Lily is Always Write

My name is Lily and sometimes I write. Things I write go here, regardless of quality.

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Orb Part II

Things only went downhill from there. There was equipment failure after equipment failure-, things just kept breaking. The first thing to go was the coffee machine, which was unpleasant but not devastating and fairly easily fixed. Louis and Rob, the other engineer, didn’t have anything better to do really so it was back online pretty quickly, but other things started going wrong too. First the artificial gravity failed, which was annoying for me especially since I was halfway through my sleep shift and it woke me up. The gravity engine took slightly longer to fix than the coffee machine but the urgency of it meant that it still didn’t take that long. While frustrating, it didn’t matter too much anyway: this ship was built in the post-Higgs 7 era when we all realised how dangerous it could be to have gravity fail. We have ladders, but if we’d been on an older ship things could have gone badly wrong. Instead, we had the privilege of crewing one of the newest ships out there with all the bells, whistles and safety features. I guess we were lucky in a way. Louis and Rob were good at their jobs; my impression was that they were handpicked by the DSC for this expedition, too. I’d never worked with them before but they were friendly enough towards everyone. They were best friends, and I got the impression they’d spent most of their missions with each other so it’s my suspicion that only one was asked but he only agreed on the condition that the other would be able to come too. At first Georgina thought they were married, but she seemed to think that all men who are good friends with men or all women who are good friends with women were either dating or married. She’s not always wrong, but Louis and Rob genuinely were just friends. We all had a laugh about that after she asked one of them one day. That was roughly three weeks after hibernation, once we’d all started to know each other a bit better, but before anything major had started to happen. After the orb appearing to me and the gravity engine failing, there was a period of about six weeks where nothing really happened apart from the ship slowing down even further.

The ‘speed compression’ as we took to calling it got worse and worse as we flew closer to the spot we were told to investigate. Speed compression isn’t a scientific term or even a particularly accurate one, but it made us all feel better to have something which sounded scientific rather than to have nothing. It’s comforting to be able to pretend you know what’s happening to you. What was interesting though, was that we would speed up and slow down in a pattern. We would gradually become slower, but would improve for very short periods of time until it would get even worse than before. I think it was Georgina who thought it would be smart to try and find a pattern in the seeming randomness, or maybe it was an order from Earth, or maybe it was just common sense since it was technically a scientific journey, but that was what we did at any rate. What we found was weird. The lengths of time that each short period of our speed getting closer to normal were equal. What’s more is the periods of it getting worse were all divisible by the length of time that it would get better. That might not be explained well, but it means that they were all multiples of a single unit that worked out at around ten minutes and ten seconds. We could track these units like the dots and dashes of morse code. They meant nothing to us, however, despite Ashim’s best efforts to fit them into any system that humanity knew of. That’s what he was there for, I suppose. I had thought it funny that an archaeologist be taken on a voyage to a place humans had never been but archaeology is a broad topic. Ashim knew lots about codes and ciphers and writing systems we knew nothing about. As well as that, his training meant that he knew all the procedure for collecting samples of anything that we happened to find. He was an interesting man, always fascinated to learn something new; he was so full of curiosity. Quieter than the rest of us though, which I always find off-putting about new people, but again after we all got to know each other he wasn’t so weird. I should have realised that the company knew more about the mission than they were letting on when I heard that we were bringing an archaeologist, but even if I had I don’t think that would have stopped  me coming and that’s all that really matters now. Besides, if I hadn’t come, I would never have seen the orb. Nor met Georgina, or Louis and Rob, or Ashim, or Yanna.

At one point I thought it was maybe Ashim that had told me about the orb, but looking back, that wouldn’t make sense. My thoughts were that the reason he never owned up to it was because he already felt useless on the mission and didn’t want any further embarrassment, but it wasn’t long until we found out a good reason to have him on board. In the fifth week we noticed a comet flying close to the ship. This isn’t something you’d normally find strange, but it stayed there, following us. It never overtook, it never fell behind, it never altered in distance at all. 

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Orb Part I

Exploration has always been in humanity’s instinct. The drive that tickles away at us as a race to always keep looking for more, the push at the back of our minds to try and know what surrounds us. First we ran out of land to explore. The maps that once charted monsters now chart lions and tigers. Coastlines of each continent have been carefully surveyed and documented. Next came the seas. The vast open reaches of water containing anything, fish, sharks, gods and demons. Pirates ruled because they could until that blanket that covers half the earth too was left with no mystery to her. The naval forces patrolled to rule the waves and tame them, all the small islands were found and through that the fear of the sea subsided. For hundreds of years after this, there was nothing until eventually we humans looked up. Maybe we shouldn’t have - they say curiosity killed the cat - but I know we had to and that’s why some people add that satisfaction brought it back. There is no satisfaction here. As I write this, I can only hope that you don’t feel the need to explore and that you can bring yourself to leave and not return. But I know you won’t. Maybe this page has somehow made it back to Earth and everyone reading it is safe, but somehow I know that isn’t the case. Since it isn’t, you had probably better know what this station’s purpose is.

