365 Ways With Words

Laughter – Part 5

It was the usual shenanigans in the back of the car: feet on the forward seats, heads tilted back, they stared at the streetlights as they passed overhead, counting. “18, 19, 20, 21… bridge!” Whoever could anticipate the bridge accurately became king or queen and could call the shots. As reigning monarch the laws usually consisted of menial things for the following 24-hour period, “Sing me a song! Brush my hair! Run around the garden until you are out of breath! Make me a sandwich!” The fun was in the compliance, and in the creative imaginings of the king or queen.

This night was different. He had won, barely, but because of tiredness or irritability had chosen to be a little more direct with his laws. In his room there were no songs or dances, but she had to brush her teeth standing on her head. That was funny. She had to fetch him a glass of milk and give it to him. That was also funny, particularly when some spilt from around his mouth onto his pyjamas.

And then he asked her to stand still like a statue on the wobbly table in the centre of his room. She did, but had to keep her legs apart because of the precarious nature of the imbalance. What he hadn’t anticipated was that the overhead light behind her cascaded through her nightdress and silhouetted her prepubescent form, particularly her fatty legs. For some reason, he had never seen this aspect of her before – his funny sister. She had suddenly and unexpectedly taken on a whole new nature as she stood there as still as the situation required. It was something he had not anticipated or been aware of and struck a strange chord within his mind. For one day, he slowly reasoned, she would be not merely a grown-up, but a woman with all the alien womanly things that he understood women to have. She would be a physical creature with her separate desires, excitements, and choices. He was jealous.

He went up to the table and cruelly nudged it. The wobble made her readjust her position, but she stayed put, as commanded by her king. But her king was no longer laughing. He was not having fun.

“You can get down now.” His voice was dark, full of a resignation. “I don’t want to play any more.”

That was something usually said by the subject, not the master – and only after a particularly long or difficult ordeal. She was a little taken aback, but shrugged it off as another example of her older brother’s thoughts racing off on a fancy somewhere and that she’d probably have to follow in due course, which of course she didn’t mind at all, for she loved him unreservedly, unquestionably and unfalteringly.

–

Mr Collins was still sitting beside the window, waiting for her to come out of the toilet. He even offered a little wave, as if she might have forgotten exactly who he was, never mind where he'd sat.

“There you are!” he said, as if she was some surprise guest at a party.

She gave a courteous smile and sat next to him, but crossed her legs and kept her elbows firmly connected to her ribcage.

“So, your brother is busy?”

“Oh, he’s got some… things to do.” Actually, she had no idea quite what he would be doing while she was down here with Mr Collins. In fact, she imagined him to be quite unable to do anything without first considering the two of them doing something together. That was, after all, the whole point of them coming away skiing together; it was their holiday time side by side. Now they were separated by nothing more than a tiff, but more than that – she could not go back upstairs after what he had just said to her. And why had he said those things?

“Oh dear. Have you had some words?”

“It’s nothing.” Her reply was pinched.

“I hope it has nothing to do with me.”

She thought for a second, about her brother’s words again and, unable to fathom them, unable to make anything at all of them, had to momentarily shelve them and return to the nice Mr Collins and his suitcase problem. Besides, what else were they going to do for a few hours before the first cable car took them up?

“No, Mr Collins. Miguel is… tired. I apologise if he caused you any offence.” She smiled, her broadest smile. It was beautiful.

Michael Collins reciprocated with a genuine smile of his own. He was actually enjoying talking with this pretty and polite girl, something he didn’t even consider last night.

“So, Mr Collins, have you and your wife lived in Spain for long?”

–

Miguel looked out onto the snowy balcony. On the long dark brown wooden balustrade lay nearly ten centimetres of soft powdered wedding cake icing. A little of it lay in a strip on the concrete balcony floor, and in a big arc on one side of a balcony chair. He opened the sliding door, allowing the frozen air to stiffly enter the room. Ignoring the free chair by the window, he tilted the snowy one away from him, allowing the majority of the snow to cascade onto the balcony floor. He sat upon it, the sub-zero surface at once penetrating the cotton of his jeans.

He did not like this: alone, the balcony appeared at once a very large and very adult place to be, for apré-ski cocktails and intelligent conversation. In his head the second verse of poetry he had studied at school unwillingly formed:

Verde que te quiero verde.    

Grandes estrellas de escarcha

vienen con el pez de sombra

que abre el camino del alba.[1]

It irritated him. He had a yearning to smoke, even though he hadn’t done so since his first year in Bachillerato. Other words popped up:

¡Compadre! ¿Dónde está, dime?    

