud, Ellie said that Helen would be telling her new friends this story for an infinite lifetime to come.
As if copying their parents’ laughter, the sound of Rohan gargling happily and Declan and Ciaran’s giggles (especially Declan’s particularly impressive dirty laugh) floated out of the living room. Knowing that laughter of that raucous nature normally signalled that some semblance of misbehaviour was afoot, Ellie and Liam went quickly through the baby gate into the living room to see just what the boys were up to, sure that it had something to do with the removal of chocolates from the Christmas tree. But no, both were simply sat, side by side, on the floor in front of the sofa, their faces pointed towards the back of the seats, their sister pottering around behind them in her walker. Nothing there, so they assumed the boys had been mimicking them laughing; after all, they were going through the stage of picking up on everything that they heard. Happy with the show of good behaviour in the living room, Ellie and Liam set about preparing the evening routine. Ellie and Liam were looking forward to their together time after the boys went to bed even more than usual on this night; they were both so desperate to have a proper discussion about the recent events. And so it was, with two very exhausted boys left rubbing their eyes in their room, that Ellie and Liam went downstairs and, with Rohan naturally nestled between them, cuddled up beside one another on the sofa to have that longed for talk. Before either could open their mouths, they heard the sounds of their sons laughing again, as loudly as they had been earlier. Being a sign that one or both boys were probably up and about from their little beds, Ellie and Liam rose to their feet to go up and settle them. As they started to ascend the stairs, there came an unusual clicking sound and a slight rustling from behind the kitchen door. Liam carried on up the stairs to see to the boys, while Ellie went to see if the noise had been that of one of the cats shut in there. Instead of a cat, she found something on the floor at the foot of the fridge, next to the smiley face magnet that had been holding it up. She scooped it up off the floor and practically bounded up the stairs, where Liam had only just gone into the boys’ room and was in the process of telling them what almost good boys they were, for while they were both in Ciaran‘s bed rather than in their own separate beds, and although not asleep, they were both just sat in the bed, with the duvet up over their legs, behaving perfectly well, and laughing at seemingly nothing.
Liam turned to leave the room, but was stopped by Ellie, who handed him what she had found on the kitchen floor. He couldn’t help but smile, a huge smile like that on the face of his wife, as he pulled the door shut with their sons still laughing on the other side of it, Rohan clapping happily as he held her. He embraced Ellie tightly and then positioned on top of the bookshelf on the landing the thing that Ellie had just placed in his hand.
A photo.
A photo of Declan and Ciaran, sat grinning at either side of a radiantly beaming Helen, herself sat with a clapping Rohan on her knee.
The End.
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
"Postcards In Winter" by Ian Myers, Chapter 6...
6.
Ellie’s trembling hand reached for the phone, picking it up and pressing number one on the speed dial. She waited for it to connect her to Liam. In her life she couldn’t remember feeling such conflicting emotions. Even the simultaneous shock, panic and ecstasy of discovering that Rohan was going to be joining them a little sooner than was ever intended wasn‘t the same. In actuality it probably was, but the utter ludicrous nature of the circumstances surrounding these particular emotions made them seem unprecedented. She was relieved, there was no doubt about that. She had always been sure of that relief being there when the postcards eventually stopped, knowing she would be undeniably happy not to have the fear of waking in the morning after a restless night, trying to hold off going into the kitchen for as long as she possibly could. What she hadn’t predicted was the sadness she now felt, and actual disappointment at not finding the Winchester postcard as expected. She had been instantly relieved, but the feeling of being almost cheated came over her as she walked to where the phone was housed on its cradle behind the computer monitor (originally where little hands could not get to it, until little legs were strong enough to walk and little minds were clever enough to work out that brothers teaming up to try and get what they wanted meant they would nearly always actually get what they wanted, hidden or not). Even as illogical a suggestion as it had been, the remote chance that Helen (someone she had been closer to than anyone other than Liam, their sons and her mother) may have been enjoying herself and living her life in death as fully as she had in life itself, and that she had perhaps chosen to come and see her granddaughter’s little family when she could have perceivably gone anywhere she desired made Ellie happy. It made the loss easier to deal with, but now even that had been torn from her. She had to keep strong, and try with all her might to suppress the sadness in her voice when Liam answered his phone. So she told him about the absence of a postcard, trying to emphasise her initial relief. He didn’t say a whole lot in response, and after she had hung up, Ellie swore she had sensed a hint of disappointment in his voice. Had he felt the same? Ellie liked to think that he did; they felt the same about most things, and indeed he had been somewhat adopted as an honorary grandchild by Helen, having lost both his grandmothers at quite an early age, and he loved her as much as Ellie did.