This all started as a simple exploration mission. We would all be gone for five years, mostly spent in hibernation. The length of the actual project is only two, but the journey is still long and though normally the distance wouldn’t take nearly that wrong there’s something different that happens here. Upon approach to our target our speed slowed down incredible amounts. Time’s passage remained stable and by all measurements there was no difference in gravity but our main pilot, Jenna, remarked that it was like flying through tar. I have to agree and in all my years serving the DSC I never experienced anything like this. They chose me for my experience with strange situations, thinking maybe I’d be able to offer insight while it was happening but I couldn’t. The problematic circumstances I’d found myself in before were rare but had at least had theory behind them. At one point I flew the closest anyone had ever been to a black hole (this was back before we had figured out how to solve the first of the gravity problems, so it was quite remarkable at the time) but I had hundreds of people back on Earth telling me exactly what to do and what would happen. This journey made no sense though. I talked about it with Jenna for weeks as it was happening and neither of us knew what was going on or what could be causing it. The rest of the crew had no idea either. Our mission was to find out what was in this region of space since it was fairly close to Earth and we were told equipment back home was having trouble identifying anything. All that they said they could find out was that there was an unidentified event happening in the region, not a black hole or a planet or an asteroid, but something. We had to know and that was our downfall.

The slowing of the ship was the first sign although we had been warned that that would probably happen. It put us on edge since we didn’t know why but it was the least of our problems. We were woken from hibernation once the ship started slowing down. This was planned, but we had hoped it wouldn’t have been the case: if it hadn’t it would have been a simple expedition setting up a basic outpost stocked with food and fuel for future travellers should they need it in an emergency and had enough credits to pay for it. But after the speed change we knew that wouldn’t be the case. A few days passed after we woke up but it had taken us three just to get everything into order again. We checked all the systems and everything looked fine, it was just us the human element that needed bringing into check. What they don’t tell you about hibernation is that after you wake up it takes time to feel normal again. You wake up starving because getting your nutrients through a tube isn’t good enough, and you can’t open your eyes because they’re glued shut since you haven’t opened them in months then when you do open them you have to make sure you wear sunglasses because otherwise the lights hurt so badly you wish you never got past the glued together part. Your limbs don’t work properly anymore either since you’ve practically been lying in bed the whole time without any exercise and in zero-gravity muscle loses tone even more quickly than when you’re on Earth. The whole thing feels like recovering from the worst hangover of your life. Everyone loses a fair bit of mass too, again because of not eating for so long. The Company sends out extra rations with crew these days just for when they wake up but in the first few years they hadn’t realised how dangerous it could be until several people had died of starvation after coming out of hibernation. Jenna and I had both gone down in bra sizes too which was annoying but she still looked good and after the first week of eating everything was back to normal. It wasn’t until day nine that anything started to happen.

The day began normally, by this point we’d all adjusted into our normal sleeping patterns. The only person asleep was Ashim, our archaeologist, since he’s on the latest sleep shift. The shifts work out so that we’re never all asleep at the same time but there are still at least three hours when we’re all awake since without that it can make it hard to live with people. After a routine check of the ship’s course in the pilot room, someone called me in to look at something bizarre. We hadn’t changed direction but in the two hours that had passed since the last check of what was happening outside, a massive blue orb had appeared. It didn’t look real, it seemed as if it was computer generated, giving an impression of being smooth down to an atomic level. I couldn’t know that of course, but I wanted to know more about it, I wanted to reach out and touch it and feel what something like that felt like. I stared at it and I felt like it was friendly, I felt like I just had to know more about it, I had to touch it, I had to experience it and know it. The big blue sphere in front of me filling the empty black space that had been there only hours before. The amazing glow around it was so enticing, it was part of the orb but at the same time separate, like flames on a log. I could have watched it for hours and hours. 

I woke up in the infirmary. I don’t remember how I got there, but Louis, one of our two engineers, told me that I’d gone into some kind of comatose state staring out the front of the ship. Nobody knew what I was staring at, or why I was staring, but I know what I saw. I know someone else saw it too because they called me in but I don’t remember who it was. It could have been any of the other five but they must have been embarrassed to admit that it was their fault or something. I went back to check on the orb later once they had checked I was back to normal, but it wasn’t there. I knew now that one of them must have been conspiring against me.

