say hello to my uni work....
Travel
If you are reading this, then you have my notebook and you may wonder at who I am. My beginnings do not matter. Whose really does anyway? Though I will accept that some may be curious so I will tell you this. I was called John; I had a home, a life, loving parents and happy friends. I don’t remember it too well anymore, it’s like it was someone else.
My last life was burned away when the doctor said I was dying. I have left that all behind, living for the day, a moment unending, a corpse full of life I am and this book my last breath, my last testament to a world I leave behind, my last attempt at normality and a diary…
He sat on the bus his back stooped by the pain of old age, a man who had lived his life to the full John thought or maybe he was a bitter and twisted old man. It really didn’t matter.
What mattered was that the man, slumped dejectedly in his seat, had only tattered rags around his bony frame, his gaunt face looked as if he had not eaten in many days. His eyes had the haunted look of a man on the edge, a look that John had seen far too much on his travels. The sight of self-pity and despair was almost too much for the man to bear.
As the bus grinded to a halt, he found himself wondering if, under different circumstances, he could have ended up being like that man, using the only money he had senselessly, waiting it seemed, for death to catch up and take him as he ambled along in this un-life. John shook his head as he began to watch the man walk slowly into the distance. No matter his place he would not have been that man, he would never give in like that, not to time and certainly not the tumor filled death that haunted his dream-ridden nights. Though he added, looking at the new place the bus had deposited him; it did not stop him living his own un-life. He was in Chelmsford, a place that he had never been.
Once this thought might have excited him, sent his mind into the thrill of meeting new people, seeing new places but things and people change. He didn’t know whether he was sad about this fact or not, it seemed that like most things sadness was a matter of perspective, ten years ago he would have been alive and witty to a multitude of friends and co-workers from his bank in any major capital in the world yet, here he was now, in a small town living off the money he had so quickly horded and kept for no one ever to spend. This could be seen as sadness, yet he didn’t see it as such and to be brutally honest the only reason he didn’t was because he chose not to. He chose to see that man, that bright, young banker who had the world at his feet as another man and why? In all his soul searching about life he had to wonder at why he saw him as another person and the answer was simple. He could not handle the reality that he, the 27-year-old man with the charming smile, sad eyes and forgettable face could have ever been the trendy go getter that he used to be.
Walking down the High Street he found himself drawn to the faces of the people that passed him, seeing their new clothes and glib expressions mixing with those that did not move, either too caught up in their own lives and worries to notice him, or too gloomy to care overmuch at what he did. This was a place of bright smiles and brittle lies it seemed, of those too heartless to care at how they affected people.
Evidence of this was everywhere, there were people begging on the street, begging for a coin for food or their next fix while the smart people would glibly sight that they had no money, carrying a MacDonald’s and a tailor cut suit and walk on with barely a single recollection of the insult they had just paid upon a soon-to-be starving man. What worried him more however was the fact that he could see something of who he used to be in those people, more than this he could see himself doing the exact same thing. Flipping a few coins to a beggar he was happy that some things could change.
Busing himself in the nearest electronics store he came out around fifteen minutes later with a new CD player and a few CD’s. Turning the player on he became soothed by the discordant sounds of rock music and almost sighed. Life becomes bearable when it’s not quite life anymore he thought. He still did not like this town but he had nothing else wanted nothing else than see all parts of the country he was born before he died. He had seen so many people die in hospitals looking up at those lifeless pale tiles and all he wanted was too see the stars.
He went to a bar near the bus station, knowing that he needed a stiff drink. He was not usually so introspective and he found being such drained both his mind and body. Stepping inside he found the welcome perpetual miasma of all pubs that greeted him like an old friend. He ordered his drink and, always a slow drinker, sipped it for a while just watching the people here.
The atmosphere of this place was markedly different than the one hung in the Town Centre, It seemed that everyone knew everyone else, that they shared a familial bond that went beyond that of drink and into the repetition of years. Oddly enough he felt a welcome here that he had never felt before. The barmaid drew his attention more than most. Her smile was warm and pretty and he could help but notice that her raven black hair was slightly curly and this enhanced her beauty for him. He flirted. She flirted back and they began to talk.
Before he knew what was happening he found himself in her bed the next morning staring at her serene face. It was the picture of innocence and he enjoyed the way that she had a slight smile while she slept and he wondered again why he had never married. It never seemed like the right time or the right girl whispered a part of his mind and he was tempted to laugh at that but would not allow bitterness such a conduit. He got dressed with a haste that was marred only by the way that he stared at her while she slept, he wanted to stay, he should be able to stay, but as it was this beautiful girl with a haunting face would become just another memory to him and him to her. That’s just the way life is, memories come and memories go, he thought, it’s your reasons that count.
As he was leaving Chelmsford, on the way into Town to the train station, saying goodbye to the dreary place and the face that had surprised him he heard a scream and he ran around a corner and found a burning building. There was a child screaming in one of the top floor windows and anger built inside him as he saw the families neighbours outside, slack jawed watching the fire and not helping the little girl. She was in a panic, the face containing the round pudginess of the young that women seem to find so adorable, standing only in a nightgown and holding her stuffed teddy was screaming for help and he felt his rage build that no one, not one person had gone to help the child.