With the boys playing happily in the living room, Rohan taking one of her regular naps in her cot and the dog bouncing around on the other side of the baby gate, Ellie bustled around doing bits of housework she liked to keep up with daily. Keeping an eye out for the postman on his rounds (the dog of course having never grown out of the stage where she would chew anything pushed in front of her, like letters through the letter box) as she did her own, she absent-mindedly sang along to all the kids shows on the television, smiling at little Ciaran as he pulled a tissue out of the box on the window sill and started to follow her around, copying her dusting. Eventually the postman appeared, about an hour and a half earlier than his usual lunchtime arrival, and Ellie quickly popped out through the baby gate to intercept the post before the yapping fur ball of a canine welcoming committee could get there. She waited just to the side of the door, and as the post came through the letter box she put her hand out to catch it. She used to actually answer the door, both to be friendly and also to get some conversation of a less gurgling infant variety, until one summer day, before she was even pregnant with Rohan, when the boys slept in longer than usual, meaning she did too. Of course, this was a day when the postman was running early while she was running behind, and she answered the door in her dressing gown. She was a little confused by the mixture of shock and surprise on his face accompanying a slight grin, and surmised that it was because he was used to seeing her fully dressed and well presented. So, she simply muttered that she had just got out of bed, and he nodded, smiled a little more, handed her the post and left rather hurriedly. Only when she had got back into the living room had she seen to her horror, in the mirror on the wall, that one of her breasts was very much exposed. No wonder he had been whistling on his way to the neighbours’ house. As she covered herself up, mortified, worrying about how much she had seemed like a bored lonely housewife, she made the promise to herself that she would not open the door for the post again. Unless he had a parcel for her, or something to sign for, she couldn’t face looking him in the eye, which is why she started to stand to the side of the door when he delivered there.
On this particular day, she grabbed the post before it hit the ground (something of a skill she had perfected) and took it into the living room, flicking through as ever to see if there looked to be anything interesting to save for after the junk. Council Tax bill (it only seemed like a week since she had paid the last one), Polling Cards (the amount of local/general/whatever else they could think of elections they had voted in recently made it incredibly difficult to keep up with what they were meant to be voting for this time), what looked like their annual allotment renewal slip, bill, bill, car insurance, junk for the previous tenants (hopefully nothing like the summons they had received one day, when Liam had had to attend the local police station with his passport and driving license to prove it wasn’t him they were after), and finally a postcard.
At the sight of it, Ellie felt like all the air had been sucked from the whole room and from her too. Taking pride of place in the very centre of the card was Winchester Cathedral, and a very busy Christmas Market scene. This wasn’t the Winchester card they had been expecting to find on the kitchen floor; that one had a picture of the St. Cross Hospital and Almshouse of Noble Poverty on it. With her heart pounding in her ears (but not feeling like it was even beating in her chest), she slowly turned the card to read the reverse side. As soon as she read the message, written in Helen’s familiar cursive style, she realised that what she had in her hand was the missing postcard that they had never received. As she turned the card over to gaze once again at the stalls and the ice rink, all the things that Helen had enjoyed so much on her outing, Ellie’s first reaction was to call Liam and tell him about this very surprising turn of events, but as she took hold of the phone and started to dial, another thought entered her head, and she replaced the phone and went out to the kitchen. Looking at the notice board that, she thought for the first time since she tidied it up, looked oddly bare, she took a spare pin from the cork and pinned the new card to it. When she returned to the living room, she didn’t even bother trying to stop the smile she had felt blossoming on her face.