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Jazz Age

The music of a big band sounded close by. The trumpet screamed its serenade, shouting for all the world to hear what it was feeling, with the saxophones humming underneath as if to say “I agree” over the simple plink plonk of the double bass making sure everyone knew exactly what was going on. And for a moment she, hearing this mixture of harmonising and discordant sounds, felt free. She felt like she herself was a part of the concert that was both miles away and right next to her. Separated by worlds but intrinsically connected to each other. Now it was the saxophone’s turn to speak and it was the trumpet who agreed and disagreed. She stared at the shiny metal instruments behind her eyes, and watched the hands move on the instruments making them moan. The faces of the players could have been anyone but the instruments stayed the same, the only imprint left of the musicians being the souls they imparted to the music. All the instruments began to scream now, everything was coming to its end, its climax. Everything was happening at once, everything became overloaded and then finally there was silence and the ending of the song. The next song began and she came back to her senses. Her eyes opened and she was no longer in the jazz bar she dreamt of but was back in her room where she had always been. A new trumpet began but it wasn’t the same. The wailing said something else, something was lacking - maybe it was her preference for the style or maybe it was just that the moment she had been living in had passed now and even listening to the song wouldn’t give the same feeling. The spell was broken now that she could see her phone playing, the name of the song and the artist removing some of the haze that surrounded those artists. The truth of the song was out of her reach, taken from her in an instant and left a hundred years behind her. It wasn’t a jazzy night in New York but simply another day in her apartment. The grey skies told her it would be like any other and her phone screen told her it was past midday and things would only get more grey. She had no plans so she was still in bed in the pyjamas which she’d been wearing for nearly two days now. She lacked routine, she lacked rhythm, she lacked the soul that the music she was listening to. The music was free, it shifted however it wanted to, it swung and swayed and danced around while she stayed stuck still, lying in bed doing nothing. She was trapped in a cage of pyjamas with no reason to escape them, no reason to go outside and experience anything. She stayed in them because they were comfy and easy. Maybe today she would finally do something different, maybe today she would practice her trumpet which lay gathering dust in her wardrobe. Her lips were out of practice, she wouldn’t sound nearly half as good as the trumpet in her phone and in her head. She knew that she had never and probably would never have the skill to sound like those great players from the age of jazz. But that wasn’t supposed to be what jazz was about, it was supposed to be about feeling free but with the underlying rhythm to keep everything in place, to stop the players from going insane. She couldn’t keep time for the life of her. She couldn’t stay with the rhythm and so she could only play alone. She found it easy to swing because that was all she could do but she swung too far and too hard to the point that it wasn’t swinging anymore but simply discordant notes played out of time. Maybe today she would finally fix that and she’d get dressed, get out of those pyjamas, clean her room and play her trumpet. Maybe tomorrow she thought, as she turned back over to sleep some more since she didn’t have anything better to do.

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Marcus Brown x Nigel Farage

Before I begin, this requires an explanation. Someone wanted to see a sample of my writing. They idly joked about me writing fanfic. I told them that nobody wanted to read that or see that or for that to ever happen. Then someone joked about it being fanfic between the UKIP MP who teaches at our school (Marcus Brown) and Nigel Farage. Then my finger slipped and this was produced. ********

The meeting of candidates had run smoothly, with not a single racist comment. The new policy of instantly removing those who spoke up with their non-conformist views seemed to be working. Maybe they could finally repair the image that they had created for themselves as ‘that’ party, the ones that the others didn’t like to admit might be a genuine shake up for modern politics. Marcus Brown certainly hoped so. If they couldn’t fix the view that they were against Asian, Black and other ethnic impurities then his job in a school in Aston would have all been in vain. They just needed enough votes so that they could get on with their final answer to the problem, he thought, as he stared at the rain falling down the window.

“Marcus?” he heard a voice say. Turning round, he realised that the room in which he had sat was now empty, with all the other candidates having gathered their belongings and headed to the pub. All except one, that was.

“Marcus, the meeting’s over- aren’t you coming to the pub?” asked Mr Farage. Marcus was still starstruck to be talking to Nigel. They had spoken many times in passing and at work and even several times during the meeting but somehow it never quite lost its charm. Maybe it was the glint in Nigel’s eye, or the smooth tones of his voice, or maybe the way that the just for men hair dye didn’t quite catch all of the grey on his head; to Marcus there was definitely something magical about him.

“Yes Mr Farage, I was just thinking about a few things” he responded. Farage’s eyebrow moved up a fraction, rising just for a second but Marcus saw nonetheless.