¿Dónde está tu niña amarga?

¡Cuántas veces te esperó!

¡Cuantas veces te esperara

cara fresca, negro pelo,

en esta verde baranda![2]

He’d struggled with Lorca and had barely passed Spanish Literature, but for some reason his mind could embed lyrics from a first hearing of a song. He had only barely realised that the same could be said for poems, things he thought he'd hated, despite their obvious similarities.

Wearing only his polo neck sweater, he began to shiver. But what could he do? What should he do? He was the older brother, true, but their tender relationship had never been based on power. And yet, if he did nothing, he felt they could be heading for something quite significantly terrible. Why was Mr Collins trying so hard to get them to take the suitcase? Why was she going to allow him to do it?

Through his chattering teeth he said, “Mr Collins, Mr Collins, Mr Collins…”

And then it hit him – like a lightening bolt! And he knew that no matter what had happened between them, he had to do something.

---

[1] Green, as I love you, greenly. Great stars of white hoarfrost come with the fish of shadow opening the road of morning. Romance Sonámbulo – Lorca

[2] ‘Brother, friend! Where is she, tell me, where is she, your bitter beauty? How often, she waited for you! How often, she would have waited, cool the face, and dark the tresses, on this green veranda!’ Romance Sonámbulo – Lorca

Poker Chips

The room stank: it had been occupied by the eight men since 9 pm when they gathered for the first hand. Now it was 7 am, they were all tired and irritable, and the night's concentration had told on what their wives and girlfriends would call their personal hygiene. Beyond the deathlike staleness of constantly smoked Camels and Marlboros, the all-pervading armpit stench filled the nostrils like cloying overcooked bacon. Long gone were the occasional interesting overtones of after-shave, the fresh remnants of dry cleaning, increasingly replaced by the whisky pore reek, the lingering fart and fresh waves of halitosis that accompanied each exhalation, sigh, call and comment.

Sunlight was absent from this room by dint of there being no window on the world – no distraction. A single light hung above the table, to focus the eyes and the minds on their skills. Before them lay the detritus of their time together, lighters and empty packs, ash trays piled high with butts and cellophane, and slung over the backs of the chairs were jackets, a tie or two, and a coat. For these were serious men, they took their Saturday nights seriously, and in that they were consistent.

They were all successful in their field – construction, distribution, finance and insurance, entertainment, manpower services and training, publishing and retail. But business was never discussed around the table: that was the unspoken rule. That was for the daylight.

Derek ran a successful haulage company that had just tapped into the supermarket system: a small fleet on standby, he was ready to hire at a moment's notice. And each week the system needed him. He was doing better than many of the others, although it was taking its toll on his time at work and his sleep. They were all busy, but rarely compared notes. Sometimes there'd be a call mid-week about some such requirement or other, some contact detail or reminder of a thing mentioned, but business, like family, relationships, politics, religion, in fact anything, was left outside. The game was an all-important steam valve detraction from the rigours of normal life – at least, it certainly was for him.

By now they were all tired and hungry. The requisite shirtsleeves rolled up, Derek looked at his hand once again, then at the pile of chips before him. He'd done well early on, but was flagging in the last hour and now felt like he was haemorrhaging. He was waiting for this hand to finish and then clear out, to take what he had left – about thirteen thousand pounds, one tenth of what he'd quickly amassed.

"Sale of the Century!" Martin always said that as he put in. No one knew quite why, not even Martin, and by now it grated. But he'd put them all in – ten of the thousands, and about twenty of the hundreds. Either this was a spectacular bluff, or he was sure. Derek stared at the hand; he was next. Then he looked up at Martin, lighting up his last Marlboro, then at Martin's hand face down on the table. They were evenly matched, right at the end. The rest looked on as dispassionately and as patiently as they could bearing in mind the time and energy levels. It looked like he had nowhere to go.

Maybe it was the last drink, maybe it was the pressure, but as he looked at his own pile, the shiny chips glistening under the overhead, he saw the surface of the top one change. Like a miniature round television, it took on the form of a symbol, of his haulage company and the people that worked for him. He blinked in disbelief. Within the confines of his chip were the lives of his employees – their families, their homes, their children at school, their Christmases and holidays. He reached over and picked it up. It remained the same in his hand, like a vivid hallucination. He turned it over and saw the opposite – the families torn apart, their homes sold, the children unhappy and the meagreness that accompanies unemployment. He dropped it.

"You putting in?" Martin exhaled upwards, his red eyes staring emotionless at him.