(Chapter 7 due tomorrow, 24/12/08)
Ellie’s trembling hand reached for the phone, picking it up and pressing number one on the speed dial. She waited for it to connect her to Liam. In her life she couldn’t remember feeling such conflicting emotions. Even the simultaneous shock, panic and ecstasy of discovering that Rohan was going to be joining them a little sooner than was ever intended wasn‘t the same. In actuality it probably was, but the utter ludicrous nature of the circumstances surrounding these particular emotions made them seem unprecedented. She was relieved, there was no doubt about that. She had always been sure of that relief being there when the postcards eventually stopped, knowing she would be undeniably happy not to have the fear of waking in the morning after a restless night, trying to hold off going into the kitchen for as long as she possibly could. What she hadn’t predicted was the sadness she now felt, and actual disappointment at not finding the Winchester postcard as expected. She had been instantly relieved, but the feeling of being almost cheated came over her as she walked to where the phone was housed on its cradle behind the computer monitor (originally where little hands could not get to it, until little legs were strong enough to walk and little minds were clever enough to work out that brothers teaming up to try and get what they wanted meant they would nearly always actually get what they wanted, hidden or not). Even as illogical a suggestion as it had been, the remote chance that Helen (someone she had been closer to than anyone other than Liam, their sons and her mother) may have been enjoying herself and living her life in death as fully as she had in life itself, and that she had perhaps chosen to come and see her granddaughter’s little family when she could have perceivably gone anywhere she desired made Ellie happy. It made the loss easier to deal with, but now even that had been torn from her. She had to keep strong, and try with all her might to suppress the sadness in her voice when Liam answered his phone. So she told him about the absence of a postcard, trying to emphasise her initial relief. He didn’t say a whole lot in response, and after she had hung up, Ellie swore she had sensed a hint of disappointment in his voice. Had he felt the same? Ellie liked to think that he did; they felt the same about most things, and indeed he had been somewhat adopted as an honorary grandchild by Helen, having lost both his grandmothers at quite an early age, and he loved her as much as Ellie did.
With the boys playing happily in the living room, Rohan taking one of her regular naps in her cot and the dog bouncing around on the other side of the baby gate, Ellie bustled around doing bits of housework she liked to keep up with daily. Keeping an eye out for the postman on his rounds (the dog of course having never grown out of the stage where she would chew anything pushed in front of her, like letters through the letter box) as she did her own, she absent-mindedly sang along to all the kids shows on the television, smiling at little Ciaran as he pulled a tissue out of the box on the window sill and started to follow her around, copying her dusting. Eventually the postman appeared, about an hour and a half earlier than his usual lunchtime arrival, and Ellie quickly popped out through the baby gate to intercept the post before the yapping fur ball of a canine welcoming committee could get there. She waited just to the side of the door, and as the post came through the letter box she put her hand out to catch it. She used to actually answer the door, both to be friendly and also to get some conversation of a less gurgling infant variety, until one summer day, before she was even pregnant with Rohan, when the boys slept in longer than usual, meaning she did too. Of course, this was a day when the postman was running early while she was running behind, and she answered the door in her dressing gown. She was a little confused by the mixture of shock and surprise on his face accompanying a slight grin, and surmised that it was because he was used to seeing her fully dressed and well presented. So, she simply muttered that she had just got out of bed, and he nodded, smiled a little more, handed her the post and left rather hurriedly. Only when she had got back into the living room had she seen to her horror, in the mirror on the wall, that one of her breasts was very much exposed. No wonder he had been whistling on his way to the neighbours’ house. As she covered herself up, mortified, worrying about how much she had seemed like a bored lonely housewife, she made the promise to herself that she would not open the door for the post again. Unless he had a parcel for her, or something to sign for, she couldn’t face looking him in the eye, which is why she started to stand to the side of the door when he delivered there.