“That’s funny,” said Nigel, “so have I.” The light caught his deep brown eyes in just the right way to make them sparkle and something of a sly smile danced across his lips. “You know that I’ve never been against gay marriage or homosexuality, don’t you Marcus?” he began.

“Of course sir. Nobody in our party would ever hold any radical views at all ever under threat of expulsion which is far better than the conservatives who don’t even-”

“There’s no need for that in here Marcus, this is a safe space away from the press. And please, we’ve known each other for long enough now that you can call me Nigel, surely?” said Farage, cutting him off.

“But Shirley is a girl’s name sir!”

“Very funny, but really, please call me Nigel- you’re the teacher, not me.” Mr Farage had clearly been amused at the joke, but there was a certain seriousness in his voice which made it sound almost as though he was pleading for a friend. The tone begged for someone to be close to, someone to laugh with, someone who could be trusted in this cut-throat world of politics.

“Okay, Nigel.” said Brown, rather more easily than he had expected. The name rolled off his tongue as though he had been using it for years. “But of course I know you’re not against the gays.”

“Would you like to know why?”

“Do people need a reason to not be against the gays?”

Nigel laughed for a couple of seconds before looking glassily at the floor. He walked over to the window Marcus had spent so long staring through. The rain had stopped now, though the sky was still grey.

“Not necessarily of course, but I happen to have one that is rather good.”

“What is it?”

“I understand them. I’m a lonely man, Marcus. I’m a lonely man and it’s a harsh world. I always try to look like a man of the people, drinking beer, playing darts, shouting at the football; but deep down I don’t want to be that man.”

The look of sorrow in Nigel’s eyes filled Marcus with sadness, that such a great and wise leader might be in such pain on the inside. But with it came a feeling of hope. Marcus too shared similar feelings. He knew he would never make it as a politician or a teacher in an all boys school if he didn’t have a wife, but he never knew how empty it would feel.

“I think I know what you mean,” he said, shuffling over to him “we’re all just filling gaps that have been left by this cruel world”. They both now stared out the window and in the distance patches of blue broke apart the vast desert of white and grey.

“Do you know something?” said Nigel, turning now to look at Marcus. “I had a feeling you might.” The smile returned to his face, that sort of half smile with just the corners turned up. It was the eyes which showed his true feelings of happiness.

“How about I call you sir now?” said Nigel, who had suddenly perked up in the last couple of seconds.

“O-Okay” said Marcus, unsure of quite how to feel. His heart had started beating more heavily beneath his UKIP campaign ribbon. He could feel his hands tremble like the first time he ever taught a class of children, and droplets of sweat began to form on his brow.

“What would you like me to do now, Sir?” asked Nigel, “Have I been a naughty boy, sir? You know that one of the party’s policies is bringing back spanking don’t you? Why don’t we give it a trial run?”. His big, brown, magical, puppy dog eyes shone out of his face. Marcus could feel something twitch between his legs and a feeling his wife had never quite managed to inspire rose through his body. The confidence came to him, and though still shaking it was no longer from nerves but now from the eager anticipation of what was to come. He lowered his pitch, pushed back his shoulders and spoke boldly now.

“Go and lock the door, boy.” He said with a smile, loosening his tie. The door clicked. FIN

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Autumn

What is it that makes me infatuated with autumn? The short days and the long nights always leave me feeling sad, but I can’t help loving it. Orange leaves leave trees and end up as mush on the floor which is horrible to walk on, but it’s still amazing. The drizzle wrecks my hair and makes everything I wear damp and I get left feeling cold outside but it’s outweighed by the warm inside that it’s given me. Because it balances somehow. I eat soups and stews and the tea I drink seems even warmer in contrast. I admit that the part of me that breaks down and cries at the grey skies is less than jubilant at the prospect of the short cold days that only get shorter as they grow into winter, but dark days make ways to appreciate brighter things.

Or maybe I’m just trying to justify my weird preoccupation with Autumn.

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Everything in my life seems to be about sex. I really hate that, a lot more than anyone might expect. About 5 minutes ago, I had to cross my legs as hard as I could and stop myself thinking about sex because if I did then my body would want me to touch it and that's a difficult urge to not follow. Yet when I give in, it feels like I have no control. It feels like I am male. It feels like I am trapped as male and stuck as male and that I will never be anything else. I like to dress female. I like forgetting I have a penis and I like pretending I could go into the world in girls' clothes and not be stigmatised or bullied or have people even look at me weirdly. But I am scared of feeling sexy. Because if I feel sexy then am I getting off on being female? Am I simply giving in to a fetish? Does that make it okay for other people to see me as a fetish item? All these questions that swim around my head and make feel even more insecure and even more ashamed by myself and it hurts. Because my life seems to revolve around sex. I hate my body because of my sexual organs (amongst other things). If I use my penis for anything other than going to the toilet, I feel wrong. I still crave sex. But I don't want sex as a man, I want sex as a woman and to do that I need to have my sexual organs replaced. Again, it just makes me feel like a fetish. I hate it all so much and I just want it to stop, but it won't. Not for a while. So I keep going, and I keep hating, and I keep questioning what I am and what I'm not.