"I just..." He stopped himself. Looking back at the pile of chips he saw the next one also displayed some sort of symbol, of his home and his wife asleep in bed, and their daughter eating breakfast as he came home, of her eager face as he cupped her head in his hand, of a puppy and a life in the countryside. Again, he picked up and stared at the converse side – a fierce loneliness without either, in a large empty house, where work dominated without mercy. He dropped it like it was on fire.

In the next he saw his old mum laughing, and her death on the other side, the next his recent standing in the community as chair of the police neighbourhood liaison group, and the converse as a troublesome corrupt money-grabber. The next one his wife, and so on; he went through the chips, seeing in each a valued aspect of his current life.

The others watched on as he began to tear apart his pile of chips, staring at each one in turn like a gormless goon. Had he cracked?

Then he noticed their chips were also different. Martin's chips showed him lying under oath in the dock of a court. He reached over and turned it, seeing Martin signing a confession. As Martin protested, Derek did the same with his chips, probing the set of values by which this man lived.

John stopped him by placing a strong hand on his wrist. "Stop! Derek! What are you doing?"

These were the very words he needed to hear. They instantly arrested him and he froze. As his eyes drifted, they landed on the rest of the chips on the table. In them he could also see aspects of the player's lives. He wanted to reach out, pick them up and read them.

"I can see..."

They looked at one another, a little worried: he'd never been like that before, Derek. What could they do?

"I can see the whole thing."

"What can you see?" asked John, as kindly as he could.

"Everything!" came the simple reply.

Marking down the state of play, they packed up. Each took their chips, their jackets and ties and stepped out into the crisp, fresh, winter morning air in embarrassed silence. Despite his explanations, none of them could understand what Derek was going on about. They puzzled on it in their taxis home, in their mid-afternoon risings, in their work that week and in the approach to the following Saturday night's poker. But Derek wasn't there. He never came back.

The Hockey

                                        The net's too small,

                                        ain't that the truth,

                                        And there's a big guy,

                                        over six feet tall –

                                        pads, mask and gloves

                                        and a stick bigger than the rest –

                                        But they still go in.

                                        They fly in,

                                        and fast:

                                        Plenty of 'em.

                                        Iced speed freaks

                                        Career down the wings

                                        Shower sprays of snow arresting

                                        Or stopped dead

                                        Or slammed in momentum's braking

                                        All for a frozen vulcanized rubber disc:

                                        It matters more,

                                        much, much more,

                                        Than lunch, divorce, mortgage.

                                        Intuitive/inteface/pass

                                        Clear panic clear

                                        Dictate tactic – THE TACTICS! –

                                        Manouevre/play/call.

                                        And laying still on ice

                                        a broken stick or two,

                                        bleach bones of warriors moved on.

                                        Hallowed hall of rusting antiquity

                                        Prole's circus function rough casted

                                        Inhale the gents' steaming thick piss cloud

                                        From cheap beer and pricey pretzels.

                                        Behind, before, beside,

                                        in attention devout

                                        the scream, shout, compelled responsers

                                        Heart hurt down raptured up

                                        Until the last play, at one and unified:

                                        We love you – you are us

                                        5:4

                                        At last!

 

An Exercise

Here's a game you can play, either by yourself or with like-minded friends. You need only an open mind. It has two variants, short and long, and can be applied to almost any endeavour to which you aspire. The beauty of this game is that the more you play, the better you should get at playing it. The benefit of this game is that the more seriously you take it the more you should improve in whatever it is you are doing.

Variant A, 10:1 – for 10 seconds the player is to focus on an idea, an image, a tune, a speech, etc. It could be the first thing that pops into the head, or something already prepared. Then for 1 minute the player is to relate, draw, sing, play, talk or do whatever they have decided to do.

The important thing is that after the 10 seconds prep there should be no hesitation for the rest of that minute. This is difficult at first, particularly if the player is shy or has little faith in their abilities. When they inevitably break down into stuttering, repetition or embarrassing shoe-staring they are to be congratulated on what they have done and given encouraging and helpful suggestions for improvement: faltering can be overcome with dedication and more practice. It is really an exercise in creativity.

Variant B, 30:5 – this is simply an extension of the former, but because the time is longer the valuable 30 seconds thinking time must go beyond the initial idea onto considerations about how to extend it for the full five minutes. This might be easier with something like drawing or speaking, activities that usually take as long as needed to conclude, yet therein lies the discipline – the topic/subject must be suitably concluded within that time, no more and no less.