On this particular day, she grabbed the post before it hit the ground (something of a skill she had perfected) and took it into the living room, flicking through as ever to see if there looked to be anything interesting to save for after the junk. Council Tax bill (it only seemed like a week since she had paid the last one), Polling Cards (the amount of local/general/whatever else they could think of elections they had voted in recently made it incredibly difficult to keep up with what they were meant to be voting for this time), what looked like their annual allotment renewal slip, bill, bill, car insurance, junk for the previous tenants (hopefully nothing like the summons they had received one day, when Liam had had to attend the local police station with his passport and driving license to prove it wasn’t him they were after), and finally a postcard.
At the sight of it, Ellie felt like all the air had been sucked from the whole room and from her too. Taking pride of place in the very centre of the card was Winchester Cathedral, and a very busy Christmas Market scene. This wasn’t the Winchester card they had been expecting to find on the kitchen floor; that one had a picture of the St. Cross Hospital and Almshouse of Noble Poverty on it. With her heart pounding in her ears (but not feeling like it was even beating in her chest), she slowly turned the card to read the reverse side. As soon as she read the message, written in Helen’s familiar cursive style, she realised that what she had in her hand was the missing postcard that they had never received. As she turned the card over to gaze once again at the stalls and the ice rink, all the things that Helen had enjoyed so much on her outing, Ellie’s first reaction was to call Liam and tell him about this very surprising turn of events, but as she took hold of the phone and started to dial, another thought entered her head, and she replaced the phone and went out to the kitchen. Looking at the notice board that, she thought for the first time since she tidied it up, looked oddly bare, she took a spare pin from the cork and pinned the new card to it. When she returned to the living room, she didn’t even bother trying to stop the smile she had felt blossoming on her face.
(Chapter 7 due tomorrow, 24/12/08)
Monday, 22 December 2008
"Postcards In Winter" by Ian Myers, Chapter 5...
5.
Liam had told Ellie about the pattern by the following evening. He really hadn’t wanted to, but when she rang him to say that there had been another, and that it had been the Southampton harbour one, he knew he would have to sit down with her and tell her. All day long he considered how to approach it, and exactly what to say. He was baffled enough as it was, without trying to think how to explain it to someone else. Luckily it wasn’t any old someone else, but Ellie, and no matter how much of a mess he managed to make of explaining, she would surely get at least the general idea at some stage.
He didn’t mess it up, and got what he had to say across very efficiently; for some reason, Helen’s postcards had been falling off their pin board in the exact same order and within the exact same time frame as they had originally been sent almost a year ago. Ellie was silent. For some moments Liam thought that his support for her over the past couple of weeks had been for nothing, that she would throw his love and concern back in his face and make out that he had lost his mind. When she spoke again, she said something that proved to him that she certainly did not think that about him, and just how much she valued him being there for her and understanding. Crucially, it made him see how alike they truly were, as she vocalised what he had been thinking. Maybe, she said, Helen was on one last tour. Maybe she had wanted to take one last trip to her favourite places, and maybe she might come to visit them for one final time. Liam allowed himself to give in to emotion for the first time since the first postcard fell, as Ellie began to weep on his shoulder. He hadn’t known what to think when it started. There was a slight breakthrough when they found the potential explanation of him brushing against the cards and knocking them off, but then it was right back to square one almost as quickly as that had surfaced. If what he was thinking, and Ellie had shown she was thinking as well, was the case (which was more to go on than anything else; Liam had given himself many sleepless nights over the past few days trying as hard as he could to suss out any kind of reasons), after the most recent one from Southampton there was only where they lived in Winchester, and it would be due the next day.
(Chapter 6 due tomorrow, 23/12/08)
Liam had told Ellie about the pattern by the following evening. He really hadn’t wanted to, but when she rang him to say that there had been another, and that it had been the Southampton harbour one, he knew he would have to sit down with her and tell her. All day long he considered how to approach it, and exactly what to say. He was baffled enough as it was, without trying to think how to explain it to someone else. Luckily it wasn’t any old someone else, but Ellie, and no matter how much of a mess he managed to make of explaining, she would surely get at least the general idea at some stage.