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Searching for happiness at the bottom of a dark cup of coffee. Sipping slowly and edging towards the finish only to find disappointment there and have to start another. Another bitter journey to the end of a drink, again and again, with the simple hope of some kind of difference in the next one- some kind of enlightenment that will suddenly appear only to you. So you take another gulp.

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

The Written Word

I dislike computers. It's not because I'm old or because they're new. It's not because they bring out the worst or I disagree morally. It's not even that they're complex and I can't use them. I can. What get's me about computers is the words. They're created and put together and sent and received and stored and saved and their spirit is lost. Words to me have been more than things written on a page. They are information and knowledge- they have a life of their own. The black pixels on a page will never be the same as a page of neatly handwritten text. A word processor will never even be a typewriter. The clack of a laptop's keyboard will never compare to the ticks and trills that typewriters make or the scratching of a pen on paper. Words are meant to be there and to be almost permanent. Words are there to be remembered. Words are there to be read. Words are there to be written. When they're put on a screen they are none of these things.

The irony of typing this to post it to tumblr is not lost on me.

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Things Everywhere: I'm So Tired

I'm so Tired

I’m so tired. Not just the seemingly everlasting fatigue I feel from day to day life, but something else entirely. I feel like the whole world is trying to tear me apart and it’s probably because it is. The world is an endless machine with two definite things which manage to stay constant and certain for everyone- life and death. The second is one which so many people say they would prefer. I am pleased to say not I, but somehow when the world seems as bleak as it does on days such as this, the difference seems marginal. I’m tired of it, but I refuse to give in to it. The only way to beat life is to last as long as you can and have as much fun as you can.

I pride myself on being able to run. Not necessarily in the literal sense, and I’m not always the best at it, but when it all boils down to fight or flight I will almost always pick the latter, I have never yet picked the former out of choice. I blame my own laziness and my teachers for never managing to punish me for it. If I can get away with not doing something then I will. I run from responsibility, I run from work, I run from confrontation and I run from separation. I don’t know where to, but I know where from and that’s the only important part of running. The problem with it is that you know longer know where you are, which way the trouble lies or even how much distance you have between you and your troubles. Sometimes you’ve run away from one only to find that an old one is breathing down your neck making your hairs stand on end. Running to who cares where gets you nowhere. Nobody wants to be nowhere. I am so tired of running.

When you’re tired of running, then what happens? You hope that the people who where chasing you have given up, and so often they do. If you run for too long everybody starts to give up trying to catch you. I wish I had been caught a long time ago. When you have to stop running then there are only two things left to do. One of those is giving in, which is something I refuse to do. I must therefore pick the other option.  Today, I turn around and look my problems in the eye. From now on, I stare at these things which have been chasing me for so long until they all back down. I will get out of this corner that I’ve managed to run into. Each day is a new day and in the next ones, I fight. Tiredness is just a minor setback.

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Things Everywhere: Life Owes You Nothing

Life Owes You Nothing

What do you have? No really, what items do you possess? And what were you born with? I saw a quote from an unknown place saying “If you’re honest about what you want from life, it’ll give it to you”. The person proceeded to point out that all they wanted was happiness and life owed them happiness. Sorry to disillusion you, but life owes you nothing. Life has already given you a mind and the ability to enjoy everything in the world. The only thing life owes you is a death at the end of it.

That sounds cruel and pessimistic and fairly depressing, but it’s true. You start off non-existent or disembodied, you are born and you live, then you die. That is all we can be certain of. You may not find happiness or love, you may be constantly sad, constantly annoyed at your body, you may consider ending it all. Don’t. Because then you’re throwing it back in life’s face. Sure, it screwed you over when it fired barrages of lemons at you, but if you look carefully at the lemons, you’ll notice they’re dead. Not only are they dead, but they’re also not sentient. You are better than the lemon and always will be. If that’s not a good reason to get up when they knock you down then I don’t know what is.