Although this format is usually applied to things like slam poetry or rap lyrics, within the Toastmasters group this is an established discipline held at each meeting, but with a slight difference: each speaker is given 30 seconds and is supposed to speak for one- to two-minutes. It sounds a doddle, but the half-minute prep flies past like five seconds and the two minutes speech can seem an eternity. God knows I've stood up thinking I can easily put a speech together only to find all the ideas gone and a barely-coherent ramble ensue, yet on other occasions can put together an epic speech from nothing!

These games have an interesting heritage, particularly in the art world. Famously, the sculptor Henry Moore found the huddled figures hiding in the London Underground during the Blitz of 1940-41 of momentous emotional import. He would rapidly sketch the sleeping and sheltering figures, a necessity because he did not want to intrude on the privacy of the sleeping civilians. His quick sketches were to support imprints on his visual memory to create "volumes without the need to use shadows". Capturing the essence of figures without the artifice of setting them up in poses, he would later use the sketches to complete more dramatic and thoughtful compositions.

Below is a short on Henry Moore. The importance of the underground drawings is highlighted from about 1:50

 

This exercise is also a good game to try at the pub where each player will already be in a relaxed frame of mind. Give it a go with sketching, improvising, speech-making or anything else you might consider fun – stick at it and you will improve!

Strength of Arms

A short knock announced the opening of the door.

"Sir! We've been given orders, sir!"

The figure hunched over a large map said nothing.

"Sir! We have been given our orders. We are to attack at once."

Again the figure said nothing, but rubbed his chin. He looked up, acknowledging the subaltern and his message.

"SIR!–"

"I heard you, lieutenant."

"We are to attack at once." He stood to attention, the urgency of his message overtaking his military bearing. He trembled slightly.

"I heard you. Now, stand easy." The lieutenant colonel took out a hip flask and poured half the contents into his enamel mug. He held it out to the junior officer. At first he didn't even look at the offered drink, then wondered what to do: nothing in his training had prepared him for this.

"Here, take a drink."

"Th.. thank you. Sir."

"It doesn't make sense. None of it makes any sense. Do you know what I mean?" His attention was drawn back to the map. "Lieutenant Meier, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir." He took a tentative sip from the mug. "Thank you, sir."

"Look–" the captain indicated with his hands across the top edge of the map, "here are our forces on the front line – loosing, I might add."

"Just rumours spread by the enemy, sir!" the lieutenant stood erect correcting his superior's information.

"Yes, yes, of course, but look here–" the captain drew out the map overlay that showed railways under construction, "if we were to align our reserves behind the mountains at this point, where the railways and roads intersect, we'd have the element of surprise. Their forces would be drawn away from our frontline cities and, who knows, we might even be able to mount a successful counter-attack of our own, right in their underbelly. It's so simple. Why, even a child could direct this war. But perhaps that's what's been happening all along."

"Our leader commands respect and admiration. He knows more than we do, sir."

"Hmmm!" the lieutenant colonel took a long swig from the remnants in the hip flask. "I wish I had your confidence, Meier. I've been in this business a long time and, quite frankly, I don't think we have a hope."

The lieutenant looked like he was about to speak, but decided against it. He took another drink. "Sir. When... if we become successful in this engagement, we become elite, don't we, sir?"

"We either become elite, or we die. It's that simple. And this time, we're going to die. We have no back-up, no air support and no defences. It's just us veterans, one single battalion, facing them, and God above knows what they'll throw at us this time. Lady luck has stopped smiling – turned her back."

The lieutenant swayed and looked like he was about to faint. The captain pulled out a collapsible chair.

"Easy there, lieutenant Meier. When did you last eat?"

"Not for two days, sir."

"Then this may not be doing you any good." he took the mug from his hand and fumbled in his jacket pocket for a small chocolate bar. "Here, take this. I was saving it for... well, I don't know what for – our return home, perhaps."

"Thank you, sir. That's not going to happen now is it, sir." he slid his eager fingers under the silver foil to access the fatty noirishment within.

"Nope! It may be that we never stood a chance from the beginning." The lieutenant colonel drew another chair out from beneath the table and sat beside the young soldier.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"When you look at our development, it all seems to have been wrong. We took up the wrong technologies, right from the start, and our planning has been haphazard. So much time has been wasted in foolish explorations and unnecessary building work. We really needed a strong army – at first to defeat the raiders, then for the rest. We could have turned the enemy back at the first encounter; perhaps even deterred them forever. It's as if some child was at the controls – over-reacting here, barely noticing there. And now we're in the shit."

He paused, aware that he had been too free with his feelings, a politically dangerous thing under the current government. He changed the topic. "Where are your from, Lieutenant Meier?"

"London, sir."

"As am I. As are we all, really. Do you like living in London?"

"I... I... really don't remember much about it, sir. We've been so very busy – with manouvres and the war."