He didn’t mess it up, and got what he had to say across very efficiently; for some reason, Helen’s postcards had been falling off their pin board in the exact same order and within the exact same time frame as they had originally been sent almost a year ago. Ellie was silent. For some moments Liam thought that his support for her over the past couple of weeks had been for nothing, that she would throw his love and concern back in his face and make out that he had lost his mind. When she spoke again, she said something that proved to him that she certainly did not think that about him, and just how much she valued him being there for her and understanding. Crucially, it made him see how alike they truly were, as she vocalised what he had been thinking. Maybe, she said, Helen was on one last tour. Maybe she had wanted to take one last trip to her favourite places, and maybe she might come to visit them for one final time. Liam allowed himself to give in to emotion for the first time since the first postcard fell, as Ellie began to weep on his shoulder. He hadn’t known what to think when it started. There was a slight breakthrough when they found the potential explanation of him brushing against the cards and knocking them off, but then it was right back to square one almost as quickly as that had surfaced. If what he was thinking, and Ellie had shown she was thinking as well, was the case (which was more to go on than anything else; Liam had given himself many sleepless nights over the past few days trying as hard as he could to suss out any kind of reasons), after the most recent one from Southampton there was only where they lived in Winchester, and it would be due the next day.
(Chapter 6 due tomorrow, 23/12/08)
Sunday, 21 December 2008
"Postcards In Winter" by Ian Myers, Chapter 4...
4.
Even Liam's calm nature began to waver five days later, when the postcards started making their way onto the kitchen floor again. Ellie had gone through a few lovely days when they stopped. Liam had been making absolutely certain that he wasn’t knocking the cards off leaving for work. She had just about convinced herself that had been the cause of it (Liam had even apologised for being responsible for scaring her like that, even if it had been unintentional), when she came downstairs two days in a row to find a different postcard on the floor each day (Bournemouth the first, Portsmouth the second, both picture side up), when Liam wasn’t actually at work.
It was the weekend, and on the Saturday morning Liam got up at the usual time (no matter how much he tried to sleep in, his body clock was set to work time) and went straight into the shower. Ellie woke a few minutes later and went to join him before the kids woke as well. When they heard the boys stir, Ellie went down to get ready for breakfast, Rohan zipping around the kitchen in her pink aeroplane walker while Liam went in to get Ciaran and Declan up, something that he missed out on during the week and relished the opportunity to do on his weekends off. He took them to use the toilet and get dressed, and took them down to the living room for a quick play before breakfast, while he popped his head round the kitchen door to check on Ellie. She was stood facing the kitchen side, both hands out in front of her resting on the counter. She had her head down and was breathing heavily. With all the laughter and happy chatting coming from the front room, the quiet in the kitchen was striking. All that could be heard was Rohan sucking her dummy, the off-time ticking of the wall clock (they never remembered to put batteries on the shopping list), and the deep trembling breaths coming from Ellie. Concerned, Liam sidled up to her and wrapped a protective arm around her stomach. He pressed in tight against her back and peered over her shoulder to get a better view of what he had seen between her hands, although he had already predicted to himself what it almost certainly was. Confronted with a montage of some of Bournemouth’s most beautiful locations, Liam grabbed his wife gently by the arm, spun her round and pulled her into a tight embrace, where she began to sob. She managed to control her tears long enough to ask him what it meant, but this time he could offer no explanation.
If he struggled to find a reason on the Saturday morning, he was at even more of a loss on the Sunday morning, when for the first time he encountered a fallen postcard himself. He had planned to go down into the kitchen first to see if there was anything untoward, but Ellie had asked him to do it anyway before they went to sleep on the Saturday night. She had decided that it was probably pointless as he usually went downstairs first when he was at work and yet it wasn’t until she came down that the postcards would be on the floor, but she was too shaken to face it that morning. Maybe if he went down and the postcards were all where they should be, it might make a difference if he left the kitchen door open for her when she came down. She was clutching at straws with this idea, but she wanted to rule out any possibility, no matter how far fetched they seemed.