The truth is that you don’t know for certain what tomorrow will bring. You may wake up tomorrow and realise that everything is beautiful. You may think it sounds ridiculous, but actually when was the last time you looked at the outside world? And I don’t just mean glanced at it out your window, I mean look properly at the world. Stare at your nearest tree for a bit. They’re actually fairly pretty. Turn off the computer. Actually, finish reading this, then turn off the computer. Then go outside- just stick your head out a window if you can’t actually walk outside. Listen to the sounds of the city. Listen to the birds. Listen to the grass grow. Feel the wind on your face. Close your eyes (yes you can stop staring at the tree). Feel the world move. Feel the size of it all. Feel insignificant. Feel small. Feel how much those lemons don’t matter when you’re so small and they’re even smaller. Feel glad you have the mind to know it. Feel life. Know you’re alive.

When you meet death, greet him as an old friend and make sure you have a good story to tell him. A story about how you lived- and how that alone makes you better than a lemon.

[ministryoflilywalks]

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Happiness

Recently I told someone that you will never be able to make everyone happy if you can’t make yourself happy. This was in response to them sending me a quote saying “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”. Personally, I like to try to make as many people happy as I can, in the hope that one day they’ll do the same and somehow happiness will spread around the world and everyone will be happy and nothing bad will ever happen ever again. I am aware of how unlikely that is. I can only hope that at least my life may be a little happier if people around me are happy. On the other hand I learnt a while ago that it is also important not to base your happiness on the happiness of others because then you will always be miserable.

The first step to happiness is to love yourself. The rest, I assume, follows shortly after. Sadly for me and so many others, it might be difficult to do in my current body- it has several parts I wish it didn’t and is lacking several parts I wish it did.

My dad is a Buddhist (of sorts), and is constantly telling me the correct way to attempt to go about understanding the universe and all that inhabits it. Some day he may actually accept that there is no ‘correct way’ so to speak, only lots of different ways that are right for different people. But he also often tries to get me to think about things like happiness and the universe. For that, I thank him because if he didn’t then I would probably be a very different person. He also tries to get me to think about emptiness, which seems like a very depressing thing indeed, but actually I think it’s the secret to being happy. Once you realise that the world is in fact made up almost completely of nothing; once you realise that words are made of less than nothing; once you realise that opinions are made up of less than words and therefore less than less than nothing; that is when you will be truly happy.

Nothing matters. Nothing is all there is. Be happy, don’t care. There are so many great quotes on the subject, but I’ll leave one that everyone will have heard before. “Don’t worry, be happy.” -Bob Marley

[ministryoflilywalks]

Ice.

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

Ice is all around, it seems that I can’t step out the door without slipping. I’m annoyed- pretty though it may be, it’s still terrible to walk on. Pro’s: It sparkles. Con’s: it’s cold, it’s slippy, it hurts when you hit it, my friend has broken his leg in half because of it, it causes transport delays. All in all, I just wish it would hurry up and sod off.

[ministryoflilywalks]

[lilyisalwayswrite-blog]

