Friday 20 July 2012

Why I'm always on the fence.............

Recent twitter discussion in the wake of a terrible shooting incident made my mind do this:  (I'm not in control of where my mind takes me sometimes and it often takes me on these little journeys)


She's 29, she has a happy life, loves her husband Frank and her little boy Jeremy.  Last week Frank gave her one of those tiny handguns for her purse for safety, she doesn't like it but he begs her to carry it for his peace of mind.  She's hurrying home today, she just made promotion at work and she can't wait to get home and share her joyous news with Frank, before they collect their son and go out to dinner.  She's called the restaurant in advance, they have champagne on ice.......................

So eager to get home she decides not to wait for the bus but take a route through the park, it'll probably take the same amount of time but it's a beautiful park.  Breathing in lung fulls of fresh air and looking in awe at the flowers and trees wondering why she'd never really appreciated their stunning perfection before, when suddenly she feels herself being dragged backwards, something bigger & stronger than her has her in the undergrowth and, before it even occurs to her to usher a scream his hand is on her mouth she feels a searing pain as he punches her in the stomach. Winded and terrified she kicks frantically as he tears at her clothes, he's stopped beating on her now and she realises he is fiddling with his trousers in this moment of weird calm she notices her handbag is within reaching distance of her hand and somehow manages to slide her fingers into it and hook them around the gun, just as he is about to reach his goal of penetration she reaches up and shoots him in the head..........................her ordeal is over.   She's a little late home that evening and Frank seemed worried before he even clapped eyes on her when she walked through the door.  He is there for her and she doesn't know how she would get through if she didn't have him.


MEANWHILE IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE

She is so eager to get home and notices that she can see the bus in the distance and decides to wait for it to come instead of walking through the park.  The journey only takes a few minutes and she is excitedly planning on how she is going to tell Frank her good news, after a short deliberation she decides she's just gonna blurt it out and jump in his arms and can already feel the overwhelming love she is going to share with him.  She's rushing down the path with only the front door in her sights, quickly using her keys to open the door and running straight into the living room she finds Frank, who is being straddled by a woman.  So enthralled are they in their activities that neither of them see her stood there.  With her hand in her purse slowly releasing her keys from her grip, her finger brushes on something cold and hard and as a red mist descends and a rush of pure anger takes a momentary grip on her, she grasps the gun and shoots them both.   Her ordeal has just begun........................

Thursday 5 July 2012

It's hard to say goodbye.........

Recently a dear friend of mine suffered a terrible loss and discussing a vision of his late mother it brought to mind a memory of something unexplainable that helped me through a difficult time.

During my mothers illness my grandparents took charge of me and I continued to live with them until the last of their days.  My beloved grandad (who was an avid pigeon racer in his healthier retirement days) died after a brief battle with cancer.  The day after he passed, a pigeon appeared sitting on the awning looking into our front door, we joked that it was grandad come to see if we were all okay (as we had joked during his lifetime that had he the choice, he would be a pigeon) and although it wasn't there everyday it was there more often than not.  Less than a year later my grandmother passed peacefully in her sleep (her closest friend believed she had died from a broken heart, so hard had she found it to live without him) and we noticed that the pigeon had disappeared.  To sooth our pain we made up stories (but not really believing) that the pigeon was indeed grandad and he was looking for his beloved wife.

The day after my grandmothers funeral, 2 pigeons appeared huddled together on the very spot our visitor had occupied for the last 10 months, they stayed with us for 2 weeks before they finally left us for good and we no longer were disbelieving of their origins and intentions.