Liam did find a postcard on the floor, showing Portsmouth pier and seafront, picture side up. For a fleeting moment, he had thought about putting the card back on the board and telling Ellie there hadn’t been anything there. Realising that doing this would achieve absolutely nothing, save for having a detrimental effect on his conscience, he instead pinned the card back on the board and started to turn away to go and tell her about it, when a peculiar feeling crept over him and a chill started to rise up his spine. He reached out in front of him and took the latest card back down. He glanced back at the board and quickly cleared the kitchen side where he stood. Remembering the order Ellie had been telling him the cards had presented themselves (which surprised him as she normally had to tell him off for not listening to her when she was talking), he took each of them down from the board and laid them out one beside the other on the work surface. The Isle of Lewis, Edinburgh, The Lake District, Bournemouth and Portsmouth…he was certain this was the exact order of the locations Helen stopped at on her favourite holiday tour, which she took every couple of years. He flipped all of the postcards over and checked the dates of the postmarks. They corresponded with the order he had recalled, and as he stood there staring at them, attempting to make sense of a situation that made no sense whatsoever , he noticed something that made his pulse quicken and his breath shorten. On the postmarks of the cards, the time between dates matched the time between the days that Ellie (and now Liam himself) had found the postcards on the kitchen floor. According to the original dates on the postcards, the second was sent two days after the first, two days after that the third was sent, five days later the fourth was sent, with the fifth dated the day after that. Sure enough, Liam had found the fifth that day, Ellie had found the fourth the day before, which was five days after she had found the third, itself two days after the second, with the one that started it all showing up two days prior to that.
Coincidence.
Yes, coincidence.
But how would he make Ellie believe that when he was struggling to believe it himself? Well, he wouldn’t necessarily have to tell her that part of it would he? No, he decided, he wouldn’t. Ellie only needed to know there had been a card on the floor, nothing else. If she had noticed anything about the pattern, she would tell him and he in turn would tell her. But if she did not have even an inkling then there was no reason to worry her needlessly. What he would do was keep an eye out for the next card (assuming there would be more, which he sincerely hoped there wouldn’t). If it was the one with Southampton Harbour on it, he would have to tell her. He carefully replaced all the other cards, before taking the Southampton one down and inspecting the date of the postmark. If it was going to perform the same trick that the others had, it would do it the next day. He would be back at work and would have to ask Ellie all about it. But, for the time being, he pinned the Southampton one with the others and went to tell her that there had been a postcard on the floor, nothing more.
(Chapter 5 due tomorrow, 22/12/08)
Even Liam's calm nature began to waver five days later, when the postcards started making their way onto the kitchen floor again. Ellie had gone through a few lovely days when they stopped. Liam had been making absolutely certain that he wasn’t knocking the cards off leaving for work. She had just about convinced herself that had been the cause of it (Liam had even apologised for being responsible for scaring her like that, even if it had been unintentional), when she came downstairs two days in a row to find a different postcard on the floor each day (Bournemouth the first, Portsmouth the second, both picture side up), when Liam wasn’t actually at work.
It was the weekend, and on the Saturday morning Liam got up at the usual time (no matter how much he tried to sleep in, his body clock was set to work time) and went straight into the shower. Ellie woke a few minutes later and went to join him before the kids woke as well. When they heard the boys stir, Ellie went down to get ready for breakfast, Rohan zipping around the kitchen in her pink aeroplane walker while Liam went in to get Ciaran and Declan up, something that he missed out on during the week and relished the opportunity to do on his weekends off. He took them to use the toilet and get dressed, and took them down to the living room for a quick play before breakfast, while he popped his head round the kitchen door to check on Ellie. She was stood facing the kitchen side, both hands out in front of her resting on the counter. She had her head down and was breathing heavily. With all the laughter and happy chatting coming from the front room, the quiet in the kitchen was striking. All that could be heard was Rohan sucking her dummy, the off-time ticking of the wall clock (they never remembered to put batteries on the shopping list), and the deep trembling breaths coming from Ellie. Concerned, Liam sidled up to her and wrapped a protective arm around her stomach. He pressed in tight against her back and peered over her shoulder to get a better view of what he had seen between her hands, although he had already predicted to himself what it almost certainly was. Confronted with a montage of some of Bournemouth’s most beautiful locations, Liam grabbed his wife gently by the arm, spun her round and pulled her into a tight embrace, where she began to sob. She managed to control her tears long enough to ask him what it meant, but this time he could offer no explanation.