A Long Night

The long night started with a crash - an unusual sound for the majority of nights to make. Sometimes, however, a crash in the night is something far less extraordinary than that which might follow. James awoke to it and took a look around, with the intention of figuring out where the noise had come from. Getting up from the floor, he glanced outside and saw a tree, which had fallen over in the ongoing storm, propped up against his house. He decided that the tree falling must have been the cause of the crash, and so he returned to his space where he had lain passed out on the carpet. It took him several minutes to realise exactly how difficult it was to sleep on the floor without either mattress, pillow, quilt or copious amounts of alcohol. This moment of realisation led him to try and remember exactly why he was passed out upon the greyish carpet beneath him. He noticed many cans of cider, beer, and, in the corner, half a bottle of vodka. James took the bottle in his hand and considered which action he should take. Either he could down it, and then resume his sleep in the happy space he had reserved for him on the floor, or, alternatively, he could try to get to sleep through some other way. James being James, he picked the former option. Of course, Darren being Darren, earlier in the night the vodka bottle had been refilled with water.  Ten minutes later, James was not only awake and sober, but also now in dire need of a toilet. Although now fully awake, a few things from the previous few hours failed to fall into place in his mind. He went upstairs, completely sure of the fact that releasing all that his bladder held would somehow help to relieve the cloud which sat on his mind. Traipsing up more of the grey carpet which covered the house, none of which had started life in the dull shade it had since acquired, he noticed a draught coming from the top of the stairs. It would have probably struck James as odd, had he not been concentrating heavily on trying to reach the toilet free of mishaps. He reached the toilet door and opened it. And then quickly closed it again, after observing the unusually large hole where the back wall of his toilet used to be. The toilet itself, was in no position to be used, being as it was covered in a ridiculous amount of greenery which was coming from a tree which seemed to have demolished a wall. Another problem with the usability of the toilet was that somebody appeared to have cemented the lid shut. This was an unforeseen problem of inviting several builders to a party, having completely forgotten exactly how much money he owed them. James opened the door again, to reassess his problem. Firstly, the missing wall could be dangerous. It was his firm belief that a room should have at least four walls and that there should be no hazards when going to the toilet in his own home. Both of these had been broken by the tree. Secondly, the cemented toilet lid made it quite impossible to use the toilet. He evaluated his reassessment and came to the conclusion that his reassessment was the same as his original assessment- there was currently no way he could use the toilet. He closed the door again because, besides anything else, he was getting soaked by the torrential rain that had decided to appear that summer, which was coming in through the hole where the wall had been. Back downstairs, James’ toilet situation was becoming more dire. There was no way he could go outside to do his business because he would get soaked. He couldn’t go to the toilet upstairs for the same reason, and also because of the builders who would never be invited to his house ever again. The sink seemed an unsanitary option to say the least.  If he stayed inside and attempted to not go to the toilet, he would probably still get fairly wet. He went over these options several times before remembering that baths work surprisingly well as toilets, provided no faeces was produced. Two facts about baths which had been learned simultaneously at an early age. He headed to the bathroom. The floorboards creaked as he traversed the steps leading to the first floor landing. There was a snapping noise. He looked down at the steps. Another snapping, this time louder. Then another, and then another. Suddenly, the roof of the house flew off- taking with it everything in the attic and a considerable amount of ceiling. Within only a few seconds, James was absolutely drenched. He headed to the bathroom, which had inexplicably managed to retain a ceiling, which James could see from the outside silhouetted against the full moon. It always seemed to be full when anything exciting happened, especially when it was shown in a TV program or a film. Lightning flickered from the clouds, another thing which always seemed to happen at dramatic points in a story. James considered this for a moment, then realised that it didn’t make any difference to his predicament. He stopped considering the point. The ongoing storm continued to completely soak James, who, despite technically being in his house, was now outside. Realising that given his current circumstances he could probably stay where he was without getting much wetter, he decide to take a good long look at the storm. The droplets of rain whirled around him, bolts of lightning flew to earth, shadows passed in front of the moon. It was quite pretty really, when he thought about it- however he still needed the toilet. The wind was blowing heavily. The words his Father had always told him upon regular occasions since the tender age of three came to his mind at that instant, they were: “Never take a piss in the wind, no matter how feckin’ drunk y’are. It’s never a feckin’ good idea, y’hear me?”. After most tellings of this wise advice his father would collapse from having too much to drink. James had always found it funny that his father spoke with a heavy Irish accent when he became very drunk, partially because a drunken Irishman is a funny sight, but also because his father was actually from Somerset. Remembering the words, he stepped inside the bathroom. Remarkably, it- unlike the majority of the house- was completely untouched by the weather. It looked completely as a bathroom should; blue tiles ornamented the lower half of the walls and above the tiles, cheap wood-chip wallpaper, which was as old as the house. When buying the house, James had originally planned to remove the wallpaper, but, despite having lived there for well over three years, had still not gotten round to doing so. The only remarkable thing about the bathroom was that the shower curtain currently concealed everything in the bath. Normally this would not be unusual and would indicate only that the shower curtain had not be drawn, James had, however, seen far too many horror movies to not make a point of always pulling back the shower curtain completely every morning. When he drew it back now, he saw something deserving to be in a horror film- his friend Darren. Darren was an unfortunate gentleman as he had not only big bones and a glandular problem, but also a slow metabolism and a large appetite. As such, he was impressively fat. His parents had disowned him at an early age because of this. Luckily he was endowed with a large brain to match his abnormally large belly, and so was able to get by on tricking people into drinking competitions. In these, he would have a bottle of water packaged as vodka, his opponent having only vodka packaged as vodka. Needless to say, he won every time. A big problem with Darren being where he was was that it meant that James could not do his business without coating Darren in a layer of urine. However, since Darren should not have been asleep in the bath anyway, James decided that what would normally be bad manners became acceptable. As James undid his fly, Darren’s eyelids flickered open. As many men do when awoken by the sight of a different man’s genitalia, he thought it would be appropriate to scream. When James realised that Darren was awake, he thought better of urinating on him.

“Were you about to piss on me?” shouted Darren, his slightly slurred sentence revealing that he had picked up the wrong bottle earlier in the night.

“Well, actually, I was.” replied James, quite a lot more truthfully than many would have. His reply, however, puzzled Darren, who was easily confused at the best of times, and was currently inebriated. He gave James a quizzical look.