"Wouldn't it be nice to see London again, lieutenant? Wouldn't it be nice to live in peace together, not to have to build weapons or wage war but to prosper? Wouldn't it be nice if our neighbours didn't feel threatened by us and kept themselves to themselves."

"But they threaten us! They invaded first! We must destroy them – at all costs!" the young lieutenant began to get agitated.

"Easy there, son. We're just talking. But have you ever wondered why we do it? Have you ever wondered if the enemy also want to go home?"

"What do you suggest, sir? We have our orders."

"I know. It just isn't possible to disobey, is it, lieutenant? Without our obedience, the whole game's up." The lieutenant colonel stopped; then stood up astonished by what he said.

"Sir?"

"We can end it all. Right here. You know, we really could."

"We could? I mean, we could, sir?"

The commanding officer turned away and grabbing a note pad began to furiously write a note. It took him only a few moments, but he folded it and handed it back to the lieutenant who promptly offered back the remnants of the chocolate bar. The CO refused.

"You take it, and this–" he tapped the lieutenant's hand containing the note, "this is my response. Make sure it is transmitted back to the command centre as soon as possible, every single letter and number. Do you hear, every single digit." Under his breath he murmered, "No one else need die."

"Pardon, sir?"

"You're dismissed, Lieutenant Meier, and good luck."

"Sir. Yes, sir."

The lieutenant turned and firmly shut the door. On his way to the communications centre he glimpsed the contents of the folded paper. It contained columns of digits and numbers that, unknown to him, contained the machine code command trigger for the collapse of the entire game, for both defenders and opponents and for the nine-year old player.

Children Play

What sort of childhood do you recall? Happy and carefree with hours of play without adult supervision, or committed, focused and future-laden? 

What sort of games did you play? Were they whole community games based in groups and teams, pounding games of close friends with skipping ropes, rule-bound sports games of competition with a ball of some sort, or were they based on sitting together in communication, or those strange wordy games that showed some sort of mastery of the English language? 

Perhaps your games were all rush and no substance like Tag, British Bulldog or Hot Lava – where everything was lava except the furniture or things to keep you off the ground.

Were your paired games quick bouts of Naughts-and-Crosses/Tic-Tac-Toe or marathon sessions of Battleships or Tiddlywinks? Perhaps you used a deck of cards – UNO, Trumps or even Pokemon. Perhaps you made the rules up as you developed the game –perhaps you negotiated. Were Rock, paper scissors quick one-offs or did you keep a tally?

Did you play, both boys and girls, at House, Doctors and Nurses, or did you love it when someone suggested Kiss Chase? Did it later develop into Spin the Bottle? Was it extraordinarily exciting and daring, or embarrassing and awkward?

Were you more of an aggressive, excitement-led child that played Red Hands, where ever-increasing slapping led to ever-more painful hands? Did you wait until the weekend and find a river to dam, a mud pie building site to develop, a tree-top castle to storm, or survey thum open prairies to ride 'em up and then shoot the pisky Rid Injuns when they showed up.

Did you take to the challenge of fishing? Did your gang go exploring on bikes? Did Lego do it for you, with friends or alone? Was it trains, ponies, Scalextric or tea sets? Or did you play out stories with Thunderbirds/Doctor Who/Captain Scarlet/Barbie figurines? Were you at your happiest after school waiting out Jackanory with a glass of milk until Scooby Doo or Crackerjack, or did you use your pocket money to buy the latest weekly edition of the Beano and Warlord or Twinkle and Bunty? Did you get out of your parents' hair by doing Saturday at the pictures, or enjoy having a stack of Disney videos piled up next to the television? Did you meet up at the swimming pool to play sharks and dare each other to jump off the top board?

Did you practice show-jumping whilst slowly throttling Beauty with a tightly-wound scarf around the neck? Did your worried mum later ask why you had burn marks on your throat? Did you plan and execute the landings at Normandy, including the storming of machine gun posts dug in behind so much barbed wire that one of your commandos had to lie over it to allow the others to leap across and onwards to battle? Did you then get into trouble with your mum for having footprints all over the back of your shirt? 

Did you widen the scope of your imagination, acquire and master new skills and settle differences by working together? Did you learn how to prepare for an expedition, how to recover from injury, how to socialise with awkward people, how to set rules and what should be done when someone broke them? 

Could you find out who you were? Were you allowed to be yourself? Were you allowed time to grow up? Was it so different for me? Or did you spend most of your time with nothing more than a brightly-lit computer screen? How much of your life involved extra-homework with your parents' eyes regularly cast over your inexorable progress?