If he struggled to find a reason on the Saturday morning, he was at even more of a loss on the Sunday morning, when for the first time he encountered a fallen postcard himself. He had planned to go down into the kitchen first to see if there was anything untoward, but Ellie had asked him to do it anyway before they went to sleep on the Saturday night. She had decided that it was probably pointless as he usually went downstairs first when he was at work and yet it wasn’t until she came down that the postcards would be on the floor, but she was too shaken to face it that morning. Maybe if he went down and the postcards were all where they should be, it might make a difference if he left the kitchen door open for her when she came down. She was clutching at straws with this idea, but she wanted to rule out any possibility, no matter how far fetched they seemed.
Liam did find a postcard on the floor, showing Portsmouth pier and seafront, picture side up. For a fleeting moment, he had thought about putting the card back on the board and telling Ellie there hadn’t been anything there. Realising that doing this would achieve absolutely nothing, save for having a detrimental effect on his conscience, he instead pinned the card back on the board and started to turn away to go and tell her about it, when a peculiar feeling crept over him and a chill started to rise up his spine. He reached out in front of him and took the latest card back down. He glanced back at the board and quickly cleared the kitchen side where he stood. Remembering the order Ellie had been telling him the cards had presented themselves (which surprised him as she normally had to tell him off for not listening to her when she was talking), he took each of them down from the board and laid them out one beside the other on the work surface. The Isle of Lewis, Edinburgh, The Lake District, Bournemouth and Portsmouth…he was certain this was the exact order of the locations Helen stopped at on her favourite holiday tour, which she took every couple of years. He flipped all of the postcards over and checked the dates of the postmarks. They corresponded with the order he had recalled, and as he stood there staring at them, attempting to make sense of a situation that made no sense whatsoever , he noticed something that made his pulse quicken and his breath shorten. On the postmarks of the cards, the time between dates matched the time between the days that Ellie (and now Liam himself) had found the postcards on the kitchen floor. According to the original dates on the postcards, the second was sent two days after the first, two days after that the third was sent, five days later the fourth was sent, with the fifth dated the day after that. Sure enough, Liam had found the fifth that day, Ellie had found the fourth the day before, which was five days after she had found the third, itself two days after the second, with the one that started it all showing up two days prior to that.
Coincidence.
Yes, coincidence.
But how would he make Ellie believe that when he was struggling to believe it himself? Well, he wouldn’t necessarily have to tell her that part of it would he? No, he decided, he wouldn’t. Ellie only needed to know there had been a card on the floor, nothing else. If she had noticed anything about the pattern, she would tell him and he in turn would tell her. But if she did not have even an inkling then there was no reason to worry her needlessly. What he would do was keep an eye out for the next card (assuming there would be more, which he sincerely hoped there wouldn’t). If it was the one with Southampton Harbour on it, he would have to tell her. He carefully replaced all the other cards, before taking the Southampton one down and inspecting the date of the postmark. If it was going to perform the same trick that the others had, it would do it the next day. He would be back at work and would have to ask Ellie all about it. But, for the time being, he pinned the Southampton one with the others and went to tell her that there had been a postcard on the floor, nothing more.
(Chapter 5 due tomorrow, 22/12/08)
Saturday, 20 December 2008
"Postcards In Winter" by Ian Myers, Chapter 3...
3.