The fire was in a rage. Guessing from the sounds of sirens that someone had dialled 999 that the Fire Brigade was coming and knowing that they could control the fire he began to turn and leave but, stopped himself. How could he turn away now, in this, which could very well be his last moment alive and believe himself any better than the idiots watching the blaze? The simple answer he realised was that he couldn’t and if he was having any second thoughts he saw the teddy catch fire and it fall out of the window and tumble forlornly, to the ground below. He knew that the child could be next and that the Fire truck was at least a few minutes away and in those split moments from first seeing the child, to watching the teddy fall to earth he made up his mind.
With a roar of defiance, to what he really did not know, perhaps to God or to inevitability he ran at the now towering inferno and went after the child.
Luckily the door was a burn shell lying on the ground and the stairs were still intact, he ran up the stairs two at a time and found the child battling flames even as he, being an adult and significantly taller was battling smoke inhalation. Whispering soothing words he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder taking the stairs more carefully this time. The heat was intense, he began to realise, as the adrenaline that had helped spur him to this action began to wear off he realised that all the hair on his arms was singed off and he was now coughing heavily. To make matters worse the child was crying and she weighed a lot more than he thought she would. Damn the thought, why do you have to play the hero now?
He could now see the fire-man battling the flames to get to where he was, one reached him and he passed the girl over first, happy to be rid of this burden and began to make his way out even as the fiery bean knocked him down breaking four ribs and causing internal bleeding.
He awoke in the dreaded hospital, the doctors telling him that something in the injuries sustained in the fire meant that he only had a few hours to live, he wasn’t really listening after that, and he could help but allow the bitterness to escape in long hopeless laughter. When you try to do something good you die for it eh? Still he regretted nothing the doctors said the little girl was fine, recovering in the children’s ward and her tearful parents visited and said that Emily would never forget the stranger.
As they were walking out, John had two favours to ask of the father and he readily accepted.
As you may have guessed, the author did not finish this diary. This the black tome of thoughts and emotions of a dying man. I am grateful to John; I will never know his full name now for it was never written down here, for saving my daughters life and renewing my own. As for the two favours he asked of me well, one was to write the last segment of his diary as he said it, which I was very happy to do of course and the second was so simple and so heartfelt that even if I wanted to I couldn’t refuse.
A little after ten o’clock at night on his last day I took John near to were I live, It is very rural there and we sat on a small hill overlooking a wood near my home and we talked of many things, things he had done and planned to do and worries of my own, which strangely enough he helped with, in the cool calm tones of a man who knows what he’s talking about. At the end though he simply looked up at the stars with tears glistening unshed in his eyes and said, even as his body began to fail, “I would love to spend time up close and see those bright lights for what they are”
I closed his eyes and though not a religious man prayed with all of my heart for this man’s soul. I am not trying to paint this man as a saint, for he was not. The early entries in this journal are full of despair and denial and he has done, in the course of his gradual acceptance of what was to come, bad things. He was not a knight in shining armour he simply did the right thin ant the right time.
I am sending this diary to a publisher hopefully to get it printed and it’s message spread. Some may argue that the message is that if you do a good thing you die, I will simply shake my head because I know that he had no regrets and I know that no matter the consequences it is worth doing the right thing, all I have to do is look at my little girl.
As for the rest of his stories, they will hopefully be seen soon.
Not to the hero, but to the man who saved my little girl I say thank you and wherever you are we will never forget you.
Daniel Matthews.
Father still.
and....
Morning Ritual
Before the dawn, the night so quiet,
My body tense and expectant knowing what is to come,
Feeling the bittersweet agony of this moment,
Knowing it for what it is and accepting it, making it my own.
False dawn appears on the horizon,
It’s pinkish glowing mocking what is come,
And the deep dark earth beneath my feet
Begins slowly, eloquently, to hum.
The snow on the ground reflects the colour like fire,
Warming even the coldest of ice to the wake of day,
And the anticipation heats every single,
Even this the coldest of souls.
The day weighs heavily on me,
Before the time in which a new one has begun,
But, if I could I would sing, great glorious hymns
I would feel my voice fail at the sight before me,
As the sun begins to rise my soul begins to sing.
My worries are taken from me, smashed and broken,
Tossed upon the joyous wind of the new day they fly,
To somewhere else, carried up on the wind to the eternal sky.
There is no pain here, no complication and no sadness,
This from an older time when evil was but a dream.
As I see the sun rise, a Golden nimbus in the skies,
The snow untouched upon the ground becomes a flowing tide,
A soft and gentle wave of hope and my soul nearly bursts its seams,
And I am bathed in the light
The fractured pieces of my soul are made whole,
The light bathes and comforts me even as the wind whispers,
It whispers its love and support to me, above Man, above you and me
And yesterday melts away in the love of the Sun.
No Gods, no taunts, no ghosts and no haunts.
My breath caught and my heart thundering,
I smile and weep at the hope of the day,
And I walk away, embarrassed and happy.
Bathed in the light of the sun.
And the light is sent back by my own.
Bathed in the light of the sun.
Brilliant, demon, as usual.
You won't have a problem getting into uni.
wow. That so good! I think the uni people will, like, fall over and worship you :)
PS. Like, you know, like, I should, like, stop, you know, saying, like.
right to me that a load of bluuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink:
;) :P :D :lol: B) :rolleyes: <_< :) I think smeghead enjoys smileys :huh: :o
you do get that impression don't you