“Why?” Darren’s answer threw James, who had not thought of an answer to this question.

“It seemed rude to wake you.” came James’ response, which begged many questions, the most immediate being whether it is truly less polite to wake someone up than it is to wee on them. Darren, however, still being less than completely sober, could not see any problem with the reason he had been given and so gave a shrug, as though to say “fair enough” to what would usually be inadequate reasoning.

Although it was nice as it was for James to have found his friend, he still needed a trip to the lavatory. And, his current hope of using the bath as a makeshift toilet all but shattered when he requested that Darren leave it.

“Okay.” replied Darren, who was not looking too comfortable in the bath anyway, for baths are not comfortable things to sleep in- even for those whose rolls of fat don’t overflow from them. There was some straining for a few seconds. “Mate?” he enquired, “I think I’m stuck.”

“Bollocks.” James was not too happy with Darren’s newfound problem. Luckily for Darren, James had no time to react in any sort of violent manner due to the previously undamaged bathroom at that moment becoming a newly destroyed bathroom. At least he didn’t have to change the wallpaper now, he thought.

From a birds eye view of the house, the damage looked terrible. Mostly because it was. Where once a pigeon would have looked down and seen a roof, it would now see a bathroom, some stairs and the living room. As it happened, the ongoing weather conditions made it nearly impossible for anything to fly that night. There was however, a rather startled cow, named Daisy by a farmer with no originality, circling the atmosphere. She had been picked up from a field several miles away. James was the first to hear the mooing and had just enough time to question it. Darren, on the other hand, only had enough time to hear it, due to Daisy falling from the clouds and cannonballing into the house- specifically the bathroom, and more specifically the bath. The collision of cow, human and bathroom caused splinters to spread through the air, accompanied by several tons of dust and insects which should not have been able to fly. The momentum behind Daisy kept her going through the floor of the bathroom, taking both Darren and the bath with her. Something creaked. James knew this to be a signal that something else was about to collapse. He dived out the doorway and straight down the remaining stairs. He jumped out the door and wished that somebody could have seen the roll he did as he landed. Looking around, he noticed that nobody else’s house had suffered. But as he gazed back at his, the creaking finished and the last walls of his house fell in on themselves. His house was completely destroyed. He still needed the toilet. He sat, sobbing, in the rain.

[ministryoflilywalks]

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She and He: Conversations with a Mirror

She stood in the bathroom, staring at the reflection of himself in the mirror. To her, she would always look like him no matter how hard she tried to do otherwise, but they both knew that however much She looked like He, She could only ever be She. Viewing her reflection in the mirror, she swept his hair back. “In another life, I think we could have been friends.” said She. “A crying shame that we couldn’t be in this one.” replied He. They both smiled at their shared joke. “But If I am to be me fully, then you can’t be anymore.” said She. “Yet if I stay, I’m not sure how long you’d be able to live with yourself.” replied He. “This is a bizarre situation that we’ve ended up in. Everything I can remember ever doing seems to be a compromise between the two of us.” “Quite so, and I’d like to say that I blame you. You’re going to kill me, so I think it’s fair of me to do so.” said He, accusatively. “That’s not quite true- you’re only an image that people see. You were never truly alive. Besides anything else, it’s a choice between you or both of us. You said it yourself, I’m not sure how long I’d be able to live myself.” She blinked in realisation of what she had just implied. Being Her would mean she was no longer Him. Granted that was exactly what she wanted, but on the other hand, part of her would miss him once he was gone. She did appreciate a lot of things about Him, but the problem wasn’t with him, the problem was that people would never see her as Her because they couldn’t get past the fact that She was Him. But she still liked his personality, his intelligence, his sense of humour, and, if she was perfectly honest, he wasn’t even too bad looking for a guy. “I don’t want to lose you completely.” she said, after a few moments silence. “To be honest, I don’t think that you ever will. It won’t ever happen. Part of me will always stay with you. I will always be a part of you.” He replied, with a knowing smile. She smiled too for a second, then stopped looking at the mirror which he stood behind and went over to run the sink. No sooner had it filled and the water stopped running than He appeared there too. “Is there no place that I can hide from you?” She asked Him. “Only in your mind can you hide from me, for the time being that is- until the time comes when that’s the only place outside of memories and old photos where I do still exist.” The words did nothing but make Her angry. She splashed her face with water from his. For the briefest of moments she could pretend that he wasn’t there, he didn’t exist, he was just a trick of the light in the water. But the water stopped moving and He returned. She drained the sink in anger. “Hey are you done in the bathroom? Your breakfast is ready!” her mother shouted. “I’m coming down now” She called back, in His voice.