The first day or two weren’t a problem, in fact, Ellie didn’t even notice. You don’t really notice when things have fallen off a pin board do you? You just pick up whatever it is and pin it back on the board. So, the first morning she came downstairs to find one of Helen’s postcards (from the Isle of Lewis), picture side up, on the floor just inside the kitchen, she pinned it straight back up and gave no further thought to it. The day after next, when it happened again (this time the one from Edinburgh with a photo of the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, and again picture side up), she pinned it up without question and only gave slightly more thought to it than before in wondering if the pin board was maybe a touch overcrowded. She cleared a few things off it that weren’t needed any longer but that had been left on there after being forgotten about, including raffle tickets from the local school fete the previous summer (they hadn’t won the iPod, the shopping vouchers or the multi-speed MST3K mountain bike, but had at least won a stationary set and a couple of lollipops at the tombola on the day), an old dentist appointment card, and last quarter’s phone bill. Now all that was left on there (aside from a business card from the electrician they had used after the cooker had started playing up…after it’s guarantee had expired, naturally) was the collection of postcards, nicely spaced out and arranged. It certainly wasn’t overcrowded now, and all the pins had been pushed in tight to ensure they wouldn’t fall out too easily. She noticed the third time though, when she knew first hand from tidying the pin board that it couldn’t have just fallen off. But there it was. A card from Lake Windermere in the Lake District, on the floor just inside the kitchen, picture side up. She took hold of it and returned it to the blank spot of cork it had exposed upon falling, taking a moment to see if there was any chance that the spot where it had been could be brushed against going through the door. She was hoping that maybe it was something simple like Liam catching it with his coat on the way out of the kitchen to work in the mornings. Over dinner that night, she had plucked up the courage to ask him. She kept repeating to herself "Just do it...he won’t think you’re crazy, he’s not like that." If only she could be so sure about her own sanity at that moment. He told her that as far as he knew he hadn’t knocked the notice board or anything on it any of the days it had happened, although he did try to reassure her by adding that, with the weather having been bad of late (especially in the very early morning when he left for work), that he had been wearing his extra thick Parka so he wouldn’t have felt it even if he had. Ellie was temporarily satisfied when Liam told her that he would by doubly careful in the mornings, and would check and check again that he hadn’t knocked any postcards off the board. With a hug and a kiss for additional comfort, he managed to help her stop dwelling again, he just had that way about him.
(Chapter 4 due tomorrow, 21/12/08)
The first day or two weren’t a problem, in fact, Ellie didn’t even notice. You don’t really notice when things have fallen off a pin board do you? You just pick up whatever it is and pin it back on the board. So, the first morning she came downstairs to find one of Helen’s postcards (from the Isle of Lewis), picture side up, on the floor just inside the kitchen, she pinned it straight back up and gave no further thought to it. The day after next, when it happened again (this time the one from Edinburgh with a photo of the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, and again picture side up), she pinned it up without question and only gave slightly more thought to it than before in wondering if the pin board was maybe a touch overcrowded. She cleared a few things off it that weren’t needed any longer but that had been left on there after being forgotten about, including raffle tickets from the local school fete the previous summer (they hadn’t won the iPod, the shopping vouchers or the multi-speed MST3K mountain bike, but had at least won a stationary set and a couple of lollipops at the tombola on the day), an old dentist appointment card, and last quarter’s phone bill. Now all that was left on there (aside from a business card from the electrician they had used after the cooker had started playing up…after it’s guarantee had expired, naturally) was the collection of postcards, nicely spaced out and arranged. It certainly wasn’t overcrowded now, and all the pins had been pushed in tight to ensure they wouldn’t fall out too easily. She noticed the third time though, when she knew first hand from tidying the pin board that it couldn’t have just fallen off. But there it was. A card from Lake Windermere in the Lake District, on the floor just inside the kitchen, picture side up. She took hold of it and returned it to the blank spot of cork it had exposed upon falling, taking a moment to see if there was any chance that the spot where it had been could be brushed against going through the door. She was hoping that maybe it was something simple like Liam catching it with his coat on the way out of the kitchen to work in the mornings. Over dinner that night, she had plucked up the courage to ask him. She kept repeating to herself "Just do it...he won’t think you’re crazy, he’s not like that." If only she could be so sure about her own sanity at that moment. He told her that as far as he knew he hadn’t knocked the notice board or anything on it any of the days it had happened, although he did try to reassure her by adding that, with the weather having been bad of late (especially in the very early morning when he left for work), that he had been wearing his extra thick Parka so he wouldn’t have felt it even if he had. Ellie was temporarily satisfied when Liam told her that he would by doubly careful in the mornings, and would check and check again that he hadn’t knocked any postcards off the board. With a hug and a kiss for additional comfort, he managed to help her stop dwelling again, he just had that way about him.
(Chapter 4 due tomorrow, 21/12/08)
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