Fact or Fiction – Dead Deer

Fact or Fiction

“Fifteen?”

“No. Fifty. Fifty. Five – oh, can you believe? In fact, our fifteen year old bab-, our teenage babysitters wouldn’t even do that.”

“Well, sure? They might.”

“I guess, anyway, I was livid, you can imagine. I mean how can you live with yourself, how can you sleep at night?”

“I know, it is appalling, did you say anything?”

“No. Well … no.”

“Well, you should, you really should. Have you seen this? I saw it earlier, hang on, I’ll look for it. They put one through our door, through everyone’s door, I guess. I hope anyway, maybe. Maybe just ours. Imagine if they had.”

“Oh, yes, very … interesting. Odd. Did I tell you about the yellow bucket? They wanted one up at the school, I asked ‘Does it have to be yellow?’ and the answer was, you can imagine, was at best inconclusive, so I called and the receptionist refused to put me through – you know the one – and so I said, ‘Its a fucking bucket, alright? Its orange and the fuck’s up with that?’ and she got all croaky and hung up, so I don’t know what I’m going to do? I’ll just send her in with that one, I guess.”

“Just send her in with that one.”

***

The kitchen fell quiet for now, and the silence was only interrupted, gradually, as the kettle rose to a boil. The short reprieve of a sigh before it climaxed in a frenzy of noise and steam.

“Another cuppa?”

She did not look, or wait for a reply, she made it already. Opening a box of jaffa cakes they each took only one.

***

Today I wrote between 23:21  and 23:41. I was prompted by an idea here. My other writings here. All my prompted writing here, my tweets here, and my book here.

If you enjoyed this short writing, a whole load more are available in paperback, and kindle editions in your local Amazon site

Mar 7th – Self-centered situations

March 7^th – Self-centered situations

21.15-21.25

“How do you spell it?”

“Centred. C-E-N-T-R-E-D.”

“That’s not what it says here.”

“What does it say, then?”

“E-R-E-D.”

“What, at the end?”

“Yeah.”

“Ahh. That’s the American spelling.”

“American?”

“Yeah.”

“So is it wrong, then?”

“Well, it’s not exactly wrong, but – ”

“But?”

“But – well – actually it is.”

“It’s wrong?”

“Yeah. It’s wrong.”

“Why is it wrong, though? I mean, it’s not got one of those wiggly red lines underneath it.”

“Wiggly red lines?”

“Yeah, you know. When you spell something wrong. On Word, and that.”

“Well, just because it hasn’t got one of those – as you put it – wiggly red lines, doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. Because, actually, it is.”

“So Americans can’t spell?”

“Well, they can most of the time. Some of them are quite good at it. But there are some words that they always have problems with.”

“Like centred?”

“Yeah, like centred. And other R-E words. Like metre.”

“They can’t spell metre?”

“Nope. Metre, kilometre, centimetre. All of them. Not a clue.”

“Why’s that then?”

“It’s just the way it is. And it’s just wrong. And don’t get me started on aluminium.”

“Why’s that then?”

“Because they say aluminum. There’s too many vowels for them. It’s why they miss out the U in neighbour, and colour, and savoury.”

“They miss out the U?”

“Yep. Every time. Why did you want to know, anyway?”

“Know what?”

“About centred.”

“Oh, that. I was just finishing off my homework. I was asked to describe someone. I chose you, actually.”

“You did? What did you write?”

“I just wrote, ‘My dad is a self-centred grammar pedant, and a total arse at times.’”

“Oh.”

 

 

Inspired by a prompt from here

Mar 6th – Viable creations

The Raven and The First Men sculpture, Bill Reid, Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Photo – Author’s Own

March 6^th – Viable creations

14.27-14.37

The Haida people live in British Columbia. To the Haida, Raven was the Bringer of Light and before Raven the world was nothing more than a gigantic flood.

(Wikipedia)

Before time, the world was dark, and cold, and wet. There was nothing but water, and a rock, on which sat Raven, the maker of things. Raven knew he was maker of things, but there was nothing to make. Raven made himself aware.

With this knowledge, came loneliness, and a longing for something. Raven, maker of things, made the waters recede until there was land below, and his rock became a mountain from where he could look down on what he had made. Raven, bringer of light, created the day and his sister, darkness, and out of chaos came order. Raven stretched his wings and flew, tracing the edges of his world where the waters remained, skirting the tops of the trees he made grow along the coastlines, up to the north where the snows were born from the dying of the day. Raven’s wings beat shadows across the tops of the pine forests, and he was pleased with what he saw.

Raven was the magician, the transformer, and in his dreams he saw shapes that swirled and moved and spoke, and when Raven awoke he felt alone. He needed something to share his world with.

With the world came hunger, and Raven felt this for the first time. He flew high in search of food, almost to the house of the Sky-Father, and his shadow danced below him on the waters that sparkled in the sun he had made. And it was from here, looking down on what he had made that he heard a sound.

Curious, Raven swept down, and found the sounds were coming from inside a clam shell. Raven sang to the shell, as he had sung to himself on his rock in the before-time, and as he sang, to settle the sound, the shell opened and a small brown creature emerged, and then another, and from the shell stepped the first men, the first of the First People.

Raven watched the First people for a while, as Sun and her sister Dark and her cousin Moon came and went, but they didn’t please him: they were too similar, and Raven was growing bored, and hungry.

So Raven spread his wings again, and he flew from the sky to the rain trees in the south, where he found more of the first people, the same but different, trapped inside another shell, and Raven freed them with his song and brought them to the first First People, and watched as they learned to give names to the things that he had made, and to each other, and to the young they made, and Raven knew that this was good.

 

Inspired by a prompt from here.

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