Mulled Vine

I watched as the snow drifted heavily against the window, and knew that soon we would be snowed in for the winter. It happened every year and we were well stocked with food in preparation. Claire loved the snow, but I think what she liked most about winter was the enforced containment of her husband, who during the warmer months would while the hours away doing manly things like fixing the lawn mower, returning at the end of the day to grunt monosyllabically over supper. However, now there were no distractions and he was hers, I was hers, all hers; hours of quality time and conversation.

She sat down at the table and placed the box in front of me, smiling gleefully, “Scrabble?”

I wanted to end my life, but could not be arsed. So I decided to sit down in the middle of the road and wait for death. It was a Sunday morning so I had to wait a long time until someone drove by, but swerved to avoid me, bastard. I asked the nice policeman who eventually came and took me away if he would shoot me but he just drove faster. Now, with these white straps I couldn’t kill myself even if I could be arsed.

Oh, well.

Henry came to faith as an Agnostic at the age of 12 when he discovered that he had been lied to by his parents, and this not for the first time. Ok, he’d forgiven them the tooth fairy story – after all it was a little far fetched: who’d want old teeth anyway – but this was too much, and that on the day before Christmas.

Henry reckoned that if he couldn’t trust his parents to tell him the truth, then nothing could be trusted. And if nothing could be trusted then nothing could be known.

He slept soundly, convinced that if nothing, at least his logic was certain.

I didn’t know much about my first kiss because I was unconscious at the time. You see I had been daydreaming again when a bus knocked me over. I lay sprawled on the floor, blood seeping from my head. A crowd soon gathered, gawping at me silently, until a large man pushed his way through and knelt down. “I’m a doctor,” he said as he leaned over me, roughly fondling my young breasts as he gave me the kiss of life.

He’d been eating onions – I can still taste them today.

He was born on the 79th floor of a rather bland apartment block. It was a home birth because the lift was broken and the midwife said there was no fucking way she was walking up all those stairs. As for his mother, well she had similar thoughts and sat on the sofa watching a rerun of Friends while he was born. His father was drunk again and didn’t really notice his arrival apart from when he tripped over the umbilical cord to take a piss.

Henry waited until he could walk and then jumped out of the window.

He is standing in the snow, shivering, presumably to death, huddling against the biting wind. I can see him looking at me through the window, longing to come in, but this is my house, my hard-earned warmth, and he can bloody well freeze his sorry arse off for all I care.

She must have been approaching sixty, but had made an effort, hiding a face that sagged wearily under stylish, bleached hair and heavy make-up. He however was much younger, and by their body language I reckoned he was a son rather than a lover. She talked most of the time, as women are want to, while he nodded politely, now and then stifling a yawn while he watched the landscape rush by on it’s way to somewhere important. She paused, noticing he wasn’t listening, and sighed sadly.

The little red bag stood alone on the platform. I watched as passers by gave it a wide birth and security were called to investigate. What was the story behind this little bag? A terrorist seeking justice, a forgetful owner, or perhaps she had simply left behind a family of little red bags to make a life of her own? I felt for the little thing as two burly guards manhandled it into a trolley and wheeled it to a dark storeroom where it would forever remain lost property.

“So let me get this straight, Krwh. You chew the stuff for ages and then blow a bubble for six whole days?”

Krwh nodded, rolling his universes in his palm distractedly.

“I just can’t get get it right,” sighed Yhwh.

Krwh looked up and patted his brother on his shoulder, “Give it time, Yhwh. I guess I was a little lucky the first time.”

The blizzard swirled around me, sending icy fingers probing into my clothing. I huddled, shivering, against the old oak tree, seeking some cover against the elements, but I knew it was just a matter of time. Blissful sleep beckoned, promising escape from the dreadful cold, so I closed my eyes and slowly felt a delicious warmth waft over me, until finally, there was darkness; total, utter, darkness.

Then a light appeared, faintly at first, but slowly growing brighter and I could make out an old man holding a candle, walking towards me until he stopped and handed me what looked like a penny.

“For the ferryman,” he rasped and pointed towards a dim jetty where a hooded figure waited.